Apple heading to Battersea Power Station

Apple CEO Tim Cook has announced that Apple’s new corporate offices located within the iconic Battersea Power Station in London, England will open early in 2023 representing a “commitment to Apple’s future in the UK.”

Apple announced plans for its new UK headquarters in 2016, originally stating that the enormous 500,000 square feet of office space would create room for up to 3000 employees as part of a plan to merge all of the iPhone maker’s existing offices around the city, bringing employees into one central location which was expected to open in 2021, before the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the handover of the project.

Back when the plans were first announced, Apple confirmed that its European offices would remain in Cork, Ireland, where it employs 4,000 people, with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan saying he was “delighted” that Apple chose London, the capital of the United Kingdom, for the new location in the iconic former power station on the south bank of the River Thames, which marked one of the biggest single office deals signed in London outside the City and Docklands area.

Source: Apple Post

Oxbotica raise US$140M investment to deploy its operating system for Autonomy™ around the world

Oxbotica, a global leader in autonomous vehicle software, have announced that it has raised US$140 million in Series C investment to deploy its operating system for Universal Autonomy™ in multiple commercial and industrial domains around the world. The Series C funding accommodates growing demand from new and current shareholders, with additional investors expected to sign on before the funding round closes in a few months.

The investment round includes financial and strategic partners from North America, EMEA and APAC, including new investors such as Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co., Ltd and ENEOS Innovation Partners. Current Oxbotica shareholders who are re-investing include bp ventures, BGF, Halma, Hostplus, Kiko Ventures (IP Group), Ocado Group, Tencent, Venture Science and ZF, amongst other global companies. Following today’s announcement, Oxbotica has raised approximately US$225 million to date.

The funding will drive Oxbotica’s geographical expansion in North America, EMEA and APAC, and accelerate the deployment of its ground-breaking autonomy operating system in domains where there is both urgent need and potential to scale, such as agriculture, airports, energy, goods delivery, mining and shared passenger transportation.

The latest commitments signal continuing investor confidence in Oxbotica’s vision for Universal Autonomy™—the ability of any vehicle, of any size, in any place to operate autonomously, safely and sustainably—and its proven record of breakthrough innovations which represent vital advances in commercialising AV technology. These include Europe’s first zero-occupancy trial on a publicly accessible road in May 2022, metaverse-based testing and collaborative alliances with the insurance sector, amongst others.

Gavin Jackson, CEO of Oxbotica, said: “This landmark investment from world-class investors is a tremendous validation of our strategy to apply self-driving technology where there is persistent and urgent demand—in supply chains, industrial sectors and in decongesting our cities.

We share a common purpose with our investors as well as our growing number of customers and partners to make the Earth move more safely, more sustainably and more efficiently. We’re invigorated by their confidence and are moving quickly to accelerate the benefits of autonomy for everyone.”

Paul Newman, CTO and a Founder of Oxbotica, said: “Oxbotica was founded eight years ago on the vision of Universal Autonomy™—providing safe and sustainable autonomy that is independent of workplace and vehicle type. With the greatest engineering talent and experience, using the best of AI, robotics and the metaverse, we are delivering on that promise to create value for our customers, our communities and our planet. We welcome our new investors who share our bold vision to redefine the role of the human in the operation of vehicles.”

Mitsuru Yamaguchi, Senior Managing Executive Officer at Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Co., Ltd, said: ‘Oxbotica really sets itself apart from its competitors thanks to its ambitious vision to unlock Universal Autonomy™. We are excited to combine Oxbotica’s world-class AI and robotic techniques with our own pioneering expertise in the telematics insurance arena. This will leave us well placed to develop innovative insurance products and services which will create a safer, greener and more secure society for everyone.”

Erin Hallock, Managing Partner at bp ventures, said: “We are excited to grow our investment in Oxbotica, which has become a global leader in autonomous vehicle software. Our sustained support is a great example of bp ventures’ continued investment in game-changing technology companies. By leveraging automation and digital technology we believe the team can improve safety and increase efficiency across a wide range of vehicles, and support bp’s ambition to accelerate the global revolution in mobility.”

