The hottest news last week came out of the Intel (INTC Quick QuoteINTC - Free Report) Developer Forum (IDF) 2016. But Facebook’s decision to open source its artificial intelligence (A.I.) research, Alphabet’s (GOOGL Quick QuoteGOOGL - Free Report) Duo and Oracle (ORCL Quick QuoteORCL - Free Report) asking for a retrial in its case against Alphabet over Java also made headlines.

Here are the top stories-

Intel Developer Forum

This was a mega event where Intel talked about everything but PCs. Well, almost. The company seems to think that the next big thing driving chip growth for PCs is VR capabilities (since it’s a computationally intensive exercise, it’s a good way to sell its chips).

To that end, it announced Project Alloy, a reference design for cordless headgear that merges the AR and VR worlds and runs on Microsoft’s (MSFT Quick QuoteMSFT - Free Report) Windows Holographic OS. Alloy’s design will be open sourced sometime next year when Holographic will also be offered to all Windows PCs.

Intel didn’t say how this will impact its processor business (specs weren’t revealed) but we do know that the device uses a couple of its Real Sense 3D cameras. So the plan seems to be to push Intel-powered and Microsoft run PC like devices at around when VR goes mainstream. Classic Wintel.

Intel did say however that Kaby Lake (Core i7-7700K enabling up to 4.5 GHz clock speed) would have the power to support 4K video and that the first laptops with Kaby Lake would ship in the fall with PCs getting the chips next year. The claim is that with integrated graphics in Kaby lake a discrete specialized GPU like the ones sold by NVIDIA (NVDA Quick QuoteNVDA - Free Report) or AMD won’t be necessary any more.

But AMD had a few things to say about processor speed as well. The company displayed its upcoming 8-core Zen chip, comparing it with Intel’s 8-core i7 6900K at 3GHz clock speeds. The demo showed that the AMD chip was a tad faster than Intel’s currently available lineup.

Not to be left out of any major new chip development, Intel announced Knights Mill to target the A.I. segment. Lots have been said about A.I. already, especially that it uses neural networks resembling the way the human brain processes information. The Xeon Phi chip, which is not a successor to the current generation Phi but a different grade, offers low-precision calculations that work well when used together to make decisions in neural networks.

On the memory side, Intel said it was working on DDR5 for a 2020 launch. Initial specs could be available later this year. Intel expects it to be denser and more energy efficient than DRAM (though DRAM will most certainly also evolve!). At any rate, battery life is set to increase. On the 3D XPoint front, Intel said its Optane chips will ship next year (as will Micron’s version). For now, it’s making the technology available for testing through the cloud because enterprise users typically try and test things before implementation. ScaleMP, which offers virtualization solutions for HPC applications, also announced that it will be using some Optanes to run its virtual machines. This is the first step toward creating flash-based DRAM alternatives for the cloud.

Intel also has plans for the self-driving car segment and announced a partnership with Baidu to further these plans.

For the maker community, it announced Joule, a maker board for robots, drones, smart devices, and wearables that comes packed with 802.11ac connectivity, DDR4 memory, 4K capable graphics, a 64-bit quad-core Atom processor and support for Intel’s RealSense 3D camera. There was also the Euclid computer for robots and Aero development kit for drones.

To wrap up with the bombshell, Intel said it would license ARM designs and manufacture at its leading edge foundries and it even has a partner in LG. And pigs fly!

Facebook Open Sourcing AI-Based Language Research

Facebook AI Research (FAIR) lab is open sourcing its fastText bot-building AI library in the hopes of attracting more developers to its platform and thereby speeding up its development. This is something like an advanced auto-text corrector (which most people know is often incorrect and usually irritating). Facebook says that a compiler with “good C++11 support can now be used to access fastText on Github. It talked up its tech saying that it can train bot models on more than a billion words in less than 10 minutes using a standard multi-core CPU.  It also has a rather interesting feature: breaking words down into root words, suffixes and prefixes so they are better understood by computers.

Google Duo

Google wants to get into easy communication with video calling and text messaging, so it has been working on Duo and Allo to meet these two needs, respectively. Last week, the company launched Duo that is a free app enabling you to connect with friends and family as long as they have an Android or iOS phone number.

Since this is the umpteenth messaging app out there, it probably won’t stir up much excitement. But Duo could still gather some momentum because the thing has been designed with a slower Internet connection in mind. So it could gain momentum in developing countries where smartphone penetration is still low and where Android phones continue to sell well. Of course Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger have picked up strongly across developed and developing markets and video calling on WhatsApp is just around the corner.

Oracle Wants Re-Trial In Google Case

Oracle lost the retrial of its case against Alphabet when the jury decided that the company’s use of Java API code should be considered “fair use”. But last week, Oracle lawyers made a fresh appeal saying that Google withheld key information. One of the defenses Google took in the retrial was that it had used the desktop version of Java while Android was used in mobile devices. Oracle says that the recent launch of Google Play on Chrome therefore renders this defense groundless. They therefore think another retrial is justified so the jury can have access to this information.

Google’s response was that during discovery Oracle had asked for and received information about App Runtime for Chrome (ARC), so Oracle could have pursued the matter then. And the update ARC++ was still in the works at the time, so wasn’t mentioned, especially since “it was beyond the scope of the trial”.

