President Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to research and potentially develop a U.S. digital dollar. The order also directs agencies to investigate and report on cryptocurrencies — including their risks to national security, financial stability, crime, and the environment due to crypto mining — and develop policy recommendations. More: - The order says the Biden administration has placed "the highest urgency" on R&D of a U.S. Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC, also known as a digital dollar.
- The order asks the government to examine the creation of a CBDC, including the laws that would need to be passed and technical issues.
- Unlike bitcoin and other private cryptocurrencies, a CBDC would be backed by the Fed like the paper dollar.
- Meanwhile, the U.S. central bank is also accepting public comments on a digital dollar through May 20.
Crypto rules: - The long-expected executive order is viewed as the first step in the creation of a coherent regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets by the U.S. federal government.
- The order seeks mitigation of financial risks posed by cryptocurrencies and the development of policy recommendations to address regulatory gaps.
- The agencies will have 3-6 months to conduct a review and prepare a public report with recommendations.
- Upon the news Wednesday, bitcoin was up 9%, to $42,284. The total cryptocurrency market surpassed $3 trillion in November.
REUTERS 
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 Green iPhone 13 and Alpine Green iPhone 13 Pro Apple introduced a bunch of new hardware at Tuesday's Peek Performance event. These were the biggest announcements: - Mac Studio: The latest Mac desktop geared for creative professionals, with lots of input/output including four Thunderbolt 4 connections and two USB-A ports. Starts at $1,999.
- Apple Studio Display: A 27-inch monitor with 5K resolution, 600 nits of brightness,12-megapixel front-facing camera, and more. Starts at $1,599.
- iPad Air 5: Latest tablet version with eight-core M1 chip, 5G connectivity, and 12MP front-facing camera. Starts at $599.
- iPhone SE 3: Latest budget iPhone with 5G and the same A15 Bionic chip as in the iPhone 13. Ceramic Shield and Touch ID. Starts at $429.
- Apple M1 Ultra chip: New Apple Silicon combines two M1 Max chips for up to 128GB of unified memory. It's launching in the Mac Studio (see above).
- New iPhone colors: The iPhone 13 will be available in “green” and the iPhone 13 Pro in “alpine green.” Pre-orders open Friday.
9TO5MAC
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Members of a House committee have asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate Amazon for potentially lying to Congress about how it collects and uses data from third-party sellers. The bipartisan group claims Amazon misled the House Judiciary Committee during the 16-month probe examining the competitive practices of the company and other tech giants. The lawmakers want the DOJ to investigate Amazon for potential criminal obstruction of Congress. More: - In a letter sent to AG Merrick Garland on Wednesday, the lawmakers claim that Amazon was misleading when responding to congressional questioning about its collection of third-party seller data and private-label practices.
- Amazon engaged in "potentially criminal conduct" in sworn testimony during a 2019-2020 House committee investigation for possible antitrust violations, they wrote.
- At the time, Amazon reps told lawmakers that the company prohibits employees from using third-party seller data to compete or launch similar products, though government and media reports have found evidence to the contrary.
- The letter noted that Amazon has failed to turn over business documents that would corroborate its claims.
- In response, Amazon said the allegations have "no factual basis" and the company has provided a "huge volume of information" over several years of cooperating with the investigation.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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 LimeWire, the shuttered file-sharing site, will relaunch in May as an NFT marketplace initially focused on music. At its height in the 2000s, LimeWire was among the most popular peer-to-peer file-sharing platforms to download music for free, attracting 50 million users a month. Its rivals included BitTorrent and Napster. More: - LimeWire later faced allegations of music piracy from the Recording Industry Association of America. In 2010, a federal court issued a permanent injunction to shut down the site, citing copyright infringement on a “massive scale.”
- A decade later, Austrian brothers and tech entrepreneurs Julian and Paul Zehetmayr purchased LimeWire’s IP and other assets.
- They plan to revive the platform as a marketplace for artists and users to create, trade, and buy digital collectibles "without the technical crypto requirements of the current NFT landscape."
- The music-related NFTs are expected to cover pre-release and unreleased songs, backstage content, graphical artwork, limited editions, live versions, and digital merchandise.
- The platform is seeking to partner with high-profile musicians and release its own token later this year.
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A new class-action lawsuit accuses HBO of illegally sharing the viewing history of its subscribers with Facebook. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New York on Tuesday, claims that HBO violated the 1988 Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA) when it knowingly shared customer lists with Facebook without user consent. More: - Sharing the lists enabled Facebook to match a user's HBO viewing list with their social media profile, the suit alleges.
- In turn, Facebook used the data to target certain advertisements to HBO subscribers.
- The lawsuit claims HBO failed to receive separate explicit consent from its subscribers to share the viewing histories, violating the 1988 law that bars “wrongful disclosure of videotape rental or sale records."
- President Reagan signed the VPPA after the video rental history of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was published, sparking fears about privacy violations.
Zoom-out: - Hulu was accused of similar claims in 2011 but won the lawsuit because plaintiffs couldn't establish that Hulu knew what Facebook would do with the information.
- Likewise, TikTok agreed to a $92M class-action settlement over claims that it violated laws, including the VPPA, by collecting and using the personal data of users without consent.
ENGADGET
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 Reid Hoffman LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman has co-founded a startup to develop software to help people communicate with computers. Hoffman co-founded Inflection AI with Mustafa Suleyman, who helped create the Alphabet-owned artificial intelligence company known as DeepMind. More: - The Silicon Valley-based startup aims to develop a suite of new technologies that will enable people to speak to computers in "plain language."
- Suleyman believes it will be possible to generate computer language at human-level performance within five years.
- At Inflection AI, Suleyman will serve as CEO and former DeepMind researcher Karén Simonyan will be the chief scientist.
- Suleyman recently left as a VP at Google to work at the venture-capital firm Greylock, which is investing an undisclosed amount in Inflection AI.
- Hoffman, a partner at Greylock, co-founded LinkedIn in 2002 and sold it to Microsoft for $26.2B in 2016. He is now worth $2.1B.
DETROIT FREE PRESS
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QUICK HITS - More than half of U.S. organizations said they currently spend $1M to $50M on AI initiatives every year, while another 15% are spending $51M or more according to LXT's new executive report.*
- The Justice Department and SEC are investigating claims that three investors — moguls David Geffen and Barry Diller and his stepson Alexander von Furstenberg — engaged in insider trading when they purchased shares of Activision Blizzard right before Microsoft announced it was acquiring the gaming company.
- Apple's next iPhone update, iOS 15.4, will roll out next week with the ability to unlock phones with Face ID while wearing a mask, among other features.
- Uber Eats introduced the ability to split the bill in group orders.
- U.S. and U.K. aviation regulators are working together to determine certification and safety protocols for electric propulsion vertical takeoff vehicles (eVTOL).
- Chevron, the oil and gas giant, filed for an NFT and metaverse-related trademark.
- Amazon launched Amp, a mobile app that lets users emulate DJs and stream music from its catalog of "tens of millions" of songs.
- Not getting what you need from your payments processing company? Maybe it’s time for a new one.*
*This is sponsored content.
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 |  | Beth is an Inside Analyst and a former public policy/investigative reporter. She has covered AI, VR, technology, and e-commerce for Inside. When she's not busy writing, she's hiking in Arizona's desert, playing pickleball, or trying out new Mexican food recipes. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is writing an illustrated book about climate change that will be published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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