London Bridge station closure: Here’s how commuters are coping August 26, 2014 Today is the first day commuters faced the partial shutdown of London Bridge station which means quite a bit of disruption for anyone travelling through or near the area. Here's how day one went. It was a little bit of a surprise for some people returning to work after the long weekend. https://twitter.com/Chalk_Cheese/status/504168372238839809 https://twitter.com/ShaunBiggs1/status/504184653763579904 There [...]
Boris Johnson to stand for Uxbridge and South Ruislip August 26, 2014 London mayor Boris Johnson has applied to stand as the Conservative candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip in next year's general election. Johnson, who has been the mayor since he unseated Ken Livingstone in 2008, submitted his name to the Conservative Campaign Headquarters this morning, two days before the deadline. If his bid [...]
What is the Higgs Boson? China’s collider to study particle in unprecedented detail August 26, 2014 Large Hadron Collider, eat your heart out. China is planning to build a bigger, better particle collider that will be able to study the elusive Higgs Boson particle in unprecedented detail. With a circumference of 52km, the “Higgs Factory” would be almost twice the size of Europe's equivalent, and significantly more powerful. The Chinese [...]
Facebook is cracking down on clickbait with news feed change August 26, 2014 Just weeks after clickbait was recognised as a modern word worthy of addition to the online oxford dictionary, Facebook has made a change to its news feed algorithm which could signal its demise. Clickbait, or “content…whose main purpose is to attract attention and draw visitors to a particular web page” as the online OED defines, [...]
Twitch – what is it and why has Amazon just spent nearly $1bn on it? August 26, 2014 Back in May the word was that Google was eyeing up games social platform Twitch, but last night Amazon emerged as the triumphant bidder, nearly four times what Jeff Bezos paid for The Washington Post. Just what is Twitch and why does everyone want a piece? Essentially, it's video-game voyeurism: Twitch is currently the centre of [...]
UK property prices: Mortgage approvals fall as cooling measures take their toll August 26, 2014 Mortgage approvals fell in June as cooling measures introduced by the Bank of England took effect, figures by the British Bankers' Association (BBA) showed on Tuesday. The number of mortgages doled out fell to just under 42,800, from 43,200 in June. Gross mortgage borrowing also fell to £10.9bn in July from £11.1bn in June. But [...]
Islamic State in Syria: Obama authorises surveillance flights August 26, 2014 US President Barack Obama has authorised the use of surveillance flights to monitor the activities of Islamic State (IS) in Syria. The news came from a senior US administration official who spoke to the AP news agency on condition of anonymity. According to the Wall Street Journal, the US Central Command overseeing American [...]
Turning it on: 2 per cent of men shop online while having sex August 26, 2014 Despite weakening retail sales, we are well established as a nation of shopaholics – but a new survey suggests we are taking our addiction to new extremes, with 2 per cent of men apparently shopping online during sex. Women are also at it – although not quite as regularly – with one in 100 [...]
209-year-old Swiss bank Pictet publishes results for the first time August 26, 2014 Pictet, one of Switzerland's oldest banks, published first-half results for the first time in its 209-year history on Tuesday. The figures showed an operating income of CHF 975m (£642m) in the six months to the end of June, and a consolidated profit of CHF 203m (£134m). Although it did not publish data from previous periods [...]
Telecity share price dives as chief executive Michael Tobin resigns August 26, 2014 Shares in data centre provider Telecity plunged as much as 5 per cent in early trading on Tuesday after Michael Tobin, its outspoken chief executive, resigned. In a statement to the stock exchange ahead of a trading statement due on Friday, Tobin said it was "time to move on". Having led the company for over [...]