A member of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has urged Google and Apple to remove TikTok from their app stores, citing data security concerns linked to China. In an open letter shared on Twitter, Brendan Carr argues that TikTok poses a national security risk due to alleged data harvesting and China's access to that data. More: - Carr, an attorney and the senior Republican on the FCC, sent the letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.
- Carr writes that TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is a "sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data." He argued that this data access makes the TikTok app non-compliant with Apple and Google store policies.
- On June 17, BuzzFeed News reported that China-based ByteDance engineers had access to U.S. user data from September 2021 through January 2022, citing leaked audio from 80 internal TikTok meetings.
- Around the same time, TikTok said it was routing all of its U.S. user traffic to Oracle servers instead of being stored in its own U.S. and Singapore-based data centers, though those servers are still used for backup.
- It plans to delete all U.S. user private data from its own centers and pivot to Oracle cloud servers in the U.S.
THE WASHINGTON POST 
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Tesla has shuttered its offices in San Mateo, California, and laid off an estimated 200 employees there, Bloomberg reported. The job cuts come after CEO Elon Musk said the company needs to cut its workforce by 10%. He later clarified that Tesla plans to reduce its salaried headcount by 10% but increase its number of hourly employees. More: - Most of the roughly 200 employees let go were hourly workers, sources told Bloomberg.
- Many were annotation specialists tasked with labeling data in videos taken by Tesla vehicles. This data is used to help train the company's Autopilot driving-assist system.
- The roughly 81 employees remaining in San Mateo will transfer to a nearby office.
- In a June 2 email sent to executives, Musk cited a “super bad feeling” about the economy and said it needs to pause all hiring and cut its workforce.
- On message boards, some Tesla staff have said their offices and parking lots could no longer accommodate all workers following the company's mass growth during the pandemic.
- Tesla had 99,290 employees worldwide as of late 2021.
BLOOMBERG
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Sony Electronics announced its own PC gaming gear brand, Inzone, that's launching with two monitors and three types of headsets. The company said it's leveraging its own display and audio technologies to sell hardware for players to "immerse themselves" in gaming worlds. More: - Sony began working on Inzone in 2019 as it sought an expansion beyond its PlayStation brand into the high-end PC gaming market.
- Inzone will release two 27-inch display monitors this year:
- The M9 (retail $900) has a 4K resolution and a 144Hz refresh rate. It's due out this summer.
- The $530 M3 has a 240Hz refresh rate at 1080p resolution and will release in the winter.
- Its three headphones, now available for pre-order, include a $100 wired headset and two wireless versions ($230 and $299) with 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity.
- The more expensive one has noise-canceling technology and an ambient sound mode. Sony didn't provide a launch date for the headsets.
CNBC
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Blizzard Entertainment has acquired Boston-based game studio Proletariat, the developer behind free-to-play battle royale "Spellbreak," for an unknown sum. As a result, Proletariat will discontinue "Spellbreak" in 2023 and its 100-person team will transition to Blizzard's World of Warcraft unit. More: - Proletariat said it will end the development of "Spellbreak" immediately and have servers brought offline in early 2023.
- The game, a spin on battle royales like "Fortnite" but involving spells, was unable to break through financially, according to CEO Seth Sivak.
- The studio also launched a mobile strategy game, "World Zombination," in 2015 and developed games allowing Twitch viewers to interact with streamers.
- Blizzard and Proletariat have worked together since May. The indie studio was acquired in part to contribute to Blizzard's upcoming "Dragonflight" World of Warcraft expansion.
- It is Blizzard's largest acquisition in at least 10 years. Its parent company, Activision Blizzard, is currently in the process of being acquired by Microsoft for $68.5B.
VENTUREBEAT
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A British Virgin Islands court has ordered the liquidation of Three Arrows Capital, a crypto hedge fund that has suffered heavy losses in the crypto market downturn. Singapore-based Three Arrows, or 3AC, was sued by creditors after it failed to repay debts. More: - On Monday, 3AC was handed a default notice by crypto broker Voyager Digital.
- The Singapore-based hedge fund reportedly failed to make payments on a loan of 15,250 bitcoin, worth roughly $324M, and $350M in the USD-pegged stablecoin USD Coin.
- Teneo, a restructuring firm, has been brought in to handle the liquidation process, according to Sky News.
- Launched in 2021 by Zhu Su and Kyle Davies, 3AC has made heavy investments in NFTs, decentralized finance, layer 1 blockchain firms, and crypto firms in recent years.
- Bitcoin was trading just above $20,000 on Wednesday, down from its peak of $69,000 in November.
SKY NEWS
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Snap is launching a paid subscription service, Snapchat Plus, in multiple countries starting today. The $3.99-per-month service unlocks experimental, pre-release, and exclusive features, such as the ability to customize the app’s icon, pin a BFF, and see who has rewatched Stories. More: - The Plus plan was designed for the “most passionate members” of Snapchat users, according to the company.
- After testing the service, it will officially launch this week in the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
- The subscription marks Snapchat's first larger break from its advertising model for revenue, though it doesn't expect Plus to be a "material" revenue source, a Snap SVP tells The Verge.
- Snap also sells augmented-reality Spectacles smart glasses and a flying camera drone called Pixy.
Zoom-out: - Last month, Snap said it would slow down hiring this year after missing its quarterly targets for revenue and adjusted earnings. The company cited rising inflation and interest rates, iOS privacy changes, supply chain shortages, the Ukraine war, and other challenges.
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- Volkswagen has halted the production of its ID.Buzz electric minibus due to battery production problems.
- Zipline began delivering healthcare products such as prescription medications via drone in North Carolina on Tuesday.
- Amazon said it will restrict sales of emergency contraceptives to three units per week per customer amid surging demand.
- Due to the recent crypto market crash, Crypto.com has decided to remove Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, Tezos, and FLOW from its rewards program.
- California autonomous vehicle companies and others have asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to pass regulations allowing self-driving truck operations in the state.
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 |  | Beth is a writer and analyst at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily tech news. Since starting work at Inside, she has covered various topics including virtual reality, drones, and e-commerce. Prior to that she was a public policy and investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic, where she won a Pulitzer Prize nomination and First Amendment Award for reporting on the rising costs of pensions. Reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. 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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