Latest News
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Gov launches first ever cyber security strategy
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Flying car gets green-light to fly
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Carbon emissions to become one of ‘top three’ cloud buying criteria
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Bosch and Volkswagen to bring automated driving to the masses
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Online Safety Bill will fail to stop child abuse images, warn MPs
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Nike to bring metaverse experience to New York store
Archive News
Dual-mode car-aircraft AirCar has been given permission by the Slovak Transport Authority to fly. The official ‘certificate of airworthiness’ was issued following 70 hours of flight testing compatible with European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) standards.
Posted: 25/1/2022
Bosch and Volkswagen Group subsidiary Cariad have announced a new partnership that aims to speed up the production of hands-free driving. Cariad is an automotive software company established by the German car manufacturer in 2020.
Posted: 25/1/2022
The carbon emissions of the largest public cloud vendors are set to become one of the top three cloud purchase decision criteria by 2025, according to research from Gartner. The analyst house said over 90 per cent of companies have increased their investments in sustainability programs since the start of the pandemic, compared to its figures from 2017.
Posted: 25/01/2022
The highly anticipated UK cyber security strategy has today been launched, with the public now able to report cyber incidents with new digital services. Steve Barclay, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, said that the UK’s public services will now be strengthened to further protect them from the risk of being “shut down by hostile cyber threats”.
Posted: 25/1/2022
Nike is set to bring its metaverse-based Nikeland experience to its Fifth Avenue store in New York, according to sources reported by WWD. The project, located on the first floor of Nike NYC, House of Innovation, will provide customers with a variety of augmented reality experiences delivered via Snapchat Lenses according to the sources.
Posted: 24/01/2022
UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Digital Security by Design (DSbD) challenge and Digital Catapult have launched a new Technology Access Programme. UKRI describes itself as the largest public funder of research and innovation in the UK, with a budget of more than £8 billion.
Posted: 24/1/2022
Nicholas Francis, founder of Unity Technologies, is launching a specialised Agricultural Technologies (AgriTech) VC fund in partnership with Investbridge Capital. Francis’ career to date has involved predicting how software will develop in the face of hardware evolution and societal change. He co-founded Unity Technologies, a San Francisco-based video game software development company in 2004. The company reported revenues of $772 million in 2020.
Posted: 24/01/2022
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued £2.2 million in penalties for privacy regulation breaches between 2020 and 2021, according to figures revealed in a recent government report.
Posted: 24/1/2022
Over half - 55 per cent - of UK business decision makers think that quantum computing is an overhyped technology, according to research from KPMG. The research surveyed 750 UK business decision makers at companies with over 250 employees during December 2021.
Posted: 24/01/2022
In its current form, the government’s draft legislation tackling online safety would fail to prevent the sharing of the most “insidious” images of child abuse and violence against women and girls, according to a new report by MPs.
Posted: 24/1/2022
Netflix shares took a tumble on Thursday as the streaming giant forecast lower new subscriber numbers for the start of the year than anticipated by analysts. The company saw paid memberships increase by 8.3 million in the final quarter of 2021.
Posted: 21/1/2022
Tinder is charging young gay and lesbian users and over-30s more for its premium service, an investigation by Which? has found. The consumer organisation said the discovery suggests possible discrimination and could potentially be a breach of UK law.
Posted: 21/1/2022
Ex-DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman is set to join venture capital (VC) firm Greylock as a venture partner. Suleyman was previously vice president of AI product management and AI policy at Google.
Posted: 21/01/2022
UK battery company Britishvolt has been given £100 million by the UK government for a new factory. The government said the planned “gigafactory” in Blyth, Northumberland is set to produce 300,000 electric vehicles each year.
Posted: 21/1/2022
The Omicron variant has helped contribute to a 521 per cent rise in Covid-test related scam emails, according to figures from Barracuda Networks. Incidents recorded took place between October 2021 and January 2022.
Posted: 20/1/2022
The government has said that new laws are needed to drive up security standards in outsourced IT services used by nearly all UK companies.
