Rippling Sues Deel, Deel Denies “All Legal Wrongdoing”



It’s gloves off in one of the more tense rivalries in the world of Startups. HR company Rippling Monday morning announced a lawsuit against Deel, another big player in the same space.

The dramatic 50-page complaint alleges racketeering, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition, and adding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty. The lawsuit is largely centered on an employee whom Rippling claims was working as a spy for Deel. TechCrunch  reported.

Deel has denied the allegations in a statement to TechCrunch in an equally florid way, setting the stage for the airing of yet more dirty laundry.

“Weeks after Rippling is accused of violating sanctions law in Russia and seeding falsehoods about Deel, Rippling is trying to shift the narrative with these sensationalized claims,” a spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.  “We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims.

The HR technology space is highly competitive, featuring not only major incumbents —SAP, ADP, Workday among them — but also numerous startups targeting the many different aspects of HR, such as payroll, recruitment, training, compensation benefits management and onboarding. Companies like Deel and Rippling aim to prove an all-in-one platform for these services.

Boing Boing reported: HR firm Rippling has filed a lawsuit against rival Deel, alleging they planted a spy in their Dublin office.

This filing is packed with action and excitement, Jason Weisberger at Boing Boing reported. Rippling alleges Deel planted a spy in their office. They employed a honey pot trap to catch the spy and then tracked the employee’s activities. Things got extra silly when Rippling attempted to nab the guy.

“The bag only contained a notebook. It held no mobile device,” the lawsuit says.  

The spy then went into the bathroom and locked the door, “despite the independence solicitor’s repeated warnings that these actions were in violation of the court order,” the lawsuit says.

The employee “then stormed out of the office and fled the scene,” the lawsuit says.

The San Francisco Standard reported:  HR platforms Rippling and Deel are known for automating the mind-numbing work of payroll and compliance. Now, one San Francisco company is suing the other for alleged corporate espionage— and the details read like a spy thriller.

In a lawsuit filed Monday, in federal court in San Francisco, Rippling accused its top competitor of “a brazen act of corporate theft.” Rippling claims that Deel placed within its ranks a spy, identified in the complaint as D.S., who orchestrated a long-running theft of company secrets. Rippling said it uncovered the operation by placing a “honeypot” trap to lure D.S. into revealing himself on Slack.

A representative of Deal did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a statement, a Deel spokesperson denied the claims and accused Rippling of trying to “shift the narrative” after it was accused of violation sanctions law in Russia.


Apple Considered Making The Rumored iPhone 17 Air “Completely Port Free”



The so-called iPhone 17 Air, which is rumored to be coming this fall, is said to be Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever. But, if the company had gone through some of its earlier plans for the device, slimness may not have been the most talked-about element, Engadget reported.

In the Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman writes that Apple at one time planned to ditch the USB-C port “to make the air device Apple’s first completely port free iPhone.”

The company reportedly shelved the idea to avoid sparking fresh problems with EU regulators. According to Gurman, however, Apple is still holding onto it for future slim iPhones depending on the success of the iPhone 17 Air.  

Apple is expected to release four iPhones this year, in line with its strategy on the success of the iPhone 17 Air. Apple is expected to release four iPhones this year, in line with its strategy of the last few years, with the one currently named the iPhone 17 Air being roughy 2 millimeters thinner than the rest.

The Verge reported: A set of iPhone 17 dummies appeared last night in a new leak from Sonny Dickson, who has a long history of reliability leaking the nonfunctional versions of iPhones that case and accessory makers use to prepare for the next year’s crop of handsets. 

The images look very much like the render’s we’ve seen in recent weeks, down to the phone-spanning camera bump that Apple is expected to add to all but the standard iPhone 17.

The dummies appear to back up rumors that the iPhone 17 Air will be a 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9-inch phone, positioning it in between the 6.3-inch iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9-inch 16 Pro Max of this year.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reiterates the it’s going to have a 6.6-inch screen in today’s Power On newsletter. Apple had considered making it 6.9 inches, he writes, but “pulled the plug on that over fears that a thin device with a giant screen would be susceptible to bending.” 

The iPhone 17 Air is expected to be as thin as 5.5mm, with a single camera on the back like the iPhone16E. Gurman writes that the phone will get a mix of high-end features, like a 120Hz ProMotion display and low-end ones, like an Apple A19 chip instead of an A19 Pro. 

Apple Insider reported: Apple had originally planned to make the iPhone 17 Air the first completely wireless model, but has apparently changed its mind on that front.

