Grindr hit with £8.5m fine over data privacy breach January 26, 2021 Grindr is set to be slapped with a hefty fine after regulators found it had illegally disclosed user data to advertising firms. The Norwegian Data Protection Authority has announced an intention to fine the gay dating app 100m krona (£8.5m) — equivalent to 10 per cent of its annual turnover — over the breach. The proposed [...]
‘Robots will take our jobs’: Eigen boss Lewis Liu on the future of the City worker January 26, 2021 It’s very rare a chief executive will say their work will lead to mass job cuts, not least one of an artificial intelligence firm. But Eigen Technologies’ Lewis Liu is not like your everyday boss. He is surprisingly frank in an industry that does an impressive job of spinning mass job cuts. “I’m not going [...]
Birdwatch: New Twitter feature allows users to flag misinformation January 26, 2021 Twitter will allow users to flag posts that are misleading or inaccurate in its latest effort to purge misinformation from its platform. The new feature, dubbed Birdwatch, allows people to write notes providing context and rebuttals on posts they believe are misleading. The pilot programme is being tested in the US, with notes initially only [...]
Facebook launches UK news service in boost for publishers January 26, 2021 Facebook will today start rolling out its dedicated news feed, marking a major boost for publishers in a long-running tussle over online advertising revenue. Facebook News will offer users a selection of curated stories alongside news personalised to their interests from hundreds of national, local and lifestyle outlets. The social media site today said it [...]
Moderna to trial new Covid vaccine for South African mutation January 25, 2021 Moderna is set to trial its new Covid-19 vaccine specially designed to tackle a new coronavirus strain that first emerged in South Africa, the company announced today. The US pharmaceutical firm said laboratory tests showed its current vaccine appears to work against the UK Covid variant first identified in Kent. However, it warned that the [...]
Astrazeneca delays vaccine delivery to EU by ’60 per cent’ January 22, 2021 Astrazeneca will slash the supply of it Covid vaccine to the EU by 60 per cent in first quarter, according to reports. The company was expected to deliver to the 27 EU countries around 80m doses by the end of March, but will now only be able to deliver 31m doses, Reuters reported. It comes [...]
It’s game over for Alphabet’s Loon balloon broadband adventure January 22, 2021 Alphabet, the parent company of Google, said last night it will shut down its high-altitude broadband connectivity venture Loon. The announcement is at odds with its recent successful endeavours. Loon raised $125m from a SoftBank unit in 2019, and in April 2020 it launched the first balloons to provide commercial connectivity service to Kenyans following [...]
Swedish payments app Trustly plots IPO amid flurry of tech listings January 22, 2021 Swedish payments firm Trustly is reportedly planning a public listing this year worth up to 9bn, amid a flurry of tech IPOs. Trustly’s private equity backer Nordic Capital is working with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Carnegie on the IPO which is due in the second quarter, according to Reuters. Nordic Capital bought a 70 [...]
Intel to probe results hack as chip demand lifts revenue January 22, 2021 Intel is investigating reports that financially sensitive information was stolen from its website last night in a hack that forced the chipmaker to release its quarterly results early. Chief financial officer George Davis told the Financial Times that a graphic in its financial report had been stolen by a hacker. “Once we became aware of [...]
Transferwise picks banks ahead of blockbuster IPO January 21, 2021 Transferwise has reportedly picked two of Wall Street’s biggest banks to lead its London listing this year. The payments unicorn has hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley as joint global coordinators for its IPO later this year, Sky News reported. Transferwise secured a $5bn valuation following a secondary share sale last summer, cementing its place [...]