Private equity firms reportedly circling O2 after Three merger blocked May 12, 2016 Top private equity firms are circling O2 after Brussels yesterday blocked a billion pound takeover of the mobile network by Three owner Hutchison, according to reports. Apax Partners, CVC Capital and KKR are among firms to have held preliminary talks exploring a potential bid for Telefonica's O2, Sky reports. They join Liberty Global, the owner of Virgin Media [...]
Google says payday loans are just as bad as drugs and guns May 12, 2016 Payday loans are as bad as drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods, Google has said, adding them to its list of items banned from being advertised on its search engine. Lenders offering payday loans will be banned from advertising anywhere on Google across the globe, the search giant has said, signalling another nail in the coffin [...]
Barclays rules out Android Pay, going it alone with own mobile pay app May 12, 2016 Barclays is going it alone when it comes to mobile pay, rolling out its own contactless payment app on Android to all its customers, eschewing Google's own soon to launch Android Pay service. The bank's customers will be able to pay with just a swipe of their debit card from June with Barclays' Contactless Mobile [...]
How new London mayor Sadiq Khan can solve London’s startup funding crisis May 12, 2016 I would like to congratulate Sadiq Khan on becoming London’s new mayor and it is encouraging that he claims he will be “the most pro-business mayor London has ever had”. There is a booming startup scene in the capital which, if supported, will benefit our City for generations to come. But success is by no [...]
SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule returns to planet Earth containing results and cargo from International Space Station May 11, 2016 A SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday, containing experiment results and cargo from the International Space Station (ISS). The returned capsule is the first to make it safely back to Earth since a launch accident in June 2015 in which another Dragon capsule was destroyed. SpaceX, founded by billionaire Elon Musk, resumed [...]
Leica M-D review: The $6,000 digital camera with no screen, no autofocus and no video recording May 11, 2016 Once, while striding purposefully to see a brand new animal at the zoo, I slipped on a frozen puddle and shattered the LCD screen of my DSLR. I could no longer review the pictures I’d taken or fiddle about with menus, but it was otherwise a perfectly functional camera. If anything, it was made somehow [...]
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End review: This is the one where you can explore Nathan Drake’s attic May 11, 2016 Here he comes again, lovely Nathan Drake, the handsome, globe-trotting adventure man, the renowned plunderer of precious curios and tchotchke, the lowercase tomb raider with the nice hair. But in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End – which the developer insists is the final game in the series – our hero has hung up his exploring [...]
The storm is here: This is what you should expect to happen to P2P following the Lending Club catastrophe May 11, 2016 It's been a rather dark few days for the alternative lending industry. On Monday, news broke that the chief executive of US giant Lending Club, Renauld Laplanche, had been forced to resign by his board. First, the platform disclosed that it sold near-prime loans to a bank (Bloomberg reported that it was Jefferies) which it knew [...]
Ryan Bertrand’s secret second career as a fintech entrepreneur – and John Terry is backing his latest venture May 11, 2016 The history of football’s relationship with technology is a chequered one, from the game’s long resistance to implementing goal-line gadgetry to the tale of former Aston Villa striker Darius Vassell taking a power drill to his toenail in the misguided belief that it would relieve pain. Ryan Bertrand hopes to change that perception. When he is [...]
These are the top 10 most valuable brands in the world May 11, 2016 Half of the top 10 most valuable brands in the world are technology ones, with tech titan Apple topping the list. The Cupertino-based iPhone maker may have suffered a dip in fortunes recently (compared to a decade-long streak of constant growth, at least), but it's still generating cash on the back of its reputation among consumers. [...]