विज्ञान

By Gianluca Lo Nostro (Reuters) -Worldline narrowed its 2025 profit forecast on Tuesday and signaled more disposals in the coming weeks, as the French digital payments company battles to restore investor confidence following governance setbacks and client losses. The company now expects adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) between 830 million and 855 million euros ($967 million and $997 million), compared with a previous range of 825 million euros to 875 million euros. Free cash flow is seen between negative 30 million euros and break-even, it said in a statement. Worldline announced in July the planned sale of its Mobility & e-Transactional Services unit to Magellan Partners for an enterprise value of 410 million euros. "We plan to finalize these transactions in the course of H1 2026, and we should be in a position to announce some additional transactions in the coming weeks," chief executive Pierre-Antoine Vacheron said in a call with reporters. Worldline has lost about 90% of its market value since its pandemic peak, hit by multiple profit warnings, governance shake-ups and media reports accusing it of concealing client fraud. Belgian prosecutors are investigating potential money laundering at its local unit. Vacheron said Worldline had completed an external review of its merchant portfolio and compliance framework, saying it was "in line with the industry benchmark". When asked about the narrowing of its profit forecast, Vacheron said: "My key priority is to restore credibility and trust in the guidance that we give." Third-quarter revenue came in at 1.1 billion euros, down 0.8% from a year earlier but in line with the analysts' expectation in a consensus poll provided by Worldline.  The group will present its mid-term strategy at a capital markets day event on Nov. 6. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) (Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss NEW YORK (Reuters) -Starboard Value CEO Jeff Smith said Tuesday TripAdvisor should consider selling its restaurant booking platform TheFork. Smith, who was speaking at an invite-only conference in New York, said TripAdvisor had an "amazing" brand, but "there is a huge opportunity to transform and reimagine the user experience to improve revenue growth." His hedge fund is pressing for change at the travel booking site after building a 9% stake in the company earlier this year.  "TripAdvisor is too cheap for a company that is growing," he said.  (Reporting by Svea Herbst. Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Chizu Nomiyama )

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

(Reuters) -French satellite operator Eutelsat reported worse-than-expected first quarter revenues on Tuesday as a decline in sales at its video business offset strong demand for government services, notably in Ukraine. Revenue from video, connectivity and government services fell 1.2% year-on-year on a comparable basis to 283 million euros ($330 million) in the quarter to end Sept. That was below the average 295 million euros forecast by analysts, according to data from the company. The video business, which provides satellite broadcasting services to over a billion viewers globally and accounts for around half of Eutelsat's total revenue, recorded a 10.5% fall in revenue on a comparable basis year-on-year. That reflected both a long-term decline in the video market and a negative impact from sanctions imposed on Russian channels, the group said in statement. Sanctions are expected to have an impact of around 16 million euros this year, the company said. Eutelsat owns and operates a constellation of over 600 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites providing broadband internet via its London-based subsidiary OneWeb.  These satellites, currently the only other LEO constellation available besides Elon Musk's Starlink, have gained momentum as European governments seek home-grown alternatives for satellite services. But the firm is still grappling with sluggish sales growth, weighed down by its declining legacy video business.  Government services was the fastest-growing segment again this quarter, with revenues rising 18.5% from a year ago to 52.4 million euros, in line with estimates. Eutelsat confirmed its annual and long-term financial targets. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) (Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Alban Kacher; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

(Reuters) -French satellite operator Eutelsat reported worse-than-expected first quarter revenues on Tuesday as a decline in sales at its video business offset strong demand for government services, notably in Ukraine. Revenue from video, connectivity and government services fell 1.2% year-on-year on a comparable basis to 283 million euros ($330 million) in the quarter to end Sept. That was below the average 295 million euros forecast by analysts, according to data from the company. The video business, which provides satellite broadcasting services to over a billion viewers globally and accounts for around half of Eutelsat's total revenue, recorded a 10.5% fall in revenue on a comparable basis year-on-year. That reflected both a long-term decline in the video market and a negative impact from sanctions imposed on Russian channels, the group said in statement. Sanctions are expected to have an impact of around 16 million euros this year, the company said. Eutelsat owns and operates a constellation of over 600 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites providing broadband internet via its London-based subsidiary OneWeb.  These satellites, currently the only other LEO constellation available besides Elon Musk's Starlink, have gained momentum as European governments seek home-grown alternatives for satellite services. But the firm is still grappling with sluggish sales growth, weighed down by its declining legacy video business.  Government services was the fastest-growing segment again this quarter, with revenues rising 18.5% from a year ago to 52.4 million euros, in line with estimates. Eutelsat confirmed its annual and long-term financial targets. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) (Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Alban Kacher; Editing by Matt Scuffham)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Jon Medved, the founder of Israel's OurCrowd investment platform, is stepping down as chief executive officer and will become chairman, the company said on Tuesday, citing medical reasons. Medved, 70, founded OurCrowd in 2012 and built it into one of Israel's largest venture investors in the country's booming tech sector. He will focus on strategic initiatives, including OurCrowd’s global expansion, OurCrowd said. Cali Chill was named acting CEO and chief operating officer, effective immediately, where he will oversee day-to-day operations. OurCrowd said Medved, who has been involved in Israeli tech for more than 40 years, was recently diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He is recovering and working from home in his new chairman role, the firm said. OurCrowd has over $2.6 billion in assets under management. It has more than 68 fund positions, 500 investments in portfolio companies and 73 exits. Chill has been with OurCrowd for seven years, most recently serving as chief investment officer and chair of its investment committee. (Reporting by Steven Scheer; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

