The EU is investigating Broadcom’s $61 billion deal to buy VMware

The European Union plans to carry out a full-scale investigation of Broadcom’s $61 billion bid to buy VMware. Following a preliminary probe, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, announced on Tuesday it believes the proposed acquisition may allow Broadcom to “restrict competition” in the markets for network interface cards, fiber channel host-bus adapters and storage adapters.

Specifically, the EU is concerned Broadcom may harm competition in those markets by limiting interoperability between rival hardware and VMware’s server virtualization software. It also worries the company could either prevent or degrade access to VMware’s software. The European Commission warns those actions “could lead to higher prices, lower quality and less innovation for business customers, and ultimately consumers.”

The Commission will also investigate whether Broadcom could hinder rivals like NVIDIA and Intel from developing their own smart network interface cards. Here it points to VMWare’s involvement in Project Monterey, an industry-wide effort the company announced in 2020. “Broadcom may decrease VMware’s involvement in Project Monterey to protect its own NICs revenues,” the Commission notes. “This could hamper innovation to the detriment of customers.” Another concern is that Broadcom could start bundling VMware’s virtualization software with its own mainframe and security tools, a move that would reduce choice in the market.

As one of the larger tech acquisitions of 2022, Broadcom’s bid to buy VMware was certain to draw scrutiny. The European Commission won’t necessarily block the deal, but the investigation could significantly delay the transaction and force concessions out of Broadcom. With today’s announcement, the Commission has 90 working days or until May 11th, 2023, to make a decision. If the deal were to fall through, it would be a bitter repeat of Broadcom’s 2018 attempt to buy chipmaker Qualcomm. While the circumstances and concerns were different, the company was forced to abandon the takeover after the Trump administration blocked the transaction.

Congress attempts to ban TikTok on government devices as part of $1.7 trillion spending bill

After obtaining Senate approval last week, the No TikTok on Government Devices Act could become law thanks to the $1.7 trillion spending bill federal lawmakers unveiled early Tuesday morning. In addition to allocating more funding for Ukraine and earmarking $40 billion for natural disaster recovery efforts across the US, the sprawling 4,155-page bill includes provisions that would prohibit the use of TikTok on government-owned phones and other devices.

While some Republican lawmakers are pushing for a country-wide ban on TikTok, the spending bill stops short of prohibiting all government use of TikTok. If passed, the legislation would order the General Services Administration and Office of Management and Budget to create guidelines for staff at executive agencies to remove TikTok from government-owned devices by mid-February. The draft legislation allows congressional staff and elected officials to continue using the app. It also carves out some exceptions for law enforcement agents and officials.

“We’re disappointed that Congress has moved to ban TikTok on government devices — a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests — rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review,” TikTok spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter told Engadget.

“The agreement under review by [The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level. These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies — plans that we are well underway in implementing — to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them.”

The proposed ban comes after at least 11 states, including Georgia and South Dakota, prohibited TikTok on government-owned devices. Political concerns over TikTok hit a high earlier this month after FBI Director Chris Wray said China could use the app to collect user data. TikTok has tried to address those concerns. As of June, the app began routing all domestic traffic through Oracle servers in the US. At the same time, TikTok and parent company ByteDance pledged to delete US user data from their own data servers in the US and Singapore.

SEC deposition shows Zuckerberg misled Congress about Cambridge Analytica timeline

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg misled Congress and the American public about how early he knew about the threat Cambridge Analytica posed to Facebook user privacy, according to a newly published US Securities and Exchange Commission document. The sworn deposition was obtained by Zamaan Qureshi, a policy advisor with the Real Facebook Oversight Board. 

On February 19th, 2019, Zuckerberg told the SEC he was aware of Cambridge Analytica at least as early as 2017. At the start of that year, Zuckerberg sent an email to Facebook staff asking about an article Motherboard published about the data firm. The Vice News outlet was one of the first English-language publications to detail Cambridge Analytica’s use of online data to build psychographic profiles. 

The SEC asked Zuckerberg if that was the first time he had become aware of the firm. “I think that’s probably right,” he told the Commission. “My guess is I heard of them before. And that this was after seeing a couple of mentions of what they were claiming to do, I wanted to ask people who I trusted what their assessment was.”  

Zuckerberg also considered explicitly calling out Cambridge Analytica in a statement he made about Facebook’s attempts to combat Russian election meddling in the fall of 2017. His first draft called for him to state: “We are already looking into foreign actors including Russian intelligence actors in other Soviet states and organizations like Cambridge Analytica.” However, on the day of the livestream, he at best alluded to the firm, saying Facebook was investigating “organizations like the campaigns, to further our understanding of how they used our tools.”

