All posts tagged: Boom

Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 prototype jet breaks sound barrier for first time | Science, Climate & Tech News

Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 prototype jet breaks sound barrier for first time | Science, Climate & Tech News

Published by skeptic

A US company’s prototype jet has broken the sound barrier in a demonstration it hopes will pave the way for a successor to the Concorde. Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 is the first civilian aircraft to achieve the feat since the British-French supersonic airliner, which was retired in 2003. The XB-1 broke the sound barrier for the first time over the Mojave Desert in California. Image: The XB-1 demonstrator aircraft. Pic: Boom Supersonic During the test flight, it reached an altitude of 35,000ft before accelerating to Mach 1.1 (844mph) – 10% faster than the speed of sound. The jet, which was flown by Boom Supersonic’s chief test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, went on to reach Mach 1.1 two more times. A live stream showed the test flight as it happened. Image: The XB-1. Pic: Reuters Denver-based Boom Supersonic hopes the XB-1 will pave the way for the development of Overture, the company’s supersonic commercial airliner. The XB-1 is around 63ft-long, around one-third the size of Overture, which is intended to seat between 64 and 80 passengers and …

Global Smartphone Sales Rebound, But Apple AI Falls Short Of Sparking Upgrade Boom

Global Smartphone Sales Rebound, But Apple AI Falls Short Of Sparking Upgrade Boom

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The global smartphone market rebounded in 2024 after two consecutive years of declines. However, new data from Counterpoint Research shows that Apple lost market share to Chinese rivals. The over-hyped Apple Intelligence feature failed to spark a massive upgrade cycle some on Wall Street had forecasted.  Preliminary data from Counterpoint Research’s Market Pulse showed that global smartphone sales increased 4% year-over-year in 2024 , following two years of mounting macroeconomic headwinds weighing on cash-strapped consumers. Smartphone sales in 2023 were at their lowest level in a decade.  “2024 was a year of recovery and normalization after a difficult 2023. Smartphones continue to be an essential product, pivotal to people’s daily lives, and as macroeconomic pressures softened, the market started showing signs of recovery from Q4 2023 and has now grown for five consecutive quarters. Almost all markets showed growth, led by Europe, China, and Latin America,” Counterpoint’s Research Director Tarun Pathak wrote in a press release.  Sell-through data reveals that Apple’s iPhone market share dropped to 18% in 2024, while Samsung also experienced a decline. In contrast, Chinese brands such as Xiaomi and …

Commentary: A surprise South Korean boom is going unnoticed

Commentary: A surprise South Korean boom is going unnoticed

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PROSPECTS OF A DOWNTURN HAVE DIMINISHED It didn’t look that way a year ago; economists confidently predicted multiple cuts beginning in late 2023. There was even a chance of recession. Prospects of such a downturn have greatly diminished. Inflation is proving a little stubborn and a rampaging greenback has weakened Korea’s currency, the won, to a degree that worries the central bank. This is an unfortunate byproduct of robust conditions in America and diminished hopes for early reductions from the Fed, a shift that has reverberated through global markets. “I wouldn’t call it starting from scratch,” Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong told reporters recently. “But the situation has changed.” Nor is President Yoon Suk Yeol getting any kind of dividend from this economic buoyancy. His party received a drubbing in parliamentary elections last month when voters rebelled against Yoon’s hard-right policies. So great was the bloc’s defeat that political scientists declared his rule over with several years left in his term. Investor-friendly policies championed by Yoon, like deep cuts in capital-gains tax and union …

UK cottage cheese sales boom as social media craze drives demand | Food

UK cottage cheese sales boom as social media craze drives demand | Food

Published by skeptic

If you peered into a UK fridge in the late 1970s, it is more than likely you would have found a pot of cottage cheese tucked between the prawn cocktail and sherry trifle. A popular “diet food” at the time, demand waned in subsequent decades as the high-protein, low-fat wonder food fell out of fashion. But 50 years on from its heyday, cottage cheese is making a comeback in the UK, and has become an unlikely hit with health-conscious Gen Z. Driven by a wave of social media influencers sharing inventive recipes for the dairy product, which is made from milk curds, UK retailers are reporting significant increases in sales, while producers are struggling to keep up with demand. “It’s come from absolutely nowhere,” said Robert Graham, managing director of Graham’s Family Dairy. “Since May of last year, when there was a TikTok craze that went on, cottage cheese sales for us are up 40%.” The company said the growth in production, the equivalent of an extra 2m kilograms a year, means it is looking …

Coinbase profits soar over billion from a year amid Bitcoin ETF boom

Coinbase profits soar over $1 billion from a year amid Bitcoin ETF boom

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Coinbase, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, reported a remarkable turnaround in its first-quarter financial results on Thursday (May 2). The company swung to a staggering $1.2 billion profit, or $4.84 per share, for the three months ended March 31, a stark contrast to the $79 million loss, or $0.34 per share, it posted a year earlier. This dramatic shift in fortunes came on the heels of surging cryptocurrency trading volumes, fueled by the launch of the first U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking Bitcoin in January. Coinbase profits rise with the launch of Bitcoin ETFs The SEC’s approval of several spot bitcoin ETFs ignited a frenzy in the crypto markets. Coinbase, serving as the custodian for multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, reaped the benefits of this renewed investor enthusiasm. Bitcoin prices skyrocketed to a new all-time high above $72,000 in March, driving trading volumes on Coinbase’s platform to $312 billion, more than doubling from $145 billion a year prior. CEO Brian Armstrong attributed the company’s success to its focus on …

