April Fool’s Day 2016: Here are the internet’s most groan-inducing gags April 1, 2016 April Fool's is the best day of the year for bored product designers: all the bonkers inventions that would never pass the pitching stage have made it onto the internet this morning. Here's our round-up of the best jokes the ad-men and women have thrown at us so far today. How gullible are you? Take our April Fool quiz [...]
Holiday Homes: Rare homes for sale in the middle of the Indian Ocean, from Soneva Group, first company to sell property internationally in the Maldives October 21, 2016 Falling asleep under the stars in the Maldives sounds like the sort of once-in-a-lifetime experience reserved for honey-mooning couples. But it could be a regular part of your life, at least for a few weeks a year, if you invest in one of the properties on sale at the newly-opened Soneva Jani, which is the [...]
Due to popular demand, MPs will now inquire into what you can and can’t be asked to wear at work, including high heels June 8, 2016 What you wear to work is about to become a hot topic in parliament, after an inquiry was launched into high heels and workplace dress codes. The inquiry, which has been launched jointly by the Petitions Committee and the Women and Equalities Committee, has been sparked by a petition started by a receptionist who was sent [...]
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry baffled by Jamie Vardy’s indecision over transfer and expresses doubts at Leicester striker’s suitability June 11, 2016 Thierry Henry is bewildered that Leicester striker Jamie Vardy has delayed making a decision on whether or not to join Arsenal. The Gunners legend said the opportunity to play for his former club is one he would find impossible to turn down were he in Vardy's shoes. Despite Arsenal triggering a release clause reported to be [...]
Eight years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, FutureBrand’s Tom Adams says that perceptions of banks’ brands are improving September 19, 2016 Eight years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, FutureBrand’s global head of strategy Tom Adams reflects on how the public perceives financial services organisations. In 2014, when his global brand consultancy first began polling professionals in 17 countries to see how they perceived the firms in PwC’s list of global top 100 companies by market capitalisation, [...]
Did Mastercard really need to launch its first rebrand in 20 years? July 27, 2016 Mastercard unveiled its first rebrand in twenty years earlier this month and the reaction to its new design has so far been pretty positive. But does it have that very modern measure of success: shareability? On initial inspection, the new design can seem a little underwhelming, especially considering it’s the first time the branding for [...]
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, [...]
Apple bought 9 startups in 2016. Here’s what they do December 8, 2016 Apple buys a lot of companies, but it doesn't talk much about them, making it hard to keep track. So we put together nine of its acquisitions reported this year. This list is not exhaustive, we know for sure some purchases have never been revealed. As expected, artificial intelligence companies remain the dominant category, but [...]
Portugal 1, France 0 (AET): Pepe hails Cristiano Ronaldo’s inspiration despite first-half injury as hosts stunned in Euro 2016 final July 11, 2016 Much-malignedPortugal centre-half Pepe insists Cristiano Ronaldo remained the inspiration behind his side’s shock Euro 2016 final victory over hosts France despite injury forcing the forward’s first-half withdrawal at the Stade de France. In a match seemingly destined for penalties, Portugal sealed their first major trophy in extra-time courtesy of a goal from substitute striker and [...]
Abarth 124 Spider review: We took the high-performance Fiat to Silverstone to find out August 16, 2016 Just 12 years ago, Fiat launched the Stilo Abarth. It’s not a car that the brand’s marketeers would like us to bring up in the first paragraph of this review. It was stodgy, slow, and nowhere near a Golf GTI challenger. But the Stilo wasn’t a true Abarth. Abarth is Fiat’s performance offshoot. Initially an [...]