LAGOS (Reuters) -Nigerian fintech firm Moniepoint Inc. said on Tuesday it had raised more than $200 million in a funding round led by Development Partners International, as it seeks to expand its digital financial services across Africa and beyond. The Series C financing, which also included LeapFrog Investments, Visa, Google’s Africa Investment Fund, and the International Finance Corporation, is one of the largest equity fundraisings by an African fintech this year. Moniepoint, formerly known as TeamApt, said the funds would support its expansion into new markets and enhance its offerings for small and medium-sized enterprises, which form the backbone of Africa’s informal economy. “This is a proud day for Moniepoint,” said Tosin Eniolorunda, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “We founded the company to widen financial inclusion and help African entrepreneurs realise their potential. This funding will help us accelerate that mission.” Founded in 2015, Moniepoint has grown into Nigeria’s largest business banking platform, serving over 10 million active users and processing more than $250 billion in annual transaction value. The company has remained profitable at scale, a rare feat among global fintechs. The funding follows a string of product launches, including MonieWorld, a remittance platform targeting the African diaspora in Britain, and a bookkeeping tool for micro and small businesses. DPI, which led the first close of the round in 2024, said Moniepoint’s combination of growth and impact made it a standout investment. “Moniepoint continues to deliver innovation alongside sustained profitability,” said DPI partner Adefolarin Ogunsanya. “We’re proud to support its next phase of growth.” LeapFrog’s Karima Ola said the investment aligned with the firm’s vision of building inclusive financial infrastructure across Africa. Lightrock, Alder Tree Investments, Proparco, Swedfund, and Verod Capital Management also participated in the funding round. Financial Technology Partners acted as exclusive adviser to Moniepoint. (Reporting by MacDonald DzirutweWriting by Chijioke OhuochaEditing by Mark Potter)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) -Axelera AI, one of the few companies in Europe making specialized computer chips for AI applications, on Tuesday said it will launch its second product line. Like its previous Metis chip line, Axelera's new Europa chips will be used for AI "inference" — running, not training, AI models. The Eindhoven, Netherlands-based company expects to sell the Europa line to customers in advanced industry settings, for instance in a factory that uses multiple cameras and sensors, where the chips would be used to analyse the combined data they produce and quickly identify problems. Axelera says the first shipments of Europa chips, which are being manufactured by Samsung Electronics, will start in the first half of 2026. Axelera received a $66 million grant in March to develop an even more advanced chip dubbed "Titania" for use in supercomputing centres – also referred to as AI factories – across the European Union. That chip is expected in 2027. (Reporting by Toby SterlingEditing by Tomasz Janowski)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss NEW YORK (Reuters) -Starboard Value CEO Jeff Smith said Tuesday Tripadvisor should consider selling its restaurant booking platform TheFork and possibly the entire company. Smith, speaking at the annual 13D Monitor Active Passive Investment Summit in New York, said Tripadvisor has an "amazing" brand, but "there is a huge opportunity to transform and reimagine the user experience to improve revenue growth."  The company allows customers to find and review hotels. Its Viator unit lets users book and review tours and other experiences, while TheFork offers restaurant reservation services. "We believe TheFork, the most easily separable and least-integrated of the three businesses, could be sold at an attractive multiple," Smith said. At the end of the presentation, he said there may even be an opportunity to sell the entire company. "There are standalone opportunities for value creation at each of the Tripadvisor three businesses as well as opportunity to potentially sell TheFork or the entire company." Starboard has been engaging with Tripadvisor for several weeks and this was the first time Smith has discussed his team's thesis publicly. His hedge fund is pressing for change at the travel booking site after building a 9% stake in the company earlier this year. "TripAdvisor is too cheap for a company that is growing," he said.  He said Viator's performance should improve meaningfully, noting that booking experiences is the fastest-growing segment in the travel industry. To transform Tripadvisor, Smith said, "we believe there is a substantial cost savings opportunity at Brand Tripadvisor, especially if revenue growth does not accelerate." (Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss. Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Chizu Nomiyama)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss NEW YORK (Reuters) -Starboard Value CEO Jeff Smith said Tuesday TripAdvisor should consider selling its restaurant booking platform TheFork. Smith, who was speaking at an invite-only conference in New York, said TripAdvisor had an "amazing" brand, but "there is a huge opportunity to transform and reimagine the user experience to improve revenue growth." His hedge fund is pressing for change at the travel booking site after building a 9% stake in the company earlier this year.  "TripAdvisor is too cheap for a company that is growing," he said.  (Reporting by Svea Herbst. Editing by Dawn Kopecki and Chizu Nomiyama )

