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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Reddit, the social media platform known for its devoted online communities and raucous debates, surprised Wall Street by turning a profit for the first time just months after going public, sending shares up 25 per cent to a record high. On a call with analysts, Reddit’s executives said that investments in its ad tech, designed to improve the performance of ads, were bearing fruit, as was its move to use “machine translation” to automatically translate its content into languages to boost its…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.In the prisoner’s dilemma, individuals who would do best by co-operating instead turn on one another, with less than optimal results. Something like that is playing out on a grand scale as giant technology companies such as Google parent Alphabet and Meta Platforms, both reporting earnings this week, duke it out for supremacy in artificial intelligence.These so-called hyperscalers, part of a group that also includes Microsoft and Amazon, have gone all-in on servers and data centres used for cloud computing and large…

This article is an on-site version of our Unhedged newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every weekday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newslettersGood morning. Oil prices fell sharply yesterday because Israel did not bomb Iranian oil facilities over the weekend. If Americans’ last trip to the petrol station before the election is surprisingly inexpensive, might that change the outcome? Email me your electoral college projections: robert.armstrong@ft.com.The Magnificent 7: place your betsAlphabet reports this afternoon, Microsoft and Meta follow tomorrow, and Apple and Amazon report on Thursday. Tesla’s (better…

Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Big Tech myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Microsoft has accused Google of running “shadow campaigns” seeking to undermine its position with regulators and politicians, the latest example of the escalating competition between the tech giants in cloud computing and data centres.Rima Alaily, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, alleged in a blog post on Monday that Google was secretly backing a lobbying group “designed to discredit Microsoft with competition authorities and policymakers and mislead the public”.“Google has gone through great lengths to obfuscate its involvement, funding, and control [of the group],”…

Evan Spiegel is battling to convince Wall Street that he can revive the fortunes of Snap, with the social media company’s value having fallen to just 1 per cent of the market capitalisation of long-standing rival Meta. The growing strength of Mark Zuckerberg’s empire threatens Spiegel’s ambitions to put Snap at the forefront of augmented reality, which he sees as the future of computing. Snapchat, a platform popular with Generation Z users, has over the past three years been hit by an advertising market downturn and privacy changes from Apple that have made it more difficult for apps to target…

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Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.No company wants a ban on their products. But a decision by Indonesia’s government to block Apple from selling its latest iPhone 16 devices in south-east Asia’s largest economy is far from disastrous, even if the timing is unfortunate.The iPhone 16 cannot be marketed in the country as Apple’s local unit is yet to fulfil the country’s 40 per cent local content requirement for smartphones, the industry ministry has ruled. The government had said earlier this month that Apple’s investment in Indonesia…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The new head of South Africa’s Naspers group will overhaul corporate culture and pay to meet an ambitious four-year target to double the market value of its investment arm Prosus, the biggest shareholder in Chinese internet giant Tencent.Fabricio Bloisi, who runs both Naspers and Prosus, told the Financial Times: “I’m here to do the next Tencent”.Naspers turned a 2001 investment of $32mn in what was then a start-up into a stake that is today worth $115bn. Prosus owns just under 26 per…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Tech stocks propelled the Nasdaq Composite to a new high on Friday for the first time since July in a sharp turnaround after falling as much as 15 per cent during the summer.The technology-heavy index rose 1.4 per cent to 18674.37, surpassing the previous intraday peak of 18671.07.“Each time we panic, the market continues to rise. At some point you stop panicking,” said Luca Paolini, chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management.Many analysts had predicted that falling interest rates would shift investors’ focus…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Microsoft is seeking to boost its video games business with the release of the latest instalment of the Call of Duty franchise on Friday, pushing to increase subscription revenues through the new game to offset falling Xbox console sales. Black Ops 6 is the first of the best-selling series to be launched on the tech giant’s Game Pass subscription service. It represents the biggest test of the company’s gaming strategy since its $75bn deal to acquire Activision Blizzard — makers of Call…