The timeline Zuckerberg provided to the SEC contradicts the one he gave during sworn testimony before the House Financial Services Committee on October 23rd, 2019. “I’m not sure of the exact time, but it was probably around the time it became public, I think it was around March of 2018. I could be wrong, though,” he told Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  

When asked to comment on Real Facebook Oversight Board’s findings, Meta pointed Engadget to its 2019 Federal Trade Commission settlement, which saw the company agree to pay $5 billion in financial penalties and implement new privacy measures. “This has been a settled case for over three years,” a Meta spokesperson added. The office of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request.

The findings are likely to prompt new questions about Facebook’s handling of Cambridge Analytica. To this day, the scandal is the largest in Meta’s history. The data firm harvested information from as many as 87 million Facebook profiles and may have passed on that data to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Brexit campaign.

‘Sifu’ is getting an arena mode and heading to Xbox in March 2023

Sifu’s long-awaited Arenas mode will arrive next March. Developer Sloclap made the announcement through IGN, which shared a trailer for the upcoming DLC. The studio first teased the mode last April when it published a free content roadmap for Sifu. At the time, Sloclap said the update would arrive in the winter of 2022. However, true to its initial promise, the mode will include new outfits for players to unlock.

“Successfully completing the arenas will progressively unlock a massive new modifiers batch, which doubles the current game’s amount and notably brings alternative moves to the Kung Fu palette of our main character,” Sloclap told IGN. “Completing the new Arenas challenges will also unlock new cheats and exclusive new outfits.” If you haven’t had a chance to play Sifu yet because it’s not available on Xbox, there’s more good news. The arrival of the Arenas mode update will coincide with the game’s release on Xbox and Steam. Sloclap promised to share more information about both news items soon.

Porsche’s new on-board charger for Taycan EVs halves Level 2 charging times

Earlier this year, Porsche released a substantial software update for its sporty Taycan EV that delivered range and charging speed improvements. If you feel those enhancements weren’t enough, the automaker is releasing a hardware upgrade for existing Taycan models that halves charging times. On Performance Battery-equipped Taycans, Porsche says its new 19.2 kW onboard charging module cuts Level 2 charging times from nine-and-a-half hours to just under five hours. Meanwhile, those with Performance Battery Plus models can look forward to refilling their car’s battery from zero to full in a little over five hours, down from ten-and-a-half hours previously. The module also adds Plug and Charge capabilities to 2020 Taycans, a feature that first arrived on 2021 models.

Porsche Taycan charging module
Porsche

Dramatically improving your Taycan’s charging times will cost you $1,850.15. It will also take your local Porsche dealership about 12 hours to install the module, so if you’re thinking about purchasing the upgrade for your EV, expect to be without your car for at least a day. The module is also available as an upgrade for new Taycans. You can add it to your order by selecting the KB4 option from the online configurator. If you want to take advantage of 19.2 kW charging speeds at home you can also purchase Porsche’s new wall charging unit. It retails for $1,586 (not including installation fees) and requires a 100-amp circuit for the best possible performance, though Porsche says it can also work with lower-capacity circuits.

Twitter ‘Affiliate’ badges arrive to combat brand impersonation

In mid-November, Elon Musk said Twitter was working on a feature that would allow brands and organizations to identify accounts associated with them. A month later, the company has begun rolling that feature out. As first spotted by social media consultant (and former Next Web journalist) Matt Navarra, Twitter has added a new “Affiliate” badge that can appear alongside an account’s verified checkmark. The purpose of the icon is to point you to the account’s parent account if it’s not the primary account of a brand or organization. For instance, if you visit the Twitter Support account, you can click on the badge to go straight to the main Twitter account. Brands now also have square profile pictures to further differentiate their presence on the platform.

Musk first announced the feature in the same week that Twitter made its first failed attempt at rolling out paid account verification. After the company began enrolling users into its revamped Twitter Blue subscription, verified trolls used the service to impersonate brands and celebrities. The situation was a nightmare for businesses like Eli Lilly. The pharmaceutical firm saw billions of dollars erased from its market cap after a fake “verified” account misled people into believing the company was making insulin free.  

A fan reverse-engineered 1995’s ‘Star Wars: Dark Forces’ to make it easier to play on modern systems

By modern standards, 1995’s Dark Forces doesn’t look like much, but it’s rightfully considered one of the more important Star Wars games ever released. Not only did it introduce important technical innovations to the first-person shooter genre, but it …

The Final Fantasy ‘Pixel Remaster’ series heads to Switch and PS4 next spring

Square Enix’s “pixel perfect” remasters of the first six Final Fantasy games will arrive on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 next spring, the publisher announced on Monday. First announced at E3 2021 and subsequently released on PC and mobile over the…