London black taxis vs Uber: This is cabbies’ big plan to save the industry – and they want the new Mayor of London on board April 4, 2016 London's black cab drivers want to offer superfast WiFi to passengers travelling across the capital and have taxi ranks outside every Night Tube stop as part of new efforts to keep the taxi industry competitive. Under increasing pressure from upstart Uber, a new group has been formed bringing together cab drivers, the company manufacturing black cabs – the London Taxi [...]
Here’s how we’re spending with contactless since the limit went up to £30 April 4, 2016 Millions of pounds have been spent by people simply swiping a card or mobile device after an increase to the limit on how much people can spend using contactless pay. There have been 36m cashless transactions worth nearly £900m since the limit went up from £20 to £30 in September last year. Transactions between £20 and £30 have grown at a rate of [...]
Why the greatest potential of virtual reality lies in business – and why not acting now could mean getting left behind April 4, 2016 We're only a quarter of the way through the year, and it’s already clear that the rise of virtual reality (VR) is one of the most talked about trends of 2016. Research from Deloitte shows that, while the technology may still be in the early stages of its commercialisation and development, it has reached a pivotal [...]
EU referendum: Here’s where the defence, aerospace, security and space industries stand on Brexit April 3, 2016 We already know that the majority of Britain's newest businesses and the entrepreneurs who have founded startups want to remain a part of the EU, but now the more well-established tech industries are following suit. The UK's defence, aerospace, security and space industries, which employ more than a quarter of a million people between them believe overwhelmingly that we should remain [...]
40 years of Apple: This video makes you realise quite how much Apple has accomplished since it was founded April 1, 2016 It's Apple's 40th birthday today – and to mark the occasion, the company was flying the Jolly Roger above its headquarters in California this morning. That's based on founder Steve Jobs' observation, in 1983, that "it's better be a pirate than join the navy" – after which the team designing the Macintosh flew the pirate [...]
Amazon and Microsoft in talks to park in self-driving car space with cloud computing April 1, 2016 Amazon and Microsoft are in discussions to provide cloud computing to a digital mapping business owned by a group making self-driving cars. BMW, Audi and Daimler acquired Here Maps from Nokia for €2.8bn (£1.97bn) last year. Read more: Audi, BMW and Daimler deal accelerates driverless car plans Reuters has reported that the technology companies are in talks [...]
Booking.com co-founder among investors as workforce management startup Planday raises $14m and plans US expansion March 31, 2016 Planday, a workforce management startup for shift-based businesses, has raised $14m (£9.7m) in its second funding round. The round was led by Idinvest and also included angel investor Arthur Kosten, a co-founder of Booking.com. Read more: London legal tech startup raises £1.7m in funding round Planday received $3.75m in its first funding round, in 2014, and received [...]
Elon Musk to unveil new Tesla: Here’s everything you need to know about the Model 3 March 31, 2016 Tesla may be among the coolest marques around at the moment, but with a Model S priced at just shy of £50,000, for the majority of petrol (er, lithium?) heads, the brand has been pretty out of reach thus far. But that's all about to change, with the launch of the Model 3, set to take place [...]
Tay, Microsoft’s racist chatbot, made a tired and emotional return last night March 31, 2016 The robots are already turning against humanity – although for now, they're sticking to causing red faces. Tay, an artificial intelligence chatbot on Twitter which Microsoft was forced to shut down last week after it started, among other things, spouting racist diatribes and denying the holocaust, made an ignominious return last night. After a silence lasting almost a week, [...]
London has the worst 4G download speeds – but these are the best and worst networks March 31, 2016 Ever feel like it's taking forever to download the latest episode of your favourite TV show to catch up with on the way to work? Londoner's in fact suffer the worst download speeds of five major cities in the UK tested for 4G mobile network performance by Ofcom. Read more: One simple map showing UK's mobile coverage by poscode Residents of the [...]