Applications Software

Polished is out and authentic is in among social-media users—and Instagram is taking note.The photo-sharing app owned by Meta Platforms Inc. META 4.74% is giving its users new ways to share and connect with friends, including one feature that might look familiar to users of BeReal, the popular social-media app.…

A group of 15 state attorneys general demanded on Tuesday that executives at Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 2.45% Google and Apple Inc. AAPL 0.68% strip TikTok of its content rating that classifies the video-sharing app as appropriate for teens. In letters sent to Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook,…

HONG KONG—China is pulling the plug on a nationwide mobile tracking app that collects data on users’ travel movements, dismantling a symbol of one of the world’s sternest and most durable Covid-19 containment regimes even as cases continue to surge across the country.Authorities said Monday that the mobile app, a cornerstone of Beijing’s technocentric approach to throttling the pandemic, would disappear by day’s end, part of China’s swift retreat from the “zero-Covid” approach that it has adhered to for the past three…

LONDON— Microsoft Corp. MSFT 2.89% will take a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange’s corporate parent and help shift the exchange’s financial data and trading platforms to the cloud, in a deal that reflects the growing use of data and tech in global finance.The deal revealed Monday calls for London Stock Exchange Group LSEG 2.97% PLC, owner of Europe’s biggest stock exchange by market value, to spend $2.8 billion over…

Broadcom plans to buy VMware as part of a wider push by the chip company into software. Photo: Jordi Boixareu/Zuma Press…

LONDON— Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.80% will take a 4% stake in the London Stock Exchange’s LSEG 2.08% corporate parent and provide cloud computer services for the financial markets company, in a deal that reflects the growing use of data and tech in global finance. The deal announced Monday calls for London Stock Exchange Group PLC, owner of Europe’s biggest stock exchange by market…

Cloud gaming is an emerging technology that allows people to stream videogames to nearly any internet-connected device, similar to how movies and shows are viewed on Netflix, Hulu and other streaming platforms. The business model being developed alongside cloud gaming is a subscription service, where consumers get to play a catalog of games for a flat monthly or annual fee. With cloud gaming, players can avoid downloading games to their devices, which take up memory, and they don’t need to…

Cloud gaming is an emerging technology that allows people to stream videogames to nearly any internet-connected device, similar to how movies and shows are viewed on Netflix, Hulu and other streaming platforms. The business model being developed alongside cloud gaming is a subscription service, where consumers get to play a catalog of games for a flat monthly or annual fee. With cloud gaming, players can avoid downloading games to their devices, which take up memory, and they don’t need to…

Last week, after seeing artsy portraits popping up all over her social media feeds, Christal Luster signed up for a free trial of a photo-editing app called Lensa. She uploaded 10 of her headshots to it and paid $5.99 for 100 new images based on her inputs, which an artificial-intelligence tool produced in under an hour.  Ms. Luster, an actress in Chicago, said the images opened her eyes to the types of characters she could portray. “There was one of them where I was like, ‘Oh I could totally see myself playing in…

Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.80% had been working for close to a year to calm regulators’ concerns about its acquisition of videogame developer Activision Blizzard Inc., ATVI 0.54% but the Federal Trade Commission’s suit to block the deal raised doubts about the company’s pledge not to shut out rivals. The FTC this week took one of its biggest swings ever against a big technology company and sued to stop the planned $75…