Your Weekend Tech Digest: iPhone turned 10, Amazon Go stores delayed

By Tian DuBelko

We round up the trending stories every week so you can catch up on the top tech news. This week, the iPhone celebrated its 10th anniversary, Amazon’s cashierless stores were delayed, Facebook successfully tested its solar-powered drone, and Microsoft acquired a cloud monitoring startup for $50 million. Get your weekly recap here, then head over to our blog for more stories.

The iPhone celebrates its 10th birthday

Time sure flies. This week, Apple’s iPhone celebrated its 10th anniversary. Since Steve Jobs introduced it 10 years ago, the iPhone has gone on to sell over a billion units worldwide. The iPhone is one of the most successful products ever released in the electronic industry, and it’ll likely still be popular 10 years from now.

Amazon Go stores are delayed

Amazon’s new, cashierless store in Seattle has been delayed due to some glitches. The machine learning and computer vision-powered store were supposed to be open in early 2017. However, this delay has raised concerns about Amazon customers’ abilities to shop and checkout without needing to stop at the cashier.

Facebook successfully tests drone

Facebook just finished a second test of Aquilla, its solar-powered drone. The goal of the drone is to bring internet access to remote parts of the world. The test was done at an altitude of 3,000ft for about 90 minutes. And that’s just a mere fraction of Facebook’s 60,000ft goal. Eventually, Facebook wants to launch a drone fleet that can communicate with each other and stay in the air for months at a time.

Microsoft acquires Cloudyn for $50M

Adding to its Azure team, Microsoft reported closed a deal for Cloudyn for $50 million. Cloudyn is a tool that offers users cloud monitoring and analytics, and help customers understand how much they were spending on different cloud environments. Since Cloudyn’s products are meant for multiple environments, Azure customers now have a tool that can help them use Amazon Web Services more effectively.

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