London-based AI and emerging technology festival bags HSBC as lead sponsor January 25, 2019 An upcoming London-based festival of artificial intelligence, blockchain and emerging technologies has named global banking giant HSBC as its lead sponsor. CogX 2019, which takes place at the start of London Tech Week from 10-12 June, will also move to King’s Cross this year, and will feature 500 speakers, 300 startups and more than 15,000 [...]
Davos: Philip Hammond declares Britain ‘great place to do business’ after Brexit January 24, 2019 Chancellor Philip Hammond is to make a pitch for the UK’s post-Brexit business credentials in Davos today, as he announces £100m investment for British innovation. Hammond will tell business leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum: “Britain is a great place to do business. And we are determined, as we leave the EU, to make [...]
70,000 retail jobs lost in 2018, says trade body BRC January 24, 2019 Panic over further troubles on the high street has been underlined this morning, with new figures showing that some 70,000 retail jobs were lost last year. A retail employment monitor out today from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) has found that the total number of jobs was down 2.2 per cent in the fourth quarter of [...]
Ranked: The UK’s 25 best jobs to apply for in 2019 January 23, 2019 While Londoners may dream of becoming high-flying chief executives, or even solitude-seeking novelists after years of commuting, the best job going is actually that of a humble audit manager, according to new data released today. The back office role topped recruitment site Glassdoor's list of the UK's 25 best jobs in 2019 based on its salary, how [...]
London-listed Draper Esprit to double down on European tech with £100m share placing January 21, 2019 Venture capital firm Draper Esprit has today announced it will acquire a larger stake in funds managed by its European counterpart Earlybird, with the intention of raising £100m through a fresh share placing to finance the move. The London-listed tech investor first partnered with Earlybird in July last year, committing up to £76m into the German firm's [...]
AI deployment rockets as businesses seek competitive edge January 21, 2019 The number of organisations using AI has rocketed 270 per cent since 2015, a survey out today reveals. Firms across all industries are increasingly using artificial intelligence as they seek to gain an edge over competitors, research firm Gartner's 2019 CIO Survey found. Read more: Automation and AI are leading the UK into a new industrial [...]
UK businesses reduce spending on redundancy payments despite Brexit uncertainty January 21, 2019 UK businesses reduced their spending on redundancy payments last year despite the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, a law firm has found. Commercial law firm EMW said spending on redundancy payments dropped to £3.6bn by the end of March last year, from £3.8bn the previous year despite the prediction that Brexit would cause widespread job losses. The total number [...]
Don’t hand control to the machines just yet January 18, 2019 Bad news: the robots are destroying jobs. The good news, however, is that the jobs they are destroying are their own. This week, a hotel in Japan was forced to lay off its 243 robots, after they ended up creating more work for their human colleagues. The Siri-like virtual assistants couldn’t answer the guests’ questions, [...]
IBM links up with Vodafone for $550m cloud computing contract January 17, 2019 IBM and Vodafone have entered into a joint venture to provide businesses with support for linking up cloud systems, which can support next-generation technology such as machine learning or 5G networks. Vodafone will pay IBM $550m (£423.4m) under an eight-year contract as part of the deal, the firms said today, enabling it to offer tools [...]
Don’t lose steam now, stay on top of your resolutions with the best health and fitness gadgets of 2019 January 16, 2019 Nike Adapt $350, nike.com Under immense pressure from fans of Back to the Future, Nike launched the first iteration of its prototype self-lacing shoes in 2016. Version two is more refined, allowing the wearer to adjust the fit using their phone. It’s pitched to basketball players, who change the fit of their shoe throughout a [...]