Facebook has quietly set up shop in China, despite its sites being blocked there | City A.M. July 24, 2018 Facebook has opened a subsidiary with $30m (£22.2m) in registered capital in China, using its Hong Kong business as the sole shareholder. An official business registration was filed for the company in Hangzhou last week, Reuters first reported. Its operations will include network information technology development and related services, investment consultancy and marketing planning. Facebook’s [...]
AI in tennis may be game, set, and match for humans July 23, 2018 DURING the recent Wimbledon tennis championship, in a room beneath the courts, dozens of data scientists and sport experts sat watching all of the tournament’s matches. This was the IBM tech bunker, where computers were capturing live data about every player for every game of tennis happening above. IBM has been working with Wimbledon for [...]
Cisco channels $100m into the UK’s artificial intelligence tech sector | City A.M. July 19, 2018 Global telecoms tech firm Cisco has announced it will be investing $100m (£76.8m) into digital innovation in the UK, with a focus artificial intelligence, data and self-driving cars. Backed by Prime Minister Theresa May and digital secretary Jeremy Wright to run in tandem to the government’s industrial strategy, Cisco will partner with University College London [...]
Time to put your phone down and ask Alexa instead | City A.M. July 19, 2018 A decade ago, if you asked anybody in the customer service game how consumers will interact with their favourite brands in the future, the lion’s share would have told you that actually having to speak to someone is going be unnecessary and uncommon – if not totally extinct. Now it’s becoming clear that the shift [...]
Digital screens and VR is cool, but artificial intelligence is creepy to most consumers | City A.M. July 18, 2018 Fingerprint scanners, voice recognition, targeted ads, home voice assistants. These technologies are all part of everyday modern life and are revolutionising the way retailers sell their products to consumers across the world. But have we actually taken the time to stop and consider what customers think of our ever increasing arsenal of tech tricks to [...]
A vision of the future: The marriage of AI and Blockchain July 17, 2018 Where is Artificial Intelligence Headed? Artificial Intelligence (AI) can radically improve people’s lives if we nurture its potential. AI enables machines to mimic human traits such as learning and thinking, and is able to do this at a pace and efficacy of which humans will never be capable. We can harness this power to help [...]
Artificial intelligence could create 7.2m in boost to health sector jobs by 2030 according to Big Four firm PwC report | City A.M. July 17, 2018 While many of us fear a dystopian future in which employees will replace us with robots, a new report suggests that artificial intelligence (AI) could in fact create as many jobs as it displaces. Findings from Big Four accountancy firm PwC show that around 7.2m jobs could be created over the next 20 years, a [...]
The UK tops the charts for venture capital funding in Europe after a bumper second quarter July 12, 2018 The UK has regained its title as the top spot in Europe for venture capital investment in the second quarter of 2018. A total of £1.55bn of venture capital money was invested into UK businesses in the second quarter, spanning across 244 deals with artificial intelligence, fintech, cybersecurity and biotech as the most popular sectors [...]
New Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) chair Charles Randell warns of danger of big data ‘algogracy’ July 11, 2018 The new chair of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Charles Randell today warned of the danger of a new “algocracy” as new technology threatens to harm consumers of financial services. Randell suggested that the concurrent rise of “big data”, artificial intelligence and machine learning, along with behavioural science insights, could require a new regulatory framework. [...]
Mastercard is in talks with UK banks to take biometric technology to the forefront of payments security July 8, 2018 Mastercard is exploring the possibility of trialling its fingerprint-scanning cards in the UK, as the second Payment Services Directive (PSD2) rears its head on financial fraud. Currently under trial in South Africa, Mastercard's biometric card combines chip technology with a fingerprint scanner on the card's top right corner to verify the cardholder's identity when making [...]