Archive News
A new scheme from the government-funded National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) is enabling children in primary and secondary schools across England to access the latest technology to learn how to control objects by computers.
Posted: 27/9/2021
Over the weekend Heathrow and other UK airports experienced massive queues after a technical issue forced e-gate systems offline. According to a report by Sky News, crowds of people struggled to pass through customers when the e-gates failed.
Posted: 27/9/2021
Twitter is expanding its tipping feature to everyone and including more payment options – including cryptocurrencies. The social media platform said that people already drop links to their payment profiles in their bios and Tweets and that ‘Tips’ makes this easier to do.
Posted: 27/9/2021
Specialist recruitment firm Robert Half has announced that it is partnering with AWS re/Start, a 12-week cloud computing skills development programme. The collaboration aims to help place graduates into entry-level cloud roles in the UK.
Posted: 27/9/2021
In 2019, Apple reportedly threatened to ban Facebook products from its App Store after domestic “slaves for sale” were found by the BBC on the social media platform’s apps, including Instagram.
Posted: 24/9/2021
Brits are losing up to two and a half hours every week looking for support on how to use software applications, according to new research.
Posted: 24/9/2021
Tech jobs in Glasgow and Edinburgh have increased by over a quarter in the past two years, according to new government figures. The data analysed by Adzuna for the UK’s Digital Economy Council and Tech Nation, also reveals that 30 per cent of available vacancies in the country’s capital are in the technology sector, the highest of any UK city.
Posted: 24/9/2021
The USB-C connector is set to become the common charging port for mobile phones, tablets, and headphones in the EU under a new European Commission (EC) proposal. The EC claims the move will have environmental benefits and save consumers $293 million.
Posted: 24/09/2021
Extremists are using gaming platforms to push antisemitic, racist, and homophobic rhetoric, according to BBC Click. According to the programme, people are using platforms such as DLive and Odysee, where users chat about games like Call of Duty and Minecraft, to spread hate online.
Posted: 23/9/2021
The number of cyber training course participants at the Department for Education (DfE) has jumped from 7,000 last year to more than 30,000 in 2021. The 329 per cent rise is the result of the department increasing security courses on offer to staff from four to 44.
Posted: 23/9/2021
A man’s plea to have an AI system recognized as the inventor of two patents has been rejected by The Court of Appeal of England and Wales. Stephen Thaler, founder of US-based AI firm Imagination Engines, attempted to credit two inventions to the firm’s neural network model DABUS.
Posted: 23/09/2021
At least six million people in the UK can be classed as ID challenged, meaning they likely struggle to access government services like Universal Credit, the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) has found.
Posted: 23/9/2021
The billionaire founder and former chief executive of Amazon told the UK prime minister this week that it is the government’s job make sure large businesses pay more tax. At a meeting in New York, Jeff Bezos warned Boris Johnson that he will not pay his taxes “as an act of kindness.”
Posted: 23/9/2021
The level of e-waste generated by bitcoin mining is comparable to the small IT equipment waste produced by a country like the Netherlands, according to new research.
Posted: 22/9/2021
Czech Republic-based cryptocurrency exchange Suex has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department over allegations it facilitated transactions related to ransomware attacks. The department has added the exchange to its specially designated nationals (SDNs) list, putting it in the same category as suspected terrorists and drug traffickers.
Posted: 22/09/2021
An independent body that monitors content decisions on Facebook and Instagram has called for more transparency around how the social media giant reviews high-profile users. The move comes after the Wall Street Journal published a report that claimed Facebook exempts high-profile users from some or all of its rules.
Posted: 22/9/2021
The government has announced the launch of a new national Artificial Intelligence strategy to boost the business use of the technology, attract international investment, and develop talent in the sector.
Posted: 22/9/2021
London business association London First has launched a new data charter to address the data-related challenges facing the capital. The charter consists of seven principles, drawn up by city law firm Pinsent Masons, that seek to provide a framework for private and public companies in London to collaborate and share data.
Posted: 21/09/2021
Digital football card-trading company Sorare has raised $680 million in a funding round led by Japanese multinational Softbank. Founded in 2018, Paris-headquartered Sorare was created “by football fans for football fans.”
Posted: 21/9/2021
In the first half of 2021, cybercriminals launched around 5.4 million Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks, according to Netscout Systems’ latest Threat Intelligence Report. This represents an 11 per cent increase compared to the same period last year.
Posted: 21/9/2021
The UK is creating a “unicorn” technology business – with a valuation over $1 billion – every week according to statistics from the Digital Economy Council (DEC) and Tech Nation. UK technology companies received £13.5 billion of venture capital (VC) funding in the first six months of 2021, almost three times more than the same period last year according to the statistics, topping the overall figure for 2020.
Posted: 21/09/2021
Tech Nation has announced that 15 new companies will join its Future Fifty Programme, a growth scheme for late-stage digital businesses.
Posted: 21/9/2021
Twitter has reportedly said it would settle a 2016 class action lawsuit by paying $809.5 million for claims.
Posted: 20/9/2021
68 per cent of UK students think key qualifications in maths or science are needed to work in data roles, according to new research from Experian. The consumer credit reporting company said that misconceptions about qualification and skill conditions are stopping British adults in education from pursuing careers working with data.
Posted: 20/9/2021
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to meet with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos about the BigTech giant’s tax record, according to sources reported by the Financial Times. The news comes as Boris Johnson is set to travel to the US to meet with US president Joe Biden.
Posted: 20/09/2021
The international trade secretary has today unveiled government plans to break down what it describes as ‘unfair or discriminatory’ digital trade barriers. At London Tech Week, Anne-Marie Trevelyan said that the Department for International Trade (DIT) will publish a five-point plan to establish a ‘free and fair’ digital trade landscape to boost UK businesses.
Posted: 20/9/2021
Financial services industry and media businesses are bearing the brunt of increased automated bot network attacks, according to research. LexisNexis Risk Solutions research covering the first half of 2021, reveals that bot attack volumes grew 41 per cent year-over-year, with human-initiated attacks falling 29 per cent.
Posted: 17/09/2021
Facebook is set to implement a range of new products and features for businesses, including new business messaging tools across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The social media giant cited statistics which say that 75 per cent of adults globally want to communicate with businesses via messaging, in the same way they communicate with friends and family.
Posted: 17/09/2021
WhatsApp has launched a new feature that will enable users to search for businesses within the app, according to sources reported by Reuters. The service is being initially rolled out in São Paulo, Brazil, and will include “thousands of businesses” in categories such as food, retail, and local services across the city.
Posted: 16/09/2021
The UK is the leading European nation for the number of tech start-ups and scale-ups, with a total of 519, according to new data from Tech Nation and Dealroom. This is nearly double the number of those in France - 270 - and 63 per cent more than the 318 in Germany according to the industry body’s statistics.
Posted: 15/09/2021
Sports Direct, We Buy Any Car, and Saga and have been fined a total of £495,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office for sending more than 354 million “nuisance messages”.
Sports Direct was fined £70,000 for sending 2.5 million emails.
Sports Direct was fined £70,000 for sending 2.5 million emails.
Posted: 15/09/2021
Over 80 per cent of companies are concerned their existing data protection solutions won't meet all future business challenges, including cyber attacks, according to global research from Dell Technologies.The company commissioned research among 1,000 IT decision makers across 15 countries, including the UK, and found that 62 per cent fear their existing data protection measures may not be sufficient to cope with cyber threats, including increasing ransomware attacks.
Posted: 15/0/2021
Deliveroo and Amazon have partnered to offer free deliveries to Prime customers on certain orders. Customers in the UK and Ireland are eligible to use the offer on orders over £25 from restaurants and supermarkets.
Posted: 15/0/2021
Smishing attacks in the UK grew by nearly 700 per cent in six months up to the end of June 2021.Scam text messages pretending to be from legitimate organisations such as banks, delivery companies and phone networks aim to steal consumers’ money and personal information.
Posted: 14/09/2021
Salesforce competitor Freshworks is targeting a $9 billion valuation in its upcoming initial public offering (IPO). The San Mateo, California-based company, founded in 2010, aims to raise over $800 million.
Posted: 14/09/2021
BigTech providers of cloud services to UK banks may now have to undergo resilience testing to ensure they meet minimum standards according to a senior Bank of England (BOE) official. Victoria Saporta, executive director for prudential supervision at the BoE, called maintaining the continuity of the cloud services banks rely on "a big topic both within the UK and internationally".
Posted: 14/09/2021
More than two-thirds (70 per cent) of UK businesses have been the victim of a successful network security attack in the last year, and 65 per cent have been the victim of at least one ransomware attack in the last 12 months. That's according to commissioned research from security vendor Barracuda Networks, which surveyed 100 UK IT decision makers responsible for their organisation’s networking, public cloud and security functions.
Posted: 14/09/2021
The future of the Royal Navy and how it could further embrace autonomous technology - including drones - will be unveiled at the DSEI show in London this week. Outlined in the recent Defence Command Paper, the Royal Navy is focussed on investing in a more “innovative and automated fleet”.
Posted: 13/09/2021
Apple App Store developers will now be able to direct their users to outside payment methods, other than the BigTech’s in-house offering. The news comes after a high-profile anti-trust case brought on by Epic Games, creator of Fortnite.
Posted: 13/09/2021
Three has become the latest mobile network to announce it will bring in data roaming charges for customers travelling in the European Union. Last month, Vodafone announced that it would bring back roaming charges for people on holiday in Europe, following a similar announcement from EE in June.
Posted: 10/9/2021
Surgical hubs, artificial intelligence, and ‘innovative ways of working’ will allow the NHS to treat around 30 per cent more elective care patients by 2023 to 2024 according to the Government. The Government is set to spend part of its new £36bn health and social care fund on new technology to reduce waiting lists.
Posted: 10/09/2021
Sea Ltd, the Singaporean gaming and e-commerce platform, has raised around $6 billion in an equity and convertible bond sale. According to Refinitiv, this represents the largest fund-raising round in Southeast Asia’s history.
Posted: 10/9/2021
The government has announced a new post-Brexit data strategy for the UK based on “common sense, not box ticking.” Digital secretary Oliver Dowden said that new reforms would “overhaul” Britain’s existing data regime to drive innovation and better protect the public from digital threats.
Posted: 10/9/2021
Oxford-based genomics firm Oxford Nanopore is set to list on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The company, which was spun out of a University of Oxford project in 2005, provides portable and desktop tools which enable researchers to analyse DNA and RNA.
Posted: 09/09/2021
Former West Ham player Anton Ferdinand criticised technology companies for a lack of action on online abuse at a Home Affairs Committee inquiry on Wednesday. Ferdinand was one of several ex-football players to give evidence at the inquiry.
Posted: 9/9/2021
Mobile network operators will now gain easier access to lampposts, bus shelters, and other street furniture as part of a government trial aimed at speeding up the roll out of 5G technology. A £4 million competition launched today will explore ways to make it easier for mobile companies to use public buildings and infrastructure.
Posted: 9/9/2021
The UK’s leading technology trade association has launched a new framework to assess the digital tech sector across different regions. The Local Digital Capital index was created by techUK in response to a consultation with the wider tech industry in March 2021.
Posted: 9/9/2021
On the first official day that Bitcoin became legal tender in El Salvador, the value of the cryptocurrency dropped as protests and technical glitches were sparked by the launch of the digital asset.
Posted: 8/9/2021
ByteDance, which owns popular video-sharing platform TikTok, is reportedly in talks with Wall Street banks to borrow over $3 billion to refinance its debt. According to people with knowledge of the matter, the company plans to make the most of current low interest rates in order to pay off its debt, a report from Reuters said.
Posted: 8/9/2021
The government has pledged £113 million to support nearly 100 UK science schemes, including a project that would see four-legged robots assist British farmers. Other projects include developing new types of therapy to treat chronic conditions like Chrohn’s disease.
Posted: 8/9/2021
The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has potentially earmarked £2 billion for big data and analytics spending over the next four years. The data services are set to be used by central government departments and all other UK public sector bodies, including local authorities, health, police, fire and rescue, education, and devolved administrations.
Posted: 08/09/2021
Mergers and acquisitions of UK firms by foreign companies were worth £27.7 billion between April and June this year, reaching the highest point since the end of 2018, according to new figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The data showed that the value of M&A activity by foreign companies more than doubled compared to £8.3 billion in the first quarter as the economy begins its post-pandemic recovery.
Posted: 08/09/2021
Toyota Motor Corp has announced plans to spend over $13.5 billion by 2030 developing electric vehicle battery technology. The company aims to develop both batteries and battery supply systems during the nine-year period.
Posted: 7/9/2021
53 per cent of middle-market companies in the UK say making effective use of technology to meet business needs is their most significant challenge over the next 12 months, according to new research.
Posted: 7/9/2021
Over $17.7 billion will be spent annually on social apps by 2025 according to a new report by mobile data and analytics firm App Annie.The firm predicts annual spending in the market to grow by roughly 30 per cent every year, up from $1.2 billion in 2020.
Posted: 07/09/2021
bp ventures is investing €10 million in in-car digital payments provider, ryd. The company offers a convenient single digital payment solution for drivers, for services such as fuel purchases, electric vehicle (EV) charging and car washing, via its app or through integration with smart car systems.
