Penalty for breaching competition law is four times higher than forecast as Brussels looks to send message to tech firms
Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU after an investigation found it had limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.
The fine is nearly four times higher than expected as the European Commission attempts to show it will act decisively on tech companies who abuse their dominant position in the market for online services.
Continue reading...The company had predicted it would grow by 5% in 2024, but later said that the real increase would be a factor of 10 lower
Lyft beat estimates for fourth-quarter profits on Tuesday as the ride-share platform reaps the benefits of growth in rides to stadiums and airports as well as heavy cost-cutting.
Company shares surged more than 60% in extended trading but erased most of those gains after Lyft’s chief financial officer corrected a major mistake in the earnings report. The company had predicted it would grow by 500 basis points (5%) in 2024, but later said that the real increase would be a factor of 10 lower – 50 basis points (0.5%). In 2023, the stock gained about 36%.
Continue reading...Spotlight turns on seven executives who presided over Horizon contract that led to huge miscarriage of justice
Bosses at Fujitsu have collected about £37m in pay, bonuses and compensation for loss of office since the technology company won the contract to supply the software at the heart of the Post Office Horizon scandal, it has emerged.
Accounts going back 25 years reveal the seven-figure sums paid out to executives of the UK division of the Japanese-owned technology company, even as more than 900 people were prosecuted as a result of flaws in the system their company supplied.
Continue reading...Government to say binding measures for overseeing artificial intelligence are needed, but not immediately
Ministers have been warned against waiting for a Post Office-style scandal involving artificial intelligence before stepping in to regulate the technology, after the government said it would not rush to legislate.
The government will acknowledge on Tuesday that binding measures for overseeing cutting-edge AI development are needed at some point – but not immediately. Instead, ministers will set out “initial thinking for future binding requirements” for advanced systems and discuss them with technical, legal and civil society experts.
Continue reading...Facebook’s parent company to pay out to shareholders as it reports $40bn revenues for final quarter
Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is expected to receive $700m (£549m) a year in dividends.
On Thursday, Meta announced it would pay its first-ever quarterly dividend to investors since Facebook floated on the stock market in 2012, after beating Wall Street expectations with $40bn in revenues for the final quarter last year.
Continue reading...Even as more job cuts await, some analysts see the beginnings of a bull market in the coming season of earnings reports
Will 2024 be a boom or a bust for big tech? By one estimate, there have been more than 7,500 layoffs in the sector since the start of the year – a dispersal of pink slips that many hoped would have ceased after the deep job cuts of 2023.
However, as the US’s big tech earnings season gets under way this week, some analysts are predicting strong numbers. This batch of quarterly financial results may show that the industry has cleared out its pandemic-era overhiring and reorganised itself around cloud computing and AI - necessitating cuts in sectors with less rosy prospects. Analysts keen on AI say we are at the start of a tech bull market.
Continue reading...Treasury committee writes to 21 bodies including Bank of England and HMRC to demand details of post-2019 deals
Fujitsu’s receipt of lucrative government contracts despite its role in the Post Office Horizon scandal has come under greater scrutiny after the Treasury committee wrote to organisations including the Bank of England and HM Revenue and Customs to demand details of their contracts with the tech company.
The influential group of MPs told 21 public bodies, including the Treasury itself, to provide information on work given to the Japanese-owned company since 2019, when the high court ruled there had been dozens of bugs and errors in its Horizon IT system.
Continue reading...Former chief operating officer was lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model
Sheryl Sandberg is to step down from the board of Facebook’s parent company, Meta, nearly two years after quitting her executive role at the business.
Sandberg was the lead architect of Facebook’s digital advertising-driven business model as Meta’s chief operating officer.
Continue reading...Electronics firm taken private in £11bn deal by consortium led by Japan Industrial Partners
Toshiba, the Japanese company synonymous with the country’s 20th-century dominance of electronics, has delisted from the Tokyo stock exchange after 74 years.
The manufacturer, associated in the UK with its 1980s “Ello Tosh, gotta Toshiba” advertising campaign, was taken private on Wednesday in an £11bn deal by a consortium of investors led by the private equity investor Japan Industrial Partners (JIP).
Continue reading...New legislation will help ensure sustainability of public interest journalism, Labor says
Tech giants could be forced to hand over sensitive details on how they distribute news on their platforms to Australia’s competition watchdog as part of the federal government’s commitment to levelling the playing field for public interest journalism in the digital age.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will undertake periodic reporting into how platforms subject to the media bargaining code are distributing news content on sites and whether significant bargaining power imbalances between the tech giants and media organisations exist.
