Industry News - Week of Feb. 12, 2018
Qualcomm rejects latest takeover bid; Chinese police use specs to ID suspects; Amazon patents device to track worker movements; Google Flights gets smarter.
Qualcomm Rejects $121 Billion Buyout
After substantially sweetening its offer, semiconductor giant Broadcom's hostile takeover bid of rival Qualcomm has been rebuffed again.
Police In China Using Facial Recognition Glasses, Terminator Style
Assuming the reports are not communist propaganda, railway police in China are using sunglasses that use facial recognition software to finger suspects in a backend database.
Amazon Wristband Tracks Worker Hand Movement
Mail-order giant Amazon was granted a pair of patents last month, one for a wearable device designed to track the hands of workers, and another to vibrate if their hands do something wrong.
MIT's Technology Review reported late last month that it is tracking a particularly malicious piece of malware that turns household appliances into zombies. Be afraid.
Google Adds Intelligence, Aggregated Data to Google Flights
Google is tapping into third-party aggregators and adding artificial intelligence to its Google Flights service, reportedly as a means to provide more timely flight information to travelers.
Now in preview mode, the Android KTX extensions provide an API later and other enhancements to make writing Kotlin code for Android "more concise, idiomatic and pleasant," according to the Developers Blog.
Edward Correia