iPhone XR review: Apple’s ‘affordable’ handset is the best pound-for-pound phone on the market right now November 7, 2018 Last month Apple released the best phone money can buy, the iPhone XS, which also happens to be a phone that costs more than any other. Prices start at an overdraft-worrying £999 for the 64GB XS and go up to a nosebleed-inducing £1,449 for the 512GB XS Max. In a tacit acknowledgement that a grand [...]
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite review: The most popular e-reader in the Kindle range can now survive a dunking November 7, 2018 Last year Amazon updated the most expensive member of the Kindle family, the £230 Kindle Oasis, to introduce waterproofing. At long last careless readers could take their Kindle into the bath, or stand really close to the edge of a lake, without fear of dropping their device into a watery grave. Now, Amazon has brought [...]
Amazon Echo Show review: Amazon’s smart speaker now has a screen, but how does it measure up to the competition? November 7, 2018 When Amazon’s hardware team first stuck a screen on their smart speaker, it felt like a backslide for voice-assistant technology, which had promised a future in which we would converse naturally with omniscient objects in our house about the population of Angola, or where we know that guy in the TV show from, all without [...]
Crowdcube raises £8.5m from Revolut backer Draper Esprit and Channel 4 November 7, 2018 Equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube has today announced the close of a £8.5m fundraise, led by venture capital firm Draper Esprit and supported by Balderton Capital and Channel 4's commercial growth arm. Draper disclosed a £6m stake in the company as part of its investment, with the full round to be complemented by a crowdfunding campaign later [...]
EE’s first 5G trials go live in new locations across these east London hotspots November 7, 2018 Mobile network provider EE, has today switched on nine trial sites for 5G technology across east London, in addition to an existing test site in Canary Wharf. These include spots such as Provost Street, City Road, Central Street, Old Street, Cheapside, St Paul's, Finsbury Circus, Clerkenwell Street and Bartholomew Square. EE, which is owned by [...]
Addison Lee launches self-driving taxi trials in Canary Wharf November 7, 2018 Private hire firm Addison Lee has begun trialling self-driving car technology, created by UK startup Oxbotica, on the streets of London. Driving around the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, Addison Lee's manned cars are creating a three-dimensional street map of the city in order to create the backdrop for future driverless cars. Organised together with Canary [...]
EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager signals decision on Google Adsense investigation November 7, 2018 European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager has said regulators are close to releasing findings against Google, which could see the tech giant hit with another record-breaking fine. The investigation is the third of its kind into Google and its parent firm Alphabet by the antitrust watchdog in recent years, after the firm was fined €4.3bn (£3.8bn) earlier this year over market [...]
More than £540m wiped off value of cyber security firm Sophos after forecasts cut November 7, 2018 More than £540m has been wiped off the value of cyber security firm Sophos after it cut forecasts for the second half of the financial year. The company said “challenging year-on-year” comparatives meant it now expected only a modest improvement in billings growth through to March 2019. It had previously hoped for “mid-teens” billings growth [...]
DEBATE: Is Tim Berners-Lee right that we need to save the web from abuse? November 7, 2018 Is Tim Berners-Lee right that we need to save the web from abuse? Sven Hughes, chief executive and founder of Verbalisation and Global Influence, says YES. When info.cern.ch went live in 1991, it was the address of the world’s first ever website and web server. Sir Tim Berners-Lee was the man to create that website, and [...]
Hammond’s digital tax is an illogical game of whack-a-mole November 7, 2018 The introduction of a new digital services tax was the most depressingly inevitable part of Philip Hammond’s Budget speech last week. Years of pressure from a pincer movement of corporate tax moralists and traditional retailers have paid off. Starting in April 2020, profitable digital businesses with £500m in global revenues would face a two per cent [...]