Source: Disney's $1.5B investment in Epic Games will give Disney a 9% stake in Epic at a valuation of $22.5B, down ~29% from its 2022 valuation of $31.5B  —  Disney's $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games values the Fortnite maker at $22.5 billion, a person familiar with the matter said.

Sources: Sam Altman is in talks with investors, including the UAE government, to raise funds for an AI chip initiative that could cost as much as $5T to $7T  —  Sam Altman was already trying to lead the development of human-level artificial intelligence.  Now he has another great ambition …

PWAs no longer work as standalone apps in iOS 17.4 betas, presumably as part of Apple's preparation for EU DMA which forces it to allow alt browser engines  —  PWAs demoted to OWB: Operating Within Browser  —  Apple has argued for years that developers who don't want to abide by its rules …

John Walker, a computer programmer and co-founder of 3D design software maker Autodesk, died on February 2 at the age of 75  —  Very sad news on the passing on John Walker, programmer and co-founder of AutoDesk. His contributions to our industry, the rise of the PC, and the modern industrialization of nearly everything were incredibly significant. I thought I would use some of John's own words to show the... [image]

LastPass warns users about a fake copy of its app on Apple's App Store, with a similar name and logo, likely used as a phishing app to steal users' credentials  —  LastPass is warning that a fake copy of its app is being distributed on the Apple App Store, likely used as a phishing app to steal users' credentials.

Chris Dixon's book becomes an NYT Best Seller but with a dagger icon denoting bulk orders; a16z and some startups linked to it gave the book to staff and others  —  Motherboard found that firms linked to a16z and general partner Chris Dixon bought numerous copies of his new book promoting cryptocurrencies …

Filing: Microsoft says Activision had planned layoffs before the merger, responding to the FTC's claims that the layoffs contradict Microsoft's court statements  —  - Xbox maker cutting 1,900 workers, including at Activision  — Tech giant responds to Federal Trade Commission over layoffs

Sources: Paytm E-commerce changed its name to Pai Platforms and acquired Bitsila, a seller platform on India's Open Network for Digital Commerce  —  Paytm E-commerce has changed its name to Pai Platforms and has acquired Bitsila, a seller platform on ONDC, gaining share in the online retail business.

Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer who pled guilty in August 2022 to IP theft of Apple's car project, is sentenced to 120 days in prison and a ~$147K fine  —  For the last six years, we've been following the case of Xiaolang Zhang, a former Apple engineer who pled guilty to stealing Project Titan trade secrets.

Epik, a domain registrar serving far-right and extremist websites, has been acquired by Registered Agents, whose services allow companies to operate anonymously  —  Known for doing business with far-right extremist websites, Epik has been acquired by a company that specializes in helping businesses keep their operations secret.

Sources: OpenAI's annualized revenue hit $2B in December, up from $1.3B in October 2023, and the company believes it can more than double the figure in 2025  —  San Francisco-based start-up joins Google and Meta as one of the fastest-growing tech companies ever

X signs a two-year deal with the WWE for a new exclusive weekly video series called WWE Speed featuring timed matches of 5 minutes or less, coming spring 2024  —  ‘WWE Speed’ will stream timed matches meant to end in five minutes or less on the Elon Musk-owned platform.

A look at the state of Passkeys, supported by Google, Apple, and others, which offer a seamless vision of a more secure future but the UX still needs work  —  Passkeys are here to replace passwords.  When they work, it's a seamless vision of the future.  But don't ditch your old logins just yet.

The FCC outlaws scam robocalls featuring fake, AI-created voices, giving state AGs more legal tools to pursue illegal robocallers that use such voices  —  The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday it is immediately outlawing scam robocalls featuring fake, artificial intelligence-created voices …

In a lawsuit, former TikTok Global Head of Brand & Creative Katie Puris claims she was subjected to discrimination and “ultimately unlawfully terminated”  —  A former executive at TikTok filed a complaint against the app and its parent company ByteDance on Thursday over allegations …

Google Gemini Advanced hands-on: clearly a GPT-4 class model, but doesn't obviously blow away GPT-4 in benchmarks; Gemini is better than GPT-4 at explanations  —  And then there were two.  —  Right around the time you are getting this email, Google finally released their long-awaited powerful AI …