Techmeme
September 14, 2023, 3:50 PM

Top News

CNBC:
Arm opens up 10% to ~$56 in its Nasdaq debut, valuing the company at $59.9B, after Arm priced shares at the upper end of its expected $47 to $51 range  —  - Arm Holdings has started trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker “ARM.”  — The chip design company is valued at a steep premium relative …
Mehul Srivastava / Financial Times:
MGM was likely hacked by Scattered Spider, an English-speaking group that previously used help desk calls to get passwords and planned to hack the slot machines  —  Person claiming to represent cybercriminals explains techniques used to evade detection by casino resort company
Wall Street Journal:
Filing: Caesars confirms the casino operator was hacked via a social engineering attack on an outsourced IT support vendor; sources: Caesars paid a ~$15M ransom  —  Caesars is second major casino operator hit by hackers in recent weeks  —  paid roughly half of a $30 million ransom …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
Unity cancels a town hall and closes two offices after receiving what the company says was a credible death threat, following its controversial install fee news  —  Management announced a controversial pricing decision two days ago  —  Unity Technologies Inc. canceled a planned town hall …
Kat Bailey / IGN:
Unity acknowledges “the confusion and frustration” around its planned install fees but argues that “more than 90% of our customers will not be affected”  —  Platform holder claims “90 percent of users” won't be affected by change.  —  Game developers are still furious …
Monica Chin / The Verge:
HP unveils the $5,000+ Spectre Fold, an OLED foldable PC that can be used as a 17-inch tablet, a 17-inch laptop, or a 12.3-inch laptop and weighs less than 3lbs  —  Over the past few years, companies across the PC space have been engaged in a slow, but steady race to build a foldable laptop that people might actually want to buy.
Sam Rutherford / Engadget:
Bloomberg:
How Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both renowned Stanford scholars, opened doors for their son, Sam, and provided a halo effect for FTX before its implosion  —  Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, both renowned Stanford scholars, opened doors for their son and provided a halo effect for his company.
Nicole Nguyen / Wall Street Journal:
Google plans to offer Chromebook software updates for up to 10 years, starting in 2024, so no current device expires within the next two years, to help schools  —  With the change, no existing Chromebook will have to expire within the next two years  —  Google is working to push …
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Automattic releases ActivityPub 1.0.0 for WordPress, letting fediverse users follow WordPress blogs on apps like Mastodon and receive replies as blog comments  —  In March, WordPress.com owner Automattic made a commitment to the fediverse — the decentralized social networks that include …
Washington Post:
Sources: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu plans to fly to the US to meet Elon Musk, the latest attempt by Musk allies to stave off X's growing antisemitism crisis  —  The meeting with the Israeli prime minister is the latest effort by Musk friends and colleagues to head off a growing battle with the Anti-Defamation League
Alex Wilhelm / TechCrunch:
Databricks raised a $500M+ Series I at a $43B valuation, after raising $1.6B at a $38B valuation in August 2021, before a possible IPO, and reports 10K+ clients  —  Data analytics and AI software maker Databricks has raised a Series I round worth more than $500 million, earning a valuation of $43 billion.
Janko Roettgers / Lowpass:
Amazon adds back IAP for Prime Video users on Android to buy VOD rentals and more, after removing IAP from its Android apps in 2022 to avoid Google's 30% fee  —  Next up: The Kindle app, maybe?  —  Some news from the someone-must-have-struck-a-deal department: Amazon is once again allowing users …
More: MSPoweruser
Taylor Lorenz / Rolling Stone:
Extremely Online book excerpt: how Julia Allison invented the concept of a content creator in the mid-2000s, for which journalists and others villainized her  —  In her book ‘Extremely Online,’ journalist Taylor Lorenz details how Julia Allison invented the concept of being a content creator a decade before it caught on
Washington Post:
Day two of Google's trial: Apple complained the DOJ may have violated confidentiality rules, after the DOJ said Google paid Apple $4B to $7B for search in 2020  —  Protection of trade secrets versus transparency has been a major debate between Google and activists in the case

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More News

Cat Zakrzewski / Washington Post:
Tyler Cowen / Bloomberg:

Earlier Picks

Mariana Lenharo / Nature:
Wall Street Journal:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Alex Ivanovs / Stack Diary:
Reuters: