Techmeme
December 18, 2023, 5:00 PM

Top News

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple plans to halt Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US this week, to “preemptively” comply with an ITC patent ruling under US review until December 25  —  In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple has announced that it will soon halt sales of its flagship Apple Watch models in the United States.
Reuters:
Adobe and Figma end their $20B merger, announced in September 2022, over “no clear path” to EU and UK antitrust approval; Adobe owes Figma a $1B termination fee  —  Adobe (ADBE.O) on Monday shelved its $20 billion cash-and-stock deal for cloud-based designer platform Figma …
More: Figma, Adobe Press Releases, The Verge, TechCrunch, Ars Technica, Computerworld, Thurrott, The Adobe Blog, European Commission, Euractiv, Politico, PYMNTS.com, Crunchbase News, Bloomberg, PCMag, Silicon Republic, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, Engadget, AppleInsider, New York Times, Tech Monitor, SiliconANGLE, MobileSyrup, iClarified, The Guardian, Neowin, Bloomberg, TechStartups, Financial Times, Newser, Metaverse Post, Associated Press, ITPro, Business Insider, diginomica, Fortune, Coinspeaker, The Information, PetaPixel, Gizmodo, UKTN, San Francisco Business Times, City A.M., The Messenger, Investor's Business Daily, Variety, Constellation Research, Barron's Online, and Pixel Envy
Om Malik / On my Om:
UK and EU regulators blocking Adobe's Figma acquisition changes the liquidity environment for startup founders and VCs, focusing dollars on likely IPO winners  —  The writing has been on the wall for sometime — the regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have been hemming and hawing …
Jon Porter / The Verge:
The European Commission opens a DSA investigation into X, focusing on “illegal content and 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 …
David Pierce / The Verge:
Flipboard plans to replace its entire social back end with ActivityPub and by April 2024 let any Flipboard user follow any fediverse account from within its app  —  Flipboard is taking its biggest step yet into the fediverse.  The company announced on Monday that it is beginning to switch …
Andrew Solender / Axios:
Coinbase, a16z, the Winklevoss twins, and others poured $78M into crypto super PACs in Q4 2023, an immense raise in 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 …
Brandon Vigliarolo / The Register:
The US DOT fines Southwest Airlines $140M, in addition to customer refunds, for the December 2022 meltdown caused by its antiquated flight scheduling software  —  Wrist, meet slap: Only a quarter will be paid to Treasury, the rest is vouchers and credits  —  The US Department of Transportation has …
Rachel Metz / Bloomberg:
OpenAI says its board can hold back the release of an AI model even if OpenAI's leadership says it's safe, and announces a new internal safety advisory group  —  The arrangement was mentioned in a set of guidelines released Monday explaining how the ChatGPT-maker plans to deal with AI risks.
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Mortgage and loan giant Mr. Cooper says hackers stole the personal data of 14.6M+ customers, like dates of birth, phone numbers, SSNs, and bank account numbers  —  Hackers stole the sensitive personal information of more than 14.6 million Mr. Cooper customers, the mortgage and loan giant has confirmed.
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 …

Sponsor Posts

Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro (experimental) is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
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
Zoho:
Zoho CRM for Everyone - No More Missed Customers  —  Evolution is the secret of survival; everything that thrives in the world operates by that principle.  Animals, people, technology, products, businesses—and software, too.
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.

Featured Podcasts

Great Chat:
Are VC jobs truly AI Proof? (Marc thinks so)
A podcast mostly about tech. Brought to you weekly by Angela Du, Sally Shin, Mac Bohannon, Helen Min, and Ashley Mayer.
Subscribe to Great Chat.
Techmeme Ride Home:
(Bonus) World Cup Of Entrepreneurs Part 1
The day's tech news, every day at 5pm ET. Fifteen minutes and you're up to date.
Subscribe to Techmeme Ride Home.
Lenny's Podcast:
How Revolut trains world-class product managers: The "local CEO" model, raw intellect over experience, and a cultural obsession with building wow products | Dmitry Zlokazov (Head of Product)
Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.
Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.
Uncapped with Jack Altman:
Qasar Younis from Applied Intuition
Conversations with people I admire about things I'm genuinely interested in.
Subscribe to Uncapped with Jack Altman.
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View:
China's catching up to US AI... Here's why it won't matter
Azeem Azhar explores how AI and exponential technologies are shaping our future.
Subscribe to Azeem Azhar's Exponential View.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 5:00 PM ET, December 18, 2023.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.

More News

Jay Peters / The Verge:

Earlier Picks

Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Bloomberg:
Wall Street Journal: