Flying cars have arrived! 🚗

Japan tests flying cars, Facebook fails at hardware and more.

Steph Newton

Published in

Hardware News

4 min readAug 22, 2019

What’s New In Hardware:

Here’s the story of Facebook’s seemingly ill-fated attempt to break into hardware innovation. (CNBC)
Over 80% of businesses larger than 1000 people around the world are adopting IoT solutions, according to a survey from Microsoft. (Microsoft Transform blog)
New analysis hints that electric scooters might not be as eco-friendly as we thought. (The Verge)
Didi Chuxing’s autonomous vehicle division is now its own independent company. (TechCrunch)
Apple’s AirPods-derived revenue alone might be bigger than the entirety of AMD. (Fortune)

Offbeat Tidbits You Might’ve Missed:

A new service just launched in a hotel near Seattle that lets you propose marriage via robot. (GeekWire)
Who wants a device that could theoretically read (and broadcast) your spoken inner monologue? (Smithsonian)
A Japanese company has successfully tested a flying car for about a minute. You gotta start somewhere. (Sky News)

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Romeo Power Technology, an industry leader in sustainable power systems for electric vehicles, has raised $4 million from HG Ventures to further develop its electric vehicle batteries. This latest round of funding comes just three months after raising $88 million from 31 undisclosed investors.
Holographic display startup Light Field Lab has raised $28 million in a series A funding round co-led by Bosch Venture Capital and Taiwania Capital. The San Jose-based startup wants to use the new cash infusion to build holographic displays and eventually produce TVs that can recreate 3D holograms.
Cloudleaf, an emerging leader in digital supply chain solutions, has secured $26 million in series B funding to drive market expansion of its Supply Chain Digital Visibility Platform. Intel Capital and WRVI Capital led the round and BluePointe Ventures, Bold Capital Partners, Mahindra Partners, and Tandem Capital also participated.
Exo Imaging has raised $35 million in a recent series B funding round to help develop its ultrasound system with the goal of providing physicians with a single handheld probe that can be used for the entire body — from observing the heart and other organs to imaging a person’s vasculature or skeletal features in 3D. Intel Capital led the round with participation from Applied Ventures, Bold Capital, Creative Ventures, Longevity Vision Fund, Magnetar Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, OSF Healthcare, Rising Tide Fund, Sony Innovation Fund, and Wanxiang Healthcare Investments. The company has now raised roughly $50 million altogether.
HawkEye 360, the first commercial company to use formation flying satellites to create a new class of radio frequency data and data analytics products, has secured $70 million in series B funding. Investors include Airbus, Esri, Razor’s Edge Ventures, Allied Minds, and Shield Capital Partners.
Symantec, one of the largest names in cybersecurity, has sold off the company’s name and enterprise business to Broadcom for $10.7 billion in cash. The deal, which is expected to close in Broadcom’s first fiscal quarter ending in January, comes less than a month after the two companies’ discussions for a full merger fell apart over disagreements about the price.