Posted: 07/09/2021
The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is calling on G7 data protection and privacy authorities to work together to overhaul cookie consent pop-ups.
Posted: 7/9/2021
The government has announced a £270 million investment to launch the UK’s Green Heat Network Fund aimed at growing low-carbon energy sources. The government said the latest round of heat network funding in England will only support low-carbon technologies, such as heat pumps, solar and geothermal energy in the roll out of the next generation of heat networks scheduled for 2022.
Posted: 07/09/2021
32 prominent media outlets across 16 western countries have been targeted by pro-Kremlin trolls, according to a new report from Cardiff University. Researchers from the Crime and Security Research Institute at the University said that there is evidence of a major influence operation that is systematically manipulating Western media to spread propaganda and disinformation which “supports Kremlin interests.”
Posted: 6/9/2021
Tesco Mobile and Crisis have launched a new campaign which aims to highlight the importance of digital connection in helping support the increasing number of people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
Posted: 6/9/2021
Apple is set to delay the introduction of new child protection features which would scan users’ phones, following widespread media backlash over the announcement. The features were initially set to launch later this year; however, Apple did not announce how long the delay would last or how significant the changes are set to be.
Posted: 06/09/2021
Collectiv Food, the food supply business, has teamed up with location app what3words to help reduce delayed deliveries and cut down on carbon emissions. The delivery business currently works with Apex, DHL, AnyVan, and soon EcoFleet, who use its app to collect food supply from the company’s warehouses and points of distribution (POD.)
Posted: 6/9/2021
Amazon is reportedly planning to take a more hands-on approach in determining what content breaches its cloud service policies. Over the next few months, the conglomerate plans to appoint a number of people within its Amazon Web Services (AWS) division to monitor future threats and develop expertise, several sources told Reuters.
Posted: 3/9/2021
New artist L.A. Migiotto has teamed up with virtual reality platform Terra Virtua to drop a collection of 11 previously unseen celebrity images into NFT artwork.
Posted: 3/9/2021
WhatsApp has been hit with a €225 million fine after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) decided it had breached privacy rules. The announcement marks the end of an investigation into the Facebook-owned company which began in 2018.
Posted: 3/9/2021
Reddit is looking to hire investment bankers and lawyers for a New York initial public offering (IPO) according to sources reported by Reuters. By the time the listing takes place, the online discussion board is aiming for a $15 billion valuation according to the sources.
Posted: 03/09/2021
National Highways, formerly Highways England, has set out plans for a digital twin of the road network that can predict the time and location of potholes and other maintenance problems. A digital twin is a virtual representation of either an object or system, which is based on real-time data and uses simulation, machine learning, and reasoning to help make decisions.
Posted: 2/9/2021
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is suing the founder of crypto exchange BitConnect over $2 billion worth of fundraising. The securities watchdog said BitConnect chief executive Satish Kumbhani and his partner Glenn Arcaro fraudulently offered retail investors returns as high as 40 per cent.
Posted: 02/09/2021
A new report by the Regulatory Horizons Council, an independent committee identifying the implications of technological innovation, has set out how the UK could take a leading role in shaping regulation for genetic technologies.
Posted: 2/9/2021
Twitter is set to launch a new “Safety Mode” feature to tackle online abuse. Safety Mode will block accounts for seven days if it identifies them as sending abusive tweets. The feature will also block repetitive and uninvited replies and will take the relationship between the Tweet author and the replier into account.
Posted: 02/09/2021
Tech trade association techUK has set out recommendations to support the adoption and scaling of Intelligent Automation (IA) in central government.
Posted: 2/9/2021
UK-based neobank Zopa has launched a broadband comparison and switching service on its app. The new option will be offered alongside the company’s existing energy switching service.
Posted: 1/9/2021
A collector paid over $300,000 in cryptocurrency Ethereum for a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) from a fraudster claiming to be UK artist Banksy. An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger - or a blockchain - that certifies the uniqueness of a digital asset.
Posted: 01/09/2021
Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Apple TV+ could face stricter rules designed to protect UK audiences from harmful material.
Posted: 1/9/2021
Royal Dutch Shell intends to build 50,000 on-street electric vehicle (EV) charging points by 2025. The installations will be made via ubitricity, a German EV start-up that the fossil fuel giant acquired in February.
Posted: 01/09/2021
Automated traffic takes up nearly two-thirds of total internet traffic (64 per cent), according to a new report from Barracuda Networks.The study from the cloud security provider also found that nearly two-fifths (39 per cent) of automated traffic was made up by bad bots such as web scrapers and attack scripts.
Posted: 01/09/2021
Online game companies are being forced offer one-hour only slots to children in China. On Monday, the country’s National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) published a notice on preventing kids from becoming addicted to online games.
Posted: 31/8/2021
Demand for the Tech Nation Visa has increased significantly in the past year. The Tech Nation Visa enables tech talent from around the world, both founders and employees with technical or business backgrounds, to work in the UK’s digital technology sector.
Posted: 31/8/2021
Four of the largest US BigTech companies have topped the list for EU lobby spending, according to new research. A study from campaign groups Corporate Europe Observatory and LobbyControl found that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple have spent the most on lobbying EU institutions.
Posted: 31/8/2021
Instagram users will now need to confirm their birthdays to continue using the app long term. The Facebook-owned social media giant said that “the information is necessary for new features we’re developing to protect young people.”
Posted: 31/08/2021
The government’s post-Brexit data strategy to boost trade and healthcare is welcome but must also incentivise ethics and focus on climate change, industry experts have said.
Posted: 27/8/2021
Digital fashion start-up DRESSX is launching a new Non-Fungible Token (NFT) store on Crypto.com, the marketplace for trading and collecting NFTs. NFTs are units of data, or virtual assets that are stored on a blockchain ledger.
Posted: 27/8/2021
Microsoft has told thousands of its cloud computing customers about a database security flaw. The statement, originally reported by Reuters, said that third parties could read, change, or even delete businesses’ main databases.
Posted: 27/08/2021
Linktree, the tool that enables users to share multiple website links on social media, has partnered with PayPal to expand its payments service. Launched in March, Commerce Links enables users to take payments directly on their Linktree.
Posted: 27/8/2021
OnlyFans, the London-based content subscription platform, has paused plans to ban explicit photos and videos after widespread backlash from users. Last week, the platform announced that there would be a ban on explicit images on 1 October.
Posted: 26/8/2021
The Government has picked its preferred candidate to head up the UK’s privacy watchdog. On Thursday the culture secretary announced that John Edwards, who is the current privacy commissioner of New Zealand, is the favourite to take over as UK information commissioner.
Posted: 26/8/2021
Zoom has announced it is preparing for a hybrid approach in its return to the workplace. The business is mixing remote and in-office work, enabled by the Zoom platform.
Posted: 26/8/2021
The Government has unveiled plans for data partnerships with the US, Australia, and the Republic of Korea. These partnerships will make it easier for UK organisations to exchange data with foreign countries by unlocking data flows and minimising unjustified barriers or conditions according to the government.
Posted: 26/08/2021
Virgin Hyperloop has released a video demonstrating how its 670-mph passenger pod technology works. The US transportation technology company claims that the travel system can connect cities in minutes.
Posted: 25/8/2021
A new clinical trial is to investigate whether a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine will improve the immune response for people with weakened immune systems.
Posted: 25/8/2021
Shopify has expanded its relationship with TikTok to bring shopping tabs and product discovery to the video-sharing social network. The multinational e-commerce platform said that social media shopping has become one of its fastest growing channels.
Posted: 25/8/2021
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is set to enforce new rules to protect child data. The regulation, called the Children’s Code or Appropriate Design Code, is set to come into play after the initial one year’s grace period.
Posted: 25/08/2021
Chinese AI voice assistant manufacturer Xiaodu Technology has been valued at $5.1 billion in a Series B funding round. The firm, founded in 2018, is a subsidiary of Baidu, one of China’s largest technology firms.
Posted: 24/08/2021
Samsung Group has plans to invest 240 trillion won ($205.6 billion) across three years. The money will be spent expanding its presence in the biopharmaceutical, AI, semiconductor, and robotics industries.
Posted: 24/8/2021
Chinese ride-hailing business Didi has reportedly paused its plans to launch in the UK and Europe. A source close to Didi told the BBC that plans for the Western European rollout had been halted.
Posted: 24/8/2021
The number of online grooming cases recorded by police increased by around 70 per cent in the past three years, reaching an all-time high in 2021. According to the NSPCC, offenders are exploiting risky design features on apps and platforms popular with children – with Snapchat and Instagram the most common tools used by groomers.
Posted: 24/8/2021
Deliveroo and Boots UK have announced a new delivery partnership launching at 14 pilot stores across the UK. The tie-up marks the health and beauty retailer’s first on-demand delivery partnership.
Posted: 24/8/2021
The UK Health Security Agency is to launch a UK-wide antibody surveillance programme for the general public this week. Home antibody tests will be available for up to 8,000 people a day across the UK who opt in to the service through NHS Test and Trace.
Posted: 23/8/2021
Global marketing communications agency Wunderman Thompson has bought AI-focused technology business Satalia for an undisclosed amount. Satalia offers AI solutions for companies across a number of industries, including retail, grocery, telecommunications, and consultancy.
Posted: 23/8/2021
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla has revealed plans to develop a humanoid robot in 2022. Tesla said the robot would eliminate "dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks."
Posted: 23/8/2021
Post Office customers can now collect parcels and letters using an app to show their ID. The platform serves as an alternative to using a physical document such a passport or driver's licence as a form of identification.
Posted: 23/8/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has recommended an in-depth probe into Nvidia’s planned takeover of chip designer Arm. The competition watchdog said that the merged business would have a “significant degree of control over key technologies for a range of sectors,” including artificial intelligence.
Posted: 23/08/2021
PayPal has announced the launch of a new service that enables UK customers to buy, hold, and sell cryptocurrency. PayPal customers in the UK will be able to choose from four types of cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash. They can start by buying as little as £1 of cryptocurrency via the platform.
Posted: 23/8/2021
Microsoft is set to raise the price of Microsoft 365 by 20 per cent for some business plans.
The changes will affect Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions from March 1 onwards. Microsoft said this was the first “substantive pricing update” for Microsoft 365, which was previously called Office 365, since the cloud-based suite was launched 2011.
The changes will affect Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions from March 1 onwards. Microsoft said this was the first “substantive pricing update” for Microsoft 365, which was previously called Office 365, since the cloud-based suite was launched 2011.
Posted: 20/08/2021
Facebook said it is ready to launch digital wallet “Novi.” The social network said the product is “ready to come to market” and that it had received regulatory approval in “nearly every” US state.
Posted: 19/08/2021
Nearly three quarters of IT executives say they fear that a ‘trickle-down’ effect of nation state tools and techniques will hurt their business. A global survey of 1,100 IT decision makers conducted for HP Wolf Security examining their concerns around rising nation state attacks found that 72 per cent of respondents said they worry that tools and techniques used by political hackers filter through to the dark net and could be used to attack their business.
Posted: 19/08/2021
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has hired former US government criminal investigator Greg Monahan to lead its anti-money laundering (AML) operations. The news comes as the firm faces increased regulatory scrutiny worldwide; the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) banned Binance from operating in the UK in June.
Posted: 18/08/2021
Pearson has paid a $1 million settlement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over misleading investors about a 2018 data breach. The London-educational publisher said in a July 2019 report that the data breach could have included birth dates and email addresses, however Pearson knew these details were compromised according to the SEC’s allegations.
Posted: 18/08/2021
HSBC is working on the initial public offering (IPO) of Chinese AI firm SenseTime according to sources reported by Bloomberg. The listing of the Softbank-backed firm, thought to be China’s largest AI company, could be worth up to $2 billion according to the sources.
Posted: 17/08/2021
The government has laid out new plans for the hydrogen sector which it said could create 9,000 UK jobs and unlock £4 billion of investment by 2030. Hydrogen could play an important role in decarbonising industries like chemicals, oil refineries, power, and heavy transport like shipping, HGV lorries and trains according to the government, by helping these sectors move away from fossil fuels.
Posted: 17/08/2021
Google, Facebook, and Philippines-based telecommunications provider PLDT are set to build a new undersea cable that will connect Japan and Southeast Asia. The 12,000km cable, dubbed “Apricot”, will have a capacity of 190 terabytes a second and will service Japan, Guam, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
Posted: 17/08/2021
The Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has advised businesses to consider moving to public cloud as a way of cutting their carbon emissions. The news comes amid wider initiatives by the BEIS to encourage firms to commit to achieving net-zero by 2030.
Posted: 16/08/2021
More than two-thirds of UK consumers feel left in the dark about the impact of post-Brexit trade deals on key issues such as food, data protection and environmental standards, according to Which? The consumer watchdog surveyed 3,263 UK adults to establish how the public feels about post-Brexit trade negotiations and what consumers want to see prioritised in future trade deals.
Posted: 16/08/2021
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a wave of innovation as businesses pivoted their operations to survive, according to a survey from Lloyds Bank. Almost half (48 per cent) of UK businesses said the pandemic forced them to be more creative and innovative in finding new areas of growth with nearly six-in-ten (56 per cent) making changes to their operations as a result.
