Boris Johnson is flying into dangerous skies

You know British politics has been turned on its head when a Conservative government jumps in to rescue a failing company, and Labour supporters criticise the bailout as market distorting and wasteful. Yet that’s the odd situation that arises from the UK’s decision to save struggling regional airline Flybe. When faced with the collapses of travel agent Thomas Cook, contracting ...

Read More »

Xerox can’t copy same offer for HP

Xerox Holdings Corp. is best known for inventing the modern photocopier. When it comes to the company’s $33 billion attempt to acquire HP Inc., Chief Executive Officer John Visentin needs to do more than simply copy and repeat the same terms. It has been almost two months since larger rival HP rejected Xerox’s initial bid. Since then, little in the ...

Read More »

Verizon, breaker of the cable bundle? Not really

The good news is, someday soon “triple play” will mean something only to baseball fans. These days, though, cable-TV customers probably still know it better as the industry’s torture device. Triple-play bundles refer to long-term contracts with a company such as Comcast Corp. or Charter Communications Inc. that provide internet, television and landline-phone service for one “discounted” rate. These packages ...

Read More »

It’s like Uber, only for election campaigns

A big story in Silicon Valley last year was late-stage growth companies learning that public markets no longer had an appetite for startups that were growing quickly but whose future profitability was dubious. For examples, look no further than the disappointing market debuts for companies such as Uber and Lyft and the withdrawn initial public offering of WeWork. Although that ...

Read More »

Another thing Carlos Ghosn doesn’t want to talk about

What was going on at Nissan Motor Co. for the last two decades? With all his complaints about Nissan subordinates and the “depth of deprivation” he endured at the hands of the Japanese justice system, Carlos Ghosn didn’t really answer that at a news conference where he portrayed himself as a victim of human-rights abuses. Ghosn didn’t want to talk ...

Read More »

Boeing CEO doesn’t need a bonus to fix ailing 737 Max

Boeing Co.’s new CEO shouldn’t need an extra wheelbarrow of money to do his job. David Calhoun officially took over the top role following the December ouster of Dennis Muilenburg over his ham-handed management of the crisis engulfing the 737 Max. With the plane having now been grounded for 10 months in the wake of two fatal crashes, Boeing decided ...

Read More »

Horrid holidays can’t all be blamed on Brexit

Christmas 2019 should be consigned to the dustbin along with the crumpled wrapping paper and the wilted tree. That’s the message that has come in loud and clear from British retailers. And it caps off a miserable year. Total sales for 2019 fell by 0.1%, the worst year on record, according to the British Retail Consortium and KPMG. There’s no ...

Read More »

Toyota makes new $394mn bet on flying taxis

Toyota Motor is making a $394 million investment in Joby Aviation, one of the handful of companies with the seemingly implausible goal of making electric air taxis that shuttle people over gridlocked highways and city streets. Toyota is the lead investor in Joby’s $590 million Series C funding, alongside Baillie Gifford and Global Oryx and prior backers Intel Capital, Capricorn ...

Read More »

Apple acquires AI firm Xnor.ai

Bloomberg Apple Inc acquired Seattle-based artificial intelligence (AI) company Xnor.ai, bringing on more talent in a key area of technology. The company, founded in 2016, had raised millions of dollars to build tools that help AI algorithms run on devices rather than remote data centres. In recent years, Apple has pushed to run this type of software on its devices ...

Read More »

Smart speakers likely to come under new scrutiny in UK

Bloomberg Smart speakers such as those made by Amazon.com Inc are to come under new scrutiny by the UK government when it publishes the results of a consultation into the security features of connected consumer devices. UK digital secretary Nicky Morgan said the results of the public inquiry, which concluded in June, will be released within the next “month or ...

Read More »
Send this to a friend