Britain will regret Huawei decision, warns exiled artist Ai Weiwei February 4, 2020 The UK will regret its decision to allow Chinese tech firm Huawei to build parts of the country’s 5G networks, Ai Weiwei has warned. The artist and activist, who has been exiled from his homeland since 2015, branded the move “short-sighted profit seeking”, adding that the British would “feel sorry later”. Boris Johnson’s government last [...]
Grab buys investment startup as it beefs up financial offering February 4, 2020 Softbank-backed startup Grab today said it has acquired retail wealth management startup Bento as the app looks to expand its financial services offering. The Singapore-based firm said Bento will be rebranded as Grab Invest, and its products will be rolled out in its home market and across southeast Asia in the first half of the [...]
Cyber firm Callsign set to unveil bumper JP Morgan backing February 4, 2020 London-based identity fraud firm Callsign is said to be on the verge of unveiling fresh funding worth tens of millions of dollars from Wall Street giant JP Morgan. Callsign, which uses AI to verify the identity of users, is signing off on a deal with JP Morgan Asset Management, which manages $2 trillion (£1.5 trillion) [...]
Google admits it may have shared your private videos with strangers February 4, 2020 Google has been forced to alert some of its users that their private videos were inadvertently sent to strangers. In an email to Google Photos users, the tech giant said it had suffered a “technical issue” in Google Takeout — the function that allows people to download their data. “Unfortunately, during this time, some videos [...]
Micro Focus chairman steps down as profit plummets February 4, 2020 Micro Focus lost its chairman today as it posted a huge drop in profit in a “challenging” latest financial year, triggering traders to offload the struggling firm’s stock. The figures Operating profit sank 41.2 per cent year on year to $221.7m (£170.9m) for the 12 months to the end of October. Revenue also tumbled 29.6 [...]
Alphabet slides as it breaks out Youtube and Cloud revenue for the first time February 3, 2020 Google parent Alphabet’s shares fell in extended trading after it missed fourth-quarter revenue estimates, and gave an unexpected deep-dive into its sales breakdown for the first time. Alphabet reported overall revenue of $46.08bn for the three months to the end of December, versus analyst estimates of $46.9bn according to Refinitiv. Meanwhile it posted a profit [...]
Goldman Sachs ‘in talks’ to partner with Amazon on small business loans February 3, 2020 Goldman Sachs is reportedly in advanced talks with Amazon to offer small business loans in the US, as the Wall Street giant looks to the tech titan in a bid to break into the mainstream areas of financial services. Goldman Sachs has begun building technology that would allow it to offer loans to small and [...]
Angela Merkel fails to unite government over Huawei plan February 3, 2020 German Chancellor Angela Merkel is failing in her bid to unite the coalition government over a verdict on whether to allow Huawei to build the country’s 5G networks. Merkel has attempted to rule out a total ban on Huawei, but has been forced to strike a compromise with hardline ministers in her Christian Democratic Union [...]
Amazon ‘launches search’ for new London office space February 3, 2020 Amazon is said to be on the hunt for new office space in London as the e-commerce giant doubles down on its commitment to the capital after Brexit. The tech firm has called in advisers at Cushman & Wakefield to find a building with roughly 200,000 square feet (sq ft) of office space, the Times [...]
UK competition watchdog to push for tighter controls on US tech giants February 3, 2020 The UK’s competition watchdog will push for tougher powers to regulate companies such as Google and Facebook following the UK’s official departure from the EU, and will pursue antitrust investigations against tech giants independently of the bloc. “The upside [Brexit] is that you take back control — genuinely — of the decisions,” Competition and Markets [...]