Tuesday, 28 February 2017

Is this the end of celebrity fragrances?

Fisher says: "I think overall what we're seeing is the polarisation of the fragrance market.

"At one end, consumers look for value for money, they go for promotions and maybe celebrity fragrances. But at the other, consumers are becoming more selective.

"Rather than buying 10 times a year maybe the y buy five times a year. They're spending the same amount of money but going towards a more niche or premium offering."

The fragrance industry was worth 1.25bn in the UK last year, and shows no signs of slowing any time soon.

But if the current sales trends continue, there could well be far fewer famous faces plastered across perfumes in the future.

Expect your next birthday present to be a bottle of Jean Paul Gaultier rather than Justin Bieber.

MWC 2017: Wikipedia goes data-free in Iraq

Access to Wikipedia will not incur mobile data charges to customers of the Asiacell mobile phone provider in Iraq, the organisation has announced.

It is part of the Wikipedia Zero scheme that has operated in 59 countries around the world since 2012.

The Wikimedia Foundation says it wants to "bring the sum of human knowledge" to as many people as possible.

However some argue that projects such as this go against the principles of net neutrality.

"Net neutrality is the principle that all data are treated equally in the network," said Joe McNamee, executive director of the European Digital Rights group.

Monday, 27 February 2017

Face of Orkney's St Magnus reconstructed

A facial reconstruction has been made of Orkney's St Magnus to help mark the 900th anniversary of his death.

Forensic artist Hew Morrison's research included studies of photographs taken in the 1920s of what is said to be the skull of the 12th Century Norse earl.

Before sainthood, Magnus Erlendsson shared the earldom of Orkney with his cousin, Hakon.

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

Facebook investigates fake cancer child post

Facebook says it is investigating a mother's complaints about a post that misused photos showing her child with a severe case of chickenpox.

The message claimed the boy instead had cancer and that the social network would donate money for surgery if users "liked" it or wrote comments.

Several hours after the BBC reported the matter, Facebook removed the post but left its creator's account active.

More than a million people had engaged with the message since 1 February.

Verizon and Yahoo agree $350m price cut

US telecoms giant Verizon has reached a deal with Yahoo to get the company's core internet business for $350m (£281m) less than originally agreed.

Doubts had been cast over the original deal after it emerged that Yahoo had been hit by two huge cyber attacks.

Following a discounted, Verizon said it was now purchasing the Yahoo business for about $4.48bn.

Beneath the new deal Yahoo and Verizon will split the expense of some lawsuits arising from the data breaches.

Verizon wants to combine Yahoo's search, email and messenger assets, along with its advertising technology tools, having its AOL unit. Verizon bought AOL in 2015 for $4.4bn.

Verizon sees mobile video and advertising as new sourced elements of revenue outside an overcrowded US telecoms market.

Yahoo admitted in December 2016 it have been hit by way of a large cyber attack in 2013 which affected higher than a billion customer accounts.

Thursday, 16 February 2017

Elon Musk Slams Donald Trump's Immigration Ban, Later Deletes Tweets

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted and then quickly deleted three tweets that condemned US President Trumps order on immigration, saying they were accidentally published.



"Regarding govt policy, there are often things that happen that many people don't agree with. This is normal for a functioning democracy," Musk wrote in one of the tweets.



A second tweet read: "They rarely warrant a public statement. However, the ban on Muslim immigrants from certain countries rises to this level. It is not right."

Elon Musk Slams Donald Trump's Immigration Ban, Later Deletes Tweets

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted and then quickly deleted three tweets that condemned US President Trumps order on immigration, saying they were accidentally published.



"Regarding govt policy, there are often things that happen that many people don't agree with. This is normal for a functioning democracy," Musk wrote in one of the tweets.



A second tweet read: "They rarely warrant a public statement. However, the ban on Muslim immigrants from certain countries rises to this level. It is not right."