Apple has acquired self-driving car startup Drive.ai. Apple had been considering the acquisition so it could add Drive.ai's engineers to its self-driving car development program, The Information previously reported.
High-school students attending the Traffic Crash Reconstruction and Roadway Safety Camp in Chicago recently learned how to apply their STEM skills to reconstructing auto crashes with the help of state troopers and other law-enforcement experts. Officials said the camp also served the purpose of promoting traffic safety to students who will become drivers.
Uncertainty about global growth and trade is clouding the US economic outlook, and the Federal Reserve is monitoring data to determine whether it should act, Chairman Jerome Powell says. "The crosscurrents have reemerged, with apparent progress on trade turning to greater uncertainty and with incoming data raising renewed concerns about the strength of the global economy," Powell says.
H.E. Butt Grocery's new Eastside Tech Hub is now open in Austin, Texas, and it houses both H-E-B's Austin-based digital operations and its delivery subsidiary Favor. The renovated warehouse has individual and collaborative work spaces, as well as more than 50 meeting rooms, and the space pays homage to Texas culture with locally made furniture and rooms named after cities and landmarks.
A report by Integris Software finds that health care executives place too much confidence in their data privacy maturity in light of the actual effectiveness of their policies. Seventy percent of respondents expressed strong confidence in their management of sensitive data, despite 50% saying their personal data inventory is updated only once a year, at most. The researchers noted that a majority of respondents implement data security measures for regulatory compliance rather than to build a comprehensive data protection strategy.
The key aspect of Facebook's planned content oversight board -- which is expected to review controversial decisions made by content moderators, provide public explanations for decisions and suggest policy changes -- is that it will be an independent body. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to form the board, which is expected to have 40 people on it who are appointed by the company, seven months ago.
FedEx reported a quarterly loss of $1.97 billion for the fourth quarter, and company officials say profits will continue to decline in light of a decision to drop a contract with Amazon and a slowing global economy. The company is delivering packages six days a week and will begin delivering all seven days in January.
A security company contends that hackers have accessed and taken control of the networks of more than a dozen mobile carriers over four continents outside North America and gained access to sensitive data about their subscribers. Cybereason says the attackers, who have infiltrated the carriers over the past seven years, could potentially crash the networks at any time.
An $85 million settlement between Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and the Oklahoma attorney general was approved by a judge. Teva and Johnson & Johnson, which is still fighting the allegations, are accused of fueling the opioid epidemic with marketing efforts that minimized risk of addiction.
AT&T will compete for streaming video customers by dipping into its huge library of content to provide more programming choices to consumers, said John Stankey, the CEO of AT&T's WarnerMedia arm who is charged with consolidating the telecom's various media pieces. Toward that end, AT&T put WarnerMedia Entertainment Chairman Bob Greenblatt in charge of Otter Media, the company's collection of digital services.
The growth in US home prices decelerated in April, with average home prices in major metropolitan areas rising 3.5% in the year that ended that month, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index. The pace was 3.7% in March and 3.9% in February.
US oil prices posted their best performance since December 2016, with West Texas Intermediate for August delivery surging 9.4% last week to settle at $57.43 per barrel on Friday, after President Donald Trump canceled a military strike on Iran. Daniel Yergin, vice-chairman at IHS Markit, says that "the market is poised between where it was before, which was just gloom," and "the possibility that demand will spike up because there will be some kind of settlement with China."
American Airlines will debut new daily seasonal fights from Arizona's Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport to New Orleans; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Wichita, Kan., from Dec. 18 through April 6.
Officials at the Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, Alaska, are considering whether to add a hotel. The project, if approved to move forward, would most likely kick off construction next year.
