https://winbuzzer.com/2025/12/23/softbank-liquidates-assets-to-meeet-22-5b-openai-payment-deadline-xcxwbn/

SoftBank Liquidates Assets to Meet $22.5B OpenAI Payment Deadline

#AI #SoftBank #OpenAI #ArmHoldings #AIInfrastructure #StargateProject #Investments #DataCenters #AIEconomics #AIFinancing

SoftBank Seeks $5B Loan Backed by Arm Shares to Deepen OpenAI Investment

#SoftBank #OpenAI #AI #Investing #Tech #Finance #ArmHoldings

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/10/10/softbank-seeks-5b-loan-backed-by-arm-shares-to-deepen-openai-investment-xcxwbn

OpenAI Starts Shifting Away From Microsoft Azure, Making SoftBank Its New Priority #OpenAI #MicrosoftAI #Microsoft #SoftBank #Azure #AIInfrastructure #CloudComputing #ARMHoldings #AICloud

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/02/24/openai-starts-shifting-away-from-microsoft-azure-amid-partnership-with-softbank-xcxwbn/

Weekly output: Musk digitally deleting USAID, Arm vs. Qualcomm, U.K. vs. Apple, 8K TV, Bletchley Park

One of this week’s published stories began with reporting weeks ago; another began with notes and photos taken months ago.

2/3/2025: Musk’s Minions Deleting Digital Presence of US International Development Agency, PCMag

I could not just write about the weird digital erasure Elon Musk and his goons have been inflicting on the online presence of the U.S. Agency for International Development without reminding readers of three important bits of context: USAID does good and useful work (as vouched for in that quote from Georgetown University government-department chair Anthony Arend, four of whose classes I took as an undergrad 35-plus years ago); USAID constituted all of .4% of the federal budget in fiscal year 2024; Elon Musk’s tweets show no sign of him having any interest in the agency until January.

2/6/2025: Arm Drops Effort to Cancel Qualcomm’s Chip-Licensing Deal, PCMag

If you were considering buying a Windows laptop with one of Qualcomm’s power-efficient Snapdragon X processors, this should rank as very good news.

2/7/2025: Report: UK Orders Apple to Disable E2E Encryption on iCloud Backups Worldwide, PCMag

Writing up the Washington Post’s scoop about this dangerous demand by the U.K.’s Home Office gave me a crash course in looking up and citing legislation on Parliament’s Web site–without which I would have been writing about the Investigatory Powers Act without pointing people to the text of that 2016 statute and its 2024 amendments.

2/8/2025: In 2025, the Picture for 8K TVs (Still) Isn’t Looking Too Bright or Sharp, PCMag

I originally had delusions of writing this piece from CES with a Las Vegas dateline, but the weeks since then allowed me to get some additional numbers from the Consumer Technology Association and quiz another analyst as well as the head of the 8K Association.

2/9/2025: To See Codebreaking At Its Most Metal, Visit Bletchley Park, PCMag

Some of you may remember my writing a piece about Bletchley Park for the long-gone information-security publication The Parallax in 2018. I decided to revisit this museum of WWII codebreaking when my trip to London in October for Uber’s Go-Get Zero event (on Uber’s dime) left me with an afternoon free, and I’m glad I did because I was able to check out one exhibit that I’d had to skip earlier and see a few exhibits they’d added since then.

#8K #8KTV #AgencyForInternationalDevelopment #ArmHoldings #BletchleyPark #codebreaking #cryptography #EnigmaMachine #iCloudEncryption #InvestigatoryPowersAct #MuskCoup #Qualcomm #SnapdragonX #SnoopersCharter #UKHomeOffice #USAID

From 2017: #Google has finally found a buyer for its amazing, scary robot companies, #BostonDynamics and #Schaft: #SoftBank

The companies are not disclosing a price.

by April Glaser
Updated Jun 8, 2017, 10:07 PM EDT

"Japan’s big-betting holding firm SoftBank is buying Boston Dynamics, one of the most highly regarded robotics labs in the world, from Google’s parent company #Alphabet for an undisclosed price.

"Google acquired Boston Dynamics in 2013 under the leadership of Andy Rubin, the co-inventor of #Android, who was leading a wave of acquisitions of robotics companies under the search giant.

"Boston Dynamics’ robots routinely make headlines, including a high-profile demo at this year’s TED conference. The company, led by CEO Marc Raibert, has made a robotic cheetah that can run 28 miles per hour, a robotic dog that it recently used to deliver packages to doorsteps in Boston, and most recently a massive legged and wheeled robot that can clear hurdles and walk down stairs.

"The firm has been hailed by other roboticists for its ability to blend hardware and #ArtificialIntelligence to make machines capable of dynamic, agile movements. Its most recent wheeled robot, Handle, can manipulate objects that are comparable to its own weight, and its four-legged, animal-like robots can maneuver over different types of terrain.

"One industry source said earlier this year that Boston Dynamics’ most recent machine 'changes the whole ballgame.'

"SoftBank is also buying Schaft, a Japan-based robotics firm that unveiled a bipedal walking robot last year, from Alphabet. A source close to the matter said Schaft, which was part of Google, never fully integrated into the company and operated as a sort of separate entity taking a different approach to robotics than the rest of Google.

"The deal makes sense for SoftBank, which has been working in robotics for years, having acquired a majority stake in the robotics company #Aldebaran in 2012. Aldebaran makes the humanoid robot Pepper, which is being used in retail and customer service settings throughout Japan, and increasingly in the U.S. SoftBank has also invested in related technologies, including buying chip design firm #ARMHoldings last year for more than $30 billion. SoftBank also led a $20 million investment round in #FetchRobotics, a company that makes warehouse logistics robots, in 2015.

"Rubin left Google in 2014 after driving a string of robotics acquisitions, which, sources have told Recode, left a number of the companies without much direction about what their role at Google would be.

"Prior to being acquired by Google, Boston Dynamics largely operated on military research contracts. Its humanoid #Atlas robot was used in #DARPA’s robotics challenge in 2015."

https://www.vox.com/2017/6/8/15766440/softbank-alphabet-google-robotics-boston-dynamics-schaft
#Terminator #TechBroFascism