Apple reportedly looking to buy Cobalt directly from miners. The metal is used in lithium-ion batteries in Apple's devices, but it can also power electric vehicles. Shares of Apple up half a percent on Wednesday. Inverse Technology Reporter Mike Brown explains how this move might help Apple further its dominance in the tech space.
"There's a race at the moment for supplies over the coming few years," says Brown. Electric vehicles use about 1,000 times as much Cobalt as smartphone devices.
"It would be the first time Apple secured its own Cobalt supply so it could help to re position itself as a company, rather than going to factory manufacturers that deal directly with suppliers itself," says Brown.
Amazon has confirmed that its voice assistant service Alexa and cloud computing division Amazon Web Services (AWS) are back in business after a short outage over the weekend.
Norwegian battery startup Freyr is planning its next factory in an Atlanta suburb because a new U.S. clean energy law offers generous tax credits for local production.