10 things in tech you need to know today

Palantir CEO Alex Karp.

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1. Palantir officially laid out its plans to go public in a direct listing. Sources previously told Business Insider that shares could begin trading as soon as September 24.
2. Palantir's CEO wrote Silicon Valley companies are unpatriotic "engineering elites" and allied the company with the Trump administration. Palantir, which has several high-profile contracts with agencies like the Pentagon and ICE, claimed in the filing that other tech companies were less loyal to US interests.
3. Jack Ma's Ant Group filed for its IPO, which could reportedly be the biggest ever. The company is targeting a $225 billion valuation and could raise as much as $30 billion in the offering if demand holds up, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
4. Customs and Border Protection paid $476,000 to Venntel, a firm that gathers and sells location data from people's phones, according to government procurement records published this month. Venntel is currently being investigated by House lawmakers, who have raised concerns about its business of collecting people's location data and selling it to government agencies and other third parties.
5. Investors in TikTok's parent company are reportedly pushing for Trump-friendly Oracle to acquire the viral-video app. TikTok is facing pressure to sell off its US operations in the face of Donald Trump's executive order threatening to ban the app.
6. Netflix was reportedly approached by TikTok to acquire its US operations. According to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix passed on the deal.
7. A new, more powerful Nintendo Switch is reportedly coming in 2021. The new version of the wildly popular Nintendo console could be capable of outputting 4K visuals, a report in Bloomberg said, and come with increased processing power.
8. Business schools concerned about attracting MBA students are scrambling to improve their online courses during COVID-19. Executive-education startup Jolt said it has held talks with numerous leading business schools about helping to improve their online offerings.
9. Israeli firm Cellebrite has been accused of selling software which was used to hack into the phones of 4,000 Hong Kong citizens, MIT Tech review reports. Beijing's recent crackdown on Hong Kong allows authorities broad powers to limit free speech.
10. Elon Musk tweeted there will be a live demonstration from Neuralink, his brain chip interface company, on Friday. Musk said there will be a webcast of a "working Neuralink device" on Friday at 3 p.m. Pacific time.

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