Apple yesterday posted a thoughtful tribute to Muhammad Ali on its homepage, the legendary boxer's photo taking over Apple.com. Ali died on Friday at age 74 due to respiratory complications. He fought a lengthy battle with Parkinson's disease.
The black-and-white Ali photo on Apple.com is accompanied by one of his famous quotes, “The man who has no imagination has no wings.”
Revered software engineer Sinisa Durekovic has joined Apple in an unspecified role in October, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing sources.
Durekovic was charged with managing the development of advanced satellite navigation systems used by luxury carmakers such as BMW AG, Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen AG’s Audi, suggesting another possible mapping push for the Cupertino giant.
Fitbit, which makes fitness accessories, activity trackers and other wearable devices, just acquired payments hardware firm Coin, signaling its intent to enrich its product lineup with contactless payment features. That's right, your next Fitbit fitness tracker may let you pay for in-store purchases.
Jonathan Bolus and Andrew Joyce, engineers who worked on wireless charging and ultrasonic technologies for the startup uBeam, are Apple's most recent hires. The Cupertino firm has been bolstering its wireless charging team over the past two years.
News that Apple is staffing up on such experts came amid swirling rumors of wireless charging coming to the next iPhone in 2017.
As The Verge writes, uBeam's technology, even though it works over a short distance, is marred with various technological hurdles and law of physics that experts warn will prove insurmountable and prevent commercialization.
Apple has hired famed robotics expert Yoky Matsuoka, a former head of technology at the smart thermostat maker Nest before it was acquired by Google and one of the co-founders of the search giant's X Lab, a research and development unit tasked with conceiving moonshot projects.
According to her LinkedIn profile, she won a MacArthur Foundation grant in 2007 for a neurorobotics project that helped disabled people and stroke victims regain the use of their limbs. Fortune has confirmed with an Apple representative that Matsuoka will work on health-related initiatives at the Cupertino firm.
Nokia said this morning that it's buying French health tracking company Withings for a reported €170 million, or about $192 million, as it looks to gain a foothold in the competitive digital health market.
Withings, which designs, builds and sells wearables with health and fitness tracking features, as well as devices for the connected home such as smart weighing scales, thermometers, blood pressure monitors, home and baby monitors and so forth, will become part of Nokia's Technologies business.
Silicon Valley has lost its coach: longtime Apple board member and true Silicon Valley icon, Bill Campbell, has died today at the age of 76 after a long battle with cancer, Re/code reported Monday. Best-known as simply “The Coach” for his business acumen and coaching skills, he coached many big name Silicon Valley executives, including Google’s Larry Page and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
He, of course, acted as an unofficial adviser to Apple’s executive team and coached Apple's own Steve Jobs. “News of his passing popped up on Facebook early this morning and many prominent tech players also confirmed the death to me, wrote reporter Kara Swisher.
The Silicon Valley Business Journal yesterday shared a batch of new renderings depicting some new buildings and structures planned for Apple Campus 2, an upcoming flying saucer-shaped 2.8 million square foot structure that should become the company's new headquarters in January 2017, barring any unforeseen delays. The Apple-commissioned renderings depict two visitor reception locations, several outdoor food stations and an elegantly designed maintenance shed.
Apple is allegedly “close to agreeing a deal” to have Premier League Manchester City F.C. and England national football team's Raheem Sterling become a global ambassador for the global Apple brand, British tabloid The Sun reported Thursday.
Apple wants Sterling to help launch its Euro 2016 promotional campaign and will be paying him a reported £250,000 per year, or about $355,000 per year, to act as its brand ambassador.
A longtime member of Apple’s closely-knit 19-person elite industrial design team has joined action camera maker GoPro, according to an exclusive report published Wednesday by the former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin's The Information.
The article, hidden behind a paywall, states that Apple designer Danny Coster is now joining GoPro to head up a new hardware design group there as Vice President of Design.
On a somewhat related note, a murky rumor recently alleged that Apple was interested in acquiring GoPro. In a company-wide email today announcing the hire, GoPro said the executive would begin his role by month's end. Coster, who worked for Apple since the early 1990s, was apparently curious to explore the new opportunity at GoPro.
According to preliminary results posted Thursday, there's a light at the end of a long tunnel for Samsung Electronics and that light is the new Galaxy S7 flagship smartphone. After more than two straight years of decline in its mobile division, the South Korean firm is now projecting more than ten percent profit growth for the first quarter of 2016, beating market estimates.
The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge were announced back in February ahead of their March 11 debut. Both phones, which have managed to address some of user complaints like memory expandability, were met with mostly positive reviews. Thus far, the new devices have moved three times as many units in their first month compared to their predecessor, the Galaxy S6/edge series, according to Bloomberg.
A new ultra high-definition drone video of Apple's upcoming Campus 2 facility, posted Monday by YouTuber Duncan Sinfield, gives a nice overview of just how far along the project has progressed over the past twelve months.
The video, available in crisp 4K resolution, shows the incredibly complexity of the 2.8 million square foot structure, Steve Jobs's last project, that should become home to approximately 12,000 Apple employees in January 2017.