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Weekly#359

  • US patents hit record 333,530 granted in 2019; IBM, Samsung (not the FAANGs) lead the pack
  • Facebook Backs Off Controversial Plan to Sell Ads in WhatsApp (paywall)
  • Visa is acquiring Plaid for $5.3 billion, 2x its final private valuation
  • Renewables will be cheaper than coal by 2026 in China – study
  • 25% of users watching Netflix on their iPhones also watch Disney+
  • Grubhub sale rumors highlight the state of the struggling food-delivery industry
  • Twitch’s loss of top streamers impacts hours watched and streamed in Q4 2019, report says
  • Mojo Vision is developing AR contact lenses
  • Copilot is a subscription personal finance tracker aiming to kill Mint
  • JWT The Future 100: 2020 Report [PDF]
  • Michael Moritz backs Turkish grocery start-up ($40m funding into ultrafast delivery company Getir) (paywall)
  • Hyundai and Kia put over $110M into UK electric delivery vehicles startup Arrival 
  • Alphabet Becomes Fourth U.S. Company to Reach $1 Trillion Market Value (paywall)
  • Germany to invest 86 bln euros to upgrade ageing railway network
  • DeepMind found an AI learning technique also works in human brains…An algorithm that learns through rewards may show how our brain does too
  • These living bricks use bacteria to build themselves
  • Here’s how just four satellites could provide worldwide internet