Beating Covid variants is an intricate organizational task performed at top speed
By Emma Court
Needles pierce minuscule vials. Plungers descend and draw back liquid. Gloved fingers flick the tubes, ridding them of air bubbles.
It’s early morning in Atlantic City. In the back of a cavernous, windowless convention hall, the eyes of a dozen pharmacists are locked on syringes filled with coronavirus vaccines that soon will course through the bodies of thousands of people.
Time is everything as the workers prepare the world’s most valuable substance. Each syringe takes just under a minute to assemble, and the team must ready an hour’s worth, about 400 shots, by a little after 8…
By Dina Bass and Liana Baker
Microsoft Corp. is buying speech-recognition pioneer Nuance Communications Inc. in an all-cash deal valued at $19.6 billion, gaining artificial-intelligence technology aimed at helping doctors predict patients’ needs and upgrading hospitals’ digital record-keeping.
The software giant is offering to purchase Nuance at $56 a share, a 23% premium to Friday’s close, according to a statement Monday, which confirmed an earlier Bloomberg report. The deal marks Microsoft’s largest acquisition since LinkedIn Corp.
The transaction value is derived by the $56 a share multiplied by about 350 million fully diluted shares of Nuance, including stock options and…
By Mark Gurman
Apple Inc. has been a laggard in the smart-home space, but a versatile new device in early development could change that.
The company is working on a product that would combine an Apple TV set-top box with a HomePod speaker and include a camera for video conferencing through a connected TV and other smart-home functions, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
The device’s other capabilities would include standard Apple TV box functions like watching video and gaming plus smart speaker uses such as playing music and using…
Lax security emblematic of broader issues, former employees say; Verkada spokesman says company is tightening policies
By William Turton, Ryan Gallagher, Sarah McBride and Brody Ford
Verkada Inc.’s security camera customers were livid. Hackers had breached footage from thousands of surveillance devices trained on their operations, including schools, prisons, hospitals and companies around the world. On a webinar with Verkada’s CEO, users wanted answers. Fast.
One pointed question came from Sequoia Capital, Verkada’s most prominent investor: How, inquired Silas Thomas, information technology manager at the venture capital firm, can we cut off Verkada employees from access to Sequoia’s cameras?
Verkada Chief Executive Officer Filip Kaliszan told Thomas that access had already been disabled. In response to…
A small team had big ambitions for a Last of Us remake, but Sony handed the work to star studio Naughty Dog
By Jason Schreier
Sony Corp.’s Visual Arts Service Group has long been the unsung hero of many hit PlayStation video games. The San Diego-based operation helps finish off games designed at other Sony-owned studios with animation, art or other content and development. But about three years ago, a handful of influential figures within the Visual Arts Service Group decided they wanted to have more creative control and lead game direction rather than being supporting actors on popular titles such as Spider-Man and Uncharted.
Michael Mumbauer, who founded the Visual Arts Service Group in 2007, recruited a group of about 30…
By Max Chafkin
Peter Thiel is “pro-crypto” and “pro-Bitcoin maximalist,” but he also thinks the cryptocurrency may be undermining America.
Thiel, the venture capitalist and conservative political donor, urged the U.S. government to consider tighter regulations on cryptocurrencies in an appearance on Tuesday. The statements seemed to represent a change of heart for Thiel, who is a major investor in virtual currency ventures as well as in cryptocurriences themselves.
“I do wonder whether at this point, Bitcoin should also be thought [of] in part as a Chinese financial weapon against the U.S.,” Thiel said during an appearance at a virtual…
By Katie Roof, Kurt Wagner and Scott Deveau
Twitter Inc. held talks in recent months to acquire Clubhouse, the buzzy audio-based social network, according to people familiar with the matter.
The companies discussed a potential valuation of roughly $4 billion for Clubhouse, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. Discussions are no longer ongoing, and it’s unclear why they stalled, the people added.
A Twitter spokesman declined to comment. A Clubhouse representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that Clubhouse is in talks to raise funding…
By Hannah Levitt
Jamie Dimon said he’s optimistic the pandemic will end with a U.S. economic rebound that could last at least two years.
“I have little doubt that with excess savings, new stimulus savings, huge deficit spending, more QE, a new potential infrastructure bill, a successful vaccine and euphoria around the end of the pandemic, the U.S. economy will likely boom,” the JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive officer said Wednesday in his annual letter to shareholders. “This boom could easily run into 2023.”
Unprecedented federal rescue programs have blunted unemployment and averted further economic deterioration, according to Dimon…
The Nature Conservancy’s review calls into question millions of dollars of credits sold to JPMorgan, BlackRock, and Disney
By Ben Elgin
Following concerns that it is facilitating the sale of meaningless carbon credits to corporate clients, the Nature Conservancy says it’s conducting an internal review of its portfolio of carbon-offset projects. The nonprofit owns or has helped develop more than 20 such projects on forested lands mostly in the U.S., which generate credits that are purchased by such companies as JPMorgan Chase & Co., BlackRock Inc., and Walt Disney Co., which use them to claim large reductions in their own publicly reported emissions.
The self-examination follows a Bloomberg Green investigation last year that found the world’s largest environmental…
By Tara Patel and Ewa Krukowska
With Europe expected to lead the world in electric-car sales for a second straight year, an epic rush to build a battery-supply chain from scratch is playing out across the continent.
After years of ceding the EV battery business to foreign companies, Europe wants in. Prospective manufacturers are popping up in the Nordic region, Germany, France, the U.K. and Poland in a transcontinental competition to chip away at the dominance of China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution.
Fueled by state support of at least 6.1 billion euros ($7.3…
