Sat 31 Oct
LiveGet it free
ZOTPAPER

News without the noise

Business

Business news from Australia and around the world: companies, deals, earnings, regulation and the people running them.

1825 articles · page 19 of 39

AllStartups
Viewgridlistcompact
Startups

Ultrahuman partners with Abu Dhabi to bring biological-age model to UAE

Ultrahuman, the Bengaluru-based health tech startup best known for its smart rings, has signed a two-year memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Public Health Center (ADPHC) to develop and validate a biological-age model. The model, which combines clinical biomarkers with wearable device data, will eventually be available to people across the United Arab Emirates through government digital health platforms, the company announced Monday.

· 2 sources
Business

Amazon's million-strong robot fleet expands, raising questions for human warehouse workers

Amazon now operates more than 1 million robots in its warehouses around the clock and is preparing to expand that fleet with new factories, even as it remains one of the world's largest employers. The company says the robots take on the most physically demanding tasks, but labor advocates and researchers warn that collaborative automation can also let machines dictate the pace of human work.

Business

Illinois college says Flock Safety refused to remove license plate cameras after contract concerns

Elgin Community College in Illinois says Flock Safety refused to remove six license plate recognition cameras from campus after the school raised concerns that the company was sharing data with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, that camera feeds were not properly secured, and that law enforcement and company employees had abused access to the data. College President Peggy Heinrich stated that Flock rejected the removal request, asserting it had not violated its contract.

Business

AI coding tools surge but software developer job postings rise, complicating displacement predictions

U.S. software development job postings have risen nearly 15% since February 2025, the launch month of Anthropic's Claude Code, according to data from Indeed Hiring Lab, challenging forecasts that artificial intelligence would rapidly eliminate demand for human coders. The increase comes despite AI now involved in one in three pull requests on GitHub and overall U.S. job listings declining, suggesting the profession is evolving rather than vanishing.

· 2 sources
Business

Paramount closes $111 billion Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition after legal battles

Paramount has completed its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), finalizing the deal on October 6 after overcoming a last-minute legal challenge from 12 state attorneys general. The merger, approved by the U.S. Department of Justice in June and cleared by a federal judge in late September, combines WBD's studios, HBO, streaming platforms, games, and TV networks including CNN and HGTV into Paramount, which is run by David Ellison and backed by his father, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison.

Business

Punters sold short as World Pool betting system draws growing complaints

Australian punters are being short-changed by the World Pool, a Hong Kong-based betting system merged with the TAB for major race days, as evidence mounts that dividends paid to winning bettors are significantly lower than those offered by fixed-odds bookmakers. The gap was highlighted over the weekend, with winning sprinter Point Barrow paying $2.60 through the World Pool TAB compared to $3.20 with fixed odds, and Caulfield winner Land Legend returning $44 versus a bookmaker price of 70-1.

· 3 sources
Business

Musk vows affordable Starlink for India as feud with Ambani intensifies

Elon Musk has pledged to price his Starlink satellite internet service affordably in India to compete with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Jio, sharpening a public feud with the Indian tycoon days before Jio’s parent company launches the country’s largest-ever initial public offering. Musk has taken to his social media platform X to accuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and Ambani of deliberately slowing Starlink’s entry into the market. India’s government denies any bias, saying all three satellite ventures seeking to launch are awaiting final security clearance.

Business

Melbourne upsizer buys Essendon home $45,000 under reserve as auction pace cools

A four-bedroom Art Deco home in Essendon sold for $2.655 million on Saturday, about $45,000 below its $2.7 million reserve, after passing in on a bid of $2.55 million and being negotiated in post-auction talks. The sale came at the last weekend before new Victorian laws require vendors to publish auction reserves, and as agents report growing buyer hesitancy following the September interest rate rise.

· 3 sources
Business

Small business owners launch ad campaign as Labor shifts stance on card surcharge ban

A new advertising campaign backed by aggrieved business owners calls on the federal government to "stop putting a surcharge on running a small business" as Labor ministers publicly push the Reserve Bank to make banks, not businesses, bear the cost of card payments. The ban on card surcharging, which the RBA says benefits the public by improving transparency, has instead sparked a political firestorm, with small business owners and politicians trading blame over who will foot the bill for the country's payment system.

· 4 sources