Hyundai scoops up Boston Dynamics, Airbnb makes a huge splash after it opens for trading; and Facebook’s in trouble for tying the use of the Oculus to Facebook accounts.
It’s all the tech news that’s popular right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending! It’s Friday, December 11, and I’m your host Alex Coop.
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Hyundai may be known for its automobiles, but it also has an entire wing dedicated to robotics. So – it only makes sense that they acquired robotics company Boston Dynamics for $921 million. Boston Dynamics rose to fame with its wacky robots performing stunts on YouTube and, more recently, its Spot robot. Spot is a sensing robot designed to scale a variety of terrain. It can be outfitted for healthcare, utilities, and public safety purposes.
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Over the last decade, Airbnb spun a picture-perfect narrative to the world about togetherness and welcoming, and on Thursday, Airbnb told its investors that it’s also a pandemic winner. Looks like the messaging worked. Airbnb opened at $146 per share on its first day of trading on Thursday, more than doubling the $68 per share price set for its IPO the day before. Airbnb is the latest in a wave of hotly anticipated tech IPOs, which includes DoorDash. On Wednesday, DoorDash opened for trading at $182/share, a more than 75 per cent jump from its IPO price.
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And boy is Facebook having a rough week – after upsetting the virtual reality community this summer by announcing it would be merging users of the latest Oculus kit onto a single Facebook account — and would end support for existing Oculus account users by 2023 – TechCrunch is reporting that Germany’s Federal Cartel Office has instigated abuse proceedings against Facebook to examine the linkage between Oculus VR products and its eponymous social network.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Alex Coop, thanks for listening.