A new report claims that Apple considered making one of it future iPhones completely port free. The thinner model, for now called the iPhone 17 Air, could have gone without a USB-C port— but Apple has since backed off the idea.

Ultimately, Apple is said to have decided to include a USB-C port for charging after all. This is said to have been done to appease potential concerns from European Union regulators.


Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick Sues G/O



Former CEO of video game company Activision Blizzard Robert Kotick says news company G/O Media defamed him in news publications that knowingly lied about nonexistent widespread workplace misconduct under his leadership, Courthouse News reported. 

During Kotick’s tenure as CEO, Activison Blizzard faced immense scrutiny in 2021 when the California Civil Rights Department began investigating the company for potential workplace sexual harassment and discrimination. By December 2023, however, Activison Blizzard and the department settled for $54 million.

The settlement, signed by both parties, stated that “no court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations” of either systemic sexual harassment at Activision Blizzard or that the company’s senior executives “ignored, condoned or tolerated a culture of systemic harassment, retaliation or discrimination.”

Despite this, Kotick noted G/O Media published two articles on March 11, 2024 — one on video game website Kotaku and one in science and tech outlet Gizmodo — about Kotick that repeated the since-dismissed claims of widespread workplace misconduct without ever mentioning they had been dismissed.

Aftermath reported: Former Activision boss Bobby Kotick has filed a defamation suit against G/O Media over a pair of 2024 articles.

A record of a March 11 defamation filing titled “Robert Kotick v G/O Media Inc” can be viewed in Delaware court records, but the complaint itself is not currently publicly available. Courthouse News, which first reported on the suit, writes that Kotick is “seek[ing] damages to be determined at trial” regarding articles on former G/O Media site Gizmodo and current G/O Media site Kotaku about Kotick’s reported interest in buying TikTok.

As context into Kotick, the articles both discussed a California Civil Rights Department into Activision Blizzard that was settled in 2023. The final California settlement makes note that “No court or any independent investigation has substantiated any allegations” and that the “defendants deny all allegations of wrongdoing, liability, and damages.

Courthouse News writes that Kotick claims “the articles continue to ‘mischaracterize’ the agreement,” and quotes the complaint in stating that allegations were included “purely for the malicious purposes of causing further harm to Kotick.”

Blue’s News reported: Courthouse News reports that former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is suing G/O Media over the inclusion of some uncomfortable details in stories about Kotick’s interest in buying TikTok.

“Neither article had anything to do with Activision,” Kotick says in the complaint. “Both were about rumors that Kotick was interested in buying TikTok. Yet, Kotaku and Gizmodo went out of their way to include withdrawn false allegations related to workplace issues which G/O Media knew had been conclusively disproven by numerous investigations…purely for the malicious purposes of causing further harm to Kotick.”


Leaked Apple Meeting Shows How Dire The Siri Situation Really Is



In recent weeks, Apple has been unable to escape headlines about its slow progress with everything having to do with Siri and artificial intelligence. The company has officially delayed features first promised last June intended to modernize Siri and give Apple a much-needed boost in the AI race.

We still don’t know when those Apple Intelligence capabilities will arrive, and if a recent all-hands meeting is anything to go by, neither does Apple itself, The Verge reported.

Bloomberg has the full scoop on what happened at a Siri team meeting led by senior director Robby Walker, who oversees the division. He called the delay an “ugly” situation and sympathized with employees who might be feeling burned out or frustrated by Apple’s decisions and Siri’s still-lackluster reputation.  

He also said it’s not a given that the missing Siri features will make it into iOS 19 this year; that’s the company’s current target, but it “doesn’t mean that we’re shipping then,” he told employees.

AppleInsider reported: Apple has been facing significant challenges in deploying one of its most highly advertised Apple Intelligence features; an enhanced, personalized Siri.

The company had heavily promoted it at both WWDC and the September iPhone event. And it still airs most of the commercials that reference it. However, it did not show up at launch.

But, as we’ve learned, the feature is facing some serious hang-ups. While it was initially expected to roll out in iOS 18.4, it looks like it may not be coming until iOS 18. If it even shows up then.

While Apple’s been slammed by the media for the delay, the company isn’t exactly going easy on itself either. Robby Walker, Apple’s senior director of Siri and Information Intelligence, called an all-hands-on-deck meeting to address the issue, as sources told Bloomberg.

“We have other commitments across Apple to other projects,” Walker reportedly said, citing new software an hardware initiatives. “We want to keep our commitment to those, and we understand those are not potentially more timeline-urgent than the features that have been deferred.”

