EU will review Apple’s acquisition of music discovery app Shazam

We reported back in December that Apple was set to buy music discover app Shazam. The tech giant reportedly signed a US$400m acquisition deal with the London-based company. And now it seems the European Commission wants to investigate the deal following requests from seven countries that fear the agreement will “adversely affect competition.” The seven petitioners include Austria, France, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. When Apple made the announcement last year, it said the deal will be less than the “turnover threshold” for the European Commission. However, it’s above the merger notification threshold for Austria, which is leading the quorum of countries worried about the deal.

This investigation forces Apple to let the EU authorities know about the deal and have to wait for the investigation into the deal’s implications. The EC has up to 35 working days for the initial investigations and another 105 working days if there are serious concerns that need to be looked into. Apple will then have the opportunity for approval by answering and addressing the concerns.

Source: The Guardian

Carbonite sells SMS Backup & Restore to SyncTech

If you constantly switch devices, you might be familiar with SMS Backup & Restore. The app was bought by Carbonite last year and now it’s switching hands again to go to Australian company SyncTech. As its name suggests, it easily backs up and restores your SMS, MMS, and call log. At the moment, the app is still listed on Carbonite’s site as one of their products but with the holiday weekend we aren’t surprised that hasn’t been updated yet. We got the news from the update of the app on the Play Store where SyncTech announced plans to have an opt-out option for advertisements as well as updated contact/support details. No other news about what the company has planned for the app though.

Source: Android Police

Amazon purchases Blink to expand its connected home lineup

Amazon’s latest acquisition shows us how the company is taking the expansion of its connected home line very seriously. They just bought Blink, the company behind the wire-free home monitoring system. Blink offers both an indoor and outdoor home security camera models as well as a video doorbell. According to Blink, nothing will change for the company and its customers now and they will continue to operate as usual and support clients as needed.

Source: Engadget

Apple reportedly buying Shazam, deal might be announced on December 11

Apple is supposedly finalizing a deal with the company behind the music recognition app Shazam to buy the latter for a rumoured amount of US$401 million. The deal will reportedly be finalized over the weekend with the deal being officially announced on December 11, Monday. Shazam currently already integrates with Apple’s Siri and Apple Music—on top of working with Spotify and Snapchat as well. Both companies haven’t commented on the report. What this potential deal could mean to the other services Shazam is available on we can’t say. For now, we just have to wait for confirmation that this deal pushed through.

Source: NME