Business & Tech
The latest stories from independent business & tech media.
The Golden Guide 2026: The peak we planned for no longer exists
Retail likes a calendar because it makes demand look manageable, according to The Golden Guide 2026. Christmas sits in one box, Black Friday has another and back-to-school gets its few weeks. Fashion waits on the weather and gifting retailers know the obvious dates.
Build-A-Bear to open store inside Hard Rock Cafe in London first
Build-A-Bear Workshop is set to open a new store experience inside Hard Rock Cafe in London’s Piccadilly Circus, marking the restaurant chain’s first retail partnership of its kind.
IBM CEO says open weight models are now irresistibly good and cheap on-prem
90 percent of the performance at ten percent of the price, in just two or three racks, is hard to beat
Meta warns “compute intensity” is hampering its AI rollout
An annual $140 billion in CapEx only gets you so far...
Roger Edwards: Time to ditch the protection clichés
Every industry has its marketing clichés. I have spent over 30 years in financial services, mainly on the protection side. After three decades of conferences, product brochures (some of which I wrote) and strategy workshops, I can spot the old clichés we trot out year
IT department and auditors at major pharmacy chain got into a rip-roaring fight about using 'password' on Cisco firewall
Misaligned incentives led to an intractable argument
UK government hasn't the foggiest how much it's spending on digital transformation
Years of promises, but officials unable to put a figure on investment
PHP blames supply chain security biz Chainguard for putting huge chunks of the web at risk
'Coordinated vulnerability disclosure, unless there's evidence of active exploits in the wild,' Chainguard CEO tells The Reg
Vendors asking forward deployed engineers to make good on trillion-dollar AI bet
They might earn more than $200k but who do they work for? Tech buyers need to put some checks in place on FDEs
Two-thirds of UK workers have lost track of workplace pensions
Two-thirds (66%) of UK workers have lost track of at least one workplace pension, despite potentially having thousands of pounds in forgotten retirement savings, according to research from Aegon.
Why the immediate future of liquid cooling is hybrid
PARTNER CONTENT: AI is driving liquid cooling adoption, but hybrid architectures will help operators balance density, flexibility, and operational realities
AI monitoring should be a standard part of investor due diligence
By Nik Kairinos, CEO and Co-Founder of RAIDS (Rogue AI Detection System) and Brett Stonefield, Executive Director and Co-Founder Investors are pouring money into AI at a historic pace. Few of them can say what their portfolio companies’ models are actually doing.
Mark Buck: Why attrition figures and explanations don’t always match
Ask advisers why clients leave and most will tell you it comes down to service. In Vanguard’s 2025 survey of UK advisers, two thirds ranked personality or service among the likeliest reasons a client walks away, and a quarter named an adviser neglecting the relationship.
eBay to axe 1,000 jobs as it restructures operations
The latest round of redundancies follows eBay’s decision to axe approximately 800 roles, or six per cent of its workforce, in February as part of…
Certification authority eMudhra defends its laughably weak private keys
Says it passed audits and made just a minor mystery error
First Pokémon store outside Asia expected to open in London in 2029
The Pokémon Company International will be opening a permanent Pokémon store in London. The store, which will open in 2029, is the first permanent physical location outside of Asia.
Philippine government suspends top tech official for alleged misconduct
Founder of offshore software development firm investigated for possibly giving his former outfit government contracts
Waitrose opens first new supermarket in eight years in £1bn expansion
Waitrose has opened its first new supermarket in eight years in Cricklewood, north London, as part of its current £1bn investment programme. The 18,000 sq ft store, which opens today, marks a significant milestone in Waitrose’s plans to expand its physical estate, with a second…
Met Police arrests 42 in major crackdown on stolen retail goods
The Metropolitan Police has arrested 42 people and issued closure notices to 11 shops following a major crackdown on businesses suspected of buying and reselling stolen retail goods across London.
To help world gorge on GPUs, Nvidia brings cash bucket to fatten wafer-thin supply chain
Signs Samsung to build substrates, bolsters spend with other players
OpenClaw creator says he spent $10 million in tokens last month
LSEG to acquire data provider Octus for $3.5bn
The London Stock Exchange (LSEG) has agreed to acquire credit data provider Octus in a cash deal worth $3.535bn.
Reach new heights of laziness by burning tokens to let an AI tap your smartphone screen for you
Nothing will ruin your faith in humanity like an AI that operates your smartphone slowly, struggles with basic tasks, and can charge you for it
Queues form on Regent Street as H&M drops Elie Saab collection
H&M’s latest collaboration with Elie Saab launches today [22 October 2026] at 9am, with fashion fans already waiting in line outside the retailer’s Regent Street store. In September, H&M announced its newest designer collaborator would be Lebanon-founded fashion house Elie Saab.
Sainsbury’s raises profit outlook as grocery sales climb despite £164m loss
Sainsbury’s has raised its full-year profit guidance after reporting a 3.6 per cent rise in underlying operating profit to £525m, as grocery sales growth and market share gains boosted its first-half performance.
Online retailers could be forced to take websites offline amid global cyber security threat
Online retailers could be forced to take their websites offline after critical security flaws were discovered in a programming language used by online shops, prompting urgent warnings from cyber security agencies worldwide.
French supermarket attacks were product of ‘basic security flaws’
Hundreds of French supermarkets suffered significant financial losses after hackers exploited ‘basic cybersecurity weaknesses’ to take control of refrigeration systems, causing widespread food spoilage and equipment damage.
Fintechs top banks and stablecoins for cheap cross-border payment - BIS research
Cross-border payments remain slow and expensive but fintech outfits such as Wise and Remitly have substantially cut costs relative to traditional retail bank wires while stabelcoins still suffer from issues with friction, according to BIS research.