Applied EV’s Blanc Robot, driven by Oxbotica

In addition to high-calibre investors, Oxbotica attracts category-defining customers and partners, including Ocado Group, with which the company is collaborating on autonomous goods delivery to fulfil customer orders. The software-defined vehicle from partner Applied EV, driven by Oxbotica, has already operated with no on-board driver on a publicly accessible road in Oxford, marking a key milestone in commercialising its AV technology.

In partnership with Applied EV, bp, NEVS and ZF, autonomous passenger shuttles and industry-specific vehicles driven by Oxbotica will be launched in 2024. Meanwhile, together with Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd., Oxbotica is bringing the benefits of open autonomy to mining to improve safety and sustainability combined with lower operational costs.

Citi acted as a placement agent to Oxbotica.

Foundational support for Oxbotica’s early innovations was provided by the UK government through the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles.

Cradlepoint and Ericsson Demonstrate World First Dual Network Slicing Implementation for Enterprise

Cradlepoint and Ericsson Demonstrate World First Dual Network Slicing Implementation for Enterprise over a Live Network with Australian Carrier Optus

Cradlepoint and Ericsson showcase the ability to support differentiated services for enterprises over Optus' 5G production network

Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network solutions, demonstrated application-based traffic steering into two carrier-defined network slices on its fixed wireless and in-vehicle 5G enterprise networking solutions. The demonstration took place at Australian carrier, Optus’ Tech Day.

Using Cradlepoint 5G routers at the WAN edge and leveraging Optus’ 5G standalone live network based on Ericsson’s 5G Core and RAN with network slicing capability enabled, this was the world’s first demonstration of dual network slicing for businesses using a live production network. The demonstration showed how carriers can create different network slices, each with its own performance characteristics and security rules, to uniquely support the different types of applications businesses rely on. The 5G slicing capability demonstrated by Optus, Ericsson and Cradlepoint will enable customers to prioritize connectivity to different things on the same network. In a retail setting, a business could prioritize connectivity for CCTV camera footage and EFTPOS transactions and deprioritize in-store customer Wi-Fi or music streaming. A further example would be in an emergency services vehicle, it could prioritize camera feed data, enabling critical application connectivity. Network slicing will allow us to offer resilient, reliable services over 5G to support diverse enterprise-critical applications.” Zorawar Singh, VP Product, Enterprise and Business at Optus The demonstration showed premium and default slices, with the ability to recognize, classify and steer corporate applications into the correct slice. For the fixed wireless use case, the demo used Cradlepoint’s recently introduced NetCloud Exchange (NCX) 5G-optimised SD-WAN with the E3000 Series Enterprise Router and the W1850 Series 5G Wideband Adapter. The Cradlepoint R1900 Series 5G Ruggedised Router was used for the in-vehicle use case, with Cradlepoint connectivity enabling reception of high priority, low latency symmetrical traffic with one network slice and Wi-Fi traffic for passengers on a standard MBB asymmetrical network slice. Secure firewall capability was also part of the demonstration. Ericsson’s dual-mode 5G Core and Ericsson RAN enabled the two end-to-end slices for both use cases from the network side. The ever-evolving capabilities of 5G connectivity are such an exciting part of network infrastructure today. This was a strong example of how Cradlepoint and Ericsson are working together to deliver solutions that will help carriers monetize their 5G infrastructure investment and facilitate the transition to 5G as essential WAN connectivity.” Nathan McGregor, senior vice president Martin Wiktorin, Head of Ericsson Global Customer Unit, Singtel, said: “Network slicing is a key enabler for unlocking opportunities through service differentiation and guaranteed performance. Using an end-to-end approach, Ericsson has developed the most complete network slicing portfolio including 5G Core and 5G RAN Slicing with quality of service differentiation for automated and fast service delivery of new and innovative 5G use cases.”

Cloud-Star technology supply the full range of Cradlepoint wireless routers please call us for more information or e-mail: sales@cloud-star.co.uk