Washington’s main antitrust regulators–the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ)–made a joint announcement on Tuesday that they intend to look at big tech mergers through a different lens in the future. The two agencies held a joint news conference Monday morning to announce the beginning of a joint process to write new guidelines for considering horizontal mergers, or those between companies that may compete in the same marketplace. (The agencie
Lina Khan has given her first on-camera interview since being named chair of the Federal Trade Commission. In it, the legal scholar, who has previously excoriated companies like Amazon for nimbly working around antitrust laws to undercut competitors and expand into new territory, talked about the current state of the commission. Below are five takeaways from her conversation with CNBC’s Aaron Sorkin and New York Times columnist Kara Swisher. The agency is underfunded “We are severe
NFTs entered the mainstream through the art world, as collectors paid headline-grabbing sums for digital works. And now there’s a growing number of Web3-first startups, including Catalog, Royal, and Sound.xyz, betting on the music industry carrying the next big NFT wave. Case in point: DoomsdayX, a new Web3 studio focused on developing tools and experiences to connect music fans and artists. DoomsdayX, a sister company to video production outfit Doomsday Entertainment, announced today a $
SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 is betting on digital therapeutics—apps that function like medicine. The Japanese investment conglomerate led a $75 million funding round in San Francisco-based Big Health, which uses mobile apps to treat sleeplessness and anxiety. The investment may be indicative of the kinds of digital therapeutics companies that are likely to receive investment in the year ahead. Founded in 2010, Big Health has taken a well-regarded psychological treatment called cogniti
Forget about new iPhones, Web3, and augmented reality headsets. The most exciting tech product category in 2022 is the lowly laptop. Once thought to be on the decline in both sales and importance, laptops are suddenly cool again. It turns out that if you’re working from home, having a decent full-featured computer is pretty important. While this isn’t a new revelation—worldwide PC shipments are up 34% from 2017, according to International Data Corp.—laptop makers are
Character-based NFTs have become a status symbol for owners who regularly use their animated creatures as avatars on social media. Sure, it’s signaling access to a community (and a level of cachet given how much these NFTs can go for), but that’s usually all it is.
Welcome aBored @Eminem pic.twitter.com/uvKKql8Dmh — NFT (@NFT) December 31, 2021
However, some NFT holders, namely those in the Bored Ape Yacht Club, are at the forefront of what could be the next wave in the sp
Last year on the music gear trading site Reverb, the most sought after instrument (both new and used) was a little white synthesizer called the OP-1, made by the Swedish tech developer and design house Teenage Engineering. It was the second year in a row that this honor belonged to the OP-1, which debuted a decade ago and remains Teenage Engineering’s centerpiece product. The OP-1 put Teenage Engineering on the map in music tech circles, and sales of the device powered the company’
Microsoft’s Windows 11 has been out for a few months now, and it’s got plenty of helpful features. Here’s a look at some that aren’t so obvious at first but can save you a ton of time each day. Right-click the Start button for a secondary menu Yes, there’s a revamped Start menu that we’ve all used to launch programs, but the little-known right-click trick makes digging into submenu after submenu to tweak various settings a thing of the past. As you may h
Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Shiba Inu cryptocurrencies might soon have some new competition from an unlikely source: Walmart. That’s because the big-box retail giant may soon have a new product to offer its millions of loyal customers—its own cryptocurrency. As CNBC reports, Walmart filed several new trademarks last month that heavily suggest the company has plans to get into the cryptocurrency game. On December 30, 2021, Walmart filed applications for several trademarks, two of which a
Yubo, the video-based social media platform aimed at Generation Z, has launched a program letting popular streamers earn in-app rewards. Called the Pixel Reward Program, and launched in December, it allows people who create engaging streams to receive Pixels, which are essentially trading-card-style images available for purchase on the platform, from their fans. When they receive the Pixels, they also get 30% of the purchase price in YuBucks, Yubo’s internal currency, which can be used to