Spotify’s musical map of the world: These are the most popular songs in London, Manchester, New York, Berlin, and every major city around the world July 14, 2015 Londoners love Jamie xx while New Yorkers prefer the tunes of The Chainsmokers, and everyone loves a bit of hip hop. That's the musical tastes of music fans around the world, based on their listening habits of more than 20bn tracks in more than 1,000 cities around the world. Spotify has created a musical map [...]
Turing Phone: The makers of this smartphone say it’s impossible to hack and doesn’t break July 14, 2015 It sounds like a challenge for hackers if ever there was one, but a mobile phone startup is promising its upcoming smartphone is not just impossible to break, but also impossible to hack into. Aptly named the Turing Phone, it promises to be a secure phone, built for a post-Snowden and data surveillance world. Using [...]
Apple Pay launches in the UK: Where to use it, how to use it, which iPhone you need and how it works July 14, 2015 If you're the proud owner of an iPhone 6, 6 Plus or Apple Watch you can now spend your cash with little more than the flick of a wrist. Apple Pay has today launched in the UK, allowing people to use near field communication on their iPhones to tap and pay for items worth [...]
Not just for Harry Potter: Scientists develop an invisibility cloak using dielectric materials July 13, 2015 Invisibility may have been reserved for fantasy novels and folklore until now, but it looks like invisibility cloaks are not just for Harry Potter anymore. Scientists have developed a material that’s incredibly thin and doesn’t change the brightness of light around an object. This means it can “cloak” an object so it disappears beneath it [...]
Instagram reveals UK user numbers for the first time July 13, 2015 Instagram has revealed that it has 14m active monthly users in the UK. This is the first set of numbers the Facebook owned photo app has ever released for the UK market, so there is nothing to compare it to, but the company says that this shows significant growth. The company declined to go into [...]
Wearables startup Jewelbots wants to get girls into tech with hi-tech jewellery July 13, 2015 The percentage of women in the tech industry isn’t just low – it’s dropping. Wearables startup Jewelbots wants to change this by developing smart friendship bracelets to get girls interested in coding, and their idea has been a hit on the crowdfunding scene. The company, which launched last autumn, wrote about their idea on their [...]
How to improve your memory: Multitasking can actually be bad for your memory July 13, 2015 How long is your to-do list right now? From remembering to buy bread, to calling your mum, to replying to that e-mail, we all juggle any number of thoughts on a daily basis. But it turns out that trying to keep several things in mind simultaneously can actually end up weakening your memory. Neuroscientists at [...]
Facebook is giving you more control over who you see in your news feed July 10, 2015 There's a lot of clutter in Facebook’s news feed. But from that third cousin who won’t stop posting about her workouts to the ex-coworker who keeps posting political rants – you can’t quite unfriend them – but you definitely don’t want to get their updates. Now you can choose not to. Facebook has just announced [...]
Alibaba executive Patrick Liu Chunning arrested by Chinese authorities in corruption probe July 10, 2015 Senior Alibaba executive Patrick Liu Chunning has been arrested over allegations of corruption during his time at Tencent, a rival Chinese internet firm. Read more: Alibaba wants to create China's HBO and Netflix equivalent In a statement Alibaba insisted the Chinese authorities' probe had "nothing to do with" its own operations. Liu is vice president of [...]
How do you make your iPhone battery last longer? New Waldio technology extends smartphone life and makes it up to 20 times faster July 10, 2015 Let’s face it, we’re all addicted to our smartphones, and there is there are few things more irritating than seeing your phone’s battery slowly drain away – or worse, having it die on you halfway through the day. Luckily, there’s a new technology to the rescue, promising to improve both the speed and the battery [...]