Tory ministers have told British business to stop whinging and work harder. These remarks are more significant than generally thought. I suspect they are the bewildered howls of frustration of men who realize that their god has failed them. What I mean is that, for at least 40 years the central tenet of Conservative economic thinking has been that if only government could "get out of the way", entrepreneurial spirits would be unleashed and the economy would grow. This belief has not always been  show all text

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David Cameron should speak about environment, he says in letter revealing frustration over UK's lack of low carbon strategy

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By Joe Peach, Founder of This Big City. See Related Post: Megacities: Five of the World’s ‘Biggest’ Cities For the first time ever, the majority of the world’s population live in cities. But whilst Asian megacities get most of the column inches, what makes a city varies wildly. If you checked out yesterday’s list featuring five of [...]

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"Advertisers are learning and experimenting" with Facebook's ad business, says Facebook itself. GM's move shows the downside of making it up as you go.

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NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc will increase the size of its initial public offering by 25 percent to raise about $15 billion, a source familiar with the matter said, as strong investor

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Bosnian Serb military leader faces 11 counts of war crimes at UN court over Srebrenica massacre and siege of Sarajevo.

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Follow an email on its journey to see what happens when you send a message. Along the way, discover our data centers with videos and photos.

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The whole "everyone should learn programming" meme has gotten so out of control that the mayor of New York City actually vowed to learn to code in 2012. A noble gesture to garner the NYC tech community vote, for sure, but if the mayor of New York City actually needs to sling JavaScript code to do his job, something is deeply, horribly, terribly wrong with politics in the state of New York. Even if Mr. Bloomberg did "learn to code", with apologies to Adam Vandenberg, I expect we'd end up with ...  show all text

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The home secretary is "on the precipice of destroying" a police service admired throughout the world, she is to be warned by rank-and-file officers.

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Nearly 11m young people are out of work across the OECD. How has youth unemployment changed and which countries are experiencing the worst rates?

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Older and disabled people suffer postcode lottery over fees as numbers who have home care paid by local council fall 11% The number of vulnerable older and disabled people who had home care services fully paid by their local authority fell by 11% in England in the past two years, according to newly published figures. The data also reveals wide variations in council charges across England. Freedom of information requests to 120 councils revealed that home care services – which send carers to help  show all text

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Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends, upload an unlimited number of photos, post links and videos, and learn more about the people they meet.

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Today, the Guardian published an article about the inequitable costs of home care services throughout England and the shrinking of access to council-paid support for care in the home. The article refers to a survey and report comprised of a number of Freedom of Information requests. It says The survey, seen by the Guardian, shows the average charge for an hour of home care has risen by 10% in the past two years – from £12.29 to £13.61. Also stating …there are wide disparities in the price people  show all text

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Former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic is due to go on trial in The Hague on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Allan Little, who covered the Bosnia war for the BBC, reflects on the conflict.

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In the white heat of the current tech market it’s sometimes easy to forget that some companies, although taking their time, simply become viable businesses – instead of waiting for a call from Facebook or Twitter that may never come. I’ve been covering web site and shop builder Moonfruit for longer than I care to remember (they launched in 2000), but along the way husband and wife team Joe and Wendy White kept on pushing the company until it was one of the most innovative of its kind out there....  show all text

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Government plans which could reduce state benefits paid to thousands of blind people have sparked a revolt by Liberal Democrat MPs in the latest sign of tension inside the Coalition over cuts.

