Apple smashes its retro telly August 8, 2012 So, that nice little icon with a retro telly you can see on the home screen of your iPhone? Yeah, that’s not going to be there for long. Apple has stepped up its feud with Google by removing its native support for YouTube in the next version of its mobile operating system. How much is [...]
Rio Tinto sticks to spending plans despite profit drop August 8, 2012 Global miner Rio Tinto posted a 34 per cent drop in first-half profit, at the better end of expectations, weighed down by weaker iron ore prices, but said it was sticking to its $16bn (£10.2bn) spending plans for the year. Rio, the world’s second-largest iron ore producer, said underlying earnings fell to $5.2bn, at the [...]
Vim added to trusty Audi estate August 7, 2012 Audi’s A6 Allroad model has long been something of the unsung hero in its ever-expanding model range. Is it an oddity? Well, it’s certainly unique. An estate car with four-level height adjustable suspension and quattro all-wheel-drive – A6 Allroad appeals to people that want a rugged car but for whom an SUV just doesn’t cut [...]
House prices fall 0.6 per cent in July August 6, 2012 British house prices fell by 0.6 per cent in July, mortgage lender Halifax said today, a marginally bigger fall than economists had forecast but one that leaves the pattern of broadly stable prices intact. House prices in the three months to July are 0.6 per cent down on a year earlier, in line with forecasts [...]
An alternative paradise August 5, 2012 IT is raining on Dominica, and this is no passing shower. I’m soaked to the skin, I’ve lost the sole from my shoe and I’m covered in a reddy brown mud. Dominica, known as the “nature island”, is already turning all my preconceptions about a Caribbean “paradise” on their head. Not famous for its white [...]
The very finest of the Fringe August 2, 2012 Daniel Kitson reminds Steve Dinneen why he is still the comedian’s comedian COMEDY DANIEL KITSON Battersea Arts Centre **** The last time I saw Daniel Kitson was 12 years ago, at Glasgow’s The Stand comedy club, at which point he was an up-and-coming young comedian. With milk bottle bottom glasses, lank, greasy hair and a [...]
I Against I is a formulaic, humourless crime flop August 2, 2012 FILM I AGAINST I Cert 15 | By Steve Dinneen ** THE British crime drama hasn’t fared very well since the glory days of The Long Good Friday; all Danny Dyer romps and hackneyed mockney geezers. I Against I does little to redress the balance. Co-directors Mark Cripps, David Ellison and James Marquand set out [...]
Hotmail to hit the trash as Microsoft rebrands its email August 2, 2012 Hotmail has become something of a bad joke among the tech community, lacking the polish or technological nous of rivals like Google’s Gmail. Now, as Microsoft prepares for its biggest product overhaul since Windows 95, it is ditching the name in favour of “Outlook.com” and revamping the interface to tie in with its new Windows [...]
Happy birthday to the Commodore 64 August 1, 2012 MITS ALTAIR 8800 The first home computers came as build-it-yourself kits, led by the MITS Altair 8800, launched in 1975. The technology, which was later sold as an assembled unit, was the inspiration for future PCs. APPLE II The Apple I had already been released as a kit computer but the Apple II was where [...]
House prices suffer biggest drop since 2009 – Nationwide August 1, 2012 British house prices fell at their fastest annual pace in nearly three years last month, data from mortgage lender Nationwide showed today, as the effects of nine months of recession spread further across the economy. Nationwide reported a 0.7 per cent decline in house prices in July, a much bigger drop than that forecast by [...]