Happy Valentine’s, Google — see you in court
A British man has found some sympathy in the courts because Google did not delete false comments about him made on Blogger fast enough. Does his case open a backdoor to internet regulation? Read more »
Twitter’s challenge for 2013: Resisting state demands for censorship
photo: Flickr user Hoggarazzi
As Twitter becomes an increasingly global media entity — and one that controls its own platform — it is running into demands from governments in countries like France and Germany to censor or block access to certain kinds of speech. How will it respond? Read more at paidContent »
How London’s Silicon Roundabout really got started
Four years ago developer Matt Biddulph jokingly coined ‘Silicon Roundabout’ as a description of East London’s small but growing startup scene — now it’s become the de facto term for the area around Old Street. Here he recounts how a moment of mirth turned into a meme. Read more »
Stop crowing, London: it’s time to step it up
The British government’s constant adulation of the London startup scene reached its culmination this week with the news of a huge new redevelopment project. But the reality is that many of Britain’s smartest innovators are locked inside government and the rest look increasingly like poseurs. Read more »
Why European startups should be furious about Autonomy
photo: Shutterstock / drser
Meg Whitman’s claims that Autonomy executives deliberately misled HP over its $11 billion acquisition are under investigation by the authorities. But whatever the truth, the damage is already done, as the affair further erodes the fragile relationship between Silicon Valley and Europe’s brightest technology companies. Read more »
Hardware is hard — but accelerators can make it easier
photo: The Arduino project
SpringboardIoT, a new accelerator program focused on startups working on hardware and the Internet of Things, has launched in the UK. The scheme’s founder joins forces with an experienced insider to explain why it’s a necessary and useful development. Read more »
Meet the man who’s beating Airbnb in Europe
European vacation rentals site HouseTrip has everything going for it right now: not least fast growth and a fresh new round of funding. Co-founder Arnaud Bertrand lays out why he thinks his site can carry on winning — and reveals the scale of his ambition. Read more »
UK offers a shortcut to 4G, but angry Vodafone protests
A shortcut offered to Britain’s biggest mobile operator could allow some UK users to get their hands on 4G services well ahead of next year’s expected rollout. But the decision has drawn a splenetic reaction from rivals who say the deal could massively distort competition. Read more »
The Economist lays it out: Europe’s entrepreneurial crisis goes back decades
photo: Shutterstock/Vinicius Tupinamba
European startups love to analyze their failures and look for reasons the continent finds it hard to build huge new businesses. Now a great, comprehensive piece in The Economist manages to show how the problems are deep, dangerous — and go back at least 50 years. Read more »
Court quashes Twitter joke trial verdict: Britain has a sense of humor after all
photo: Aaron Amot
It started with an innocuous tweet and turned into a legal saga that critics said threatened free speech online. But, after two years and three appeals, the UK’s High Court has overturned the conviction of a man who joked about blowing up his local airport. Read more »
London’s tech scene has been craving its golden moment: Now it’s had three
photo: Shutterstock/David Fowler
As Britain prepares to host the Olympics, London’s startup entrepreneurs are the focus of a string of major announcements that all promise to transform the city from a fading Victorian giant into a gleaming technopolis. It’s a revolution that can’t come soon enough. Read more »
Why being late to 4G could help – not hinder – the UK
Britain’s 4G rollout is woefully delayed, and the announcement that a spectrum auction won’t take place until next year is hardly speeding things up. But is there a chance that this unconnected cloud could have a silver lining? Read more »
Criminalizing links: Why the Richard O’Dwyer case matters
photo: Flickr user Mark Strozier
The U.S. government continues to try and extradite British college student Richard O’Dwyer for simply linking to copyright-infringing files, on a site located in the UK. If they are successful, it could change the way we think about some of the fundamental underpinnings of the web. Read more »
What next for London’s Tech City as boss departs?
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 »
If Uber wants London, it faces the fight of its life
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 »
UK says three strikes is coming, but not until 2014
photo: Andrey Burmakin / Shutterstock
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 »
Netflix shut out again as Lovefilm signs with Fox
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 »
Crazy: Orange censors all blogs, not just GigaOM
After weeks of trying to find out why Orange mobile censored GigaOM for millions of mobile users in Britain, we finally have an answer: it’s because the company’s crude child protection blocks anything that looks like a blog by default. Read more »
Orange explains why it overblocked GigaOM… sort of
British mobile operators have come in for criticism recently for ‘overblocking’ — incorrectly identifying sites as adult content and censoring them from ordinary web users. After GigaOM fell foul of one network’s filters, we asked for answers. And now they’re trickling in. Read more »
Voda-O2 pact may help UK get 4G faster than expected
Vodafone and O2 are joining forces in Britain to share their grid and try to roll out 4G services faster than planned. It’s being painted as a great deal for consumers — but it’s actually being driven by the actions of their rivals. Read more »
Songkick’s Tourbox is a one-stop shop for live bands
Gig listings startup Songkick has started its expansion into broader music services, with a new feature called Tourbox that lets bands manage and promote their live dates across the web, through integrations with the likes of YouTube, Spotify, SoundCloud and Bandcamp. Read more »
What you need to know about the EU Cookie Law
Whether they’re outraged, scrabbling in terror, or simply hoping it goes away, it’s the privacy rule that European startups can’t ignore. But what exactly is the European cookie directive? As the rules come into force in the U.K., we take a look at the details. Read more »
Why Plastic Logic failed — despite the e-book boom
Ten years ago, Plastic Logic looked like it had all the elements in place to become a world-beating startup. Now it’s ditched its attempts to become a household name and decided to focus on licensing its technology instead. So where did it all go wrong? Read more »
So who got hosed when Facebook bought Lightbox?