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)

By Greg Bensinger, Shubham Kalia and Deborah Mary Sophia SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon.com cloud service returned to normal operations on Monday afternoon, the company said, after an internet outage that caused global turmoil among thousands of sites, including some of the web's most popular apps like Snapchat and Reddit. Still, Amazon said some AWS services had a backlog of messages that would take a few hours to process. AWS hosts applications and computer processes for companies around the world, and the disruption knocked workers from London to Tokyo offline and halted others from conducting normal everyday tasks like paying hairdressers or changing their airline tickets. Users on Monday afternoon had complained of lingering difficulties using services such as digital wallet Venmo and video calling site Zoom. It was the largest internet disruption since last year's CrowdStrike malfunction hobbled technology systems in hospitals, banks and airports, highlighting the vulnerability of the world's interconnected technologies. It was at least the third time in five years that AWS's northern Virginia cluster, known as US-EAST-1, contributed to a major internet meltdown. Amazon did not address a request for more clarity about why that particular data center keeps being impacted. The problems stemmed from what is known as the Domain Name System, or DNS, which prevented applications from finding the correct address for AWS's DynamoDB API, a cloud database relied upon to store user information and other critical data. ROOT CAUSE IS NETWORK HEALTH MONITOR Earlier, AWS said the root cause of the outage was an underlying subsystem that monitors the health of its network load balancers used to distribute traffic across several servers. The issue, AWS said, originated from within the "EC2 internal network", Amazon's "Elastic Compute Cloud" service, which provides on-demand cloud capacity within AWS.  Shortly after 3 p.m. PT (2200 GMT), Amazon said, "all AWS services returned to normal operations. Some services such as AWS Config, Redshift, and Connect continue to have a backlog of messages that they will finish processing over the next few hours." Ken Birman, a computer science professor at Cornell University, said software developers need to build better fault tolerance. He said AWS provides tools developers can use to protect themselves in the event of a problem at one of any of its sprawling network of data centers, and developers can also create backups with other cloud providers.  "When people cut costs and cut corners to try to get an application up, and then forget that they skipped that last step and didn't really protect against an outage, those companies are the ones who really ought to be scrutinized later," Birman told Reuters. ISSUE ORIGINATED FROM AWS SITE KNOWN FOR PREVIOUS OUTAGES AWS provides computing power, data storage and other digital services to companies, governments and individuals and is the world's largest cloud provider, followed by Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet's Google Cloud. Disruptions to its servers can cause outages across websites and platforms – ranging from food delivery apps to gaming platforms and airline systems – that rely on its cloud infrastructure. AWS said on its status page that Monday's outage originated at its US-EAST-1 location, its oldest and largest for web services. The site suffered outages in 2021 and 2020. According to documentation on the AWS website, the US-EAST-1 site is often the default region for many AWS services.  "FRAGILE INFRASTRUCTURES" The problem highlights how interconnected everyday digital services have become and their reliance on a small number of global cloud providers, with one glitch wreaking havoc on business and day-to-day life, experts and academics said. "This outage once again highlights the dependency we have on relatively fragile infrastructures," said Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at European cybersecurity firm ESET. In Britain, Lloyd Bank, Bank of Scotland and telecom service providers Vodafone and BT were all hit, according to Downdetector's UK website, as was UK tax, payments and customs authority HMRC's website. Vodafone, however, said on Tuesday the outage was unrelated to its mobile or broadband networks. "The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service," said Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surrey's Department of Computer Science. Ookla, which owns Downdetector, said over 4 million users reported issues due to the incident. "For major businesses, hours of cloud downtime translate to millions in lost productivity and revenue," said Ryan Griffin, U.S. cyber practice leader at insurance broker McGill and Partners. Wall Street was largely unfazed, sending Amazon shares 1.6% higher to $216.48. FROM SNAPCHAT TO VENMO: OUTAGE TAKES DOWN APPS Ookla said at least a thousand companies were affected by the outage. Apps like Reddit, Roblox, Snapchat and Duolingo had all been affected. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase and trading app Robinhood all experienced platform disruptions and attributed them to AWS. Amazon's own services, including its shopping website, Prime Video and Alexa, were also hit. Fortnite, owned by Epic Games, Clash Royale and Clash of Clans were among the gaming platforms affected. Uber rival Lyft was also knocked down in the United States. In a post on X, Signal President Meredith Whittaker confirmed the messaging app was hit by the outage, though billionaire Elon Musk, who owns X, said his platform continued to work. (Reporting by Shubham Kalia, Devika Nair, Ananya Palyekar and Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by James Pearson, Jaspreet Singh and Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty, Joe Bavier, Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

(The article has been published through a syndicated feed. Except for the headline, the content has been published verbatim. Liability lies with original publisher.)