BASF buys Albemarle’s surface treatment unit in $3.2bn (£2.2bn) cash deal June 17, 2016 German chemical producer BASF is buying Albemarle's surface treatment business Chemetall for $3.2bn (£2.24bn) in cash. Frankfurt-based Chemetall is a global supplier of specialty chemicals used to treat the surfaces of metals and plastics, and a large part of its business is in making chemicals to protect sheet metal for cars against corrosion. The acquisition sees [...]
It’s happening: A robot escaped from its lab and made break for freedom June 17, 2016 I, Robot? More like bye, robot: an automaton made a bid for freedom yesterday, escaping from its lab – only to cause a traffic jam. The BBC reported a “Promobot” at a research lab in the Russian town of Perm went on an adventure after an engineer forgot to close a gate. The robot made it about [...]
Gates-way drug? Microsoft joint-s up with marijuana sales tracking company June 17, 2016 Microsoft has paired up with Californian startup Kind Financial, which helps businesses and government agencies track the sale of legal marijuana. Kind has launched a government solutions business after being selected by Microsoft to participate in its newly created health and human services division. The firms are aiming to create technology to track and trace the cannabis industry [...]
Meet Rolls-Royce’s crazy driverless supercar and the glass-fronted Mini concept car of the future June 16, 2016 Rolls-Royce has created a super luxury car of the future ditching a chauffeur and any kind of driver entirely while serving the super rich with a robot concierge. The car delivers passengers to their destination in the style of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" with a canopy roof opening up to allow owners to stand up fully as [...]
UberEats has arrived in London June 16, 2016 Not only is Uber disrupting the way we travel, it's eyeing up the way we eat too. Now Londoners will be able to get food delivered from top restaurants straight to their door via an app in exactly the same way they now order a car. The separate UberEats app will let users order from a [...]
Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn: Tech businesses must not get carried away June 16, 2016 Dealmakers everywhere will be hoping that tech companies don’t get carried away by news this week that Microsoft has acquired LinkedIn for a considerable sum of money. On the face of it, Microsoft’s decision to pay $26.2bn (£18.5bn) for the social media company could seem excessive but the company will have completed detailed cost modelling exercises [...]
Bad news, sky watchers: It’s going to take another 1,500 years for humanity to encounter aliens June 16, 2016 If you're worried about an alien invasion, you can calm down: a new study by astronomers at Cornell University has suggested humans won't make contact with extraterrestrials for another 1,500 years. Even Solomonides and Yervant Terzian combined the Fermi Paradox, which says billions of Earth-like planets exist in our galaxy, with Copernicus' mediocrity principle, which postulates that the [...]
Uber’s Apple-backed rival Didi Chuxing just raised billions June 16, 2016 The taxi wars are hotting up. A day after reports of Uber raising a further $2bn (£1.4bn) to add to its already rather large cash pile, its rival in China has announced another $7bn in new funding that puts it squarely on the tail of the US startup when it comes to being the most well-funded private startup [...]
Fintech and blockchain top Mark Carney’s Mansion House agenda June 16, 2016 London's status as the world leading centre for fintech is set to be cemented on Thursday when it tops the agenda of the governor of the Bank of England at a prestigious City event. Mark Carney will centre a major speech on the subject of fintech and blockchain technology at the annual Mansion House dinner, his first to address the disruptive sector in [...]
Hire a hacker: Cyber security needs some fresh ideas June 16, 2016 Today, cyber security is one of the major issues keeping chief executives awake at night. Cyber crime is on the rise. According to Juniper Research, data breaches are projected to cost companies $2.1 trillion by 2019. High profile hacks have highlighted the significant risks in the digital world. But while news outlets focus on the [...]