Cheltenham Festival tips: Ballyandy looks Supreme bet to squash Melon March 14, 2017 TAKING on a well-fancied Willie Mullins horse in the Supreme Novices' Hurdle (1.30pm) sounds like risky business. The Irish trainer has a remarkable record in the Cheltenham Festival curtain-raiser, responsible for three winners and a second in the last four years. However, backing his charge this time around requires a huge leap of faith. With [...]
Chris Froome breaks silence over Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford March 13, 2017 Three-time Tour de France winner Chris Froome has broken his silence on embattled Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford, insisting the all-conquering British outfit would not survive without its figurehead. Froome was conspicuous by his absence last week as several Team Sky riders, including Geraint Thomas, tweeted their support for the under-fire Brailsford amid a [...]
Opinion: The Budget left out property and the housing crisis – but here’s what Philip Hammond should have done instead March 13, 2017 Apart from a nod towards business rates (the devil will be in the Finance Act detail), the Budget was almost a property-free zone. But Mr Hammond missed out on some much-needed blue-sky thinking, especially if the government is going to fix what it calls the ‘broken’ housing system. Here are some things that Spreadsheet Phil [...]
It’s not rocket science! How code written for a manned mission to Mars ended up selling advertising March 13, 2017 It's a question we’ve all faced: what to do when you’ve written machine learning code to help Nasa determine the optimal configuration of components for a manned mission to Mars? Use it to sell advertising, obviously. Such is the story of DataXu, one of the pioneers of Real Time Bidding. Founded way back in 2007, [...]
Vodafone chooses Britain to launch new jobs as part of multi-billion pound home investment March 13, 2017 Mobile operator Vodafone will today announce the creation of 2,100 jobs in one of the largest single UK employment expansions in recent years. The new roles are part of Vodafone’s ongoing £2bn investment in Britain. Customer service positions will be created in the north of England, the Midlands, Scotland and Wales Read more: Vodafone: Two reasons to [...]
Airbnb valued at $30bn after China’s sovereign wealth fund invests $100m March 11, 2017 China's sovereign wealth fund has invested $100m (£82m) in hipster room-sharing app Airbnb. The investment by the China Investment Corporation (CIC) values the tech company at $30bn, Sky News has reported, and accounts for around 10 per cent of a $1bn funding round from Airbnb. The valuation puts Airbnb ahead of Twitter, which is valued at around [...]
Elle film review: a bizarre but effective revenge comedy as black as the sky on a moonless night March 10, 2017 The recent gaff at the Oscars meant a number of films and performances were lost amid the noise. One of them was Elle, which gained a Best Actress nomination for French star Isabelle Huppert. A favourite of film makers including Michael Haneke, she takes the title role in Paul Verhoeven’s (RoboCop, Starship Troopers, Total Recall) [...]
BT Openfudge? Four things you need to know about the Ofcom deal… and what the regulator says about them March 10, 2017 BT's settlement with regulator Ofcom has been championed as a significant step towards making its Openreach broadband division a separate entity, after months of debate over the subject. Today's agreement isn't quite a spin-off. Although the two will be legally separated, Openreach, the company responsible for running the majority of the UK's telecoms infrastructure, will be forced to consult [...]
BT and Ofcom’s Openreach deal: Here’s how City analysts, competitors and consumer groups reacted March 10, 2017 BT and telecoms regulator Ofcom this morning announced that they'd settled their differences over the future of Openreach, the company that owns the majority of Britain's telecoms infrastructure. It's been a long road for both parties, and it did appear that Ofcom was going to be forced into going to European authorities to force through [...]
Editor’s notes: Hammond falls down the cracks between politics and policy, the bigger threats to the media than Rupert Murdoch and why the UK needs a new army of trade negotiators March 10, 2017 There are plenty of people willing to defend the chancellor’s controversial raid on the self-employed, not least the chancellor himself who was out and about yesterday claiming that the government faced “some new challenges” and that it has “to pay for these things somehow”. As opposition to the move grows on his own backbenches, he [...]