The Drum’s top ten tech disruptions of the week - wrist-bound banking, Twitter aggravates China and Branson reflects on his space dream
It’s been a busy week in technology. Here The Drum has rounded up ten of the top tech innovations that have been touted this week as capable of disrupting the world as we know it.
Branson will continue exploring Space despite tragic setbacks
1. Twitter announced plans to open a new office in Hong Kong, right on China’s door step, despite the nation claiming the social network was duplicitous in the Umbrella Revolution.
2. Musician Adele’s manager Jonathan Dicken’s jumped to the defence of Spotify after Taylor Swift ditched the platform. He added that the streaming service is not the ‘bad guy’ as they at least managed to monetise the music industry again.
3. Nationwide and IBM released the first smartwatch compatible banking app. Now you can check your balance from your Android smartwatch.
4. Taxi app Lyft accused former COO Travis VanderZanden of stealing confidential documents before jumping ship to rival Uber.
5. Apple’s extravagant 18 carat solid gold smartwatch will retail for $5,000 according to a leak.
6. #Alexfromtarget went viral, with fan girls swooning over the check-out boy. Breakr marketing took credit - then quickly disassociated itself from the phenomenon. Conspiracy theorists believe the firm was acting on behalf of Target.
7. Amazon rolled out its Prime service to British retail firm Allsaints - with more groups set to take up the offer.
8. Google and LG signed a decade-long patent-sharing deal. This builds upon a previous agreement the search giant signed with Samsung earlier this year.
9. Eva Longoria asserted that in the tech industry, women are hardest on women at the 2014 Web Summit in Dublin. She added that women’s greatest advantage is that they are underestimated.
10. And finally, following the tragic crash of Virgin’s SpaceShipTwo crash site at the Mojave Desert, killing one pilot and fatally injuring another, Sir Richard Branson said: “Space is hard – but worth it!”
Speaking of disrupting the status quo with technology, Dave Birss, head of Drum TV, launched the first episode of the 'Day Before Tomorrow' documentary looking into how innovation is changing the world at an exponential rate.
Catch the series below or check out the Disruption Day webpage.