Reading List

The most recent articles from a list of feeds I subscribe to.

The FTC is officially banning hidden junk fees from hotel and ticket prices

The Verge - All Posts

UK-based BVNK, a stablecoin infra startup with ~$40M in annualized revenue, raised a $50M Series B led by Haun Ventures; a source said it values BVNK at ~$750M (Leo Schwartz/Fortune)

Techmeme

The best Studio Ghibli gifts for fans

Polygon - All

Learn more about your favorite games over the holidays with this $18 Boss Fight Book bundle

Polygon - All

The Honda Prelude returns as a sporty hybrid with a new drive mode

The Verge - All Posts

The best sci-fi TV of the year

Polygon - All

Databricks is raising $10B from a16z, Thrive, others at a $62B valuation, among the largest VC raises in history; documents show Databricks has $2.6B in revenue (Wall Street Journal)

Techmeme

Secret Level’s Outer Worlds episode is missing a key part of the game

Polygon - All

Bluey fever to continue with a movie

Polygon - All

Dutch startups raised $3.5B in 2024. Here are the 10 largest funding rounds

The Next Web

The US FTC issues long-awaited rules requiring companies to display the full price of hotels, concert tickets, and more up front, rather than hiding "junk fees" (Tony Romm/Washington Post)

Techmeme

The Irish Data Protection Commission fines Meta €251M over a Facebook breach that affected ~29M users globally and ~3M in the EU and EEA in September 2018 (Natasha Lomas/TechCrunch)

Techmeme

Interpol says calling online scams "pig butchering", a widely used phrase, is unhelpful as gangs "appear to have" created the phrase to describe victims (Wired)

Techmeme

A Taiwanese official says the country is in talks with Amazon's Kuiper over satellite internet as its current OneWeb deal does not offer sufficient capacity (Kathrin Hille/Financial Times)

Techmeme

Google Home tests access tiers for everyone in your smart home

The Verge - All Posts

Taiwanese silicon wafer maker GlobalWafers finalizes $406M in CHIPS Act funding, part of a plan to invest nearly $4B to help build plants in Texas and Missouri (Bloomberg)

Techmeme

After Trump's win, a look at what the crypto industry could do next, including weakening financial rules that might protect consumers from the next crypto crash (Molly White/Bloomberg)

Techmeme

Toronto-based Hostaway, which offers vacation rental management tools, raised $365M led by General Atlantic at a $925M valuation, after raising $175M in 2023 (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Techmeme

Alibaba agrees to sell its Intime department store business, part of a plan to unify online and offline retailing in 2017, for ~$1B, taking a record $1.3B loss (Bloomberg)

Techmeme

The European Commission opens a formal DSA investigation into TikTok over concerns foreign actors used it to interfere in the Romanian presidential elections (Edith Hancock/Wall Street Journal)

Techmeme