Darktrace agrees £4.3B sale to US investor in blow to UK stock market

Apr26
by on April 26, 2024 at 10:16 am
Posted In: Insider


British cybersecurity flag bearer Darktrace is set to leave London’s stock market after agreeing a £4.3bn sale to US private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Shareholders will have to approve the takeover before it’s rubber-stamped. The chair of Darktrace, Gordon Hurst, said the deal represents “an attractive premium and an opportunity for shareholders.” “The proposed acquisition will provide Darktrace access to a strong financial partner in Thoma Bravo, with deep software sector expertise, who can enhance the company’s position as a best-in-class cyber AI business headquartered in the UK,” he added. The deal would end a turbulent spell on the London’s…

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AI unicorn Synthesia launches most ’emotionally expressive’ avatars on the market

Apr25
by on April 25, 2024 at 11:23 am
Posted In: Insider


A British startup today unveiled new AI humans that blur the line between the virtual and the real. Synthesia calls the digital beings “Expressive Avatars.” They promise the most realistic emotional expressions on the market.  Generated by an AI model that’s trained on footage of real actors, the avatars are built for video creation. Users simply enter a text prompt and the synthetic humans read them out on a screen. The photorealistic renders are certainly impressive. But what makes them unique is their capacity to convey human feelings. Using a technique called “automatic sentiment prediction,” Synthesia’s AI models infer the…

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Paris startup adds ‘universal compute’ weapon to France’s growing AI arsenal

Apr24
by on April 24, 2024 at 11:39 am
Posted In: Insider


A startup promising “universal AI compute” has joined France’s thriving artificial intelligence sector. Paris-based FlexAI emerged from stealth today with a €28.5mn war chest and an ambitious plan to “unlock the future of machine intelligence.” To pick that lock, FlexAI is rearchitecting compute infrastructure. The plan’s centrepiece is an on-demand cloud service. Set to launch later this year, the product will enable developers to build and train AI applications with heterogeneous compute architectures. A software layer in the service will abstract and orchestrate the workload to the optimal architecture.  The service is designed to maximise efficiency and simplicity. By providing…

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Hundreds of users sue Grindr for allegedly selling their HIV data to advertisers

Apr23
by on April 23, 2024 at 10:31 am
Posted In: Uncategorized


Grindr is being sued. The  LGBTQ+ dating app is accused of sharing its users’ medical data with advertisers. This data includes their HIV status. UK law firm Austen Hays filed the claim at London’s High Court yesterday. The class action lawsuit represents hundreds of users of the app.   Austen Hays claims that US-based Grindr breached UK data protection law by selling sensitive data to third parties without users’ consent. Aside from medical facts, this includes info about people’s ethnicity, sex life, and sexual orientation.  “Our clients have experienced significant distress over their highly sensitive and private information being shared without…

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Brits to issue their own sick notes via algorithm under plan to save GP time

Apr22
by on April 22, 2024 at 11:58 am
Posted In: Uncategorized


In an attempt to reduce the workload of GPs, the UK is planning to introduce a new National Health Service (NHS) algorithm that will enable self-issued sick notes. The move is part of the government’s effort to reform the sick note system, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is seeking not only to alleviate GPs, but also end the “sick note culture.” “We need to change the sick note culture so the default becomes what work you can do — not what you can’t,” Sunak said during a speech last week. According to NHS data, 11 million sick notes were issued…

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