AI could lead to mass unemployment, warns Bank of England August 20, 2018 Widespread reskilling is essential to avert a future in which AI creates long-term unemployment, the Bank of England’s chief economist warned on Monday. Andy Haldane predicted that machine automation will lead to a “hollowing out” of the jobs market “on a much greater scale in the future” than during the revolutions of coal, electricity and computing [...]
Energy switching startup breaks record for lowest equity deal on Dragons Den August 19, 2018 Energy auto-switching service Look After My Bills (LAMB) has broken the record for the lowest equity deal ever secured on hit TV show Dragons Den, as the startup scored £120,000 in exchange for a three per cent stake. Investors Tej Lalvani and Jenny Campbell took on the startup after a three-hour deliberation, in which all [...]
Tesla short-sellers have the last laugh August 19, 2018 Tesla short-sellers have made a bumper $1.2bn (£940m) paper profit since the car company’s colourful chief executive Elon Musk said he is considering taking the business private. Despite making some initial gains in the immediate aftermath of Musk’s tweet on 7 August, in which he declared that funding for the move had been secured, the [...]
Tesla shares fall as analysts cast doubt on Model 3 profitability August 17, 2018 Tesla's share price slumped as much as eight per cent in trading today, after a note was published this afternoon expressing concern over the fate of its Model 3 sedan. UBS analyst Colin Langan said Tesla's Model 3 will fail to produce better profit margins than a standard BMW sedan due to miscalculations on manufacturing costs. [...]
Gartner Hype Cycle 2017: Artificial intelligence at peak hype, blockchain heads for disillusionment, but say hello to 5G August 17, 2018 The hype around artificial intelligence is at its peak, while those interested in blockchain might be heading for disillusionment. That’s according to Gartner’s annual Hype Cycle, which tracks the progress of emerging technology trends, from early innovation to becoming a household must-have. Deep learning and machine learning are at what it calls the “peak of [...]
Time to face the music: US regulator wants answers over Musk tweet August 17, 2018 Tesla shares fell tonight on reports that the US markets regulator is seeking to question the car giant’s executives over boss Elon Musk’s plan to take the company private. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sent subpoenas to Tesla as part of its investigation, Fox News reported. Tesla’s shares dropped four per cent on the [...]
Angry Birds creator reports sharp drop in quarterly revenue amid mobile gaming decline August 17, 2018 Rovio Entertainment today posted a sharp decline in revenue in its second quarter, despite sales for its games business rising six per cent. The Figures Adjusted operating profit for the second quarter fell to €6m, down from €16m in 2017. This was slightly above consensus estimates, according to analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Total sales [...]
Tesla braced for a big hit from legal claims following Musk’s Twitter gaffe August 16, 2018 Tesla’s legal team is bracing itself for a number of potential legal claims following an uproar caused by Elon Musk’s disclosures on Twitter that he was considering taking the company private. Fox News reported that the legal team for the controversial CEO was preparing itself for the costs of private litigation to exceed any fine [...]
The Asus Zenfone AR is the first augmented reality focused smartphone, but is the software there to back it up? August 16, 2018 Whether or not you give two flying toots about virtual and augmented reality, the complex hardware needed to power the perpetually re-emerging technology has, over the last few years, fallen into alignment with that of high-end phones. Neither Samsung’s Gear VR nor Google’s Daydream headsets come with their own displays built in. Instead they’re built [...]
Bad Apple: Erdogan threatens iPhone boycott after spat with US August 14, 2018 Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a boycott of iPhones and other American electronic products yesterday as tensions between the two countries escalated. Erdogan remained defiant amid what he called an “economic war” with the US after Washington imposed punitive sanctions on Ankara. “Whatever we buy from abroad we are going to produce here in [...]