TC Roundup: Still an underdog, but China govt deals help Alibaba's cloud ambitions

Still an underdog, but China govt deals help Alibaba's cloud ambitions: E-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd is an underdog in the global cloud computing industry, but it has one thing going for it: it's Chinese.

Alibaba this week scored a minor deal with China's northeastern port city of Dalian to build a cloud computing centre and provide online government services such as bill payment. (Reuters)

Twitter plans bigger push for live events, bid on NFL game: Twitter seeking to be a bigger player in live events, is planning a new product to curate tweets and other content about major sports contests, entertainment events and breaking news.

As part of the push into live events, Twitter earlier this year bid on the right to the NFL's first streaming-only broadcast, according to a person familiar with the matter. Yahoo ultimately won the rights to the Oct. 25 game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars. (The Wall Street Journal)

Sizing up the suitors for here, Nokia's map business: As the number of connected mobile gadgets — from smartphones and watches to cars — continues to grow, the market is heating up for accurate location data to serve those of us who use these devices.

That fact is being played most expensively at the moment with the sale of Here, the mapping and location services division of Nokia. The companies in the running to buy it include Uber, Baidu, a variety of car manufacturers, Chinese mapping company Navinfo and several private equity firms. The deadline for bids is today, June 18, TechCrunch has heard from two sources. (Tech Crunch)

U.S. cyber hack unsettles, frustrates U.S. defense industry: U.S. weapons industry executives say they are disappointed and frustrated about a massive U.S. cyber breach that exposed sensitive information about millions of Americans, including many thousands who work on high-security arms projects.

Details are still emerging about major cyber attacks on the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that were first disclosed earlier this month and U.S. officials have linked those breaches to China. China denies any involvement. (Venture Beat)