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"[UK tech startup] Improbable is building breakthrough technologies that are becoming vital and valuable platforms for the global gaming industry," Deep Nishar, managing director of investments at SoftBank, said in a statement. Beyond gaming, Nishar said, SoftBank believed Improbable’s simulation technology could be used to help explore disease, improve cities, understand economies and solve other complex problems. Nishar is joining Improbable’s board.

SoftBank founder and chief executive officer Masayoshi Son has been trying to establish the Japanese company, which has a history investing in telecommunications and game companies, at the forefront of a host of emerging technologies. In particular, Son has been staking SoftBank’s future on the growth of machine learning, where software is able to learn from data and experience, and the Internet of Things, the idea of connecting everything from home appliances to industrial equipment to the internet. His largest investment in the U.K. to date was the $32 billion purchase of chip designer ARM Holdings Plc last year.

The majority of affluent and high-net-worth individuals recognize the potential of robo-advisors and automated investment services to add value to their wealth management services.

[According to a study of 600 investors in the UK and US] more than 70% of overall respondents think that such tools can positively influence their wealth manager’s advice and decision-making process and that automated advice potentially speeds up onboarding processes such as registration and account opening, making these processes more efficient and convenient. This underlines how the young and the wealthy are especially showing a great openness, awareness and knowledge about robo advice.

The falling cost of industrial robots will allow manufacturers to use them to replace more factory workers over the next decade while lowering labor costs, according to new research.

Robots now perform roughly 10 percent of manufacturing tasks that can be done by machines, according to the Boston Consulting Group. The management consulting firm projected that to rise to about 25 percent of such "automatable" tasks by 2025.

In turn, labor costs stand to drop by 16 percent on average globally over that time, according to the research.

The shift will mean an increasing demand for skilled workers who can operate the machines, said Hal Sirkin, a senior partner at Boston Consulting.

Factory workers "will be higher paid but there will be fewer of them," Sirkin said.

The research found a tipping point for installing robots: Companies tend to start thinking about replacing workers when the costs of owning and operating a system come at a 15 percent discount to employing a human counterpart.

For example, in the U.S. automotive industry, which is predicted to be one of the more aggressive adopters of robots, a spot-welding machine costs $8 an hour versus $25 an hour for a worker.

Three-fourths of robot installations over the next decade are expected to be concentrated in four areas: transportation equipment, including the automotive sector; computer and electronic products; electrical equipment and machinery.

Adoption is forecast to be slower in industries in which tasks are more difficult to automate or labor costs are low, such as food products or fabricated metal.

Certain countries also are expected to be more brisk adopters. China, the United States, Japan, Germany and South Korea now account for about 80 percent of robot purchases and are expected to maintain that share over the next decade.

In 2015, 85% of global GDP was generated in cities. Growing cities require substantial investments in infrastructure if they are to continue expanding at their present rate. It’s estimated that we will invest $78 trillion in global infrastructure over the next 10 years alone to accommodate this growth. New York, Beijing, Shanghai and London will need $8 trillion in infrastructure investments alone. 

Faced with slack consumption and soul-searching over Japan’s notoriously poor work-life balance, the government is asking companies to allow their workers to leave at 3pm on the last Friday of the month.

The hope is that they will use those extra hours of freedom to shop, make an early start to their Friday libations or go on a weekend break.

In 2030, there will be more jobs than workers able to fill them in many of the world's largest economies, according to Boston Consulting Group senior partner Rainer Strack.

In his October 2014 TED Talk, Strack explained that the world is facing a labor shortage and skills mismatch. However, he said it's not too late to begin employee development and recruitment strategies that take a global perspective.

Part of the problem will be a surplus of low-skilled workers and a significant lack of high-skilled workers. The emergence of new technologies will simultaneously replace low-skilled jobs and create high-skilled ones.

BCG found that 60% of high-skilled workers are willing to work abroad, which can help lower the skill gap in certain countries.

Strack concluded that the current workforce trend is not sustainable. Companies and governments need to forecast which jobs need to be filled in the next 15 years; how they will bring more millennials, women, and retirees into high-skilled jobs; and how they'll adapt their corporate cultures to become a global destination for these employees.

Airbnb plans to introduce a search tool designed for business travellers. The feature will allow professionals to filter homes and apartments that Airbnb has deemed Business Travel Ready.

To qualify, the dwelling must have a desk, Wi-Fi, self-check-in through a doorman or digital lock and various amenities you'd expect at a hotel, like free shampoo, a hairdryer and iron.
In 2016, the number of people using the site for business purposes tripled and is expected to quadruple this year, said David Holyoke, the head of Airbnb's business travel division.

In April 2017, economists at LSE looked at 51 studies of pay-for-performance plans, inside of companies. Here's what they said: "We find that financial incentives can result in a negative impact on overall performance."

There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And what worries me, as we stand here in the rubble of the economic collapse, is that too many organizations are making their decisions, their policies about talent and people, based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined,and rooted more in folklore than in science. And if we really want to get out of this economic mess, if we really want high performance on those definitional tasks of the 21st century, the solution is not to do more of the wrong things, to entice people with a sweeter carrot, or threaten them with a sharper stick. We need a whole new approach.

Big Question: From Vladimir Putin's expansionist aims to the advances of Islamic State, the news is full of threats to global stability - but what do specialists in war studies think we should fear most?

Is Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), close to Europe via its growth in Libya, the greatest threat to global stability? Or is China's rise more to be feared than Vladimir Putin's involvement in the Ukraine crisis?

The World Economic Forum annually produces its list of the threats the world faces and at the top of this year's list was state conflict. So what are the threats to global stability that should really worry us, according to specialists in conflict studies?