Daily Tech Snippet: Wednesday, April 12

• Google’s AutoDraw uses machine learning to help you draw like a pro: Drawing isn’t for everyone. I, for one, am definitely not very good at it. But with AutoDraw, Google is launching a new experiment today that uses machine learning algorithms to match your doodles with professional drawings to make you look like you know what you’re doing. You can use AutoDraw on your phone or desktop and the experience is pretty straightforward. You simply start drawing your best version of a pizza, or house, or dog, or birthday cake and the algorithms try to figure out what it is that you’re trying to draw. It then tries to match your squiggles with drawings in its database, and if it finds any possible matches, it’ll show them in a list at the top of your virtual canvas. If you like one of those options, you simply click on it and AutoDraw replaces your amateurish creation with something a bit slicker.

• Amazon Said to Mull Whole Foods Bid Before Jana Stepped In: Amazon.com Inc., seen as a possible bidder for Whole Foods Market Inc., pondered a takeover of the organic-food chain last fall but didn’t pursue a deal, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. The e-commerce giant considered internally whether Whole Foods would help invigorate its nearly decadelong push into groceries, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations were private. The discussions never turned into a concrete plan, according to the person. Though Whole Foods has long been seen as a buyout target, activist investor Jana Partners LLC set off a new wave of speculation this week when it acquired a stake and urged the company to evaluate a sale. With a market valuation of $10.7 billion, the ailing organic-food retailer would be an outsized acquisition for Amazon -- dwarfing its 2009 purchase of online shoe retailer Zappos for about $1.2 billion. But the deal would turn Amazon into a grocery giant overnight and help it sideline Instacart Inc., a startup that delivers grocery orders from Whole Foods stores in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C. Shares of Whole Foods jumped as much as 5.8 percent to $35.50 in late trading after Bloomberg reported on the Amazon discussions. The stock was already up 9.1 percent this year through Tuesday’s close, with most of the rally coming after Jana announced its stake Monday.

• Qualcomm sues Apple for hobbling its iPhone chips to make Intel look better: After Apple hit Qualcomm with a barrage of lawsuits earlier this year, the chipmaker is countersuing Apple right back. Qualcomm today filed its Answers and Counterclaims to Apple’s January lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of California. The full details of the suit can be read in a 139-page document (PDF) released by Qualcomm, but the company has five key complaints — including the claim that Apple deliberately didn’t use the full potential of Qualcomm chips in iPhone 7 phones so that they wouldn’t perform better than the modems provided by Intel. Qualcomm says that Apple “chose not to utilize certain high-performance features of the Qualcomm chipsets for the iPhone 7 (preventing consumers from enjoying the full extent of Qualcomm’s innovation),” and when Qualcomm iPhones supposedly outperformed Intel iPhones, “Apple falsely claimed that there was ‘no discernible difference’ between” the two variants.The company also says that Apple prevented it from revealing to customers “the extent to which iPhones with Qualcomm’s chipsets outperformed iPhones with Intel’s chipsets.” As part of its five core arguments, Qualcomm says Apple “threatened” it to keep quiet about the differences between Intel and Qualcomm iPhones, preventing Qualcomm from “making any public comparisons about the superior performance of the Qualcomm-powered iPhones.” Other complaints in the countersuit include claims that Apple breached and mischaracterized agreements and negotiations with Qualcomm, encouraged attacks on the company in a number of markets by misrepresenting facts and making false statements, and interfered with Qualcomm’s existing agreements with other companies. Apple’s original suit against Qualcomm was filed in January this year in the United States, and claimed $1 billion from the chipmaker, arguing that it had been drastically overcharging for the use of patents. That was followed up by two additional suits — one in China and one in the United Kingdom — that also focused on patents and designs. A case filed in Beijing claimed 1 billion yuan ($145 million) for Qualcomm’s abuse of China’s monopoly laws. Tim Cook said that Apple had “no choice” but to sue Qualcomm, even after the two companies had worked together for many years, saying that he and his company “didn’t see another way forward.” According to Cook, Qualcomm was “insisting on charging royalties for technologies that they had nothing to do with,” collecting money on features like Apple’s TouchID fingerprint readers and cameras.