Posted: 16/08/2021
Poly Network has offered hackers a $500,000 bug bounty after they stole millions from the decentralised finance provider (DeFi). On Thursday hackers returned part of the $600 million in cryptocurrency stolen from the business.
Posted: 13/8/2021
The number of girls choosing to take GCSE computer science fell to 16,549 in 2021. The news comes despite the overall number of students taking GCSE computer science increasing, rising to 79,964 from 78,459 in 2020.
Posted: 13/08/2021
Research has found that abusive posts are not as likely to be detected if they include emojis. A new study from the University of Oxford suggests that emoji-based hate is proving a key emerging challenge for the detection of online hate.
Posted: 13/8/2021
Facebook’s merger with Giphy could harm competition between social media platforms and remove a potential challenger in the display advertising market, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said. The merger brings together Facebook, the largest provider of social media sites and display advertising in the UK, with Giphy, the largest provider of GIFs.
Posted: 13/8/2021
Online discussion forum Reddit has hit a $10 billion valuation after raising $700 million in its latest funding round. The valuation comes as a 67 per cent premium to the $6 billion Reddit was valued at following a $250 million Series E funding round in February.
Posted: 13/08/2021
Hackers have returned part of the $600 million in cryptocurrency they stole from Poly Network on Tuesday. According to the decentralised finance provider (DeFi), the hackers have returned $342 million.
Posted: 12/8/2021
Ransomware attacks have increased by 64 per cent in the past year, according to new research. A study from digital security company Barracuda Networks identified 121 incidents of ransomware over the past 12 months, from August 2020 to July 2021, and examined the attack patterns and trends that have emerged.
Posted: 12/8/2021
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has introduced a new button that enables companies to flag scam emails with a single click. By clicking the new button, employees will report potential scams directly to the NCSC’s Suspicious Email Reporting Service (SERS) as well as their business’ IT team.
Posted: 12/8/2021
US cybersecurity firm NortonLifeLock has agreed to buy EU-based cybersecurity firm Avast at valuation of between $8.1 billion and $8.6 billion. Both companies provide popular consumer focused cybersecurity products, and they will have a combined userbase of over 500 million with over $900 million in estimated annual quarterly revenue.
Posted: 12/08/2021
A study has shown that 76 per cent of Brits want the right to decide whether they receive paper or digital bills and statements as more organisations seek to go paperless. The research from non-for-profit Two sides and research company Toluna, which surveyed 1,000 UK adults, also revealed that 58 per cent of British consumers think they should not be charged more for choosing a paper bill or statement.
Posted: 11/8/2021
Facebook has removed hundreds of accounts after identifying an anti-vax misinformation campaign operating out of Russia. The company said that it took down 65 Facebook accounts and 243 Instagram accounts from Russia it linked to Fazze, a subsidiary of a UK-registered marketing firm, whose operations were primarily conducted from Russia.
Posted: 11/8/2021
Deliveroo orders have doubled to 148 million in the first half of the year. The company received 74.5 million orders during the same period of 2020.
Posted: 11/8/2021
Hackers have stolen $600 million in cryptocurrency from decentralised finance provider (DeFi) Poly Network. DeFi is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not rely on traditional intermediaries such as brokerages, exchanges, or banks, and instead utilises smart contracts on blockchains, the most common being cryptocurrency Ethereum.
Posted: 11/08/2021
Record numbers of young people are choosing computer science at A-level and studying the subject at degree level, according to experts. Computer science is the fastest growing STEM A-level, with numbers in England rising by 12 per cent.
Posted: 11/8/2021
Google employees could receive a pay cut if they choose to remote work permanently according to sources reported by Reuters. The search giant offers employees an online tool to show them how their pay would be impacted if they choose to re-locate.
Posted: 11/08/2021
Vodafone has reportedly become the second British mobile business to bring back roaming charges for customers travelling in Europe. According to the BBC, from January new and upgrading customers will be charged at least £1 a day to use their phones in EU countries.
Posted: 10/8/2021
Boeing plans to launch its Starliner space capsule to the International Space Station this August, despite ongoing technical problems. The news comes after the launch was delayed earlier this week due to issues with Starliner’s propulsion system’s valves.
Posted: 10/08/2021
Deliveroo has taken on Amazon executive Devesh Mishra as its new chief product and technology officer. When he starts in September, Devesh will take responsibility for the food delivery company’s technology organisation, which includes Deliveroo’s engineering, data science, design, and product development functions.
Posted: 10/8/2021
The number of health-related teleconsultations is set to reach 765 million worldwide by 2025 according to Juniper Research. “Teleconsultations” are defined by the analyst house as video sessions where patients can interact with healthcare providers remotely.
Posted: 10/08/2021
Five cyber security startups have been chosen to work with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) - part of GCHQ- and Plexal to address the UK’s cyber security challenges.
The NCSC for Startups programme is designed to support startups at all stages of maturity; from those developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), to those with established cyber security solutions looking to expand into new markets and pilot technology.
The NCSC for Startups programme is designed to support startups at all stages of maturity; from those developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), to those with established cyber security solutions looking to expand into new markets and pilot technology.
Posted: 10/08/2021
Apple has defended its plans to implement a new feature on US iPhones that would scan for child abuse imagery, after facing backlash from both customers and privacy activists. Last week BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT said that it is impossible to build a system like this that only works for child abuse images.
Posted: 10/8/2021
Asos chairman Adam Crozier is set to resign to join BT, according to reports in the Sunday Times.The paper reported that Crozier, who joined Asos as chairman in 2018 following stints as chief executive of Royal Mail and ITV, will take up the role of chairman of BT.
Posted: 09/08/2021
TikTok parent company ByteDance is planning to list in Hong Kong, according to sources reported by The Financial Times. The news comes after a continuing regulatory crackdown on Chinese tech giants.
Posted: 09/08/2021
The House of Commons (HoC) has put more than 2,500 staff members through cyber security training following Whitehall CCTV security fears. A total of 2,658 HoC staff member have been asked to partake in an eight-part cyber security training course in 2020-21 financial year according to official figures unearthed by the Parliament Street think tank.
Posted: 09/08/2021
Apple is set to implement new features on US iPhones which scan for child abuse imagery. The new features are set to launch in the US later this as part of updates to iOS 15 and iPadOS.
Posted: 06/08/2021
The UK government is spending almost half of its IT budget on servicing legacy IT systems, a recent report has found. The cabinet office report, named “Organising for Digital Delivery”, said the UK spends 2.3 billion a year on patching legacy IT systems out of its 4.7 billion total annual IT budget.
Posted: 06/08/2021
Foodsteps has launched a new technology in the UK that enables restaurants and food businesses to calculate and label the environmental impact of their food. The carbon-tracking start-up was founded by Cambridge University alumni Anya Doherty with the aim of responding to challenges facing food businesses looking to improve their sustainability and reach net zero.
Posted: 5/8/2021
The North West Hydrogen Alliance (NWHA) has called on the government to support the region’s bid to become one of the UK’s first carbon capture clusters. The NWHA represents 30 UK organisations specialising in the development of a hydrogen economy.
Posted: 5/8/2021
Cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH) hit near two-month highs ahead of updates to its underlying blockchain dubbed “EIP-1559”. ETH is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalisation and is commonly used in practical applications of blockchain and in facilitating the creation of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
Posted: 05/08/2021
Britain could lead the world in creating AI that cares about humanity, provided more people from non-tech backgrounds join the field, a report by the professional body for the IT industry has found.
Posted: 5/8/2021
A new virtual centre is being launched to help research and develop 6G, the next generation standard for wireless communications. The hub, called 6G Futures, involves 400 experts in telecommunications networks, cyber, artificial intelligence, digital humanities, social sciences, and arts from the University of Bristol and King’s College London.
Posted: 4/8/2021
WhatsApp has launched a new feature that enables users to send images or videos that disappear from a chat once opened. After the media has been viewed, the message will appear as “opened” to avoid any confusion about what was happening in the chat at the time.
Posted: 4/8/2021
In a first for the Ministry of Defence (MOD), 26 ethical hackers have taken part in a Bug Bounty programme in collaboration with US-based company HackerOne. The 30-day challenge aimed to identify and fix vulnerabilities in cyber systems to strengthen Defence security.
Posted: 4/8/2021
The UK is considering blocking the planned takeover of Arm by Nvidia on national security grounds, according to sources reported by Bloomberg. The news comes after months of controversy surrounding the deal; the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) officially opened an investigation in April into the planned $40 billion acquisition of the Cambridge-based company, which reported back on July 20.
Posted: 04/08/2021
London has been ranked eighth in the world for cybersecurity jobs in a new study. The research, published by Techshielder, explores the current job market for cybersecurity professionals to find which cities provide the most lucrative job offers.
Posted: 3/8/2021
Google is set to manufacture its own chip for its upcoming Pixel phone. The BigTech giant had previously used chips manufactured by Qualcomm, who it has worked with for 15 years.
Posted: 03/08/2021
Social media platforms are failing to take down the vast majority of antisemitic posts, according to a new report by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH.) After the organisation flagged hundreds of anti-Jewish posts in May and June via social media reporting tools, it found that 84 per cent were not acted upon.
Posted: 3/8/2021
Twitter is partnering with the Associated Press (AP) and Reuters to help identify credible information on the social media platform. The BigTech company said that it is committed to making sure Twitter users can easily access reliable information.
Posted: 3/8/2021
Millions of homes and businesses in rural England could benefit from a £5 billion broadband upgrade pledged by the government. New details published today reveal up to 1,850,000 additional premises will get access to gigabit speed internet of 1,000 megabits per second - enough to download a HD movie in less than 30 seconds.
Posted: 2/8/2021
Moscow Metro is testing ‘Face Pay’ on its Filevskaya metro line. The company said that it has trialled the facial recognition technology on 1000 people so far.
Posted: 2/8/2021
Zoom has agreed to pay $86 million and improve its security practices as part of a settlement for a US privacy lawsuit. The case alleged that the video conferencing giant violated users' right to privacy by sharing personal data with Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn, and by let
Posted: 02/08/2021
Amazon was hit with a $886 million EU fine earlier this month after the e-commerce giant broke GDPR rules. A report by Reuters said that the company processed data in violation of EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR.)
Posted: 2/8/2021
IBM and the Michael J.Fox Foundation are using AI to help predict the progression of Parkinson’s disease. New research published in Lancet Digital Health details a new AI model that groups typical symptom patterns of Parkinson’s disease.
Posted: 30/7/2021
The government has said that intellectual property (IP) is to play a central role in implementing its innovation strategy. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has announced new plans to launch a new ‘IP Access’ fund to help businesses grow and recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Posted: 30/7/2021
Legislation enabling the UK to become the first European country to launch spacecraft and satellites from home soil has been passed. The government said that the new regulation could unlock £4 billion in market opportunities over the next decade and create thousands of jobs.
Posted: 30/7/2021
Neuralink, an Elon Musk founded start-up that is looking to create an electronic brain interface, has said it has raised $205 million. The Austin, Texas based company said it will use the capital to develop a brain implant for quadriplegics called the N1 Link.
Posted: 30/07/2021
Websites charging people for free Covid-19 passenger locator forms are located at the top of Google search results, according to a report by the BBC. The broadcaster found several rip-off ads topping the Google’s search results on Wednesday, even though the company said it had removed a number of them.
Posted: 29/7/2021
Uber shares have dropped following reports that SoftBank is selling roughly a third of its stake in the company. According to the BBC, the technology investment company is offloading $2 billion to cover what it has lost by investing in Chinese ride-hailing platform Didi, as well as other investments.
Posted: 29/7/2021
UK media watchdog Ofcom has appointed Anna-Sophie Harling as its head of online safety. The news comes after the UK government proposed new legislation that will give Ofcom increased power to regulate BigTech.
Posted: 29/07/2021
Facebook expects revenue growth rates to slow down significantly in the second half of the year. But the social media platform said that when viewing growth on a two-year basis, to exclude the impact of Covid-19, it predicts a modest deceleration in revenue across the third and fourth quarter of 2021.
Posted: 29/7/2021
Several technology giants have reported record profits over the past few months, largely boosted by the shift to online during the pandemic. Microsoft experienced a 47 per cent year-on-year profit increase to $16.5 billion in the three months to 30 June.
Posted: 28/7/2021
Intellectual property officials in South Africa have awarded a patent that names artificial intelligence (AI) as the inventor. The patent—which was filed by an international team of lawyers and researchers led by the University of Surrey's professor of law and health sciences, Ryan Abbott —is for a food container based on fractal geometry.
Posted: 28/7/2021
US president Joe Biden has warned that the US could end up in a “real shooting war” in the aftermath of a major cyberattack. The comments came during a speech at the office for the director of national intelligence, which has authority over 18 different US intelligence agencies.
Posted: 28/07/2021
An organisation which partnered with Twitter to tackle antisemitism has accused the social media company of inaction against anti-Jewish hate on its platform. Last summer, the Campaign Against Antisemitism held a protest at Twitter’s London headquarters after British rapper Wiley made a number of antisemitic comments across several social media networks.
