Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg has deactivated the accounts of several WordPress.org community members, two of whom he says planned to spearhead a new fork of the open source WordPress project. While community criticism of WordPress’s governance isn’t new, the latest brouhaha kicked off back in September when Mullenweg publicly chastised WP Engine, a […]

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The European Commission (EC) has given the green light for Synopsys to acquire Ansys, though the companies must sell off various software products as part of the proposed remedies. Chip design software maker Synopsys revealed last January its plans to acquire Ansys, a simulation software developer that helps engineers model and analyze the physical behavior of products, such […]

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Xocean, an Irish marine robotics startup that provides ocean data to the energy and hydrography industries using uncrewed surface vessels (USVs), has raised €115 million ($119 million) as it looks to expand coverage to additional sectors. Founded in 2017, Xocean has built a fleet of remotely-controlled USVs that can remain offshore for long periods of […]

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Meta is set to start displaying eBay listings in its own Facebook Marketplace classifieds platform, in an effort to appease European regulators. Back in November, Meta was hit with a €798 million fine by the European Commission (EC) in Europe for breaching antitrust rules. The EC contended that Meta created “unfair trading conditions” by connecting […]

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The U.K. is forging ahead with plans to make the act of creating sexually explicit “deepfake” images a specific criminal offence. A deepfake refers to manipulated media, often video or audio, created using AI to make someone appear to say or do something they didn’t. The U.K. had already made sharing — and the threat […]

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Dutch semiconductor giant NXP on Tuesday said it plans to acquire TTTech Auto, an Austrian company specializing in safety software for autonomous vehicles, in an all-cash transaction valued at $625 million. TTTech Auto spun out of TTTech Group in 2018, with some $78 million in backing from the likes of AUDI, Samsung and GE Ventures. […]

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Online spending rose 3% to a record $1.2 trillion globally over the holiday period, with U.S.-sales, specifically, growing 4% to $282 billion. That’s according to a new report from Salesforce, which aggregated data from across its various cloud services, including Agentforce, Commerce Cloud, Marketing Cloud, and Service Cloud, to garner insights into spending activity spanning […]

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The U.K’s competition authority already has a lot on its plate in terms of tackling Big Tech’s growing reach across the technological spectrum, but closer to home it’s dealing with a different kind of anti-competitive threat — one it reckons AI is well-equipped to address. As per a Financial Times’ report this week, the Competition […]

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Thomson Reuters has acquired tax automation company SafeSend in an all-cash transaction valued at $600 million. Founded in 2008, Ann Arbor, Michigan-based SafeSend serves a cloud-based platform designed to streamline the processing and sharing of sensitive financial documents. This includes tools for delivering tax returns, gathering e-signatures, collecting payments, automating workflows, meeting compliance obligations, and […]

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It has been a busy year in the private equity realm, with countless big-money acquisitions unfolding. The take-private space specifically has seen some sizable transactions, with private equity firms spearheading more than a dozen billion-dollar deals for public tech companies. London-headquartered Permira was a key protagonist, joining Blackstone to acquire European online classifieds group Adevinta […]

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On November 15, Peter Wang posted a message requesting ideas for a new incubator and fund to support experimental projects built on the burgeoning Bluesky/AT Protocol ecosystem. Four weeks later, Skyseed emerged with an initial commitment of $1 million. This turnaround, a speed underscored by the fact that the fund doesn’t even have a website […]

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The newest online-only school greenlighted by the Arizona State Board for Charter Schools comes with a twist: The academic curriculum will be taught entirely by AI. Charter schools — independently operated but publicly funded — typically get greater autonomy compared to traditional public schools when it comes to how subjects are taught. But Unbound Academy’s […]

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With cloud spend continuing to surge, tech companies are scrambling to meet demand for the necessary infrastructure, with the growing need for AI compute only adding fuel to the fire. By way of example, Microsoft and BlackRock have created a $30 billion fund to support new data centers and energy infrastructure for the burgeoning AI […]

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There are few matters in life that divide a room more than the prudence of putting pineapple on pizza. But if you’re of the persuasion that tropical fruit has no place on a pie, you’ll have to swallow a bitter pill — if you want to access the WordPress.org developer portal and forum, at least. […]

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The European Union is forging ahead with plans for a constellation of internet satellites to rival Elon Musk-owned Starlink, after signing a €10.6 billion ($11.1 billion) deal to launch nearly 300 satellites into low- and medium-Earth orbits by 2030. The bloc wants the space tech to boost its digital sovereignty by providing secure comms to […]

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Open source might be the building blocks of the modern software stack, but companies building businesses off the back of open source software face a perennial struggle between keeping their community happy and ensuring that third parties don’t abuse the permissions afforded by the license. Many companies have launched with lofty open source ambitions, only […]

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AI training data has a big price tag, one best-suited for deep-pocketed tech firms. This is why Harvard University plans to release a dataset that includes in the region of 1 million public-domain books, spanning genres, languages, and authors including Dickens, Dante, and Shakespeare, which are no longer copyright-protected due to their age. The new […]

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Gigs, a platform that makes it easier for any company to become a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), has raised $73 million in a Series B round of funding. The announcement comes as countless companies have added mobile networking services to their product lineup this past year, including neobanks such as Nubank (a Gigs customer) […]

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Bad news for anyone out there who still uses Skype: the Microsoft-owned phone and messaging platform has quietly stopped letting users top-up accounts with credit and buy Skype phone numbers. Instead, Skype is locking into SaaS mode: it’s pushing users to take monthly subscriptions for regional and global Skype-to-phone plans, for a set monthly fee, […]

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Anybotics has closed its Series B round at $110 million, some 18 months after announcing it had raised a $50 million Series B.

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