Facebook now links to food deliveries
MENLO PARK, Calif. -- Facebook Inc. wants to be a bigger player in the restaurant game.
The social network has announced a new feature that will let users buy meals on its website through third-party delivery services like DoorDash or directly from a group of restaurants such as Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and Five Guys.
Facebook has been working on the new product for a year, and carried out tests with restaurants including Papa John's. It's part of tech companies' efforts to boost their presence in the restaurant industry. Amazon.com Inc. recently announced a partnership with Olo, which provides order and pay technology to thousands of U.S. locations. Olo will also be part of the new Facebook feature.
While Facebook might not make money on food orders, its delivery service is seen as a way to gather valuable customer data and keep in constant contact with consumers. All types of restaurants operate Facebook pages, and the company has seen a rise in users searching out food on its site.
-- Bloomberg News
Qualcomm sues to halt Apple in China
SAN DIEGO -- Qualcomm Inc. filed lawsuits in China seeking to ban the sale and manufacture of iPhones in the country, the chipmaker's biggest shot at Apple Inc. so far in a sprawling and bitter legal fight.
The San Diego-based company aims to stop Apple in the world's largest market for smartphones and to cut off production in a country where most iPhones are made. The product provides almost two-thirds of Apple's revenue. Qualcomm filed the suits in a Beijing intellectual property court claiming patent infringement and seeking injunctive relief, according to Christine Trimble, a company spokesman.
"Apple employs technologies invented by Qualcomm without paying for them," Trimble said. An Apple spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Qualcomm's suits are based on three nonstandard essential patents, it said. They cover power management and a touch-screen technology called Force Touch that Apple uses in current iPhones, Qualcomm said. The inventions "are a few examples of the many Qualcomm technologies that Apple uses to improve its devices and increase its profits," Trimble said.
The company made the filings at the Beijing court on Sept. 29. The court has not yet made them public.
The two companies are months into a legal dispute that centers on Qualcomm's technology licensing business. While Qualcomm gets the majority of its sales from making phone chips, it pulls in most of its profit from charging fees for patents that cover the fundamentals of all modern phone systems.
-- Bloomberg News
Amazon offers limited service to teens
NEW YORK -- The online retail giant Amazon.com Inc. said last week that teens can now shop on their own, if their parents let them.
Adults can add up to four teenagers to their account, giving youngsters their own login information to buy stuff through the Amazon app. Parents can set spending limits, cancel orders and get notifications when something is bought.
The move by the Seattle-based company comes at an already rough time for stores that cater to teens. Abercrombie & Fitch's revenue, for example, has fallen every year since 2014. And some teen retailers have filed for bankruptcy protection, including Aeropostale and Wet Seal.
For Amazon, getting teens to shop now could turn them into customers for the rest of their lives, said Brendan Witcher, an e-commerce industry analyst at Forrester.
Amazon said the new program is only for teens between the ages of 13 and 17. And the company said kids won't be able to see their parents' credit card information.
There's no extra cost to use it, and parents don't need to have a Prime membership to add teens to their accounts. But if they do pay for Prime, teens will also get access to free shipping, streaming video and Prime's other perks.
-- The Associated Press
Nvidia sees driverless-car breakthrough
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Nvidia Corp. has built a powerful new computer that the chipmaker says can turn semi-autonomous cars into fully driverless vehicles, and the stock rallied.
The new mini-computer, code-named Pegasus, is 10 times more powerful than its predecessor, making it capable of handling more than 320 trillion operations per second, Chief Executive Officer Jen Hsun Huang said at a company conference in Germany last week.
That computing muscle is needed to quickly process information on cars' surroundings and turn that into safe driving instructions and actions. That's especially true of so-called Level 5 vehicles -- ones that don't require human drivers, steering wheels, pedals or mirrors.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company will offer the new product in the second half of 2018, it said. One potential application is delivery vehicles. Nvidia said Tuesday it's helping Deutsche Post AG and its subsidiary DHL automate their fleet of electric delivery vehicles. Trials will begin next year, and eventually driverless trucks may follow human-controlled vehicles around as they drop off parcels. The robovans might also take over deliveries entirely.
Like rivals Intel Corp. and Qualcomm Inc., the company is trying to parlay its core skill -- computer graphics processing -- into leadership in autonomous vehicles, a potential growth area for the semiconductor industry. Graphics processors are good at small manipulations of visual data in parallel, and Nvidia argues that's ideal for the kind computing needed to make cars see the world around them.
-- Bloomberg News
Google to open downtown Detroit office
DETROIT -- Google says it's expanding in Michigan with a move from the Detroit suburbs into the city's reviving downtown.
The company said that it will soon move to Detroit's tech-aspiring downtown area and double its space from the 17,000 square feet it occupies in Birmingham.
Google spokesman Patrick Lenihan says the company plans to expand the office's 100-employee workforce, but he wouldn't say by how much. An exact site and move date hasn't been set.
The office focuses on automotive advertising. It opened about a decade ago. Google also recently unveiled a larger campus in Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan.
The company says the Michigan moves represent a push beyond Silicon Valley. Offices have recently opened or are opening in Chicago; Miami; Austin, Texas; and Boulder, Colo.
-- The Associated Press
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