Why PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel thinks luck will get you nowhere October 13, 2014 Harriet Green explores the tech billionaire’s contentious views on setting up a business. Co-founder of PayPal, first outside investor in Facebook and seasoned venture capitalist, Peter Thiel is Silicon Valley royalty. His new book, Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, offers a series of insightful – and often [...]
Apple share price rises after Carl Icahn tweets about letter to Tim Cook October 8, 2014 Billionaire investor Carl Icahn boosted Apple’s share price again yesterday after publishing a cryptic tweet signalling further agitation towards the US tech giant Icahn, who boosted the value of Apple’s market cap by $17bn in August 2013 after tweeting about his holding in the company, said he would publish more details in a letter [...]
Four of the best business books released in 2014 September 23, 2014 From the digital economy to Richard Branson, Liam Ward-Proud lists this year’s top reads. It's been a bumper year so far for business reads, with releases from the likes of Virgin founder Richard Branson, as well as several books tracing crucial trends in the fast-changing global economy. With judging panels due to start drawing [...]
London’s tech boom is more than just hype – and the City is at its heart September 18, 2014 WHILE London Technology Week may not yet rival London Fashion Week for glamour, there is real substance to the capital’s tech boom. This is why, for the first time, TechCrunch is bringing its Silicon Valley conference to London this October. A number of things are driving this tech boom. London has long acted as a [...]
Robots are after your job in the City September 1, 2014 And you thought you were irreplaceable? If you're a banker or analyst in the City, watch your back. You’re about to be replaced – by a robot. Not the walking, talking, C-3PO Star Wars kind, but by artificial intelligence, or computer programs which think for themselves – more HAL in 2001 a Space Odyssey. Within [...]
Meet the magical computing that puts the human into artificial intelligence August 3, 2014 Think Artificial Intelligence and the first thing that comes to mind is probably robots. Thanks to popular culture, AI is considered distinctly un-human, and can prompt people to worry about the role of technology in our daily lives and who is really in control. However, there’s a new wave of technology fighting to put the [...]
LinkedIn acquisitions in numbers: $175m for Bizo is biggest buy yet for cautious company July 23, 2014 LinkedIn picked up San Francisco-based b2b marketing company Bizo for $175m yesterday, the most expensive acquisition to date for the social network. In a time of regular million dollar acquisitions by other internet companies, billion dollar buys by the likes of Facebook and Google, and Apple revealing in its earnings call yesterday that it completed [...]
A human step for artificial intelligence June 23, 2014 Robots are getting smarter. They still need instructions, but they no longer need to be so detailed. Now you can just say “make me a bowl of noodles”, rather than telling them that they need to heat the water, too. This is because of work being done by a scientist in California, who is designing them [...]
Artificial intelligence is on the rise – and humans must adapt June 9, 2014 FOR the first time ever, a computer programme has managed to dupe experts into thinking that it was a 13-year old boy. This is a major milestone in the progress of artificial intelligence, and thus a hugely important development for labour markets, for the global economy and for all of us. The Russian computer programme [...]
Days of future present May 28, 2014 The future is here and it’s slightly terrifying. We present some soon-to-be-released technologies straight out of science fiction. Swallowable sensors Whatever the future holds, we’re going to be seeing a lot more sensors; sensors in clothes, sensors in flower-beds and even swallowable sensors, which US company Proteus Digital Health is preparing to trial in the [...]