Introducing 'The Futurist Monitor'. Released every week, this report gives you a bite-sized summary of the 5 biggest news events in Tech that occured over the week. With each story we give you the 'key facts' and 'key implication' of that story (ie why does this matter). We consider three areas: business; gadgets; and scams, sanctions and suspicious activity.

Business

IBM is buying Red Hat for a record-breaking $34 Billion

IBM is buying American multinational software giant Red Hat for $34 billion. Heralded as the most significant tech acquisition of 2018, the two companies plan to revolutionise the provision of cloud services with the open approach to cloud featuring unprecedented security and portability across multiple clouds. This move also strongly implies its intention to move against Amazon’s dominance of the cloud computing environment, and will see IBM become the world’s biggest hybrid cloud services provider.

Sources: Wired, Red Hat, IBM

Addison Lee to launch Self-Driving taxis in London by 2021

This will be a joint venture with Oxford-based start-up Oxbotica who specialise in autonomous software. The companies will use a digital map that consists of more than 250,000 miles of public roads in and around London, this will include the position of every kerb, road sign, traffic light etc. The move signals Addisson Lee’s intent to gain a share of the UK autonomous vehicle tech market, forecast to be worth £28bn in the UK by 2035; it also emphasises how driverless cars will soon feature more prominently in our day to day lives.

Sources: Sky News, Addison Lee, Oxbotica

Gadgets

Facebook confirms it’s building augmented reality glasses

FB’s head of augmented reality has announced the company is currently working on AR glasses. This product could be the company’s first opportunity to launch a mainstream computing device, following a decade of being beholden to smartphones that are built, controlled and taxed by Apple and Google.

Sources: Tech Crunch, Ficus Kirkpatrick (Head of AR at Facebook)

Regulatory

Tech Giants face digital services tax

Technology giants will be forced to pay tax on the sales they generate in the UK, under new plans announced in the Budget. The UK chancellor is proposing a 2% tax rate against the sales that large digital companies make in the UK. The tax will be applicable to companies that generate at least £500 mill a year in global revenue. This reiterates the notion that the ‘honeymoon’ period for big tech is over: big tech is in for a bumpy regulatory ride.

Sources: BBC News, Sky News, HMT

Scandals, Scams and Suspicious Activity

Google employees will walk out on Thursday to protest company’s handling of sexual misconduct

200 members of staff will participate in the walkout. It comes following Andy Rubin’s (Android creator) $90 million exit package despite having had multiple relationships with Google staff and after facing accusations of sexual misconduct. Moreover, the walkout comes in the wake of the recent release of a company memo admitting that 48 people had been terminated at the company for sexual harassment in the past two years, 13 of whom held a senior management position.

Sources: Tech Crunch, BuzzFeed News