(Bloomberg) -- Munich is known more for its annual Oktoberfest than as a hub for tech and innovation, but once a year in January, executives from some of the world’s biggest tech firms such as Facebook Inc. and Amazon Inc. come to town for the Digital Life and Design conference.

The conference, which has grown since starting in 2005, is known for mixing together big names across the world of tech with local German and Munich-based startups and entrepreneurs. Executives who are on the way to the World Economic Forum in Davos can usually find an excuse to make a short detour to Germany.

The tone of the conference has shifted in recent years, taking on a more critical tone as consumers have awakened to the darker side of tech’s biggest companies -- with issues like regulation, privacy and fake news taking center stage.

We’re following the developments in real time. Time stamps are local for Munich.

Byton’s Cyber Defense (1:45 p.m.)

Byton’s vice president of digital Technology Abe Chen wants to make sure its first car - which is scheduled to be released at the end of the year in China, can’t be hacked, even if Byton’s cloud is compromised.

The Chinese electric car startup is putting machine-learning algorithms in its cars, instead of off-loading that work to servers, as is common practice. The risk in the latter approach is that if the servers are compromised, no car is safe, Chen said.

“If you can take over a vehicle through the cloud, you could potentially take over all the vehicles in the fleet,” Chen said in his speech in Munich.

Byton is in the middle of a large fundraising effort, which the company is aiming to wrap up by the end of the year, in order to take on both traditional carmakers and competitors like Tesla, all who are vying for market share in China, the world’s largest car market.

Apart from cyber security, Chen said his eventual aim is to have cars use machine learning to provide more services like restaurant recommendations without being asked.

“The car knows I like to eat around 6 o’clock, you like to eat around 6:15. You like steak, I like seafood. It’s about 5:45, the car pops up a suggestion, ‘Would you like to eat at a steak/seafood restaurant.”

(Updates with Byton speech.)

To contact the reporter on this story: Oliver Sachgau in Munich at osachgau@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tara Patel at tpatel2@bloomberg.net, ;Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann

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