Hermes wins permanent ban on 'MetaBirkin' NFT sales

Luxury brand Hermes has won a legal case in the US to permanently block artist Mason Rothschild's sale of MetaBirkin non-fungible tokens (NFTs). A US district judge agreed that the NFT violated the French luxury house's trademark rights. Rothschild's defence that the works were an absurdist statement on luxury goods and immune from the lawsuit was countered by the judge. The verdict means that Rothschild must stop marketing the NFTs and hand over remaining tokens and profits. https://ift.tt/luvQSBL

Sources: Mark Zuckerberg is using Instagram to promote an edgier image to court the "tech bros" captivated by Elon Musk's online antagonism and offline antics (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Sources: Mark Zuckerberg is using Instagram to promote an edgier image to court the “tech bros” captivated by Elon Musk's online antagonism and offline antics  —  Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has been trying to appear more relevant among the tech elite

Sources: IBM is close to a deal to acquire cloud-based IT management startup Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for $5B; Vista acquired Apptio for $2B in 2019 (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Sources: IBM is close to a deal to acquire cloud-based IT management startup Apptio from Vista Equity Partners for ~$5B; Vista acquired Apptio for ~$2B in 2019  —  Purchase of Apptio, owned by private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners, could be finalized over the weekend

Research: 81% of tech companies with under 5K employees allow remote work or have only remote options while just 26% with 25K employees are fully flexible (Rani Molla/Vox)

Rani Molla / Vox:
Research: 81% of tech companies with under 5K employees allow remote work or have only remote options, while just 26% with 25K+ employees are fully flexible  —  How small tech companies are using remote work to compete with the big guys.  —  It used to be that Big Tech companies like Google …

Watch: PM Modi meets Apple Google Microsoft CEOs

US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with top US and Indian tech executives, including Apple's Tim Cook, Google's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella among others in Washington. Biden hailed technological cooperation between India and the US and expressed optimism about their joint partnership. Pichai announced that Google is investing $10 billion in India's digitisation fund and thanked Modi for his vision, which he said serves as a blueprint for other countries. Nadella and Modi discussed how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to enhance the lives of Indians. https://ift.tt/WfR7adF

How YouTube updating its policy for fan accounts will help users

YouTube is making it mandatory for fan channels on the platform to make it "obvious in their channel name or handle that the channel doesn't represent the original creator, artist or entity." For viewers, this is a welcoming change because it will ensure that they are not misled by the channels they interact with and follow. This update will take effect from August 21. https://ift.tt/EDq1zro