finisar
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Apple invests $390 million into Face ID and AirPod tech
Apple has made another investment with its Advanced Manufacturing Fund (AMF), awarding Finisar $390 million. If the name doesn't sound familiar, its work will. Finisar is the company behind the iPhone X's Face ID, Animoji and Portrait mode for selfies -- all of which rely on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSEL). It's also responsible for your AirPods' proximity sensing tech. The investment means Finisar will set up shop in a 700,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in Texas in addition to expanding its research and development team.
Sirius, XM hit with second patent lawsuit in two months
Looks like the Sirius and XM legal teams are going to be spending a lot of time in good ol' Marshall, Texas this year. The two satellite radio giants are facing their second patent lawsuit in two months, this time over a 1995 patent owned by Finisar, a multinational networking company specializing in optical components. Finisar claims that it tried to license the patent -- which describes a method of regulating the organization of data during a satellite transmission -- to both XM and Sirius in 2005 but got the double cold shoulder. Aiming to correct that slight, the company is now asking the court for monetary damages as well as an injunction preventing XM and Sirius from using the offending tech. We'll be watching this one closely, since Finisar won more than $100 million from DirecTV last year over what appears to be the same patent -- that might put a dent in those merger plans, no?[Via OrbitCast]
