Eurobites: Imagination Cashes In Its Chips With Canyon Bridge for £550M

Also in today's EMEA regional roundup: Telenor plans Trondheim IoT lab; cooperation at the mobile edge; Nokia ups its mission-critical LTE game.

Imagination Technologies Group plc , the UK chip designer that was rocked earlier this year by Apple's decision to drop it as a supplier, is to be bought by Canyon Bridge, a Chinese-backed investment firm, for £550 million (US$742 million). As the Daily Telegraph reports, Canyon Bridge is already considering further acquisitions in the UK and, to this end, is currently in the process of raising money from investors. The firm, which is based in Silicon Valley, said it had no plans for any redundancies in the wake of the acquisition. (See Eurobites: Imagination Rocked by Apple Shut-Out and Imagination Reveals More Cuts.)

Norway's Telenor Group (Nasdaq: TELN) is joining forces with Wireless Trondheim to open an IoT lab focusing on low-power, wide-area (LPWA) technologies and applications. To help with the testing of IoT services in Trondheim, Wireless Trondheim has already established a city-wide IoT testbed in conjunction with Telenor. The lab is scheduled to open early next year.

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and the OpenFog Consortium are to work together on developing "fog-enabled" mobile edge applications and technologies. The two organizations will attempt to forward the cause of mobile edge computing by thrashing out ICT standardization and interoperability requirements. One of the first projects will tackle APIs and how they support edge computing interoperability. (See ETSI, OpenFog Consortium Team Up.)

Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) is attempting to up its game in the field of LTE for mission-critical applications by adding new services for first-responder agencies that are intended to speed up the agencies' adoption of Android-based devices and ease their transition onto LTE networks. The new services form part of Nokia's ViTrust critical communications portfolio.

WND UK, which describes itself as the UK's primary Sigfox IoT network operator, is to host a two-day "hackathon" to help businesses to develop Sigfox-friendly applications. The event takes place on October 4-5 at Sci-Tech Daresbury in Cheshire.

Mauritius Telecom has signed an agreement to use the IOX subsea cable system, a new cable that will connect Mauritius, La Reunion and Rodrigues Island to South Africa and India. The system is being built by Alcatel Submarine Networks of France and is scheduled to go live in 2019.

Uber, the company behind the (almost) ubiquitous cab-hailing app, is claiming to be mystified about why London's transport authority, TfL, has refused to renew its license to operate in the English capital. As Reuters reports, Uber's UK head of cities said: "It's just not clear for us what their [TfL's] concerns might be." Uber's existing license is due to expire at the end of this month, but the US-based company has said it will appeal against the decision. (See Uber Crashes Into UK Regulators, Loses London License.)

— Paul Rainford, Assistant Editor, Europe, Light Reading