Advocacy groups in the United States and the European Union issued a statement on Wednesday rallying against Google's acquisition of Fitbit. The statement was signed by twenty advocacy groups from countries around the world, primarily in the USA and Europe. Google currently has a bid in place to acquire the fitness wearable company Fitbit - but the deal's not quite done just yet.
Lululemon Athletica, the clothing company best known for its yoga apparel line, has announced plans to acquire in-home fitness company MIRROR for $500 million. MIRROR has launched an all-in-one smart fitness system designed to replace the gym, something no doubt more popular now that many people are practicing social distancing and avoiding public fitness centers.
Amazon acquired a company called Zoox to "help bring their vision of autonomous ride-hailing to reality." It's important right this minute to be extra clear, here, that Amazon did NOT just acquire the video conferencing brand Zoom - that's a different company altogether. Amazon acquired Zoox, a California-based company "working to design autonomous ride-hailing vehicles from the ground up."
AR-powered smart glasses are one of those technologies that sound and look great on Tony Stark but are a far cry from being an actual profitable product, be it in retail or even in industrial applications. Smart glasses are hard to get right, both in actual implementation but also in marketing. Even Google practically gave up on its Google Glass but now parent company Alphabet may be trying to take another stab at it by buying North, maker of wearables including the Focals smart glasses.
SiriusXM, the company still best known for its satellite radio service, has acquired another company: Simplecast. The analytics and podcast management company joins SiriusXM's own push into the increasingly crowded market, something the company says will help podcasters earn more revenue. With extra help from the SiriusXM-Pandora team and the resources they bring, Simplecast says it will be able to significantly speed up its roadmap.
Netflix has officially acquired Hollywood's iconic Egyptian Theatre following reports of its interest in the business nearly a year ago. Netflix will renovate the theater and use it for special screenings, among other things, breathing new life into the facility. American Cinematheque, the nonprofit organization that reopened Egyptian Theatre in 1998, will reportedly work alongside Netflix.
![Apple acquires Inductiv [UPDATE: Another Christopher Re group]](https://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/machinelearning-1280x720.jpg)
A startup company called Inductiv was acquired by Apple to improve the abilities and functionality of their voice assistant system Siri. Inductiv worked with artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically identify and correct errors in raw data. Engineers have begun working with Apple, according to one report, to improve Siri's speed and accuracy.
The latest major acquisition made by iPhone company Apple was that of NextVR, a company that deals primarily in the broadcast of sports events in virtual reality. Users of NextVR's platform in the past have had access to NBA games for basketball, boxing, NHRA racing, WWE (wrestling events), ICC soccer, and other events. This system is still active (for the moment) on the VR platform Oculus GO.
The folks at Proxy run a system that turns your iPhone into a secure wireless key to open doors with special digital locks. Now they've acquired the company Motiv, a company you might remember from their smart rings. They've decided to join forces to bring a more interesting future to the world, complete with a slightly more magical - and slightly more intuitive - digital means for opening doors and locks of all sorts.
After months of rumors about a potential acquisition, Walmart has announced that its Vudu digital video platform has been acquired by Fandango. The Vudu team published a brief statement about the matter on its blog, saying that Fandango will take over the platform and that there will be more details to announce in the future. At this time, though, Vudu has revealed what existing customers can expect under this acquisition.
Sanzaru Games, a California-based video game development company, has been acquired by Facebook, the company announced on Wednesday. The studio has produced a number of games over the past decade, the most recent examples including Spyro 3 Reignited and Asgard's Wrath. The studio will be tasked with developing new games for Facebook's Oculus VR gaming platform.
Twitter just acquired a group of creators operating under the title Chroma Labs. They started their business in 2018 and quickly came to prominence with their Chroma Stories app. This app allowed users to easily create high quality "story" videos for sharing on multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Twitter saw their value and moved in for the team-up.