The judge told Google "If I had been in your position, I would have disclosed." But he also questioned Oracle’s asking for a retrial because it didn’t use the information available to influence this jury and was asking for another hearing.  He will rule on the new angle in writing. For more details read: Why Google Needs To Win The Android Case Against Oracle

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Sector Price Index

Other stories you might have missed-

Corporate

Apple R&D Center in China: In line with standard policy to sweeten the company’s position in emerging economies, Apple (AAPL Quick QuoteAAPL - Free Report) is reportedly looking to build an R&D center in China before year-end. iPhone sales in China have plummeted and reduced the company’s market share. At the same time, China has put regulations on iTunes and iBooks to further squeeze sales. Apple has to get cracking with government appeasement and this seems to be the result of Tim Cook’s two visits to China in the last four months.

Cisco Layoff: Along with its strong earnings results, Cisco said that it would reduce its headcount by 5,500 or 7%. The changing market conditions favoring software and standard hardware instead of specialized hardware has led to changing focus at the company, which necessitated an adjustment in its human resources.

Cisco expects to pay $700 million in severance and termination benefits but didn’t say when most of the expense would hit results. The company generally reduces jobs over a period of time. Also, since resources will be redirected into new efforts, it’s also possible that the net decline in employees won’t be as big.

Twitter to Join Apple TV?: Twitter shares jumped on this unconfirmed rumor because sentiments are high following the many video deals it has been ratcheting up recently.

Legal/Regulatory

Aussie Ruling Favors Apple Pay: Australia’s anti-competitive regulator has turned down a request by the country’s three biggest banks to collectively negotiate with Apple to allow their payment software on Apple devices. Apple blocks third-party payment apps from iPhone unless they sign up for Apple Pay (keeping a nice fat cut for itself). Australia and New Zealand Bank has finally agreed to sign up for Apple Pay while the National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Westpac Banking Corp continue to negotiate with Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Google’s Russia Problems Continue: Google failed to come to an out-of-court settlement with Russia's state anti-monopoly watchdog FAS over the preloading of its apps into Android phones and also preventing the preloading of Yandex. This means that it is now required to pay the fine of 438 million rubles ($6.85 million) for abuse of its dominant position in the segment.

Google’s Anti-trust Scrutiny in South Korea: The problem is South Korea seems to be the same. Despite being cleared in a 2013 investigation, the country’s Fair Trade Commission is now objecting to the pre-loading of Google apps on Android phones.

New Technology/Products

Advertising on Facebook Messenger: Last week, Facebook made changes to its subscriber policies that will allow brands to start interacting with its billion+ subscribers. For user-generated messages such as customer service queries, the brand’s chatbot has 24 hours to reply. Companies that are already using Messenger have three months to convert their bots to standard messaging in accordance with the new rules. New companies have to submit plans about how their bots will function in the next six months.

Instagram Gets Even Better: The 500 million users of Facebook’s Instagram are in for a treat. The company has just announced an events channel in the Explore tab that will feature personalized videos from concerts, sporting events and more. It’s currently available in the U.S. alone but is expected to reach other markets soon.

Amazon Free Series for YouTube: Amazon is determined to capture more Prime members. And if this means it has to give away something for free, it certainly hesitate. If it has to wrest share from companies like Netflix, it must do something radical. So that’s what it’s doing. For the first time, the company has decided to give away some content to Facebook and YouTube. This includes two Golden Globe winners, primetime series "Transparent" and "Mozart in the Jungle," as well as the pilot of Emmy-nominated detective series "Bosch," and the highly popular, "The Man in the High Castle."

Pandora Shows Fruits of Next Big Sound Acquisition: Pandora used Next Big Sound technology to roll out three new charts: Trendsetters (most popular songs at a given time), Predictions (the numbers likely to be most popular in the future) and Top Spins (the songs that top Pandora charts). The charts are intended to help artists understand the trends and produce music that people want to listen to.

NVIDIA Chip

M&A and Collaborations

Amazon’s Twitch Makes Strategic Buy: Amazon has made another gaming purchase as it works steadily towards becoming a gaming heavy-weight. It has now added a company called Curse that allows conversation with other players over the Internet while playing. Its main products are Curse Voice, Curse Client and Gamepedia enabling editorial/video content production to gaming databases to game-mod management in addition to the on-game cursing!

Alibaba Partners with Ingenico: Alipay has scored a big win in Europe based on its popularity with Chinese customers. Around 10 million Chinese visited Europe in 2014, representing purchasing power of $21 billion, according to European payments processor Ingenico, which did more than 3.5 billion transactions itself last year. Since AliPay has 450 million users, the opportunity seems tremendous. Luckily for Alipay, Ingenico figured that this was too much opportunity to leave on the table.  

IBM-Workday Have A Deal

Some Numbers

Apple Sales Decline at Target: Colin Gillis of BGC Partners discussed some negative numbers coming out of Target with CNBC. The retailer said that one major reason for Target’s double-digit decline in electronics sales was a 20% decline in Apple products. While this is a small fraction of Apple’s sales, it is a disturbing trend, bringing back memories of its recent weakness in China. Particularly since the feature enhancements iPhone 7 is offering doesn’t appear to have resonated with people. 

Amazon Share Gains in IaaS: The latest data from Gartner shows that Amazon continues to lead the cloud infrastructure segment with a 31% share in the second quarter of 2016. Microsoft with 11%, IBM with 7% and Google with 5% are the next three major players. Microsoft has gained 2 points of market share while Google has gained 1 point since December 2015.

Some Companies That Reported Last Week: Cisco, NVIDIA, Analog Devices, Agilent, Applied Materials, NetApp

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