Tech World: Uber’s new CEO, Amazon’s grocery bet, bitcoin’s price fluctuation and more
Channel: UKTN
Date: 2017-09-05

Welcome to Tech World, your quick roundup of some the top technology news stories from across the globe. This month, we have Uber’s new CEO, Amazon’s Whole Foods purchase, cryptocurrency news and more.

For this episode’s Hot Topic interview, we spoke with Martyn Whistler from EY about generational differences in attitude to technology.

First though, here’s your round up of the month’s biggest tech news.

Amazon finalizes Whole Foods purchase

The Federal Trade Commission gave the green light to Amazon.com’s purchase of Whole Foods Market in a deal valued at $13.7bn.

The deal signals a turning point for Amazon, which has been struggling to break into the US grocery business for years.

Baidu sells food delivery firm for $800m

Sticking with the topic of food, Chinese search giant Baidu sold its food delivery subsidiary to Ele.me, a startup backed by Alibaba.

The reported price tag of the sale was around $800m, a steep discount from the business’s prior valuation of about $2.5bn.

WeWork raises $4.4bn

Office sharing company WeWork raised $4.4bn from SoftBank Group and SoftBank Vision Fund.

SoftBank is investing $3bn in WeWork itself, and putting $1.4bn into three new WeWork subsidiaries: WeWork China, WeWork Japan, and WeWork Pacific.

Cryptocurrency space heats up

The cryptocurrency space has been really heating up of late. For a start, the price of bitcoin reached new heights in August, closing out the month at over $4,770.

Also, startup Protocol Labs launched an initial coin offering for its Filecoin Network, raising close to $200m from accredited investors.

Uber announces new CEO

Dara Khosrowshahi was announced as the new CEO of Uber. He’s the former CEO of online travel company Expedia and takes over at Uber from Travis Kalanick.

Dara said he hopes to take the ride-hailing firm public in the next 18 to 36 months.

That’s it for our top global tech news roundup, but keep watching to see this episode’s Hot Topics interview.

We spoke with Martyn Whistler from EY about generational differences in attitude to technology, media and telecommunications.

That’s all for this episode of Tech World. For more of the latest top tech headlines follow us on Twitter.