Archive
Year: 2014
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Friday TechMunch: The Facebook Experiment
July 4, 2014
For one week in January 2012, Facebook altered the newsfeeds of 700,000 people. Some people were deliberately shown “happy” content; others were shown more negative posts. It was found that these users were more likely to post either especially positive or negative words themselves...
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Is Technology Ruining Sport?
June 20, 2014
With goal-line technology already causing controversy in the World Cup, is technology really improving sport? Advances in technology have dramatically altered sport in recent years; from Hawk-Eye in Wimbledon to video-refereeing in the Rugby League. For the first time, technology is having a real effect on our global sporting competitions. It has even been suggested that Hawk-Eye significantly contributed to Andy Murray’s victory at Wimbledon, when Novak Djokovic lost his cool over a Hawk-Eye decision. So...
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Friday TechMunch: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
June 13, 2014
If you thought 140 characters was strict, try Snapchat. The user has only 10 seconds to view an image. After that, it’s gone. For good. Snapchat is the latest social media phenomenon. 400 million “snaps” are sent everyday – making the 40 million images captured by Instagram seem paltry in comparison. Much like Instagram and Pinterest, Snapchat’s core audience is women; but while the two older photo sharing channels are favoured by women aged 18-35...
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Friday TechMunch: The Rift Observation
June 6, 2014
“The Oculus Rift is the coolest product in the world right now.” Invented by 21 year old Palmer Luckey, a man as fortunate as his name, the Oculus Rift is the oh-so-close answer to a decades-old promise of virtual reality (VR). Snapped up by Facebook in March for a cool $2bn, VR might have finally reached the point where investment and mainstream interest have reached critical mass...
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The Newark By-election
June 6, 2014
We were promised a political earthquake. The last time Newark saw one of any great measure was in the 12th century, when nearby Lincoln Cathedral lost both of its imposing spires – at that time, the tallest man-made objects in the world. No such political pillars crumbled last night, with the Conservatives and Labour reacting predictably to what was an uncertain night for UKIP and its Malta-loving anti-Europe leader Nigel Farage MEP. In fact, the...
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Sony PlayStations available in China: A Game Changer
May 30, 2014
Big news in gaming this week – Sony has partnered with Shanghai Oriental Pearl to manufacture and sell its PlayStation consoles in China, giving Sony access to millions of gamers. The Chinese government’s decision in January to allow international brands to sell consoles was a game changer and console manufacturers from around the world want to profit from the previously impenetrable video-game industry in China, which PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicts will generate £6bn in sales next year...
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Friday TechMunch: Is Cloud Computing Leaving you Feeling a Bit Foggy?
May 23, 2014
Over the past few years, the tech world has been bubbling over with excitement around all things ‘cloud’. Private clouds, public clouds and hybrid clouds have been hot topics for consumers and businesses alike. In the future, cloud evangelists expect 100% of computer storage to be cloud-based. Cloud computing offers a flexible, often cheaper alternative to in-house data storage, with secure back-up. In addition, the cloud has been a fantastic enabler in connecting devices through...
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Friday TechMunch: The Right to Be Forgotten?
May 19, 2014
Last week the European Courts of Justice backed the “right to be forgotten”. Google must now delete “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant” data from its search results at the request of a member of the public. This landmark case against Google was brought to ruling by a Spanish man, Mario Costeja Gonzalez, who demanded an article related to the repossession of his home 16 years earlier be deleted from the search engine...
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Friday TechMunch: Droning on About 3D printing
May 9, 2014
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No…actually, it’s another drone Drones… they seem to be everywhere lately. Over the last year we’ve seen an insurgence of drone announcements, including the Amazon delivery drones (swiftly followed by the ingenious O.W.L.S campaign issued by Waterstones), and this week two new drone announcements, coincidently both related to repairs. The first announcement comes via EasyJet, which has announced plans to introduce unmanned drones to inspect its fleet...
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We find out Now / Next / Why from Contagious
May 2, 2014
This week, some of us attended the annual Now / Next / Why briefing from marketing, consumer culture and technology trend analysts Contagious. It followed on from December’s Most Contagious, which brought together experts from Contagious and leading marketers to explore the major trends affecting our industry now and in the future; now, next and why...