Orbital Sciences Corp share price plunges: Nasa video shows Antares space station rocket explosion October 29, 2014 Shares in Orbital Sciences Corp have fallen faster than its Antares rocket in US pre-market trading overnight, dropping as much as 16 per cent after its mission to the International Space Station exploded spectacularly seconds after launch. The unmanned rocket was taking 5,000 pounds of supplies to the space station, but exploded shortly after it [...]
Wind farms: “Unreliable”, “expensive and deeply inefficient”, study claims October 27, 2014 Despite falling costs and improving technology, wind farms continue to be wildly inefficient and overly expensive, according to a new report released today. In the report for the Adam Smith Institute and the Scientific Alliance, author Dr Capell Aris analysed data on the wind speed and direction collected from a total of 22 sites across [...]
UK smartphone sector saturated says Samsung October 23, 2014 Samsung’s UK president says a recent slowdown in smartphone sales is a sign that the market is saturated, and believes now is the time for the South Korean giant to double down on quality to continue its growth in a mature market. The comments come ahead of a forecasted 60 per cent fall in quarterly [...]
London tech startups attract $200m Singapore venture capital fund Infocomm October 21, 2014 Singapore venture capital fund Infocomm is setting up shop in the capital, bringing its $200m (£124m) fund to startups in London and the rest of Europe for the first time. The move was spurred by the momentum in the capital's tech sector and the new outpost makes permanent an 18 month “commuter relationship” with the city, [...]
Techcrunch Disrupt: Let the (tech startup) battle commence October 20, 2014 European tech startups, including two teams from London, went head-to-head yesterday in the first round of a battle at Disrupt, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest annual tech conferences, which is currently in London for the first time. London startups Lobster – an online marketplace for regular people to licence their photos and videos – [...]
Interview: Editor-at-large of Techcrunch Mike Butcher October 20, 2014 Mike Butcher believes that London’s tech scene has the ability not only to compete with the likes of Berlin and Stockholm, but to rival Silicon Valley. As editor-at-large of technology blog Techcrunch, Butcher has seen the capital’s tech hub around the so-called Silicon Roundabout at Old Street mature into a developed community, large enough to [...]
UK science sector falls behind rest of EU with lower research and development funding October 15, 2014 Most countries in the European Union and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are overtaking the UK in the fields of science and engineering, according to a report by Campaign for Science and Engineering (Case). The pressure group, which advocates science and engineering in the UK, warns that while many countries are [...]
Samsung develops new wi-fi tech five times faster than speeds currently available October 13, 2014 In an increasingly competitive smartphone market, could ultra-fast wi-fi speed hand Samsung the edge over its rivals? The South Korean company says it has developed wi-fi technology capable of sending data five times faster than the maximum speeds currently available. Existing technology, which allows for 108MB per second of data transmission on wi-fi, [...]
Fintech kings talk starting from scratch, old clients and handing businesses a lifeline October 12, 2014 In Holborn last week, a three year-old London-based company held a party to celebrate reaching £250m of business since its inception. If that doesn’t sound impressive, by the time the event was held, MarketInvoice was already nearing £270m. “We seriously underestimated repeat usage,” says co-founder and chief executive Anil Stocker. “Companies see how the platform [...]
Forget the Galaxy S5 and smartwatches, this is why Samsung is betting £10bn on the chips inside mobile devices October 6, 2014 Samsung is making its biggest bet yet on the chip making side of its business with plans to spend £9.7bn on a new factory to increase production of semiconductors. The Korean giant is investing in the tech behind the tech, rather than its more well known mobile hardware business which makes the flagship Galaxy devices, [...]