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In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg floated the idea of spinning out Instagram, one of the remedies the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will likely seek in Meta's antitrust trial that began this week. CNBC reported on Tuesday that the comments from an email thread with executives came to light in Washington, DC.
"I'm beginning to wonder whether spinning Instagram out is the only structure that will accomplish a number of important goals," Zuckerberg wrote in the email. "As calls to break up the big tech companies grow, there is a non-trivial chance that we will be forced to spin out Instagram and perhaps WhatsApp in the next 5-10 years anyway." His estimate, made six years ago, ended up being spot-on.
"On the flip side, while most companies resist breakups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they've been split up," Zuckerberg added in the same email, according to The New York Times.
It's Zuckerberg's second day of testimony in the trial, which stemmed from a 2020 government lawsuit against Meta (then still known as Facebook). The FTC argues that the company's purchases of Instagram (for $1 billion in 2012) and WhatsApp (for $19 billion in 2014) hurt competition. If the trial goes th
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According to an SEC filing from NVIDIA, the US government now requires companies to obtain a license to export H20 integrated circuits and any other products that achieve the same performance benchmarks. The filing states that "the license requirement addresses the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a supercomputer in China." Mainland China is not the only place targeted by this license; NVIDIA will also require permission to sell the H20 to the territories of Hong Kong and Macau as well as to nations with the D:5 designation as US Arms Embargo Countries.
The H20 chips are currently the most advanced chips that can be sold to select international markets under present laws and they are powerful enough to be used for artificial intelligence applications. NVIDIA has wanted the ability to retain Chinese customers for these products and last week, it seemed like the company may have gotten a reprieve on new restrictions. However, it appears that the new license requirement "will be in effect for the indefinite future."
NVIDIA said in the SEC filing that it now expects to report about $5.5 billion in charges related to "inventory, purchase commitments and related reserves" associated with the H20 circuits in the results for its current fiscal quarter.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/nvidia-says-the-us-has-put-export-restri
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With America's long-term (and even short-term) economic prospects shifting on Eric Cartman-like whims, some internet providers have begun offering multi-year price guarantees to provide a little stability amid the chaos. A couple of weeks after Verizon introduced a three-year price lock, Comcast has followed suit with a five-year pricing guarantee for new Xfinity residential customers.
On the bright side, the deal isn't linked to an annual contract requirement. Comcast says that the following plans are available to be used with the five-year guarantee (speeds listed are download speeds):
400Mbps - $55/month
600Mbps - $70/month
1.1Gbps - $85/month
2.1Gbps - $105/month
This plan includes unlimited data and a free rental of the Xfinity Gateway router — but if you want to bring your own hardware, unlimited data will cost an extra $30 per month. And despite the fact that the Xfinity shopping page says these deals run through June 23, a Comcast spokesperson let us know they'll extend beyond that date.
The locked-in price doesn't cover installation, taxes, fees or other charges, which Comcast notes are subject to change during and after th
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 Apple CEO Tim Cook is "hell bent" on bringing true augmented reality glasses to market before Meta can achieve the same feat, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
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 Germany wants to rescue talks with the United States on how to tax big digital firms such as Google , Amazon and Facebook , the finance ministry said on Thursday after Washington pulled out of the negotiations.
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