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Dyson's second robot vacuum isn't afraid of the dark
It's been three years since the launch of Dyson's very own robot vacuum, the 360 Eye, and our very own Mat Smith was left impressed when he briefly lived with one in his old Tokyo apartment. That said, the machine wasn't perfect, but Dyson believes that its follow-up model will solve many key problems. The 360 Heurist announced in Beijing earlier today is a familiar-looking robot packed with some notable upgrades. For one, it's powered by a quad-core 1.4GHz processor, which is apparently 20 times faster than what was on its predecessor. According to the company, this helps the machine pick up 60 percent more detail about the environment, thus reducing the chances of bumping into things by 50 percent. Hopefully this also means fewer instances of misaligned docking.
Ford vending machine begins dispensing cars in China
It is no longer enough simply to test-drive a vehicle by riding around the block while a salesperson gives you their well-rehearsed patter. Now, there needs to be some sort of theater around the purchase, or else how will you trick yourself into thinking that buying a car is fun? It's why Ford and Alibaba leapt into bed together to build a vending machine for cars that you can try before you buy.
Internet giant Alibaba crushes one-day online shopping record
If you needed evidence that internet shopping still has room to grow, you just got it. Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba has confirmed that its annual Singles' Day sales event racked up the equivalent of more than $25.3 billion in sales, easily setting a record for the most online purchases in one day. For context, Alibaba sold just short of $18 billion last year -- this year, the company surpassed that figure slightly past the halfway mark. The 2016 Cyber Monday sale was downright tiny by comparison, mustering 'just' $3.45 billion in the US.
Chinese tech giant Alibaba has a smart speaker, too
Just days after news emerged that Samsung is working on its own AI-equipped speaker, Chinese giant Alibaba is also entering the fray. The Tmall Genie, which does a similar job to Amazon's Alexa, lets you control your home and offers news, music playback and a raft other skills via voice assistant AliGenie. Unlike Samsung's as-yet ephemeral offering, however, the Tmall Genie will be available on July 17th for the equivalent of $73.
China smashes sales records during its version of Black Friday
In the US there's Black Friday, but in China, they get all their big online shopping discounts on November 11 aka "Singles Day" instead. As of 4:28am ET today, Alibaba's Tmall, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, has already made over $11 billion which broke last year's record of $8.97 billion. As reminded by our friends over at TechCrunch, both numbers from that platform alone beat the entire US' online sales of last year's Thanksgiving and Black Friday combined. It's no wonder Alibaba could afford to hire Frank Underwood Kevin Spacey and James Bond Daniel Craig to kick off this year's party.
Chinese shopping giant Alibaba is launching an HBO-like Netflix rival
Alibaba is already a cornerstone of China's online shopping space, and it's now setting its sights on one of the internet's other big draws: streaming video. Jack Ma and crew are planning to launch Tmall Box Office, a Netflix-like service that will combine HBO-like original video productions (hence the name) with content bought from both China and abroad. It'll represent a sharp break from the norm in China, where YouTube-style (and typically free) video portals like iQiyi and Youku Tudou tend to dominate. While about 10 percent of TBO's material will cost nothing, the rest will require that you either subscribe or pay per show. There's no telling how successful Alibaba's offering will be when it launches in a couple of months. However, we have a hunch that Netflix is feeling a lot of pressure to speed up its Chinese talks -- it'll want to get a solid foothold in the giant nation before it's too late. [Image credit: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images]
Amazon opens a store on its Chinese rival's marketplace
Amazon is willing to do a lot to gain a competitive edge... including setting up shop on a big rival's home turf, apparently. The online shopping giant has launched a store on Tmall, Alibaba's China-focused marketplace. The move requires that Amazon give Alibaba a cut of any sales, which is unusual for an internet retailer that likes to operate on thin profit margins. However, it's clear that Jeff Bezos and crew are primarily interested in getting their foot in the door. Amazon doesn't have that much clout in China compared to Alibaba, which is worth more than Amazon and eBay combined -- a Tmall storefront will at least remind Chinese customers that an American alternative exists.
OUYA confirms further moves into China with Alibaba deal
Is Chinese giant Alibaba investing $10 million into California-based game console maker OUYA? That report remains unconfirmed, but OUYA did confirm this morning that Alibaba is getting the OUYA game library on its YunOS platform. Sorry, the what platform? It's essentially a version of Android that was created by Alibaba, intended to compete with Android in China. So does that mean OUYA is heading to smartphones in China? Not quite.
Alibaba IPO makes it worth $231 billion, more than Amazon and eBay combined
We'd heard that the US IPO for Chinese company Alibaba could be among the biggest ever, and it did not disappoint. Closing at a stock price of $93.89, it raised $21.8 billion for the company and is the biggest IPO in US history. According to Bloomberg, it could become the biggest ever (topping Agricultural Bank of China's $22 billion IPO in 2010) if underwriters make use of an option to buy more shares, which market observers expect they will. Now that Alibaba has joined the club of recent tech IPOs like Facebook and Twitter and it has cash to throw around, many wonder if it will start acquiring smaller companies the way its Silicon Valley rivals have lately. Despite being mostly unknown in the US Alibaba is massive in China, operating sales platforms described as similar to Amazon, eBay and Paypal, and Reuters says it controls more than 80 percent of online sales there. Jack Ma (pictured above) founded the company in his apartment in 1999 and is now China's richest man, personally worth some $18 billion as of market close, according to the Wall Street Journal. [Image credit: PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images]
Acer CloudMobile moves to China, dumps Android for Aliyun
Acer's CloudMobile (A800) has quietly slipped on its September 5th release date in the UK and headed East, where it's swapped its Android front-end for Alibaba's Aliyun OS. The dual-core handset will be released in China this Friday for ¥2,999 (approximately $474), making it the most expensive in the country -- according to the Wall Street Journal. Acer has reportedly chosen the fledgling, cloud-based OS for its Chinese customers because of the easy user experience, especially for smartphone first-timers. The company seems committed to exploring Aliyun in follow-up devices also, with one planned for release next month and more coming in 2013. Meanwhile, the flagship has yet to receive a dollar price or release date at Expansys, which doesn't suggest imminent availability of the Ice Cream Sandwich variant. Unfortunately, we'll probably never see Aliyun make it outside of China and into our eager hands... not without dropping some serious cash on an import, anyway.
