Quick hits: July 2018

The United States Department of Commerce announces deal with Chinese mobile manufacturer ZTE to lift its ban on trade with American tech firms. For more on this story, see page 18 of this issue. TechCrunch reports that Martin Tripp has filed a whistleblower claim against Tesla Inc., who allegedly manufactured defective batteries and used waste materials in production of their vehicles. Tripp is a former Tesla employee who was fired earlier this year for leaking sensitive information about company operations.

Concurrently, Forbes reports that Elon Musk has unveiled plans to open a Tesla plant in Shanghai’s Lingang industrial zone. Dubbed “Gigafactory 3”, it will be a multi-billion dollar undertaking, following in the footsteps of the Gigafactories which preceded it.

Cloud security firm Netskope has announced that it has acquired startup Sift Security, per a report from TechCrunch. The two will work together to secure cloud infrastructure services for the likes of Amazon and Google, with Sift CEO Neil King leading the Netskope product management team from here on.

Blockchain is the technology that fuels cryptocurrency, which The Handelot Times has touched on in the past. However, it is going to be used for much more: a blockchain-powered information registry called Dirt Protocol, who Forbes calls “the Wikipedia of data,” has raised USD $3 million in startup funding from 26 investors.