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What happened: SoftBank Group's chip design firm, Arm Ltd, has filed for a stock market listing, setting up for what could be this year's biggest initial public offering in the U.S. Details: Despite unfavorable market conditions, the Japanese conglomerate is moving forward with its plan to list Arm on the Nasdaq, suggesting a thawing IPO market and a potential ice breaker for future firms to go public. SoftBank acquired Arm, whose technology powers almost all smartphones, for over $32B in 2016. It's been targeting a listing for Arm since last year, when its $40B deal to sell the chip maker to Nvidia collapsed. Why it matters: Reuters reports that the U.K.-based chip maker seeks to raise $8B to $10B. SoftBank is currently working to revitalize its giant Vision Fund, which has suffered significant losses due to the plummeting valuations of its holdings in tech startups. Arm's upcoming IPO could provide a boost to SoftBank's financial prospects and more. What the numbers say: According to Dealogic, many potential IPO candidates have been dissuaded by economic uncertainty, leading to a 22% decline in U.S. IPOs year-to-date, excluding special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listings. As a result, the total raised from IPOs this year has been only $2.35B. In the tech sector, IPOs fell from 631 in 2021 to 328 in 2022, while proceeds decreased from $149.1B to $37.4B, according to EY. Still: Sources say the size, price range, and timing of Arm's IPO remain subject to market conditions. 
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Twitter is launching a new service that will allow users to pay to read individual news articles, according to a tweet by Elon Musk. The service, set to be released later this month, is expected to benefit both users and media companies by providing an alternative to expensive subscriptions. However, futther details of the feature remain unclear, such as how payments would work and or how much of the revenue Twitter will take. More: - The move is part of Twitter's efforts to attract more creators and generate more revenue after experiencing a loss of advertisers since Musk bought the platform last year.
- In an appearance on "Real Time With Bill Maher" on Friday, Musk said he has had to take drastic action to prevent Twitter from going bankrupt after the acquisition.
- Musk recently told BBC reporter James Clayton that Twitter could become “cash flow positive” this quarter “if current trends continue.”
Zoom Out: - Meanwhile, Twitter has introduced “Subscriptions," a rebrand of its "Super Follows” feature that lets creators charge $2.99 to $9.99 a month for exclusive tweets, pics, and videos.
- Twitter will not take a cut on the content subscriptions in the first year, after which it will take a 10% cut.
REUTERS 
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Apple is revamping the user interface of the Apple Watch, with a focus on widgets, in what is being touted as the most significant software overhaul to watchOS in recent times. Users will be able to set up the interactive, iOS-like widgets from their phones, adding basic apps such as weather, calendar, maps, and stocks to the Apple Watch. More: - Watch users will be able to scroll through the widgets instead of clicking on them to launch apps.
- Apple previously experimented with a widgets-like feature, called Glances, when the Apple Watch came out in 2015.
- According to Gurman, Apple plans to combine the old Glances with widget styles from iOS 14.
- He claims the new interface will be "reminiscent" of the Siri watch face that came out with watchOS 4 in 2017.
Zoom Out: - The new widgets will release as part of the watchOS 10 update, the next-gen version of the Apple Watch's operating system.
- Apple is expected to unveil watchOS 10 alongside iOS 17 and macOS 14 at WWDC in June.
BLOOMBERG
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Despite the recent setback in its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is still making plans for the deal and has announced a 10-year agreement with cloud gaming provider Nware. The announcement comes days after Britain's antitrust regulator blocked Microsoft's $68.7B purchase of Activision Blizzard, saying it could harm the cloud gaming market. More: - Under the newly announced deal, Microsoft will stream PC games on Nware’s platform, including any Activision Blizzard games should the deal eventually go through.
- Microsoft has made similar deals with other gaming companies, including one to bring Xbox PC games to Nvidia’s cloud gaming service.
- The deals are aimed at alleviating regulators' concerns that Microsoft could exclude Activision Blizzard games from competing services.
- However, it appears to have not been enough for the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, which recently determined that, if the deal went through, Microsoft would find it commercially beneficial to make Activision Blizzard games, such as "Call of Duty" and "Overwatch," exclusive to its own cloud gaming service.
