(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Five years ago, in a routine display of trash talking, Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk made a now infamous quip about how hard it is to manufacture automobiles.“Cars are very complex compared to phones or smartwatches,’’ he told German newspaper Handelsblatt. “You can’t just go to a supplier like Foxconn and say: Build me a car.”He may be proven wrong. Foxconn Technology Group, through its Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. unit, will establish a joint venture with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, the Taiwanese company said in an exchange filing Thursday. While not yet signed, they expect their 50-50 enterprise will “develop and manufacture electric vehicles and engage in IOV (internet of vehicles) business,” referencing a growing ecosystem of connected cars that share location, weather, traffic and vehicle information.Hon Hai would be responsible for design, components and supply chain management, Chairman Young Liu told Debby Wu of Bloomberg News. Foxconn might not actually do final assembly, he said.If you’ve ever visited Foxconn’s global...
(Bloomberg) -- German rangers stand guard to shoo away visitors from a nondescript stretch of forest near Berlin, where a sign nearby warns of “Lebensgefahr” (mortal danger).The precautions are part of the frantic activity underway to set up Tesla Inc.’s latest assembly plant, Elon Musk’s most daring attack on the German auto establishment. Workers wielding metal detectors have started combing through an area covering some 200 football fields to search for errant ammunition lurking beneath the sandy surface of tiny Gruenheide.It’s the first stage to prepare a site that could churn out as many as 500,000 cars a year, employ 12,000 people and pose a serious challenge to Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and BMW AG. Once deemed free of World War II explosives, harvesters and trucks will roll in to clear thousands of trees in the first stage of development. The work needs to be done by the end of February to meet Tesla’s aggressive timetable. The project...
(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. was sued by four potential competitors who accuse it of anticompetitive behavior and who asked a judge to order Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to give up control of the social media behemoth.The companies also said if Facebook isn’t forced to sell its WhatsApp and Instagram assets, it’ll integrate them into the social network, “consolidating its market power across the globe, likely permanently foreclosing competition in the relevant markets for decades to come.”The lawsuit was filed Thursday in San Francisco by Reveal Chat HoldCo LLC, a successor to the dating site LikeBright; USA Technology and Management Services Inc., better known as the credit and financial service provider Lenddol; former peer-to-peer site Cir.cl Inc.; and former identity verification provider Beehive Biometric Inc.The companies describe Facebook as “one of the largest unlawful monopolies ever seen in the United States” and say the aim of the lawsuit is “to halt...
(Bloomberg) -- Follow Bloomberg on Telegram for all the investment news and analysis you need.It’s a tantalizing prospect for traders whose success often hinges on microseconds: a desktop PC algorithm that crunches market data faster than today’s most advanced supercomputers.Japan’s Toshiba Corp. says it has the technology to make such rapid-fire calculations a reality -- not quite quantum computing, but perhaps the next best thing. The claim is being met with a mix of intrigue and skepticism at financial firms in Tokyo and around the world.Toshiba’s “Simulated Bifurcation Algorithm” is designed to harness the principles behind quantum computers without requiring the use of such machines, which currently have limited applications and can cost millions of dollars to build and keep near absolute zero temperature. Toshiba says its technology, which may also have uses outside finance, runs on PCs made from off-the-shelf components.“You can just plug it into a server and run...
(Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk’s suggestion for how to fix Twitter? Identify the bots.Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla Inc. chief executive officer, was asked Thursday by Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey how he would fix the social network, where Musk has almost 31 million followers.“Give us some direct feedback,” said Dorsey, who spoke to Musk via a video call from a company meeting in Houston. Musk was projected onto a giant screen as thousands of Twitter employees watched the two executives chat. “If you were running Twitter,“ Dorsey continued, “what would you do?”“I think it would be helpful to differentiate” between real and fake users, Musk replied, according to a video posted to Twitter by an employee. “Is this a real person or is this a bot net or a sort of troll army or something like that?”“Basically, how do you tell if the feedback is real or someone trying to manipulate...
