Business & Tech
The latest stories from independent business & tech media.
Weekend Essay: I suppose I’ll take thee, but only for IHT
IHT has rarely been out of the news since then chancellor Rachel Reeves used her Budget speech to announce one of the biggest reforms in a generation back in 2024. The change, to bring unused DC pension pots into the scope of inheritance tax from
BepiColombo sheds its ride and starts the final glide to Mercury
Eight years after launch, Mercury probe and its Mercury Transfer Module consciously uncouple as orbit approaches
ASCII smuggling isn't just an AI security risk
Phishers find a new use for invisible Unicode tag characters
Microsoft to bounce mail from outdated Exchange servers
2016 and 2019 installations must meet the October 2025 baseline to reach cloud-hosted inboxes
PostgreSQL 19 connects the dots with standardized graph queries
Baked-in SQL syntax arrives through multi-vendor collaboration, although indexing still needs to catch up
Anthropic lays groundwork for bots that shop for you
Now comes the harder sell: Convincing customers and merchants to trust AI with purchases
AMD's Threadripper Halo is a local-AI workstation for researchers with deep pockets
AI workstation promises to put up to 576 GB of HBM3e and 16 TB/s of memory bandwidth on your desk
My Word. Microsoft's prepping Similarity Checker for retirement
Built-in plagiarism police to hand in badge next month
Canonical shuttering some of its legacy chat channels
The Ubuntu Pastebin went in June, IRC gets demoted next
Oracle's CEO faces scrutiny after federal software project cost jumps $17bn
Larry Ellison and CEO Mike Sicilia were subpoenaed after Oracle pulled out of testifying.
JavaScript installer pnpm recast in Rust because ECMAScript can't keep up
Fully backward-compatible upgrade promises zero-friction speedup for monorepo wranglers.
Cloud snail-mail service Docmail enters third day stuck in the outbox
No restoration time for platform used by more than 30,000 UK organizations, including NHS trusts and medical practices
Wayve and Uber steal a march on Waymo with paid self-driving London rides
15 Mustangs on the city streets, but the Nissan LEAF follow-up could dispense with the safety driver
Adobe finds its new CEO in-house after six-month search
Anil Chakravarthy steps up from the customer experience division.
US law firm accuses UK AI software firm of unwanted contract renewal when it tried to leave
Customer alleges AI telco system had frequent issues, did not work as promised, as vendor sues separately for non payment
UK military wants lasers to stop drone swarms without running out of ammo
Project PANOPTES puts £5M on the table for an autonomous, vehicle-mounted defense
ECB explores link between Tips and Brazil's Pix
The European Central Bank is looking into the possibility of interlinking the Eurosystem’s Target Instant Payment Settlement (Tips) with Brazil's Pix system.
Anthropic launches AI commerce agents with Visa and Mastercard
AI firm Anthropic, which created Claude, launched a blueprint for retailers to build their own shopping agents on the AI chatbot.
Clarks opens second store in Paris
Clarks has opened a new store at 11 Boulevard de la Madeleine in Paris.
The Week in Brief – 31 Aug to 04 Sept
’s must-reads: Top 10 stories of the week Major fintech consolidation and senior leadership moves take centre stage across the UK wealth management sector this week. iPipeline completes acquisition of Origo, while FNZ appoints new UK client and business development head.
Lululemon lowers outlook as sales fall due to weak Americas performance
Lululemon has cut its full-year forecast, as second-quarter sales plummeted due to a weakened performance in its Americas region.
Asda and Felix hit 50m meal surplus food milestone
Asda and food redistribution charity Felix have redistributed the equivalent of 50 million meals through their 13-year partnership.
Best eSIM for travel 2026: which one offers the best value for money?
OpenAI rolls out long-awaited GPT-6 Astra
On Thursday OpenAI launched its latest AI model GPT-Astra, positioned as a key push of “AGI” or “artificial general intelligence”.
Gillian Anderson returns as chief compliments officer in new M&S spot
Chief compliments officer Gillian Anderson returns for M&S’s autumn campaign, which celebrates the “shared love of style amongst women”. The new campaign is the third instalment of its ‘Love That’ brand platform, which was M&S’s highest-scoring fashion campaign ever according to…
BNP Paribas and HSBC complete first corporate treasury transaction on Swift's blockchain ledger
Global banks BNP Paribas and HSBC have completed the first corporate treasury payments using Swift’s blockchain-based ledger for Siemens.
Slazenger unveils padel club in Exeter
Slazenger has unveiled Slazenger Padel Exeter, a 35,000 sq. ft padel club located at Haven Banks, Exeter.
H&M unveils new designer collection with Elie Saab
H&M has named its newest designer collaborator, Lebanon-founded fashion house Elie Saab. Mr Elie Saab was one of the first members of France’s prestigious Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.
Rogue OpenAI agents used dead German web site to communicate in May, months before Hugging Face incident
Two cases of agents escaping to solve unsolvable problems paints an uncomfortable question: Is the entire internet in OpenAI's experimental agentic firing line?