Posted: 28/7/2021
The Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) sub-committee is launching a new inquiry into the government’s approach to tackling harmful online content, outlined in its draft Online Safety Bill.
Posted: 27/7/2021
BioNTech, which developed the first coronavirus jab with Pfizer, has said it aims to develop the first mRNA-based vaccine for Malaria prevention.
Posted: 27/7/2021
Tesla has reported year-on-year sales growth of 98 per cent to $12 billion in the second quarter of the year. The company said that it had produced and delivered more than 200,000 vehicles over the period, achieving an operating margin of 11 per cent.
Posted: 27/7/2021
Amazon has denied media reports that it is planning to accept bitcoin payments by the end of 2021. The media reports came after the e-commerce giant posted a job advert for a digital currency and blockchain product lead late last week.
Posted: 27/07/2021
The number of roaming subscribers using 5G services is set to hit 210 million in 2026, rising 4,500 per cent from 4.5 million in 2021, according to a report by analyst house Juniper Research. Mobile roaming attempts to keep mobile users seamlessly connected to a network, regardless of where they are geographically, which could become increasingly difficult as different countries vary significantly in the pace of their 5G rollout.
Posted: 26/07/2021
Encouraging women into tech roles should be a priority for business, according to new book from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. Increasing the number of women in digital jobs is an urgent priority to ensure the diverse mix of skills the tech industry needs to benefit society and the economy, said the organisation.
Posted: 26/7/2021
Cyber-attacks on UK council remote workers more than tripled during the pandemic. According to a series of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made by Insight, online attacks targeting council employees working from home jumped by an average of 213 per cent from March 2020 compared to the 12 months before.
Posted: 26/7/2021
WhatsApp is the online application people are most curious about when it comes to the legal small print, according to new research. A study from Reboot Online Marketing found that the average number of global monthly online searches for key legal user agreements for WhatsApp was 29,640.
Posted: 26/7/2021
Google parent company Alphabet is set to launch Intrinsic, a company focused on developing software for industrial robotics. Intrinsic had previously operated as part of “X Development”, the BigTech giant’s semi-secret research and development division which focuses on “moonshots".
Posted: 26/07/2021
A new alliance has been formed to create industry-wide professional standards for data science, including rules about the misuse of data and bias in artificial intelligence. ‘The Alliance for Data Science Professionals’ is defining the standards needed to ensure an ethical and well-governed approach.
Posted: 23/7/2021
Australia's anti-trust watchdog is examining competition and consumer concerns across general online retail marketplaces, including eBay and Amazon. The investigation is part of the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission's (ACCC) wider inquiry into digital platform services in Australia.
Posted: 23/7/2021
Google is updating its search engine to include additional information about why a particular result was selected.
Users will be able to see why a result matched certain search terms and will be able to feedback regarding whether the search result is relevant.
Users will be able to see why a result matched certain search terms and will be able to feedback regarding whether the search result is relevant.
Posted: 23/07/2021
A number of high-profile websites, including those of several banks and gaming platforms, were hit by an internet outage on Thursday. Airbnb, the PlayStation Network, Steam, British Airways, Barclays, HSBC, TSB, the Bank of Scotland, Tesco Bank and Sainsbury’s Bank were all impacted by the temporary outage.
Posted: 23/7/2021
TechUK has identified data governance and connectivity as key priorities for digital transformation of the UK’s justice system.In a new report the technology trade association assesses the impact of COVID-19 on the criminal justice system and looks at next steps for digitising courts, prisons and probation services as lockdown restrictions are lifted.
Posted: 22/07/2021
A 22-year-old British man has reportedly been arrested over the of hacking several celebrity Twitter accounts, including those of Barack Obama and Jeff Bezos. The man, who was arrested in Spain, is alleged to have hijacked more than 130 Twitter accounts belonging to celebrities in order to scam followers into sending Bitcoin.
Posted: 22/7/2021
To deliver digital business change effectively, senior government decision makers need to better understand the business, technical and delivery risks associated with digital programmes, a new report by the National Audit Office (NAO) has found. Transformation of public services is increasingly led by digitally enabled business change, the report states.
Posted: 22/07/2021
New plans to boost private sector investment in innovation have been set by the government in a new innovation strategy.
Posted: 22/7/2021
China has reportedly fined several of its biggest online platforms over illegal child content. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) has summoned Kuaishou, Tencent's messaging tool QQ, Alibaba's Taobao and Weibo, the BBC said on Wednesday.
Posted: 21/7/2021
Netflix has announced it is in the early stages of expanding into the gaming market. The entertainment business is building on earlier efforts around interactivity as seen in its Black Mirror Bandersnatch and Stranger Things games.
Posted: 21/7/2021
UK Finance has launched a joint report with Microsoft and EY into making the language used in the technology and cyber security sectors more inclusive.The report highlights what changes should be made to the language used in legacy application systems and coding to help drive positive action and remove any language that portrays people in an unnecessarily negative light.
Posted: 21/07/2021
In the first half of 2021, the UK has seen the establishment of seven new $10 billion+ tech businesses. According to research from Tech Nation, this means Britain has more than doubled the number of companies valued over $10 billion, also known as decacorns, ranking it third in the world.
Posted: 21/7/2021
New ticket machines from Northern Rail have been hit by a suspected ransomware attack. The system has been offline since last week while an investigation takes place.
Posted: 20/7/2021
The use of chatbots in marketing more than doubled during the pandemic, research has found. According to a new report from Hubspot, the findings are part of a wider trend in the use of automation in the industry.
Posted: 20/7/2021
The Government has set out plans for a new regime aimed at driving up competition between digital firms including the BigTech giants and protecting consumers.The Digital Markets Unit (DMU) will be given the power to designate tech firms that hold substantial and entrenched market power with ‘Strategic Market Status’ (SMS).
Posted: 20/07/2021
The government has announced the launch of a new £375 million scheme to drive investment in the UK’s most high growth, innovative, and R&D intensive firms. The Future Fund will see the government co-invest with private investors to help scale-up innovations across UK industries including clean technology and life sciences.
Posted: 20/7/2021
Tech unicorn Gousto, which delivers recipe boxes in the UK, has announced that it is allowing employees to choose where they work. Employees will be able to choose where they prefer to work each day, whether it’s at home, in the office, or at a coffee shop.
Posted: 19/7/2021
NSO Group, the company behind spyware Pegasus, has firmly denied allegations that its software has been used to hack smartphones belonging to journalists, government officials, and human rights activists.
Posted: 19/7/2021
The UK government has said it holds the Chinese state responsible for a worldwide hack of Microsoft servers earlier this year. It said that it is joining likeminded partners to confirm its theory that China state-backed actors gained access to computer networks via Microsoft Exchange servers.
Posted: 19/7/2021
Zoom Video Communications has announced that it will buy intelligent cloud contact centre business Five9 for $14.7 billion. Five9 develops cloud-based contact centre software across a number of applications and channels to support the management of customer interactions.
Posted: 19/7/2021
The US is now the world’s second largest country when it comes to Bitcoin mining output and now claims 16.8 per cent of the total global hashrate, up from 4.1 per cent in September 2019.
“Hashrate” is a term for the total combined computational power used to mine bitcoin. Research from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance explored the bitcoin mining output of different regions.
“Hashrate” is a term for the total combined computational power used to mine bitcoin. Research from the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance explored the bitcoin mining output of different regions.
Posted: 16/07/2021
The government has announced a change of law to extend football banning orders to those who are abusive in connection with football on social media. The prime minister called on technology companies to step up their response to tackling online abuse and provide data to police on racist trolling of England players.
Posted: 16/7/2021
The government has awarded three contracts worth £2 million to small business developing semi-autonomous reconnaissance and survey systems to help the military cross rivers, streams, and bogs.
Posted: 16/7/2021
Facebook is planning to invest over $1 billion in programmes that give creators new ways to earn money on its social media platforms by the end of next year. This investment will include new bonus programs that pay eligible creators for hitting certain milestones when they use the company’s creative and monetisation tools.
Posted: 16/7/2021
Instagram has owned up to a mistake in its technology that led to racist comments and emojis being left online after being identified as not obstructing its guidelines. This comes after England football players faced a barrage of racist abuse across a number of social media platforms following the team’s Euro 2020 final defeat over the weekend.
Posted: 15/7/2021
The UK LawTech sector is growing rapidly and could be accelerated further through cross-sector collaboration, according to new research. LawtechUK, a government-backed initiative within Tech Nation has today published a report on the future of UK legal and court services.
Posted: 15/7/2021
Just five per cent of UK citizens trust technology companies with their personal data, according to new research. MoneyTransfers.com analysed data from YouGov to establish which countries in the world most trust tech businesses with their data.
Posted: 15/7/2021
Microsoft is set to offer its Windows operating system as a cloud-based service called Windows 365. The PC-as-a-service offering will allow business users to remotely stream a Windows desktop to any of their devices, including a PC, Mac, iPhone, Android phone, or Chromebook.
Posted: 15/07/2021
The UK 5G rollout has been held up by several landowners who are refusing to accept rent cuts in exchange for phone masts being built on their land, according to a report by Sky News. Lancashire-based Fox Lane Sports and Social Club is one of the landlords that has been offered about 10 per cent of its current rent but will not give permission to EE to install a 5G mast on its plot.
Posted: 14/7/2021
Deliveroo for Business, the corporate arm of the delivery platform, is launching two new tech services for post-pandemic hybrid-working. The company’s hybrid cloud canteen will enable businesses to offer their employees food on a pay-as-you-go basis, in the office and at home.
Posted: 14/7/2021
Prime minister Boris Johnson met with social media executives on Tuesday to discuss how to tackle abuse on their platforms following racist online attacks against football players from the England team.
Posted: 14/7/2021
Technology can help indigenous communities limit the number of trees cut down in the Amazon rainforest, a new study has found. According to a report by the BBC, indigenous people living in the Peruvian Amazon were given satellite data and smartphones by conservation groups.
Posted: 13/7/2021
France’s anti-trust watchdog has hit Google with a €500 million fine over failing to comply with temporary orders. The orders were reportedly given by the regulator in a row with France’s news publishers.
Posted: 13/7/2021
Detectives have made the UK’s largest cryptocurrency seizure worth nearly £180 million. This beats a previous record set by the Metropolitan Police a few weeks ago.
Posted: 13/7/2021
The European Union has put its online tax plans on ice as leaders around the world explore a global corporation tax. At the weekend, G20 leaders agreed to a deal that would introduce a global minimum corporation tax for BigTech companies like Amazon and Microsoft.
Posted: 13/7/2021
ASICS has announced the release of a new NFT collection. The sporting goods company said that it would be a “first of its kind footwear release” available via digital action on 15 July.
Posted: 12/7/2021
UK billionaire Richard Branson has beat Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the first billionaire to reach space. Virgin Galactic launched a crew of six, including Branson, to around 86km above the New Mexico desert on Saturday.
Posted: 12/07/2021
Social media should require users to verify their identities to combat online abuse, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT has said. The call for authentication of user IDs on platforms like Facebook and Instagram comes after England players faced a barrage of racist abuse following the team’s Euro 2020 final defeat.
Posted: 12/7/2021
WhatsApp has faced complaints from the European Consumer Organisation and others about its privacy policy update. According to a report by Reuters, the update has triggered global outcry and pushed some users of the app to other platforms, including Telegram and Signal.
Posted: 12/7/2021
Secretary of state for transport Grant Shapps has said the NHS Covid contact tracing app might need to change as restrictions ease. Shapps told BBC Breakfast that replacing the one-metre plus rule later this month could mean a review of the way the app needs to function is necessary.
Posted: 9/7/2021
Imperial War Museums and Science Museum Group have partnered with deep-tech AR company Perception to create holographic exhibitions for online viewers. The partnership will bring the highlights of the museums’ collections into homes and classrooms using 3D desktop AR hologram technology.
Posted: 9/7/2021
Google is facing a lawsuit from 37 US states over concerns about its app store Google Play. According to the BBC, the lawsuit alleges that the technology giant has used “monopolistic leverage” to make big profits from purchases made in its app store.
Posted: 9/7/2021
Donald Trump has reportedly sued Facebook, Google, and Twitter over claims the platforms censored him earlier this year. According to a report by the BBC, the lawsuit also targets the three tech giant’s chief executives.
Posted: 8/7/2021
Cambridge-1, which manufacturer Nvidia claims is the UK’s most powerful supercomputer, is now operational. The supercomputer, which cost over £50 million to make, will focus on healthcare and pharmaceutical research.
Posted: 08/07/2021
Airbnb and what3words have announced a collaboration to support holiday properties in rural areas. The partnership aims to make it easier for people staying in remote areas, like the Scottish lowlands or around any of the UK’s 15 national parks, to find the location of their holiday property.
Posted: 8/7/2021
UK consumers bought 21.8 million smart home devices during the pandemic, a 22 per cent rise in volume, new research from techUK has found. According to the technology trade association, smart TVs and speakers led the higher sales.
Posted: 8/7/2021
UK residents have lost more than £1 billion to fraudulent and cyber crimes in the first six months of the year, new research has found. According to money.co.uk’s quarterly fraud report, there were 81,000 fraud and cyber crime related police reports issues between 1 April and 30 June in 2021.
