Apple, Tesla Fighting Over Top Employees
Apple and Tesla have been battling to recruit top talent from each other, according to a new report from Bloomberg Business. Tesla has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than they have from any other company.
The company has hired at least 150 former Apple employees, more than from any other company, even carmakers. The former Apple staffers work in many areas of the 6,000-employee automaker, including engineering and law. “From a design philosophy, [Apple] is relatively closely aligned,” says Musk, Tesla’s co-founder and chief executive officer. Apple declined to comment for this story.
Former Apple employees say their decision to join Tesla was based on the company’s electric cars and CEO Elon Musk, who is a similar figure to Jobs. Like Jobs, Musk pays a great deal of attention to the details of his products and is a strong, visionary leader. Musk reportedly has a soft spot for Apple and enjoys comparisons to Steve Jobs as well, one former Tesla employee tells Bloomberg.
Apple’s influence can be felt in the 17-inch touchscreen installed in Tesla’s cars as well as its retail stores, both of which had former Apple employees in key roles. High profile former Apple employees at Tesla include Doug Field, Apple’s former VP of Mac Hardware Engineering, who leads new vehicle development at the car company. Using top Silicon Valley talent, like former employees at Apple, allows Tesla to get a leg-up on competitors in the automobile industry.
While Tesla has had success recruiting talent from Apple, Musk says that Apple has hired “very few people” from the car company despite offering $250,000 signing bonuses and 60 percent salary increases to its employees.
Apple and Tesla have interacted in the past, with a report emerging in February 2014 that Apple had considered purchasing Tesla. Musk also revealed the two companies have had “conversations”, though it isn’t known whether those were about a potential acquisition, iOS integration in Tesla cars or battery technology.
The report also provides an interesting look into other ways Apple has influenced one of the most talked about companies in Silicon Valley and is worth reading at Bloomberg Business.
Katy Perry will get her own game from the makers of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
Katy Perry is slated to get her own game from Glu Mobile, the makers of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. The game will feature Katy’s voice and personality and will “introduce players to a digital playground of global success and talent.” You can expect the game to land on both Android and iOS sometime in late 2015.
So, why Katy? Aside from the killer Super Bowl XLIX performance, Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi says:
Katy is arguably the most recognized musician in America following her Super Bowl XLIX Halftime performance this past Sunday. She is a cultural icon and we expect to translate key elements of her success into an innovative, highly entertaining mobile experience. We anticipate that Katy’s significant global audience, including more than 170 million fans on social media, will make her a strong gaming partner for Glu.
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood launched in June 2014, and according to the Google Play Store the game has between 5 million and 10 million installs. Last year when Glu released Kim’s game, the company posted a total revenue of $223.15 million, which is a 111% jump year-over-year. How much of that did Kim’s game make? A whopping $74.3 million in months June through December. With that said, we’re sure Katy’s game will be extremely popular when it launches.
Are you looking forward to the new game?
Katy Perry will get her own game from the makers of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
Katy Perry is slated to get her own game from Glu Mobile, the makers of Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. The game will feature Katy’s voice and personality and will “introduce players to a digital playground of global success and talent.” You can expect the game to land on both Android and iOS sometime in late 2015.
So, why Katy? Aside from the killer Super Bowl XLIX performance, Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi says:
Katy is arguably the most recognized musician in America following her Super Bowl XLIX Halftime performance this past Sunday. She is a cultural icon and we expect to translate key elements of her success into an innovative, highly entertaining mobile experience. We anticipate that Katy’s significant global audience, including more than 170 million fans on social media, will make her a strong gaming partner for Glu.
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood launched in June 2014, and according to the Google Play Store the game has between 5 million and 10 million installs. Last year when Glu released Kim’s game, the company posted a total revenue of $223.15 million, which is a 111% jump year-over-year. How much of that did Kim’s game make? A whopping $74.3 million in months June through December. With that said, we’re sure Katy’s game will be extremely popular when it launches.
Are you looking forward to the new game?
Daily Roundup: Microsoft leaks, lens cameras and more!
In today’s Daily Roundup, we look at a Microsoft document leaked in 2012 that foreshadowed the Xbox One and HoloLens, take a look at a new lens camera for smartphones from Olympus and discuss the US Navy’s new firefighting robot. All that and more can be found past the break.
Microsoft leaked the Xbox One, HoloLens and more way back in 2012
In June 2012, a 56-page business presentation was uploaded to the document-sharing service Scribd. It outlined four years of Xbox plans and even included some references to HoloLens.
Olympus Air is a lens camera that pairs with your smartphone
Olympus unveiled a lens camera of its own, the Olympus Air. Similar to Sony’s QX10, this lens clips onto your smartphone and uses a dedicated app to take photos.
US Navy’s firefighting robot finally appears (with a trusty sidekick)
SAFFiR, the humanoid robot overlord pictured above, looks like serious trouble. Fortunately for us humans, its primary purpose is to put out fires rather than start them.
Paper drops in-app purchases to encourage you to buy a Pencil
FiftyThree, the company behind the popular iPad sketching app Paper, has decided to forgo in-app upgrades and made a number of brushes and color sets available for free. How will they make money? By focusing specifically on hardware such as their Pencil.
Judge fines Typo for continuing to sell its BlackBerry-like keyboards
Despite an injunction banning the Typo keyboard from the market, the Ryan Seacrest-backed company has continued to sell its wares. BlackBerry took the company to court again and won.
