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Discord Would Give Microsoft a $10 Billion 'Place to Talk' – BNN

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(Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. and Discord Inc. hold a great deal of sway with video game fans. As they now hold talks for a potential $10 billion acquisition, a deal would join two companies in pursuit of audiences far beyond gamers.

Jason Citron and Stan Vishnevskiy, programmers and entrepreneurs, founded San Francisco-based Discord in 2015 as a platform for people to chat while playing video games together. The free service offers voice, video and text as well as gamer-friendly features including the ability for users to broadcast the name of the game they are playing.

The app became popular a few years ago, rising alongside smash multiplayer hits like Epic Games Inc.’s Fortnite. It also has a more sinister side to its history, having being used as a gathering ground for White nationalists to organize the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Since then, the company has made efforts to clean up its site and make it more inclusive. Last year was a “pivotal” year for Discord, the new Chief Financial Officer Tomasz Marcinkowski said in a blog post earlier this month. During the pandemic, with people stuck at home and playing more video games than ever and also looking for ways to safely socialize, Discord became a hub for communities interested in the Black Lives Matter movement, homework help, book clubs and more, pitching itself as a “place to talk.”

Discord’s service has long attracted all manner of celebrity gamers and social media influencers. There was that time three years ago when Fortnite’s biggest player, Ninja, helped instruct hip-hop legend Drake to set up his Discord account. More recently there was WallStreetBets. The investor coalition notorious for boosting GameStop stock from its perch on Reddit also had a server on Discord and was banned earlier this year for not doing enough to stem hate speech.

The site now claims more than 140 million monthly users and brought in $100 million in revenue last year. Discord doubled its valuation last December to $7 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. It has raised a total of about $480 million, according to Crunchbase, from investors including Greenoaks Capital.

Read more: Gaming Services Like Twitch and Discord Are Booming Right Now

On Discord, anyone can create their own community, or server, which can range in size from under ten people to hundreds of thousands. The average user might belong to one private Discord server that they just use to hang out with their friends and other public servers dedicated to discussion of their favorite movie or sports team.

For Microsoft, these varied communities may be Discord’s biggest selling point. The software giant, which last year sought to buy social-media app TikTok and held talks to acquire Pinterest Inc., has been shopping for assets that would provide access to thriving communities of users, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. The maker of the Xbox console has snapped up numerous video game companies recently, including the publisher ZeniMax Media Inc. last fall for $7.5 billion. Microsoft may seek to integrate Discord with Xbox Game Pass, its Netflix-like subscription service for video games.

One of the keys to Discord’s popularity is its lack of advertisements. Rather than populate channels with intrusive ads like other social media services such as Twitter Inc., Discord makes money with a subscription service called Nitro. For $10 a month, members can customize tags next to their user names, upload larger files, and stream at higher video quality.

Discord has also become a useful way for video game companies to directly promote products and foster communities. The company will verify servers based on popular video games, giving them a stamp of authenticity. Some game developers participate in their Discord channels, allowing fans to interact directly with the people behind their favorite titles.

The official Discord community for the hit game Among Us, for example, has more than 413,000 users. Among Us community director Victoria Tran described it as “pretty chaotic, but a lot of fun.” She said that people use the server not just to talk about the game and find people to play with, but to have broader conversations about their lives and interests.

The server “is a fun way to be directly connected with our players, even if it’s not necessarily related to the game itself,” Tran said. She added that the video game servers can also be a place for players to report bugs and offer suggestions directly to game makers. “Discord communities are just a great way to get feedback you might not have been able to get otherwise,” she said.

Discord can also be helpful for smaller games that may not have the reach of Among Us but still want to provide a place for fans to chat, game developers say.

“We really just wanted to build a low-key community that was nice to hang out in,” said Megan Fox, founder of the independent game development studio Glass Bottom Games. Its first game, Skatebird, is about birds on skateboards. It has a Discord community of about 900 users that Fox said mostly use the server to talk about “birds, or skateboarding.” She said the studio also has a channel solely intended for users to “share your attempt at a kickflip.” Many Discord servers lean on humor and inside jokes, which is part of the appeal.

The news of a potential deal has inspired mixed reactions in the gaming community. “If Discord is going to sell, Microsoft may actually be one of the safest places it can go without experiencing major changes,” said Rod Breslau, an esports and gaming consultant who works with companies such as Sony Music Entertainment. Microsoft has taken a hands-off approach with recent acquisitions, such as LinkedIn and GitHub, he said.

But not all gamers have been thrilled about the prospect. Twitter was full of people Tuesday begging Discord not to sell. Some Discord channels were also filled with negative reactions to the idea of further video game industry consolidation.

“Gamers especially have whiplash from a variety of past Microsoft grievances,” said Breslau, “and who really wants to see one of the big corporate overlords continue to swallow up parts of the industry?”

It may not come to that. Discord is more likely to go public than sell itself, one person familiar with the discussions said.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Here is how to prepare your online accounts for when you die

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LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?

It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.

Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:

Apple

The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.

For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.

You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.

Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.

Google

Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.

When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.

You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.

There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.

Facebook and Instagram

Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.

When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.

The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.

You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.

TikTok

The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.

Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.

X

It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.

Passwords

Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?

Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.

But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.

___

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Google’s partnership with AI startup Anthropic faces a UK competition investigation

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LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.

The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.

“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.

Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.

The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Kuwait bans ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’ video game, likely over it featuring Saddam Hussein in 1990s

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The tiny Mideast nation of Kuwait has banned the release of the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6,” which features the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and is set in part in the 1990s Gulf War.

Kuwait has not publicly acknowledged banning the game, which is a tentpole product for the Microsoft-owned developer Activision and is set to be released on Friday worldwide. However, it comes as Kuwait still wrestles with the aftermath of the invasion and as video game makers more broadly deal with addressing historical and cultural issues in their work.

The video game, a first-person shooter, follows CIA operators fighting at times in the United States and also in the Middle East. Game-play trailers for the game show burning oilfields, a painful reminder for Kuwaitis who saw Iraqis set fire to the fields, causing vast ecological and economic damage. Iraqi troops damaged or set fire to over 700 wells.

There also are images of Saddam and Iraq’s old three-star flag in the footage released by developers ahead of the game’s launch. The game’s multiplayer section, a popular feature of the series, includes what appears to be a desert shootout in Kuwait called Scud after the Soviet missiles Saddam fired in the war. Another is called Babylon, after the ancient city in Iraq.

Activision acknowledged in a statement that the game “has not been approved for release in Kuwait,” but did not elaborate.

“All pre-orders in Kuwait will be cancelled and refunded to the original point of purchase,” the company said. “We remain hopeful that local authorities will reconsider, and allow players in Kuwait to enjoy this all-new experience in the Black Ops series.”

Kuwait’s Media Ministry did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press over the decision.

“Call of Duty,” which first began in 2003 as a first-person shooter set in World War II, has expanded into an empire worth billions of dollars now owned by Microsoft. But it also has been controversial as its gameplay entered the realm of geopolitics. China and Russia both banned chapters in the franchise. In 2009, an entry in the gaming franchise allowed players to take part in a militant attack at a Russian airport, killing civilians.

But there have been other games recently that won praise for their handling of the Mideast. Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed: Mirage” published last year won praise for its portrayal of Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age in the 9th century.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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