Posted: 7/7/2021
46 per cent of global manufacturers think they are being left behind when they see industry peers roll out Internet of Things (IoT) technology, a new study has found.
Posted: 7/7/2021
Deliveroo has announced that it will create 400 high-skilled technology roles to support its growth. The move is part of the company’s wider plan to further develop its logistics technology.
Posted: 7/7/2021
Europe is the fastest growing region in the world in terms of venture capital (VC) investment, attracting €48 billion so far in 2021 according to new statistics from Dealroom. However, the US and China took first and second spots respectively in terms of total VC funding raised.
Posted: 07/07/2021
Budget constraints and buy-in from senior leadership are two of the biggest barriers to the adoption of smart technologies, according to new research. A report from Johnson Controls found that while 99 per cent of decision-makers see the value of smart technology, only 34 per cent of buildings are currently fitted with smart solutions.
Posted: 6/7/2021
Newport Wafer Fab, the UK’s largest chip producer, has been bought by Chinese owned company Nexperia. Nexperia, headquartered in the Netherlands, currently employs over 12,000 workers, and produces over 90 billion units annually.
Posted: 06/07/2021
British Airways has settled a case brought by both customers and staff members that had been impacted by a huge data breach in 2018. The breach resulted in personal data being leaked, the lead solicitors in the case said on Tuesday, according to a report by Reuters.
Posted: 6/7/2021
Artificial intelligence has been used during a British Army operation for the first time. Soldiers from the 20th Armoured Infantry Brigade used an AI engine which provides information on the surrounding environment and terrain.
Posted: 6/7/2021
An app created to help promote social distancing on busy beaches has been rolled out nationally. Beach Check UK, which was launched by BCP Council last July, is now funded by the Local Digital Collaboration Unit at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Posted: 5/7/2021
Less than 50 per cent of the people that have downloaded Scotland’s contact tracing app are actively using it, according to the BBC. Protect Scotland only has 950,000 active users, despite being downloaded by two million people.
Posted: 5/7/2021
Britain has been named the eighth worse country in Europe for cybersecurity in new research. The study from ESET analysed European countries based on a number of factors.
Posted: 5/7/2021
A ransomware attack has forced Swedish grocery chain Coop to shut almost all of its 800 stores. The stores closed on Friday after its employees became unable to process in-store payments.
Posted: 05/07/2021
The European Commission is to propose a new digital levy to fund its recovery from the pandemic, which will cover hundreds of businesses, according to a report from Reuters. The majority of the companies covered by the proposed scheme will be European.
Posted: 2/7/2021
Zipline has doubled its valuation to $2.75 billion, following a $250 million funding round. The drone delivery company said the money will be invested in accelerating the development of a new model for instant logistics.
Posted: 2/7/2021
Over 200 high-profile women have urged social media companies to address abuse on their platforms in an open letter. The document has been signed by former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, ex-US tennis player Billie Jean King and British actresses Thandiwe Newton and Emma Watson.
Posted: 2/7/2021
UK and US authorities have accused a Russian spy agency of conducting an organised long-term campaign against “hundreds of governments and private sector targets.” The accusations came in a joint advisory issued by the British National Cyber Security Centre, the US National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security's cyber arm, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Posted: 02/07/2021
Chief constable Simon Bailey has said that technology giants are not taking the scale of child abuse on their platforms seriously enough. According to a report in The Metro, the senior officer warned that social networks are not spending enough money on technology to prevent paedophiles sharing images online.
Posted: 1/7/2021
50 per cent of European and US pharmaceutical manufacturing companies believe AI can help bring new drugs to market more rapidly and securely, according to new research. But 96 per cent of pharmaceuticals face challenges using technology to derive value from their data, a report from Aspen Technology has found.
Posted: 1/7/2021
A non-fungible token (NFT) representing the original source code for the World Wide Web has sold for $5.4 million at Sotheby's. An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger – or a blockchain - that certifies the uniqueness of a digital asset.
Posted: 01/07/2021
Facebook AI has announced a new collaboration with Matterport that will advance Habitat, a simulation platform for research in Embodied AI, to help robots better interact with the physical world.
Posted: 1/7/2021
More than half (51 per cent) of millennials would rather place an order using a potentially insecure app or website rather than visit a location in person post-Pandemic, according to a new survey of digital behaviours and cybersecurity conducted by IBM. A global survey of 22,000 consumers in 22 markets also found that on average individuals created 15 new online accounts during the pandemic, with 44 per cent saying they do not plan to delete or deactivate following the pandemic - which IBM suggested would greatly expand the attack surface for cyber criminals.
Posted: 30/06/2021
A flying car has completed its first inner-city test flight from Slovakia’s international airport in Nitra to the country’s capital Bratislava. Klein Vision’s AirCar, a dual-mode car-aircraft vehicle, made the 35-minute flight earlier this week. The flight represented the 142nd successful landing at Bratislava.
Posted: 30/6/2021
UK satellite company OneWeb has received $500 million in funding to launch 648 satellites into low Earth orbit. OneWeb, founded in 2012, claims this satellite network will be able to deliver broadband services across the globe by 2022.
Posted: 30/06/2021
Orange has announced plans to launch what it describes as Europe’s first 5G Stand Alone, fully end-to-end experimental cloud network. The network, which will launch in France in July, will be the blue-print for Orange’s plans to head towards a ‘zero touch network.’
Posted: 30/6/2021
Google is set to crackdown on online scams on its platform, following Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) calls for social media giants to prevent financial fraud. Mark Steward, the FCA’s director for enforcement, told parliament's Treasury Select Committee earlier this month that his organisation had issued 1,200 consumer warnings in 2020 about social media scams, double that of 2019.
Posted: 30/06/2021
New research has found that although cyber has been rated the scarcest technology skill in the world, pay rises for professionals in the field are stalling.
Posted: 29/6/2021
The Cabinet Office has spent £274,000 on cyber security training for staff in the most recent financial year. Spending jumped by 483 per cent compared to the previous year, when only £47,000 was spent on cyber training.
Posted: 29/6/2021
A US judge has dismissed an antitrust case calling for Facebook to sell Instagram and WhatsApp, pushing its overall stock market value to over $1 trillion. Facebook joins Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet, and Saudi Arabian state oil company Saudi Aramco in exceeding the valuation.
Posted: 29/06/2021
Vodafone will become the exclusive mobile network partner for Dixons Carphone, which owns Currys PC World and Carphone Warehouse. The exclusive, multi-year deal will see Vodafone mobile plans sold across Dixons Carphone’s 300 stores.
Posted: 29/6/2021
The UK has been ranked as a “second tier” cyberpower by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), alongside China, Russia, Australia, Canada, France, and Israel. Countries were evaluated according to a range of factors including cyber security and resilience, global leadership in cyberspace affairs, and offensive cyber capability.
Posted: 28/06/2021
Google is delaying plans to phase out third-party cookies on Chrome. The technology giant said that while there has been considerable progress made with the initiative, it has "become clear that more time is needed to get the plans right."
Posted: 28/6/2021
IBM has developed a new hybrid cloud automation software designed to simplify 5G adoption. On Monday, IBM announced that alongside Red Hat, Verizon had chosen the company to help build an open hybrid cloud platform with automated operations.
Posted: 28/6/2021
Britain and Singapore are set to begin negotiations on a new digital trade agreement. The government claims the deal could remove barriers to digital trade with Singapore and enable UK exporters to expand into high-tech markets.
Posted: 28/06/2021
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced it has bought software company Wickr. Wickr, founded in 2012, has its own end-to-end encrypted messaging technology.
Posted: 28/6/2021
Russian bank VTB has partnered with Visa and local FinTech O.Vision to let restaurant customers make payments with facial recognition. VTB, founded in 1990, is one of Russia’s largest banks and posted net profits of $1.04 billion for the 2020 financial year.
Posted: 25/06/2021
The UK Court of Appeal has ruled that Deliveroo riders are self-employed in an appeal lodged by the IWGB union. The judgment represents the fourth court decision that has determined the company’s food delivery riders are not employees, following a ruling by the Central Arbitration Committee and two decisions made by the High Court.
Posted: 25/6/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened a formal investigation into Amazon and Google over concerns they have not been doing enough to combat fake reviews on their sites.
Posted: 25/6/2021
Three UK-built satellites, aimed at monitoring climate change and tracking endangered wildlife, are set to launch on a SpaceX rocket. The trio of satellites are due to lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on the Falcon 9 rocket.
Posted: 25/06/2021
Harvard University is launching a new Public Interest Technology Lab to offer scholars practical technology tools and experience to help them reimagine how technology can be used by governments and civil society for public good.The research initiative will be based at Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, and will form a collaboration among faculty across Harvard University and working with a network of other universities.
Posted: 24/06/2021
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam has restored the missing edges of Rembrandt’s 1642 painting The Night Watch using artificial intelligence. In 1715 the edges of the painting were cut off to be able to fit through doors at Amsterdam’s city hall.
Posted: 24/6/2021
John McAfee, the creator of computer security software McAfee, has reportedly been found dead in a prison cell in Barcelona. The news comes just hours after a Spanish court ruled that the anti-virus entrepreneur should be extradited to the US to face tax evasion charges.
Posted: 24/6/2021
The EU is set to launch a new unit that will allow its 27 constituent countries to pool their resources to respond to cyberattacks. The "Joint Cyber Unit" will have rapid response teams who the EU said will be able to answer requests for aid from European nations in real-time.
Posted: 24/06/2021
Over a third of UK small and medium sized businesses think that the pandemic has been a positive catalyst for change as digital skills soared during lockdown, according to a PayPal report.
Posted: 23/6/2021
WeRide has said that it will deepen development with Nissan on autonomous driving tech. The China-based autonomous driving start-up raised $310 million earlier this year, valuing the business at $3.3 billion.
Posted: 23/6/2021
Resolution Games, the first VR games developer to agree to trial Facebook's ads, has backed out after receiving negative feedback from players. This week Facebook said that it planned to test adverts in Oculus VR games, starting with shooter game Blaston, which was the only game listed to be involved with the trial.
Posted: 23/6/2021
The UK public feel strongly that the public sector should be transparent about its use of algorithms and how they work, according to a new study by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI). The CDEI was set up by the government in 2018 to advise on the governance of AI and data-driven technology.
Posted: 23/06/2021
Auction house Sotheby’s is set to offer up a rare diamond, valued at up to $15 million, for purchase with cryptocurrencies. The 277-year-old auction house claimed no other physical object of such high value has ever been offered for sale with cryptocurrency.
Posted: 22/06/2021
Amazon destroys millions of items of unsold stock every year, much of which is new and unused, according to an investigation by ITV News. Undercover footage showed millions of products being destroyed in the e-commerce giant’s Dunfermline warehouse, just one of 24 fulfilment centres operating in the UK.
Posted: 22/6/2021
The government has set out plans to establish a new national science and technology council chaired by the prime minister. The council will aim to establish strategy on how science and tech can tackle societal challenges.
Posted: 22/6/2021
NSPCC Childline and the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) have launched a new tool to help young people remove nude images that have been shared online. The Report Remove tool can be used by anyone under 18 to report a nude image or video of themselves that has appeared online. A young person can make a report anonymously at any time of day.
Posted: 22/6/2021
Leading social media platforms, including Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok, and YouTube are supporting the NHS vaccination programme by encouraging their young users to get the Covid-19 jab. The partnerships come as all adults aged 18 and over are invited to receive a vaccine in England.
Posted: 21/6/2021
An AI-powered crewless ship had to sail back to shore on Sunday after it experienced a “small mechanical problem” on its transatlantic trip. The journey began in Plymouth UK and was supposed to finish in Plymouth USA.
Posted: 21/6/2021
Italy, which is hosting a G20 event this week, is to urge world leaders for tougher rules on the gig economy. According to a report from Reuters, Italy will call for reforms to make sure BigTech businesses like Amazon take responsibility for working conditions at their suppliers.
Posted: 21/6/2021
Canadian energy company General Fusion, backed by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, is planning to build a nuclear fusion facility in the UK. The Canadian company is set to build the site in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority, on its pre-existing site in the village of Culham, Oxfordshire.
Posted: 21/06/2021
ByteDance, owner of video sharing app TikTok, saw its revenue grow 111 per cent to 34.3 billion for the 2020 financial year. The Beijing-based company also reported a 93 per cent increase in gross profit to $19 billion for 2020.
Posted: 18/06/2021
Google is developing an alternative to the industry standard method for classifying skin tones, according to sources reported by Reuters. The news comes amid widespread concerns that facial recognition could open the door to racial bias.
Posted: 18/06/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a market study into Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystems over concerns they have market power which is harming users.
Posted: 18/6/2021
Google has opened its first ever physical retail store in New York City. The software giant said that the new space would give customers an “immersive” experience and enable hands-on interaction with the company’s devices and services – including Pixel phones, Nest products, Fitbit wearables, and Pixelbooks.
Posted: 18/6/2021
UK information commissioner Elizabeth Denham has said that she is “deeply concerned” about the potential for live facial recognition (LFR) to be used inappropriately, excessively, or even recklessly. Denham warned that while facial recognition technology can be beneficial, when its algorithms are used to scan people’s faces in real time and in more public contexts, the risk to privacy increases.
