New car hire app Virtuo sidesteps all the usual pains of London car rentals August 30, 2018 By far the least entertaining part of renting a car is having to stand around inside a hermetically sealed fartbox of a portacabin on the edge of some rainy industrial estate, before a 17-year-old in an oversized suit throws you the keys to an old banger that you suspect was built in East Germany. Recently [...]
Apple has bought an augmented reality startup to rival Microsoft’s Hololens August 30, 2018 Apple has quietly acquired Akonia Holographics, a startup that makes super-thin and transparent lenses for augmented reality (AR) smart glasses. The news is a sign that Apple might soon move deeper into the AR market, a technology which can superimpose digital information and images on the real world. Other tech firms offering AR glasses to date include Microsoft's [...]
Amazon strides past $2,000 a share in trillion-dollar race August 30, 2018 E-commerce behemoth Amazon has broken past the $2,000 (£1,538) per share mark, putting the online retailer well on its way to hitting a $1 trillion market valuation. Shares in Amazon reached an all-time high of $2,010 just an hour after markets opened in the US, powering the firm past the $980bn market capitalisation milestone. Amazon made [...]
Jeremy Hunt takes aim at Google over ‘child abuse content’ August 30, 2018 UK foreign minister Jeremy Hunt has lashed out at Google over its plans to build a censored version of its search engine in China, while lagging on efforts to remove sensitive content on child abuse. "Seems extraordinary that Google is considering censoring its content to get into China but won’t cooperate with UK, US and [...]
Trump doubles down on bias accusations against US tech giants August 30, 2018 US President Donald Trump has doubled down on his attacks towards tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, accusing them of illegal activity. "I think that Google and Facebook and Twitter … treat conservatives and Republicans very unfairly,” Trump told reporters at the White House last night. "I think it’s a very serious problem [...]
Dating app Grindr is planning an overseas IPO August 30, 2018 The Chinese owner of gay dating app Grindr has revealed plans to spin off the company and list it on an overseas bourse. Kunlun Technology, which bought a 61.5 per cent stake in Grindr in 2016 before acquiring the remainder in January this year, published news of Grindr's upcoming initial public offering (IPO) overnight on [...]
Panasonic to ditch UK to move headquarters to Amsterdam August 30, 2018 Panasonic is to move its European headquarters to Amsterdam from London, in a decision thought to be a result of uncertainty around Brexit. The Japanese electronics company confirmed today that it would move to the Netherlands due to concerns that it could face a hefty tax bill once the UK leaves the EU. Laurent Abadie, [...]
Africa needs fintech – but fintech needs Africa more August 30, 2018 What a difference a couple of decades make. At the turn of the century, Tony Blair remarked that “the state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world”. This week, on her first official visit to the continent, Theresa May embraced a new vision of optimism and hope. Read more: Theresa May [...]
Dyson plugs £200m into driverless cars UK technology campus August 30, 2018 Household appliance technology firm Dyson today released details on the second phase of its plans to redevelop an airfield in Wiltshire as a research campus for self-driving cars, which will increase its investment in the space to £200m . Dyson has already plugged £84m into the site to date. The planning application for the Hullavington [...]
Donut County review: A charming and bizarre physics puzzler about a mysterious hole August 29, 2018 Ben Esposito is an indie games developer whose previous works include mysterious-house-in-the-woods simulator What Remains of Edith Finch. A rising star in the industry, he seems drawn towards the abstract. In 2012 he worked on The Unfinished Swan, a PlayStation exclusive in which you exist in a blank white world that only reveals itself as [...]
