Adobe set to acquire Figma for $20 billion

Adobe press release:

Today, Adobe (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to acquire Figma, a leading web-first collaborative design platform, for approximately $20 billion in cash and stock. The combination of Adobe and Figma will usher in a new era of collaborative creativity.

Together, Adobe and Figma will reimagine the future of creativity and productivity, accelerate creativity on the web, advance product design and inspire global communities of creators, designers and developers. The combined company will have a massive, fast-growing market opportunity and capabilities to drive significant value for customers, shareholders and the industry.

Dylan Field, writing on the Figma blog, says:

Today, we’re announcing that Figma has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Adobe. This has been in the works over the past few months and I’m so excited to finally share this news with the world.

Ten years ago, Evan and I set out on a journey to make design accessible to all. Looking back, I’m proud to say we’ve made progress through introducing Figma to designers of all ages, geographies and levels of experience.

He goes on to say,

There is a huge opportunity for us to accelerate the growth and innovation of the Figma platform with access to Adobe’s technology, expertise and resources in the creative space. For example, we will have the opportunity to incorporate their expertise in imaging, photography, illustration, video, 3D and font technology to the Figma platform. Additionally, we will have the opportunity to reimagine what the best creative tools could look like within the Figma technology stack.

And clarifies that,

Adobe is deeply committed to keeping Figma operating autonomously and I will continue to serve as CEO, reporting to David Wadhwani.

Figma has gone on to become an immensely popular design tool in the last few years, and designers are noticeably disappointed about this news.

There’s no doubt that this is a big win for Adobe, and I’m very curious how much Figma changes going forward. My bet is that it gets worse.

September 15, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Tinder's Parent Match Sues Apple in India

Aditya Kalra, reporting for Reuters:

Tinder-owner Match Group has filed an antitrust case against Apple with the competition regulator in India, accusing it of “monopolistic conduct” that forces developers to pay high commissions for in-app purchases, a legal filing seen by Reuters shows.

Apple is fending off a raft of antitrust challenges around the globe and Match’s July filing adds to two other cases in India though Match is the first foreign company to mount such a challenge against the iPhone maker in the country.

Match notes in its filing that Indians prefer using a “state-backed online transfer system,” seemingly referring to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payment system promoted by the Indian Govt. that has swept the country in recent times.

The govt. has repeatedly shown how much it loves UPI, and if that’s any indication, Apple just might be in some trouble here.

August 27, 2022 ✚ Permalink

WordPress.org HomePage & Download Page Get a Redesign

The WordPress.org homepage and the WordPress.org/download page have just gotten a much-needed makeover.

Nicholas Garofalo, writing on WordPress.org News:

The new homepage brings more attention to the benefits and experience of using WordPress, while also highlighting the community and resources to get started.

The new download page greets visitors with a new layout that makes getting started with WordPress even easier by presenting both the download and hosting options right at the top.

This redesign follows the redesign of the WordPress News blog earlier this year.

August 18, 2022 ✚ Permalink

India Seizes $46m from Crypto Exchange Vauld

Manish Singh, writing on Techcrunch:

Flipvolt Technologies, the India registered entity of Singapore-headquartered Vauld, was used to deposit 3.7 billion Indian rupees by 23 entities including non-banking financial companies and fintech firms into the wallets controlled by Yellow Tune Technologies, the Enforcement Directorate said Friday of its ongoing investigation.

The agency said the Indian entity of Vauld maintains “very lax KYC norms, no EDD mechanism, no check on the source of funds of the depositors, no mechanism of raising STRs, etc,” factors that led the accused firms in “avoiding regular banking channels” and “easily take out all the fraud money in the form of crypto assets.”

The Indian government has generally been against cryptocurrency, and cases like these are ensuring that doesn’t change for a long time.

August 12, 2022 ✚ Permalink

WP Engine Acquires Delicious Brains Plugins

WP Engine, a popular managed WordPress hosting services company, has today announced the acquisition of 5 WordPress plugins from Delicious Brains.

The plugins have a total installed base of approximately 4 million users and are widely adopted by WP Engine’s customers. The acquired software includes Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), WP Migrate, WP Offload Media, WP Offload SES, and Better Search Replace.

