Around the web
11 Sep 201810 Sep 20187 Sep 20186 Sep 20185 Sep 20184 Sep 20183 Sep 201831 Aug 2018
Renesas Electronics and Integrated Device Technology have announced they have signed a definitive agreement under which Renesas will acquire IDT for US$49.00 per share in an all-cash transaction representing an equity value of approximately US$6.7 billion.
Company release
Andrew Moore, dean of the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, is leaving his university post at the end of the year to become the chief of Google Cloud AI. He'll succeed Fei-Fei Li, who will return to her professorship at Stanford and maintain an advisory role with Google.
ZDNet
Qualcomm Technologies has launched the next-generation Snapdragon Wear 3100 Platform for smartwatches. The platform is based on a new ultra-low power system architecture designed to deliver a rich interactive mode, new personalized experiences, and extended battery life.
Company release
The company's ultimate objective is to displace lithium-ion as the battery of choice for high performance, mobile power applications.
Company release
Intel has announced the acquisition of NetSpeed Systems, a San Jose, California-based provider of SoC design tools and interconnect fabric IP. Deal terms were not disclosed.
Company release
Shares of Apple suppliers fell across Asia on Monday after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted that the tech giant should make products in the United States if it wanted to avoid tariffs on Chinese imports.
Reuters
Jack Ma, the executive chairman of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, will step down in a year, the company has confirmed. The news follows conflicting reports over the weekend on the timing of his exit.
BBC News
The 7th amendment to the WSA (Wafer Supply Agreement) could give AMD even more freedom to tap TSMC and Samsung for fabrication
WCCF Tech
Google has sent out invites for an October 9 event that will almost certainly be the official announcement of the thoroughly leaked Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL smartphones.
The Verge
Dell's latest earnings are unlikely to diffuse a brewing shareholder mutiny. The tech giant is attempting to return to public markets via a takeover of the DVMT tracking stock it created to finance its 2016 buyout of data-storage company EMC Corp.
Bloomberg
Giving your BMW a name is going to be a bit more complicated once the company's Intelligent Personal Assistant arrives in the spring of 2019.
Forbes
Chipmaker Broadcom gave a quarterly sales forecast that topped analysts' estimates on strong demand for data-center semiconductors. The stock rallied in extended trading, following an earlier sell-off in chip industry shares.
Bloomberg
At least nine people are dead and 31 unaccounted for in Hokkaido after a magnitude 6.7 earthquake - reaching the maximum 7 on Japan's seismic intensity scale in some areas - caused landslides that engulfed houses early on Thursday.
The Japan Times
One worker was killed and two others remain unconscious after being exposed to carbon dioxide in a Samsung Electronics semiconductor factory southeast of Seoul, authorities said Tuesday.
Yonhap News
The European Union approved Apple's planned acquisition of British music discovery app Shazam on Thursday.
Reuters
Facebook's first Asian datacenter will be in Singapore
Venturebeat
IBM and a start-up have launched a blockchain-based app that lets patients eventually sell anonymized data to pharmaceutical companies, researchers and others while retaining greater control over privacy.
Computerworld
IDC remains optimistic about VR--especially for the enterprise--but the data doesn't look so hot.
ZDNet
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. "will not rule out the possibility" of buying a memory chip company, Chairman Mark Liu told the Nikkei Asian Review.
Nikkei Asian Review
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday that domestic flights at Kansai International Airport, which closed down after powerful Typhoon Jebi flooded the runway and tarmac, will resume operations by the end of Friday. The announcement came as speculation was rife that the Kansai airport, one of the biggest airports in Japan, will not be able to resume operations for days or possibly weeks.
The Japan Times
Merger of Unicom with China Telecom is said to be reviewed
Bloomberg
Intel has begun narrowing its search for a new chief executive officer and could bring in an outsider to lead the world's second-biggest chipmaker for the first time.
Bloomberg
A promising sign for cross-platform VR
The Verge
Facebook has accused BlackBerry of stealing its voice-messaging technology in its instant messaging app.
TechCrunch
Veeco Instruments has announced that John Peeler, chairman and CEO, will transition to the role of executive chairman, effective October 1, 2018. William J Miller, currently president, will become CEO and will join the company's board of directors bringing the size of the board to eight.
Company release
Local production was also hit, with Toyota Motor halting operations at most of its group plants, and Honda Motor halting its Suzuka plant in Mie prefecture. Kyocera, Murata Manufacturing, Panasonic and Shiseido were among other manufacturers shutting some of their facilities.
Bloomberg
Uber is to block customers in Australia and New Zealand from its ride service if they have a low passenger rating. The move is aimed at improving passenger behaviour, the company said.
BBC News
Typhoon Jebi on Tuesday struck the heart of one of Japan's largest metro areas, killing 10 people and shutting down Osaka's main international airport indefinitely. The storm also shuttered shops, factories and amusement parks.
Nikkei Asian Review
The international pact - the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, known as the so-called "Five Eyes" group of nations - quietly issued the memo last week demanding that providers "create customized solutions, tailored to their individual system architectures that are capable of meeting lawful access requirements."
TechCrunch
China's southwestern city of Chongqing plans to establish a 50 billion yuan ($7.3 billion) fund to help develop the semiconductor industry.
Reuters
At the 67th International Motor Show for Commercial Vehicles in Hanover, the technology company Continental will showcase the further development of ContiConnect, its digital tire monitoring platform. The portfolio will be enhanced by a new solution that can be integrated into existing systems. With this solution, Continental is fulfilling the wishes of fleet customers to have digital tire monitoring built directly into existing fleet management systems.
Automotive World
TV used to be the entertainment center of the home, but as mainstream technology has evolved to include smartphones, streaming, and smart speakers, the television has become less essential for many consumers. This is something Toshiba hopes to rectify with its latest range of high-spec TVs, including its first ever 8K TV concept model.
Techradar
This is the latest report from Jon Peddie Research on the GPUs used in PCs. It is reporting on the results of Q2'18 GPU shipments worldwide. Overall GPU shipments decreased -1.5% from last quarter, AMD decreased -12.3%, Nvidia decreased -7% and Intel, increased 3%.
Jon Peddie Research
Renesas Electronics is considering an acquisition of Integrated Device Technology to expand beyond the automotive sector.
Bloomberg
LG Electronics is looking to significantly increase its global automotive component sales by targeting growth segments such as autonomous driving. Company CEO Jo Seong-jin, speaking at the IFA 2018, said he was considering joining forces with US electronics company Nvidia to expand in the self-driving sector.
Just Auto
The giveaway comes from GalaxyClub digging into the database of popular benchmarking software GFXBench. It discovered Samsung is already testing Android 9.0 Pie on the Galaxy S9 Plus less than a month after the software was released by Google.
Forbes
Got an iPhone 8 - not iPhone 8 Plus - that's acting up on you? Maybe it's crashing, the screen is freezing, or won't even fire up? Well, you might be in luck because Apple has just kicked off a repair program.
ZDNet
Amazon executive Daniel Rausch stood onstage before a crowd of hundreds at Berlin's IFA tech show Saturday to share a few big numbers about Alexa.
CNET
Vodafone's Australian operations will become part of a new telecoms giant. Under a US$11bn merger Vodafone Hutchison Australia and TPG Telecom will create a mobile, fixed-line and broadband provider with the scale to rival Telstra and Optus.
BBC News
Microsoft has announced a policy requiring its contractors to offer employees a minimum of 12 weeks paid parental leave, paying them up to US$1,000 a week.
The Guardian
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