New York Times Technology News

1. Meta, in Its Biggest A.I. Push, Places Smart Assistants Across Its Apps

   Users of Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger will be able to turn to the new technology, powered by Meta’s latest artificial intelligence model, to obtain information and complete tasks.

2. How a Crypto Compliance Officer Ended Up in a Nigerian Prison

   Tigran Gambaryan, an American compliance official for the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance, flew to Nigeria in February for a planned two-day business trip. He hasn’t returned.

3. Countdown Is On for the Bitcoin ‘Halving’

   Bitcoin aficionados are hoping that a scheduled reduction in the number of new coins going into circulation will cause the price of the cryptocurrency to skyrocket.

4. Truth Social Has an Edge as Rival Right-Wing Apps Falter

   Donald Trump’s social media platform has outdistanced similar conservative sites such as Parler and Gettr, even as it lags far behind X and others.

5. Netflix Added More Than 9 Million Subscribers in First Quarter

   The company’s revenue was 15 percent higher compared with last year, and it solidified its standing as the entertainment company’s dominant streaming service.

6. Micron Will Receive $6.1 Billion to Build Semiconductor Plants

   The grant to the memory chipmaker is the latest federal award aimed at boosting U.S. chip manufacturing.

7. Google Fires 28 Employees Who Protested an Israeli Cloud Contract

   The dismissals escalated longstanding tensions between company leaders and activist employees opposed to supplying technology to Israel’s government.

8. TikTok Bill to Be Bundled With Aid to Ukraine and Israel, House Speaker Indicates

   A new measure attempts to force the Senate’s hand on passing legislation to ban TikTok or mandate the app’s sale.

9. Boston Dynamics’ Atlas Robot Is Leaping Into Retirement

   It has been replaced by a new model, which will be used in automotive manufacturing. A farewell video featured the old machine running outdoors, performing back flips and awkwardly shimmying.

10. Colorado Bill Aims to Protect Consumer Brain Data

    In a first, a Colorado law extends privacy rights to the neural data increasingly coveted by technology companies.

11. Tesla Seeks to Revive Musk’s $47 Billion Pay Deal With New Shareholder Vote

    The company’s directors are asking shareholders to again approve the multibillion-dollar compensation plan and to move the company’s registration to Texas, from Delaware.

12. What a TikTok Ban Would Mean for the U.S. Defense of an Open Internet

    Global digital rights advocates are watching to see if Congress acts, worried that other countries could follow suit with app bans of their own.

13. Rusty Foster Tracks Media Gossip From an Island in Maine

    Rusty Foster could never live in New York. But his hit newsletter, Today in Tabs, is an enduring obsession of the city’s media class.

14. Women Talk Through Their Abortions on TikTok

    At a time of heightened confusion and legal battles over access to abortion, women are looking to social media for answers.

15. Everything You Need to Know About Smartphone Backups

    It doesn’t take a lot of work to keep copies of your phone’s photos, videos and other files stashed securely in case of an emergency.

16. The 2024 Paris Olympics Prepares For Cyberattacks

    “We will be attacked,” the official responsible for fending off cyberthreats said. To prepare, organizers have been hosting war games and paying “bug bounties” to hackers.

17. Microsoft Makes High-Stakes Play in Tech Cold War With Emirati A.I. Deal

    Microsoft said it would invest $1.5 billion in G42, an Emirati company with ties to China, as Washington and Beijing maneuver to secure tech influence in the Persian Gulf.

18. Should You Use an Anti-Wrinkle Straw?

    Another solution to a problem we didn’t know we had.

19. Ready for a Chatbot Version of Your Favorite Instagram Influencers?

    Instagram is testing a program that offers its top influencers the ability to interact with their followers over direct messages using a chatbot.

20. A.I. Has a Measurement Problem

    Which A.I. system writes the best computer code or generates the most realistic image? Right now, there’s no easy way to answer those questions.