In March 2024 the EU Parliament adopted the AI Act. Providers and users in the UK will not be directly impacted by it. Having said that, it is likely that AI systems that are used in the UK and the EU will be adapted to meet EU standards to reduce the likelihood of non-compliance. The UK will catch up at [...]
Amazon first introduced its “Just Walk Out” technology in 2016. This allowed Amazon Fresh shoppers to select items, scan a code / their payment card and walk out without going to a cashier. It turns out that their technology wasn't good enough to do this without recruiting 1,000 staff in India to review camera footage. 70% of transactions required such [...]
Everyone is talking about ChatGPT and AI generally. It has come close to passing the multiple-choice part of the US bar exam and has earned passing grades on law school essays that resemble ones written for the exam. Microsoft has invested billions and has added it to its search engine, Bing, in the hope that it will catch up ground lost to Google. As AI becomes [...]
Since April 2016 companies in the UK have had to identify their owners and controllers. Those details have formed part of a publicly-available register held by Companies House. Ownership registers such as this have been introduced internationally in recent years. This is as part of a move towards increasing corporate transparency to combat money laundering, the financing of terrorism and tax evasion. The Court of Justice [...]
The UK data reform Bill was postponed upon the appointment of Liz Truss as the new Prime Minister. Now, it appears that Bill is on hold. The new Secretary of State for DCMS, Michelle Donelan appears to want to take data reform in a new direction. Reform of the data reform, if you like. She has promised "the design of a tailored, business-friendly British system of [...]
Like many businesses, Starbucks closed its outlets in Russia. Now, a new chain owned by Russian rapper Timati and restaurateur Anton Pinsky is taking over the outlets. It has appointed new suppliers but much seems familiar. The new chain has dropped the "bucks" from the name. It has also adjusted the logo to show a woman wearing traditional Russian headgear. Pinsky said, [...]
IQE has filed a lawsuit against Tower for misappropriating its trade secrets. There are not many details in the public domain yet and reading anything in the general media can lead to confusion as journalists often think all words describing intellectual property rights are interchangeable! What we know is that IQE, one of the UK’s largest chip manufacturers, has filed [...]
Apple may be forced to adopt a standardised charger. In April 2022, the EU's Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee voted 43-2 to adopt legislation requiring manufacturers to adopt USB-C for device charging. Apple has resisted calls to follow the industry and adopt a unified charging port on its devices. This is the case even though it adopted USB-C on its own laptops [...]
Mariah Carey released “All I want for Christmas is You” in 1994. Now, 28 years later songwriter Andy Stone has filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. Unless you have been on a desert island all this time, you will recognise this song as it gets (over-) played every year at Christmas time. That's assuming the BBC didn't pack you off there [...]
On 14 December 2021, Stagecoach and National Express announced that they had agreed a £1.9bn merger, but behind the scenes of this mega transaction, Stagecoach had agreed to divest part of its businesses and shares in Scottish Citylink Coaches Limited to companies within the ComfortDelGro group in order to address any potential competition issues. Teacher Stern advised Scottish Citylink Coaches [...]