Over the last few years, WP Engine has been snapping up a number of products, aiming to level up their offering from developers. This includes Flywheel and Local, as well as StudioPress and the Genesis framework. Interestingly, it was exactly a year ago on June 2nd, 2021 that Elliot Condon — the original developer of Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) announced that Delicious Brains had acquired the plugin from them.

I’m currently using a number of these WordPress plugins on many of my websites, so I’m curious to see where WP Engine takes them.

Also read: The announcement by Delicious Brains.

June 2, 2022 ✚ Permalink

ExpressVPN Removes VPN Servers in India

ExpressVPN has just announced that they will be removing their physical servers located in India, refusing to comply with India’s new VPN law.

With a recent data law introduced in India requiring all VPN providers to store user information for at least five years, ExpressVPN has made the very straightforward decision to remove our Indian-based VPN servers.

Rest assured, our users will still be able to connect to VPN servers that will give them Indian IP addresses and allow them to access the internet as if they were located in India. These “virtual” India servers will instead be physically located in Singapore and the UK.

Under the new VPN law that is set to come into effect on Jun 27, 2022, the company states that they will be “required to store users’ real names, IP addresses assigned to them, usage patterns, and other identifying data” which effectively “is incompatible with the purpose of VPNs, which are designed to keep users’ online activity private.”

The law is also overreaching and so broad as to open up the window for potential abuse. We believe the damage done by potential misuse of this kind of law far outweighs any benefit that lawmakers claim would come from it.

ExpressVPN refuses to participate in the Indian government’s attempts to limit internet freedom. As a company focused on protecting privacy and freedom of expression online, we will continue to fight to keep users connected to the open and free internet with privacy and security, no matter where they are located.

ExpressVPN is one of the most popular VPN services in the market today and I had been a customer for a while, only switching to Mullvad because I wanted the flexibility in billing. I am certain that other VPN companies are going to follow in the same steps. Any company that doesn’t, is a company worth staying away from.

June 2, 2022 ✚ Permalink

Riders Report Serious Issues with Ola’s Electric Scooters

Pradip K. Saha has a fantastic article up on The Morning Context about the issues plaguing Ola’s Electric Scooters:

At least 10 people The Morning Context spoke with complained of the scooter switching off with more than 20, 30 even 50 km range left. “You will never get the last 10-20 km. No one gets it,” says Karthik Varma from Visakhapatnam. “I am part of multiple Ola owner groups and I haven’t found a single person who hasn’t faced this issue.” 

These are not experiences any automaker worth its salt would want its customers to go through. But barely two months since deliveries have started, Ola Electric is bursting at the seams. Multiple groups on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram are packed to the brim with complaints from aggrieved consumers. There are obvious issues around range—many customers complain that they aren’t getting even 100 km per charge, compared with the promise of 181 km—and delays in delivery, registration and insurance processes.

I have heard similar things from a few different customers. Almost every single customer I’ve spoken to has mentioned the issue where the range available displayed on screen is never in sync with how much juice is left in the scooter itself. Ola’s handling of the release of its S1 Pro has really put a dent into how prospective customers are going to perceive the EV market, with many already calling it “not ready for practical use.”

Meanwhile, I have to give major props to Ather. I’ve owned the 450X (in the form of a Series 1) for about 14 months now and I’ve never had an issue with the battery or range. If it says 25km on the display, it’s what I’m roughly going to get. The only real annoyances I’ve had are with its software stack, which thankfully works independent of the scooter. I’ve ran into a couple of instances where the display would go off and the screen would restart, but the scooter continues to run without issues. You don’t get to this behavior without having tested and re-tested for months in a row.

February 21, 2022 ✚ Permalink

WordPress News Gets a New Design

The WordPress News website has just gotten a beautiful new design, which was led by designer Beatriz Fialho.

My favorite thing about this redesign isn’t just the boldness of the design with that striking shade of blue, it’s that the design uses the beautiful Inter family for the body text, combined with EB Garamond for the headings.

February 21, 2022 ✚ Permalink