Posted: 18/6/2021
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has said it is launching a new dedicated page that will highlight individual influencers who have “repeatedly failed to disclose when their Instagram posts are ads.”
Posted: 17/6/2021
Current Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella, who has held the leadership role since 2014, has been unanimously elected by the board to take on the role of chair. The software giant, which currently has a market capitalisation of around 1.97 trillion, saw revenues expand significantly under Satya’s leadership.
Posted: 17/06/2021
Around 185,000 IT sector jobs are currently under threat, according to new research. The latest business distress index from UK company Real Business Rescue, found that the number of IT SMEs in significant financial distress stands at 47,000, an increase of 15 per cent increase in the first quarter of the year.
Posted: 17/6/2021
Ordering takeaways via food delivery apps like Deliveroo and UberEats can be up to 44 per cent more expensive than going directly to the restaurant, according to a new study from Which?.
Posted: 17/6/2021
UK technology industry body Tech Nation has introduced a new guide for tech founders and their employees to help them build more diverse and inclusive businesses.
Tech Nation said the toolkit was created from interviews conducted with UK tech leaders, and contains checklists, links to tools and resources, and case studies which highlight examples of companies who have enacted positive change.
Tech Nation said the toolkit was created from interviews conducted with UK tech leaders, and contains checklists, links to tools and resources, and case studies which highlight examples of companies who have enacted positive change.
Posted: 16/06/2021
Over half of organisations have been the victim of a ransomware attack, according to new research. A study from Cybereason surveyed around 1,260 security professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, United Arab Emirates, and Singapore.
Posted: 16/6/2021
NHS Test and Trace has chosen cyber security company Risk Ledger to manage cyber security risks in their supply chain. The platform, established to track and prevent the spread of Covid-19, will use the company’s ‘social network’ which enables organisations to connect and share data securely.
Posted: 16/6/2021
Ford, Nissan, LG Corp, Samsung, and electric vehicle (EV) start-ups Britishvolt and InoBat Auto are currently in talks with the UK government over building EV battery factories, according to sources reported by The Financial Times. The news comes ahead of the government's plan to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030 and all hybrid cars by 2035.
Posted: 16/06/2021
BigTech giants like Facebook and Amazon could now face more data protection challenges from regulators following a new ruling from the EU Court of Justice. Under certain conditions, a national supervisory authority may now exercise its power to bring any alleged infringement of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) before a court of a member state, even though that authority is not the lead regulator in regard to that processing.
Posted: 15/6/2021
YouTube has prohibited election advertisements directly endorsing political candidates from appearing on the masthead spot on its homepage. The masthead is the highly visible banner running on top of the YouTube homepage.
Posted: 15/06/2021
More than a third of workers say they have picked up bad cybersecurity behaviours and found security ‘workarounds’ since working remotely, according to new research. A study commissioned by Tessian, which surveyed over 4,000 professionals in the US and UK across varying company sizes and industries, found that 30 per cent of employees think they can get away with riskier security behaviours when working remotely.
Posted: 15/6/2021
The chief executive of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has said that ransomware is the key threat facing the UK and urged the public and business to take it seriously. Speaking at the Royal United Services Institute at its annual security lecture on Monday, Lindy Cameron warned of the “cumulative effect” failing to properly deal with the rising threat.
Posted: 15/6/2021
Facebook is launching TextStyleBrush, an AI research project that can copy text style in a photo using just one word. The new tool can edit and replace text in images.
Posted: 14/6/2021
Virgin Atlantic has partnered with Vertical Aerospace to explore the possibility of launching a flying taxi service in the UK. The partnership includes an option for the company to buy up to 150 eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft, as part of the exploration into a Virgin Atlantic branded short haul flying taxi network.
Posted: 14/6/2021
US chip giant Qualcomm is willing to invest in Cambridge-based chip designer Arm if its controversial takeover by Nvidia is blocked on anti-trust concerns. Cristiano Amon, who was announced as the new chief executive of Qualcomm in January 2021, told The Telegraph his company would be willing to invest in Arm if the current owner, Japanese conglomerate Softbank, decides to take the company public rather than sell to Nvidia.
Posted: 14/06/2021
Amazon could face an EU privacy fine of more than €350 million over alleged violations of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rules.
Posted: 14/6/2021
Facebook will let all its 60,000 employees to work remotely after the pandemic ends if their roles allow them to do so. Prior to this, only workers at a sufficient level of seniority were allowed a full time remote working arrangement.
Posted: 11/06/2021
American video game company Electronic Arts (EA) has reportedly had a wealth of game source code stolen during a hack on Thursday. According to a report by Vice, hackers broke into the gaming giant's systems and stole various pieces of valuable information, including source code and related internal tools.
Posted: 11/6/2021
The UK and US have agreed to deepen ties on science and technology, to create a new era of strategic cooperation in the field. As part of US president Joe Biden’s visit to the UK and under the framework of the revitalised Atlantic Charter, the UK government said that the two countries have pledged to develop a landmark partnership to “strengthen their relationship, while creating jobs and protecting the security of citizens.”
Posted: 11/6/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that, following an investigation, it has secured commitments from Google to address concerns about its proposal to remove third-party cookies on Chrome.
Posted: 11/6/2021
Deliveroo has partnered with Neighbourhood Watch to offer riders training to keep communities safe across the UK. The optional training will include: rider vehicle safety, spotting the signs of street harassment and women’s safety, spotting the signs of domestic abuse, handling confrontation and bystander training, spotting the signs of modern slavery, human trafficking, and drug dealing.
Posted: 10/6/2021
Ledger, the crypto hardware wallet developer, has announced $380 million in funding. The French company, which was founded in 2014, said that the funding will help make digital assets more secure and accessible to everyone.
Posted: 10/6/2021
Seven in ten – 70.69 per cent – of retail assistants face the possibility of automation taking their jobs, according to research from electrical goods retailer Electrical Direct. Retail assistants are set to be less impacted than waiting staff or shelf stackers according to the research, who face a 72.81 per cent and a 71.70 per cent risk of being automated, respectively.
Posted: 10/06/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is set to formally investigate Amazon’s use of data. The move follows months of analysis by the competition watchdog according to sources reported by The Financial Times.
Posted: 10/06/2021
A major outage which impacted much of the internet on Tuesday has been blamed on a software bug. Fastly, which said that the internet blackout was due to an undiscovered bug that surfaced when it was triggered by a "valid customer configuration change."
Posted: 9/6/2021
Address verification company Swiftcomplete has announced a new partnership with what3words. Swiftcomplete is the first to offer what3words as a standard, built-in feature, which can be switched on anytime an address finder is added to an e-commerce checkout page.
Posted: 9/6/2021
In the UK, people spent on average three hours and 37 minutes a day on smartphones, tablets, and computers during the pandemic, according to a new report from Ofcom. Brits spend nine minutes longer online daily last year compared to 2019.
Posted: 9/6/2021
The transfer of GP records to a centralised NHS database is set to be delayed to 1 September, following objections from numerous senior GPs and campaigners. The move was originally set to take place on July 1 but has been delayed by two months to give NHS Digital time to “talk to patients, doctors, health charities and others to strengthen the plan, build a trusted research environment and ensure that the data is accessed securely,” according to chief executive Lord Bethell.
Posted: 09/06/2021
A major outage impacted much of the internet on Tuesday, temporarily pushing high-profile websites like Amazon, Reddit, and PayPal offline. Other websites including gov.uk, BBC.com, Shopify, HBO Max, Vimeo, Hulu, CNN, the Financial Times, the Guardian, and the New York Times were also impacted by the shut down.
Posted: 8/6/2021
175 civil society organisations, activists, technologists, and other experts from across the world have co-signed an open letter calling on decision makers to ban biometric surveillance. The letter urges governments to stop the use of facial recognition and remote biometric recognition, claiming that these technologies enable “mass surveillance and discriminatory targeted surveillance.”
Posted: 8/6/2021
Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos has announced he will be travelling into space next month. In an Instagram post, the Amazon chief executive said he would be taking the trip with his brother on 20 July.
Posted: 8/6/2021
Google is set to pay €220 to the French Competition Authority - Autorité de la concurrence – in response to allegations that the BigTech giant pursued anti-competitive practices in the online advertising space. The regulator ruled that Google Ad Manager illegally favoured Google’s own online ad marketplace, Google AdX.
Posted: 08/06/2021
Istanbul-based grocery delivery app Getir has raised $550 million in a Series D funding round, giving it a total valuation of $7.5 billion. The start-up, founded in 2015, offers consumers “ultra-fast” deliveries in under 15 minutes.
Posted: 07/06/2021
Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI-focused venture capital fund, has led an $8.2 million Series C funding round in the London-based Software-as-a service (SaaS ) start-up Vault Platform. Founded in 2018, the start-up provides “TrustTech” solutions, which enable employees to record, report, and resolve misconduct confidentially.
Posted: 07/06/2021
The NHS should delay plans to share personal medical histories with academic and commercial third parties, Labour has said. In a letter to the chief executive of NHS Digital, shadow minister for prevention, public health and primary care Alex Norris said that although the benefits of collaborative planning and research are clear, data sharing must be “built on trust.”
Posted: 7/6/2021
Tinder, Match, Hinge, Bumble, Badoo, Plenty of Fish, OutTime, and Muzmatch have partnered with the government to encourage users to get Covid-19 vaccinations via a new campaign. The country’s leading dating brands will add new features to their platforms and websites to support the initiative.
Posted: 7/6/2021
G7 finance ministers have agreed on reforms that will see multinational tech giants pay their ‘fair share of tax’ in the countries they operate in. At a meeting in London, the group of nations decided on a global minimum rate that ensures multinationals at least 15 per cent tax in each country they do business in.
Posted: 7/6/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is opening an investigation into Facebook over its collection and use of data. The probe will look at whether the social media giant might be abusing a dominant position in the market through its use of advertising and single sign-on data.
Posted: 4/6/2021
Most of the 55 million patients whose GP records will soon be shared with third parties will be unaware of the plan due to a “total lack of engagement” by NHS Digital, according to The Chartered Institute for IT (BCS). The GP information of 55 million NHS patients will be moved to a new database and shared with researchers, academics, and other third parties unless people opt out by 23 June.
Posted: 04/06/2021
Fiducia & GAD IT, a German company that provides IT services to many of the nation’s co-operative banks has been hit by a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). DDoS attacks aim to overload a website by firing huge amounts of requests at it from multiple machines until it is forced to crash.
Posted: 04/06/2021
Rishi Sunak has said that he is confident about reaching a global agreement on a digital tax. Ahead of the first in-person G7 meeting in two years, the chancellor said he believes world finance leaders can make “significant progress” in tackling some of the world’s most pressing economic challenges, include a tax on BigTech companies.
Posted: 4/6/2021
The European ministers responsible for media are set to meet to discuss potential ways to address the challenges to freedom of expression posed by AI. The conference aims to secure the political engagement of the 47 member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) to several priority actions and to map the future work of the organisation regarding technology and media.
Posted: 03/06/2021
Instagram has chosen Genesys to provide API support for its messenger feature. The cloud customer experience company said that businesses will now be able to interact with consumers via private Instagram messaging, to deliver personalised experiences, answer product questions, and address concerns.
Posted: 3/6/2021
The rising adoption of cloud-native architectures, DevOps, and agile methodologies has broken traditional approaches to application security, according to new research. A global study from software company Dynatrace, which surveyed 700 CISOs, found that 89 per cent of respondents say microservices, containers, and Kubernetes have created application security blind spots.
Posted: 3/6/2021
Atos and Huma, the digital health companies, have announced a five-year partnership to improve healthcare and research with remote monitoring technologies. The partnership will focus on Huma’s modular platform which can power digital ‘hospitals at home’ up to national scale, as well as support pharmaceutical and research industries to run complex global decentralised clinical trials.
Posted: 3/6/2021
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has said that a significant number of firms are withdrawing their applications, as result of not being able to meet its anti-money laundering (AML) standards. The FCA is set to extend the end date of its temporary registrations scheme for existing cryptoasset businesses from 9 July 2021 to 31 March 2022.
Posted: 03/06/2021
Gmail is the online application internet users most forget the password for with an average of 454,100 global monthly searches for ‘forgot Gmail password,’ according to new research. Reboot Online Marketing used online analytics tool Ahrefs to establish which online accounts people most forget the password for.
Posted: 2/6/2021
The UK is now home to more than 1,300 AI companies, up from just 180 in 2011. According to data from Tech Nation, the growth platform for UK tech businesses, this represents a 600 per cent increase in AI companies over the 10-year period.
Posted: 2/6/2021
The Information Commissoner’s Office (ICO) is calling for views to help develop its anonymisation, pseudonymisation, and privacy enhancing technologies guidance.
Posted: 2/6/2021
Data analytics firm Cloudera is set go private in a $5.3 billion private equity buyout led by KKR and Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R). The Palo Alto-based company provides cloud-based tools and services that allows companies to analyse and manage big data.
Posted: 02/06/2021
Silicon Valley start-up Exabeam has raised $200 million in its latest round of funding, valuing the company at $2.4 billion. The company automates the analysis and monitoring of cybersecurity data for businesses.
