Four years ago, Twitter purchased a company in its infancy that was building what Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey described as “an entirely new art form to the world.” He was right. The world instantly embraced Vine, an app that only allowed you to post six-second videos. By design, the videos became more appealing after each play. Thousands of creators flocked to it. Hundreds of thousands of viewers fell in love it. It seemed like the future was bright for Vine.

But after years ignoring both its creators and users, Twitter has decided to shut down Vine. To read more about why they made that decision, give this article a read.

In happier news, last week Uber-owned startup Otto sent autonomous truck on a two-hour, 120-mile journey, packed with beer. While it was a bit of a PR stunt, it highlights the progress Uber and other self-driving car companies are making in the space.

The Japanese Billionaire in question is Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, who received quite a lot of attention just a couple of months ago with the purchase of UK chip-designer ARM.

As is often the case with acquisitions, cultural clashes and conflicting visions have made the development of Pepper, an emotional AI robot, difficult (to say the least).

This quote from one of its users says it best:

However, Masayoshi Son seems to be very determined to make his dream a reality and doesn’t plan on giving up. I’m looking forward to seeing Pepper 5 or 10 years from now.

Some of the bigger news from last week. AT&T wants to buy Time Warner for $85 billion. It’s a huge acquisition and says a lot about the telecom and media landscape today.

Another acquisition, not quite the size of AT&T and Time Warner, but significant (and a good one, in my opinion). For years the Wirecutter has been my go-to source for tech product recommendations. They take a statistical and test-driven approach to reviewing products that leaves you certain with your choice and more importantly, ready to make the purchase.

And that’s where Wirecutter makes the bulk of its revenue. Every time you click on a product linked to from their site and make a purchase (perhaps on Amazon), they get a cut of it.

I fly a lot, so I found this particularly interesting. A mostly visual look at a first class journey across the world, just 60 years ago.

I’m also a big Ikea fan! It’s interesting to see how Ikea’s pricing changes over the years. For example, the Poäng, an iconic chair that’s been sold by Ikea for decades:

And one more Uber article, because it wouldn’t be an issue of Pivoting without at least 2 Uber-related pieces of a news.

I’ve been listening to this new podcast from Bloomberg and have really enjoyed it so far (and think you will too). It focuses on events in the tech world and interviews the founders involved. The Fab.com one was great, but I really enjoyed the Uber in China one, where they spoke to Didi Chuxing founder Cheng Wei.

Well, the new MacBookPro is here - finally - and to be honest, it’s not very exciting. Apparently I’m not the only person who thinks this. If you’re feeling similarly but don’t really know how to articulate it, this article may help.

Regardless, it’s still nice and news-worthy. The highlight seems to be the touch bar - a digital, touchable display that sits above the keyboard where the function keys used to be. It comes in Space Grey now, too. Otherwise there isn’t much worth talking about.

Microsoft on the other hand have made a great impression on the tech world with their latest piece of hardware, the Microsoft Surface Studio. It’s a huge touch-screen desktop that while niche (and not cheap), is a beautiful feat of engineering and pretty exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing it in person!