Moshi Monsters creator Mind Candy has announced the purchase of UK games studio Origami Blue to help lead its experimental labs project – but the company’s first acquisition is unlikely to be its last, with a new head of M&A joining. Read more »
Kasabi, a platform that hosted and published linked data, is closing down after owners Talis Systems said the market was growing too slowly to be sustainable — saying that ‘it’s time to admit that Kasabi is not getting the traction we thought it would’ Read more »
A new startup is hoping to breathe new life into the MeeGo project let loose by Nokia — just one of a rising number of companies breaking out as the Finnish mobile giant stumbles. That’s what happens when you let 40,000 people go inside two years. Read more »
Zsa Zsa Gabor may not have been able to remember anyone’s names, but a great monicker can make a big difference to a startup. But how you do make sure you pick the right one? And how do you stop yourself wasting time choosing? Read more »
Like PayPal before it, Skype has become a breeding ground for a generation of investors and entrepreneurs in Europe – and elsewhere – who are now starting to exert their influence on the web. Read more »
A sudden realization hit me last week. Every seven days I’d been writing a quick guide to the most interesting startup, digital media and technology events around Europe — but I wasn’t giving people enough time to actually organize going to the events! So I’ve decided […] Read more »
After a long gestation period, crowd investment platform Seedrs has finally opened its doors — allowing British startups to use its platform to pitch for early stage funding. And so far things appear to be going well. Read more »
Spanish mobile operator Telefónica might be the world’s sixth largest network — but it says that the future could be more about other services, with a strategy to expand its footprint in areas like cloud computing, operating systems and machine-to-machine networks. Read more »
New mobile data service Samba has launched in the U.K. with a novel idea — agree to watch a few ads, and it will give you free data. But while the company hopes it’s on track for glory, the path it’s taking is littered with bodies. Read more »
Former France Telecom chief executive Didier Lombard has been indicted by a court in Paris and bailed over allegations that he led a corporate culture of bullying and harassment that resulted in the suicide of at least 30 employees. Read more »
It’s being called the most significant scientific discovery of our time — the existence of the ‘god particle’ a sub-atomic particle that underpins everything in the universe but has eluded detection until now. So what did the web have to say about the Higgs boson? Read more »
The European Parliament has delivered a stunning defeat to the controversial anti-piracy treaty ACTA, voting it down by 478 votes to 39. But although campaigners are claiming victory and the proposals are on the canvas, they’re not quite knocked out yet. Read more »
French media is reporting that Microsoft’s Paris-based subsidiary is being investigated by the country’s tax authorities over its system for avoiding corporate taxes. It marks the latest low point for the business, which wrote down its $6.2bn purchase of aQuantive earlier this week. Read more »
Reports that Eric Schmidt has offered to settle an antitrust investigation by the European Commission are everywhere. But the reality is that the details of Google’s proposals — and the regulator’s response — remain shrouded in mystery. Read more »
The British government is considering once again whether to apply mandatory filters to block all adult content on the internet. But what’s the point of campaigning for a technological solution when the technology itself doesn’t work properly? Read more »
Apple has ended a long-running trademark dispute in China by agreeing to pay $60 million to use the iPad brand name in the country. But will its settlement open the door to a sequence of ransom demands from trademark squatters? Read more »
Swedish startup 13th Lab has just raised $700,000 from Nordic investors Creandum to help build its augmented reality browser and developer tools for iOS. But forget about tacky versions of AR: this team is trying to build a real interface between the digital and the physical. Read more »
London currency exchange startup Transferwise has teamed up with a neighbor, The Currency Cloud, to let people transfer money between a range of European currencies. But is the next stop for the disruptive finance company going to be the US dollar? Read more »
RollUp, the niche publishing platform started by former DoubleClick, Brightcove and Demand Media executives, has signed a deal with US wellness network Everyday Health to take over the launch of new sites in Britain and Australia. Read more at paidContent »
British Facebook users will be able to watch the Olympics without ever leaving the social network, after the BBC launched an app that streams up to 24 live video streams straight to viewers. It’s already running a trial with Wimbledon. Read more at paidContent »
Since taking the job heading up the UK government’s project to champion East London as a global technology hub, Eric van der Kleij has taken plenty of brickbats. Now he’s stepping down, who will be there to take on the challenge? Read more »
Microsoft’s lost its attempt to get an €899m European antitrust fine overturned — an apparent victory for local regulators. But the reality is that while this fine might be vast by European standards, it’s barely a scratch on the surface for Redmond. Read more »
Paris is following London by starting to provide free wireless access to subway travelers, thanks to a new initiative from WiFi service company GOWEX. With similar moves in New York as well, is this boost in transport connectivity a trend? Read more »
Private car hire service Uber is preparing to hit the British capital just in time for the Olympics, and the reality is that London, with its iconic black cab service, has the potential to make — or break — Silicon Valley’s latest transportation darling. Read more »
Under new proposals from the British media regulator Ofcom, internet providers will start sending warning letters to those accused of illegal filesharing in 18 months — and will be forced to handed people’s data over to copyright holders after three successive hits. Read more »
The Russian internet market has seen a lot of activity over the past year, but now there’s some data that proves exactly how much more is happening. And what do the stats say? That dealflow was up more than threefold between 2010 and 2011. Read more »
Bad news for Netflix’s international aspirations, as Amazon-owned rival Lovefilm announced a U.K. rights deal to show 20th Century Fox movies on its streaming service. But with antitrust authorities hovering over the movies-on-demand market, things are still up for grabs. Read more at paidContent »
Peter Thiel may be advising entrepreneurial kids to drop out of university to focus on building their ideas – but not everyone thinks the same way. Wunderkind app maker Nick D’Aloisio told me he still wanted to go to college, and explained why. Read more »
A vast array of events taking place across Europe this week make it hard to whittle down the list to just three that should be on your radar. Read more »
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is spearheading a fresh attempt to block the extradition of British student Richard O’Dwyer to the United States over copyright infringement charges brought against him for running the video search site TVShack. Read more »
One hundred years after he was born, the pioneering work of brilliant British polymath Alan Turing is as important as ever — so important, in fact, that his thinking about how computers work is still visible in every single line of code that gets written. Read more »
What do you get when you take Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Chad Hurley, Niklas Zennstrom and a number of other internet notables and get them together for a kids’ coding club? A surprisingly funny video, it turns out. Read more »
Declining sales in Spain and France suggest that Europe’s relationship with mobile has reached the ‘it’s complicated’ stage. But what are the reasons for the precipitous falls being witnessed by mobile companies across the continent? And is it actually a bad thing? Read more »
Payment startups hoping to conquer Europe will be watching their backs a little more closely today, with the news that the Samwer brothers have just pulled together “double digit funding” for their Square clone. PayLeven (previously known as Zenpay) is a straight-up copy of Square: a […] Read more »
OpenFlow may be a hot topic in cloud computing right now, but not everyone believes it is mature enough to be used in real-world networking situations. Read more »
Hotly-tipped Russian shopping club KupiVIP has cemented its position as one of the country’s rising stars, raising another $38 million in funding to help grow its business. But ambitious founder Oskar Hartmann says he’s not looking to go international. Read more »
International companies are still wary of cloud adoption because of concerns over data security and legal exposure, including very specific worries from European businesses about American government interference in the wake of the Patriot Act. Read more »
After the CEO of social gifting company Wrapp said he wanted to take on Germany’s notorious Samwer brothers, the business is finally delivering by launching in Germany and taking on the copycat kings on their home territory. Read more »
