NEC and Sharp announce a joint venture-- one combining the NEC Display Solutions (NDS) subsidiary with Sharp, creating a single entity bringing together the strengths of the two companies in order to visualisation address the needs of global customers.

The two companies are all but set to complement each other. After all, NDS is a strong presence in the display market, offering visual technology and digital signage solutions for a variety of markets. Meanwhile Sharp brings a decade-long history display solution, and offers advanced technologies such as next-gen 8K LCD monitors.

Barix announces the opening of a new research and development center for next-generation, intelligent audio technologies in Aveiro, Portugal.

The Barix Innovation Center focuses on “what’s next” for the company including audio analytics, anomaly detection, predictive maintenance, and environmental sound monitoring.

“The new age of intelligent, widespread devices that understand and hear their surrounding is only beginning,” says Reto Brader, CEO, Barix. “We expect widespread adoption of AI and adaptive learning innovations in all of our markets, and we are proud to have secured highly qualified talent in Portugal for our next-generation research and development team.”

Nvidia announces the acquisition of SwiftStack, the company behind the object-based storage and architectural technology currently found in Nvidia products. The financial details of the deal are not available.

Founded in 2011, SwiftStack is an early member of the OpenStack project. It is also one of the biggest contributors to the OpenStack Swift open storage platform, and last year announced SwiftStack 7 with a focus on AI, HPC and accelerated computing. This made the company very relevant to the interests of Nvidia, especially since it previously worked with companies such as Ebay, Google and Valohai, and has experience with hardware from the likes of Cisco, Dell, HPE and Supermicro.

The HP board makes declares the latest "unsolicited exchange offer" from Xerox is not in the best interest of the company, and unanimously insists shareholders not only reject said offer, but also hold on to their shares.

“Our message to HP shareholders is clear-- the Xerox offer undervalues HP and disproportionately benefits Xerox shareholders at the expense of HP shareholders,” chairman Chip Berg says. “The Xerox offer would leave our shareholders with an investment in a combined company that is burdened with an irresponsible level of debt and which would subsequently require unrealistic, unachievable synergies that would jeopardize the entire company.”