Techmeme
December 18, 2023, 2:52 PM

Top News

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, TechCrunch, Euractiv, Crunchbase News, Thurrott, Bloomberg, PCMag, Silicon Republic, PYMNTS.com, Politico, AppleInsider, Tech Monitor, The Adobe Blog, European Commission, The Guardian, SiliconANGLE, San Francisco Business Times, The Messenger, Metaverse Post, MobileSyrup, Wall Street Journal, iClarified, CNBC, Bloomberg, Engadget, New York Times, UKTN, Gizmodo, Fortune, Neowin, Associated Press, Investor's Business Daily, Bloomberg, TechStartups, Financial Times, ITPro, Business Insider, diginomica, Coinspeaker, The Information, PetaPixel, City A.M., Constellation Research, Variety, Barron's Online, Pixel Envy, and MarTech
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 …
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.
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 …
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.
More: Axios and OpenAI
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 …
Bloomberg:
IBM plans to acquire data integration platforms StreamSets and WebMethods from Germany-based Software AG for €2.13B in cash, a deal expected to close in Q2 2024  —  - Deal will strengthen IBM's AI and cloud capabilities  — Software AG backer Silver Lake also made deslisting offer
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Inside Amazon's Mission Operations Center during Project Kuiper's first launch, part of a its $10B+ project 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.

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