Techmeme
October 13, 2023, 10:10 PM

Top News

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft completes its Activision Blizzard acquisition after a 20-month battle with regulators in the UK and the US; Bobby Kotick will remain CEO through 2023  —  The Verge exclusively reported last week that Microsoft was planning to close today, and now it's official.
Samuel Tolbert / Windows Central:
The UK CMA approves Microsoft's $68.7B Activision Blizzard acquisition, after Microsoft reformed the deal to sell some Activision cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft  —  The final roadblock has been removed.  —  What you need to know  — UK regulatory authority the CMA granted Microsoft approval to purchase Activision Blizzard.
Tom Warren / The Verge:
A look at Microsoft's deal with Ubisoft, which now gets the cloud gaming rights for Call of Duty and current Activision games outside of the EU for 15 years  —  Microsoft's giant Activision Blizzard deal is complete, and it means Ubisoft has now obtained cloud streaming rights for Call of Duty …
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft has spent $170B+ on acquisitions under Satya Nadella, per Dealogic, helping to nearly triple revenue and become central in sectors like AI and gaming  —  Companies completed the deal—the largest in Microsoft's nearly 50-year history—after regulators' concerns were addressed
Jo Marchant / Nature:
A student wins a contest to read the text inside a carbonized Roman scroll, which had been unreadable since a volcanic eruption in AD 79, using an ML algorithm  —  A 21-year-old computer-science student has won a global contest to read the first text inside a carbonized scroll …
Jason Schreier / Bloomberg:
CD Projekt used AI to recreate the voice of Miłogost Reczek, a Polish voice actor who died in 2021, for Cyberpunk 2077's new Polish DLC, after asking his family  —  Gamemaker says it consulted with family of the late Miłogost Reczek  —  Polish video game developer CD Projekt SA …
Yogita Khatri / The Block:
Tether promotes long-time CTO Paolo Ardoino to CEO, starting in December, and plans to become a “tech-centric organization”; the current CEO will be an advisor  —  - Stablecoin issuer Tether promoted its long-time CTO Paolo Ardoino to CEO as it envisions becoming a “tech-centric organization.”
Bloomberg:
Canon begins selling nanoimprint chip machines, which impress circuit patterns onto wafers without photolithography, likely avoiding trade curbs, to rival ASML  —  - Japanese optics specialist seeks to close gap with Dutch rival  — Chipmaking machinery has been focus of US sanctions on China
New York Times:
As China-linked Bitcoin mines open across the US, officials raise national security concerns, like about a Wyoming mine that is close to a nuclear missile base  —  Microsoft reported one site in Wyoming because of its proximity to a data center and nuclear missile base.
Sarah Fielding / Engadget:
Meta responds to concerns about Israel-Hamas war misinformation, saying the company formed an operations center, removed 795K+ posts, and more  —  The company has created a new operations center with experts fluent in Hebrew and Arabic.  —  Meta has shared an updated content monitoring action plan …

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:
Subquadratic: the LLM built for 12M-token reasoning  —  SubQ can reason across entire codebases and document sets in one pass with no RAG workarounds.  Read how SubQ 1.1 Small holds near-perfect retrieval out to 12M tokens.
Cloudflare:
Cloudflare Connect 2026: The Agentic Conference  —  Stop preparing for agents.  Start running them.  100+ sessions, workshops, and speakers from OpenAI, Arm, and Cloudflare across AI, security, and performance.
Zoho:
Automate your scheduling workflows with Zoho Calendar  —  Your calendar can do more than schedule meetings Creating a calendar event takes only a few seconds.  But scheduling is rarely just about creating the event.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

Featured Podcasts

Lenny's Podcast:
90 minutes of unfiltered product advice from Snap and Discord's product chief | Peter Sellis
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.
Big Technology Podcast:
AI Doom Backlash Arrives, Anthropic & OpenAI IPO Outlook, Frontier Business Momentum Slows
The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.
Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.
Channels with Peter Kafka:
AI Wants to Shop for You. What Could Go Wrong?
Media and tech aren't just intersecting - they're fully intertwined. To understand how those worlds work, Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers.
Subscribe to Channels with Peter Kafka.
Invest Like the Best:
Michael Moritz - Lessons From 40 Years of Investing and Writing
The leading destination to learn about business and investing. We do this by showcasing exceptional talent and ideas.
Subscribe to Invest Like the Best.
Sources:
Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.
Subscribe to Sources.
Training Data:
Box's Aaron Levie: On Reinventing Yourself in the AI Age and Enterprise Diffusion
Sequoia Capital partners host conversations with leading AI builders and researchers to develop a deeper understanding of the evolving technologies and their implications.
Subscribe to Training Data.
 

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:10 PM ET, October 13, 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

New York Times:

Earlier Picks

Ian King / Bloomberg:
Blake Brittain / Reuters:
Sarah Wynn / The Block:
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google:
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: