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Veeco Instruments has announced that Osram Opto Semiconductors has ordered a multi-reactor Propel High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) Gallium Nitride (GaN) Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) System.
Company release
Sure, we all know what famous person we vaguely look like (I always get Geena Davis, which ... I wish! She's still in a "League of Her Own.") But the blandly named Google Arts & Culture app will dig through thousands of museum artworks from days gone by to see if you have a truly old-school doppelganger.
CNET
While investors pressure Apple to address youth phone addiction, experts are more optimistic about the voice-enabled smart speakers that Google and Amazon want to plunk into your living room
CNBC
We're getting a slightly clearer picture of the performance hits on PCs from the Spectre/Meltdown vulnerability patches.
Forbes
Japanese giant Softbank is planning to list its mobile phone business in Tokyo and overseas, according to the Nikkei newspaper. Softbank confirmed in a statement that the share sale is an option but no decision has yet been made.
BBC News
Duisburg Germany has signed a MoU with Huawei to work together on smart city development. Both partners will begin work to make Duisburg an innovative and digitalized Western European model city.
Company release
US lawmakers have long worried about the security risks posed the alleged ties between Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE and the country's government. To that end, Texas Representative Mike Conaway introduced a bill last week called Defending US Government Communications Act, which aims to ban US government agencies from using phones and equipment from the companies.
The Verge
At CES 2018, Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua has explained that millions of cars hitting the streets this year, simply equipped with a front-facing camera and Mobileye's new fourth-generation EyeQ system-on-chip, will play a crucial role in the delivery of a driverless future.
Company release
More than 300,000 US-based small and medium-sized businesses joined the Amazon Marketplace in 2017, and SMBs on Amazon sold billions of items to customers around the world. Half of the items sold on Amazon worldwide are from small and medium-sized businesses that offer their products through the Amazon Marketplace, many of whom also choose to use Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to tap into Amazon's global logistics network.
Company release
At CES 2018 Nvidia has unveiled details of its functional safety architecture for Nvidia Drive, its AI autonomous vehicle platform, which uses redundant and diverse functions to enable vehicles to operate safely, even in the event of faults related to the operator, environment or systems. The Nvidia Drive architecture enables automakers to build and deploy self-driving cars and trucks that are functionally safe and can be certified to international safety standards, such as ISO 26262.
Company release
At CES 2018, Huawei Consumer Business Group (CBG) has revealed that its Mate 10 Pro will be available in the US through major electronics retailers, including Best Buy, Amazon, Microsoft, Newegg and B&H beginning on February 18, with pre-orders beginning February 4. Huawei also unveiled the world's first hybrid smart home network solution. The Huawei WiFi Q2 series is a true plug-and-play Wi-Fi system designed for the entire house.
Company release
At CES 2018, Qualcomm Technologies International has announced that its Qualcomm Smart Audio Platform now supports Microsoft Cortana. The platform integrates the hardware and software required to help original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) reduce the time and cost of developing smart speakers with support for the intelligent digital assistance provided by Microsoft Cortana.
Company release
For the longest time, we've been waiting for Google to bring its Assistant to devices with a screen. After all, voice assistants are great - until you need some visual information to go with their answers. To address this, Amazon launched the Echo Show and Spot last year and now it's Google's turn. But it's not launching a Google Home with a screen. Instead, the company today announced it is working with JBL, Lenovo, LG and Sony to launch new smart displays later this year.
TechCrunch
iOS 11.2.2 is here and it provides Apple AAPL -0.37% with a much needed chance to change the script as it rolls out ??itigations' to block the Meltdown and Spectre CPU flaws which affect the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. But it also only delays a bigger reckoning which pushes even greater pressure onto the mysterious iOS 11.2.5.
Forbes
Microsoft has paused distributing its Meltdown and Spectre security updates for AMD machines after reports of PCs not booting. Microsoft's support forums have been full of complaints from PC owners with AMD processors, and the software giant has acknowledged the issues today. Microsoft is blaming AMD's documentation for the unexpected problems.
The Verge
Two big shareholders of Apple are concerned that the entrancing qualities of the iPhone have fostered a public health crisis that could hurt children-and the company as well.
Fortune
Nvidia's big push into the world of autonomous vehicles has attracted a vast amount of customers for what is still early stage technology - over 320, by the company's count. This week at CES the company announced that it's finally making Xavier, an AI chip made for self-driving vehicles that Nvidia announced in 2016, available to customers. And the company's also adding a few marquee names to its list of self-driving technology customers, including Uber and VW.
The Verge
In 1994, Intel faced a public relations crisis over an elusive mathematics glitch that affected the accuracy of calculations made by its popular Pentium computer chips. After insisting that the problem would not affect many people, the company succumbed to public pressure and recalled the chips, costing it $475 million.
New York Times
Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) continue to respond to reports today of a chip flaw in Intel's parts that could pose security risks. To recap, an article overnight by The Register said the company has a flaw in its chips that it is working to address. The report pressured Intel shares today, even though Intel refuted what it called "inaccurate media reports."
Brian Krzanich, chief executive officer of Intel, sold millions of dollars' worth of Intel stock-all he could part with under corporate bylaws-after Intel learned of Meltdown and Spectre, two related families of security flaws in Intel processors.
