🚁 Uber sells its aerial ride-hailing division Uber Elevate to Joby Aviation.

For Uber, the transaction comes one day after selling its autonomous-driving division known as the Advanced Technologies Group to Aurora, a self-driving car start-up.

Parting with the Advanced Technologies Group and Uber Elevate will allow the ride-hailing giant to save hundreds of millions of dollars that would have been required over the next several years to develop autonomous ride-hailing and urban air taxi services.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/air-taxi-start-up-joby-acquires-uber-elevate-.html

📈Airbnb shares debuted on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York Thursday.

The stock began trading at $146, higher than its initial-public-offering price of $68 a share.

The company ended the day worth $100.7 billion, greater than the combined market value of Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/airbnb-shares-more-than-double-in-market-debut-11607625899

🌵Oracle is the latest tech company to move its headquarters out of California.

The company said on Friday it’s moving its headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.

Oracle is one of Silicon Valley’s older success stories, founded in Santa Clara in 1977.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/11/oracle-is-moving-its-headquarters-from-silicon-valley-to-austin-texas.html

🤸‍♀️Apple’s new Fitness Plus service is out.

Fitness Plus offers a variety of guided workouts (similar to competitors like Peloton) and costs $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year.

At launch, the service features workouts in 10 categories: High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), strength, yoga, dance, core, cycling, treadmill, rowing, and “mindful cooldown.”

https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/14/22174574/apple-fitness-plus-watch-iphone-release-date-price

🚙 Amazon-owned Zoox unveiled on Monday an autonomous electric vehicle with no steering wheel that might one day be summoned with a ride-hailing app.

The vehicle can travel in either direction, with motors at each end and four-wheel steering. It is capable of operating 16 hours between charges.

Amazon acquired Zoox for $1.2 billion in June.

https://www.axios.com/zoox-driverless-autonomous-electric-vehicle-bc980691-4f20-4cad-9d15-c2b33ca5d7a8.html

🥩Apple and Facebook got beef over privacy.

With release of iOS 14.3 came an update to the App Store that shows "how developers may handle your data”.

And when it comes to Facebook app it’s a lot of data.

Follow the link below and make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom.

https://mashable.com/article/apple-ios-134-update-app-store-privacy-facebook/

📰 Facebook launched a PR assault against Apple on Wednesday, proclaiming that the iPhone maker’s upcoming changes to its mobile operating system will hurt small businesses’ ability to target advertising and app makers’ ability to offer free content.

When Apple updates iOS 14 on mobile devices early next year, it will require all apps to show a prompt allowing users to opt out of targeted advertising. People opting out of tracking will hinder Facebook’s ability to collect information it could use to personalize ads.

In full-page ads Wednesday morning in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, Facebook said it is “standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere.”

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-declares-war-on-apple-11608140590

📈Digital currency exchange Coinbase is going public.

On Thursday the company announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company’s filing comes on the heels of a surge in the price of bitcoin. On Thursday the largest cryptocurrency rallied more than 12% to top $23,000 for the first time.

Bitcoin is now up more than 200% for the year.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/17/largest-us-cryptocurrency-exchange-coinbase-files-for-ipo-as-bitcoin-soars-past-23000.html

👨‍⚕️Amazon is building a telehealth business and pitching the service to major employers.

Amazon Care started as a pilot in 2019 for just Amazon employees in Seattle, providing them with medical care at home or in person. Now, it wants to sell that service to other large companies. 

Through Amazon Care, the $1.6 trillion shipping giant is getting into the business of actual medical services for the first time, dealing with patients, their protected health information, and their doctors.

https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-amazon-efforts-to-build-amazon-care-into-a-national-telehealth-empire-2020-12

🚘 Lyft and self-driving tech company Motional announced that autonomous vehicles will be available on Lyft's ride-sharing network in multiple U.S. cities beginning in 2023.

The announcement comes less than two weeks after rival Uber pulled the plug on AV development, selling its self-driving unit to Aurora.

A small fleet of self-driving test vehicles (with a human safety driver) have been available on the Lyft network in Las Vegas for several years. Last month, Motional received permission from the state of Nevada to remove the driver from those cars.

https://www.axios.com/lyft-self-driving-taxis-2023-73cb035c-6f54-4558-bae4-2479a6c54200.html

💻 Microsoft plans to design its own chips, possibly for both its Surface PCs as well as servers.

Intel has famously had a long-running partnership with Microsoft as the primary processor maker for Windows PCs.

The report comes a month after Apple started selling PCs using its own M1 processor, instead of Intel chips. The Microsoft chips are reportedly based on technology from Arm, which Nvidia is in the process of acquiring from Softbank.