How Scrappy Cryptominer CoreWeave Transformed Into the Multibillion-Dollar Backbone of the AI Boom

How Scrappy Cryptominer CoreWeave Transformed Into the Multibillion-Dollar Backbone of the AI Boom

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Fulfilling the world’s surging demand for AI chatbots and image generators depends on mundane components as much as glitzy GPUs. Server cabinets, heavy-duty metal enclosures to store GPU systems, have at times been a crucial bottleneck. As it scrambled to build up its facilities, CoreWeave once ordered 1,400 of the wrong cabinets. It was a costly mistake because supply chain backups have delayed new shipments by months. “You’re moving so fast, and somewhere along the line a process fails—and you don’t realize until you have 17 tractor trailers with cabinets outside the door and you have to turn them all away,” Venturo says. But in an example of the shrewdness that’s been key to rapid expansion, Venturo’s team in that crisis quickly put aside frustration and decided to buy used cabinets off what he called the gray market. The move prevented a significant delay. “This was just one of the instances of challenges we faced and overcame to make sure we delivered for our partners,” he says. To keep things moving, CoreWeave has turned to …

AI fuels cloud computing boom for tech giants

AI fuels cloud computing boom for tech giants

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Three of the Wall Street’s heavyweight technology firms have reported better-than-expected sales at their cloud computing units in recent days, as interest in artificial intelligence drives a rebound in spending by corporate customers. Growth in the $270 billion cloud infrastructure market, a cash engine for Amazon.com, Microsoft and Alphabet, gives the clearest sign yet that AI investment is bearing fruit after investors drove those stocks to record highs, thanks to optimism about the emerging technology. Many big customers have started spending again on cloud computing after pausing last year to cut costs, executives and analysts said. Amazon, the last of trio to report on Tuesday, said its cloud computing arm AWS grew 17 per cent in the January-to-March period, above Wall Street’s 15 per cent growth estimate, and hit a $100 billion annual run-rate for the first time. Performance was consistent at Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud, which grew above expectations at 31 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively, in the first three months of the year. “Looking across AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google …

Oxfordshire’s construction boom to create space for 9,000 workers, says CoStar

Oxfordshire’s construction boom to create space for 9,000 workers, says CoStar

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Oxford is set to see its stock of office and laboratory buildings soar as developers race to complete more than 700,000 sq ft of new space, according to real estate research firm CoStar. As a percentage of its existing stock, more business and life science space is being built in Oxford than anywhere else in the country outside of London. There’s currently around 17 million sq ft of office space in the city – a number expected to grow by more than 4 per cent in the next few years. High demand for offices over the past year along with a relatively low vacancy rate has encouraged Oxford developers to push the button on new construction projects. Around 6 per cent of Oxfordshire’s offices are currently vacant, compared with a UK average of more than 8 per cent and almost 11 per cent in nearby Swindon. Developers have turned away from city centre locations after the introduction of increasingly restrictive traffic-reducing measures over the last 10 years, and new projects have largely been delivered in …

Brexit Britain is now a global powerhouse thanks to massive £1.1 trillion trading boom | Politics | News

Brexit Britain is now a global powerhouse thanks to massive £1.1 trillion trading boom | Politics | News

Published by skeptic

• Agriculture, Food and Drink – Warner’s Distillery Warner’s Distillery is the world’s leading premium farm-born spirits gin producer.  Created and run by Tom & Tina Warner, Warner’s Distillery sits in the rolling hills of Northamptonshire. Since launching in 2012, Tom & Tina have built an expert team, producing unique spirits, elegantly crafted from ingredients grown on the farm such as elderflower, angelica, verbena and lavender. They became B Corp accredited in Summer 2022. • Creative Industries – Media Bodies Media Bodies is a Performance Influencer Marketing Agency focusing on YouTube, Podcast, TikTok, Instagram, Twitch, and Experiential Marketing. Having started with a focus on the gaming industry, Media Bodies now works across industries including tech, retail, ecommerce, beauty, fashion, wellness, and more. Media Bodies’ client roster is in close to 20 countries around the world. • Education & EdTech – SimVenture Used by education institutions and workplace training providers in over 20 countries, SimVenture digital software products enable educators and trainers to bring business learning to life. By providing business and entrepreneurship learning tools, learners …

The self-storage boom: lifestyle choice or indictment of UK housing crisis? | Housing

The self-storage boom: lifestyle choice or indictment of UK housing crisis? | Housing

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Forget the gym membership and juicing regime: the new must-have to boost personal wellbeing is a self-storage unit. At least, that is the call from a new company urging space-squeezed thirtysomething renters to accept that they cannot afford a home with enough cupboards in today’s housing system and instead sweep their clutter into a rented lock-up. Hold, which is opening five storage sites in London, is trying to persuade householders that spending £270 a month on a lock-up is a lifestyle choice with the potential to “promote feelings of calm and relaxation” and even boost mental health. The marketing gambit comes as figures show more than 100 storage complexes have opened in British towns and cities in the past three years, and that the sector now generates £1bn a year in revenue. Increasingly, the facilities offer communal areas, hot desking and creative studios to make them a more palatable extension of home. But the Generation Rent campaign group has now warned that far from being a lifestyle choice that could boost wellbeing, the storage boom …