Amazon has signed the lease on prime central London offices to accommodate 1,600 staff as it expands further into sectors such as book publishing and television production.
The web retail giant’s British headquarters will remain in Slough but it will fill 12 floors covering 210,000 sq ft at 60 Holborn Viaduct, a new development opposite Smithfield Market. Amazon said several hundred existing employees would move to the new site by the end of the year.
The curved glass and steel building has replaced Bath House, a 1960s concrete block that housed a BT telephone exchange. Construction was put on hold when the financial struck hit in 2008 but was resumed in 2010 and is due to be completed this summer.
“This new office location will provide the space we require for hundreds of our existing employees as well as many more that we will hire in the future,” said Amazon UK managing director Christopher North.
It is Amazon’s second major property investment in the capital in less than a year and comes as the company faces criticism over its avoidance of British taxes. Its most recent accounts showed it received more in government grants than it paid in corporation tax in 2012.
“Amazon has over 6,000 permanent employees in the UK and we will continue to create thousands of jobs in the coming years across the UK,” said Mr North.
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/constructionandproperty/10089867/Amazon-signs-lease-on-210000-sq-ft-central-London-offices.html
Microsoft has confirmed a Start button is returning to the desktop mode's taskbar of its Windows 8 operating system.
The lack of the facility - which had been in every previous version since Windows 95 - has been one of the most controversial aspects of the software.
However, it will not offer all the functionality previously associated with the feature.
Instead it will bring users to the recently-introduced "Metro" interface.
"We've improved the way you navigate to Start with the mouse by changing the Start 'tip' to be the familiar Windows logo," the company said in a blog post.
"The new tip appears anytime you move the mouse to the bottom left corner of the screen, and is always visible on the taskbar when on the desktop."
On current versions of Windows 8, the start tip would only appear when users hovered their cursor over the lower-left corner of their screen.
In the 8.1 update, the area will be more visible.
A left-click on the tip will bring up a tile-based Start Screen - formerly known as the Metro interface - designed for touch-screen users.
A right-click will display a small menu of other options such as Event Viewer, Device Manager and Disk Management.
Another change will allow users to boot their computers directly into desktop mode, meaning they can avoid ever using the Start Screen if they wish.
Many users had complained that ditching the traditional Start Menu and introducing the Start Screen had made the system less straight-forward to use, meaning businesses which adopted it would need to retrain staff.
Read more :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22714048
An original Apple 1 computer from 1976 - one of only six still in working order - has sold at auction in Germany for more than 500,000 euros ($650,000).
The Apple 1 was one of the first 50 built by Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Jobs' parents' garage.
The computer - consisting only of a motherboard, signed by Mr Wozniak - went to an anonymous buyer from Asia.
Last year, an Apple 1 sold for 490,000 euros (£418,000; $633,000).
Only about 200 Apple 1s were ever made. About 46 remain in existence, but only six of those are still in working order.
Bob Luther, author of The First Apple, called the Apple 1 the "holy grail of collectable technology".
The one sold at auction in the German city of Cologne on Saturday was purchased together with an original monitor, tape-player, keyboard. The documentation was signed by Steve Jobs.
Read it from the source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22667353
The European launch of the "Facebook phone" has been delayed following disappointing US sales and negative feedback.
The HTC handset runs Facebook's enhanced Home software, designed to be more integrated into the smartphone than a normal app.
UK mobile operator EE confirmed that "following customer feedback" the Europe launch had been stalled.
It follows a raft of high-profile employee departures from HTC.
In recent months, chief product officer Kouji Koudera, Asian chief executive Lennard Hoornik and the firm's director of global communications Jason Gordon have all departed.
Five other senior figures have also left the company.
Signs of discontent were played out in public when Eric Lin, an ex-HTC product strategy manager, tweeted: "To all my friends still at @HTC - just quit. Leave now.
"It's tough to do, but you'll be so much happier, I swear."
Mr Lin had left HTC in February to join Microsoft-owned Skype.
Despite being one of the industry's top players several years ago, the smartphone maker's market share has fallen sharply and its income fell to the lowest level in eight years towards the end of 2012.
Read it from the source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22654037
Mobile World Congress (MWC) has been and gone, giving the mobile community a chance to come together and show off their latest products in Barcelona, while no doubt enjoying the odd tapas or two.
We here at V3 were at the show to see what was announced, grabbing hands-on with numerous devices that were unveiled and hearing what those on stage had to say about their company's plans and their future-gazing for the mobile market.
Now, having returning home and enjoyed some hearty British food again, the V3 team sat down to discuss the key announcements and insights from the show that we think will have an impact on the market in the months ahead.
10. Nokia is seeking salvation in the mid-market
MWC Nokia Lumia 720 home screenNokia used to rule the roost in the smartphone world but these days it has to watch as its rivals running Android, like Samsung, and Apple with its iPhone, dominate the market. However, the firm has a plan to fight back.
With one billion people still to come online with smartphone the firm has moved to flood this market with cheap, but high-quality devices, such as the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720, both unveiled at MWC this year.
While they may be budget smartphones, costing around £150, there's nothing budget about their capabilities, and we were left impressed by their speed and features when we had a play on the show floor.
Certainly, with Apple refusing to go anywhere near the mid and low tier markets, and Samsung preferring to concentrate at the high end, this strategy could work for Nokia.
Source :
www.v3.co.uk
Burger King's Twitter account appeared to have fallen victim to hackers on Monday as it began sending out pro-McDonald's messages and the occasional rap video.
The company's Twitter feed was decked out with McDonald's promotions, implanting golden arches into the @BurgerKing account's masthead and setting the background graphic to a photo of the rival chain's popular Chicken McNuggets.
The hackers also changed the company's address to "in a hood near you."
Phony tweets included a link to one photo of unsanitary working conditions in an unidentifiable kitchen, and another of man injecting himself with a syringe. Other tweets promoted rap artists and provided links to their respective music videos on YouTube.
Twitter users responded gleefully, with one onlooker writing: "Somebody needs to tell Burgerking that 'whopper123' isn't a secure password."
News Source : http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9878724/Burger-Kings-Twitter-account-hacked.html
Facebook has added a feature in its mobile phone app that allows free calling for US iPhone users.
Users can now make calls to each other via the Facebook Messenger app anywhere they have a wi-fi or a cellular-data connection.
The feature could be a boon for heavy talkers as they would avoid carrier call charges.
Facebook said it was working on adding the feature to its Messenger app for Android and BlackBerry users.
Within the app, all a person needs to do is open a conversation with a partner, tap the "i" icon in the upper right hand corner and select "Free Call".
The calls, however, can only be made to another user who has Messenger installed on their iPhone. Users can neither call a Facebook friend who is logged in through the website or call a landline.
The latest mobile-to-mobile development was independent of the free video-calling software Skype, which was already integrated into Facebook's website, a spokesman said. The Messenger app is limited to voice calling.
The official said Facebook was expected to roll out the feature in its Messenger app for other operating systems and expand it overseas.
On Tuesday, Facebook unveiled a smart search engine - called Graph Search - that allows users to make "natural" searches of content shared by their friends.
17 January 2013 Last updated at 11:41
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21059611
