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Weekly#194

  • Between 2011 and the third quarter of 2016, the percentage of tech deals with Chinese investment grew from 1.7% to 4.1%
  • Airbnb in Talks to Buy China Rival Xiaozhu
  • Amazon in Talks to Buy Dubai’s Souq.com in $1 Billion Deal
  • Skyscanner acquired for £1.4 billion by China’s Ctrip
  • Twitter: The % of mobile-only shoppers is astonishing. 50%+ for many of the top 15 retailers.
  • Twitter: Two-thirds (CEOs) said they believe technology will create greater value in the future than their workforce will, and 44% believe that automation, artificial intelligence and robotics will make people “largely irrelevant” in the years to come.
  • Twitter: Friday through Dec 25, estimated 1,500,000,000 packages will be delivered in the US by UPS+FEDEX+USPS (source: @parcelpending via @CNBC)
  • Stripe Inc., whose software is used by businesses to accept and track digital payments, will be valued at $9.2 billion in a new funding round that is being completed, the company said.
  • Universities’ AI Talent Poached by Tech Giants (Google, Baidu, Facebook lure away top computer science researchers responsible for training students)
  • Google Brain AI is now using its own language to translate between languages
  • Apple raked in a record 91 per cent of all smartphone profits in the third quarter
  • Japan plans supercomputer to leap into technology future
  • In the future, will farming be fully automated?
  • Tesla hires HoloLens designer, second Microsoft employee from the augmented reality program
  • Voice search has created a huge vulnerability at the heart of Google’s business