Drones over the UK, Robots in LA

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Drones over the UK, Robots in LA

“Our goal is to make drone operations beyond visual line of sight a safe and everyday reality,” said Sophie O’Sullivan, Head of Future Safety and Innovation at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, announcing that six projects had been selected to test the use of drones for deliveries, infrastructure inspection and emergency services. Among them is an Amazon [AMZN] drone delivery initiative. In Los Angeles, meanwhile, fast-food chain Shake Shack [SHAK] has partnered with Serve Robotics [SERV] to roll out the use of autonomous sidewalk robots, which will deliver orders placed on Uber’s [UBER] Uber Eats.

Regulators Turn Up the Heat on Big Tech

Under pressure in the US and EU, Apple [AAPL] is to open its iPhone contactless payments technology to third-party developers in multiple countries, including the US and UK. Meanwhile, US District Judge James Donato in San Francisco has heard from technology experts and lawyers for Epic Games and Alphabet’s [GOOGL] Google over reforms to last year’s blockbuster antitrust hearing. “You’re going to end up paying something to make the world right after having been found to be a monopolist,” Donato said.

The AI Chip Link-Up that Might Have Been

The Financial Times reported that SoftBank [SFTBY] held talks with Intel [INTC] over the possibility of founding an artificial intelligence (AI) chip partnership that could challenge Nvidia [NVDA]. The talks, however, fell through, with Intel locked into costcutting, and now SoftBank is in discussions with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co [TSM]. Elsewhere, Lenovo [LNVGY] beat expectations with its quarterly profit. Driven by global AI spending, net income grew 38% to $243m in the quarter ending in June.

13F Filings Just Dropped

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway [BRK-B] confirmed its major selloff of Apple and disclosed that it had taken new stakes in Heico [HEI] and Ulta Beauty [ULTA], as well as exiting Snowflake [SNOW]. Michael Burry’s Scion Asset Management took new positions in Olaplex Holdings [OLPX] and Molina Healthcare [MOH], among others, and increased its stake in Baidu [BIDU] and Alibaba [BABA]. Overall, Bloomberg reported, hedge funds continued to buy into big tech firms including Apple, although many reined in their NVDA holdings.

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