Foxconn Offers $5.3 Billion to Take Over Sharp (WSJ)
Uber Prepares Meal-Delivery Service for 10 U.S. Cities
Customers in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere will be able to use dedicated UberEats app (WSJ)
The Obama administration is proposing to spend nearly $4 billion in a decade to accelerate the acceptance of driverless cars on U.S. roads and curb traffic fatalities and travel delays. (WSJ)
Google mapped out a massive model city with a mini Street View car and it’s incredible (Business Insider)
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Netflix just announced its first comedy show from a YouTube star (Business Insider)
Microsoft has finished rolling out Skype Translator to all Windows users (Business Insider)
China’s Xiaomi missed its target for 2015 and shipped just over 70 million handsets (Business Insider)
YouTube, Netflix Claim 55% Of Total North American Downstream Internet Traffic
Fitbit Takes 18% Stock Hit For Invading Apple’s Personal Smartwatch Space (TechCrunch)
Lenovo Is Making The First Google Project Tango Phone (TechCrunch)
(Project Tango combines 3D motion tracking with depth sensing to give your mobile device the ability to know where it is and how it moves through space.)
2016: the year when VR goes from virtual to reality (BBC)
LG Display, Samsung Display to supply OLED screens for iPhones (Reuters)
U.S. Internet connection speeds have tripled over 3-1/2 years to keep up with consumer demands for streaming video and downloading content but the United States still lags many other countries.The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in a report on Wednesday average download connection speeds had increased to nearly 31 megabits per second (Mbps) in September 2014 from about 10 Mbps in March 2011. (Reuters)
Amazon added 3 million Prime members in the third week of December, the company announced Monday, signaling its $99 annual subscription for delivery discounts as well as video and music streaming continues to draw shoppers as spending shifts online. (Bloomberg)
Google operates one of the world’s biggest networks of computers. But its business of renting time on those computers to others—a concept known as cloud computing—lags far behind Amazon.com Inc. and others.In its latest effort to catch up, Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., is turning to Diane Greene, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who built VMware Inc. into a corporate-computing powerhouse. Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai is giving Ms. Greene unusual authority over the company’s cloud efforts, including oversight of engineering, sales, support and marketing.Her most important role at Google isn’t on the organization chart: teaching Google how to sell to companies. (WSJ)
Circle and KoalaSafe block sites, set time limits and keep tabs on your children’s devices
New devices from Circle and KoalaSafe let you monitor and regulate Internet activity on any device in your home network. (WSJ)
Mobile, ecommerce,drones, 3D Printing, driverless, robots… Tech touching more parts of life & biz in 2015 Via @AFPpic.twitter.com/dndCUXVqud
Star Wars Nerd Designs Killer Flags for More Than 100 of the Saga’s Planets (Wired) (Scott Kelly)
Samsung’s Bet on Biotechnology, Its goal: to become the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of biologic drugs—which are made from living cells, blood components and tissue as opposed to chemicals—in order to treat ailments from cancer to arthritis. (WSJ)
The chief operating officer, now a No. 2 at the company, is Senior Vice President Jeff Williams, a longtime trusted lieutenant of Chief Executive Tim Cook. (WSJ)
The Secret History of World War II-Era Drones (Wired)
Bitcoin’s Creator Satoshi Nakamoto Is Probably This Unknown Australian Genius. (Wired)
Google’s Verily Is Spinning Off ‘Verb,’ a Secretive Robot-Surgery Startup collaboration with Johnson & Johnson, and it aims to make robots better surgical assistants. (Wired)
Lego’s Fantastic New Kits Let You Recreate Skylines Like NYC’s (Wired)
Beautiful NASA Visualization Predicts Space Weather Around Pluto (Wired)
Atlassian Closes Up 32%, Valuing The Company At $5.8B (TechCrunch)
Samsung joins the self-driving car race (Mashable)
Augmented Reality Company Magic Leap Raising $827 Million (TechCrunch)
tvOS App Store After One Month: 2,624 Apps in Total, Entertainment Apps Most Popular With Consumers (MacRumors)
Ford to Invest $4.5 Billion in Electrified Vehicles by 2020
Samsung agreed to pay Apple $ 548 million in five-year-long patent dispute (WSJ)
Porsche is officially in the race to create a more mainstream electric car industry by the end of the decade. The German company—owned by Volkswagen—says it will spend $1 billion to create the Mission E, an electric that will go from zero to 100 km per hour (62 mph) in 3.5 seconds, travel 300 miles on a single charge, and recharge 80% of its battery in 15 minutes. (QZ)
Facebook has begun rolling out a new feature on its social network which allows users to stream live video.(BBC)
Google has launched its first wi-fi network in Uganda’s capital Kampala, in 120 key locations.Official statistics show Uganda has about 8.5 million internet users, making up 23% of the population. (BBC)
Microsoft PowerApps, a set of applications that the company described in a job listing as the “next billion dollar business for cloud and enterprise,” is launched
According to a press release, PowerApps gives developers the ability to build custom native apps that can run across mobile and web.The goal of the service is to let businesses find, and harness, data throughout the organisation — which includes both on-premise and Software-as-a-Service apps — without writing any code. (Business Insider)
The best science fiction, as picked by 20 A.I. experts (Business Insider)
Alphabet Inc.’s Google unveiled technology Wednesday that lets users search inside and use mobile apps without downloading them, its latest effort to extend its search-and-advertising machine on smartphones. (WSJ)
Fleets of incredibly large wind turbines could produce a third of all UK power by 2030 (QZ)
Sony Considers Making PS2 Games Playable on PS4 (WSJ)
Sprint to Get Cash Infusion With Deal to Sell and Lease Back Devices (WSJ)
