Deadline day: Sky and Discovery close in on 11th hour deal January 31, 2017 Sky and Discovery are closing in on a last-minute deal to save the likes of Eurosport and Animal Planet from the UK's screens. The two media giants are in the middle of an embarrassing spat over the future of Discovery's channels on the Sky platform. Read more: Still hope? Deadline looms for Sky and Discovery Last Wednesday Discovery [...]
Fake news is troubling – but censorship is far worse January 31, 2017 We're in the grip of a fake news epidemic that is now poisoning our politics. That is the impression one would get from observing the tweets of the great and good. In the aftermath of Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, it has been tempting for those who could [...]
What exactly is fake news? And 11 more questions MPs will ask tech and media companies in a new inquiry January 30, 2017 What is fake news? That's just one of the 11 questions politicians will seek to answer in a fresh inquiry into the phrase du-jour favoured by Donald Trump MPs have set their sights on tech companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter, warning they must tackle fake news in the same way as they fight online piracy and [...]
The NASDAQ of advertising: Reprogramming programmatic with Infectious Media January 30, 2017 About 10 years ago, programmatic advertising was but a twinkle in the eye of some Silicon Valley bods, determined to bring about a sea change to digital advertising transactions. They were unaware, perhaps, of the flood that opening this sluice would bring to AdLand, nor the landscape that would remain when the new tide washed [...]
Enter The Dragon: Why China is snapping up British assets January 30, 2017 What do Heathrow, Thames Water, black cabs, Harvey Nichols and Rio Tinto have in common? They’re all part-owned by Chinese companies. “Britain holds a number of attractions for Chinese investors,” says Simon Bevan, head of the China Britain services group at Grant Thornton UK. “As a country, our language, business culture, rule of law and [...]
Can big business relax? HMRC probes struggle as cash yielded from investigations falls January 30, 2017 The taxman is struggling to squeeze Britain's largest businesses as the cash yielded from its investigations fell by a quarter. HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) collected an extra £2.6bn from largest businesses in 2016, down from £3.5bn the year before, according to analysis of HMRC’s Large Business Directorat by law firm Pinsent Masons. Read more: "Middle [...]
British nationals will be exempt from Trump’s travel ban, foreign office says January 29, 2017 Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tonight said UK nationals will be exempt from US President Donald Trump's executive order banning travel from seven majority Muslim countries. UK nationals who are travelling to the US from one of the seven countries, which include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, will not be barred entry even if [...]
This architect has already designed a Mexican border wall for Donald Trump January 27, 2017 Now Donald Trump is all systems go on his border wall, here's one step he can skip: the design stage is already in the bag, thanks to Mexican architecture practice Estudio 3.14. In conjunction with the University of Connecticut, the firm has helpfully created a design for a giant wall between the US and Mexico, [...]
Editor’s notes: Why did people vote Leave? Clue: It wasn’t because they’re unhappy January 27, 2017 The referendum result left a lot of people stunned and confused. Not just because a Leave vote was contrary to the predictions of pollsters and pundits, but because they couldn’t understand why anybody would want to leave the EU in the first place. In the days and weeks after the vote, the very same people who [...]
Mark Carney’s fintech critique should be a wake-up call for a sector used to plaudits January 27, 2017 The fintech sector is so used to being publicly lauded that this week’s comments by the governor of the Bank of England will have come as a shock. Despite claiming London as the fintech centre of Europe and exulting its potential, Mark Carney made clear fintech’s rise could disrupt the established financial sector – raising [...]