The week that was (TWTW) takes a look back at the week’s most prominent tech stories from around the world.
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In the week that was March 11th to March 17th, 2018:
- Trump blocks Qualcomm acquisition by Broadcom
- Fitbit launches Versa smart watch
- Apple’s WWDC invites sent out
- Elon Musk invents buses for The Boring Company
- Foxtel to move all cable subscribers to satellite
Intro
Hey everyone, Raj Deut here for Reckoner with a look back at the tech news in the week that was:
March 11th to March 17th, 2018.
Stories
We kick things off this week with a regular guest, US President Donald Trump again making headlines this time for issuing an order under the US Defence Production Act of 1950 to prohibit the acquisition of US based Qualcomm by the Singaporean company Broadcom.
The US government feels the acquisition would hinder the research and development of 5G technology under Broadcom giving China based Huawei a potential monopoly, which is not in the US’s “national interest”.
Fitbit reignited their wearables campaign this week announcing the launch of their new “Versa” smartwatch. The Versa looks remarkably similar to the Apple Watch and includes functionality to track the usual suspects such as steps, heart rate and sleep.
The new watch is running the company’s new Fitbit OS and unlike the Apple Watch touts an impressive four days of battery life with a more palatable US$299 price tag.
Apple sent out invitations to register for a chance to attend the upcoming World Wide Developers conference this week. The conference will be held in San Jose for the second year now, running from June 4th to 8th.
While primarily used to show and discuss upcoming features in Apple’s operating systems the show has served as a venue for hardware announcements in the past such as the HomePod and iMac Pro, but is considered unlikely this year.
Not to be left out, Elon Musk took to twitter to announce a hefty pivot in the Boring Company’s strategy for underground transit.
The new plan is prioritise pedestrians & cyclists over cars however he insists the proposed subterranean network would still transport cars as a secondary function.
The change in strategy has been met with mixed reactions. The new plan resembling an existing bus network or even more so, a subway.
And lastly, Australian primary PayTV provider Foxtel has announced this week that it’s abandoning the now NBN owned HFC network to deliver its service. The company will move all subscribers to a satellite based connection as the delivery method is less prone to outages.
The question now for the NBN have they purchased yet another lemon in Telstra’s HFC network being potentially as unstable as the Optus one they’ve since abandoned.
Outro
And that’s it for another week! If you enjoyed the show then please do leave it a review, subscribe and give it a thumbs up when you can.
Be sure to stop by the Reckoner website this week you can check out my play through of the Australian developed indie Wildfire. It’s a fantastic 2D pixel-art stealth platformer, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Thanks for tuning in, have a great week and bye for now.
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