By John Walker on March 9, 2010
Barclays has become the first bank in Europe to launch commercial contactless debit cards to its business customers. From March, all Barclays Business customers receiving new or re-issued cards will find that they come with contactless technology as standard. This enables them to pay for low value transactions by holding the card over a reader, [...]
Posted in Debit and Credit Card Merchant Services, Financial Services, Ideas and Innovation, Product Launches, Sales, Technology |
By John Walker on January 4, 2010
Housing Minister John Healey has hailed the start of the biggest council house building programme in nearly two decades as work began today on the first of over two thousand new homes to help tackle waiting list pressures.
Mr Healey saw work get underway today in Tyneside on the first new site for Government funded council [...]
Posted in Architectural and Other Building Services, Building Construction, Building Materials Manufacturing, Building Materials and Hardware Wholesale, Building Trades, Critical Infrastructure, Public Spending and State Aid, Real Estate Services, Social Care Services, Timber and Timber Products Wholesale, Transport and Distribution, Tyne & Wear | Tagged Hebburn, John Healey - UK Housing Minister, South Shields |
By John Walker on December 9, 2009
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, introduced a temporary lower rate of VAT in last year’s pre budget report.
There was some speculation that he might have extended this reduction beyond the original term. However, in today’s pre-budget report statement to the House of Commons, he said:
I can confirm that VAT will return to [...]
Posted in Procurement, Professional and Business Services, Sales, Taxation, UK, UK Budget | Tagged Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer |
By John Walker on December 6, 2009
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has announced that the MIT Red Balloon Challenge Team won the $40,000 cash prize in the DARPA Network Challenge, a competition that required participants to locate 10 large, red balloons that had been placed at undisclosed locations across the United States. The MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) team [...]
Posted in Advertising and Marketing Services, Awards and Accreditations, Fashion, Trends and Memes, Human Resources, Ideas and Innovation, Marketing, Marketing Facilities, Multi-Level Marketing, North America, Sales, Technology | Tagged ARPANet, DARPA, MLM, Multi-Level Marketing, Network Marketing |
By John Walker on December 4, 2009
An international consortium’s breaking of a binding contract has led Corus, Europe’s second largest steel producer, to partially implement the proposal announced in May 2009 of mothballing some of the facilities belonging to the Teesside Cast Products (TCP) business in northeast England.
TCP’s Redcar Blast Furnace, Lackenby steelmaking and the South Bank Coke Ovens will be [...]
Posted in Cleveland (& Redcar), Down sizing / Retraction, Employment Levels, Manufacturing, Metal and Metal Products Manufacturing, Skills and Training, Vehicle Manufacturing | Tagged Corus, Hartlepool, Lackenby steelmaking, Redcar Coke Ovens, Redcar Wharf, Skinningrove, South Bank Coke Ovens, Tata Steel, TCP’s Redcar Blast Furnace, Teesside, Teesside Beam Mill, Teesside Cast Products, Teesside Technology Centre |
By John Walker on December 3, 2009
Processors could become smart enough to let PCs use “vision” to interact with people.
Researchers from Intel Labs demonstrated an experimental, 48-core Intel processor, or “single-chip cloud computer,” that rethinks many of the approaches used in today’s designs for laptops, PCs and servers. This futuristic chip boasts about 10 to 20 times the processing engines inside [...]
Posted in Business Software, Financial Services, IT and Telecommunications Services, Ideas and Innovation, Information Technology, Manufacturing, Product Research and Development, Technology, Worldwide | Tagged Cloud Computing, concept chip |
By John Walker on November 20, 2009
Responding to the implications of the recent flooding across areas of the UK, Barclays Local Business has today announced that it will be offering a financial support package to all of its affected business banking customers.*
The package will allow businesses time to recover from the immediate impact of the flooding, or to bridge the gap [...]
Posted in Accommodation, Business Banking, Business Continuity Planning, Critical Infrastructure, Cumbria, Lending and Borrowing, UK | Tagged Barclays, Floods November 2009 |
By John Walker on November 5, 2009
Google Wave Protocol was demo’d at the 2009 Google IO Conference in May this year.
You can see the long developer’s demo video. But, below is a shorter introduction to this new radical concept that may, one day, become a replacement to ‘traditional’ email.
There is one key aspect of Wave that the video (above) does not [...]
Posted in Business Culture, Business Software, Computer Services, Customer Support, Fashion, Trends and Memes, Ideas and Innovation, Information Technology, Internet Services, Market Research, Product Launches, Skills and Training, Technology, Telecommunications, Telecommunications Services, Television and Radio Broadcasting, Worldwide | Tagged Google IO, Google Wave, Wave Protocol |
By John Walker on October 29, 2009
Ministers gave further backing for British manufacturing excellence today with Business Minister Pat McFadden announcing an increase of Government funding to £40 million for a new manufacturing technology centre (MTC).
Since the Manufacturing Strategy was published in 2008, Government has set out a new activist approach to supporting the economy. The transition to low carbon and [...]
Posted in Employment Levels, IT and Telecommunications Services, Ideas and Innovation, Leicestershire, Manufacturing, Nottinghamshire, Product Research and Development, Skills and Training, Technology, West Midlands |
By John Walker on October 23, 2009
The Communication Workers Union today (Friday) again reiterates the offer of unconditional talks at ACAS to bring the postal dispute to an end. Royal Mail has so far not taken up this offer but it will remain open.
Dave Ward, CWU deputy general secretary, said:
We have six days before any further strike action would take place. [...]
Posted in Critical Infrastructure, Organized Labour / Unions, Transport and Distribution, UK | Tagged strikes |
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