Tech Meme

Katharine Gemmell / Bloomberg: The UK CMA says Microsoft’s revised offer to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69B, which includes selling some gaming rights to Ubisoft, addresses its concerns  —  – CMA says revised offer opens the door to deal approval  —  Microsoft Corp.’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc. looks set … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Brian Heater / TechCrunch: Austin-based Diligent, which makes “socially intelligent” service robots for hospitals, raised $25M and plans to have 100+ robots in 22 US hospitals by year end  —  The pandemic had a profound impact on countless careers, but few jobs were hit quite like nursing. Lees verder op Tech Meme

Counterpoint Research: The number of smartphone brands fell from 720+ in 2017 to almost 250 in 2023, as local brands lose market share due to a maturing userbase, 5G shift, and more  —  – The number of active brands is down to almost 250 in 2023 so far from over 700 in 2017.  — The decline in the number … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Iain Martin / Forbes: Tether spent ~$420M on 10K Nvidia H100 GPUs and a 20% stake in Frankfurt-based bitcoin miner Northern Data, which plans to rent the chips to AI startups  —  A $40,000 computer chip has become one of the hottest commodities in the tech industry.  Startups are scrambling to buy up Nvidia’s H100 … Lees verder op Tech Meme

MacKenzie Sigalos / CNBC: An interview with Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin about his “decentralized lifestyle”, avoiding countries like Russia, the US’ growing crypto crackdown, and more  —  – Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the second-most-popular cryptocurrency, sat down with CNBC’s MacKenzie Sigalos in Prague, one of the new crypto hotbeds in Europe. Lees verder op Tech Meme

David Shepardson / Reuters: The US issues final rules to stop Chips Act subsidies from going to countries of concern, like China, such as limiting foreign chip fab expansions for 10 years  —  The U.S. Commerce Department on Friday is issuing final rules to prevent semiconductor manufacturing subsidies from being used … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Pei Li / Bloomberg: Sources: Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao plans to file for its Hong Kong IPO as soon as next week, aiming to raise $1B+; Alibaba co-founded Cainiao in 2013  —  – The logistics unit could be among the first to go public  — Citic and JPMorgan earlier replaced CICC in arranging the IPO Lees verder op Tech Meme

Stephanie Bodoni / Bloomberg: EU antitrust regulators fine Intel €376.36M for “a previously established abuse of dominant position” after an EU court overturned a €1.06B fine in January 2022  —  – Fine follows ruling by court upholding part of EU’s case  — EU initially fined Intel a then-record penalty in 2009 Lees verder op Tech Meme

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: The UK says it’s moving forward with the US data bridge deal, which would let UK citizens’ data be exported to the US under protections in line with the UK GDPR  —  The UK government has officially confirmed it will piggyback on a transatlantic data transfer deal between the European Union … Lees verder op Tech Meme

Josh Ye / Reuters: CLSA: China has 130+ LLMs, or 40% of the global total and behind the US’ 50% share; experts say most have yet to find viable business models and are too similar  —  China’s craze over generative artificial intelligence has triggered a flurry of product announcements from startups and tech giants … Lees verder op Tech Meme