Kicking off the trial on Monday, Waymo's lawyer spent much of his opening statements to the jury painting Uber (and its then-CEO Travis Kalanick) as committed to winning the self-driving car race "at all costs"—including through cheating.
Why it matters: Over the next three weeks of the trial, Waymo will have to convince the jury that Uber not only plotted with one of its former employees to steal its technology, but that it actually did, and has been using it to advance its own development of self-driving cars.
Here are the slides each side's lawyers used in their opening statements to the jury as the Waymo-Uber trial over alleged trade secret theft kicked off on Monday.
Why it matters: Each side has presented a very different narrative to the jurors. While Waymo has painted Uber as an ambitious company willing to win "at all costs," the latter fought back, arguing that it's merely the victim of a bad actor's behavior and that Waymo has been worried about its ability to catch up all along.
Apple has joined forces with three firms to ramp up preparedness for cyberattacks. The company is partnering with Cisco, a fellow tech giant, Aon, a risk evaluator, and Allianz, an insurer, to tackle the growing threat of cyber hacks.
The details: The companies will offer their cyber risk management solution businesses, and it will include cyber resilience evaluation, insurance from attacks, and access to Cisco and Aon's incident response teams.
Broadcom plans to up its bid for fellow chipmaker Qualcomm to move acquisition talks forward, Reuters reports. The company is reportedly planning to offer Qualcomm between $80 and $82 per share, compared to the previous $70 per share. The offer would also include a relatively high breakup fee in case regulators interfere with the deal, per Reuters' sources.
The big picture: It's a renewed push to bring Qualcomm to the negotiating table, and "would be the largest pure technology merger of all time, topping Dell's purchase of EMC. It also would create the world's third-largest chipmaker, behind Intel and Samsung," Axios' Dan Primack noted in November.
The long-awaited trial between Uber and Waymo over alleged theft of trade secrets on autonomous driving tech will finally begin today.
The big deal: Aside from involving two high-profile companies, this trial could end in Uber having to pay a lot of money to Waymo (if the jury and judge see it that way), and could have big implications for the race to build self-driving cars and for the legal difference between trade secrets and work expertise.
Former Google and Facebook employees and investors are launching a “Truth About Tech” campaign to put pressure on tech giants to make their products less intrusive and addictive, particularly for children. The education part of the effort is aimed at students, parents and teachers.
Why it matters: Pressure has been building for Silicon Valley companies to be more transparent about what they know about how their products affect consumers' health. The effort is especially timely, given recent criticisms against tech companies for targeting children with their flagship products.
Health care companies that use JPMorgan Chase for investment banking services and mergers voiced "consternation" over JPMorgan's new venture with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway, according to a Wall Street Journal scoop. CEO Jamie Dimon had to "hit the phones Tuesday to assuage clients’ concerns," per the report.
Why it matters: The stock market hammered health care companies after people thought the new company could threaten the industry's status quo. But the latest report adds to the skepticism that this venture likely will be nothing more than a glorified group purchasing organization and won't be as "disruptive" as many people think.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told ABC's This Week that President Trump's decision to release the controversial Nunes memo "could be evidence of his intent to interfere with the [Russia] investigation."
"I think it’s very possible [Nunes'] staff worked with the White House and coordinated the whole effort with the White House," Schiff added.
Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser, said he had close ties to the Kremlin in a 2013 letter "to an academic press during a dispute over edits to an unpublished manuscript," reports TIME. Page is at the center of the Nunes memo controversy after the document alleged the FBI used the disputed Trump-Russia dossier to obtain a FISA surveillance wiretap against him. The key line:
Over the past half year, I have had the privilege to serve as an informal advisor to the staff of the Kremlin in preparation for their Presidency of the G-20 Summit next month.
Between the lines: Page has been suspected of overstating his influence during the course of the Russia probe. "The more Page talks, the less clear his story has become — and people have begun to wonder about not just his competence but also his sanity," NYT's Jason Zengerle wrote last month.
