General Motors and Japan’s Softbank are among the latest investors in Nauto, a Silicon Valley start-up developing software for self-driving vehicles.

Britain’s major share index climbed, flirting with its record high level but underperforming European peers,

Overseas buyers lured by a plunge in the pound are looking to snare British companies on the cheap, ensuring a steady flow of deals since Britain voted to leave the EU and defying expectations of an M&A drought.

Inside nearly every smartphone, tablet, e-reader, and smartwatch are tiny microprocessors that tell the machine what to do.

London’s top-flight index fell just short of breaking through the 6,700 mark for the first time in 11 months after shares in ARM Holdings soared following its takeover approach from Japan’s SoftBank.

Sterling climbed after SoftBank Group agreed to buy ARM Holdings in the biggest takeover of a British company since the country last month decided to leave the EU.

Smartphone chip designer ARM Holdings is to announce that it is being bought by Japan's SoftBank for more than £23bn, according to reports.

A robot equipped with a “heart” designed to not only recognise human emotions, but react with simulations of anger, joy and irritation, is going on sale in Japan.

The Apple Watch launched globally with a small queue of Japanese tech-addicts lining up in Tokyo for Apple’s first wearable gadget, but there was no sign of the excitement usually attached to the company’s product rollouts.

Japanese telecoms group Softbank is to incorporate artificial intelligence technology from IBM into its empathetic robot Pepper, which goes on sale later this month.

Japan’s SoftBank Corp is in talks to acquire DreamWorks Animation, the Hollywood studio behind the Shrek and Madagascar movie hits, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

TECH FIRM UNVEILS ‘EMOTIONAL’ ROBOT

World stocks drifted today as investors largely shrugged off a weekend vote in which Crimeans opted to leave Ukraine and join Russia.

Vodafone says it is in advanced talks to sell its 45% stake of Verizon Wireless back to the US mobile phone service provider for $130bn in cash and stock.

Sports betting firm Betfair was valued at £1.4bn (€1.6m) on its stock market debut today.

Gaming giant Betfair is considering a potential £1.5bn (€1.72bn) flotation amid discussions over the future of the firm, it was reported today.

THE Nikkei rebounded from five days of heavy selling, rising 1.22% yesterday.

Japan Tobacco has agreed to acquire Britain’s Gallaher Group for nearly £10bn (€14.9bn), the largest corporate acquisition by a Japanese company, it is reported today.

Vodafone has completed the sale of its 97.68% interest in Vodafone Japan to a wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank Corporation.

Mobile phone operator Vodafone was today reported to be eyeing the UK operation of Tiscali ahead of an assault on the broadband market.

Mobile phone giant Vodafone acted today to revive its flagging performance in Europe as well as capture a slice of new revenue streams such as mobile TV.

A landmark session for the London market ended with a tinge of disappointment today when the FTSE 100 Index closed below the 6,000 threshold.

Investors were treated to a landmark session today as the FTSE 100 Index made surprise gains to smash through the 6,000 barrier.

Vodafone fuelled the euphoria in the London market today by promising £6bn (€8.65bn) of cash for shareholders following the sale of its Japanese arm.

The prospect of a bidding war for Vodafone’s Japanese unit kept the mobile phone group’s shares on the recovery trail today.

BELEAGUERED Vodafone shareholders were eyeing a potential £5 billion pay-day from the mobile phone company’s under-pressure chief executive.

Beleaguered Vodafone shareholders were today eyeing a potential £5bn (€7.3bn) pay-day from the mobile phone company’s under-pressure chief executive.

Nearly 1.5 billion shares in mobile phone giant Vodafone changed hands today as the company entered talks to sell its struggling business in Japan.

Aguri Suzuki admits he needs help from several quarters if his new team is to make it onto the Formula One grid in 2006.

Cognotec has been reducing its losses and increasing revenues in the past couple of years and it hopes to become profitable towards the end of 2003, according to its CEO Brian Maccaba.