Intel dropped 6.3% on Friday following the news.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/18/intel-falls-on-report-microsoft-will-design-own-chips-for-pcs-servers.html

🚙 Apple is moving forward with self-driving car technology and is targeting 2024 to produce a passenger vehicle that could include its own breakthrough battery technology.

The iPhone maker's automotive efforts, known as Project Titan, have proceeded unevenly since 2014 when it first started to design its own vehicle from scratch. At one point, Apple drew back the effort to focus on software and reassessed its goals.

Central to Apple's strategy is a new battery design that could "radically" reduce the cost of batteries and increase the vehicle's range.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-autos-exclusive-idUSKBN28V2PY

🍏 On Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he considered selling his electric car company to Apple in recent years, but Apple CEO Tim Cook was not even interested in taking a meeting.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/22/elon-musk-pondered-sale-of-tesla-to-apple-says-tim-cook-wouldnt-meet.html

🤖 Boston Dynamics robots got moves.

See latest video from Boston Dynamics which shows its entire lineup of robots — the humanoid Atlas, the dog-shaped Spot and the Handle all come together in a coordinated dance routine.

Boston Dynamics was recently purchased by Hyundai, which bought the robotics firm from SoftBank in a $1.1 billion deal. The company was originally founded in 1992 as a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2020/12/29/22205055/boston-dynamics-robots-spot-atlas-handle-dancing-video

💵 Apple shoppers spent $1.8 billion on App Store services during a one-week span over the holiday season.

The swath of purchases, which occurred between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, was "driven largely by spending on games," the company announced Wednesday.

On New Year's Day, customers spent over $540 million, setting a new single-day record, according to Apple.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/retail/apple-shoppers-spent-1-8b-on-apps-over-one-holiday-week

💵 Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion.

Thursday’s increase in Tesla’s share price pushed Musk past Jeff Bezos, who had been the richest person since 2017 and is currently worth about $184 billion.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/07/elon-musk-is-now-the-richest-person-in-the-world-passing-jeff-bezos-.html

📱Encrypted messaging app Signal says it’s seeing a swell of new users signing up for the platform, following a tweet from Elon Musk - “Use Signal”.

The company is seeing delays in phone number verifications of new accounts across multiple cell providers.

WhatsApp users appear to be fleeing the platform in large numbers to join Signal, a nonprofit-run encrypted messaging app not owned by the largest social network on the planet.

WhatsApp has outlined a new privacy policy going into effect next month that no longer includes language indicating it will allow users to opt out of data sharing with parent company Facebook. Instead, the new policy expressly outlines how WhatsApp will share data (stuff like your phone number, profile name, and address book info) with Facebook.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/7/22218989/signal-new-signups-whatsapp-facebook-privacy-controversy-elon-musk

📉 Twitter announced Trump’s permanent suspension after trading hours Friday and it fell 6% before trading started Monday morning.

The company’s market cap closed Monday at $38.319 billion, down from $40.944 billion at Friday’s close.

That’s a $2.625 billion drop.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-much-money-was-president-trumps-twitter-account-worth-11610395998

🍿 Netflix announced Tuesday it will release 70 new original movies this year - nearly 50 more than the next closest competitor, Disney.

It says it will release at least one movie every week for the entire year.

As traditional studios remain uncertain about if and how they can release content in 2021, Netflix’s playbook has hardly changed. For as long as the pandemic lasts, Netflix will dominate the film industry, releasing more movies - with more stars - than many of its rivals combined.

https://qz.com/1956095/netflix-will-release-a-new-movie-every-week-in-2021/

📈 Shares of payments company Affirm soared 98% in its initial public offering on the Nasdaq on Wednesday.

The stock began trading at $90.90 per share and closed at $97.24. Affirm had priced its shares at $49 apiece.

Founded in 2013 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Affirm allows customers to finance online purchases that can be paid back in monthly installments without accruing compounding interest. 

Affirm said it is used by more than 6.2 million people and is “a viable alternative to credit cards” as put by Levchin.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/13/affirm-ipo-afrm-starts-trading-on-nasdaq.html

💉 A coalition known as the Vaccination Credential Initiative — which includes Microsoft, Salesforce and Oracle, as well as U.S. health care non-profit Mayo Clinic — was announced on Thursday.

The VCI said it wants to develop technology that enables individuals to obtain an encrypted digital copy of their immunization credentials that can be stored in a digital wallet of their choice, such as the Apple Wallet or Google Pay.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/14/microsoft-salesforce-and-oracle-working-on-covid-vaccination-passport.html