Christopher Bailey’s sky high pay is hard to justify as Burberry’s profits sink October 16, 2015 Burberry, the luxury fashion brand popular with Romeo Beckham and Yanis Varoufakis, must be getting pretty bored with criticism over the size of its executives’ pack packages. Annual eight-figure payments to former boss Angela Ahrendts attracted attention in the wake of the global financial crisis, while current chief Christopher Bailey faced a shareholder revolt before [...]
Elon Musk is about to put thousands of driverless cars on the road – but drivers of Tesla Model S with Autopilot have been warned: Keep your hands on the wheel October 15, 2015 Did the future just arrive on the world's roads and we didn't even notice? Cult electric car maker Tesla said last night that it's about to push an update to 60,000 of its Model S vehicles which will allow them to autonomously park (including finding a parking spot) and change lanes. Elon Musk, the company's [...]
The war on the driver is a war on freedom – and autonomous cars are part of the problem October 14, 2015 Freedom-hating municipal politicians have it in for the motorist: London has its congestion charge, Dublin is closing off ever more of its urban core, and Paris is now experimenting with sporadically banning all private transport. Young people, faced with turbo-charged costs, onerous restrictions and absurd taxation – not to mention rising housing costs – [...]
Apple faces £595m patent bill after losing lawsuit over microchip used in iPhone 5S, 6, 6S and iPad October 14, 2015 It looks like Apple has borrowed its microchip design from a university. The University of Wisconsin-Madison just successfully sued the tech giant over a chip patent that it developed in 1998, and Apple has been using in devices like the popular iPhone 6 without permission. Apple now faces a £595m patent bill after losing the [...]
Black Friday 2015 UK date and deals: The best offers to expect on 27 November, plus who were the winners and losers from last year October 14, 2015 Black Friday is less than seven weeks away – it falls on 27 November this year – and already consumer sites are full of predictions for which deals we'll be falling over ourselves (and other people) to pick up in 2015. We spent £810m last year, with John Lewis celebrating its biggest sales week of [...]
How workaholism can work for you: Break your own records and see the value of marginal gains October 14, 2015 When Apple founder Steve Jobs set up the company’s first factory in 1984, he would check thoroughly for any dust on the equipment or the floor, later remarking that “if we didn’t have the discipline to keep that place spotless, then we weren’t going to have the discipline to keep all these machines running.” [...]
Cherry-picked evidence does not justify costly policies to boost “social mobility” October 12, 2015 When major political parties agree on an issue, worry. For the past decade, “social mobility” – the movement of individuals to different positions in society – has been said to be in decline, with Britain believed to perform poorly compared with other countries. At his conference speech last week, David Cameron summed up the establishment [...]
Dunelm share price edges down despite new boss John Browett snapping up £200,000 shares October 12, 2015 Former Dixons chief executive John Browett has spent more than £200,000 of his own cash snapping up Dunelm shares as he prepares to take over the reins as chief executive in January. Browett, who joined the board of the homeware retailer in July, has bought 18,608 shares at £9.27 and 2,998 shares at £9.25, giving him a stake of [...]
How advertisers and publishers can address the challenges of mobile ad blocking October 12, 2015 It is wise to assume that ad blocking will be with us in the long-term, however, mobile advertising will most certainly live on. The rise of ad blocking on smartphones and tablets gives advertisers and publishers a prime opportunity to reassess their approach to targeting consumers and to optimise the content that they provide. Also [...]
Apple allowing in-app ad-blockers establish worrying precedent October 11, 2015 Apple caused a storm a month ago when it released its iOS 9 software update, and not just because it caused many users’ mobiles to crash. The new operating system permits ad blocking technology, allowing users to screen adverts out of content, and a number of apps which block adverts in Safari have rocketed up [...]