The FTC might file an antitrust lawsuit to block Microsoft’s Activision purchase

Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard is facing scrutiny from antitrust investigators in several countries. In the US, for instance, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) started looking into the acquisition shortly after it was announce…

Google buys an AI avatar startup to take on TikTok

Google has quietly acquired a startup that was working on using AI to generate avatars for social media users and brands. According to TechCrunch, the company recently paid about $100 million to buy Alter. The acquisition went through about two months …

House, Senate Democrats ask FTC to fight Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot (updated)

Amazon might face some political opposition in its bid to acquire iRobot. Democrats including Senator Elizabeth Warren and House Representatives Jesus Garcia, Pramila Jayapal, Mondaire Jones, Katie Porter and Mark Pocan have asked the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to oppose the purchase of the Roomba creator. iRobot is a “powerful” incumbent in robot vacuums, according to the politicians’ letter, and Amazon would allegedly reduce competition with the resources it could pour into the market.

The members of Congress pointed to Amazon’s history of technology buyouts to support their case, arguing that the company snaps up competitors to eliminate them. Amazon killed sales of Kiva Systems’ robots after the 2012 acquisition and used them exclusively in its warehouses, for instance. The 2017 and 2018 acquisitions of Blink and Ring reportedly helped Amazon dominate US video doorbell sales, while the internet retailer has also faced multiple accusations of abusing third-party seller data to launch rival products and promote them above others.

We’ve asked Amazon for comment. The online shopping giant frequently denies anti-competitive practices, and has even called for the recusal of FTC chair Lina Khan in Amazon-related cases over claims she’s biased against the company.

The Commission hasn’t said if it will take action against the iRobot deal. Reports circulated that the FTC reviewed Amazon’s purchase of MGM, but didn’t challenge it. Khan didn’t have a party majority at the time, however, and movie studios aren’t the same as robot vacuum makers. iRobot is estimated to have 75 percent of the American robovac market by revenue, according to Statista. It’s already difficult for challenges like Shark and Eufy to thrive, and it wouldn’t get easier with Amazon involved.

Update 9/30 1:40PM ET: An Amazon spokesperson claimed the politicians’ letter had a “number of falsehoods,” and that it would “cooperate” with regulators in a deal it felt would encourage competition. It wouldn’t elaborate the allegedly false claims on-record.

Adobe vows to continue offering Figma’s free plan if its buyout is approved

In an interview with Bloomberg, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky has reassured worried Figma users that the online collaborative design platform’s acquisition will not change its pricing model and ease of use. If you’ll recall, Adobe announced in mid-September that it’s purchasing Figma for roughly $20 billion in cash and shares. Users understandably raised concerns about the merger, seeing as Adobe’s programs are quite expensive. 

Belsky said in the interview that Figma will remain a “freemium” offering with a basic tier that’s available at no cost. Figma co-founder Dylan Field added that Adobe isn’t planning any price increase and that the platform will remain free for education. Adobe does have changes planned for the platform, of course, including integrating features from its software portfolio, as well as its library of fonts and stock images. 

According to Belsky, though, any update Adobe rolls out won’t be obstructive and won’t make it difficult to navigate the platform’s interface. Perhaps most importantly for those who use Figma for collaborations, it will continue allowing file sharing without additional fees — users won’t have to get a Creative Cloud subscription to work on the same document. 

Adobe’s suite of programs will undergo changes due to the acquisition, as well. The company plans to adopt Figma’s collaborative features and may build multi-user web platforms for its programs. Adobe Express and Acrobat might also get their own versions of Figma’s whiteboard and presentation functions. “We would only want to amplify and continue and learn from the things that Figma has done to become a viral product in the enterprise and throughout the world,” Belsky said. 

There is one Adobe program that might not survive the acquisition: Figma’s direct competitor Adobe XD. The company has no immediate plans to kill the software, but it will “reevaluate where [it] want[s] to shift [its] resources and focus” once Figma comes in. Both parties expect the deal to close sometime in 2023, so long as it gets approval from both regulators and shareholders.

