Techmeme
September 16, 2021, 7:40 AM

Top News

Jon Porter / The Verge:
While critics liken iPhone 13 to an iterative “12S” update, the branding shows Apple has adjusted to the current smartphone market, where big overhauls are rare  —  Apple's ‘S’-year iPhones never went away, it just stopped advertising them  —  Apple had a lot of new features …
Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
Initial benchmarks show iPhone 13's A15 chip offers a roughly 15% improvement for GPU performance and 10%-18% improvement for CPU performance over A14  —  Earlier today, we reported on a Geekbench Metal result for the iPhone 13 Pro showing an approximately 55% graphics performance improvement compared to the iPhone 12 Pro.
Filipe Espósito / 9to5Mac:
Dylan Patel / SemiAnalysis:
David McLaughlin / Bloomberg:
FTC says Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft made 819 unreported acquisition deals of $1M+, including for patents and acquihires, from 2010 to 2019  —  - Report shows hundreds of deals by tech giants went unchecked  — Antitrust enforcers must close loopholes, FTC Chair Khan says
Ash Parrish / The Verge:
After being sued by the state of California, Activision Blizzard is sued by a group representing employees, alleging it tried to prevent them from organizing  —  Organized by CODE-CWA, the suit claims Activision Blizzard engaged in coercive and intimidating behavior
Ryan Weeks / The Block:
NFT marketplace OpenSea acknowledges that its head of product, Nate Chastain, purchased NFTs he knew were going to be displayed prominently  —  Quick Take  — The marketplace has acknowledged that its head of product Nate Chastain purchased NFTs that he knew were going to be displayed prominently.
Hugh Son / CNBC:
Goldman Sachs is acquiring buy now, pay later fintech GreenSky for about $2.24B, in an all-stock deal  —  - Goldman Sachs is acquiring fintech lender GreenSky for $2.24 billion as the investment bank pushes further into consumer finance.  — The all-stock deal for GreenSky …
Romain Dillet / TechCrunch:
French startup Skello, which develops a SaaS tool that lets companies manage their work schedules, raises €40M led by Partech  —  French startup Skello has raised a $47.3 million funding round (€40 million).  The company has been working on a software-as-a-service tool that lets you manage the work schedule of your company.
More: Tech.eu and EU-Startups
Patrick Howell O'Neill / MIT Technology Review:
Sources: US firm Accuvant, now part of Optiv, sold iPhone hacking tool Karma to the UAE for $1.3M in 2016; the tool has been used against hundreds of targets  —  An American cybersecurity company was behind a 2016 iPhone hack sold to a group of mercenaries and used by the United Arab Emirates.
Wenxin Fan / Wall Street Journal:
China's biggest movie star, Zhao Wei, who had 86M Weibo followers, was erased from China's internet on August 26, amid a clampdown on its entertainment industry  —  Zhao Wei was the Reese Witherspoon of China, then she was censored by the Communist Party amid a clampdown of the country's entertainment industry
Politico:
Joe Biden announces a new Indo-Pacific security partnership with Australia and the UK to share tech in areas like AI, cybersecurity, and quantum technologies  —  President Joe Biden just announced a new working group with Britain and Australia to share advanced technologies …
Makena Kelly / The Verge:
Senator Markey and Reps. Castor and Trahan wrote to Facebook calling on it to abandon its plans to launch an Instagram app for kids in light of WSJ's report  —  Democrats call on the company to abandon Instagram for kids  —  Two top lawmakers on the Senate Commerce Committee's panel …

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Elizabeth Culliford / Reuters:

Earlier Picks

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Wall Street Journal:
Tom Warren / The Verge: