Glasgow Top for Strategy in Attracting Overseas Investment - DIGIT Tech News Roundup
Welcome to the latest edition of the DIGIT Tech News Roundup.
In this week’s newsletter, we will cover some of our top-trending tech news stories, features and op-eds from the week beginning the 12th of February.
The ITSX Summit will be held in Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh on Thursday the 29th of February 2024.
The Summit is focussed on the evolution of the service desk and the future of customer experience and IT support. It will examine how the service function has advanced in the age of omnichannel engagement, digital transformation, and personalisation, from low-level automation and standardisation to advanced analytics, AI, and the increasing role of chatbots and self-service tools.
DIGIT Tech News Roundup
Glasgow Top for Strategy in Attracting Overseas Investment
Glasgow is the number one large European city for strategy in attracting overseas investment, according to a new ranking released by fDi Intelligence.
fDi Intelligence, an investment insights provider that’s part of the FT group, said Glasgow has leapt to number one due to the city’s “approach to innovation” which “has been forged in partnerships between academia, industry, government and local communities.”
In addition to the spot for its foreign direct investment strategies in the European Cities & Regions of the Future 2024, Glasgow also ranked fifth for connectivity and 10th?for business friendliness.
The investment insights provider cited the emergence of hi-tech and innovate firms across the city region, including 200 life science companies, and the importance of the three innovation districts and five innovation centres in it.
OpenAI Introduces Sora, Its Realistic Text-to-video Model
OpenAI, arguably the world’s prominent artificial intelligence company, has revealed its latest innovation: a text-to-video model named Sora.
The blog post introducing the AI model states Sora is able to “generate complex scenes with multiple characters, specific types of motion, and accurate details of the subject and background.”
The videos, which run for up to a minute long, can be created from text prompts or from existing still images. The model can also extend existing video footage or fill in missing frames.
OpenAI acknowledged in its post that the current model has weaknesses—one of which being that it “may struggle with precise descriptions of events that take place over time, like following a specific camera trajectory”—despite the overall realism that Sora can produce.
In a bid to advance the model, the company is now granting access to a number of visual artists, designers, and filmmakers so that they can provide feedback on Sora.
Report: Tech Job Availability and Demand at an Imbalance
The scarcity of skilled workers in high-demand tech roles is forcing hiring managers to adopt a more competitive strategy.
This revelation is according to Morgan McKinley’s 2024 UK salary guide, which highlights the imbalance between the demand for, and the availability of, professionals with expertise in artificial intelligence and machine learning.?
The report is based on insights from over 3,400 professionals and 650 employers globally, and the UK guide is focused primarily on respondents based in the UK.?
According to the report, over three quarters of hiring managers indicated that this disparity has intensified the competitiveness of tech hiring across the UK in the past year.?
New Female Founders Accelerator Launches With 100 Tech Firms
The Female Founders Accelerator, a new programme to support women-led technology firms, has been launched with 100 participants.
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The programme is being delivered by Scotland-based AccelerateHER, the female founders network whose aim is to amplify the work of entrepreneurial women, in partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs and with funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).
The 100 selected founders are from technology businesses which cover a range of sectors—including finance, education, healthcare, and food—and are either currently trading or ready to bring their product or service to market.
During the programme participants will work with experts from across the entrepreneurial landscape, including Barclays ‘champions’, in a series of masterclasses with the focus of further developing their businesses.
Net Zero Technology Centre Announces TechX StartUp Cohort
The Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC) has announced its 2024 TechX startup cohort. The TechX Clean Energy Accelerator, now in its sixth year, will welcome 12 high potential startups to the programme commencing February.
Each startup will receive up to ￡100,000 in funding and access to NZTC’s network of mentors, investors, and sponsors, including bp, Equinor ADNOC, and ConocoPhillips, the latter of which joined the programme this year. Startups can also benefit from industry support opportunities including field trials.
“As NZTC welcomes its sixth TechX cohort, we reiterate the pivotal role entrepreneurs will play in accelerating the energy transition,” chief acceleration officer and TechX director Mark Anderson said.
The programme aims to leverage entrepreneurial ingenuity to discover and propel critical technologies required for the energy transition. Following 15 weeks of investor readiness training, refining business models, business storytelling and more, the programming will culminate in a Demo Day in June 2025.
Going ‘Cookieless’: Will Advertising Crumble or Rise to the Occasion?
As Google’s phase out of third-party cookies becomes a reality in 2024, UK businesses are taking action.
A new survey conducted by Capterra, the software and services marketplace, found that despite 61% of marketers expressing concerns about how the cookie discontinuation may impact their company, nearly half (49%) of all the respondents said their company felt “well prepared” and 44% are “moderately” so.
In fact, for many, the change is perceived as beneficial: More than half (52%) of marketers expect an increase in revenue after the end of third-party cookies, with 39% anticipating that it will have a positive impact on business performance.
Capterra surveyed 138 marketing professionals in UK companies to investigate the impact of Google’s deprecation of third-party cookies. The survey found that despite worries about a ‘cookieless’ future, companies are equipped with alternative methods for data collection.
Preparing for the phase-out, 57% of respondents said their company is relying on alternative channels and 51% are developing new means to collect data. A further 46% reported that they will use Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) to centralise and manage first-party customer data.
Virgin Media O2’s SRN Rollout Hits Milestone After Isle of Skye Build
Virgin Media O2 has hit a milestone in its Shared Rural Network (SRN) rollout after upgrading or building 100 company-managed 4G coverage sites, with the 100th site being on the Isle of Skye.
The SRN programme is a ￡1 billion joint initiative between mobile network operators and the UK government to extend 4G connectivity to 95% of the UK’s landmass by the end of 2025.
Of the 100 rural sites that have been built or upgraded by Virgin Media O2 so far, 78 are in very remote parts of Scotland, such as Shetland, Ardross, and Argyll and Bute. Meanwhile, 19 are in rural parts of England, including parts of Yorkshire, Suffolk, and Kent, and three are in Northern Ireland.
The Isle of Skye became the 100th site for improved mobile connectivity after helicopters were used to install new 4G masts on the island.
The 100 sites are controlled by Virgin Media O2, but Three and Vodafone customers also benefit from the operator’s rollout. Taking into account the progress of Three and Vodafone, Virgin Media O2 customers can currently access reliable 4G services at 146 rural locations.
Is Scotland’s Broadband Scheme Failing Its Rural Communities?
The Scottish Government’s broadband rollout scheme, R100, is facing backlash after its lacklustre attempt to bridge the digital divide effecting Scotland’s rural and remote communities.
Last week the Scottish Government had released an update on the progress of their Reaching 100% (R100) programme in partnership with Openreach (BT), which aimed to ensure that every home and business in Scotland can access superfast broadband.
The project, launched in 2017, was propped up by a vouchers scheme offering financial help tp Scottish households and businesses to access superfast broadband, which would be defined at reaching 30 Mbps.
While over 95% of Scottish premises have access to a network capable of this, the Government missed its target of 100% coverage by 2021, and its voucher programme is still not reaching those who need it most.
A parliamentary question brough up by the Scottish Liberal Democrats party has found that the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme has only helped to connect 3.6% of properties in eligible hard-to-reach areas.