Interior design has been showcasing the industrial look for some time, and although we don’t all live in converted warehouses with high ceilings, wrought-iron railings and exposed brick, this inspiring style can look right at home in a variety of spaces.
Concrete – that sturdy industrial material that you may initially associate with a building site rather than your living room – is, in fact, a top-quality choice for indoor furniture design. With its smooth surface offering a unique and stylish look, this versatile material compliments most types of interior décor, from modern to unconventional and minimal to shabby chic. From a design perspective, due to its natural qualities, concrete retains that vital artistic appeal. Using this material to design furniture pieces is as timeless as it is durable and has been given a new lease of life. Introducing FioreQ.
The Danish remain as innovative as ever. They don’t do things by halves, least of all design. Sanitov Studios introduced their floating home ‘Inachus’ at the London Design Festival 2012. The ‘sustainable floating home’ was launched in the UK by the Danish design studio with consumer electronics brand Samsung. This river boat (floating house) is part of Sanitov Floating Homes Future Cities project which hopes to incorporate the River Thames into London’s city living by adopting a more sustainable living approach. As cities become crowded and space becomes even more expensive, there is no better time to take to the waterways and canals to set up home. There were great expectations for ‘Inachus’ even before the London Design Festival. So how was it received? 
Once upon a time, funding a start-up business was done by using savings or getting a bank loan. Asking friends or family was the next port of call. Perhaps then an entrepreneur might consider pitching to an angel investor or venture capital firm. Dragons’ Den, anyone? Failing these options, and with the economic downturn causing many institutions to tighten their purse strings, it may be necessary to find alternative sources of funding to get a start-up off the ground. 
Loose change. Shrapnel. Smash. Whatever you call it, it might soon be a thing of the past. The latest buzz in the payments industry is about how to transform the mobile phone into an everyday payment device capable of replacing traditional plastic cards or even cash. Card issuers and retailers, as well as unconventional players like mobile phone networks and retailers, are forging partnerships or becoming competitors for the first time. The constant rollout of new technologies in the area of communications, the growing saturation of the global mobile phone market and the increasing affordability of information technology and associated devices are allowing for the expansion of m-commerce. M-commerce now has the potential to revolutionise the way consumers do their shopping while allowing businesses to extend their marketing reach to a ready client base.
