Microsoft to buy Activision in $68.7 bln deal; US airlines warn of ‘catastrophe’ from 5G; and Scripbox, Kula raise funds

Microsoft to buy Activision for $68.7 billion Microsoft is acquiring Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion, to “become the third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony,” the maker of Windows and Azure software said in an investor release. “Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms,” Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said in the announcement. With the acquisition Microsoft can add Activision’s games such as Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, Call of Duty and Candy Crush to its Game Pass for Xbox and PCs, which has 25 million subscribers. Activision has nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and three billion-dollar franchises. US lawmakers introduce bill curtailing ‘surveillance advertising’ US lawmakers have introduced a new bill seeking to ban targeted advertisements based on personal data that will affect companies like Facebook, Google and data brokers that exploit deep stores of personal information to make money from targeted ads, TechCrunch reports. The bill, Banning Surveillance Advertising Act, introduced by representatives Anna Eshoo and Jan Schakowsky in the US congress and Cory Booker in the Senate, would dramatically limit the ways that tech companies serve ads to their users, banning the use of personal data altogether, according to TechCrunch. US airline CEOs warn of ‘catastrophic’ crisis from 5G deployment CEOs from major US airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines have warned in a letter to the American government that the impending deployment of new 5G spectrum in the US could cause “catastrophic” disruption of flights across the country, Reuters reports. America’s federal aviation administration has previously said that 5G waves could interfere with the aircraft’s onboard systems, such as altimeters, that help them land in poor visibility. Recruitment automation startup Kula raises money from Together Fund Kula, a Silicon Valley startup building a recruitment automation platform, has raised $2.7 million funding from Venture Highway, Together Fund, and Global Founders Capital. Kula describes itself as a proactive recruitment platform that widens the talent pool by unifying all candidate sources and automating the candidate outreach and engagement. Kula’s co-founders are Achuthanand Ravi, who’s previously worked at Stripe, Sathappan and Suman Kumar Dey, former Freshworks and Grab engineers. In more funding news, Scripbox, which helps people easily make mutual fund investments through a mobile app, has raised $21 million from existing investor Accel, Economic Times reports. Scripbox will use the money to accelerate its growth as a broader wealth-management platform. Theme music courtesy Free Music & Sounds https://soundcloud.com/freemusicandsounds