Adobe acquires collaborative design platform Figma for $20 billion

Adobe just made a big move into team-based creative work. The company is acquiring the online collaborative design platform Figma for roughly $20 billion in cash and shares. That’s the largest buyout of a private software company to date, according to Bloomberg‘s Katie Roof. Adobe hopes the deal will “accelerate” web creativity and put more of the Creative Cloud suite’s technology on the internet. You can expect to see Adobe’s visual editing features find their way into Figma’s platform.

The two firms expect the purchase to close sometime in 2023 if it receives approval from regulators and shareholders. Figma co-founder and chief Dylan Field will continue to lead his company if and when the takeover finalizes, but will report to Adobe’s digital media lead David Wadhwani.

Don’t worry that Adobe will completely revamp Figma, at least not at first. Field stressed in a blog post that Adobe was “deeply committed” to keeping Figma an autonomous company. There’s “no plan” at the moment to change Figma’s pricing, and it will remain free for education users. While the executive hoped to draw on Adobe’s know-how for upgrades, he also expected to keep running Figma as he did before.

While the acquisition is huge, it’s not surprising given Adobe’s past moves. It bought the video collaboration platform Frame.io in 2021, and has been making moves into web-based tools with offerings like Creative Cloud Express. Figma is a logical (if major) extension of that strategy — it could help make online teamwork a staple of the creative process in companies that regularly use software like Photoshop and Premiere.

Ethereum completes the ‘merge’ that will make its crypto transactions greener

Ethereum has completed its much-anticipated “Merge” to a far more energy efficient method of minting new tokens, the cryptocurrency’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted. Ether will no longer be minted by “proof-of-work” that uses powerful computers to solve cryptographic tasks. Instead, they’ll be created using “proof-of-stake” methods that require users called validators to stake tokens for the chance to approve transactions and earn a small reward. 

Until today, mining Ethereum has required powerful banks of computers to solve difficult math problems. That not only consumed huge amounts of energy, but made Ethereum difficult to scale and costly for small transactions. It also concentrated power into the hands of a few, something that’s anathema to the decentralization ethos of crypto. 

With the new system, the more a validators stakes, the larger the chance of winning a reward. But everyone gets at least something, as all staked ether earns interest (around 5.2 percent), making it more like buying a bond or putting it in a bank (apart from the wild market volatility, of course). The minimum stake amount required to be a validator is 32 ether (around $50,000 right now), though individuals can do pooled staking with trusted third-party validators to meet that level. 

The Merge got its name because the Ethereum blockchain has combined with a parallel network that’s now been running for almost two years in a proof-of-stake test, but it’s just one step in the transformation. “We still have to scale, we have to fix privacy. To me the Merge symbolizes the difference between an early stage Ethereum and the Ethereum we’ve always wanted,” said Buterin during a livestreamed Merge party. 

Ether started the day going up, but has since dropped a few percent from yesterday. It remains to be seen if the the Merge will live up to its promise of transforming crypto, as there are still a lot of questions around regulation, Ethereum forks and more. There’s also the risk of scams (as usual in crypto), with the risk of transactions from the old chain being copied to the new one, among others.

Twitter shareholders vote to approve Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition

A majority of Twitter’s shareholders have voted to approve Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover. During a special meeting of shareholders that lasted about seven minutes, stockholders approved of two proposals: one to adopt the merger agreement with Musk, and one related to how the company’s executives will be compensated as a result of the deal.

Both measures were approved, though Twitter will disclose the final breakdown of votes “at a later date” when it files paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Though shareholders formally approved the deal, which valued each share at $54.20, an October trial in Delaware’s Court of Chancery will determine whether Musk is able to terminate the agreement. Musk initially cited concerns about bots and spam as reasons for ending the merger agreement, though Twitter’s lawyers argued he was actually concerned about “World War 3.” The judge in the case ruled that Musk will be able to add claims raised by the company’s former security chief turned whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, to his legal bid.

Separately, Zatko testified at a Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, during which he shed new light on his allegations that Twitter’s security practices are a risk to the United States’ national security.