Tesla faces another whistleblower complaint, Amazon may buy a theater chain and Intel acquires a deep-learning startup. Here's your Daily Crunch for August 17, 2018. 1. New whistleblower claims against Tesla allege drug trafficking, theft and phone hacking coverup Employees at Tesla's Nevada factory were allegedly involved in a massive drug ring, stole $37 million worth of precious metals and illegally spied on employees on behalf of CEO Elon Musk, according to a whistleblower complaint filed by Karl Hansen, a former member of Tesla's internal security department. A Tesla spokesperson said that when Hansen approached the company with his claims, some of them turned out to be false, while others could not be corroborated without further cooperation that Hansen supposedly refused to provide. 2. Coming to a theater near you: Amazon? Bloomberg reports that Amazon is putting itself in the running to acquire Landmark Theatres, a chain with a network of 268 screens in 27 markets. 3. Intel buys deep-learning startup Vertex.AI to join its Movidius unit "The seven-person Vertex.AI team joined the Movidius team in Intel's Artificial Intelligence Products Group," Intel said. "With this acquisition, Intel gained an experienced team and IP to further enable flexible deep learning at the edge." 4. Autonomous retail startup Inokyo's first store feels like stealing Cameras track what you grab from shelves, and with a single QR scan of the app on your way in and out of the store, you're charged for what you picked up. 5. Twitter company email addresses why it's #BreakingMyTwitter In a company email it shared today, Twitter cited "technical and business constraints" that it can no longer ignore as being the reason behind the APIs' shutdown. This is breaking users' favorite third-party Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Twitterific. 6. DoorDash raises another $250M, nearly triples valuation to $4B It's only been five months since the company announced a $535 million round. CEO Tony Xu said he wasn't actively looking for additional investment, but he was open to investor interest because it could help the company expand more quickly. 7. Facebook cracks down on opioid dealers after years of neglect Facebook's internal search engine has stopped showing posts, Pages and Groups in response to searches of "OxyContin," "Xanax," "Fentanyl" and other opioids, as well as other drugs like "LSD." |