…and at Mr Porter, it’s all about colours and soft fabrics May 2, 2012 Jimmy Choo Eaton fringed driving shoe, £295 We say if you’re getting behind the wheel of a slick vehicle, you need the togs to match. And hey, zooming through the Alps can wear the feet out; these will make the ride smoother. Rivieras cotton slip-ons, £50 A shoe that evokes summer in all its verdant [...]
Smartphone makers go to war May 2, 2012 The big players in the smartphone world are preparing to deploy the latest weapons in their arsenal. At the high-end of the market, the battle between Apple and Samsung is hotting up with today’s release of the Galaxy S3. Meanwhile, RIM hopes to reaffirm its role as the “best of the rest” with its first [...]
Why RIM launch made me type this face :*( May 2, 2012 So RIM has unveiled… Well, nothing, really. A rather uninspiring prototype for a phone template its rivals brought to market half a decade ago. An unfinished operating system with no launch date. It is like the Emperor with his new clothes, except people worked out years ago that he was naked. Now they just turn [...]
PHONES THAT HAVE FALLEN IN COMBAT May 2, 2012 Palm Pre | 2009 The PDA-maker briefly threatened to break into the smartphone market with the Palm Pre. However, it was dogged with patent infringements and never sold in volume. Palm was sold to HP a year later. BlackBerry Torch | 2010 Is it a touchscreen or is it a Qwerty? Why, it’s both! The [...]
Next reports strong sales May 2, 2012 Next, the country’s second-biggest clothing retailer, said a strong March, when the weather was fine, offset a weak April, when the cold and rain kept shoppers at home, enabling the firm to hold its profit outlook for the year. “Pretty much sales went up and down with the temperature gauge,” chief executive Simon Wolfson said. [...]
Growth in construction slows May 2, 2012 Growth in the UK construction slowed in April casting another shadow over the UK economy. The Markit/CIPS construction purchasing managers’ index figure was 55.8, down from March’s 21-month high of 56.7. Any figure over 50 represents growth in the sector. Official figures from the Office for National Statistics figures said construction had contracted by three [...]
Mortgage approvals rise in March May 2, 2012 Mortgage approvals for home loans in Britain rose unexpectedly in March, suggesting the housing market continued to recover despite the end of a tax exemption for first-time buyers, Bank of England data showed. The bank said mortgage approvals climbed to 49,860 in March from 49,029 in February, confounding analysts’ forecasts for a fall to 48,000. [...]
FTSE shored up by strong blue chip results May 2, 2012 The FTSE 100 was flat in early trading as better than expected US manufacturing figures were offset by the bleak picture in the Eurozone. US manufacturing expanded at its fastest pace for 10 months fuelling confidence in the recovery of the world’s largest economy. However, the Eurozone’s manufacturing sector slipped further into decline last month, [...]
Home Retail profit slumps by 60pc May 2, 2012 Home Retail, the country’s biggest household goods retailer, posted a 60 per cent slump in year profit and axed its final dividend as its cash-strapped consumers bore the brunt of the economic downturn. The owner of catalogue-based Argos stores and the Homebase do-it-yourself chain said on Wednesday it remained cautious about the consumer outlook and [...]
Standard Chartered in single digit income growth May 2, 2012 Standard Chartered said its first-quarter income grew by less than its previous 10 percent target, as the strength of the US dollar against Asian currencies impacted income growth. London-based Standard Chartered, which gets about four-fifths of its income in Asia, earns much of that income in local currencies, which translates to fewer dollars when the [...]