Ars Technica
Following Intel's disclosure that many of its chips have been vulnerable to hackers, the company said Thursday that it's been rolling out updates for most processors introduced in the past five years, with more on the way.
CNBC
"All Mac systems and iOS devices are affected, but there are no known exploits impacting customers at this time..."
Apple
Tech firms are working to fix bugs that could allow hackers to steal personal data from computer systems. Google researchers said the "serious security flaws" were in chips made by Intel, AMD and ARM, and affected devices which use them.
BBC News
A serious flaw in the design of Intel's chips will require Microsoft, Linux and Apple to update operating systems for computers around the world. It is believed to affect chips in millions of computers from the last decade.
BBC News
There is a 40% likelihood that Apple will acquire Netflix now that US President Trump's corporate tax cut has been passed, according to Citi analysts Jim Suva and Asiya Merchant.
Yahoo! Finance
Apple continues to ramp up its efforts to court developers by making it easier to create and iterate their apps for its platforms. The iPhone giant has now acquired Buddybuild, a Vancouver-based app tools startup that describes itself as "mobile iteration platform" focused on continuous integration and debugging tools - essentially giving an app development team a simple workflow for iterating and pushing their apps out into the world through GitHub, BitBucket or GitLab.
TechCrunch
NVIDIA made a pretty big change in its GeForce EULA recently and this is something that could go on to cost a lot of entities an aggregate of millions if not billions of dollars in the long run. The company recently updated their EULA which now prohibits datacenter deployment of their GeForce GPUs for everything but blockchain processing. Needless to say, this would force a shift to Quadro and Tesla's in any datacenters that were actually using GeForce cards or had planned to.
WCCF Tech
A serious design flaw and security vulnerability has been discovered in Intel's CPUs that will require an update at the operating system level to fix, reports The Register. All modern computers with Intel chips from the last 10 years appear to be affected, including those running Windows, Linux, and macOS.
Mac Rumors
Back when it launched earlier this year, the Nokia 3310 only worked on 2G networks. Then in September 2017, a new version was released that supported 3G networks, allowing it to work in the US on AT&T and T-Mobile. Now it looks like there will be another new version, this time with LTE support.
The Verge
You're forgiven if you've forgotten about the Pixel C, an Android tablet Google started selling two years ago. At its launch, it was a confounding device with clever (or, as I said in our review, "too clever") hardware saddled with software that didn't work well on a tablet. Now its dubious run has ended, as you can no longer buy it from Google's online store, as noted by Android Police.
The Verge
NVIDIA has announced plans to cease developing drivers supporting 32-bit operating systems for any GPU architecture in the near future. All NVIDIA GPU drivers published after the release 390 (due in early 2018) will only support x86-64 OSes. The decision marks an important milestone in the transition of the PC industry to 64-bit computing that has been ongoing for over a decade, but may upset some of the users who still run older machines or those that require drivers for embedded systems.
Anandtech
AMD has had a fantastic past year. Its desktop-grade Ryzen microprocessors were successful in grabbing some x86 PC market share from Intel, which, in turn, nudged AMD back into profitability. And this might just be the start of the smaller chip-maker's newfound sales momentum. Advanced Micro Devices is readying up to launch a Ryzen Refresh line-up in the first quarter of 2018 on a slightly improved 12nm node.
Seeking Alpha
Huawei Technologies, the world's third-largest smartphone maker, has said that Chinese police are conducting an investigation, after the China sales head of its smartphone unit was detained on suspicion of accepting bribes.
Reuters (via CNBC)
iPhone owners aren't happy with Apple, and they're letting the company know with lawsuits. Five iPhone users filed a lawsuit in New York yesterday and are seeking class-action status over Apple intentionally slowing down their phones as the devices' batteries aged.
The Verge
Close to a quarter of Thais are aware of QR code as a payment method - the highest in Southeast Asia - and almost half would like to use it on a regular basis, according to a study commissioned by Visa.
Bangkok Post
China's Ant Financial Services Group has tied up with international secure-payments consortium EMVCo, giving a boost to the operator of the world's largest mobile and online payments platform at a time it is pushing to expand in the global marketplace.
Caixin
Fifth-generation or 5G technology roll out is poised to radically transform the telecom sector in India, offering an array of capabilities, a senior Reliance Jio executive said.
ETTelecom
It seems like India is Google's favorite testing ground. Whether it is delivering food through Google Aero, answering searches in slow connection with Google Go or social initiatives like Internet Sathi, India has become the breeding ground for new ideas and initiatives.
PCMag India
Twenty e-wallet service providers have opened in Vietnam since since the State Bank began licensing the service two years ago. But only several million people are using e-wallets.
Vietnam Net
In early December, Apple chief executive Tim Cook toured a Shanghai factory owned by Luxshare ICT, a Chinese company that has risen from obscurity in the last decade to become a key supplier to the US tech giant. Cook praised Luxshare founder Grace Wang, who started out as a factory worker on a Foxconn production line and ended up the leader of a tech company with more than 20 locations around the world.
Nikkei Asian Review
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