May’19 Startup Funding: Mega-Funding Rounds Continue


In May, 20 startups enjoyed the distinction of getting a mega-round of $100 million or more in private funding. Those 20 companies together took in more than $6.65 billion. There were two billion-dollar investments in recent weeks. GM Cruise, the autonomous vehicle startup, received $1.15 billion in new funding from General Motors, Honda Motor, the SoftBank Vision Fund, T. Rowe Price Asso... » read more

Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Packaging and test In the rankings, ASE was the top OSAT in terms of sales in the first quarter of 2019, according to TrendForce. Amkor and JCET were next in the rankings. “Judging from the falling phone sales 1Q19 impacted by the U.S.-China trade dispute and the oversupply situation in memory markets, the total revenue of the top ten businesses in packaging and testing are predicted to st... » read more

Here Come The Economists


Big data is undergoing some big changes. For years, the challenge was getting enough good data to create models for everything from Wall Street trends to traffic routing. But with an influx of data from billions of sensors and electronic transactions, data is no longer in short supply. In fact, there is so much data pouring in that companies need to figure out what to do with it. That requi... » read more

Making AI More Dependable


Ira Leventhal, vice president of Advantest’s new concept product initiative, looks at why AI has taken so long to get going, what role it will play in improving the reliability of all chips, and how to use AI to improve the reliability of AI chips themselves. » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things AT&T reports the activation of its narrowband Internet of Things network in the U.S. The carrier upgraded its 4G LTE cell sites across the country. It now offers two low-power wide-area networks to business customers, including its LTE-M network in Mexico and the U.S. “Both networks are designed for the IoT within licensed spectrum and provide carrier-grade security,�... » read more

April’19 Startup Funding: Corporate Gushers


It was another rich month for startups, large and small. In April’s top 11 funding rounds, five were investments by big corporations or corporate venture capital funds—an investor consortium led by the SoftBank Vision Fund, PayPal, Ford Motor, NTT DoCoMo, and HAPSMobile, a joint venture of SoftBank Group and AeroVironment. Those 11 investments totaled $3.74 billion. Intel Capital was als... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Wing received an Air Carrier Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to begin making commercial deliveries with drones. The Alphabet unit is cleared to deliver packages in southwestern Virginia. Wing has had a pilot program going in the vicinity of Canberra, Australia, and was recently permitted to make commercial deliveries with unmanned aerial vehicles in th... » read more

Week in Review: IoT, Security, Auto


Internet of Things Smart-building technology is a factor in marketing new facilities to prospective tenants. The new Cambridge Crossing development in Cambridge, Mass., aspires to attract tech-oriented tenants much like nearby Kendall Square, this analysis notes. Philips has agreed to lease seven floors in Cambridge Crossing’s first office building, making that location its North American he... » read more

Preparing For War On The Edge


War clouds are gathering over the edge of the network. The rush by the reigning giants of data—IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Alibaba, Baidu, Microsoft and Apple—to control the cloud by building mammoth hyperscale data centers  is being met with uncertainty at the edge of the network. In fact, just the emergence of the edge could mean that all bets are off when it comes to data dominance. It... » read more

Racing To The Edge


The race is on to win a piece of the edge, despite the fact that there is no consistent definition of where the edge begins and ends or how the various pieces will be integrated or ultimately tested. The edge concept originated with the Internet of Things, where the initial idea was that tens of billions of dumb sensors would communicate through gateways to the cloud. That idea persisted unt... » read more

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