“UK cyber security researcher slams brakes on virus” ran the headline in the Financial Times on Saturday.
“It is not often that you can halt a global hacking attack for a tenner. But when you do, you spend your money fast,” the FT wrote, adding that “although Friday’s attack infected computers in almost 100 countries, it did not go on to spread further, thanks to an eagle-eyed UK security researcher who spotted a ‘kill switch’ in the malware code and used it to stop the virus and collect data on infections in real time.”
To find out more about this fascinating story, please click here.
Elsewhere, Google drew our attention, as usual, although there was no meaningful news about tools and core business stuff. Inevitably, moonshot projects continue to absorb a huge amount of capital, as their effectiveness is questioned; The Verge noted that “Waymo’s self-driving cars are racking up miles faster than ever”, and that’s surely encouraging.
Alphabet’s push into the AI/virtual reality field, meanwhile, gained traction with the purchase of VR game studio Owlchemy Labs for an undisclosed amount.
For its part, Facebook is keeping itself busy with a novel approach to neural machine translation, as our table below shows, while Amazon and Wal-Mart have no intention to give up on their ambitious hi-tech plans.
Noteworthy, Apple closed in on a market valuation of $1 trillion last week, with its equity currently trading at $156 a share.
Finally, corporate earnings were a somewhat mixed bag.
This week, Japan’s Softbank reported its trading update and confirmed it intends to shell out $5bn in Didi over time, while also investing immediately $500m in UK tech start-up Improbable.
Snap stock was hammered due to hefty quarterly losses; Nvidia surged; and Yelp’s trading update confirmed the company has to to hope somebody will come to the rescue.
Happy Monday, everybody.
- On The Radar: Street Views Indoor & Outdoor (Tech Crunch, 9/5/2017; Android Police, 12/05/2017)
- A Big Day For Owlchemy Labs! (Owlchemy Labs, 10/5/2017; Google, 10/5/2017)
- Waymo Hits 3m Miles On Public Road; Uber Lawsuit Goes To Trial (The Verge, 10/5/2017; Tech Crunch, 11/5/2017)
- Google’s Expansion Plan Into The Enterprise Business (VMware, 9/10/2017)
Key highlight of the week:
Digital: Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Didi…
- UK Invests To Strengthen Cyber Security Of Health System (Reuters, 14/5/1017)
- Most Important Takes From Microsoft’s Build Event, Including iTunes Coming To The Window Store (The Verge, 11/5/2017)
- Facebook Introduces A Novel Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) Approach (FB, 9/5/2017)
- Amazon Launches Echo Show (Reuters, 9/5/2017)
- Didi Reintroduces English Language & International Payments (Tech Crunch, 8/5/2017)
Key highlight of the week:
Trending Finance: Verizon, Opera, Apple, Amazon…
- Verizon Defeats AT&T And Pays Up For Straight Path (CNBC, 11/5/2017)
- Opera Plans To Expand In Africa (Tech Crunch, 9/5/2017)
- Apple Hits $800bn Market Cap, Acquires Beddit (Reuters, 9/5/2017; CNBC, 9/5/2017)
- Amazon Drops Free Shipping Minimum Price & Leads The Voice-Enabled Speaker Market (Business Insider, 9/5/2017; eMarketer, 8/5/2017)
Key highlight of the week:
If you want to discuss any of these topics with our team, please email us at info@hedgingbeta.com.
Our Team
Alessandro Pasetti, Co-founder & Chief Strategist Officer
Email Ale now: apasetti@hedgingbeta.com
Laura Pasetti, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Email Laura now: lpasetti@hedgingbeta.com
Francesca Chiappalupi, Non-executive Director
Email Francesca now: francesca@hedgingbeta.com
Bruna Scuderi, SEO Specialist
Email Bruna now: bscuderi@hedgingbeta.com
Jeni Smith, Educational & Business Development Manager
Email Jeni now: jsmith@hedgingbeta.com
Chiara Muscolini, International Relationship Manager
Email Chiara now: cmuscolini@hedgingbeta.com