
Forthcoming first-person adventure game In the Valley of Gods is being developed by Campo Santo using Unity's tools.
Image: Campo Santo
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Forthcoming first-person adventure game In the Valley of Gods is being developed by Campo Santo using Unity's tools.
When your grandkids ask you what 2020 was like, just hand them Unity's S-1 filing. The (long) document filed ahead of its IPO touches on every big news story of the summer, painting a pretty scary image of what it's like to be in the tech industry right now.
Unity basically admits that it's at the mercy of Apple and Google, saying the two companies could "limit or discontinue our or our customers' access" to their platforms and app stores. Wonder if anything was on its mind when that was written?
For Unity, these problems aren't just theoretical. The filing discusses Apple's move to kill IDFA, highlighting the negative effect that could have on Unity's ad business. The company is worried about legislation that could similarly hamper ad tracking, saying "the CCPA could mark the beginning of a trend toward more-stringent privacy legislation in the United States … [which could] adversely affect our business."
It's not all doom and gloom, though. Unity said its revenue was $541 million last year, up 42% on the year before, and pointed to its growing revenue from companies outside of gaming as a particularly promising area. (It's still loss-making, though, and those losses actually increased year-on-year. Hey, this is a modern tech IPO, remember?)
But mainly the disclosures are a big reminder of just how the current state of affairs works: For many tech companies, unless you're one of the big five, your fate rests almost entirely in Big Tech's hands. In Unity's IPO, we'll see if investors are willing to tolerate that during such uncertain times.
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Shakeel Hashim ( @shakeelhashim) is a growth manager at Protocol, based in London. He was previously an analyst at Finimize covering business and economics, and a digital journalist at News UK. His writing has appeared in The Economist and its book, Uncommon Knowledge.
In conversation with Protocol, Commissioner Becca Slaughter, whose name has been floated as a possible FTC chair, laid out her priorities for the next four years.
FTC commissioner Becca Slaughter may be President Biden's pick for FTC chair.
Becca Slaughter, a commissioner for the Federal Trade Commission, made a name for herself last year when she famously breastfed her newborn baby during video testimony before the Senate, raising awareness about the plight of working parents during the pandemic.
But lately, Slaughter's name has been circulating for other reasons: She's a likely candidate to be President Joe Biden's pick for FTC chair, an appointment that would put Slaughter at the head of antitrust investigations into tech giants, including Facebook.
The current state-of-the-art quantum computers are a tangle of wires. And that can't be the case in the future.
The iconic image of quantum computing is the "Google chandelier," with its hundreds of intricately arranged copper wires descending like the tendrils of a metallic jellyfish. It's a grand and impressive device, but in that tangle of wires lurks a big problem.
"If you're thinking about the long-term prospects of quantum computing, that image should be just terrifying," Jim Clarke, the director of quantum hardware at Intel, told Protocol.
"When we go social, we're not going back," says co-founder Tracy Sun.
Tracy Sun is Poshmark's co-founder and SVP of new markets.
Investors were keen to buy into Poshmark's vision for the future of retail — one that is social, online and secondhand. The company's stock price more than doubled within a few minutes of its Nasdaq debut this morning, rising from $42 to $103.
Poshmark is anything but an overnight success. The California-based company, founded in 2011, has steadily attracted a community of 31.7 million active users to its marketplace for secondhand apparel, accessories, footwear, home and beauty products. In 2019, these users spent an average of 27 minutes per day on the platform, placing it in the same realm as some of the most popular social media services. This is likely why Poshmark points out in its S-1 that it isn't just an ecommerce platform, but a "social marketplace." Users can like, comment, share and follow other buyers and sellers on the platform.
A new report finds that more than 1,600 brands, from Disney to Procter & Gamble, have advertisements running on sites that push pro-Trump conspiracy theories. The majority of those ads are served by Google.
Google is the most dominant player in programmatic advertising, but it has a spotty record enforcing rules for publishers.
Shortly after November's presidential election, a story appeared on the website of far-right personality Charlie Kirk, claiming that 10,000 dead people had returned mail-in ballots in Michigan. But after publishing, a correction appeared at the top of the story, completely debunking the misleading headline, which remains, months later, unchanged.
"We are not aware of a single confirmed case showing that a ballot was actually cast on behalf of a deceased individual," the correction, which quoted Michigan election officials, read.
The fintech startup's stock soared more than 90% in its IPO debut today.
Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Signal at (510)731-8429.
It was a blockbuster debut for Affirm. The fintech startup's shares soared more than 90% when it went public on Wednesday.
The day itself began quietly for CEO Max Levchin: He kicked it off with a Zoom call with his kids, made a latte for his wife and joined a group chat with some high school friends, one of whom is recovering from COVID-19. "We were very happy to hear that he's doing well," he told Protocol shortly after his startup began trading on the Nasdaq Global Exchange.
Benjamin Pimentel ( @benpimentel) covers fintech from San Francisco. He has reported on many of the biggest tech stories over the past 20 years for the San Francisco Chronicle, Dow Jones MarketWatch and Business Insider, from the dot-com crash, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and AI to the impact of the Great Recession and the COVID crisis on Silicon Valley and beyond. He can be reached at bpimentel@protocol.com or via Signal at (510)731-8429.