Posts made in September, 2015

on Sep 24, 2015

By John Glenday IBM has announced it is to open up its Watson platform to developers, entrepreneurs and businesses in Silicon Valley to dovetail with the launch of a new ‘Watson hub’ in San Francisco. In the 20 months since Watson took the Jeopardy world by storm IBM has built a new suite of software tools designed to give the platform new capabilities in language, vision and speech, opening up a raft of potential new applications in a range of industries and professions. Promising avenues of approach for the cloud-delivered cognitive computing technology are currently being investigated in the hope of powering the first commercialisation Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 24, 2015

By Natalie Mortimer Three different concepts have been created as part of the project which saw five students imagine the form and functionality of contactless wearable devices by 2020. The designs had to be geared specifically towards payments while also challenging the wearable norms that the industry has focused on to date. The resulting concepts included ways of managing loose change digitally, categorising payments made with a hand gesture and integrating fashion, social media and payments into a brooch. Speaking about the project, Nick Mackie, head of contactless at Visa Europe, said that payment function on a wearable device can become as ubiquitous as ‘the Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 24, 2015

By Sarah Vizard In a survey by ad tech company Unruly, 30% of UK consumers say they are “likely” to use ad blockers while 23% deemed themselves “very likely” to block ads in the future. In total 95% said they “would consider” using ad blocking software in future – the highest level of any country globally bar Sweden. The reason for this is clear from UK internet users’ reaction to what they deem to be “irritating” ads. For example 69% are put off because of pre-roll ads (the global average is 62%) and 85% are likely to put video ads on mute. Only 18% of Read full story › Source: Marketing Week...

on Sep 24, 2015

By John Glenday Revenues at the Daily Mail have continued their downward trajectory amidst a further 4 per cent fall in circulation of the mid-market paper, more than offsetting a recent 10p price hike for the Mail on Sunday designed to stabilise income. The Daily Mail and General Trust group reported revenues were down by one per cent over the 11 months to August, compared with the same period the year before, as a result. Advertising revenues also fell by 9 per cent. Despite this the MailOnline website continues to perform strongly, driving a double digit increase in online income of 15 per cent. This Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 24, 2015

By Natalie Mortimer The new designs for the Hunger Bars, which appear to be influenced by Coca-Cola’s successful ‘Share a Coke’ campaign, feature words such as Cranky, Impatient and Whiny, and maintain the brand’s ‘You’re Not You When You’re Hungry’ positioning. To launch the packaging Snickers ran a humorous ad online featuring a hotline operator receiving calls from the public in need of a Hunger Bar for a peckish friend. Introducing, the Hunger Bars – #SNICKERS bars with hunger symptoms on the wrapper. Stores just got more #satisfying. pic.twitter.com/fwDrhFxUyu — SNICKERS® (@SNICKERS) September 21, 2015 A percentage Read full story › Source: The Drum...