In praise of French spirit November 17, 2010 HERE’S a strange thing: the French don’t like cognac. In fact, according to Patrice Pinet, master blender for Courvoisier, France imports more Scottish whisky than it makes cognac. Young people in France in particular, he laments, have given up on the drink, associating it with a naff, fusty past instead of a cool, cocktail-centric present. [...]
Infineon to pay first dividend in a decade November 16, 2010 GERMAN chipmaker Infineon plans to pay shareholders its first dividend for a decade, underlining confidence in the future after clawing its way back from the downturn. Chief executive Peter Bauer, a life-long chip specialist who grew into the role of restructurer, said Infineon planned to pay out dividends on a regular basis just like other [...]
BEATLES EAT INTO APPLE CHART November 16, 2010 BEATLES albums yesterday flooded iTunes top 200 chart on their first day on sale. Analysts predict they could topple top selling albums by Michael Jackson and Black Eyed Peas. The release of the rights to iTunes after a lengthy legal wrangle is good news for Terra Firma boss Guy Hands, whose embattled music firm EMI [...]
iTunes puts Beatles online November 15, 2010 THE Beatles are expected to make their music available for the first time on Apple’s iTunes online music store, the company is expected to announce today, suggesting its disputes with the band are finally at an end. The copyrights to the Beatles’ earliest recordings start expiring from the end of 2012, 50 years after their [...]
Memo to Apple: make an electric car November 14, 2010 WHAT a tragedy Apple doesn’t make cars. We would all be better off if it did. With the price of oil spiraling again, the world needs a real alternative to traditional, petrol-powered cars – not a slightly fake, subsidised, feel-good half-solution that appeases Western consciences, but a proper, competitive, efficient and high-performance electric car that [...]
John Lewis is ranked among influential list November 14, 2010 RETAIL giant John Lewis has surged into a ranking of Britain’s most influential brands, as the group’s partnership approach to doing business and a record year for till receipts propelled it into the top three. TLG’s annual index of UK Business Thought Leaders ranks John Lewis below Apple and Google but above other respected names [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING November 11, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES SMARTPHONES IN HACKING RISK Certain smartphone models running Google’s Android operating system have security flaws that could allow hackers to steal personal information or record conversations, researchers said this week. In a demonstration at the Black Hat security conference in Abu Dhabi, a UK researcher showed how a vulnerability in the web browser [...]
Long Run can prove that he’s the real deal November 11, 2010 AFTER spending two days trying to find a horse to beat Nicky Henderson’s LONG RUN in tomorrow’s Paddy Power Gold Cup at Cheltenham, I have now finally given up. The French bred five-year-old is the apple of his trainer’s eye and set pulses racing with a breathtaking debut over fences in the Feltham at Kempton [...]
Nokia and Apple lose sales to cheap Chinese phones November 10, 2010 NOKIA and other established handset makers are quickly losing global market share to a push by Chinese no-brand vendors into emerging markets, research firm Gartner said. Surging growth of no-brand manufacturers coupled with growing smartphone sales boosted third-quarter mobile phone sales 35 per cent, Gartner said yesterday. But Nokia saw its marketshare slip from 44.6 [...]
Alex fails to scrub up as apprentices get soapy November 10, 2010 THIS week Christopher finally burst into life. Who? Well, it’s hard to say. You might have spotted him in the background but so far his input has been negligible. Last night was his moment to shine. So what was it that coaxed him into action? Was he biding his time all the while, observing and [...]