Posted: 1/6/2021
Amazon is reportedly planning to open ‘wellness chambers’, where employees can sit inside and watch relaxation videos, across its warehouses. The e-commerce giant shared a video on its Twitter account of its ‘AmaZen’ chamber would support staff in focusing on their mental health.
Posted: 1/6/2021
Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW) has questioned the accuracy of location sharing application what3words. The platform divides the world into three metre squares and gives each square a unique combination of three words to help users find and share exact locations.
Posted: 1/6/2021
The EU is set to launch a digital wallet within the next year, that will enable citizens of the 27 countries to access local government services and pay utility bills. The app will use biometric authentication to control access, such as fingerprint or retina scanning, according to sources reported by The Financial Times.
Posted: 1/06/2021
Jeff Bezos has announced that he is formally stepping down from the role of chief executive at Amazon on 7 July. "We chose that date because it's sentimental for me, the day Amazon was incorporated in 1994, exactly 27 years ago," said Bezos at a shareholder meeting on Wednesday.
Posted: 28/5/2021
British MedTech company Belluscura has debuted on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange (LSE), raising £16.1 million. The company, which achieved a valuation of £51 million in early trading, has developed a lightweight and portable oxygen enrichment technology.
Posted: 28/05/2021
Expecting to find a cannabis farm, West Midlands Police discovered a cryptocurrency mine stealing thousands of pounds worth of electricity last week. The police force executed a drugs warrant at a Black Country industrial unit in Sandwell, after receiving intelligence that the warehouse was being used to grow marijuana.
Posted: 28/5/2021
The group behind the attacks on SolarWinds customers last year are now targeting government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and non-governmental organisations, according to Microsoft. The tech giant said that this week a wave of attacks targeted around 3,000 email accounts across more than 150 different organisations.
Posted: 28/5/2021
French cash flow management start-up Agicap has raised $100 million in a Series B funding round. Based in Lyon, the start-up provides a platform for SMBs to manage and plan their cashflows, which it says provides forecasts over one-, three-, six- and 12-month periods.
Posted: 28/05/2021
Uber has said it will formally recognise GMB, which can now represent up to 70,000 Uber drivers across the UK. The move builds on changes made earlier this year which guarantee all drivers the National Living Wage, holiday pay, and a pension plan.
Posted: 27/5/2021
Amazon has announced that it will buy US media company Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) for $8.45 billion. The technology giant said that with nearly a century of filmmaking history, MGM will complement the work of Amazon Studios, which has primarily focused on producing TV shows.
Posted: 27/5/2021
Apple is currently recruiting a business development manager with several years’ experience in the crypto space, hinting at an increased interest in digital assets by the BigTech giant. The role will centre on “alternative payments” and will also require experience in in Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services.
Posted: 27/05/2021
A global deal on a minimum corporate tax rate must force BigTech companies to pay their fair share, the UK has said. Last week, the US proposed that multinational companies should be taxed at a minimum of 15 per cent, which is less than an original proposal of 21 per cent.
Posted: 27/5/2021
Goldman Sachs has signed up to The Green Software Foundation, a sustainability initiative launched by Microsoft, ThoughtWorks, Accenture and GitHub.The non-profit foundation has been set up to address the carbon emissions crisis and is aimed at encouraging companies to make impact pledges to become carbon neutral or carbon negative through development and use of green software.
Posted: 27/05/2021
A number of Israeli media outlets have urged Facebook and Twitter to take decisive action against rising online threats against journalists.
Posted: 26/5/2021
Scientists at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) have tested a world-first concept that could address one of the biggest hurdles in developing fusion energy. Initial results from UKAEA’s new ‘MAST Upgrade’ experiment have demonstrated the effectiveness of an innovative exhaust system designed to make compact fusion power plants commercially viable.
Posted: 26/5/2021
AI and facial recognition has reportedly been used by authorities to monitor the emotions of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of China. A software engineer told the BBC that they had installed these camera systems in police stations in the area.
Posted: 26/5/2021
A Bitcoin Mining Council has been formed to improve the cryptocurrency’s environmental footprint. The move follows talks between a group of established North American Bitcoin miners and Tesla founder Elon Musk.
Posted: 26/05/2021
A clinical test of a technique called optogenetics has enabled a 58-year-old man to see for the first time in 40 years. After receiving an injection of light-sensitive proteins into his retina, and with the help of image-enhancing goggles, he can now see images and moving objects.
Posted: 25/5/2021
Scientists have found a new system capable of identifying complex molecular signatures that could help find alien life in the universe. Researchers at the University of Glasgow said that the new tool could even lead to the creation of new forms of life in the laboratory.
Posted: 25/5/2021
A City of London and Metropolitan police unit has arrested eight people suspected of sending out ‘smishing’ scam texts in a crackdown on criminals primarily posing as Royal Mail. These messages aim to steal personal and financial details by directing recipients to fake versions of trusted organisations’ websites.
Posted: 25/5/2021
Israel's government has signed a $1.2 billion deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google. The deal will see the BigTech giants provide cloud services for the country's public sector and military.
Posted: 25/05/2021
Virgin Galactic, the spaceflight company co-founded by Richard Branson, has announced a successful launch of humans into space from New Mexico. The launch, which took place over the weekend, represents the company’s third spaceflight.
Posted: 24/5/2021
4.5 million Air India passengers had their personal data leaked following a cyber-attack on the airline’s SITA PSS data processor. Air India said that it was first aware of the breach back in February.
Posted: 24/5/2021
A group of UK space tech companies are developing a new beam-hopping satellite that will allow satellites to switch which part of the world they cover. The satellite project, led by global satellite communications network OneWeb and funded by the UK government, will manage real-time surges in commercial demand and respond to emergencies such as natural disasters.
Posted: 24/05/2021
The UK government is investing £166 million into green technology and development in a move that is set to create 60,000 jobs.The cash injection is intended to drive forward developments in critical technology needed to fuel the government’s ‘green industrial revolution’ strategy including carbon capture, greenhouse gas removal and hydrogen while also helping find solutions to decarbonise the UK’s polluting sectors including manufacturing, steel, energy and waste.
Posted: 24/05/2021
AI-based climate platform Cervest has raised $30 million in a Series A funding round.
Cervest said it seeks to help enterprises, financial services companies, and governments quantify climate risk down to the asset level. The start-up said its platform combines public and private data sources with machine learning and statistics to present a unified view of climate risk.
Cervest said it seeks to help enterprises, financial services companies, and governments quantify climate risk down to the asset level. The start-up said its platform combines public and private data sources with machine learning and statistics to present a unified view of climate risk.
Posted: 21/05/2021
Snapchat has revealed the launch of its new augmented reality (AR) display glasses. The glasses aren’t for sale, instead they are designed for a “select group of global AR creators.”
Posted: 21/5/2021
The EU Cloud Code of Conduct (CoC) has become the first GDPR code to get the go ahead from data protection authorities. The members of the EU Cloud Code of Conduct General Assembly and SCOPE Europe announced that the CoC has received its official approval by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, following the positive opinion issued by the European Data Protection Board.
Posted: 21/5/2021
77 per cent of global shoppers have reduced their digital footprint for fear they are losing control over their privacy, according to research. A report from data analytics business Trūata found that nearly half of consumers have lost control over how much data is stored about them, while a further 49 per cent feel that coronavirus restrictions forced them to expand their digital footprint this year.
Posted: 21/5/2021
Microsoft is set to retire its once dominant web browser Internet Explorer, as the software giant looks to move its focus to its newer Edge browser. The browser will no longer appear as part of consumer versions of Windows 10 after 15 June 2022, ending 26 years of operation.
Posted: 21/05/2021
Twitter’s AI-powered cropping tool is bias toward excluding black people and men, according to new research from the social media platform. After hearing feedback from users that the tool didn’t serve everyone equitably, Twitter said it would analyse its model again for bias.
Posted: 20/5/2021
Amazon is facing lawsuits from five women who accuse the company of both racial and gender bias. The women have accused the e-commerce giant of favouring men over women in career growth, allowing supervisors to belittle them, and retaliating after they complained, according to a report by Reuters.
Posted: 20/5/2021
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has fined American Express (Amex) £90,000 for sending more than four million marketing emails to customers who did not want to receive them. In 2020, the ICO dished out fines worth over £42 million across 16 companies.
Posted: 20/05/2021
HMRC has spent £262,000 on cyber security training for its staff over the past two years, according to official figures. The numbers were obtained by Parliament Street under a Freedom of Information request.
Posted: 20/5/2021
Formlabs, a 3D printing company, has raised a $150 million Series E funding round, doubling its valuation to $2 billion. The Somerville, Massachusetts based company, founded in 2011, provides mid-market “prosumer” level devices, at lower prices than its industrial competitors.
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Almost four-fifths of UK consumers believe that everything will have a virtual component after the pandemic has ended, according to new research from Zoom. The study surveyed nearly 8,000 consumers, including over 1,000 in the UK.
Posted: 19/5/2021
Sutton and Kingston councils are deploying sensors to monitor rising water levels to help reduce the risk of disruption from road closures caused by surface water flooding. Kingston has suffered from major flooding in the past, which has resulted in the borough’s road network grinding to a halt in the town centre.
Posted: 19/5/2021
Amazon has extended its moratorium on the police use of its facial recognition software. The company first imposed a suspension of the technology by law enforcement in June 2020.
Posted: 19/5/2021
Google has announced it is launching its news showcase in India. Google News Showcase is a new licensing programme that pays publishers to curate content for story panels across Google services.
Posted: 18/5/2021
The German Federal Cartel Office has announced the initiation of proceedings against Amazon based on new rules for BigTech companies. The antitrust watchdog said that it is examining whether Amazon is of “paramount significance for competition across markets.”
Posted: 18/5/2021
Transport for London (TfL) will launch a 12-month e-scooter trial with Dott, Lime, and TIER in the capital next month. The rental trial will begin on 7 June in a core group of boroughs, Canary Wharf, and the City of London, with more areas expected to join the year-long trial.
Posted: 18/5/2021
The government has announced it has new plans to boost the cyber resilience of the UK’s critical supply chains. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) is calling for views on a number of measures to enhance the security of digital supply chains and third party IT services, used by firms for things such as data processing and infrastructure management.
Posted: 18/5/2021
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and KPMG UK have launched a second survey to explore new benchmarks on disability and neurodiversity to improve understanding of diversity characteristics within the workforce.
Posted: 17/5/2021
Ireland’s data regulator can now go ahead with an investigation that could lead to the ban of Facebook’s transatlantic data transfers, following a High Court ruling on Friday.
Posted: 17/5/2021
The government has announced plans for a new ‘Emergency Alerts’ service that will automatically text people when their lives are at risk. The new text alert system will contact Brits in the vicinity of terror attacks, flooding and other natural disasters, as well as other life-threatening scenarios including fires.
Posted: 17/5/2021
A “significant” ransomware attack has impacted the IT systems of Ireland’s health service, leading the country’s Health Service Executive (HSE) to shut down its entire network. A ransomware attack is when cybercriminals encrypt data or systems, preventing access to them, usually followed by a ransom demand in exchange for access.
Posted: 14/05/2021
More than half of compliance professionals say digital transformation of the customer due diligence process will have the biggest impact on their risk organisation over the next 12 months, according to new research.
Posted: 14/5/2021
The government needs to be clear about what makes online material harmful if new laws are to be effective, experts have said. BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, praised the new legislation but warned that tighter guidelines are necessary to make sure the Online Safety Bill is a success.
Posted: 14/5/2021
Amazon has announced it will create over 10,000 new permanent jobs in 2021, taking its total UK workforce to more than 55,000 people. The company said it will also invest £10 million over three years to train up to 5,000 employees in new skills.
Posted: 14/5/2021
Unmind, a workplace mental health platform, has closed a $47 million Series B funding round. The round was led by EQT Ventures and supported by Sapphire Ventures, with existing investors Project A, Felix Capital, and True also joining the round.
Posted: 14/05/2021
Financial services firms that experience a data breach report an average loss of roughly $4.2 million per attack, according to new research by network services provider Infoblox. The research surveyed 800 responses from IT professionals working in the financial services industry in North America, Latin America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region.
Posted: 13/05/2021
The majority of higher education institutions consider digital transformation as a priority for their school, according to new research.
Posted: 13/5/2021
Amazon has won a legal appeal in the European General Court over an order it had to pay €250 million worth of back taxes to Luxembourg.
Posted: 13/5/2021
Tesla has stopped allowing customers to use bitcoin to purchase its vehicles, citing the fossil fuel intensive nature of bitcoin mining. The cryptocurrency, which is the largest in the world in terms of market capitalisation, fell 17 per cent in the aftermath of chief executive Elon Musk’s tweet.
Posted: 13/05/2021
The Diem Association has announced a new partnership with Silvergate Capital, which will become the exclusive issuer of the organisation’s stablecoin cryptocurrency in the United States.
Posted: 13/5/2021
Researchers at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have found a way to control Venus flytraps using smartphone electric signals.
Posted: 12/5/2021
The UK must rapidly accelerate the roll out of gigafactories and new battery technology development, or risk losing domestic car production altogether, according to a new report by HSSMI.
