Here are the business stories making the headlines across Scotland and the UK this morning.
New Aberdeen cancer and maternity ward delays ‘profoundly disturbing’, says John Swinney
Delays to planned cancer and maternity wards in Aberdeen are “totally unacceptable”, according to First Minister John Swinney.
He admitted he is “profoundly disturbed” by the failure to open the Baird Family Hospital and Anchor Cancer Centre years after they were due.
Mr Swinney reacted one day after NHS Grampian drafted in external inspectors to look at the work being carried out.
Driverless car start-up Wayve eyes London private market
A self-driving car start-up is considering allowing its investors to sell shares on the London Stock Exchange’s trading platform for private businesses, which would be a boost for the fledgling exchange.
Wayve, which develops software for autonomous vehicles and is one of the UK’s most valuable AI start-ups, is said to looking to let its early backers sell shares though the exchange’s private securities market, Pisces, a trading platform for private businesses launched this year.
Any sale would require the approval of Wayve’s shareholders and no final decisions have been made at this stage. Wayve declined to comment on the story, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
VodafoneThree plots TalkTalk takeover
VodafoneThree has tabled a bid to buy the consumer division of struggling broadband provider TalkTalk.
The telecoms giant, which was formed through a £15billion mega-merger a year ago, is understood to have entered the running to acquire around 1.75 million residential internet customers.
It tabled a second-round bid for TalkTalk last week alongside several other bidders, believed to be private-equity firms.
Version of AI tool 'too powerful for public' released to public
A version of an artificial intelligence (AI) tool which the company said was too powerful to be released to the public has just been released to the public.
Claude Fable 5 is a version of Anthropic's Claude Mythos, an AI program which caused serious concerns among technology, finance, and government leaders when it was released privately in April for previewing and testing.
Some worry the tool is so powerful it could pose financial security risks, though others have questioned how much of the hype is marketing spin.
Kalshi to make some users reveal job details to tackle insider trading
People looking to place certain bets on prediction market operator Kalshi will soon have to reveal where they work in an attempt to stop insider trading, the firm has said.
The platform – which lets users bet against each other on elections, sporting events, and culture – said Tuesday it will start to collect work information from users attempting to place bets that could benefit from insider information.
Kalshi said the rule will apply to "markets with heightened insider or manipulation risk." It used as an example a possible trade on whether OpenAI or Anthropic will go public first.
Beauty Pie LED mask ad banned over misleading anti-wrinkle claim
An advert for Beauty Pie's LED face mask has been banned for making misleading anti-wrinkle claims.
It stated the mask was "clinically proven to reduce wrinkles in four weeks" but the advertising watchdog said it did not provide enough evidence to support this claim.
Beauty Pie said it was tested by 28 people aged 30 to 65 over four weeks but the Advertising Standards Authority said this was a "relatively small" sample size.