Manager's guided to Augmented Reality

Probably a good thing to be the company providing the best displays for this technology.

Harvard Business Review (more at the source)




Augmented reality, a set of technologies that superimposes digital data and images on the physical world, promises to close this gap and release untapped and uniquely human capabilities. Though still in its infancy, AR is poised to enter the mainstream; according to one estimate, spending on AR technology will hit $60 billion in 2020. AR will affect companies in every industry and many other types of organizations, from universities to social enterprises. In the coming months and years, it will transform how we learn, make decisions, and interact with the physical world. It will also change how enterprises serve customers, train employees, design and create products, and manage their value chains, and, ultimately, how they compete.

****More broadly, AR enables a new information-delivery paradigm, which we believe will have a profound impact on how data is structured, managed, and delivered on the internet. Though the web transformed how information is collected, transmitted, and accessed, its model for data storage and delivery—pages on flat screens—has major limits: It requires people to mentally translate 2-D information for use in a 3-D world. That isn’t always easy, as anyone who has used a manual to fix an office copier knows. By superimposing digital information directly on real objects or environments, AR allows people to process the physical and digital simultaneously, eliminating the need to mentally bridge the two. That improves our ability to rapidly and accurately absorb information, make decisions, and execute required tasks quickly and efficiently.

Huge Acquisition in Telecom

An exceptionally bright guy is buying up interesting areas in telecom and one of them is a PicoP maker.  --- another something to watch. 



Japan's Softbank to acquire ARM holdings?

Japan's Softbank has agreed to acquire ARM Holdings, the giant U.K. semiconductor firm that supplies part of the chip design used in Apple iPhones, in a deal worth more than $32 billion, the companies announced on Monday. 

ARM, the largest London-listed tech company by market value, is a major presence in mobile processing, with its processor and graphics technology used by Samsung, Huawei, and Apple in their in-house microchips.

Components based on technology licensed by ARM are found in the vast majority of the world's smartphones, and the Cambridge-based group has branched into other connected devices as smartphone growth slows.

As part of its bid to bolster its presence in the growing internet of things (IoT) sector, Softbank will pay £17 per share (about $22.50 a share) for ARM, a 43 percent premium on Friday's closing price, in an all-cash deal. ARM shares rallied over 46 percent in early trade on Monday. 

"This is a company I always admired for the last 10 years," Masayoshi Son, chairman and chief executive of SoftBank, told reporters in London Monday. "This is the company I wanted to make part of Softbank. I am so happy" 

On whether the deal will face opposition, the CEO said the deal will close quickly because Softbank "does not operate any competitive business against ARM. This will be very straightforward"

Connection?   (From this blog)

From February.....

Foxconn seeks investment from SoftBank to boost bid

OSAKA -- Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry reportedly has sounded out SoftBank Group about joining its bid to acquire Sharp, aiming to sweeten the deal by bringing in a Japanese partner and a major buyer of the troubled manufacturer's mainstay smartphones.

     Hon Hai, the contract electronics manufacturer also known as Foxconn, plans to hold a controlling interest in Sharp, with SoftBank seen taking a roughly 10-20% stake. Having SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son himself buy into Sharp directly is likely on the table as well. Foxconn hopes that having the telecom company on board would boost Sharp's smartphone sales, contributing to its recovery.

Asia Nikkei

From Harvard Business Review

If you look at these carefully, you don’t think the skull has the most value. The brain is more valuable than the skull. But everybody has a brain. Inside the brain are wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge are the most valuable things in the body. I want to be number one in the business of supplying wisdom and knowledge all over Japan. But the knowledge industry is too big, too wide. So we specialize in the PC industry’s knowledge.

FORBES -- SPRINT

Sprint , the fourth largest U.S. wireless carrier, has seen its stock price rise by close to 15% over the last week and by approximately 30% in the last three months, outperforming other large cap wireless names. Below we outline some of the likely reasons for the rally.

• Developments at Sprint’s majority shareholder Softbank have been a key driver of the stock over the last few days. Earlier this week, SoftBank founder and CEO Masayoshi Son said that he would stay on for another five to ten years, instead of retiring in favor of the company’s president Nikesh Arora. Son noted that one of his key priories in his remaining time would be to develop Sprint to its “true potential,” signaling a vote of confidence in the company.

ARM display processing