It seems highly illogical that Tesla Motors (TSLA) founder Elon Musk and renowned physicist Stephen Hawking would be lumped in with Luddites, but such was the case in an award announcement Tuesday. After a month-long public vote, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation gave its annual Luddite Award to “a loose coalition of scientists and luminaries who stirred fear and hysteria in 2015 by raising alarms that artificial intelligence
The augmented reality and virtual reality segments captured $686 million of investments last year, according to a new report from Digi-Capital. AR/VR have been in the spotlight recently as Facebook (FB)-owned virtual reality firm Oculus opened preorders for its Rift headsets last week, and as Alphabet (GOOGL)-owned Google made a major investment in technology that merges the physical and digital worlds. Alphabet and Facebook are taking early
Facebook (FB) is still seeking out a profitable business model for mobile messaging service WhatsApp, which has 900 million users, up 50% from August 2014. Facebook closed its $21.8 billion cash-and-stock purchase of WhatsApp in October 2014, with the deal including $4 billion in cash. Facebook’s stock has climbed 26% since the deal closed. WhatsApp’s founder Jan Koum said Monday in a blog post that it would stop charging a 99-cent annual fee. The