News

Artificial intelligence, automation and robotics

• December 15, 2021 15 Dec'21

  Gig economy algorithmic management tools ‘unfair and opaque’

  Report published by Worker Info Exchange warns of algorithmically enabled rights abuses in the gig economy, noting the insufficient transparency of employers and the lacklustre nature of legal redress

• December 15, 2021 15 Dec'21

  Asda follows EG Group sibling in selection of Rise with SAP

  Retailer is looking to improve the agility of its operations in the cloud with a move to Rise with SAP on Microsoft Azure, and to streamline its procurement with SAP Ariba

• December 15, 2021 15 Dec'21

  Digital Ethics Summit: Innovation needs regulation to be ethical

  Experts attending the 2021 Digital Ethics Summit spoke out against the idea that regulation will stifle technological innovation, arguing that setting clear rules will produce more ethical innovation

• December 14, 2021 14 Dec'21

  Joint committee publishes report on improving Online Safety Bill

  MPs and peers release report on Online Safety Bill following five-month inquiry into the draft legislation and make a number of recommendations on how it can be improved to deal with harmful content and abuse on the internet

• December 14, 2021 14 Dec'21

  How to scale up your AI initiatives

  Executive sponsorship, a strong data foundation and having ‘analytics artists’ are among ways to scale up AI initiatives beyond the pilot stage

• December 13, 2021 13 Dec'21

  Scottish government announces support for right to disconnect

  The Scottish government is the first in the UK to publicly support a right to disconnect, which would give people the ability not engage in digitally enabled work-related activities outside of their contracted hours

• December 10, 2021 10 Dec'21

  SMEs dominate list of 200 fastest growing tech companies

  List of 200 fastest growing companies in the public sector is made up primarily of small and medium-sized enterprises, which collectively earned £936m from government contracts in the past fiscal year

• December 10, 2021 10 Dec'21

  Finland looks to democratise the ‘wild west’ of artificial intelligence

  Finland could play an important role in increasing the understanding of what artificial intelligence software can do for society

• December 08, 2021 08 Dec'21

  AWS re:Invent 2021: Four key takeaways for ASEAN firms

  AWS’s third-generation Graviton processor and other offerings in edge computing, machine learning and digital twin technologies are of relevance to organisations in Southeast Asia

• December 07, 2021 07 Dec'21

  IT Priorities 2022: ERP gets back on the horse

  Automation and going cloud-first have gained significant interest for enterprise software and data management investment in the UK, according to the annual TechTarget/Computer Weekly IT Priorities 2022 survey

• December 07, 2021 07 Dec'21

  AI assistant Bürokratt to reduce bureaucracy in Estonian government

  Estonia to launch a Siri-like digital assistant that will automate the completion of government service requests

• December 03, 2021 03 Dec'21

  NUHS to tap edge supercomputing to crunch AI workloads

  Singapore’s National University Health System will tap edge supercomputing resources to train AI models in a range of healthcare-related AI applications by mid-2022

• December 02, 2021 02 Dec'21

  Pandora Papers: How journalists mined terabytes of offshore data to expose the world’s elites

  Six hundred journalists spent over a year mining 2.94 terabytes of data that revealed offshore companies and the politicians, world leaders and celebrities who secretly owned them

• December 01, 2021 01 Dec'21

  Unesco member states adopt AI ethics recommendation

  The non-binding recommendation seeks to define a common set of values and principles to guide the development of ethical AI globally

• November 30, 2021 30 Nov'21

  UK bank branch cull continues as TSB condemns 70 more

  TSB’s branch closure programme gathers pace as dozens more high street premises are shuttered

• November 30, 2021 30 Nov'21

  Over 100 civil society groups call for changes to EU AI Act

  Civil, human and digital rights organisations sign open letter calling on European policymakers to put fundamental rights at the heart of the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act

