Welcome to the Tech Meme Right Home for Wednesday, July 19th,

2023. I'm Brian McCullough. Today Microsoft announced aggressive

pricing for their AI products and got rewarded with an all-time high stock market

valuation. More price aggression in the streaming wars, Meta releases

Lama 2, Google is asking for employees to voluntarily work on air-gapped machines, and let me introduce you to the concept of synthetic data for

LLCs.

Here's what you miss today in the world of tech.

Let me squeeze this headline in here real quick. Microsoft and Activision Blizzard

have agreed to extend their merger agreement to October 18th, pending the

outcome of negotiations with UK regulators.

Quoting the verge, Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith says the three month extension

is designed, quote, to provide ample time to work through the final regulatory issues, end quote.

Both Microsoft and Activision Blizzard have also agreed to a higher termination fee and new commercial arrangements for the transaction. A termination fee and new commercial arrangements for the transaction.

A termination fee payable if Microsoft or Activision walks away from the deal is now set at 3.5 billion dollars

if the deal doesn't close by August 29th and it jumps to 4.5 billion dollars

if September 15th passes without a finalization.

Activision has also agreed to potentially quote hold separate the company or certain assets of the company or

to implement other lawful alternatives to consummate the merger with UK regulators.

This is a key part as it may allow the merger to go ahead with restrictions from the UK's competition and markets authority." Speaking of Microsoft's stock closed up 4% yesterday at $359.49 a share

which represents an all-time, all-time high.

Microsoft stock is up actually around 50% just since the beginning of the year.

But why did it rise so much just yesterday? Probably because the company announced

...