Factmata, a London-based company working on machine learning technology able to counter fake news online, has raised £700,000 ($1 million) in seed from a number of investors-- although it has not released its product yet. The round was backed by high-profile personalities such as Twitter cofounder Biz Stone and freedom of information activist Craig Newmark. Past investors include such heavy-weights as Mark Cuban, Mark Pincus, Ross Mason and Sunil Paul. The company is currently piloting a number of projects aimed at flagging up fake news, clickbait, misleading information, and otherwise bad content currently infesting the web. In an interview with TechCrunch, company's founder and CEO Dhruv Ghulati-- a machine learning specialist-- explained that what Factmata is gunning for is a ""community-driven AI: How do we take a machine learning model where you get data to train your model, perhaps pay 10,000 people to flag content?

Artificial intelligence could be "billions of times smarter" than humans and people may need to merge with computers to survive, a futurist told CNBC on Tuesday. Ian Pearson, a futurist at Futurizon, said there will need to be a link between AI and a human brain.

It is no coincidence that Bill McDermott, CEO of German software colossus SAP, was invited by the government of Dubai to be a keynote speaker at the World Government Summit. McDermott will share the podium with world leaders, the president of the World Bank, the managing director of the IMF, the quantum physicist/futurist Dr Michio Kaku and the Oxford philosopher Dr Nick Bostrom. Digital transformation is happening in real-time in the UAE, as well as in advanced societies all over the world. Artificial intelligence, robotics, machine learning, big data, quantum computing and the Internet of Things will literally rewrite the future of humankind in code and revolutionise the roles of government, business and human communications. I was at a recent meeting with the CEO of a prominent Arab bank who told me that smartphone technologies will force him to slash a third of his branch network.

DURHAM – A Durham-based financial management company has raised $770,000, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Trill, which uses artificial intelligence to manage clients' finances, plans to raise an additional $1.23 million, or a total of $2 million. The company did not indicate its intentions for the raised money. Previously, NC Biz News covered other fundraising by the finance company. In October 2017, the company raised $370,000 in a push to raise $1 million.

Tesla, Inc. announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2017, as well as for the financial year 2017 Wednesday evening, after markets closed. While the company posted its highest quarterly revenue yet, and a smaller than expected loss, it also quietly delayed the delivery of its mass-market sedan, the Model 3. The revenue of almost $3.3 billion for the October-December quarter was 10 percent more than the preceding quarter, and over $1 billion more than the same quarter in 2016. For the entire year, gross revenue stood over $11.7 billion, a significant increase from the $7 billion posted during 2016. Wall Street expectations put the quarterly revenue around $3.2 billion. The adjusted loss per share, of $3.04, was also lower than the $3.19 expected.

Big numbers are nothing new to Quizlet, one of the most widely-used digital study tools in the United States. And according to one website tracker, it is among the most visited sites in the country (besting LinkedIn and Spotify). But there's another number that also has the company excited. This week Quizlet raised an additional $20 million in a Series B round led by Icon Ventures. Other investors include Union Square Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, Owl Ventures and Altos Ventures.

Uber executives are travelling the globe to reassure regulators that the company is changing the way it does business. As Laura Frykberg reports, it follows a string of controversies that have hurt the ride-hailing firm's reputation. A group led by Japanese technology conglomerate Softbank has acquired a major stake in Uber. In a tender offer that expired Thursday, Dec. 28, SoftBank acquired a 15 percent stake in Uber while the remaining members got about 3 percent, according to a person familiar with the situation who was not authorized to publicly discuss details. (Photo: Eric Risberg, AP) SAN FRANCISCO -- There's a big trial starting Monday between two companies you've heard of -- Uber and Waymo, the autonomous car company owned by Google-parent Alphabet. But their brawl is over a topic you might not be familiar with: the technology inside a little spinning eyeball on the top of a self-driving car's roof.

One Stop Systems, an Escondido maker of high performance computing systems, became a publicly traded company on Thursday, raising $19 million in the first public stock offering of the year for a San Diego company. The company's shares opened at $5, below the expected range of $6 to $8 in its prospectus. One Stop sold more shares than projected, offering 3.8 million compared with the 2.9 million targeted in the prospectus. The company will use the proceeds to pay down debt and for working capital. Roth Capital Partners was the lead underwriter on the deal, with Benchmark Co. as co-manager.

Twenty-five different startups were funded in January cumulatively raising $784 million; a great start for the new year. Four acquisitions were reported during the month while the IPO front lay waiting for something to happen. According to Silicon Valley Bank's annual survey of 1,000 executives, startup founders are confident 2018 will be a good year for funding and for business conditions – except hiring and retaining foreign talent. More than half of startups surveyed (51%) reported that at least one of their founders is an immigrant. One-third of startups said laws and regulations prompted them to locate facilities (or move non-sales operations) offshore.

Google's parent company Alphabet has reported lower than expected profits in the last three months of 2017 after higher costs offset an increase in advertising sales. Revenue for the three months ending December 31 was $32.3 billion (£22.6bn), a rise of 24% on the same period in 2016. Overall, Alphabet reported a loss of $3 billion (£2.1bn) for the fourth quarter as it set aside $11 billion for taxes - an estimated $9.9 billion (£6.9bn) was for taxes on repatriated earnings. Excluding the tax provision, Alphabet would have posted a profit of $6.8 billion (£4.7bn), falling short of the $7 billion analysts had predicted. The tech giant's shares slid 2.3 per cent in after-hours trade on the results, highlighting concerns about the rising costs of projects such as the Waymo's self-driving car service, and the fact that profits were weaker than expected. The company also used its earning report to confirm that current board member John Hennessy has been named Alphabet chairman following the departure of Eric Schmidt in December.