• November 30, 2021 30 Nov'21

  Accenture to create 3,000 UK tech jobs

  Accenture’s recruitment plan in the UK is a response to businesses to the release of pent-up demand for digital transformations

• November 29, 2021 29 Nov'21

  UKISUG 2021: S/4 Hana skills deficit and legacy custom code hamper migration

  On the opening day of its 2021 conference, the UK and Ireland SAP User Group unveils member research showing concerns that an S/4 Hana skills deficit and a surfeit of legacy customisation is retarding migration to the Hana-based ERP

• November 29, 2021 29 Nov'21

  UK announces standard for algorithmic transparency

  Public sector organisations will pilot artificial intelligence governance framework and evolve it based on feedback

• November 29, 2021 29 Nov'21

  UK ‘impact startups’ raise £2bn in 2021

  Impact startups in the UK have raised record levels of investment this year, with most of the capital raised going to climate tech firms

• November 29, 2021 29 Nov'21

  NetSuite CEO Goldberg: Growth companies nimble for post-Covid normality

  Evan Goldberg, executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, reflects on the post-Covid-19 pandemic economy through the prism of the Oracle-owned SaaS company

• November 24, 2021 24 Nov'21

  Regulation of AI needed to avoid the mistakes of social media

  Government is urged to work with industry on a flexible regulatory framework to ensure the explainability, reliability and robustness of artificial intelligence

• November 24, 2021 24 Nov'21

  Societe Generale accelerates data and artificial intelligence strategy

  French investment banking giant increases its focus on data and artificial intelligence as digital transformation matures

• November 24, 2021 24 Nov'21

  Police tech introduced with little scrutiny or training

  A Lords inquiry into the adoption of advanced algorithmic technologies by police in England and Wales has been told that new tools are being introduced without proper training and with little scrutiny of their impacts

• November 19, 2021 19 Nov'21

  UK government announces safety tech challenge fund winners

  The Safety Tech Challenge Fund winners will now develop technologies to limit the spread of child abuse material in encrypted environments, which the government has claimed will not be repurposed for other uses

• November 16, 2021 16 Nov'21

  Unit4 research finds divergence between decision-makers and employees in SMEs

  Sponsored research among mid-sized enterprises finds decision-makers and employees to be radically at odds in reading what makes a successful organisation

• November 16, 2021 16 Nov'21

  Nvidia/Arm: Competitions and Markets Authority to drill down further in Phase 2 investigation

  The merger between Arm and Nvidia is to be investigated further following publication of the CMA’s Phase 1 report into the deal

• November 16, 2021 16 Nov'21

  Blueprint for future high street shows tech’s role in creating thriving communities

  Technology will play an important role in creating thriving communities after Covid-19 lockdowns renew interest in local high streets

• November 16, 2021 16 Nov'21

  Can UAE become a world leader in AI?

  The UAE has launched multiple programmes as it bids to be a world-leading location for artificial intelligence innovation

• November 16, 2021 16 Nov'21

  Medtronic ups ante in digital health

  Medtronic wants a slice of the burgeoning digital health market and is teaming up with startups and other organisations in Asia-Pacific’s healthcare ecosystem to raise its game

• November 12, 2021 12 Nov'21

  New law needed to rein in AI-powered workplace surveillance

  MPs and peers call for new legislation to regulate the growing use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, which is being used to surveil workers’ performance and behaviour

• November 12, 2021 12 Nov'21

  Oversight of biometrics and surveillance should not go to ICO

  Biometrics and surveillance camera commissioner Fraser Sampson has panned the UK government’s proposed plan to absorb the functions of those roles under the remit of the information commissioner

• November 11, 2021 11 Nov'21

  Green energy Cray supercomputer to power weather predictions

  HPE is building a supercomputer that will be shared by four European meteorological services

• November 11, 2021 11 Nov'21

  Financial Conduct Authority chooses Aiimi for improved information discovery

  The Financial Conduct Authority has awarded a three-year contract to UK enterprise search firm Aiimi to enable the regulator’s staff to find documents more easily and collaborate better

