More regulation for UK ride-hailing platforms
A working group within the UK’s Department for Transport has published a report urging a number of changes, intended to modernize the rules governing taxis and private hire vehicles, in order to take account of app-based technology changes within the industry.
The report lists 34 recommendations and outlines how companies should treat their drivers, in terms of pay and working conditions and that these should be taken into account by licensing authorities when determining whether or not to grant a an applicat’s licence.
Meet CLAIRE: Europe’s new AI Group
Over 2,000 AI experts from across Europe are joining forces through an alliance called the Confederation of Laboratories for Artificial Intelligence Research in Europe (CLAIRE).
The AI researchers from 29 European countries have joined the alliance with the main aims of strengthening European excellence in AI research and innovation and remaining competitive with China and the US.
Europe’s spend on AI research in 2016 was USD 4 billion while North America was and China spent USD 24 billion and USD 7 billion respectively.
The Kitty Hawk of Driverless Public Transport
Potsdam, a city near Berlin in Germany, will take its place in history, as the Kitty Hawk of driverless public transport.
On Friday, September 21s, the Siemens Combino tram successfully navigated its driverless way through traffic, as part of an international transport expo, pointing to a future where computer systems aboard large, heavy vehicles can limit the risks posed to pedestrians and other road users in their path.
London Luxury Online Retail IPO
London based luxury online retailer Farfetch has completed a breakout IPO, raising $885 million and setting it a valuation of $6.2 billion.
Farfetch helps well-heeled shoppers globally to fill their wardrobes with the best in luxury brands.
The company also offers services that help sellers create content for online boutiques, manage product returns and analyse consumer data to assist with pricing and inventory management decision-making.
The flotation comes at a time of growing competition among independent online fashion retailers and luxury brands rolling out their e-commerce operations, including cash-rich luxury heavyweights like Louis Vuitton which is experimenting with its own multi-brand site.
The global market for personal luxury goods will be worth about $446 billion by 2025, up from $307 billion last year, according to Bain and Compnay data cited in the IPO prospectus.
Millennials are expected to be key drivers of the trend. In fact, the list of key terms and performance indicators in the prospectus includes definitions for Generation X, Generation Z and Millennials, alongside such items as “Farfetcher,” meaning an employee of the company.
European Techs Call for Tougher EU Rules
Music streaming sites Spotify and Deezer are among European tech industry players calling on the European Union to get tougher on unfair business practices applied by U.S. giants like Apple, Google and Amazon.
In a joint letter, the group urged European Union ministers to go beyond current proposals aimed at regulating online platforms that act as middlemen between customers and businesses.
They say that regulation doesn’t go far enough to ensure dominant tech companies avoid practices that “reinforce their privileged position or unfairly favor proprietary services.”
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek and Deezer CEO Hans-Holger Albrecht were among the signatories to the letter, issued this week to EU Competition and Business Ministers.
Travel websites, digital media companies and trade associations also signed the letter, which accuses the tech giants of having “disproportionate bargaining power” and using their “privileged position to become gatekeepers to the digital economy.”
Concern that U.S. tech companies have grown too big is a recurring theme for EU authorities, who last year slapped Google with a record 2.4 billion euros ($2.8 billion) fine for unfairly favoring its own online shopping recommendations in search results.
More recently, EU competition authorities have opened preliminary investigation of Amazon’s treatment of smaller merchants on its site.
Asana Relocate EMEA HQ To Ireland
Asana, the San Francisco headquartered technology company set up by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has relocated its European, Middle East and African (EMEA) headquarters to new premises in Dublin, Ireland.
Asana is already on the lookout for additional office space in the Irish capital as it looks to continually increase employee numbers on the back of international growth.
Staff numbers at Asana’s Irish operations have jumped from 17 to 30 over the past 12 months.
CEO & co-founder Dustin Moskovitz was speaking as new figures showed Asana now has 50,000 paying organisations, up from 20,000 18 months ago and these are in addition to the more than the 1 million other businesses that use a free version of the company’s productivity management software.
The company has recorded sales growth for six consecutive quarters with revenue growth rate up about 90 per cent year on year. Half of the company’s revenues come from outside of the US, with Europe being a key market, hence the importance of the Irish operation.
UK Cybersecurity Firm Now Worth $1.65 Billion
Darktrace, the UK cybersecurity start-up backed by Autonomy founder Mike Lynch, has raised $50m (£38m) in new funding, bringing the company’s valuation to $1.65bn, up from a valuation of $1.25bn in May this year.
The Cambridge (UK)-headquartered company is seen as one of Britain’s most promising technology start-ups, and claims to have pioneered “self-learning” algorithms that mimic the way the human immune system fights viruses to protect corporate computer systems.
The new investment into the business comes mainly from Vitruvian Partners, the London-headquartered private equity firm which has also backed Farfetch, the fashion marketplace, and food delivery business Just Eat.
Other funding comes from existing investors KKR and 1011 Ventures. Poppy Gustafsson, one of Darktrace’s two chief executives, said that the funding would go towards international expansion and hiring globally.
Spotify move to further shake and stir the music industry
Spotify plans to allow artists to upload songs directly, bypassing record labels or distributors.
Spotify, the largest player in the fast-growing format of streaming, said that the feature for now is only in the test phase for select US-based independent artists who have secured their own copyrights.
The feature, if eventually put to scale, could in the long run, drastically change the business decisions for artists who would not need to go through a label or one of the batch of new companies, such as TuneCore, that provide uploading services for independent artists.
Spotify said artists would simply upload their songs to the platform, first seeing a preview of how it will look, with the Swedish company automatically sending royalties each month.
The handful of artists who have already been selected for the feature include Noname, the Chicago rapper who has won acclaim for her songs of African American women’s struggles framed as telephone conversations, and Michael Brun, the Haitian-American DJ and producer known for his lively inter-cultural mixes.