Huawei launches new operating system I n May of this year, the U.S. government placed Huawei on a blacklist, which essentially restricts some U.S. companies from selling their products to the Chinese tech giant. At the time, Google said it suspended business activity with Huawei. After the U.S. government eased some of those restrictions placed in Huawei it allowed Google to work with Huawei for 90 days, but that timeline is just about to end and had people speculating what the company would do. Well, speculators got their answerwhenHuawei’sCEORichardYu announced that the company launched its own operating system — the HongmengOS, known in English as the HarmonyOS. Yu said the operating system can be used across different devices from smartphones to smart speakers and even sensors. It’s part of Huawei’s play in the so-called Internet of Things, which refers to devices connected to the internet. HarmonyOS will first be used on “smart screen products” such as televisions, later this year. However, over the next three years the operating systemwill be expanded and used in other devices. The Chinese telecom equipment maker has previously acknowledged publicly that it had its own operating system in the works, but the recent announcement made it official with the company proactive approach to additional restrictions that be placed on the company by U.S officials.
UPS investing in Autonomous Truck Startup U nited Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) Ventures division is taking a minority stake in self-driving truck company TuSimple and conducting test runs with the autonomous truck startup inefforts tobetter understand what would be needed from the company to produce a fully autonomous truck. As part of this investment and partnership with TuSimple, UPS’s freight forwarding business is providing cargo for hauling between Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, on trucks guided by TuSimple’s autonomous system. This is not the first time that UPS Ventures has made this type of investment. As the company has invested in 22 companies in areas such as robotics, blockchain, 3Dprinting and artificial intelligence and says that they would like to see that number increase in the future. •
More bad news from Uber U ber reported disappointing second-quarter earnings, including a massive $5.2 billion loss in the three-month period. ber missed expectations on the top and bottom lines, reporting a loss per share of $4.72 versus an expected loss of $3.12 per share. It reported revenue of $3.17 billion versus $3.36 billion expected by Wall Street. The company said the $5.2 billion loss during the quarter was largely due to stock-based compensation. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an interview with CNBC that there’s “no doubt in my mind that the business will eventually be a break even and profitable business.” He also said he expects losses to subside in 2020 and 2021 as he tries to steer the company toward profitability.
Apple giving high reward to researchers who find iPhone security flaws A pple Inc is offering cyber security researchers up to $1million to detect flaws in iPhones, the largest reward offered by a company to defend against hackers. Unlike other technology providers, Apple previously offered rewards only to invited researchers who tried to find flaws in its phones and cloud backups. However, the company said it would open the process to all researchers, add Mac software and other targets, and offer a range of rewards, called “bounties” for the most significant findings. The $1 million prize would apply only to remote access to the iPhone kernel without any action from the phone’s user. Apple’s previous highest bounty was $200,000.
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2019
75 SEPTEMBER 2019 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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