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TECH
Roblox steps up age checks and groups younger users into age-based chats
The gaming platform Roblox is displayed on a tablet.Leon Keith/Associated Press
Roblox is stepping up its age verification system for users who want to privately message other players and implementing age-based chats so kids, teens, and adults will only be able to message people around their own age. The moves come as the popular gaming platform continues to face criticism and lawsuits over child safety and a growing number of states and countries are implementing age verification laws. The company had previously announced the age estimation tool, which is provided by a company called Persona, in July. It requires players to take a video selfie that will be used to estimate their age. Roblox says the videos are deleted after the age check is processed. Users are not required to submit a face scan to use the platform, only if they want to chat with other users. Roblox doesn’t allow kids under 13 to chat with other users outside of games unless they have explicit parental permission — and unlike different platforms, it does not encrypt private chat conversations, so it can monitor and moderate them. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
SOCIAL MEDIA
Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Meta did not break the law when it bought its nascent rivals Instagram and WhatsApp, a federal judge said Tuesday, handing a major win to the $1.51 trillion company and dealing a blow to the government’s efforts to rein in the power of tech giants. Judge James E. Boasberg of the US District Court of the District of Columbia said in an 89-page ruling that Meta did not create a monopoly in social networking through the acquisitions. The Federal Trade Commission had sued Meta, accusing it of breaking antitrust law by acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp in a “buy or bury” strategy to cement its social networking dominance. The FTC “continues to insist that Meta competes with the same old rivals it has for the last decade, that the company holds a monopoly among that small set, and that it maintained that monopoly through anticompetitive acquisitions,” Boasberg said, adding that the agency needed to prove that argument. “The court’s verdict today determines that the FTC has not done so.” The win clears the way for Meta to continue to pursue its business ambitions, including its expansion into artificial intelligence. But the ruling is a setback for federal regulators, who have sought to curb tech companies’ power in the modern internet age through a series of antitrust lawsuits. — NEW YORK TIMES
GAMBLING
DraftKings, FanDuel pull out of casino industry trade group
The DraftKings logo is displayed on a smartphone.Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg
DraftKings Inc. and FanDuel are leaving the American Gaming Association, the casino industry’s trade group, on the eve of launching their own prediction market-based betting products. “In discussion with DraftKings and FanDuel, the AGA has accepted their request to relinquish their membership, effective immediately,” the association said in a statement. “We wish them the best, and we expect to maintain close ties in our mission to promote and protect legal, regulated gaming.” The trade association has opposed prediction market bets, which are regulated by the federal government and not states, like most other forms of gambling. “As we expand into prediction markets, we recognize this direction is not aligned with the American Gaming Association’s current priorities for its member operators,” FanDuel, a division of Flutter Entertainment Plc., said in a statement. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Microsoft partners with Anthropic and Nvidia in cloud infrastructure deal
Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Wash.Jason Redmond/Associated Press
Microsoft said Tuesday it is partnering with artificial intelligence company Anthropic and chipmaker Nvidia as part of an AI infrastructure deal that moves the software giant further away from its longtime alliance with OpenAI. Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude that competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, said it is committed to buying $30 billion in computing capacity from Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform. As part of the partnership, Nvidia will also invest up to $10 billion in Anthropic, and Microsoft will invest up to $5 billion in the San Francisco-based startup. The joint announcements by CEOs Dario Amodei of Anthropic, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, and Jensen Huang of Nvidia came just ahead of the opening of Microsoft’s annual Ignite developer conference. “This is all about deepening our commitment to bringing the best infrastructure, model choice and applications to our customers,” Nadella said on a video call with the other two executives, adding that it builds on the “critical” partnership Microsoft…