Google Glass’ new boss wants to redesign the headset “from scratch”
The current project lead for Google Glass is none other than Nest CEO Tony Fadell. A report from the New York Times claims that he intends to redesign the head-mounted computer “from scratch.”
Why hunt rare Destiny weapons, when you can build them in Lego?
If you’re a fan of Destiny and happen to enjoy Lego products you might find this full-scale replica of the Ice Breaker, consisting of 2,100 individual Lego pieces, worthy of your time.
Google releases ‘Best Friends Furever’ video to promote Android’s togetherness
“Be together. Not the same.” That is the tagline Google has been running since the launch of Android 5.0 Lollipop. It embodies everything that the operating system is about while speaking on a bigger level. Devices (and people) do not have to be identical in order to work together. Everything and everyone has something unique to offer. The latest way Google is promoting the togetherness of Android is with animals. A new 60-second video was published and circulates through various scenes of different animals bonding: a cat and dog opening a door together, a bear and a tiger snuggling together, an elephant and a sheep digging together. Do you get it? Animals are working together with ease, something that humans have not yet mastered.
Hit the break to watch the video along with brief clips.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Come comment on this article: Google releases ‘Best Friends Furever’ video to promote Android’s togetherness
Regulators looking at possible stock manipulation in Samsung buying BlackBerry rumors
When it was rumored that Samsung was in talks to purchase BlackBerry last month, one of the major side-effects was that BlackBerry‘s stock price skyrocketed. Now, regulators from both the U.S. and Canada are reportedly investigating trading activity around the time of the rumor in order to ascertain whether it was started to profit from the resulting surge in BlackBerry’s stock price.
Wear Mini Launcher update brings a refreshed companion app and some new features
Google’s goal with Android Wear is to let you navigate through the OS with your voice, without the need to rely on touch navigation. However, sometimes its difficult to use voice navigation in certain situations. And because Google would like you to rely on your voice, it makes launching apps or performing simple tasks more difficult than it should be. Wear Mini Launcher is an app that aims to help with that problem. In fact, the app is receiving an update to version 3.0 that brings a few new features to the third party Android Wear launcher.
The biggest change in the update is the companion app, which now has its fix of Material Design. The app sports an all-around lighter color scheme, new toggles and many more enhancements. It doesn’t have a navigation drawer, so you’ll need to rely on swiping between the different tabs for navigation.
The companion app wasn’t the only thing to get an update. The developer has also added a few key changes to the launcher itself including double tap on an app to for ‘sticky’ mode, long tap an app to manage it, plus a few others. Take a look at the full changelog below:
- Material design for the phone’s app
- Double tap an app for sticky mode
- Long tap an app to manage it
- New tool: disconnection notification
- New Quick Setting to lock screen on
- New translations
Speaking from personal experience, I’d have a tough time using Android Wear without Wear Mini Launcher. If you have a Wear device, you should definitely check this out. And if you already have it, head to the Play Store link below to grab your update.
Download Wear Mini Launcher from the Play Store
New laws for unlocking phones go into effect February 11th
SIM unlocking phones is something that comes up in the legal world every so often, with the most recent event making it completely legal to unlock your device. Like any other law, though, the fine print changes, and on February 11th there will be some slightly tweaked rules to go by when getting your smart device unlocked to use on other networks.
Most of the rules generally stay the same, but some of the details have been altered to keep up with the changing landscape of buying phones. When purchasing a subsidized phone, if you sign a 2-year contract for your device and it’s paid off, your carrier is still legally obligated to unlock the phone for you. This now extends to installment plans, too. Prepaid phones are similar, but the carrier has up to a year to unlock the device. A carrier can wait on unlocking your device for up to 12 months without doing anything wrong, which is frustrating, but if you’re buying prepaid phones and you want it to be unlocked, searching out a factory unlocked phone might be the better option.
So long as you’re still with the carrier that sold you the device, they’ll have to unlock your device for free, which is great. If you’re no longer with said carrier, they’ll be allowed to charge a “reasonable” fee, which will likely vary among carriers. Whether that’s good or bad depends on who you ask, but that’s how it’ll be.
A good thing that’s coming out of this is how carriers will start unlocking devices. Instead of dealing with unlock codes and pins, carriers will be able to push a signal out to a phone over the air, since that’s something most newer hardware supports. Sprint is reportedly going to start automatically unlocking phones like that once they’re out of contract or paid off, which is nice, if they manage to do it consistently.
source: CrackBerry
via: Pocket Now
Come comment on this article: New laws for unlocking phones go into effect February 11th
Blu Win HD and Win JR get little updates for little fixes
Attention users of the Blu Win HD and Blu Win JR: you have an update waiting for you. It’s a small one, sure, but an update nonetheless. In typical Blu fashion there’s nary a change log to be seen, for this update to 8.10.14226.359. At the very least, thanks to the keen eyes of Windows Central Forum member Greg Gray, it adds the ability to toggle cellular data through Notification Center.
Xbox One February update rolls out to the masses with game hubs, tv updates, and more
After initially launching in preview form a little under a month ago, Microsoft announced the official release of the February system update for its Xbox One console today. Coming along for the ride is the addition of Game Hubs, along with a number of changes to party chat, OneGuide, and more.
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