Google Inc said on Tuesday it was acquiring satellite company Skybox Imaging for US$500 million in cash, the Internet company’s second high-profile acquisition of an aerospace company this year.
Google said that Skybox’s satellites would provide images for Google’s online mapping service. Google, the world’s No. 1 Internet search engine, said that Skybox’s technology could also eventually be used to provide Internet access and help with disaster relief.
The acquisition of the five-year old company comes as Google and rival Facebook Inc are racing to snap up satellite and drone companies in an expensive effort to expand the reach of their businesses.
In April, Google acquired Titan Aerospace, a New Mexico-based maker of solar-powered drones, for an undisclosed sum. Google has also launched a small network of balloons designed to deliver Internet access over the Southern Hemisphere.
Facebook, the world’s No. 1 Internet social network, announced in March that it had created a special “Connectivity lab” project tasked with developing satellites, drones and other technology that could be used to beam Internet connectivity to people in underdeveloped parts of the world.
Skybox has built satellites packed with sensors and camera electronics that take high-resolution images and video of the earth, but which it says are smaller and lighter than traditional satellites.
The company, which like Google is based in Mountain View, California, has launched one satellite and had planned to launch a constellation of 24 satellites, according to the company’s Web site.
“The time is right to join a company who can challenge us to think even bigger and bolder, and who can support us in accelerating our ambitious vision,” Skybox said on in its Web site on Tuesday in a message announcing the deal with Google.
Google said the deal’s closing is subject to regulatory approvals in the US.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day