Softbank

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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Some might presume that AMD and even Qualcomm ARE Intel's greatest rivals but, in truth, it might be the entire ARM world that has already silently surpassed the PC chipmaker. The ARM instruction set architecture or ISA is what drives many of the world's devices, from smartphones to routers to IoT to in-vehicle infotainment to supercomputers. ALL of these pay a debt, quite literally, to Arm, formerly ARM Holdings, whose owner Softbank is now reportedly looking for buyers, a list that includes NVIDIA and even Apple.

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The past weeks have been great for ARM, the designers of the most-used processors in the mobile and embedded world. From Apple's switch to its own ARM-based Silicon to powering the world's fastest supercomputer, ARM seems poised to become an even bigger threat to Intel than AMD was. Perhaps emboldened by that newfound prestige, the company has decided to stay focused on what it does best and spin off from that other popular IT market, the Internet of Things.

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It would appear that the United States Government is putting pressure on Huawei not only inside the USA, but abroad as well. On concerns that the brand Huawei is a sort of spy for the Chinese state, the US Government effectively carpet-bombed Huawei out of North America - getting all major carriers to drop all Huawei brand products in the process. Now it would seem that the US government wants not only T-Mobile and Sprint to continue to avoid Huawei, it wants their parent companies to drop Huawei hardware as well.

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Sharp heard you complaining about smartphone display notches and clearly decided to really give you something to moan about, with the new Sharp Aquos R2 Compact having not one but two of the screen cut-outs. The diminutive Android phone has one of Sharp's well-esteemed IGZO LCD displays, but to stay true to its "Compact" billing it takes bites out of that panel top and bottom.

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Toyota is the biggest Japanese automotive manufacturer and Softbank is one of the biggest tech firms in the country. The two firms have announced they have tied up to develop a platform that will allow the operation of self-driving vehicles. The duo sees these vehicles being used as mobile shops, hospitals, and other services in the future where fewer people control their own vehicles.

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GM Cruse is getting a $2.25bn injection from SoftBank, as General Motors' autonomous driving company prepares for its commercial launch in 2019. The investment - which comes alongside $1.1bn more from GM itself - sees GM Cruise valued at $11.5bn overall, with the SoftBank Vision Fund taking an almost 20-percent stake in the firm.

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After several months of negotiations, Japanese tech firm SoftBank will be acquiring a 20% stake in Uber as part of an investment deal with the troubled ride hailing company. Uber's many problems — which have been seen throughout 2017, including numerous reports of sexism, illegal business tactics, and questionable software — are also reflected in the company's updated valuation, which has dropped from roughly $70 billion to $48 billion.

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It looks one of the largest mergers between US mobile carriers in recent history just wasn't meant to be. Both T-Mobile and Sprint have announced that they won't be moving forward with their plans, and have finally called off negotiations following months of back-and-forth discussions. The two companies have jointly stated that they were "unable to find mutually agreeable terms."

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Failure to agree on favorable ownership terms will result in SoftBank calling off merger talks between Sprint and T-Mobile, according to sources who say the change may happen tomorrow. SoftBank will itself propose ending the talks with Deutsche Telekom, the sources claim, saying the two companies have failed to make a deal over ownership of the entity that would result from the merger.

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One of SoftBank's favorite pastimes seems to be buying up other companies, so it's not really much of a surprise to hear that it might be close to striking a deal with Uber. This doesn't appear to be a Sprint-scale buyout, where SoftBank is looking to acquire a majority stake in Uber. Instead, it could own as much as 20% of the company by the time everything is said and done.

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Robotics aficionados may have mixed feelings right now. On the one hand, Alphabet, Google's parent compny has just sold Boston Dynamics, potentially saving the robotics company from descending into obsolescence in the company. On the other hand, the buyer is none other than Japan's Softbank, which may raise a few eyebrows within the tech industry and raising the biggest question of all: what does Softbank plan to do with Boston Dynamics' giant robots?

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