Apple M&A met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk last spring, to partner in battery ‘Gigafactory’?

Those ongoing analyst predictions that Apple would buy Tesla may have been based on some sort of reality.  According the the SF Chronicle, Adrian Perica, Apple’s head of mergers and acquisitions, met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk last spring.

A source tells The Chronicle that Perica met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk in Cupertino last spring around the same time analysts suggested Apple acquire the electric car giant…

Six months before Ahmad’s letter, Musk met with Perica and probably Cook at Apple headquarters, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect business relationships. While a megadeal has yet to emerge (for all of its cash, Apple still plays hardball on valuation), such a high-level meeting between the two Silicon Valley giants involving their top dealmakers suggests Apple was very much interested in buying the electric car pioneer.

But it is unlikely that Apple wanted to buy the car company and even more unlikely that Musk would sell it. In response to the acquisition rumors at the time, he tweeted the following:

Forgot to say one thing at Tesla annual shareholders meeting: just as my money was the first in, it will be the last out.—
Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 05, 2013

But it’s highly likely that Apple would want to buy into one of Tesla’s major upcoming projects.

Tesla is set to announce a US battery ‘Gigafactory’ in the coming days that will more than double world-wide lithium-ion battery production. Apple obviously has a huge interest here, as it uses the batteries in all of its products. Musk has announced that there will be several high-profile partners in the green US plant, likely including Panasonic and possibly Solar City. Apple has been investing in big green US factories recently, including its Mesa AZ Sapphire venture.

There is some synergy between the companies. Tesla has been hiring high-level engineers from Apple at a pretty impressive clip, and Apple’s Cupertino parking lot sometimes looks like a Tesla showroom:

Adrian Perica, a former Goldman Sachs banker, joined Apple several years ago to head up the M&A department. Before that, Steve Jobs was the head of M&A and he’d rarely make deals. For all of Apple’s money, it still makes very few deals, especially compared to its Silicon Valley neighbors like Google and Yahoo.

TSLA’s stock price has been on a tear since its release of the Model S, with shares rocketing from $30 to $200; its market cap is currently near $25B.

- 9to5mac.com

Yahoo Weather goes universal, brings same award-winning design to the iPad

At WWDC, Yahoo received an Apple Design Award for Yahoo Weather. This coincided with the unveiling of iOS 7 and its Weather app, which displayed striking similarities to Yahoo’s effort.

With the latest update to the app, Yahoo has brought the same award-winning design to the iPad. The full-bleed imagery from Flickr really shines on a larger display. The layout for iPad is largely a port of the iPhone design with upgraded icons and assets but refinements have been made for the iPad where necessary. For example, forecast information can be much larger because of the additional real-estate.

Weather apps for iPad are in higher demand than on the iPhone, because Apple chooses not to include a stock weather iPad on its tablets. Yahoo’s offering is a good choice for anyone searching for a decent iPad weather app.

 In fact, it’s probably a good approximation of what Apple might do if they every decide to bring a native Weather app to the iPad, seeing how similar the iPhone counterparts of these apps are.

As you would expect, Yahoo Weather remains free to download on the App Store, now universal.

Written by: Benjamin Mayo @BenjaminZAMayo December 16, 2013/5:17 am - 9to5mac.com

Apple joins tech titans in calling for government spying reform and limitations

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has joined Microsoft, Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, and other giants in the tech industry in calling for a reform of the NSA’s surveillance tactics. Earlier this year it was revealed that the National Security Agency was using information from these companies and more to monitor citizens across the nation without warrants.

The companies allegedly involved in the “PRISM” program denied turning over any user data to the government, but a leaked NSA slidedeck (seen above) seemed to imply the opposite.

The new collaborative campaign, called Reform Government Surveillance, cites five driving principles in its drive to curb excessive government spying:

1. Limiting Governments’ Authority to Collect Users’ InformationGovernments should codify sensible limitations on their ability to compel service providers to disclose user data that balance their need for the data in limited circumstances, users’ reasonable privacy interests, and the impact on trust in the Internet. In addition, governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.
2. Oversight and Accountability
   
   Intelligence agencies seeking to collect or compel the production of information should do so under a clear legal framework in which executive powers are subject to strong checks and balances. Reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process, and governments should allow important rulings of law to be made public in a timely manner so that the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry.
3. Transparency About Government Demands
   
   Transparency is essential to a debate over governments’ surveillance powers and the scope of programs that are administered under those powers. Governments should allow companies to publish the number and nature of government demands for user information. In addition, governments should also promptly disclose this data publicly.
4. Respecting the Free Flow of Information
   
   The ability of data to flow or be accessed across borders is essential to a robust 21st century global economy. Governments should permit the transfer of data and should not inhibit access by companies or individuals to lawfully available information that is stored outside of the country. Governments should not require service providers to locate infrastructure within a country’s borders or operate locally.
5. Avoiding Conflicts Among GovernmentsIn order to avoid conflicting laws, there should be a robust, principled, and transparent framework to govern lawful requests for data across jurisdictions, such as improved mutual legal assistance treaty — or “MLAT” — processes. Where the laws of one jurisdiction conflict with the laws of another, it is incumbent upon governments to work together to resolve the conflict.

The group’s site also includes an open letter to government officials, which chides the government for overstepping its constitutional limitations and violating the rights of the companies’ users. The letter points out that the group complies with all legal requests for information that are “reasonable in scope,” and has historically “pushed back” against unreasonable requests.

Finally, the letter requests that the United States ensure that future surveillance be confined by law and placed under the oversight of independent parties.

Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer’s revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It’s time for a change.

For our part, we are focused on keeping user’s data secure — deploying the latest encryption technology to prevent unauthorized surveillance on our networks and by pushing back on government requests to ensure that they are legal and reasonable in scope.

We urge the US to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight. To see the full set of principles we support, visit ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com

Sincerely,

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

Whether the U.S. government will take the group’s concerns to heart and take meaningful steps to reform its spying tactics is anyone’s guess, but it seems that for the first time a concerted effort is being made by the tech industry to let the government know exactly where they stand on the issue of surveillance.

Written by: Mike Beasley @MikeBeas December 8, 2013/9:46 pm - 9to5mac.com