- Microsoft says it will appeal the decision.
VENTUREBEAT
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Apple is dropping a lawsuit against a former chip executive who it accused of poaching employees while still working at the company. Gerard Williams III was a senior director at Apple before he left in 2019 to form the chip design firm Nuvia, which was later acquired by Qualcomm for $1.4B. More: - Shortly after his departure, Apple sued Williams, claiming a breach of contract related to a non-compete agreement.
- The company accused Williams of developing and recruiting for Nuvia while he was still at Apple.
- In his defense, Williams accused Apple of spying on his text messages.
- While the case was set to go to trial this year, Apple has now filed a request to dismiss the suit “with prejudice,” which would bar the company from filing the same claims again.
- While not confirmed, the filing also indicates that the two parties may have reached a settlement.
Zoom Out: - According to his LinkedIn, Williams is now a senior engineering VP at Qualcomm.
- The semiconductor company has announced its next-generation "Oryon" processors that derive from the Nuvia acquisition. The Oryon cores are due out in 2024 and are expected to compete against Apple's M2 chip.
ENGADGET
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Microsoft has released an AI-powered graphic design tool to the public in a free preview. The Designer web application utilizes OpenAI's DALL-E 2 along with user-generated content to generate designs for presentations, work projects, and more. More: - The Canva-like app was previously only available through a waitlist.
- It's now available to the general public to try out in preview for free, along with new features such as animated visuals, caption generations, and hashtags for social media.
- The tool relies on AI and user input to generate layouts that are customizable via text editing.
- Microsoft says it will add more editing features in future updates, including fill, erase, expand background, and replace background.
- The tool is currently free at designer.microsoft.com and in the sidebar of Microsoft's Edge browser.
- Once generally available, it will be included as part of Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
TECHCRUNCH
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Community Corner Last week, we asked our tech community, "Do you think social media platforms should have more control over user content or should freedom of speech be prioritized?" Here are some highlighted responses we received: - Moe Nada (p/MoeNada), CEO and CoFounder at SupportFinity, answered, “I think freedom of speech on social media is just like democracy, it must be protected somehow. Racism, profanity, violence...etc can never be allowed on any platform. The real challenge is to autonomously detect harmful patterns which is what GPT and LLM models may be able to do in future.”
- Kent Lewis (p/KentLewis), CMO at Deksia, answered, “I don't think free speech should extend to false, misleading or hateful speech. That is what Facebook allowed for years, as it increases engagement and revenue. While there are gray areas relating to defining free speech vs. false, misleading or hateful speech, I don't believe social platforms have invested sufficient time or resources into defining and enforcing common sense rules.”
Join the conversations at Inside.com, and we may shout out your name and business, or contact you for more! ⭐️
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QUICK HITS - The company behind these surgical robots is planning to list on Nasdaq. Last day to fund your investment is on 5/10.*
- Italy has lifted a ban on OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot after the U.S. AI company addressed privacy concerns raised by the country's data protection regulator.
- "Authentic" photo-sharing app Poparazzi, which once topped Apple's App Store charts, is being discontinued.
- China Telecom's cloud unit, CTYun, is now testing its own large language models and plans to launch a product in the near future.
- Meta's metaverse unit, Reality Labs, incurred a $4B loss in Q1, following a $14B loss in 2022. The company is hosting its Quest Gaming Showcase for VR gaming on June 1.
- Demo Divvy, get an Ember heated mug. Hot coffee and quick and easy expense management — get both when you demo Divvy.*
*This is a sponsored post
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 |  | Beth is a writer and editor at Inside.com covering artificial intelligence and daily technology news. She has written the Inside AI newsletter since 2019. You can reach her at Beth.Duckett@inside.com. |   | | Editor | Eduardo Garcia is a writer and editor based in New York. He is the author of "Things You Can Do," an illustrated book about climate action. Bylines in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, Scientific American, and others. In one of his previous lives, Eduardo worked as a Reuters correspondent in Latin America for nearly a decade. | |
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