Uber snaps up UK taxi tech firm Autocab August 6, 2020 Uber has acquired taxi tech firm Autocab, in a move that will allow it to operate in areas it has yet to launch in. The Stockport-based company sells booking and dispatch software to private hire firms, and will allow Uber to link people who open its app in locations where it does not run with [...]
Animal Crossing powers five-fold profit jump for Nintendo August 6, 2020 Nintendo posted a more than five-fold jump in quarterly profit today, as the success of its Switch console and standout game Animal Crossing supported the games maker during the pandemic. People stuck at home around the world flocked to titles like Animal Crossing, which allows users to create life on an idyllic island, which sold [...]
Tiktok to build $500m European data centre in Ireland August 6, 2020 Tiktok has plans to spend $500m (£375m) on building a data centre in Ireland, it said today, which will look after the short-form video app’s European user data. The stored data will include personal information such as phone numbers and location data, messages and videos. Such information is currently stored in the US, but Tiktok [...]
Serco profit jumps on crisis demand but shares fall flat August 6, 2020 Outsourcing firm Serco said profit jumped 53 per cent in the first six months of the year, as demand for its services boomed during the coronavirus crisis. An additional need for the back office and IT services that Serco provides to the government offset the lack of demand for its transport and leisure services, the [...]
Tiktok reveals new measures to fight misinformation for US 2020 election August 5, 2020 Tiktok has unveiled a host of new measures it is undertaking to fight misinformation ahead of the US 2020 presidential election, as the app tries to appease threats of a total ban. Tiktok, which is under fire for its alleged links to the Chinese government via parent firm Bytedance, said it was working with experts [...]
The New York Times’ digital sales overtake print for first time August 5, 2020 The New York Times beat Wall Street expectations in its second-quarter results today, as its digital efforts overtook its print business for the first time. The firm’s digital products, which includes online news, podcasts, recipes and crosswords, gained 669,000 subscribers in the quarter. More than half of the New York Times’ revenue comes from subscriptions, as [...]
Instagram rolls out Tiktok rival Reels in the UK August 5, 2020 Instagram has today launched Reels, a short-form video feature to rival Tiktok. Users can make 15-second videos inside the Instagram app using editing tools to help film different clips, which can be shared within a new tab on Instagram’s public Explore page. The social app, which is owned by Facebook, is seeking to capitalise on [...]
Amazon to pass on UK digital tax to sellers in fees hike August 5, 2020 Amazon is to increase seller fees next month, saying it will no longer absorb the UK’s digital services tax after talks with the government failed to progress. The e-commerce giant said it had taken on the impact of the digital services tax — a two per cent levy on the firm’s annual revenues — since [...]
Furlough schemes are failing to save UK businesses, body warns August 5, 2020 Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s bumper spending plan to save British jobs has failed to help companies avoid an unemployment crunch as furlough support ends, businesses have warned. More than half of UK businesses surveyed by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said their cashflow had fallen in June, while 42 per cent also said sales had [...]
Metro Bank shares tumble as crisis pushes challenger to £240m loss August 5, 2020 Metro Bank shares plunged more than 13.5 per cent this morning, after the challenger bank declared a £240.6m loss for the first six months of 2020. Its profit for the same period last year was £3.4m, representing a crash of more than 7,000 per cent. Today’s share price fall worsens an existing collapse of more [...]
