Here’s what we have for you today:
• New agrotech player
• EU following up
• Clock ticking
Tech magnate after leaving Alibaba
New thing: Alibaba cofounder Jack Ma has recently invested in an agrotech company named “1.8 Meters Marine Technology (Zhejiang) Co.”
Studying up: Reportedly in the past Jack was in Spain learning about agriculture and technology relating to environmental issues, in addition to previous travels to Japan, Netherlands and Thailand to study agrotech.
Teaching gig: According to Tokyo College, during May 2023, Jack took up a teaching position, where he would also be researching sustainable agriculture and food production.
European Union digging into Microsoft
The start: EU has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of its Teams video and chat app with some of its other products which may constitute as anticompetitive behavior.
Apparently: The commission’s move follows a complaint from 2020 by a company behind a rival communications system. Microsoft’s proposals to address the complaint failed to satisfy the regulator in EU.
Quite fine: Reportedly, Microsoft had €2.2bn (£1.9bn) in EU antitrust fines in the past decade for practices in breach of EU competition rules, including bundling two or more products together.
Three-way text-based conundrum
2023 transition: Video sharing platform TikTok has announced the introduction of text-only posts.
Some features: Users will be able to add colored backgrounds and stickers to the posts, which have a limit of 1,000 words.
Other players: While X/Twitter and Meta’s Threads are fighting for their share of text-based users, TikTok wants a piece of the action too.
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