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(Image Courtesy: Reuters) There’s no relaxing on the beach this summer for corporate acquirers -- they’ve been busy snapping up technology companies, even after a stock rally over the past two months means the sector isn’t as cheap as it was back in June. Just look at Amazon.com Inc. The retail and cloud-storage giant announced a $3.49 billion deal to buy software company 1Life Healthcare Inc. last month, and last week it said it would pay $1.65 billion for iRobot Corp., maker of the Roomba vacuum. Just 10 days into August, about $13.4 billion of tech-related mergers and acquisitions have been unveiled in North America, according to Bloomberg data, which already would make it the busiest month since May. In the largest deal, buyout firm Vista Equity Partners agreed to buy tax software provider Avalara Inc. for $8.4 billion including debt. “August has historically been a quiet month for M&A, so it is surprising to see such a flurry of deals,” said Larry Feldman, a … [Read more...] about Amazon joins deal revival spurred by lower valuation

Representative image (Source: Reuters) At the edge of the Colombian Amazon, in an Indigenous village surrounded by oil rigs, the Siona people faced a dilemma. The United Nations Development Program, or UNDP, had just announced a $1.9 million regional aid package. In a village with no running water, intermittent electricity and persistent poverty, any money would mean food and opportunity. But the aid program was part of a partnership between the U.N. agency and GeoPark, the multinational petroleum company. The company holds contracts to drill near the Siona reservation, including one with the government that would expand operations onto what the Siona consider their ancestral land. To the Siona people on the Buenavista reservation, oil drilling is an assault, akin to draining blood from the earth. This collaboration is one example of how one of the world’s largest sustainable development organizations partners with polluters, even those that at times work against the … [Read more...] about In the Amazon, a UN agency has a green mission, but dirty partners

Football’s top ten earners are demolishing records, hauling in a combined $489 million as the world’s most valuable sports league continues its ascent. H is résumé is unparalleled, with seven Super Bowl titles and all-time passing records from completions to yards to touchdowns. Yet as Tom Brady heads into his 23rd professional season, the 45-year-old Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback is adding a new accolade: For the first time since Forbes began publishing a ranking of the NFL’s highest-paid players in 2010, he leads the list. Having given the New England Patriots discounts on his contracts for much of his career, Brady has never been higher than No. 2 on Forbes’ annual NFL earnings leaderboard. And he came in second for the first time just last year when, in his second season with Tampa Bay and with a new commitment to his endorsement portfolio, he landed behind the Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, whose $87 million in 2021 beat out Brady’s $72.5 million. This … [Read more...] about Highest-Paid NFL Players 2022: Tom Brady Leads The List For The First Time

Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Mark Bucknam is unveiling what life is like away from the sand for a professional beach volleyball player. The BYB Pictures director recently released the five-part series AVP Uncovered via YouTube, detailing how four professional beach volleyball players rode the highs and lows through the 2021 AVP season. The 25-year-old Florida Southern graduate explained how the idea became clearer the more he started to play and watch these athletes operate. “I wanted to watch a show like the one we just made,” Bucknam said. “One that was behind the scenes and into these people’s lives, showing you who they are as people and not just as competitors. That show didn’t exist for beach volleyball. I saw a real opportunity to combine the things I like to do the most, which is play beach volleyball and work on video documentaries.” Bucknam noted the stark contrast between a beach volleyball player’s path to the pro ranks as compared … [Read more...] about AVP Uncovered Tells The Not-So-Glamorous Side Of Professional Beach Volleyball Life

For the past year or so, we’ve been told the future of the internet is in the metaverse : a persistent, immersive, multiplayer, interoperable world that blurs the lines between the physical and digital. In reality, this vision of the metaverse is likely a long way away. According to Intel , realizing its potential will require an overhaul of the “entire plumbing of the internet.” advertisement advertisement While it’s uncertain to what extent we’ll achieve a metaverse akin to the world of Spielberg’s Ready Player One , it’s clear that the internet of the future will be far more immersive than that of the past. Two front-runners to define this vision of the future have emerged, with very different ideas of what it might look like: Meta and Microsoft. But who will come out on top? This immersive vision of the internet—with whole new worlds to get lost in that continue to evolve even after you’ve quit—is not a novel concept. Gamers have been … [Read more...] about Microsoft vs. Meta: Who’s got the upper hand in the metaverse?