Oxford student Thomas Whitfield’s proposal to create an “online timeline” has received the full backing of the notoriously hard-to-please panel of Dragon’s Den.
The judges were “blown away” by Mr Whitfield’s idea, the premise of which involves creating a website with a virtual timeline that details not only the past but also has space to record future events. (more…)
Employee-owned firm John Lewis has announced ambitious plans to create 35,000 jobs and double turnover in the next ten years.
The proposals will see the company’s workforce expand to 100,000 by 2017, and sales double to £12 billion in the same timeframe. (more…)
Mobile phone giant Vodafone has announced a temporary link up with social-networking website MySpace in a move which could see both firms reap dividends.
While Vodafone hopes the affiliation will encourage customers to use their mobile phones as a way of accessing the internet, MySpace is using the tie as a way of creating awareness of its product in Europe. (more…)
Around 68,000 people in the UK currently earn all or most of their living by selling products on eBay it has been estimated, highlighting the growing popularity of e-trading.
“E-traders” are defined as those who either make products specifically to sell online at a profit, buy goods in order to sell them on online, or sell products online for a commission or a flat fee. (more…)
Californian-based search engine company Powerset has announced that it has secured the rights to natural language search technology that it claims will enable it to surpass Google as the internet’s leading search engine.
The new technology has taken Silicon Valley-based Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) over 30 years to develop.
Powerset hopes natural language searching will prove move popular than Google’s current approach, which involves listing the most popular pages which include the keywords in the search.
Natural language searches, on the other hand, have been developed to examine the relationship between the words in the search in an attempt to make computers “understand” and “process” language in a bid to improve results. (more…)
Entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Group Sir Richard Branson has announced the launch of a new, innovative communications and entertainment platform.
Virgin Media, which was formed after the merger between NTL: Telewest and Virgin’s mobile service, will be the first UK operator to offer a “quad play” of TV, broadband, fixed-line and mobile phone services. (more…)
An exciting opportunity for budding photo journalists has emerged in the form of a website which lets people showcase their images to prospective buyers and, hopefully, sell them.
ScoopLive has already reined in some 2,500 reporters in 60 different countries – and it has already helped broker big deals such as one for an image which ended up on the cover of Voici, an influential French magazine. (more…)
The BBC is in discussions with Google about the possibility of promoting and selling its programmes on the influential YouTube website, which was acquired by the search engine firm late last year.
While the BBC would not comment specifically on any deal, the Telegraph reports a spokesman as saying that talks are underway with a view to the corporation showing programmes on YouTube – whose popularity has soared as users post their own clips and compilations on the site – and other video sharing sites run by Google. (more…)
Sir Richard Branson could look to extend his empire by bidding for travel company First Choice’s package holiday division, which has experienced troubled times of late.
A potential auction for the division would see it fetch between £500 million and £600 million – and it has been reported that Virgin Holidays, Branson’s long-haul holiday tour operator, has got together with a private equity firm to put forward a bid. (more…)
Apple has confirmed a spectacular new foray into the telecoms industry with the impending release of the new iPhone device.
To be released in June in the US – and a few months later in Europe – the iPhone is likely to cost about £257 and has been touted by Apple chief Steve Jobs as a device which will revolutionise the industry.
The iPhone, coming in 4GB and 8GB versions, will see music and videos downloadable to what is essentially a mini touch-screen computer -11.6 millimetres thick and using Apple’s patented ‘multi-touch’ technology. (more…)
