Allianz artificial intelligence fund passes £880m mark October 15, 2018 Allianz Global Investors' artificial intelligence (AI) fund has passed the €1bn (£880m) assets under management mark 18 months after its launch. The Global Artificial Intelligence Fund, which was launched in March last year, invests in companies developing AI systems in a bid to benefit from rapid advancements in disruptive technology such as Big Data analysis, machine learning, self-driving cars [...]
Apple to buy parts of European chipmaker Dialog Semiconductor in $600m deal October 11, 2018 Apple said today it has entered into a deal to acquire parts of European iPhone chipmaker Dialog Semiconductor, in a deal valued at $600m (£454m). Apple will gain some patents and a team of engineers from the chip designer, and cement a three-year contract for Dialog to continue building chips for its iPhone and iPad products. The transaction [...]
Will Britain Lead the 4th Industrial Revolution? October 2, 2018 With the USA in isolationist mode, if not paralysis, who will lead the west, post-Brexit and as we enter the full flood of what the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab dubbed The Fourth Industrial Revolution: “The possibilities of billions of people connected by mobile devices, with unprecedented processing power, storage capacity, and access to knowledge, [...]
Technology drives change: How blockchain made me take on the online payment space October 2, 2018 Micropayments are not a new concept – they’ve been tried before, but due to high transaction costs and poor usability, previous attempts to achieve mainstream adoption have been unsuccessful. For example, under the current banking infrastructure, payment service providers are charging base fees of 10-30p per transaction plus a percentage, making it very difficult to [...]
Why the Internet of Things is just one part of a much bigger prize September 9, 2015 By now you’re most likely familiar with the Internet of Things, the phrase often used to describe the growing network of once-inanimate objects that are becoming smart, Wi-Fi-connected devices. Some are extremely innovative – a British inventor has just created smart wallpaper, which uses magnetic charges to flip ‘physical pixels’ in fabric, creating potentially [...]
Internet of Things, digital assistant and 3D tablets: Four projects Amazon’s Lab 126 is secretly working on August 27, 2015 They may be laying off “dozens” of engineers, but Amazon’s labs are still working on some pretty interesting projects. After the company’s anticipated “iPhone killer”, the Fire, failed to deliver, it was reported today that engineers will be laid off after Amazon decided to retreat from smartphones – and from several other consumer hardware products. Read [...]
Bigbelly is turning New York’s smart garbage bins into wi-fi hotspots July 16, 2015 New York’s rubbish bins were already pretty smart. Now they’re going online. The waste management company Bigbelly has applied for a grant from the city’s Mayor’s Office to convert its several hundred NYC bins into wi-fi hotspots, in the latest example of unexpected devices hooking up to the Internet of Things. This is an expansion [...]
How to get funding for an Internet of Things project: UK government offers £10m fund to create connected cities July 15, 2015 Got a good idea for the future of the connected city? The government is offering a £10m fund to businesses that can demonstrate how the Internet of Things (IoT) can benefit citizens and cities. With a competition put up in a bid to “revolutionise” how IoT is put to use in cities, this collaboration between [...]
Cisco is making $1bn investment in UK tech including $150m IoT startup venture backing July 9, 2015 Cisco is making a major long-term investment in UK tech with $1bn of investment and the creation of hundreds of jobs. The tech company which already employs 7,000 people in the UK – its biggest market – is also eyeing up acquisitions here, continuing a spree that has seen the company buy up five tech [...]
Project Jacquard: Google and Levi’s to launch world’s first pair of “smart” jeans June 3, 2015 Google is to team up with Levi’s to manufacture the world’s first pair of “smart” jeans. The digital denim will be made using a revolutionary new fabric interwoven with conductive material. The firms have not revealed exactly what the jeans will be capable of, but the technology can be used to interact with smartphones [...]