10 things in tech you need to know today

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uber travis kalanick

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

Good morning! It's a calm and cloudy day in London. Here's the tech news you need to know this Thursday.

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1. Uber had a bad day yesterday. The ride-hailing service was declared illegal in Germany, its offices were raided by French police in Paris, and founder Travis Kalanick was charged with running an 'illegal' taxi service in South Korea. But in one piece of good news, Uber cars now outnumber yellow taxis in New York City.

2. Yahoo is pulling out of China. It's axing 200 employees in the country - bringing the total laid off since October up to between 700 and 900. It's part of CEO Marissa Mayer's cost-cutting efforts.

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3. A top Silicon Valley investor claims software will replace doctors and lawyers. Keith Rabois says that "one of the most interesting things we've noticed over the last decade is the ability of math and machines to replace human judgement, particularly expert judgement... and it's finally possible now to use data and machine learning techniques to replace the judgement of experts in law and in healthcare."

4. Apple's rumoured TV service could have 7 million subscribers by the end of 2016. BI Intelligence crunched the numbers on the streaming TV service the Cupertino company is believed to be building.

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5. A former Facebook employee is suing the social network over alleged sex discrimination and harassment. She's being represented by Lawless & Lawless - the same firm representing Reddit CEO Ellen Pao in a sex discrimination case against VC firm Kleiner Perkins.

6. Evolution, the deep web's top drugs marketplace, has vanished overnight in an apparent scam. Tens of millions of dollars-worth of Bitcoin are missing, and the price of Bitcoin dropped more than 6% in response to the news.

7. The UK government is going to regulate Bitcoin exchanges. On Wednesday, the Treasury announced it would apply anti-money laundering rules to the digital currency and invest in research in the sector.

8. The Guardian, Financial Times, Reuters, CNN, and The Economist have formed an ad alliance to take on Google and Facebook. Tech giants dominate the industry, but the media companies hope their combined weight will be enough to make an impact. The alliance is called Pangaea.

9. Nintendo's stock is skyrocketing. The rise follows the announcement that the Japanese games company is to start making games for smartphones in an alliance with DeNA.

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10. Nearly 40% of iPhone owners are interested in buying an Apple watch. It's good news for Apple as it gears up to launch its first ever smartwatch in April.

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