Watchdog clears Ebay’s $9.2bn classified ads deal with Adevinta June 3, 2021 The competition watchdog has cleared Ebay’s $9.2bn (£6.5bn) sale of its classified ads business to Norwegian rival Adevinta. In March the two companies said they would sell off three British divisions to secure regulatory approval for the tie-up. Adevinta said it will divest Shpock, while US ecommerce giant Ebay will sell Gumtree and Motors.co.uk. The [...]
Prosus snaps up Stack Overflow in $1.8bn edtech deal June 2, 2021 Prosus has bought Stack Overflow, an online community for software developers, in a $1.8bn deal as it seeks to capitalise on the demand for online learning. Prosus is one of Europe’s most valuable tech companies and investors and is the largest shareholder in Chinese tech giant Tencent. It is its first acquisition in the edtech [...]
Free coding school 01 Founders launches in London with tech job guarantee June 2, 2021 A free two-year coding school that offers students a guaranteed job at a top tech firm has launched in London. 01 Founders is now accepting applications for its first school in the capital, where learners are offered two years of on-campus training with zero tuition fees followed by two years of employment. The coding push [...]
Zoom boss says home working is here to stay as app hikes forecasts June 2, 2021 The shift to home working will be a permanent change to working habits, the boss of Zoom has said, as his company hiked its forecasts for the full year. “Work is no longer a place, it’s a space where Zoom serves to empower your teams to connect and bring their best ideas to life,” said [...]
Former Huawei executive in court over China spying accusations June 1, 2021 A former Huawei executive and an ex-Polish secret services agent have appeared in court over allegations they carried out state-sponsored spying for China. Weijing Wang and Piotr Durbajlo, who were arrested in 2019 and have both pleaded not guilty, were in court for the start of the trial in Warsaw this morning. Polish prosecutors allege [...]
Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, and the Future of Investing June 1, 2021 | City Talk Witnessing the recent GameStop event, it was clear that for better or worse, the little guy, or many, many little guys, had briefly beaten Wall Street at its own game. While GameStop was fuelled primarily by the collective action of many, the voice of only one person, echoed by others, can have similar influence. For [...]
5 humanoid robots who are worth getting to know May 28, 2021 | City Talk Many predictions were made decades ago about an era when robots and humans would co-exist. Today thanks to major advancements in Robotics and AI, robots come in many different shapes and sizes. But the most intriguing ones are those which resemble humans. These humanoid robots have been growing in popularity in recent years. Humanoid robots [...]
Breakthrough saliva test detects Covid in 5 minutes May 28, 2021 Researchers in Australia have developed a new Covid-19 test which can give results in just five minutes. The prototype, which uses a portable instrument to detect the virus in saliva samples, has been developed by Monash University in Melbourne and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. After patients dribble into a sterile container, [...]
7 weird and wonderful applications of artificial intelligence May 26, 2021 | City Talk The Rewired investment fund focuses on enabling the technologies of the AI revolution by investing across five verticals including machine learning, robotics, bionics, sensors, mapping and localisation. Backed by technology investors including Tej Kohli, we believe that AI has the potential to positively impact every segment of economic activity and to improve every aspect of human life. Here [...]
EU set to open antitrust probe into Facebook’s classified ads business May 26, 2021 The EU is said to be on the brink of opening a formal antitrust investigation into Facebook following complaints from rivals about the platform’s classified ads business. Regulators have already sent questions to Facebook and its competitors asking whether the social media site distorted the classified ads market by promoting its Marketplace services for free [...]