Buoyant in Bexley or sad in Sutton: These are London’s happiest and saddest boroughs, according to Twitter January 21, 2016 If you live in Sutton and find it hard to drag yourself out of bed in the morning, it's not your fault, it turns out. A new survey, which has ranked London's boroughs from happiest to saddest based on their tweets, has found Sutton is London's most miserable borough. Enfield comes a close second, with Lewisham [...]
News Corp says rumours of interest in buying Twitter are untrue as social network’s share price jumps on rumours of potential takeover January 20, 2016 News Corp has denied that it is interested in buying or building a stake in Twitter, after rumours of potential takeover interest pushed the social network's shares up by almost six per cent earlier today. Rupert Murdoch's media giant was cited by CNBC as one potential bidder for the struggling tech firm, however a spokesperson for News Corp [...]
Citymapper raises $40m with funding from Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital January 20, 2016 The London founded startup Citymapper has raised a new round of funding from venture capital investors worth $40m (£28m). Index Ventures and Benchmark Capital have funded the series B round along with Yuri Milner, Tom Stafford and Michael Lynton. The hugely popular app founded in 2010 uses data to give users real-time travel information. It [...]
Blockchain technology is useful – just not for everything January 20, 2016 You may have heard of blockchains and Bitcoin as exciting new innovations but you’d be forgiven if you’re confused about what they are or their relationship to each other. Blockchains provide a way to store information so that many people can see it, keep a copy of it, and add to it. Once added, it [...]
Davos 2016: Why London fintech can transform the 21st century January 20, 2016 In recent years, there has been cynicism about the objectives of the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, with reports of parties, private jets and closed-door discussions. However, the core purpose of the forum should not be dismissed in an era of global upheaval, tensions and economic uncertainty for billions across the developed and [...]
As challenger banks, fintech and digital payments take off, here are four reasons why 2016 will be the year banks are on the run January 20, 2016 Until recently, managing your money meant dealing with a bank. For both businesses and individuals they were pretty much the only game in town. But that’s no longer the case. Thanks to digital challengers, tech startups and the ongoing fallout from the financial crisis, banks face huge competition in all areas of their business. Each [...]
Go on a virtual reality tour inside Buckingham Palace with Google Expeditions January 20, 2016 Ever wanted to see inside the Queen’s official residence? Now you can do it without having to be hassled by the throngs of other tourists, or having to leave your home at all for that matter. Buckingham Palace has become the first UK landmark to feature on Google Expeditions as the tech giant has teamed [...]
Spotify buys up Cord Project and Soundwave startups for product innovation in fight against Apple as Deezer raises $100m January 20, 2016 Spotify has acquired two startups, one specialising in voice messaging and the other in music discovery, in the fight against new rival Apple Music. New York-based Cord Project, founded in 2014 by two former Google employees, has one million users of its flagship app Cord. Soundwave is a Dublin-based startup founded in 2012. It boasts 1.5m downloads in [...]
Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk win 2015 Luddite Award for their “alarmist” warnings about artificial intelligence January 20, 2016 Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have just “won” the 2015 Luddite Award for their warnings about artificial intelligence. A world-renowned physicist and the entrepreneur behind ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, neither of the two are exactly what you might call afraid of technology. But the worries the two have expressed on the future of AI [...]
Apple iOS versus Google Play Store: Here’s the winner in each country according to downloads and revenue in 2015 January 20, 2016 In the ongoing battle of Apple versus Google, there's a surprising winner across the world – both of them. More people are downloading apps from Google's Play Store than Apple in most major countries. Only three of the top 20 countries – Britain, Canada and Japan – buck this trend, with iOS more popular than Google Play in [...]