Techmeme
December 18, 2023, 1:40 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 …
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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 …
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 …
The Guardian:
Internal docs: TikTok gave a “protected list” to some moderators to prevent action being taken against accounts related to heavy advertisers, like Amazon  —  Exclusive: Internal communications suggest video platform working to protect its lucrative relationship with e-commerce firm
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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