Acquisitions

Putting all speculation to rest, NVIDIA has finally announced that it is making an official bid to acquire Arm Limited from SoftBank. While the final say will be with regulators, this would mean that NVIDIA could soon be the owner of the intellectual property that pretty much powers the world's smartphones, cars, and many embedded devices. That does raise concerns about NVIDIA's hold on such IP and the computer graphics tech giant promises it will be business as usual as far as that licensing business goes.

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That the US government under President Trump wants to ban TikTok in the country is no surprise. That it wants TikTok to sell to a US company in order to escape that ban, a deal that includes giving the US Treasury some percentage, is not a shocker either. What was rather unexpected was that Microsoft is apparently so interested in buying up the popular short-video social network that CEO Satya Nadella personally talked with government officials about it. It turns out, Twitter is another prospective buyer and it might actually be a better fit for a TikTok owner. Presuming, of course, it could even buy it.

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Netflix is on the verge of acquiring a new movie from Disney's 20th Century Studios, a report claims, a transaction that would see the thriller debut on Netflix's own platform. Called The Woman in the Window, the movie directed by Joe Wright stars Amy Adams -- and it is, sadly, the last book adaptation from the Fox 2000 division Disney shut down after acquiring Fox.

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Dish, the company is best known for its satellite television service, has announced the acquisition of Ting Mobile, a prepaid carrier that offers a unique pay-per-usage subscription model. Tucows, the previous owner of Ting Mobile, is onboard to serve as Dish's technology partner for its own retail wireless business. What does this mean for existing Ting Mobile customers? Read on to find out.

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It's a bit strange to hear that Arm, whose chip designs and computer instruction set architecture or ISA has been quickly overtaking the computing world, might soon be sold off despite its growing popularity and ubiquity. That is exactly the case, however, for the England-based company who just four years ago was acquired by Japanese conglomerate Softbank. The latter has reportedly been in talks with many potential buyers, including Apple, but one name keeps rising to the top. NVIDIA, however, may be facing an uphill battle if it does make a formal bid for Arm Technologies.

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Just like Google, Microsoft hasn't had any real success with building a social networking network. In fact, it barely even tried beyond the brief research experiment So.cl and the acquisition of an employment-centric LinkedIn. If it weren't for all the focus that TikTok came under due to threats of a US ban, Microsoft's intention of purchasing a large part of the popular video-based network would have never come to light until the deal was sealed. Curiously, Redmond seems really bent on pushing through with those plans to the point of publicly talking about it in the face of US President Trump's threats.

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It has been more than half a year since Google announced its plans to acquire popular wearable brand Fitbit but that deal may be in danger of falling through. That is if privacy advocates have their way and convince the European Commission of the risks that this deal would entail. Although it may not have been legally or technically required to do, Google is pledging to exclude Fitbit data from any advertising purpose in order to get on the Commission's good graces.

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SiriusXM has announced yet another audio-related acquisition, this one involving popular podcasting app Stitcher. As with PocketCasts, Google Podcasts, and many other apps, Stitcher is a popular platform for finding and downloading podcasts...something SiriusXM has heavily set its focus on. The news of its Stitcher acquisition comes only days after the company revealed that it has acquired podcast analytics company Simplecast.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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