Latest Tech Headlines
All the headlines from our Tech Topic Page, ordered by recency.
Swiss Re Continues Talks with SoftBank Which Seeks Stake of Up to 10%
Apr 4 2018 // Billionaire Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank Group Corp. is likely to take a stake of 10 percent or less in Swiss Re AG as it seeks to gain a foothold in the cash-rich reinsurance industry. The Swiss company’s shares...
Safety Experts Weigh In on Autonomous Car Standards After Uber, Tesla Fatal Crashes
Apr 4 2018 // Autonomous cars should be required to meet standards on their ability to detect potential hazards and better ways are needed to keep their human drivers ready to assume control, U.S. auto safety and technology experts said...
Insurtechs Continue to Perform Miracles for Policyholders
Apr 1 2018 // APRIL 1, 2018— The competition among insurtechs trying to make their insurance customers “deliriously happy” continues to evolve with the latest news that one insurer is paying claims before they even...
AIG Launches Travel Insurance on Demand App in Canada
Mar 28 2018 // Travel Guard Group Canada, Inc., the Toronto-based subsidiary of AIG, has launched a travel insurance app allowing Canadian customers (except Quebec residents) to purchase coverage in blocks of time through their...
Uber Cut Back on Safety Sensors on Volvo Involved in Fatal Accidents: Reuters
Mar 27 2018 // When Uber decided in 2016 to retire its fleet of self-driving Ford Fusion cars in favor of Volvo sport utility vehicles, it also chose to scale back on one notable piece of technology: the safety sensors used to detect...
Taming Technochauvinism and Accepting Computers Don’t Always Get Things Right
Mar 27 2018 // An algorithm can predict which passengers survived the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912 and can do so with 97 percent accuracy—a result that both demonstrates the power of artificial intelligence and, more subtly,...
Supplier Claims Uber Disabled Its Safety Tech in Volvo That Caused Pedestrian Fatality
Mar 27 2018 // Uber Technologies Inc. disabled the standard collision-avoidance technology in the Volvo SUV that struck and killed a woman in Arizona last week, according to the auto-parts maker that supplied the vehicle’s radar...
Ex-AIG Execs Kick-Off New High Net Worth Insurer Vault in Florida
Mar 27 2018 // It was a no-brainer for former thought-leaders from AIG to set up shop for their new high net worth insurer in the Sunshine State, a state known for beautiful beaches, a growing economy and lots of wealthy individuals. A...
Waymo Claims Its Driverless Car Would Have Avoided Uber’s Fatal Accident
Mar 26 2018 // The head of Alphabet Inc.’s autonomous driving unit, Waymo, said on Saturday that the company’s technology would have safely handled the situation confronting an Uber self-driving vehicle last week when it...
After Uber Crash, Florida Still Welcomes Free-Range Robot Cars
Mar 26 2018 // Florida has been trying to lure self-driving cars to the state for testing on public roads, shaping laws that are much more lax than places like California and New York. The fatal accident last week in Arizona, another...
Chinese Tech Giant Baidu to Test Self-Driving Cars in Beijing
Mar 23 2018 // China’s capital city has given the green light to tech giant Baidu Inc to test self-driving cars on city streets, an important step as the country looks to bolster its position in the global race for autonomous...
Cloud-Based Insurtech Startup Insly Raises €2.2M ($2.7M) in Funding
Mar 23 2018 // Insly, a cloud-based insurance platform, announced an investment of €2.2 million (US$2.7 million), led by Concentric and Black Pearls VC. Founded in 2015, Insly offers insurance policy management for insurance brokers...
Daughter of Pedestrian Killed by Uber Driverless Car Hires Lawyer
Mar 22 2018 // The daughter of the woman killed by an Uber self-driving vehicle in Arizona has retained a personal injury lawyer, underlying the potential high stakes of the first fatality caused by an autonomous vehicle. The law firm of...
Legislation to Combat Online Sex Trafficking Clears Congress; Moves to President
Mar 22 2018 // Congress passed a bill to combat online sex trafficking that has split the tech industry, bringing one of the first measures to weaken legal protection for websites closer to becoming law as Big Tech faces a mounting...
European Insurtech Investment Growth Surpasses North America in 2017: Accenture
Mar 22 2018 // Global investment in the insurance technology (insurtech) industry surged in 2017, with Europe emerging as a new insurtech hub outside the U.S., according to new research from Accenture. The research, which includes new...
Driverless Vehicles Provide Test of Attitudes Toward Risk: Kemp
Mar 22 2018 // Uber has suspended road tests of self-driving vehicles after the first pedestrian was killed by one of its vehicles operating under autonomous computer control. Proponents of self-driving vehicles claim they would be...
Arizona Sees No Need to Tighten Rules on Self-Driving Cars After Uber Fatality
Mar 21 2018 // Arizona officials said on Tuesday they saw no immediate need to tighten rules on the testing of self-driving cars in the state in reaction to a fatal accident involving an Uber autonomous vehicle that has focused attention...
Startup Agency Gabi CEO: ‘We Don’t Want to Eliminate Agents’
Mar 20 2018 // Editor’s Note: On Feb. 21, Insurance Journal reported on online personal lines insurance startup Gabi’s latest fundraising. (Personal Insurance Site Gabi Raises $9.5 Million; Now Selling in 6 States). In its...
Startup California Construction Company Working on Robotic Vehicles
Mar 20 2018 // As a teenager working for his dad’s construction business, Noah Ready-Campbell dreamed that robots could take over the dirty, tedious parts of his job, such as digging and leveling soil for building projects. Now the...
Arizona Became Autonomous Hotbed Prior to Uber’s Deadly Crash
Mar 20 2018 // The technology behind autonomous vehicles has originated from coders in Silicon Valley, engineers in Detroit and academic researchers in Pittsburgh. Much of it eventually lands on the streets of Arizona, a state...
