VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Co has offered bid to acquire the LCD business of Sharp Corporation. However, the bidding details were not revealed. Without confirming on its plans to offload LCD business or received any bid offer, Sharp Corp continues to explore several options for reviving the trouble-prone liquid panel display business. Sharp has also asked Apple Inc for funding support. Sharp Corp has sought a $1.9-billion revival package from the banks and decided to slash 5,000 jobs as part of the cost-cutting measures. The intense competition in LCD screens for smartphones from Asian companies is taking a toll on Sharp Corp's business.

The closure of the US Export-Import Bank (EXIM) charter is forcing the US companies to explore business options overseas. Major aerospace companies, which have been benefiting from export financing and other encouraging schemes from EXIM, are in favor of shifting out of the US. General Electric (GE) has already firmed up to its plan to set up $400-million turboprop engine in Europe. Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), the largest US aerospace trade group, expresses concerns that many aviation companies are losing their competitiveness in the absence of support from EXIM. However, conservative Republicans are against EXIM charter as it's confined to only three major companies.

Snapchat just released the latest update of their product today. According to the announcement, the four years old company releases its first in-app purchase feature for their 'Replays' along with a new face effect lenses. The 'Replays' feature is only available for US users for the time being.

The federal court ordered Samsung to halt older version of its smartphones for breaching Apple's patent. It was found that Samsung was guilty of copyright infringement filed by Apple. But the features included in the case were no longer used by Samsung.

The debt-ridden Island Puerto Rico has opted for value-added tax (VAT) as a measure to enhance revenues for the government. The new VAT structure will come into force starting1 April 2016.

US tech giant Google may not be paying taxes to Britain, but according to its latest report, it is contributing a great deal to UK's economy through the digital revenue made by local businesses in that nation through the search engine.

Right after Apple announced its new Apple TV, Amazon unleashed on September 17 its new Fire TV set-top box version, along with its Fire TV Stick HDMI dongle, and its new Fire TV Gaming Edition.

Falling in lines of Bank of America (BoA) and Citigroup Inc, the US banking major JPMogran Chase & Co has also indicated the possible drop in the revenues for the third quarter ending September. The high volatile trading during August shrunk the trading volume of the investment banking arm of JPMorgan Chase. Since the bank's strategy of not to lose money restricted the bank from speculative trading during the August crash. JPMorgan Chase also sees China's economic slowdown as a speed breaker, but not a devastating thing if the world's second largest economy is growing at five percent. JPMorgan has decided to implement an expansion plan for strengthening retail operations.

Japanese automobile major Mitsubishi Motors Corp has begun the process of closing down operations in the US. Mitsubishi had put on its sole US manufacturing unit on the block, but couldn't find a suitable buyer and decided to close the shop.

The American investment bank, Goldman Sachs, has placed ads to Snapchat targeting to hire millennials. The bank shared a short video in Snapchat Campus Stories.

Most financial markets in Asia ended the week higher after the US Federal Reserve decided to keep interest rates unchanged. China's Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.4% Friday. Despite that, the bourse was still down 3.2% for the week as investors worried over the Fed decision as well as weakness in economic data.

New York photographers, Santiago and Mauricio, collaborate with AY Collective, the Society Management and Fauxgraph 3D technology to come up with a 3D-printed doll version of the American supermodel Lindsey Wixson.

Pinterest announced it had reached 100 million monthly users this week. The company will include 'Buyable Pins' on the site soon. Tim Kendall, Pinterest Monetization GM, told Fortune that the startup had crossed 100 million monthly users. Kendall said the number of shared links and images have doubled over 18 months as well. Added to that, searches to Pinterest had risen to 81% over the previous year.

New regulations have been issued by the U.S. to alleviate restrictions on American companies venturing business in Cuba and opening up travel in the latest action to soften the US trade embargo on the Communist country.

Google Glass, also known as Project Glass, changed its name to Project Aura. Google started developing the project in June and aims to include advanced technology like Soli and Cardboard. Google is working out on Project Aura. According to the Business Insider, the project started rolling out in June. Its focus is to revive the wearable device, Google Glass.