Why British homeowners still aren’t buying into the idea of the home connected by smart tech June 29, 2016 Take any object in your home and you can guarantee that at some point a Silicon Valley startup has tried to create a web-enabled version of it. The ever expanding “Internet of Things” (IoT), as it’s clunkily termed, now includes almost every household item under the sun. Many are useful, such as thermostats, light bulbs, [...]
Forget the Nexus, Google is set to launch its own smartphone by the end of the year June 26, 2016 Tech goliath Google is expected to release it own smartphone by the end of the year in a bid to get a bigger slice of the smartphone market. The search giant has approached mobile operators to discuss manufacturing a Google-branded phone, sources told the Daily Telegraph. Currently the tech giant provides operating systems for smartphones [...]
The City of London will prosper in or out of the European Union June 15, 2016 A friend tells me why he is voting Remain. “My wife works for a French bank and they would pull out of London if we left the EU.” That’s fair enough. Assuming the French bank set up in London to access the EU, then it’s logical to assume it would leave after Brexit. But a [...]
Watch out PayPal: Now you can use Apple Pay online June 13, 2016 Apple has made a major move with its mobile pay service, adding support for it online. This means users can simply use a "Pay by Apple" button when browsing on the iPhone or Mac, in addition to using the iPhone to pay at tills. An Apple Pay button will appear when you pay online, via [...]
How to watch Apple’s next big announcement June 12, 2016 No sooner than we have a new iPhone (the SE, if you'd forgotten) than it's that time of year when we roll around to one of Apple's big annual events – WWDC. The tech company's annual developer conference is where several announcements are due to be made – from a new evolution of Siri, potentially, [...]
The seven things to look out for at Apple WWDC June 12, 2016 Apple's already launched a phone this year, but there's more to come from the tech titan, and some of that will be revealed at its developer conference next week. Don't expect the iPhone 7 yet though, this will be all about software and services rather than devices. Last year, we had a bumper one that [...]
Is fintech the new black? Lower trust in disruptors gives banks reason to cheer June 10, 2016 Digital innovation – and more specifically the impact of fintech – is currently the most intensely debated topic in the financial services sector. Two years ago hardly anyone outside the industry had heard of fintech. Now it’s the hottest investment class globally for VCs. PwC recently produced a report claiming that over 20 per cent [...]
General Electric backs German renewable battery start-up Sonnen June 7, 2016 General Electric has bet on renewable energy storage with a stake in a lithium battery start-up. GE Ventures, the engineering giant's venture capital arm, paid a "double-digit million sum" for a slice of Bavaria-based start-up Sonnen, which has become Europe's largest maker of lithium-battery energy storage systems. Read more: Oil major Total makes near €1bn wager on renewable energy Sonnen, [...]
The war on cash is raging – should we welcome or fear the death of hard money? June 7, 2016 Cash is no longer king. Although the Bank of England unveiled a new, polymer-coated £5 note last week, the seemingly unstoppable march towards paper-free transactions continues. Electronic payments overtook notes and coins last year in the UK, according to the Payments Council, an industry body representing the banks and card machine industry. They now account for [...]
Firing up innovation in Japan: Entrepreneurship has been frowned up in Japan but a new breed of youngsters are hoping to make the country a world class technology player once again June 6, 2016 The eighties were a boom time for Japan, when the country’s high-tech innovations meant the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Mitsubishi and Toshiba were global leaders. Its technology had changed society, from the appearance of the first bullet train in 1964, to Sony’s Walkman in 1979, through to the Nintendo GameBoy in 1989. Japan’s dominance in [...]