Branson’s Virgin Galactic blasted as ‘dangerous, dead-end tech’ by Aussie astronaut December 18, 2018 Virgin Galactic, the commercial space endeavour led by billionaire Richard Branson, has been rejected by an Australian astronaut as "dangerous" to human space flight. Spaceman Andy Thomas told reporters in Adelaide last night that while he supported what Branson was contributing to satellite technology, he was critical of his goals to take tourists into orbit. [...]
UK chipmaker Graphcore gains unicorn status with $200m funding from BMW and Microsoft December 18, 2018 UK artificial intelligence chipmaker Graphcore has raised a $200m (£158.1m) series D funding round from BMW and Microsoft, valuing the firm at $1.7bn. The round brings Graphcore's total amount raised to date to over $300m, with its new investors joining existing backers such as electronics founder Robert Bosch, Dell and Samsung Electronics. The round was led by London venture [...]
Apple still in violation of Chinese court order, insists Qualcomm December 18, 2018 Qualcomm has said it believes Apple to still be in violation of a Chinese court order to stop selling certain iPhone models, despite a software update pushed through by the tech giant yesterday. The Californian company is currently embroiled in an ongoing global dispute with chipmaker Qualcomm, of which the court order is just one [...]
Huawei cements 5G sector takeover, hours after fresh warning from cyber watchdog December 18, 2018 China's Huawei has claimed to hold the largest amount of 5G commercial contracts in the world, just hours after a cyber security watchdog joined the chorus of warnings that its technology could pose a security risk. The telecoms equipment firm said it had secured more than 25 commercial contracts for 5G, rising from the 22 it declared [...]
Egress Software promises more London jobs with $40m series C fundraise December 18, 2018 Egress Software, a London-headquartered provider of data privacy and compliance software, will today reveal the close of a $40m (£31.7m) series C fundraising round led by US investor FTV Capital. Existing backer Albion Capital also participated in the round. The funding comes as a significant leap from Egress’ last raise, which saw the startup take [...]
Augmented reality startup Blippar enters administration after dispute over funding December 17, 2018 Augmented reality company Blippar has gone into administration today following a dispute over funding. The company, which had once claimed to be a unicorn – surpassing a $1bn valuation – has collapsed after an “alleged dispute over continued funding”, administrators at David Rubin and Partners said. Last week Blippar warned shareholders that Malaysian sovereign wealth [...]
Uber to hire team for Jump electric bikes launch in the UK December 17, 2018 Ride-hailing giant Uber is exploring plans to launch operations of its electric bicycle arm in the UK, entering an already-crowded space from the likes of Chinese startups Ofo and Mobike. Uber bought electric bike startup Jump in April, and has since been trialling the use of its bikes in the US and Germany. It is now [...]
Google to fork out $1bn on new NYC campus, one week on from Apple’s splurge in Texas December 17, 2018 Alphabet's Google will invest more than $1bn (£793.6m) on building a new campus in New York, following in the footsteps of fellow tech giant Amazon in picking the US financial capital for expansion. Named Google Hudson Square, the new 1.7m square foot campus will consist of leased properties on New York’s technology corridor. The company said [...]
Top business leaders back UK-based P2P property lending site in £10m financing round December 17, 2018 Publicis Group boss Maurice Lévy and Citigroup Global Markets chairman Cyrus Ardalan are among the investors who have contributed to a £10m funding round for a peer-to-peer property lending platform. The UK-based BLEND Network also drew investment from Jean-Phillipe Blochet, co-founder of macro hedge fund Brevan Howard, during a late-seed financing round last week. Each [...]
Elon Musk used Monty Python to test the sound in Tesla’s Model 3 December 14, 2018 Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has said he stopped meetings to watch clips from British favourite Monty Python, in order to explain how he wanted the sound to work in the Model 3. During the second half of 2017 as Tesla worked at full capacity to ramp up production of the Model 3 sedan, Wired first [...]