This week there’s been lots of Uber news, the DOJ sued Facebook for antitrust and, Disney held their investors’ day where they talked a lot about their streaming strategy. Also, The Game Awards took place on Thursday and more in the Other News section.
Uber News
Over the last week, Uber announced that they sold off their Self-Driving car division and Joby Aviation. Both were very complicated deals that involved Uber acquiring stock in the companies that the divisions were sold to. I highly suggest reading the source articles I used to get a better idea about these deals.
Facebook Antitrust Suit
On Wednesday, the FTC and attorneys general from 48 states brought separate antitrust suits against Facebook. The States and FTC claim that FB acquired WhatsApp and Instagram for anticompetitive reasons.
Facebook used vast amounts of money to acquire potential rivals before they could threaten the company’s dominance.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James
“Our aim is to roll back Facebook’s anticompetitive conduct and restore competition so that innovation and free competition can thrive,”
Ian Conner, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, in a statement.
The FTC’s suit aims to unwind Facebook’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram while the States don’t but only request that Facebook not be allowed to make any acquisitions more than $10 million without permission from the states.
Disney Investor Day
On Thursday Disney held their annual investors’ meeting where they announced lots of details about Disney+ and the future of their content. First off they announced that Disney+ has over 80 million subscribers. In content, they announced that there are 10 Star Wars projects in development, 10 marvel projects in development and lots of other stuff. I plan to write a detailed article about the event which should be ready in the next couple of days.
The Game Awards
The 8th annual Game Awards were held on Thursday and not only were lots of awards given out but there were also quite a few major announcements. The Last Of Us Part II won 8 awards including the inaugural Innovation in Accessibility Award and Game of the Year with Among Us winning Best Mobile and Best Multiplayer Game. New games announced include Back 4 Blood World Premiere From the devs that brought Left 4 Dead.
Other News
In other news, Stadia is now available in 8 more European countries, Google opens Fuchsia up to devs, Cydia sues Apple and Apple announced the long-rumoured AirPods Max (rumoured as AirPods Studio) Headphone which cost $549 (US) and starts shipping this coming Tuesday.