US electric vertical takeoff and landing firm Vertical Aerospace, announced plans to go public through a SPAC deal in a bid to raise as much as 2.2 billion dollars, Reuters reported. The production of the eVTOL aircraft has gained backing by key investors like American Airlines. Vertical Aerospace said it has pre-orders for up to 1,000 eVTOL aircraft with launch customers that also include Avolon, along with a pre-order option from Virgin Atlantic, all valued at up to $4 billion.

Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn has agreed to pay €11.2m ($13.6m) in compensation for what the company called his failure to quickly get to the bottom of the 2015 scandal over diesel engines rigged to cheat on emissions tests, the company said Wednesday, AP reports.

Facebook is preparing to finally launch its first smartwatch - news that the company hasn’t confirmed publicly. The Verge, however, has learned that the device is set to make its debut next summer, featuring a display with two cameras that can be detached from the wrist for taking pictures and videos. The materials can then be shared directly across Facebook’s suite of apps, including Instagram.

The French carmaker Peugeot announced it was facing legal charges in Paris court related to allegations of cheating about diesel emissions, AFP reported. The parent company Stellantis confirmed the legal actions which may cost billions of euros after similar charges were pressed against Renault and Volkswagen.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation warned of possible global food shortage amid soaring costs related to pandemic, Reuters reported. The costs of imports monitored by FAO are seen soaring by 12% this year. The spike in costs is driven by extremely high demand in lockdown periods. The world's food import costs, which include shipping charges, is projected to reach to a record $1.715 trillion this year, from $1.530 trillion in 2020, FAO elaborated in its twice-yearly Food Outlook report.

Deutsche Bank announced it expected massive losses after a court ruling, Reuters reported. The case was filed from customers challenging the volume of bank's fees. The information related to expected losses was confirmed by the CFO James von Moltke. In an online conference he stated that Deutsche Bank expects to take as much as a 300 million euro damage from the recent court rulling that favored consumers over banking fees.

The United States announced they would buy 500 million extra doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, AP reported. The new volume is intented to be shared globally. The jabs will be donated. The operation will be executed through the global COVAX alliance for donation to 92 lower income countries and the African Union. The process will continue over the next year.

In just two weeks Microsoft is expected to unveil the future of its Windows operating system. Although we know changes will be made to the look and features of the OS, what we don’t know is what this new and (hopefully) improved version of Windows will be called.

Solid-state drives may be the go-to for phones and most PCs and laptops, but the humble mechanical hard drive still has a place in the computing world - especially when you need a lot of storage, but you don't have the money. Therefore, it is probably no surprise that in recent time hard drive manufacturers have turned to increasingly esoteric methods of improving performance and capacities.

French carmaker Renault announced it was planning to unite three of its factories, located in the northern part of the country to set a new unit, Renault ElectriCity, that is intented to make some 400,000 vehicles a year by 2025, Reuters reported.