There’s more to Nissan’s X-Trail move than Brexit, but there’s no denying the cost of uncertainty February 3, 2019 The UK may or may not leave the EU on 29 March, and if it does the departure may or may not be facilitated by a formal withdrawal agreement. Unfortunately that's about as precise as anyone can be at the moment. With politicians still wrangling over the kind of Brexit that may emerge, businesses from [...]
Revealed: The 10 fintech startups in Barclays’ 2019 Techstars accelerator February 1, 2019 It's that time of year again: Barclays has unveiled the 10 startups that have made the cut for its annual fintech accelerator programme, powered by venture capital giant Techstars. Now in its sixth year, the 13-week programme puts the young companies through an intensive training course with access to mentorship from Barclays and industry experts, and [...]
Don’t be fooled, Facebook will always treat users like commodities February 1, 2019 You are worth £142 to Facebook. That is the financial figure attached to your scrolling through self-indulgent statuses and pictures of your friends’ babies. The same goes for the guy sitting next to you on the Tube, smugly counting the likes on his latest selfie with someone slightly famous. It’s a simple calculation: company value [...]
Minimum wage rises could cause job losses amid rise in automation, report finds February 1, 2019 Rises in the minimum wage could lead to job losses as employers turn to automation to keep costs down, according to research by the London School of Economics (LSE). The report, which analysed the impact of minimum wage policies on automation and offshoring, showed manufacturing jobs are most likely to be under threat from robots. Read [...]
Amazon presents a mixed bag to investors after record holiday sales January 31, 2019 E-commerce behemoth Amazon predicted lower-than-expected revenue for the current quarter tonight, despite reporting record sales for its busiest period of the year. Revenue for the three months to 31 December rose 19.7 per cent year-on-year to hit $72.4bn (£55.1bn), boosted by events such as Black Friday and Christmas and topping consensus estimates of $71.9bn as polled [...]
Intel names Bob Swan as new boss in the wake of former CEO’s rule-breaking January 31, 2019 Intel has made its interim chief executive Robert 'Bob' Swan its permanent boss, after the role's former occupant resigned last year. Swan, who was previously Intel's chief financial officer, had also served as Ebay's finance boss for the nine years before joining Intel in 2016. His appointment marks a change for Intel, which has traditionally [...]
Switch sales help Nintendo beat profit expectations January 31, 2019 Nintendo has recorded a 26 per cent jump in operating profit in its third quarter today, driven by strong sales of its Switch console. The figures The video game giant reported an operating profit of ¥158.6bn (£1.11bn) in the three months to the end of December, up 26 per cent on the same period a year ago and [...]
Google’s GDPR fine may cost it more than just €50m – it will impact the tech industry too January 31, 2019 Back in December, I wrote an article asking why, six months after the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) had come into force, we had not yet seen any major fines or punishments for firms that had misused or mishandled personal data. The lack of sanctions, I argued, made the new regulatory powers toothless. [...]
Of course AI can be biased – and it’s up to businesses to fix that January 31, 2019 When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the recently elected US representative, suggested last week that algorithms could be racist, she received a lot of attention. Naysayers derided her for suggesting that inanimate objects can display prejudice, but a number of experts actually supported her. The central premise of the debate is this: machines cannot be biased, but the humans [...]
Facebook shares soar as it beats estimates on revenue and user numbers January 30, 2019 Shares in Facebook jumped more than eight per cent in after-hours trading tonight, boosted by a welcome set of positive fourth quarter results for the beleaguered social media firm. Revenue at Facebook rose to $16.9bn (£12.9bn) in the three months to 31 December, up 30 per cent compared to the same period last year and [...]