Two years ago you’d probably never heard of them; now, you’re lost without them.  Put simply, your smartphone - loaded with apps – is probably the most crucial development to hit the business landscape since the suit and tie.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, apps (an abbreviation of applications) are mini-programs which users can download and store on their smartphone – be it an iPhone, Blackberry, or Google’s Android phone.  Apps may be small, but they have the power to transform your mobile phone into the digital equivalent of a Swiss Army knife; a tool so versatile you’ll instantly wonder how you ever coped without it.

Hailed as a potential saviour of the music industry, Daniel Ek's digital solution is devilishly simple: give them what they want.  NEE profiles the brains behind Spotify.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) estimate that 95% of all music downloads are illegal.  File sharing has been the music industry’s bête noire since the dawn of the internet.  The wayside is littered with start ups with good intentions that have failed to stem this negative flow.  Then along came Spotify… 

We’re not out of the woods yet, but judging by the growing culture of finger-pointing and obfuscation the global economy must be very close to recovery.  The top of the pile is The Cayman Islands, the tiny OFC off the coast of Jamaica that until recently had a lot of money on its books.

Of course, Cayman still has a lot of money in its charge, but leaders of the free world have seen their chance to surf the wave of public outrage, and claw back some tax dollars, and sling some mud while they’re at it.  We take a critical look at how the tide turned against OFCs.

A metropolis teeming with 8 million citizens, New York City is the largest city in the United States – it’s also the world’s ninth largest economy. Spread across 309 square miles of skyscrapers, canyon-like streets, and surprisingly low-rise outer districts, the Big Apple occupies an area roughly half that of London - with an extra million people to spare.  Consequently, the city has something of a pressure-cooker reputation.