London needs help if it is to spawn more tech unicorns October 8, 2015 Russ Shaw’s piece in this section today rightly highlights London as a great place to be as far as retail technology is concerned – some of the most exciting startups in this space are emerging from the capital. Other sectors, such as fintech, are booming too. However, London doesn’t yet have a great track record when [...]
Renewable energy investment drops to 11-year-low hit hard by George Osborne’s scrapped green energy tax exemption October 8, 2015 European investment into renewables has tumbled to an 11-year-low, as policy changes in the UK have pummeled green energy growth hard. European countries invested a total of £3.8bn into renewable energy over the past quarter – leaving investment down 48 per cent compared to the same period last year. Although this is partly explained by [...]
Google bought the most ridiculous domain name URL for Alphabet October 8, 2015 Anyone trying to out-wit Google can give up. When the tech company changed its name to Alphabet, many people took a guess at the URLs that it may have forgotten to register in a bid to buy it first, all in the hopes Google would then pay a pretty penny to get its hands on [...]
Bioengineers have created a “psychic robot” that understands human intention October 8, 2015 A robot which can understand why humans behave the way they do has been created by scientists at the University of Illinois. Dubbed the “psychic robot” by its creators, it uses a mathematical algorithm to “see” the intention behind even the most simple act, such as lifting your arm to reach out for a cup of tea. [...]
Europe and the US space agencies are trying to protect us from death by asteroids October 8, 2015 It's never the wrong time to remind yourself that millions of asteroids are rushing around us in space, posing a constant threat to human existence. Should one head down and collide with earth, it could lead to such devastating destruction that we would perish, just like the dinosaurs did some 65m years ago. But the [...]
Adventure capital: Investors pump £1bn into London’s tech sector in 2015 October 8, 2015 Investors have pumped a record £1bn into London’s thriving tech sector this year as the capital’s digital economy rockets, with experts predicting that the capital could soon be on course to challenge Silicon Valley. Data from London & Partners, the mayor’s investment company, shows that London’s technology companies have raked in three-quarters of the [...]
Tech review: I fought the Smart Glider… and the Smart Glider won October 8, 2015 Last week I had an altercation with a tiny robot. I was flipped high into the air by an electric scooter and landed hard on my left arm, fracturing my wrist and elbow and irreparably destroying what little self-respect I had on me at the time. It was scooter carnage. Of course, it would [...]
The next fintech? Why London can make unicorns a retail reality October 8, 2015 The future unicorns of the UK lie in London’s retail technology sector. This is according to a fifth of Tech London Advocates, in a study of the future growth drivers of London’s technology industry. The truth is, London already leads the world in terms of expertise and knowledge around retail technology. Retail technology is a sector [...]
Nobel Prize for Physics 2015: How two scientists changed our understanding of particle physics October 7, 2015 The 2015 Nobel Prize has been awarded to two scientists who helped reveal that neutrinos, one of the most enigmatic subatomic particles in our universe, have mass. Takaaki Kajita from the University of Tokyo in Japan won half the prize, while the other half went to Canadian physicist Arthur McDonald. At the Royal [...]
How common are hurricanes in the UK? Ex-Hurricane Joaquin will miss UK but give Spain some rain October 7, 2015 Everyone’s been talking about Hurricane Joaquin, but when it’s the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Igor in 2010 – and now moving briskly towards Europe – you can probably see why. It was at its peak last Saturday when winds reached 155mph (just 2mph short of being a Category 5 hurricane) – unleashing itself on the [...]