Sometime last year, Google quietly acquired a U.K. startup doing rather interesting work with sound, including a new type of speaker and haptic feedback. This technology has interesting ramifications and possible uses in Google’s consumer lineup.
Computer peripheral company Logitech has today announced that it is acquiring popular audio company Jaybird. Jaybird, for those unfamiliar, has released a variety of headphone products over recent years, most of which have been wireless. Logitech says the deal is worth $50 million in cash, with an additional earn-out of up to $45 million based on achievement of growth targets over the next two years.
Popular accessory maker Zagg today announced that it has acquired Mophie, another accessory maker best known for its battery cases and power accessories. The deal will see Zagg purchase Mophie for $100 million. Mophie CEO Daniel Huang and COO Shawn Dougherty will continue their current respective roles and will report to Zagg CEO Randy Hales.
Sony will be acquiring an Israeli chip maker called Altair Semiconductor for $212 million, the handset maker announced in an official press release this week. Altair Semiconductor is known for its advancements with LTE (Long Term Evolution) modems. They’ve been working on making LTE chips that are faster, with lower power consumption, all while at a lower cost. This possibly means that Sony can deploy LTE technology to markets that may not have it as of yet. The acquisition is slated to be all wrapped up early by February 2016, just a few weeks away.
According to a report from The Information, Google has made efforts in recent months to purchase the Impossible Foods startup. For those unfamiliar, Impossible Foods has been developing a cheeseburger made entirely out of plants, but that tastes and looks like one made out of ground beef.
CrowdOptic is one of the most well-established of the 10 current Glass for Work parters, and now the company is in acquisition talks. According to people familiar with the matter, the company has been in advanced discussions with a Fortune 500 firm that intends to build software applications for the upcoming iteration of enterprise-focused Google Glass hardware…
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Following a report on Friday morning from Reuters, rumors began flying about a potential ASUS acquisition of struggling HTC. The original report was clear, with ASUS Chief Financial Officer David Chang quoted as saying that “the chances of an actual takeover are not big…” This morning, however, HTC has come out to say matter-of-factly that it “will not consider the acquisition.”
We strongly deny the news. We didn’t contact Asusteck[sic] and will not consider the acquisition. As an international brand, HTC will continue to design world-class innovative smart devices through its pursuit of brilliance brand promise.
HTC has been struggling over the last few years, and the problems have been amplified as of late following the company’s launch of its lackluster HTC One M9 smartphone. HTC CEO Cher Wang came out to apologize publicly for the company’s poor performance earlier this year, and it slashed its performance guidance for the April-June quarter following a 20% drop in its stock early last week.
Okay, we know what you’re probably thinking – that of course he’d want Google to buy Twitter, as he’s a shareholder, and a particularly large one in Twitter, at that – and as such has a large financial interest in its success. But Chris Sacca, who has worked as the Head of Special Initiatives at Google, is a smart guy with early investments in a lot of now-successful companies including Uber, Instagram, Bitly, and many more. And he thinks that Twitter and Google would be mutually benefited if they were married together as one.
Samsung announced in a press release this evening that it has purchased LoopPay, an Apple Pay like mobile payment company. LoopPay turns existing magnetic stripe card readers into secure, contactless receivers. This means that, in an ideal world, LoopPay would be available in nearly every retailer that accepts magnetic strip cards. A specific acquisition price is unclear at this point.
An app called Odysee has been acquired by Google, and the “Platform Team” behind it will be joining the Google+ team. The app, while definitely not all too well known, let users automatically back up their photos and videos from their smartphones to the cloud as well as a home computer.
The team will continue to work on “building amazing products” at Google, but it’s not exactly clear yet what the team is going to be doing—or what parts of Odysee may or may not be making it into Google+. Auto-upload of photos to Google+ has been pushed in the company’s official app for quite some time now, so maybe the team is coming on board to flesh out and expand that functionality of the service…
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It appears that Google is about ready to jump into the kid-friendly mobile app space, as Launchpad toys has today announced that they’ve been acquired by the Mountain View company. Known for its Toontastic storytelling app for kids, the company is joining Google to “create even more amazing creativity tools for kids.”
While rumors that Samsung was in talks to acquire BlackBerry for as much as $7.5 billion ultimately proved to be untrue, the two smartphone makers remain interested in working with one another. “We want to work with BlackBerry and develop this partnership, not acquire the company,” J.K. Shin, head of Samsung’s mobile phone business, told The Wall Street Journal.
