Inmarsat bidders look to appease government ahead of $3.4bn takeover July 18, 2019 The private equity firms behind a $3.4bn (£2.6bn) bid for Inmarsat have agreed a number of undertakings with the government over the future of the satellite firm’s UK operations. Read more: Competition watchdog to probe $3.4bn Inmarsat takeover The consortium, led by Apax Partners and Warburg Pincus, said it will guarantee that the majority of [...]
Netflix loses its chill: Four ways the streaming giant can recover July 18, 2019 Netflix shares dropped roughly 11 per cent when Wall Street opened today, as bleary-eyed investors reacted to a disappointing set of second-quarter results. The streaming firm posted a 26 per cent rise in revenue to $4.9bn (£3.9bn), but added just 2.7m worldwide subscribers, well below its 5m forecast. Read more: Netflix to open huge UK [...]
EU fines Qualcomm €242m for ‘crushing’ 3G competitor July 18, 2019 Chipmaker Qualcomm must pay €242m for abusing its market dominance to crush a competitor in the 3G market, the EU ruled today. The European Commission said Qualcomm used its iron grip on the chip market to force Icera out of the sector in a breach of antritrust rules. Read more: Apple settles landmark $27bn legal [...]
Qualcomm braced for second EU antitrust fine July 18, 2019 US chipmaker Qualcomm is said to be facing a second fine from EU competition regulators for blocking a rival from the market more than a decade ago. The EU competition commission opened a probe into the company in 2015 for its alleged use of “predatory pricing” designed to force out UK rival Icera between 2009 [...]
The next moon landings will spur giant leaps here on Earth July 18, 2019 This week, we celebrate 50 years since Apollo 11’s first landing of humans on the moon – one of humanity’s greatest achievements. The technologies born of the Apollo missions shaped life on Earth in more ways than we often recognise through inventions we use every day. This anniversary is about more than where we’ve been [...]
NHS still running Windows XP on over 2,000 computers despite spate of cyber attacks July 17, 2019 The NHS has admitted it is still running Windows XP on over 2000 computers, even though the operating system stopped receiving security updates five years ago. In a written answer, health minister Jackie Doyle-Price said: “As of July 2019, approximately 2,300 National Health Service computers are using Windows XP from a total of around 1.4 [...]
Elon Musk reveals plans to connect human brains to computers July 17, 2019 Billionaire Elon Musk yesterday revealed plans to develop technology to allow human brains to connect with computers. Secretive “brain-machine interface” firm Neuralink was founded in 2017 to fight the “existential threat” of artificial intelligence developing further than humans. Read more: Tesla boss Elon Musk rebrands on Twitter as Daddy Dotcom At an event in California [...]
Google terminates Project Dragonfly, its censored search engine for China July 17, 2019 Google has “terminated” China’s controversial censored search engine, codenamed Project Dragonfly, a top executive has said. The project, which a former Google staffer had called “disturbing”, was shelved last December, but suggestions continued to circulate that the tech giant was still running it. Read more: Donald Trump hints at treason probe into Google Karan Bhatia, [...]
France joins US and UK in warning over Facebook’s libra July 17, 2019 France has joined the US and UK in saying strong regulations must be in place before Facebook goes ahead with creating its proposed libra digital currency. Read more: US senators grill top exec over Facebook’s libra cryptocurrency The warning came as G7 finance ministers converged on the French town of Chantilly for a two-day meeting [...]
EU targets Amazon in e-commerce antitrust probe July 17, 2019 Amazon is the subject of the EU’s latest antitrust probe, with the European Commission accusing the tech giant of abusing its dominance in e-commerce. The investigation, which began today, could see CEO Jeff Bezos’ retail behemoth lumped with a multi-billion dollar fine similar to other penalties issued to tech giant Google. Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said: “European consumers [...]