Business & Tech
The latest stories from independent business & tech media.
HMRC tax investigations return £34.70 for every £1 spent
HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) secured an average £34.70 in additional tax for every £1 spent on investigations across its five key taxpayer directorates last year, according to Pinsent Masons. The multinational law firm said the return increased by 13% from £30.80 in the previous
Poundland revenue overstated by £60m ahead of £1 takeover
Poundland overstated its revenues by £60m in the run-up to its £1 sale to Gordon Brothers, newly filed accounts have revealed. A review carried out as part of the discount retailer’s takeover uncovered a series of accounting errors, including sales between its UK business and…
How Louisiana is slowly dragging its legacy IT into the AI era
Hurricanes, floods, and 10,000 SQL databases — it's a lot to manage, especially with an aging workforce.
Benjamin Beck: Is self-employment worth the leap?
When advisers consider self-employment, much of the focus tends to be on choosing the right network, understanding fees and retention rates, selecting a CRM and deciding how to structure their proposition.
China calls off ambitious ice-hunting moonshot a day before flight
Chang'e 7 didn’t meet unspecified ‘launch requirements’
The Morning Briefing: HMRC tax investigations return £34.70 for every £1 spent
Good morning and welcome to your Morning Briefing for Monday 24 August 2026. To get this in your inbox every morning
Batch file automated a clean-up job, then fouled itself by deleting the wrong directory
It survived testing and the boss signed off, so who was really to blame?
Shein targets $27bn valuation as long-awaited Hong Kong IPO launches
Shein is targeting a valuation of up to $27bn (around £19.8bn) as it launches its long-awaited Hong Kong stock market float. Shein is looking to raise as much as HK$13.86bn through the IPO, offering 280m shares priced between HK$47.60 and HK$49.50 each.
Morrisons vows to beat rivals on price across 500 everyday products
Morrisons has launched a new price pledge across more than 500 everyday products. The grocer’s new “unbeatable prices” commitment promises that the products covered will cost the same or less than at Aldi, Asda, Lidl, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.
Ancient ‘Who owns Linux?’ case now has one foot very deep in the grave
Appeals court upholds decision the case is dead, but Xinuos is trying for a long-shot re-hearing
DFS returns to Saturday night TV with The Voice UK partnership
DFS has teamed up with ITV’s The Voice UK for a new marketing campaign, building on its partnership with Britain’s Got Talent earlier this year.
Retail helps drive Britain’s hidden productivity boom
Britain’s retail sector is among the industries driving a surprise rebound in productivity that may have been masked by unreliable official employment data.
Alibaba raises £7.5bn to accelerate AI investment
Alibaba is raising £7.5bn through a major share sale as it doubles down on its AI ambitions. The retail and tech group is issuing 710m new shares in Hong Kong at around £10.54 each, with the deal expected to raise roughly £7.5bn.
How Cursor beat Git's scalability shortcomings
S3 keeps the source of truth while local NVMe repositories do the latency-sensitive work
An ultra-rare piece of Microsoft history could be hiding on your shelf
Red Tetris stickers and shirtless Windows 95 tots - accidental collectibles gathering dust
AI-driven upgrade of communications energy storage empowers a new energy ecosystem for multiple industries
SPONSORED FEATURE: Embedding AI at communication sites to empower energy optimization, power grid stability control and low-carbon development
Egypt's CIB scores preliminary approval for new digital bank
Egypt's Commercial International Bank (CIB) has received preliminary regulatory approval to set up a digitally native offshoot.
UK fintech funding hits lowest level in a decade
UK fintech funding dropped to its lowest level in a decade in the first half of 2026, with firms receiving just £1.8 billion in investment, according to the latest KPMG figures.
If you're not using AI to attack your own systems, your adversaries will
Agents are also the new attack surface - cue defenders' existential angst
Runtime: How Cursor plans to take on GitHub
+ Snowflake's new model routing feature, and Cerebras unveils the fourth generation of its AI chip technology.
AI slop is good for business if you know what you're doing
Your irresponsibility is someone else's opportunity
Skylab completists, clear some shelf space for 26 DVDs
Decades of archive hunting recover downlinks, silent reels, and footage once thought lost
Casio decides it's about time the simple digital watch got a little smarter
F-B100W adds Bluetooth and step tracking while keeping a two-year battery
AWS Security makes an inscrutable choice
Quarantining leaked credentials is not good enough
Musk fumbles the timetable for first Starship catch
Billionaire walks back earnings call optimism as orbital test approaches
Cloverleaf deal is latest example of Nvidia using its war chest to patch cracks in the AI bubble
Nv's new chips need new datacenters, but you can't have bit barns without power
AI companies are burning books, advocates complain to FTC
Fahrenheit 203, the temperature GPUs stop gorging on literature
Superdry & Co co-founder: “The easiest way to communicate to consumers that you’ve changed is stores”
As Superdry & Co doubles down on physical retail, outlets and a growing stable of heritage brands, founder Julian Dunkerton explains why the business has found a clear new place in fashion retail. Superdry & Co is not simply a rebrand, according to Dunkerton.
