Techmeme: A profile of Dr. Shih Chin-tay, who led Taiwan's foray into chip production in the 1970s after joining the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Hsinchu (Rupert Wingfield-Hayes/BBC)

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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 …

More: IGN and Gamereactor UK

X: @lucas_shaw and @lucas_shaw

New York Times:

Disney, WBD, and other studios are licensing more content to Netflix in return for much-needed cash, but are holding back their most popular movies and shows — When building their own streaming companies, many entertainment studios ended lucrative licensing deals with Netflix.

Threads: @carnage4life, @letmebe_e, and @dantley

Mastodon: @film_girl@mastodon.social and @carnage4life@mas.to. Bluesky: @epro.social

X: @trengriffin, @tvgrimreaper, @loudmouthjulia, @trengriffin, @loudmouthjulia, @joepeyronnin, and @nytimesbusiness. LinkedIn: Phil Piazza

See also Mediagazer

Michael Acton / Financial Times:

The UK NHS partners with Zipline on plans to deliver medical and surgical supplies by drone to 30+ hospitals in northern England in H2 2024, to help cut costs — Silicon Valley group Zipline allies with trust in northern England to drop essential medical supplies

More: Zipline and DroneDJ

X: @zipline. LinkedIn: Anne Hilby

Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch:

Saudi shopping and BNPL startup Tamara raised a $340M Series C led by PIF-owned SNB Capital at a $1B valuation, taking its total funding to $500M since 2020 — Tamara, a buy now pay later platform for consumers in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region, has raised $340 million in a financing round that values the fintech at $1 billion.

More: Bloomberg

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’

More: Benzinga. Threads: @matslbengtsson and @thekenyeung

Mastodon: @w7voa@journa.host and @carnage4life@mas.to

X: @jessmarindavis and @einarvollset

Bloomberg:

Tokyo-based chip equipment maker Kokusai expects nearly 50% of its revenue to come from China in the coming months; its stock is up ~66% since its October IPO — - China business accounts for more than 40% of revenue, CEO said — Investment for mature chip fabs likely remain solid next year

More: Fortune

Josh Ye / Reuters:

After releasing its DreamStar party game, Tencent placed ~38% of its ads on ByteDance's Pangolin; Tencent hopes to challenge NetEase's surprise hit Eggy Party — Tencent Holdings (0700.HK) is relying on one-time bitter rival ByteDance to promote its most important video game release in years …

More: South China Morning Post, Tech in Asia, and Reuters

Bloomberg:

IBM plans to acquire data integration platforms StreamSets and WebMethods from Germany-based Software AG for €2.13B in cash, expected to close in Q2 2024 — - Deal will strengthen IBM's AI and cloud capabilities — Software AG backer Silver Lake also made deslisting offer

More: Silicon Republic, Metaverse Post, TechCrunch, IBM, Barron's Online, MarketScreener, and Reuters

Rupert Wingfield-Hayes / BBC:

A profile of Dr. Shih Chin-tay, who led Taiwan's foray into chip production in the 1970s after joining the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Hsinchu — When 23-year-old Shih Chin-tay boarded a plane for the United States in the summer of 1969, he was flying to a different world.

X: @wingcommander1, @sarthakgh, @viv_chand, and @basuashis

Brian Heater / TechCrunch:

Q&A with Deepu Talla, Nvidia's VP and GM for Embedded and Edge Computing, on generative AI's roles in robotics, designing humanoid robots, platforms, and more — A version of this q&a first appeared in TechCrunch's free robotics newsletter, Actuator. Subscribe here.

More: Business Insider and Hackster.io

Irina Anghel / Bloomberg:

Deloitte is using AI to evaluate its staff's skills and map out plans to shift employees into more in-demand roles, as a part of plans to moderate hiring growth — - Technology would help shift employees to more in-demand roles — Deloitte and rivals have begun testing artificial intelligence

More: Business Today and Cryptopolitan. X: @quinnypig

Justine Calma / The Verge:

How conservationists are using AI tool CeruleanAI, developed by the Coral Restoration Foundation, to analyze 3D maps of reefs and monitor restoration — Time is running out to save the world's coral reefs, so conservationists are turning to every tool they can to protect vanishing reefs — including AI.

More: Coral Restoration Foundation

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