Rory Cellan-Jones

In the late 1990s, as investors woke up to the promise of the internet, shares in any company with dot.com after its name soared to giddy heights.

Then the bubble burst.

Now there are warnings of another technology investment bubble - this time related to the fascination with crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin.

On the Tech Tent podcast this week, we examine the phenomenon of ICOs - Initial Coin Offerings - which have seen over $1bn raised so far this year from investors who get little more than a token and a vague promise of involvement in a new business.

The term ICO - designed to mirror the IPO that sees a firm issue shares and float on a stock exchange - seems to mean different things to different people. Early versions were simply ways of getting a new crypto-currency off the ground, but now many are promising to use the blockchain technology that underpins Bitcoin and similar currencies to create businesses.

Imagine logging onto your bank account just by glancing at your phone.

That's what some TSB customers will be able to do from September when the bank introduces iris recognition to its mobile banking app.

Could video games one day rival professional football as a lucrative spectator sport? Which company is going to win the battle? Who will win the battle of the tech giants to dominate artificial intelligence? And is it time for sharing economy platforms to police their users more carefully? Just some of the questions we try to answer on this week's Tech Tent.

E-sports vie for the big league

Every year it seems that professional sports - and, in particular, football, of both the American and English variety - grow richer, with broadcast rights, merchandise and sponsorship earning billions of dollars for the owners of top clubs, who promptly spend it on players.

Image copyright Getty Images

Who is doing groundbreaking research into artificial intelligence right now?

Google and its London-based DeepMind division springs to mind. Facebook has hired some of the biggest thinkers in AI. Then there's IBM with its Watson project - and of course China is pouring vast sums into research, as it tries to replace factory workers with robots.

Silicon Valley and the wider tech industry have a problem with women. At least, that is what you might conclude after a week that has seen a leading tech investor resign after admitting his involvement in sexual harassment.

On the Tech Tent podcast this week, we talk to two women who have been on the receiving end of that kind of behaviour and ask why the culture of Silicon Valley appears to be stuck in the last century.

What do you look for in a smartphone now that they all look just the same? Many may say the camera is key, and now the new version of Nokia hopes to stand out by putting Carl Zeiss lenses in its phones.

HMD Global, which has licensed the Nokia brand from the Finnish telecoms giant, has signed an exclusive deal with Zeiss, the high-end lens and optical systems maker.

It's been a week which has seen another huge cyber-attack with worrying implications, a record fine imposed on Google by the European Commission - and a law passed in Germany to punish web firms who fail to remove extremist content.

On Tech Tent this week we reflect on the growing tensions between Europe and the United States over the regulation of tech giants - and mounting global anxiety over cyber-crime.

Ransomware Returns….

Image copyright Raspberry Pi Foundation

The Raspberry Pi has won the UK's top engineering award.

The team behind the device was awarded the Royal Academy of Engineering's MacRobert Prize at a ceremony in London last night.

Image copyright Getty

Computing education in England's schools is going through a revolution, but there is evidence that too few pupils want to be part of it.

Figures from the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) show only a modest rise in students taking the new computer science GCSE.

It was the week when the gaming console wars took a new turn, when accusations of a poisonous culture at Uber saw the founder take a leave of absence - and when a real-life rocket man wowed a gathering of elite tech founders and investors. That's all in this week's edition of Tech Tent.

Console battles

The E3 expo in Los Angeles is the biggest event in the games calendar, the place to see where the industry is heading. Back in 2005, when I first attended, Sony unveiled the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft showed off its Xbox 360, setting the scene for a titanic battle between the two giants - although Nintendo's Wii turned out to be a more engaging and disruptive force in the console wars than anyone had expected.