• November 10, 2021 10 Nov'21

  Vast Data: Big shifts promised for an AI future

  Purveyor of Universal Storage says AI and GPU-based compute will dominate, and is set to benefit with its (relatively) cheap, deep and quick QLC-plus-Optane offer

• November 10, 2021 10 Nov'21

  EU artificial intelligence regulation risks undermining social safety net

  Europe’s proposed artificial intelligence regulation will not adequately protect people from European governments' increasing use of the technology in social security decisions and resource allocation, says Human Rights Watch

• November 09, 2021 09 Nov'21

  Yoti develops age estimation algorithm for under-13s

  Age estimation technology developed by Yoti is being pitched as a way of helping social media platforms and other online businesses protect younger internet users from harm

• November 09, 2021 09 Nov'21

  Real Madrid teams up with Adobe to enhance global fan experience

  Real Madrid is using Adobe’s Experience Cloud software to better connect with its fans in Spain and worldwide

• November 09, 2021 09 Nov'21

  Gartner: Why CIOs need to replan their roadmap

  IT has always been about gaining more efficiency by automating processes, but greater efficiency doesn’t lead to a step change in business outcomes

• November 09, 2021 09 Nov'21

  Singapore ups ante in AI with sectoral programmes

  Singapore launches two national AI programmes to bolster adoption of AI by financial institutions and the public sector

• November 05, 2021 05 Nov'21

  Petrol station retailer EG Group opts for Rise with SAP to fuel growth

  EG Group, a petrol station and food retailer, is looking to improve its operations with a move to Rise with SAP on an SAP private cloud alongside an implementation of the SuccessFactors HR system

• November 05, 2021 05 Nov'21

  UK and US governments agree joint quantum collaboration

  Representatives from the two governments issue a joint statement on quantum information science and technology (Qist)

• November 04, 2021 04 Nov'21

  Rise with SAP attracts 11% interest from SAP customers

  Research from the UK & Ireland SAP User Group has found only 11% of members plan to use SAP’s Rise with SAP business transformation as a service offering

• November 03, 2021 03 Nov'21

  Facebook self-imposes facial recognition moratorium

  Facebook and Meta have committed to halting their use of facial recognition technology and deleting the biometric data of more than a billion people by the end of 2021, but will retain the underlying algorithms and software for potential use in ...

• November 03, 2021 03 Nov'21

  ODI Summit 2021: ‘Social prescribing’ for mental health lacks data infrastructure

  A report published at the Open Data Institute’s annual summit finds social prescribing activities geared towards improving mental and physical health lack sufficient data infrastructure

• October 29, 2021 29 Oct'21

  Amazon Q3 2021: AWS nears 40% in year-on-year growth

  Amazon has reported 39% year-on-year growth for its public cloud division AWS and posted overall third quarter revenue of $110.8bn, up 15% on last year

• October 29, 2021 29 Oct'21

  Facebook rebrands to Meta amid continuing controversies

  Facebook has changed its corporate name to Meta to support its work on the next generation of “social technologies”, but concerns around trust and privacy persist

• October 28, 2021 28 Oct'21

  Illegal state surveillance in Africa ‘carried out with impunity’

  Analysis of surveillance laws and practices in six African countries finds that existing privacy laws are failing to protect citizens from illegal digital surveillance, which is being facilitated and enabled by global tech companies

• October 28, 2021 28 Oct'21

  Benioffs and Salesforce put $300m into combating climate change on eve of COP26

  $200m committed to reforestation and restoration efforts, and $100m for non-profits over the next 10 years

• October 27, 2021 27 Oct'21

  TSB opens 100-seat tech centre in Scottish capital

  TSB has opened its latest tech centre in Scotland while IT services provider CGI announces the creation of hundreds of UK tech jobs