News

Today brings news that banks are lending less to business customers yet again. What a surprise.

The actual surprise is how everyone finds this so shocking. If we're going to have a stable recovery then it can't be one built on the sand foundations of credit as it was before. Businesses need to be operating with positive cash flow and without mounting debt just to finance their day to day operations.

Yes, credit is important to finance certain projects, absolutely. But ...

Well, it's likely that folk who don't even own a computer know all about the 4th generation iPhone by now, courtesy of Gizmodo. The more I look at the pictures and videos the more I can appreciate the subtle design cues in this device, which is a marked departure from the current design ethos seen in the iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPod Touch, iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook. You get the idea; the removal of 'complex' curves from this prototype makes it stick out like a sore thumb in Apple's currently ...

It was quite nice to read this morning that somebody has successfully taken their mobile operator to court and, as a result, had their contract terminated and been paid some form of compensatory amount due to lack of usable mobile network coverage.

Unfortunately, this is also a perfect reflection of the arrogance of our mobile operators in the UK, who believe they can act with impunity. To think that Orange UK had the audacity to hold a customer to a lengthy contract when they were ...

Recent news that a fire at LG Chem could see a big hole in battery supply for laptops over the next few months had me scratching my head a little.

How can the market be so reliant on one player? Is battery production really that sophisticated?

The whole issue of mobile power sources has left me disgruntled for years. Despite being constantly reminded just how energy efficient our laptops are, with their LED screens and Core 2 Duo processors, we can still only expect ...

A while back now I watched a free movie called Zeitgeist that talked about some of the US's historical financial cockups. One of the examples of suggested corruption was how JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve had a lot to do with one another, and how by controlling the economy people like JP Morgan could push other banks to the brink and then buy them for peanuts.

I was somewhat alarmed, then, when Bear Stearns got into trouble last week and a finance deal was arranged between JP Morgan ...