In today’s Bulldog wrapup of technology headlines:

  • Sprint owner Softbank buys ARM for $32 billion
  • Upgrades set for Tesla Autopilot
  • McDonald’s and Starbucks to filter Wi-Fi porn
  • Japanese businesses caught up in Vine

The details:

  • Sprint owner SoftBank to buy ARM in big post-Brexit deal

Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp. is buying Britain’s ARM Holdings for 24.3 billion pounds ($32 billion), in a deal the British government hailed as a vote of confidence in the country following last month’s vote to leave the European Union.

The recommended cash deal underlines the desire of SoftBank, which also owns struggling U.S. telecommunications company Sprint, to expand in the so-called “Internet of Things” — how home devices from smart-thermostats to security cameras and domestic appliances can connect online and work in sync.

ARM is renowned as an innovator in the “Internet of Things” — its technology is used in the vast majority of smartphones, for example.

“ARM will be an excellent strategic fit within the SoftBank group as we invest to capture the very significant opportunities provided by the ‘Internet of Things’,” said Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank.

ARM centers its business on intellectual property, especially in mobile computing, rather than chip manufacturing, for which it relies on partners. Its technology is used in 95 percent of smartphones and 80 percent of digital cameras, according to the company. Augmented-reality headsets, biometric sensors, self-driving cars, commercial drones and smart watches all use ARM technology.

Hermann Hauser, who helped found the company in 1990, expressed his disappointment at the deal, bemoaning that the company’s future would be determined in Japan.

“ARM has been the proudest achievement in my life, so it’s a very sad day for me personally and for technology in Britain,” Hauser, who is now a partner at Amadeus Capital, told ITV News.

  • Tesla’s Musk says software changes could improve Autopilot

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk says he’s optimistic that a software update can improve the semi-autonomous Autopilot system in the company’s cars.

Tesla has been working on changes to Autopilot since May, after one of its Model S sedans failed to sense a tractor trailer in bright sun and crashed into it. The driver was killed.

In a Twitter post Sunday, Musk said that after talking with German supplier Bosch, which makes its radar sensors, it appears “significant improvements” to Autopilot can be sent to drivers automatically through over-the-air software updates.

Musk gave no details on the improvements. He also didn’t say when the updates might happen.

Musk also said he plans to release new product plans for Tesla after his other company, Space X, launches a rocket early Monday.

  • McDonald’s, Starbucks agree to filter Wi-Fi porn

McDonald’s and Starbucks are implementing filtering technology that blocks customers using Wi-Fi from accessing pornography sites.

The move follows a campaign from anti-pornography groups Enough is Enough and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation to demand the chains filter out pornography.

Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s says in a statement that Wi-Fi filtering has been activated in the majority of its nearly 14,000 restaurants nationwide. A spokesperson for Seattle-based Starbucks says it is implementing filtering once it can find a system that “also doesn’t involuntarily block unintended content.”

Enough is Enough President Donna Rice Hughes applauds the moves and says the organization plans to push other businesses and venues to filter their Wi-Fi.

The National Center for Sexual Exploitation says chains such as Chick-fil-A and Panera Bread already block porn on Wi-Fi.

  • Japan companies seek hipness through teens posting to Vine

What’s helping turn Japanese youngsters into stars on Vine, the Twitter-owned social network devoted to looping, six-second video clips, is the stodginess of this nation’s business world.

Japan Inc. companies, both big and small, are generally so clueless about appealing to youngsters — especially young women and especially on social networks — they need all the help they can get from teenage Viners for marketing.

Reika Oozeki, 19, became a sensation overnight on Vine when she was just 17, offering snarky sketches of life.

“I was studying for tests, and I was bored,” says Oozeki, who started out using her cellphone to shoot videos of herself in pajamas or at school. “I was so surprised it caught on.”

Now she has more than 730,000 followers and her videos have looped over viewers’ screens nearly 850 million times. Most of her clips are close-ups of her face. She might coo pretending to be with a date, and then suddenly switch to a growl when she is supposedly with girlfriends.

She has appeared on TV shows, got cast in a movie and is signed with a productioncompany. She is also training to become a swimming coach for children, who adore her because she is famous on Vine.

When companies approach her to make Vine clips, Oozeki is often given free rein. She is sometimes not even required to say the company name. In the clip she made for IntelJapan, she merely snarls, “Interru haitteru,” the Japanese for “Intel Inside.”