Ubisoft becomes the first major game company to dive into NFTs with Ubisoft Quartz, a platform that lets players acquire non-fungible tokens on the Tezos blockchain. Quartz goes live this week in beta with “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint” for PC. Players will be able to purchase or earn in-game “Digits” — Quartz’s term for NFTs — which will be collectible in-game vehicles, weapons, and pieces of equipment. Ubisoft is touting Tezos as the technology behind “the first energy-efficient NFTs playable in a AAA game,” comparing it to processor-hogs like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Read more

Next year, Apple is expected to unveil a glasses-like wearable that will be its big follow-up to the iPhone. This headset is expected to offer layers of information, objects and data spread to augment reality. Although Apple has remained mum on its plans for smart glasses, CEO Tim Cook is not shy about referencing AR and its “critically important” role in the company’s future, in September describing himself to a YouTube influencer as “AR fan #1,” and in a separate interview calling augmented reality one of the “very few profound technologies.” Read more

The Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit has seized 42 websites from China-based hacking group Nickel, in attempt to thwart the group’s intelligence-gathering operations. A Virginia federal court granted Microsoft’s request to take over the U.S.-based websites run by Nickel, also known as APT15. Microsoft had since 2016 been tracking the group’s activities, determining them “highly sophisticated,” with attacks designed to install malware that facilitated surveillance and data theft attacks. Nickel was used to attack organizations in the United States and 28 other countries around the world, DCU says. Read more

China is making an investment statement as it attempts to take control of its financial future and set new yen-centric standards for international monetary exchange. Much is being read into Didi Chuxing delisting itself Friday from the New York Stock Exchange, where it raised billions of dollars, capping at $39 billion for the Beijing version of Uber. The message is: with money of its own and a knack for finding more, the world’s No. 2 economy feels it no longer needs Wall Street and says it will relist on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. Read more

Regulators the world over have been exhibiting antitrust leanings in an effort to temper Big Tech’s unfettered growth, but the UK’s unprecedented move ordering Meta Platforms to sell animated images platform Giphy nearly a year after the purchase has shocked many. The surprise is due not only to the timing, but also for its U.S. implications, and because Giphy’s modest stature has triggered the realization that no deal is too small to escape scrutiny. Meta’s Giphy deal is being described as a “killer acquisition,” wherein an innovative startup is purchased with an intent to quash future competition. Read more