MacRumors reported: In a Siri meeting, Apple senior director Robby Walker acknowledged that employees might be feeling “angry, disappointed, burned out and embarrassed” following the Siri delay, but he praised the hard work of employees and the “incredibly impressive” features they developed, saying that Apple would continue to work to “ship the world’s greatest virtual assistant” to Apple users. 

The situation was described as “ugly” because the Siri features were shown off in public with marketing campaigns and TV commercials before there was fully functioning product. Siri’s new functionality was also tied to the iPhone 16 launch in advertising, and it was a feature that Apple used to promote its iPhone 16 models.

Apple decided to delay the functionality because of quality issues, with Walker telling employees that Siri’s new features were working properly 60 to 80 percent of the time.


OpenAI Pushes for Copyright Flexibility and Light AI Regulations #1806



OpenAI’s latest push for influence in Washington. With President Trump revoking Biden’s AI executive order, OpenAI is making its case for light regulations, copyright flexibility, and a stronger U.S. stance against Chinese AI competition. We’ll explore what this means for the future of AI development, government partnerships, and the ongoing legal battles over AI training data.

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Trump Family Held Deal Talks With Binance Following Crypto Exchanges’ Guilty Plea



Representatives of President Trump’s family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would put Trump in business with the firm that pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering requirements, The Wall Street Journal reported.

At the same time, Binance’s billioniare founder, Changpeng Zhao — who served four months in prison after pleading guilty to a related charge —has been pushing for the Trump administration to grant him a pardon, people familiar with the matter said. Zhao, widely known as CZ, remains Binance’s largest shareholder.

It is unclear what form the Trump family stake would take if the deal comes together or whether it would be contingent on a pardon. The possibilities include the Trumps taking the stake or the deal going through World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency venture backed up by the Trumps that launched in September, the people said.

Trump has increasingly blurred the boundaries between presidency and his business ventures. His family has been profiting from his election victory, with first lady Melania Trump signing a $40 million documentary deal and Trump seeking tens of millions in financial settlements from companies he had sued years earlier, much of which has gone to fund his presidential library.

CNBC reported: The CEO of crypto exchange Binance said he expects U.S. President Trump’s “pro-crypto” legislation in the U.S. to spur regulators in other parts of the world to follow suit.

“We have moved from a period where there’s big regulatory uncertainty and in many sense, some regulatory hostility towards the industry, to one where the largest economy of the world said ‘we want to embrace crypto,” Binance CEO Richard Teng told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal at CONVERGENCE LIVE in Singapore on Thursday.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that in addition to Bitcoin, the strategic reserve would include ether, XRP, Solana’s SOL token, and Cardano’s ADA coin.

Bitcoin prices have fallen since Trump’s announcement of a strategic crypto reserve as details of the plan fell short of expectations. Investor enthusiasm toward assets perceived to be risky has also softened more broadly due to concerns over the impact of Trump’s tariff plans.

RollingStone reported: According to a Thursday report from the Wall Street Journal, World Liberty Financial (WLF), the Trump family’s fledgling crypto venture, has explored taking a financial stake in the disgraced cryptocurrency exchange Binance. 

The Trump family has been cashing in at every opportunity since the president’s election win in November. Where his first term was riddled with notable transactions to his hotels and resorts, this time around the Trump’s are practically flaunting every new business venture that leverages their White House connections.


The Lazarus Heist Podcast



Photo by Steve Barker on Unsplash

With sources indicating that North Korea’s Lazarus Group were behind the recent cryptocurrency theft from Bybit, it’s worth revisiting the BBC’s series of podcasts, “The Lazarus Heist“.

Originally produced in two sets for 2021 and 2023, these podcasts are both entertaining and educational as to the activities of hacking groups and how they achieve their goals. These are highly trained, well-prepared and patient state-sponsored groups needing hard currency to fund their country’s regimes.

Series 1 begins with the hack of Sony Pictures all the way back in 2014 and follows the trail all across the world to an audacious bank theft partially foiled by a spelling mistake. Series 2 continues with millions in cash stolen simultaneously from ATMs all round the world.

Geek News Central has covered many of the newsworthy events in the episodes but the Lazarus Heist podcasts brings several of those outwardly unconnected events into a joined up narrative that illustrates how dangerous this group can be. Their strength isn’t necessarily their hacking skills, but rather how they organise and think things through. Definitely worth a listen to better understand the motives behind them and the tactics involved.