Swedens

Swedish gaming company Embracer Group has sold a big chunk of one of its biggest subsidiaries, US-headquartered Saber Interactive, in a deal totalling $500mn.  The buyer is Beacon Interactive, a holding company recently formed by none other than Saber’s own co-founder Matthew Karch. In a letter shared with Bloomberg, Karch said he was buying back the rights to his company and many of its studios because “they represent the best of what Saber is and can be.”  Saber Interactive is currently…

After filing twin lawsuits against the Swedish Transport Agency and the country’s postal service after workers refused to deliver license plates for its cars, Tesla can enjoy a small victory in the battle in Sweden. Hours after filing the suits, a court in Sweden has backed the automaker, offering a temporary injunction to get the plates to the company within a week. On November 20, workers from the Swedish postal service PostNord joined the action against Tesla in a sympathy strike, refusing to…

Swedish workers are uniting against Tesla. From tomorrow, cleaners will stop cleaning Tesla showrooms, electricians won’t fix the company’s charging points, and dockworkers will refuse to unload Tesla cargo at all Swedish ports. What started as a strike by Tesla mechanics is spreading, in something Swedish unions describe as an existential battle between Elon Musk’s carmaker and the conventions they say make the country’s labor market fair and efficient.The standoff in Sweden is the biggest union action the company has…

Sweden’s data protection watchdog has issued a couple of fines in relation to exports of European users’ data via Google Analytics which it found breach the bloc’s privacy rulebook owing to risks posed by U.S. government surveillance. It has also warned other companies against use of Google’s tool. The fines — just over $1.1 million for Swedish telco Tele2 and less than $30,000 for local online retailer CDON — are notable as they are the first such fines following a raft of strategic privacy complaints targeting…

Throughout much of the pandemic, Sweden has stood out for its ostensibly successful effort to beat COVID-19 while avoiding the harsh lockdowns and social distancing rules imposed on residents of other developed nations.Swedish residents were able to enjoy themselves at bars and restaurants, their schools remained open, and somehow their economy thrived and they remained healthy. So say their fans, especially on the anti-lockdown right.A new study by European scientific researchers buries all those claims in the ground.…

A 90 megawatt (MW) solar farm will be built around the runway of an airport in Sweden, and it will be the largest solar power purchase agreement (PPA) contracted in Sweden to date. Solar on a Swedish airport runway Ninety megawatts is enough to power over 16,000 households in Sweden annually, but this PPA is between Swedish fashion retail giant H&M Group and renewable energy producer Neoen and solar developer and independent power producer Alight. The solar farm, which will be jointly…

The director is all wrong. Just as you wouldn’t call on Quentin Tarantino to make a movie about Monet and his waterlilies, Lasse Hallström is a perplexing choice for a biopic about the Swedish outsider artist Hilma af Klint. Hallström is the soft-centred director of sweet-natured heart-tuggers such as Chocolat and A Dog’s Purpose. Af Klint was completely unknown when she died in 1944, and is now finally getting the recognition she deserves; Tate Modern in London is staging an exhibition of her mystical abstract canvases…

Normally, Sweden building its first new class of submarines in 30 years wouldn't be of as much interest, but Saab laying the keel of its first Blekinge-class (A26) boat on June 30 as Sweden waits to join NATO signals a shift in the balance of power in the Baltic Sea.For a country with a submarine fleet numbering a grand total of five, Sweden is surprisingly innovative when it comes to underwater warfare and has a reputation for producing highly advanced submarine designs on a regular basis.During the Second World War,…

Swedish autonomous-truck startup Einride AB will test its self-driving freight vehicles on public roads in the U.S. in an operation with GE Appliances after getting approval from federal regulators. Einride plans to put one of its chunky electric vehicles, which have no cabs for drivers, on a one-mile stretch of road between two warehouses in Tennessee for GE Appliances, a subsidiary of home appliances company Haier. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently greenlighted the company’s test…

On Tuesday, Iggy Pop and the Ensemble intercontemporain were each presented with the 2022 Polar Music Prize at a ceremony in Stockholm. The award, which celebrates excellence in music, is given each year to one popular music artist and one classical artist. Songwriter Diane Warren also accepted the 2020 honor at the ceremony, since COVID had delayed previous award ceremonies. In accepting his award, Iggy Pop commented, “Recognition is a hard mistress … Ada Osterberg, a Swedish émigré to the US, adopted my…