Techmeme
December 18, 2023, 9:40 AM

Top News

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) on Monday shelved its $20 billion cash-and-stock deal for cloud-based designer platform Figma, pointing to …
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 …
Chance Miller / 9to5Mac:
Apple plans to halt Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 sales in the US starting this week, to “preemptively” comply with an ITC patent ruling now under US review  —  In a statement to 9to5Mac, Apple has announced that it will soon halt sales of its flagship Apple Watch models in the United States.
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 …
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’
New York Times:
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.
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

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Yue Wang / Forbes: