Now Microsoft’s UK corporate tax arrangements are under scrutiny June 19, 2016 Microsoft is the latest US tech company to come under scrutiny in the continuing row over corporation tax after it was revealed that it made a deal with UK authorities. The company, founded by Bill Gates, avoided paying £100m in corporation tax it's claimed, by revenue from Britain being recorded in Ireland where the tax rate is 12.5 [...]
Siemens, Gamesa join forces to create world’s biggest wind farm business June 17, 2016 The world's biggest wind farm maker will be created out of a proposed partnership between German engineering group Siemens and Spain's Gamesa. Siemens will take a 59 per cent stake in the new entity which is expected to have 69 gigawatts of turbines installed worldwide as well as revenue of €9.3bn (£7.3bn), it said in a statement today. It's also making a one-off [...]
BASF buys Albemarle’s surface treatment unit in $3.2bn (£2.2bn) cash deal June 17, 2016 German chemical producer BASF is buying Albemarle's surface treatment business Chemetall for $3.2bn (£2.24bn) in cash. Frankfurt-based Chemetall is a global supplier of specialty chemicals used to treat the surfaces of metals and plastics, and a large part of its business is in making chemicals to protect sheet metal for cars against corrosion. The acquisition sees [...]
It’s happening: A robot escaped from its lab and made break for freedom June 17, 2016 I, Robot? More like bye, robot: an automaton made a bid for freedom yesterday, escaping from its lab – only to cause a traffic jam. The BBC reported a “Promobot” at a research lab in the Russian town of Perm went on an adventure after an engineer forgot to close a gate. The robot made it about [...]
Gates-way drug? Microsoft joint-s up with marijuana sales tracking company June 17, 2016 Microsoft has paired up with Californian startup Kind Financial, which helps businesses and government agencies track the sale of legal marijuana. Kind has launched a government solutions business after being selected by Microsoft to participate in its newly created health and human services division. The firms are aiming to create technology to track and trace the cannabis industry [...]
Meet Rolls-Royce’s crazy driverless supercar and the glass-fronted Mini concept car of the future June 16, 2016 Rolls-Royce has created a super luxury car of the future ditching a chauffeur and any kind of driver entirely while serving the super rich with a robot concierge. The car delivers passengers to their destination in the style of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" with a canopy roof opening up to allow owners to stand up fully as [...]
UberEats has arrived in London June 16, 2016 Not only is Uber disrupting the way we travel, it's eyeing up the way we eat too. Now Londoners will be able to get food delivered from top restaurants straight to their door via an app in exactly the same way they now order a car. The separate UberEats app will let users order from a [...]
Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn: Tech businesses must not get carried away June 16, 2016 Dealmakers everywhere will be hoping that tech companies don’t get carried away by news this week that Microsoft has acquired LinkedIn for a considerable sum of money. On the face of it, Microsoft’s decision to pay $26.2bn (£18.5bn) for the social media company could seem excessive but the company will have completed detailed cost modelling exercises [...]
Bad news, sky watchers: It’s going to take another 1,500 years for humanity to encounter aliens June 16, 2016 If you're worried about an alien invasion, you can calm down: a new study by astronomers at Cornell University has suggested humans won't make contact with extraterrestrials for another 1,500 years. Even Solomonides and Yervant Terzian combined the Fermi Paradox, which says billions of Earth-like planets exist in our galaxy, with Copernicus' mediocrity principle, which postulates that the [...]
Uber’s Apple-backed rival Didi Chuxing just raised billions June 16, 2016 The taxi wars are hotting up. A day after reports of Uber raising a further $2bn (£1.4bn) to add to its already rather large cash pile, its rival in China has announced another $7bn in new funding that puts it squarely on the tail of the US startup when it comes to being the most well-funded private startup [...]