Och, aye: Emoji English, Scottish and Welsh flags could be released in the next six months January 27, 2017 Smartphone fans in three UK countries are about to get more specific about their patriotism, after the body which decides on emojis declared it will add the English, Scottish and Welsh flags to its ranks. At a meeting of the Unicode Technical Committee, members – including representatives from Google and Apple -voted to add England, Scotland and [...]
Mark Carney’s fintech critique should be a wake-up call for a sector used to plaudits January 27, 2017 The fintech sector is so used to being publicly lauded that this week’s comments by the governor of the Bank of England will have come as a shock. Despite claiming London as the fintech centre of Europe and exulting its potential, Mark Carney made clear fintech’s rise could disrupt the established financial sector – raising [...]
Forget Berlin, Dublin and Paris – Asia’s a bigger rival to London fintech regardless of Brexit January 26, 2017 As Germany, France and Ireland attempt to woo London's fintech firms to their respective capital cities after the Brexit vote, one of the UK's top VCs has warned the industry should be more concerned with the rise of Asia as a fintech powerhouse rather than other European cities. In the long-term, the continent's prominence in financial technology is likely [...]
Three major changes Facebook’s made to trending topics in the fight against fake news January 26, 2017 Facebook has made some major changes to the feature which shows users what topics are trending after serious accusations of bias and amid the wider debate around fake news. The list of topics will no longer be personalised to users' interests, and will instead be based upon their location. Read more: Facebook steps up fake news [...]
Now Microsoft’s pledged to train the UK in digital skills for free January 26, 2017 Microsoft is the latest tech giant to make a pledge to help train the UK in digital skills, following hot on the heels of Google and Amazon. It will offer free digital literacy training online for everyone in the UK and specifically target 30,000 UK public servants to improve their knowledge. It will also aim to [...]
James Bond’s Q is actually a woman in real life, it turns out January 26, 2017 Forget the row over whether James Bond can be played by a female actor like Gillian Anderson or not – in real life, the role of Q in Britain's top secret intelligence service is already a woman. The revelation was made by the head of MI6, Alex Younger, who also called on women to join the [...]
A capricious digital economy requires agile management January 26, 2017 In a digital-led economy, if your company isn’t “agile,” it isn’t set up for success. Today, winning companies are those which can bring their products to market quickly, pivoting to technological developments and shifts in customer expectation as they evolve. Agile is a collaborative approach to product development which focuses on launching early and refining [...]
Meet the 33 tech startups set for stardom January 26, 2017 More than 30 companies have been identified as the most promising tech startups in the country and will be mentored by top entrepreneurs to help create the next wave of top British tech stars. Challenger bank Monzo, online shopping site Trouva and digital mortgage adviser Trussle are among the startups who will be mentored by Lastminute.com [...]
Back to life, back to virtual reality: Xiaomi’s international boss Hugo Barra joins Facebook’s VR unit Oculus January 26, 2017 Hugo Barra announced he was leaving Xiaomi to make a Silicon Valley return a few days ago and now we know where he was headed: Facebook. The ex-Google executive who led international expansion at Chinese smartphone giant Xiaomi has left the company to take up a role as vice president of virtual reality at Facebook's VR [...]
Resident Evil 7 review: A gruesome return to form for the horror series January 25, 2017 Were it physically possible for a human skeleton to crawl out of a body through the mouth so that all the flesh peeled down to form a bloody skirt made of guts, and for that skeleton to run around the room getting tangled up in bunting and pulling bookshelves down on itself, then Resident Evil [...]