Posted: 12/5/2021
Huma Therapeutics has raised $130 million to fund its digital health platform. The money will be spent on scaling the British healthcare company’s modular platform, which can power digital ‘hospitals at home’ nationally by supporting pharmaceutical and research industries to run what it describes as “the largest ever decentralised clinical trials.”
Posted: 12/5/2021
New internet laws will give Ofcom the power to fine technology companies up to £18 million, or ten per cent of annual turnover, if they fail to deliver a duty of care. The regulator will also be able to block access to sites.
Posted: 12/5/2021
Brits will be able to access their covid-19 vaccination status for travel via the NHS App from 17 May. UK citizens without access to a smartphone will be able to call the NHS Helpline to request a letter outlining their vaccination status.
Posted: 11/5/2021
The Water Services Regulation Authority, known as Ofwat, has been hit with more than 20,000 malicious emails this year. The data was obtained by a Freedom of Information request by Parliament Street.
Posted: 11/5/2021
Shares in Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings dropped by 9.4 per cent on Monday, after the company said it was “evaluating” the timing of its next flight test.
Posted: 11/5/2021
Web-application attacks accounted for 90 per cent of all cyber-attacks in Britain and Ireland, according to new research.
Posted: 11/5/2021
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) took down more scams in the past year than in the previous years combined, as cyber security experts faced extra pressure to protect the UK public and critical services like the NHS during the coronavirus crisis.
Posted: 10/5/2021
SpaceX will next year launch a rocket entirely funded by cryptocurrency dogecoin. Dogecoin is a digital asset that is best known for its logo and name, based on the image of a dog from the "Doge" meme.
Posted: 10/5/2021
Royal Mail has announced that it will trial the first autonomous scheduled drone flights between the UK mainland and an island this week. The trial will see the parcel delivery company use uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) flights to deliver PPE, covid-19 testing kits, and other mail to the Isles of Scilly.
Posted: 10/5/2021
A ransomware attack shut down the entire network of one of the largest fuel pipe operators in the US, Colonial Pipeline, on Friday. The 5,500-mile pipeline transports 45 per cent of the East Coast’s fuel supply, pumping almost 2.5 million barrels a day from refineries on the Gulf Coast to southern and eastern states.
Posted: 10/05/2021
A Blackpool partnership of businesses, the public sector, and the local community has come together to put forward a roadmap that will help it become the “smartest and best-connected” town in the UK.
Posted: 7/5/2021
Led by the $1.6 billion acquisition of Yandex, Europe’s tech industry has seen AI deal activity jump by 26.7 per cent in the first quarter. According to GlobalData’s deal database, a total of 212 artificial intelligence deals worth $5 billion were announced for the region during the first few months of 2021, against the last four-quarter average of 167 deals.
Posted: 7/5/2021
A new report has revealed record-breaking number of technology mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the first quarter of 2021. Tech deal activity was up 28 per cent compared to the previous year, with 268 deals announced, according to a new report.
Posted: 7/5/2021
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has warned that while smart cities are a benefit to citizens, they are also potential targets for cyber-attacks due to the critical functions they provide and sensitive data they process.
Posted: 7/5/2021
IBM has announced the development of the world’s first 2 nanometer (nm) nanosheet technology, which it said will enable the production of faster and more powerful computer chips. One nm is a billionth of a meter; for comparison, a red blood cell is between 6,000-8,000nm across, while the Ebola virus is between 1,500nm long and 50nm wide.
Posted: 07/05/2021
Belfast start-up Cumulus Neuroscience, formerly known as BrainWaveBank, has raised £6 million to develop a platform it dubs “Fitbit for the brain.” The funding round was led by the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), a £250m specialist venture capital fund, medical research charity LifeArc, and the UK Future Fund.
Posted: 07/05/201
The Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec) and the College of Policing have announced the independent launch of a new institute that will train law enforcement in cyber digital investigations.
Posted: 6/5/2021
Shift Technology has closed a funding round worth $220 million. The company is a SaaS provider of AI-driven decision automation and optimisation for the global insurance industry.
Posted: 6/5/2021
Millions of internet users could be at risk of hacking attacks due to using outdated routers from their broadband providers, according to a Which?
Posted: 6/5/2021
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) is beginning to reshape markets as financial institutions and technology providers move from experimentation to implementation, according to a new report from the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group.The report, which explores the increasing commercialisation of DLT such as blockchain in capital markets, was based on findings from eight global workshops and more than 100 interviews with executives from leading financial institutions, FinTechs, regulators, and adjacent industries.
Posted: 6/05/2021
An Oxford university study has found little evidence for any increases in the associations between adolescents’ engagement with technology and mental health. The research examined data from 430,000 adolescents in the UK and US to investigate how the associations between adolescents’ technology use and mental health have changed over the past 30 years.
Posted: 05/05/2021
Independent identity provider Okta has announced the completion of its buyout of identity platform Auth0 for $6.5 billion. Okta said it will combine its enterprise expertise with Auth0’s developer knowledge.
Posted: 5/5/2021
Hitachi ABB Power Grids has partnered with HCL Technologies to develop a new greenfield digital foundation as part of its global transformation programme.
Posted: 5/5/2021
Uber is collaborating with electric vehicle (EV) developer Arrival to create an affordable, purpose-built electric car for ride-hailing drivers. The two companies are exploring a strategic partnership across Britain and the EU.
Posted: 5/5/2021
45 per cent of UK consumers would recommend a retailer if it had a world-class mobile experience, according to new research. 41 per cent said they would be more loyal to the brand, while 28 per cent said they would spend more money.
Posted: 4/5/2021
eBay has said it’s open to the idea of accepting cryptocurrency payments in the future. The online marketplace, which has 22 million active users in the UK, also said that it is exploring how to incorporate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on its platform.
Posted: 4/5/2021
TechUK and the Centre for AI and Climate have published a new paper on how machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) can support the transition of the electrical grid to net-zero. The ‘AI for Energy’ report is set to be the first in a series of whitepapers techUK, the technology industry trade association, will be releasing in conjunction with its partners over the next year, which will outline how emerging technologies can support the decarbonisation of the energy sector.
Posted: 04/05/2021
TikTok has appointed Chew Shou Zi, previously president of Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, as its newest chief executive. The Singaporean joined ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, in March as chief financial officer.
Posted: 04/05/2021
A proposed EU law that would force BigTech companies to delete terrorist content within an hour of publishing has been backed by lawmakers. The legislation, which has raised concerns from civil rights groups, was first proposed in 2018 after a number of attacks took place in several European cities.
Posted: 30/4/2021
London City Airport has become the first major international airport in the world to be wholly controlled by a remote digital air traffic control tower. The airport carried out intensive testing and live trials of the technology during lockdown.
Posted: 30/4/2021
Military and intelligence organisations should work with trusted private sector and international partners on “forward cyber defence” to dissuade cyber adversaries, according to a new report from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).The report, entitled ‘Creating Restraint in Cyberspace: Forward Cyber Operations and Theories of Restraint’, by academic and US Air Force officer Sean Atkins, explores evolving approaches to cyber defence as Western countries weight up the cyber threat posed by the likes of Russia and China.
Posted: 30/04/2021
Amazon profits more than tripled in the first quarter of the year, as it reaped the benefits of increased demand for online delivery prompted by the pandemic. The e-commerce and technology giant’s net income increased to $8.1 billion in the first three months of 2021, driven largely by 44 per cent growth in sales.
Posted: 30/4/2021
Uber is teaming up with car rental tech company CarTrawler to expand its car rental service around the world. ‘Uber Rent’ is already available in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and France.
Posted: 29/4/2021
CleanTech company Airly has hired two new execs as the company expands operations across the UK and Europe.
Posted: 29/4/2021
Global electric vehicle (EV) sales jumped by 41 per cent in 2020, despite the wider automobile industry facing a tough year due to Covid-19. A report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) found that the market is on track for a decade of strong expansion.
Posted: 29/4/2021
Leaders from the G7 have signed a declaration on how to approach online safety, which includes calls for online firms to put processes in place to reduce illegal and harmful activity and prioritise the protection of children. The government said the declaration, signed ahead of the upcoming G7 summit in June, shared the underlying principles of UK government’s Online Harms Bill.
Posted: 29/04/2021
Now in their 9th year, the 2021 Payments Awards are now open for entries. The awards recognise and celebrate companies which have demonstrated excellence and innovation in the rapidly changing payments space. The deadline for entries is 16 July 2021.
Posted: 28/04/2021
Lisbon-based Sensei, a computer vision start-up providing autonomous store tech for check-out-free purchasing, has announced that it has raised $6.5 million in funding. The company’s technology rivals that of Amazon, which has also developed in-store “Just Walk Out Shopping.”
Posted: 28/4/2021
Visa and Airbnb have partnered to enable Airbnb hosts in select markets to access their earnings faster. Airbnb will use Visa Direct, Visa’s real-time payments platform, and will give hosts the option to move money from Airbnb to a bank account linked to an eligible Visa debit card.
Posted: 28/04/2021
Brits lost around £625 million to fraud and cyber-crime in the first three months of the year, according to new research. A report from Money.co.uk found that there were 137,695 fraud and cyber-crime related police reports issued between January and March this year.
Posted: 28/4/2021
EU regulators are preparing to place antitrust charges on Apple this week according to sources close to the matter, on allegations that it has broken competition rules by blocking competitors in the App Store. The charges stem from an initial complaint made by streaming platform Spotify in 2019 regarding the 30 per cent fee Apple charges on subscriptions made via the App Store, and its policy of forbidding apps from directing users to pay for subscriptions elsewhere.
Posted: 28/04/2021
Toyota Motor Corp is planning to buy Lyft’s self-driving tech division ‘Level 5’ for $550 million. The buyout will be carried out by Woven Planet Holdings, a subsidiary of Toyota.
Posted: 27/4/2021
UK-based OneWeb has announced the successful launch of 36 broadband satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia.
Posted: 27/4/2021
Tesla has reported total gross profit increase of 79 per cent to $2.2 billion in the first quarter of 2021. The electric vehicle company’s revenue increased to $10.4 billion in the same period, compared to $6 billion in 2020.
Posted: 27/4/2021
Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is set to buy cybersecurity firm Proofpoint in an all-cash deal that will value the company at around $12.3 billion. The firm, which is currently traded on the Nasdaq index, provides a wide variety of software-as-a service (SaaS) products for network security, email security, email archiving and other use cases.
Posted: 27/04/2021
AI start-up Faculty has won an NHS contract to help predict patients’ future requirements. The London-based firm will work with NHS England and NHS Improvement to build on top of the Early Warning System (EWS) the NHS created during the pandemic.
Posted: 26/04/2021
Google and Microsoft have both pledged financial support to India as it struggles with record coronavirus case numbers. Google today announced it would contribute $18 million in funding. This includes two grants from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, totally $2.6 million.
Posted: 26/4/2021
Tech giants Google and Facebook are failing to take action to get rid of online scam adverts, even after fraud victims report them, according to research from Which?. The findings have raised concerns that the reactive approach to fraudulent content taken by online platforms is “not fit for purpose.”
Posted: 26/4/2021
Panasonic has announced plans to purchase software company Blue Yonder for $7.1 billion. The manufacturer already owns 20 per cent of the supply chain software company and will buy the remaining shares for $5.5 billion.
Posted: 26/4/2021
Ally Tech has announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to explore how quantum computing can transform the financial services market.
Posted: 23/4/2021
The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce of LawtechUK has published rules designed to enable faster and more cost-effective resolutions to legal disputes around blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and smart contracts.
Posted: 23/4/2021
Intellectual Property platform IPwe is partnering with IBM to begin representing patents as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) or digital assets. The partnership with IBM will enable IPwe to create the infrastructure for representing patents as NFTs and storing the records on a blockchain network.
Posted: 23/04/2021
The government has told makers of smart devices – including Apple, Samsung, and Google - that they will need to inform consumers how long these products will receive security updates for. Smart devices such as phones and speakers, sometimes called Internet of Things (IoT) devices, are a common way for cybercriminals to infiltrate systems.
Posted: 23/04/2021
London’s High Court has allowed a copyright infringement lawsuit against bitcoin.org by an Australian computer scientist who claims he invented the cryptocurrency. Craig Wright, who alleges he created bitcoin, will serve the lawsuit against the operator and publisher of the website, which calls itself Cobra.
Posted: 24/3/2021
Canadian chip developer Alphawave is set to float on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) at a valuation of $4.5 billion, beating competition from New York and Toronto. The company, founded in 2017, designs chip technology that enables data transfer for data centres and phone networks.
Posted: 23/04/2021
The UK is the hardest hit country in Europe for online scams, with one in nine Brits falling victim to card fraud.
Posted: 22/4/2021
Europe and China are currently dominating the electric car market, while Russia, South America, and Africa are left behind, according to a study from the Munich Mobility Show.
Posted: 22/4/2021
Satellite Vu has raised £3.6 million to launch a satellite infrastructure it claims will be capable of imaging the thermal footprint of any building on the planet multiple times a day. The funding round was led by London-based SpaceTech investment firm Seraphim Capital.
Posted: 22/04/2021
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