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RelativeWave, the company behind the mobile app prototyping software Form, today announced it’s joining Google. The company made an announcement on its website noting that it will continue working on the Form app and as of today make it available for free through the Mac App Store. The app previously sold for $79.
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Google reportedly purchased six office buildings from Starwood Capital Group LLC and Blackstone Group LP for $585 million, according to Bloomberg. The facilities are located at the Pacific Shores Center office park in Redwood City, California and are about 11 miles away from the search giant’s Mountain View headquarters.
Google has acquired Lift Labs, a San Francisco company that has developed eating utensils that provide “proactive care” for people with essential tremor and Parkinson’s Disease. A Google spokesperson confirmed the deal with The New York Times, saying that the company will be rolled into the search giant’s Life Sciences unit, which is part of its super secret Google X lab.
Google announced on Tuesday that it has acquired cloud-based visual effects company Zync, which provided the rendering technology behind the movies Star Trek Into Darkness and Looper. Zync will be joining the Google Cloud Platform team, bolstering the company’s cloud-based offerings for creative professionals.
Zync Render is an in-house tool that provides integrated image rendering for visual effects professionals, offering users flexible solutions and greater creative freedoms with decreased longterm overhead and startup costs. The rendering tool has been used by over a dozen feature films and hundreds of commercials.
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Google is acquiring Gecko Design, a firm that helps develop products for companies like Hewlett-Packard, Slingmedia, Dell, Fitbit and furniture maker Herman Miller. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed but the Los Gatos, California company will be rolled into Google’s X lab, which is responsible for items like Glass and the search giant’s driverless car.
Google has acquired Jetpac, a city guide application for iPhone, the app’s developers announced today (via The Next Web). The free app (and others by the Jetpac team) will be removed from the App Store in the coming days, and the service that powers it will be shut down on September 15th.
Google hasn’t said exactly what it plans to do with the company’s technology, which automatically scans users’ photos to detect local points of interest like coffee shops or “hipster hangouts.” The service featuerd data for over 6,000 cities, according to the App Store description. It seems logical, however, that Google would attempt to integrate these features with Google Maps or a location-based Google Now feature.
You can grab the Jetpac app for free on the iTunes Store, though it won’t be very useful beyond its mid-September shutdown.
YouTube has acquired a startup called Directr according to a post on the company’s website, as noted by the Wall Street Journal. Directr is a startup that makes two iOS apps for video creation—one focused on everyday users, and the other designed with small business marketing videos in mind.
The company says that for now, “everything you love about Directr is staying the same.” Directr’s current employees, however, will be joining the YouTube video ads team. Neither party has said how much the buyout cost yet, but Directr has confirmed that despite the change of ownership, it will continue to offer its current apps, which will now be available for free.
According to VentureBeat, citing sources familiar with the matter, Google has reached an agreement with Twitch to acquire the live streaming video platform for $1 billion. While the deal appears to have been finalized, the two companies have yet to make a formal announcement regarding the acquisition. Google’s YouTube division is reportedly in charge of the acquisition.
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Google has acquired 3D graphics firm drawElements, which offers cutting-edge GPU quality analysis solutions. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, although ArcticStartup reports that it has narrowed down the dollar value to eight figures.
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According to a report from TechCrunch, Samsung is in talks with SmartThings to acquire the smart home platform for around $200 million. The report originally claimed that the deal was completed, but TechCrunch has since updated the report to note a second source says the talks are still ongoing.
SmartThings is a home automation platform that enables Android and iOS users to effortlessly control their home from one simple app, including lights, locks, electronics, appliances and other connected home devices. The app can also detect motion, alert you of danger and monitor how many family members are home at any given time.
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According to a new report out of the Wall Street Jounral, speech and dictation service Nuance Communications has held acquisition talks with Samsung and has been exploring the possibility of a sale. It is widely speculated that the Apple’s virtual assistant Siri is powered by Nuance in the back-end. Samsung started partnering with Nuance late in 2013 for the voice recognition functionalities on its Galaxy Gear smart watch and Galaxy Note 3 smartphone.
After several months of rumors, Sprint is reportedly finally nearing a deal to acquire T-Mobile USA. The two have reportedly been in negotiations for awhile now, but they have apparently finally reached an agreeable number. The deal, as it stands now, would have Sprint acquiring the Uncarrier for $31.3 billion. T-Mobile currently has about $15 billion in debt and $5 billion in cash. Sprint is valuing the company at roughly $40 a share.
