Facebook partners up with online giants in move into UK property market September 5, 2018 Facebook is to list properties from two of the UK’s largest online estate agent on its website, in a sign that the social media giant is dipping its toes into the UK property market. In a partnership with Facebook Marketplace, Zoopla and OnTheMarket (OTM) both announced yesterday that their UK agents’ home rental property listings [...]
Volvo dreams up its first driverless electric car September 5, 2018 Volvo has unveiled its first electric self-driving car concept, as it races to meet its own targets of making a third of its car sales autonomous by 2025. Aside from driving around town, Volvo hopes that the 360c could replace short-haul air travel, particularly for routes where the distance travelled is around 300km (186 miles) such as [...]
Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing to plug £16m into customer service after passenger death September 5, 2018 Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing is set to fork out 140m yuan (£16m) to improve its customer service, after a passenger was raped and killed by her driver. Founder Cheng Wei told government regulators of his decision when they visited the company as part of a nation-wide inspection into ride-hailing firms, according to reports from Chinese newspaper Beijing [...]
Mayor backs London tech startups for City innovation September 5, 2018 Meet the fourteen startups that made the mayor of London's shortlist to tackle the capital's key challenges across seven sectors. Launched in June as part of London's smart city initiative, Sadiq Khan's Civic Innovation Challenge will later award seven of these startups – one for each challenge – a grant of £15,000 to test their ideas [...]
Amazon hits a trillion-dollar valuation September 4, 2018 Amazon has become the second ever US publicly-listed company to hit a $1 trillion market valuation. Amazon shares briefly passed over the $2,050.27 mark needed to break the milestone earlier this afternoon, before dropping back down to $2,035.56. It crossed the $2,000 per share threshold last Thursday, amid doubts from Wall Street that placed it [...]
JD.com share price falls after CEO’s sexual misconduct arrest September 4, 2018 Chinese retail giant JD.com's share price has fallen more than six per cent in early trading this afternoon, after its chief executive was arrested and released on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct in the US over the weekend. Richard Liu has since returned to China, after being arrested by Minneapolis policy on Friday and later [...]
Japan’s Line is raising £1bn to fund its fintech and AI expansion September 4, 2018 Japanese messaging giant Line is raising ¥148.1bn (£1bn) through a convertible bonds issue to fund its expansion into financial services and artificial intelligence (AI), primarily through its own payments technology. The firm said in a statement this morning that the majority of the raise will go towards promoting Line Pay, which is an in-app function [...]
Connected cows and smart salmon: The internet of things is taking on farming September 4, 2018 The summer heatwave has dried up any complacency that food production in the supposedly green and fertile lands of England and Wales is a relatively straightforward business. The 55,000-strong National Farmers’ Union described the months of heat as a “wake-up call” for the agricultural industry, as an emergency summit was called to address the “crippling [...]
DEBATE: Google turns 20 today – but will it still be dominant in another two decades? September 4, 2018 Google turns 20 today – but will it still be dominant in another two decades? Lily Covington, senior strategist at commercial strategy firm Cruxy & Company, says YES. Google’s advertising revenue alone proves its continued upwards trajectory, jumping from $10.49bn to $95.4bn in the last 12 years as its core business has adapted with the times. [...]
Hobs Repro swallows Call Print’s assets to create UK-wide network of printing branches September 3, 2018 Hobs Repro has swallowed most of struggling competitor Call Print's assets, creating a UK-wide network of 24 printing branches, the company announced on Monday. Cash flow problems forced the scanning, stationery and printing firm into administration on Friday. It was sold the same day in a pre-pack transaction that had been marketed for several weeks. [...]