Continue reading...Live and on-demand TV over broadband replaces BT TV as firm continues brand and service revamp
The BT-owned EE is rolling out its revamped TV over broadband offering, which delivers live and on-demand services streamed to a choice of set-top boxes that includes a customised Apple TV – a first for the UK.
The new IPTV service continues the firm’s replacement of the BT brand with EE and ditches the aerial while still offering free-to-air and premium channels in a range of packages starting at £18 a month on top of the required EE broadband subscription.
Continue reading...Trade unionists from US and Europe stand with staff at Coventry hub over local pay dispute amid global day of action
Hundreds of strikers outside Amazon’s Coventry warehouse were joined on Black Friday by trade unionists from Europe and the US as part of a global campaign calling for better working conditions at the internet retailer.
Wearing orange beanie hats branded with the GMB union logo, activists from Germany, Italy and California, on strike at their respective Amazon workplaces, expressed solidarity with the Coventry strikers, who have taken 28 days of industrial action since January.
Continue reading...Reports say new model Q* fuelled safety fears, with workers airing their concerns to the board before CEO Sam Altman’s sacking
OpenAI was reportedly working on an advanced system before Sam Altman’s sacking that was so powerful it caused safety concerns among staff at the company.
The artificial intelligence model triggered such alarm with some OpenAI researchers that they wrote to the board of directors before Altman’s dismissal warning it could threaten humanity, Reuters reported.
Continue reading...Firing of industry figurehead led to rebellion at his former employer and his hiring by its rival Microsoft
The blog headline was anodyne – “OpenAI announces leadership transition” – but the consequences for Silicon Valley were seismic.
On Friday the company behind the hit AI text-generating system ChatGPT announced that Sam Altman, figurehead for the business and the artificial intelligence revolution that has enthralled and alarmed the world in equal measure, had been fired as chief executive.
Continue reading...Sites agree to stop practices that give them an unfair advantage over businesses and shoppers
The UK’s competition watchdog has said it has secured commitments from Amazon and the Facebook owner Meta to protect consumers on their marketplaces.
The agreements come after the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched separate investigations into Amazon, which sells its own products and allows sellers to retail via its online marketplace function, and Meta, which owns Facebook Marketplace.
Continue reading...Fellow tech company Intel ‘reviewing regulations’ as timing of move brought forward
The chip designer Nvidia has said the US has told it to immediately halt the export of some of its high-end artificial intelligence chips to China as regulators advanced the deadline.
The restrictions were supposed to come into effect 30 days after 17 October, when the Biden administration announced measures to stop countries, including China, Iran and Russia, from receiving advanced AI chips designed by Nvidia and others.
Continue reading...Tax audits and land use inquiries follow company founder announcing run for Taiwan presidency
China’s tax authorities have launched multiple investigations into the company that makes the iPhone, months after its billionaire founder announced he would run in Taiwan’s presidential elections.
Foxconn faces tax audits of its operations in China, as well as investigations into land use in two Chinese provinces, according to reports by local media.
Continue reading...Big tech firms attempting to ‘capture’ meeting of heads of government, says Connor Leahy
One of the executives invited to Rishi Sunak’s international AI safety summit next month has warned that the conference risks achieving very little, accusing powerful tech companies of attempting to “capture” the landmark meeting.
Connor Leahy, the chief executive of the AI safety research company Conjecture, said he believed heads of government were poised to agree a style of regulation that would allow companies to continue developing “god-like” AI almost unchecked.
Continue reading...Finnish telecoms group aims to cut costs as demand for mobile network equipment slumps
Nokia has announced plans to cut up to 14,000 jobs over the next three years as it slashes costs after a worse-than-expected slump in demand for its mobile network equipment.
The Finnish technology company said the plans to cut 16% of its 86,000-strong global workforce were part of efforts to cut costs by €1.2bn by the end of 2026. The cuts were announced as the company revealed a 70% drop in third-quarter profits, which fell to €133m (£116m) compared with €428m a year earlier.
Continue reading...Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users’ accounts on default public setting, among other breaches
TikTok has been fined €345m (£296m) for breaking EU data law in its handling of children’s accounts, including failing to shield underage users’ content from public view.
The Irish data watchdog, which regulates TikTok across the EU, said the Chinese-owned video app had committed multiple breaches of GDPR rules.
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