The team behind London-based photo app developer Lightbox are joining Facebook. But it’s a long way from Instagram’s billion-dollar deal: in fact, while the company’s employees are rejoicing, users and investors appear to have been left out in the cold. Read more »
iZettle, Europe’s rival to Square, hits the UK
Swedish payments startup iZettle, which hopes to become the European equivalent of Square, is launching its first pilot in Britain. The move is the company’s largest rollout — and its biggest test — so far. Read more »
Britain looks at ISP block for adult content — again
Britain looks set to re-open the question of how adult internet content is regulated, as embattled Prime Minister David Cameron scrambles for ways to shore up support from the conservative heartland. Read more »
Social net sifter DataSift adds $7.2M to its war chest
Businesses are hungry to understand more about the public perception of their products and services by tapping social networking sources. That demand is why DataSift, which sorts through tons of social network data, garnered $7.2 million in additional funding from existing backers. Read more »
7 questions for London Tech City CEO Eric van der Kleij
The British government is trying to boost London startups with its so-called “Tech City” initiative — but some worry that it could destroy the very thing it hopes to promote. We sat down with the man in charge to find out what he thinks. Read more »
What the web’s saying about UK internet snooping laws
photo: Flickr / Thomas Leuthard
Plans by the British government to give intelligence agencies access to details of every phone call, email, text and website visit made in the country have drawn plenty of anger from across the spectrum. Here’s what people are saying about the controversy. Read more »
Is Rdio going to announce its U.K. launch next week?
Just days after launching a revamped website, music subscription service Rdio is set to announce that it is launching in the lucrative British market — a move that will continue its rivalry with Spotify and others. Read more »
Songkick’s $10m Sequoia deal opens Atlantic floodgates
London concert site Songkick has just become Sequoia Capital’s first British investment, with a $10 million funding round that underscores the level of interest that venture capital’s most prestigious firms now have in Europe’s burgeoning startup scene. Read more »
A plea to startups: kill your nonsensical stats
In the never-ending quest to provide easy sound bites and press-friendly stats, startups often flirt with numbers that just don’t make sense. Case in point: London-based kids’ website Moshi Monsters, which has a very strange piece of numerical wizardry. Read more »
Yup, Britain is a freelance nation too
A survey conducted by British online labor platform Freelancer.co.uk confirms earlier findings from competitor site PeoplePerHour that showed UK businesses are hiring more independent workers, indicating that the much discussed rise of the “gig economy” is a transatlantic phenomenon. Read more »
Roku adds BBC iPlayer to bolster UK launch
Roku has filled a vital gap in its lineup by announcing the addition of a channel for the BBC’s popular iPlayer service, just as it starts shipping its media streaming boxes to Britain for the first time. Read more »
Britain unleashes gov.uk, its Google for government
A new portal that lets British citizens access government services online has just launched in beta. It’s fast, easy, accessible — and should save the tax payer bundles of cash. Is this a model for the future of connected government? Read more »
Who is Apple’s new retail boss, and what will he do?
Tim Cook has made his first major appointment at Apple — by handing over control of the company’s retail stores to a British businessman who has built his reputation largely through pile-em-high tactics and aggressive expansion. Read more »
How the Daily Mail became the web’s biggest newspaper
Britain’s Daily Mail has eclipsed rivals including the New York Times to become the web’s biggest newspaper. But other media companies hoping to emulate its success will have their work cut out — unless they’re prepared to play fast and loose with the normal rules of journalism. Read more »
Netflix is about to discover that Britain bites back
Netflix wants to recover from a disastrous few months by launching in the U.K. and Ireland — but the company will have to overcome many obstacles to achieve success, not least competition from broadcasters who have very different priorities from their American counterparts. Read more »
Fizzback scores $80M payday, but did it sell too soon?
British startup Fizzback, which has won much praise for its popular customer service software, has been bought by a larger Israeli rival for $80 million. But investors seem to think the business had more in the tank. So was the founder right to sell? Read more »
Yes Virginia, Big Brother is following you on Twitter
As Britain ponders a crackdown on social media and uses facial recognition to try and identify looters, it reinforces the fact that spending more of our time on public networks such as Twitter and Facebook gives police and governments even more ability to observe our behavior. Read more »