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The new Bing interface, with a healthy dose of social connections and discovery, is now live for all users. Bing’s announcement today says that anyone can access the new interface at www.bing.com/new, but you should also see a new message atop the Bing home page that invites you to try... Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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National Audit Office finds Department for Work and Pensions knew risk of fraud but did not introduce checks

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Online reputation and financial services startup Lenddo has raised an $8 million Series A Round from institutional investors Accel Partners, Blumberg Capital, Omidyar Network, iNovia Capital, and Metamorphic Ventures, as well as angel investors such as Geoff Judge, David Kidder, Scott Heiferman, and Barry Silbert. The startup plans to take that funding and help make loans available to customers who normally wouldn’t have access to them. Lenddo’s mission is to help consumers in emerging markets ...  show all text

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Today, Flipboard introduces a major new addition: sound. Now you can enjoy all kinds of audio—music, podcasts, news segments, ephemera and more—while flipping through your favorite sections on Flipboard. You can start your auditory adventure by tapping on the red ribbon and exploring the new Audio category or by connecting to SoundCloud in the Accounts area. As soon as you press play, a music note will appear in the bottom left corner of Flipboard. Tap the note anytime to control your listening...  show all text

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Cloud-based telephony API startup Twilio has made significant inroads into VoIP and other carrier services like SMS by launching products that work on the web and in iOS apps, supporting 90,000 registered developer accounts in the process. Today it’s widening that net considerably with the launch of a new Android client, the first SDK from the company to work on Google’s platform. And it hints that Windows Phone may be next in line. Considering that Android is currently the most popular smartph...  show all text

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After winning an Oscar for writing a screenplay about Facebook, Aaron Sorkin is setting his sights on Apple. Variety reports that Sorkin has officially signed on to adapt Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, titled Steve Jobs, for Sony Pictures. Sony optioned the screen rights for Steve Jobs before the book even hit shelves. And almost immediately, the studio began courting Sorkin. Variety quotes Sony’s co-chairman Amy Pascal as saying, “There is no writer working in Hollywood today who is  show all text

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There are a bunch of ways to explain away GM’s decision to stop spending ad dollars on Facebook. We’ll get to those. But there’s one thing that even the most ardent Facebook fan can’t argue with: Facebook advertising is very much a work in progress. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Facebook itself: “We believe that most advertisers are still learning and experimenting with the best ways to leverage Facebook to create more social and valuable ads,” the company says in its IPO filing. If you’...  show all text

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Mr. Sorkin said last year that he was inclined to adapt Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs for Sony. But no deal had been set until now.

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Four and a half years ago, I proudly joined the ranks of America's Finest News Source, a/k/a The Onion. For a comedian, tech geek and politics and news junkie, it was and remains an epic high in my life. Today, with a deep sense of nostalgia, I'm excited to move to the next chapter of that insane life having stepped down as Director of Digital to pursue more entrepreneurial ventures. It’s been an amazing ride. Acting as politics editor, I played a part in The Onion's 2008 "War For The White H...  show all text

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As John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins told Charlie Rose at Disrupt in May, we are now entering the third great wave of technology innovation – the age of social and mobile. Doerr is, of course, right. Barely a day goes without a reminder of this third wave - from Kleiner Perkins $250 million sFund to the increasing ubiquity of smartphones to the seemingly unstoppable rise of social businesses like Facebook, Zynga and Twitter.There are few people who have thought as long and hard about the impact of ...

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Peter Sciretta / /Film: Aaron Sorkin To Adapt ‘Steve Jobs’ for Sony  —  Last year we heard that Sony wanted Academy Award-winning The Social Network/The West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay for a Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography.  Sony had purchased the rights …

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Last year we heard that Sony wanted Academy Award-winning The Social Network/The West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin to write the screenplay for a Steve Jobs biopic based on Walter Isaacson‘s best-selling biography. Sony had purchased the rights in a $1 million deal made just days after the Apple co-founder’s passing on October 5th 2011. Last we heard, Sorkin was “strongly considering” the project. Since then, another movie from an independent producer based on Jobs’ life starring Ashton Kutcher has ...  show all text

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“Social magazine” Flipboard may have to think up a new tagline for itself, as tonight the company is rolling out an update which greatly expands its focus beyond text-based content to also include audio. The rollout features integrations from NPR, PRI (Public Radio International) and social sound platform, SoundCloud. Also of note, Flipboard is launching its third localized edition with the debut of a Flipboard app for Japan, following its previous launches in China and France. And there’s an u...  show all text

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Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly of something brand new from nothing but an idea. More »

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