This new proptech startup wants to help generation rent buy their first home September 22, 2016 Zoopla and top investor Robin Klein are backing a new property technology venture designed to help first time buyers hop on to the incredibly difficult first rung of the property ladder. Wannabe homeowners can invest in a property Isa with Bricklane.com which launches today. Cash will go into a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT), which will invest in rental [...]
Picks of the day: The three stories to read today September 21, 2016 We’re officially halfway through the working week – to celebrate, we’ve put together the top three stories of the day in bite-sized form, just to make your life that bit easier. Time for a coffee break? Check out our three at three. Google has just launched a new IM app Google has just launched a [...]
Say ‘allo to Allo – Google’s WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger rival September 21, 2016 Google is jumping on the messaging bandwagon with a new cockney sounding app called Allo powered by artificial intelligence. The mashup between Apple Siri/iMessage/WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/Snapchat might seem by some as a little late to the party – Facebook's Messenger and WhatsApp boast one billion users each and they dominate the world of messaging apps. Some suggest there can only be one chat [...]
City Moves for 15 September 2016 | Who’s switching jobs September 15, 2016 Benevolent.ai Benevolent.ai, a British artificial intelligence company, has appointed IBM Watson’s vce president of Watson platform; Jerome Pesenti as CEO of its technology division, benevolent technology. Jerome will also join the main board of the company. Jerome has been focused on big data and machine learning for the past 16 years. He joins benevolent.ai from IBM Watson where [...]
The Amazon Echo is an artificially intelligent speaker and virtual assistant that can play music, order curries and hail an Uber September 14, 2016 The Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker that you operate using voice commands. Inside it (well, somewhere in the cloud to be precise) lives Alexa, an artificial intelligence and essentially Amazon’s version of Siri. Alexa’s machine-learning algorithms and rapidly expanding skillset make her smarter as time goes on: so while today she can play music, [...]
It’s time for long-term fintech to break into pensions and mortgages September 14, 2016 Certain areas of fintech have experienced an entrepreneurial frenzy over recent years. Sectors once dominated by traditional providers have become hotbeds of startup activity, with most of the action occurring in payments, foreign exchange, short-term lending and, more recently, current accounts. As is often the case, where entrepreneurs have led, money has followed. This has [...]
Amazon’s virtual home assistant Echo comes to the UK September 14, 2016 Amazon has launched its virtual home assistant Echo in the UK and Germany, its first markets for the device outside the US, which lets users control their home and do tasks online via simple voice commands. The device, priced at £149.99 or £99.99 for Prime members, is powered by Amazon's Alexa, an artificial intelligence voice assistant similar to [...]
Before the bell: What you need to know before the US market open September 14, 2016 US seeds company Monsanto has accepted a takeover offer from German chemicals company Bayer, marking the biggest deal of 2016. Meanwhile, stocks are floating on a sea of green. Here's what you need to know before the US market open at 2:30pm London time. US stocks are pointing higher in the pre-market. The S&P is up by 0.2 per [...]
It’s pure hubris for politicians to think they can “rebalance” the economy September 8, 2016 Theresa May is reviving the idea of interventionist industrial strategy, and wants to “rebalance” the economy. Many people are jumping on the bandwagon. They should jump right off again. Even the more mature of today’s politicians were still in the school playground when these ideas last made waves. In the 1950s and 1960s, UK governments [...]
Britain must be boldly pro-enterprise to master the Fourth Industrial Revolution September 7, 2016 Business leaders and politicians gathered in Davos at this year’s World Economic Forum annual meeting were told a revolution had started. Not a bloody revolution, but an economic and strategic one, with its impact felt across every industry and every country. This unprecedented, disruptive fusion of digital, physical and biological technological developments has been dubbed [...]