Don’t lose steam now, stay on top of your resolutions with the best health and fitness gadgets of 2019 January 16, 2019 Nike Adapt $350, nike.com Under immense pressure from fans of Back to the Future, Nike launched the first iteration of its prototype self-lacing shoes in 2016. Version two is more refined, allowing the wearer to adjust the fit using their phone. It’s pitched to basketball players, who change the fit of their shoe throughout a [...]
Facebook to toughen up rules on political ads in countries with major elections January 16, 2019 Social media giant Facebook has said it will toughen up existing rules on political advertising in all countries facing major elections this year, following scrutiny surrounding ads on its platform during previous events. The firm said today that it will also expand some of its tools for curbing election inference, with Nigeria, India, Ukraine and the [...]
Pokemon Go creator Niantic valued at $4bn after latest fundraise January 16, 2019 Niantic, the company behind the popular mobile game Pokemon Go, has been valued at nearly $4bn (£3.1bn) after raising $245m in a new round of financing. The series C funding round was led by IVP, which has previously backed the likes of Uber, Netflix, Dropbox and Slack. Additional investment came from Axiomatic Gaming, Battery Ventures, Causeway Media Partners, CRV [...]
Snap shares plummet as its finance chief’s departure takes a toll on investor nerves January 16, 2019 Shares in Snap have opened this afternoon down almost 12 per cent, after news broke of its chief financial officer's impending departure late last night. The company's shares dipped more than eight per cent in after-hours trading, before falling even further as markets opened today to an 11.8 per cent drop. Snap said in a [...]
Youtube to ban dangerous prank videos inspired by Netflix’s Bird Box January 16, 2019 Youtube has said it will ban videos that contain dangerous or emotionally distressing "pranks", after a person crashed his car attempting to complete an online challenge inspired by Netflix's Bird Box. In an update posted to its support site, Youtube said it had updated its external guidelines "to make it clear that challenges like the [...]
Flood, fire, even an earthquake: businesses must protect themselves against the event of a natural disaster January 16, 2019 Technical issues were enough to hit TSB with a brutal three-week outage in April last year. The damage from that event is well documented – an eightfold increase in customers choosing to bank elsewhere, a bill for compensation and repairs costing roughly £176m, and a chief executive who decided to walk. The events suffered by [...]
Snap loses its second finance chief in less than a year, following a string of executive exits January 16, 2019 The chief financial officer of Snap is to resign after spending less than 12 months in the role, sending the social media platform's share price down more than eight per cent in after-hours trading. Tim Stone, who joined Snap from Amazon in May, is only the latest executive to leave the parent company of photo-sharing [...]
London fintech startup Jaja Finance picks up £5m with a boost from Celeres January 16, 2019 Credit card fintech startup Jaja Finance has today confirmed the final close of its £3.5m crowdfunding round, boosted by an additional £1.5m from Celeres Investments. The £5m intake adds to an earlier £4.4m raised in seed funding last year, backed by Blystad Group and Pollen Street Capital among others. More than 1,000 private investors took [...]
Netflix shares rise as subscribers face an 18 per cent price hike January 15, 2019 Netflix has said it will be raising the prices of its streaming services for US subscribers by as much as 18 per cent, as the tech giant seeks to cover the costs of ploughing heavy investment into its original content. Prices for its most popular standard viewing plan, which allows users to stream content on [...]
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei rejects spying claims as daughter faces US extradition January 15, 2019 Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei today refuted claims the Chinese government is using his company to spy on foreign rivals. “I love my country, I support the Communist Party. But I will not do anything to harm the world. I don’t see a close connection between my personal political beliefs and the businesses of Huawei,” Ren [...]
