Volkswagen throws down the gauntlet to Silicon Valley on self-driving cars October 28, 2019 Europe’s biggest car manufacturer has shifted its fight against Silicon Valley’s nascent self-driving car industry up a gear. Volkswagen has announced the foundation of Volkswagen Autonomy, or VWAT, its own self-driving tech subsidiary, to take on the likes of rivals such as Google’s Waymo. Read more: Car alarm: Half of UK consumers fear driverless vehicles [...]
Car alarm: Half of UK consumers fear driverless vehicles September 2, 2019 Almost half of UK consumers are worried about the dangers posed by driverless cars, a new survey has revealed. Roughly 43 per cent of adults surveyed said they were concerned about the problems that may arise from autonomous vehicles, as car manufacturers race to develop the new technology. Read more: Former Uber driverless guru charged [...]
Self-driving cars get first London test routes June 27, 2019 Self-driving cars have been granted their first ever London test routes in a major step forward for real-world driverless vehicle trials The testbed, which is a UK industry first, will consist of 26km of public road in Greenwich and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. Read more: Uber’s self-driving unit raises $1bn ahead of [...]
Mobility software firm raises $4.6m from Amadeus and Global Brain May 21, 2019 Artificial intelligence mobility startup Immense Simulations has closed its series A funding round at $4.6m (£3.6m), after spinning out from the government’s Catapult tech programme in 2016. The round was co-led by Amadeus Capital Partners, previously named one of Europe’s most active AI investors, and Japanese venture capital giant Global Brain. Additional investment was provided [...]
The big fixer-upper: How to solve the problems in the mortgage market May 15, 2019 We've sent people into space, built driverless cars, and engineered robots that can think like us. And yet, fixing the mortgage approval process still seems out of humanity’s reach. The market is riddled with inefficiencies. Consumers are forced to fill out documents detailing every corner of their lives, while clunky underwriting processes mean that it [...]
Uber’s float is a huge gamble on the future of transport May 10, 2019 Every time you jump into an Uber, your ride is essentially subsidised by venture capitalists who prop up the loss-making outfit in the hope of riches down the road. Later today in New York, many more hopefuls will get the chance to back the immensely-popular-yet-controversial tech firm when it finally comes to market. Similarly [...]
Jaguar Land Rover weighing up bid for London cab company Addison Lee April 28, 2019 Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is weighing up an offer for London-based taxi company Addison Lee in a bid to keep up with companies such as Uber, the Sunday Telegraph reported yesterday. Read more: Jaguar and Addison Lee trial their driverless cars in London Addison Lee was put up for sale by its owner, US private [...]
Uber IPO will value ride-hailing firm at up to $90bn, SEC filing confirms April 26, 2019 Uber is set to pitch shares at between $44 and $50 as it chases an initial public offering (IPO) that could value it at up to $90bn (£69.8bn), the ride-hailing firm revealed in an updated filing today. The technology transport giant will offer 180m shares in its stock market debut as it chases the valuation, with another [...]
Elon Musk predicts Tesla will launch a robotaxi service in 2020 April 23, 2019 Elon Musk has promised Tesla will be able to produce so-called robotaxis with no human drivers in parts of the US as soon as next year. Read more: Tesla investigating incident of car catching fire in Shanghai In a webcast ahead of the firm’s quarterly results this week, the outspoken chief executive said its driverless [...]
With the AI genie firmly out of the bottle, what impact could this have on accountants? April 10, 2019 This month, the British Film Institute celebrates the late Stanley Kubrick with a retrospective of his work. One of Kubrick’s most celebrated films, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was ground-breaking in its depiction of space – and it’s extraordinary to think that all the special effects created for it were achieved entirely without CGI, over 50 [...]