Toyota invests in Uber to launch ride-sharing partnership May 24, 2016 Car giant Toyota is set to invest in taxi app Uber to launch a ride-sharing venture. The Japanese carmaker will offer new buyers leasing options wherein they can lease their vehicles from Toyota Financial Services and cover their payments through earnings generated as Uber drivers. Terms of the partnership haven’t been revealed. However, Toyota said that [...]
Chelsea Flower show making you peckish? Craft London and Rotorino chef Stevie Parle tells you what flowers you can eat May 24, 2016 Chelsea Flower Show left you peckish? Chef/owner of Craft London Stevie Parle gives us tips on using flowers in cooking Most things that grow as a fruit or vegetable have a flower you can eat, such as peas, broad beans, apples, cherries and courgettes. But don’t just use flowers for food, they’re great as garnishes in [...]
Volkswagen invests $300m in Uber rival Gett May 24, 2016 Volkswagen has invested $300m (£205m) in taxi on-demand service Gett, a rival to Uber, handing it a stake in some of Britain's black cab fleet and also indicating the future of the German car brand. Gett bought up Radio Taxis, adding more than 1,000 traditional cabbies to its fleet of 10,000 drivers in the UK earlier this year and [...]
Are Apple’s glory days over? May 24, 2016 It has been among the most innovative companies in the world for decades, but Apple’s star has dimmed recently. It reported its first fall in sales since 2003 – before the iPhone even existed – and was overtaken as the world’s most valuable company again last week by Google’s parent Alphabet, after briefly surpassing it in [...]
Spotify out of tune as revenues soar but losses swell May 23, 2016 Spotify, the world’s biggest music subscription service, saw its revenues rise 80 per cent to €1.95bn (£1.5bn) in 2015. However, the company saw its net losses increase to €173m (£134m) from €162m in 2014. The streaming giant’s revenues soared thanks to a 78 per cent increase in subscriptions to €1.74bn (£113.8bn) while advertising revenues grew [...]
We’re fintech investors, but here’s why we’ll never be based in Silicon Valley May 23, 2016 In 1934, Willie Sutton was asked by FBI agents “why do you rob banks, Willie?”. Sutton replied dryly, “because that's where the money is”. We create rather than rob banks, so why did we set up outside of Silicon Valley, where the tech money is? Because that’s where the banks are. Anthemis is in London, New York and Geneva, [...]
Have women’s smartwatches just gone mainstream? There’s more to high-tech horology than the Apple Watch May 23, 2016 Bettridge’s Law states that if a headline ends in a question mark, then the answer is “no”. If that were always the case, then a column such as this would be a very short read indeed. But the question “can a stylish woman wear a smart watch?” is more complex than a simple “no”. A [...]
Phones 4U founder John Caudwell is backing this mobile startup May 23, 2016 Phones 4U founder John Caudwell has put his weight behind a new mobile startup launching today which aims to simplify buying a new mobile and do away with lengthy contracts. Unshackled.com will sell phones and sims separately and has partnered with peer-to-peer lender Zopa to offer financing for the upfront cost of the device. Founded by the former chief operating officer of Phones 4U [...]
The Chinese town where robots replaced 60,000 workers May 23, 2016 A Chinese manufacturing hub enlisted a fleet of robots to help overhaul its growth strategy. Kunshan, in Jiangsu province of China, used to be one of the country’s best performing economies. But its reputation was dented after an industrial explosion killed 146 people in 2014. At the time, it was blamed on poor safety standards [...]
Fraud with Problems: Ravelin boss Martin Sweeney talks Hailo, fake credit cards and machine learning May 23, 2016 "There’s a real tension at the heart of fraud detection: if you want to stop online fraud, just switch everything off.” Martin Sweeney is, of course, being facetious. But fraud, he impresses, has become an accepted fact of the on-demand economy. “We as consumers are accepting that most of the things we buy have a premium [...]