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December 18, 2023, 8:17 AM
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| Akash Sriram / Reuters: |
Adobe and Figma agree to terminate their $20B merger, announced in September 2022, after seeing “no clear path” to UK and EU regulatory approval — Adobe (ADBE.O) and cloud-based designer platform Figma have agreed to terminate their $20 billion merger announced in September last year, the Photoshop maker said on Monday.
More: The Verge, Adobe Press Releases, and Bloomberg
X: @friedmandave, @steveruizok, @pitdesi, and @zoink
| Jon Porter / The Verge: |
The EU Commission opens an official DSA investigation into X, focusing on illegal content, disinformation, ad transparency, “deceptive design”, and data access — X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, may have broken the European Union's tough new Digital Service Act rules …
More: European Commission, Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg, RTÉ, Politico, Neowin, New York Times, CoinGape, NBC 7 San Diego, and iMore
| Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: |
Streaming TV appears to have entered its franchise era; Netflix plans spinoffs of the Addams Family, Peaky Blinders, and action movie Extraction, among others — Sequels and prequels have already taken over the movie business. Now they're coming for TV. — Good afternoon from Los Angeles … | New York Times: |
More: TechRadar. Threads: @carnage4life, @letmebe_e, and @dantley
X: @trengriffin, @tvgrimreaper, @loudmouthjulia, @trengriffin, @loudmouthjulia, @joepeyronnin, and @nytimesbusiness. LinkedIn: Phil Piazza
| Michael Acton / Financial Times: |
The UK NHS partners with Zipline on plans to deliver medical and surgical supplies by drone to 30+ hospitals in northern England in H2 2024, to help cut costs — Silicon Valley group Zipline allies with trust in northern England to drop essential medical supplies| Andrew Solender / Axios: |
Coinbase, a16z, the Winklevoss twins, and others put $78M in crypto super PACs, an immense figure raised in just three months, ahead of the 2024 US elections — Cryptocurrency industry leaders have poured $78 million into super PACs aimed at bolstering and growing the ranks of crypto-friendly lawmakers … | Washington Post: |
Experts and lawmakers say Tesla's largest recall yet is unlikely to solve Autopilot's fundamental flaw: Tesla failing to limit where drivers can use the feature — Tesla's software update adds warnings to improve driver attention while using Autopilot — but doesn't limit where drivers can engage the technology
More: Rolling Stone, MIT Technology Review, and PCMag
Threads: @lorakolodny, @noahshachtman, @tapaseaswar, and @undeadben
X: @rakeshlobster, @senblumenthal, @senblumenthal, @stanphylcap, and @mateosfo. LinkedIn: Philip Koopman
| Bloomberg: |
Tokyo-based chip equipment maker Kokusai expects nearly 50% of its revenue to come from China in the coming months; its stock is up ~66% since its October IPO — - China business accounts for more than 40% of revenue, CEO said — Investment for mature chip fabs likely remain solid next year
More: Fortune
| Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch: |
Saudi shopping and BNPL startup Tamara raised a $340M Series C led by PIF-owned SNB Capital at a $1B valuation, taking its total funding to $500M since 2020 — Tamara, a buy now pay later platform for consumers in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region, has raised $340 million in a financing round that values the fintech at $1 billion.
More: Finextra, Bloomberg, Gulf News, Entrepreneur, and الم …
| Wall Street Journal: |
Western intelligence officials say that former Wirecard COO Jan Marsalek, who fled to Moscow after nearly $2B went missing, was likely a Russian agent for years — Jan Marsalek, the jet-setting former COO of now-defunct Wirecard, enabled Moscow to fund covert operations around the world, officials say; ‘whiff of Silicon Valley’
More: Benzinga. Threads: @matslbengtsson and @thekenyeung
Mastodon: @w7voa@journa.host and @carnage4life@mas.to
X: @jessmarindavis and @einarvollset
| Financial Times: |
Tokyo Electron, Asia's largest chip equipment maker, has largely offset US export controls on China by expanding sales of less advanced chip equipment to China — Japanese group employs two-track strategy to navigate US-China tensions — Asia's largest semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron …
More: Tech in Asia
| Josh Ye / Reuters: |
After releasing its DreamStar party game, Tencent placed ~38% of its ads on ByteDance's Pangolin; Tencent hopes to challenge NetEase's surprise hit Eggy Party — Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) is relying on one-time bitter rival ByteDance to promote its most important video game release in years …
More: Tech in Asia, Reuters, and South China Morning Post
| Matt Day / Bloomberg: |
Inside Amazon's Mission Operations Center during Project Kuiper's launch, part of an ambitious $10B effort to launch 3,000+ satellites and challenge Starlink — Project Kuiper could transform Amazon into a telecommunications giant, but first the company needs to loft more than 3,000 satellites into orbit.
More: Android Headlines
Sponsor Posts
Google:
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UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future — Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future — Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
Zoho Books now enables direct VAT filing with EmaraTax — We're excited to announce that Zoho Books is now recognised as a Digital Tax Integrator by the Federal Tax Authority, enabling direct VAT return filing from within your favorite accounting software.
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IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.Featured Podcasts
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