Posted: 20/1/2022
The Public Accounts Committee has said that it is not convinced the government will meet its downgraded targets for the national roll out of gigabit broadband. In 2020, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) admitted its initial plan to deliver nationwide super-fast broadband by 2025 was unachievable.
Posted: 20/1/2022
Over a third - 34 per cent - of European jobs are at risk from automation according to new research by Forrester. The analyst firm said that by 2040 12 million jobs will be lost to automation across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, which it called Europe-5.
Posted: 20/01/2022
Sensei, the Amazon rival developing autonomous stores in Europe, has chosen Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) as its original equipment manufacturer. The company said that HPE’s ProLiant servers will give retailers access to real-time insights.
Posted: 19/1/2022
Santander has bought a 30 per cent stake in venture debt manager Atempo Growth, which has just launched a fund focussing on financing European tech businesses with high growth potential.
Posted: 19/1/2022
Mastercard has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase on a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) marketplace. An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger - or a blockchain - that certifies the uniqueness of a digital asset.
Posted: 19/01/2022
Microsoft has agreed to buy video game company Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal would be the BigTech firm’s largest acquisition ever.
Posted: 19/01/2022
The government has published plans to strengthen the rules on cryptoasset advertisements and protect consumers from misleading claims. The government said it plans to introduce legislation to address misleading cryptoasset promotions.
Posted: 18/01/2022
Nearly €1.1 billion worth of GDPR fines have been imposed in 2021, according to research by DLA Piper. This figure represents a 594 per cent year-on-year increase in fines imposed since 28 January 2021, compared to €158.5 million during the same period the year before.
Posted: 18/01/2022
Wayve, an autonomous mobility startup, has announced $200 million in funding from backers including Microsoft and Virgin.The London-based company used ‘embodied intelligence’ to develop autonomous vehicle technology.
Posted: 18/01/2022
Microsoft has launched a new start-up accelerator, which is looking for UK start-ups tackling environmental issues. The BigTech said that the AI for Environmental Sustainability Accelerator will help companies that have a product or solution idea that uses artificial intelligence to have a positive impact in one of six areas: Carbon, water, waste, ecosystems, climate equity, and green skilling.
Posted: 17/01/2022
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has cracked down on well-known cybercrime organisation REvil. In a statement, the FSB said the action was at the behest of US authorities, who it said had reported the leader of REvil.
Posted: 17/01/2022
Volta Trucks has partnered with The Crown Estate and Clipper Logistics to help decarbonise deliveries for Regent Street retailers.The electric vehicle manufacturer's Volta Zero, which will launch as a trial in the summer, will play a role The Crown Estate's latest delivery consolidation scheme, which aims to reduce emissions throughout the West End.
Posted: 14/1/2022
The UK Space Agency has said that a planned satellite launch from Spaceport Cornwall is one step closer following the completion of a similar mission in the US this week. On Thursday, Virgin Orbit successfully completed its third mission from California, launching several satellites into orbit from beneath the wing of a 747.
Posted: 14/1/2022
Google has spent $1 billion on a new London office. The office is located near Covent Garden and is part of Central Saint Giles, a mixed-use development where Google is already a tenant.
Posted: 14/01/2022
Meta could be hit with £2.3 billion in damages over claims it abused its market dominance. Today Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen, director of the Competition Law Forum at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, announced that she is launching a major class-action against the tech giant.
Posted: 14/1/2022
Meta – formerly Facebook – has lost a battle against an American antitrust lawsuit which calls for the technology giant to sell several of its platforms. The US Federal Trade Commission alleges that Meta has a monopoly power in the market for social networking services.
Posted: 13/1/2022
Kim Kardashion, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Paul Pierce, are being sued alongside executives from EthereumMax over ‘misleading’ promotion of the company’s cryptocurrency. The lawsuit has been filed by investors who purchased ‘EMAX Tokens’ between 14 May and 27 June 2021.
Posted: 13/1/2022
A new health and wellbeing platform has announced it plans to raise £1 million for UK charities. After a successful beta stage last year, WellGiving launched this month.
Posted: 13/1/2022
The UK government is launching a project with leading institutions aimed at setting new global technical standards for artificial intelligence (AI).The pilot for the AI Standards Hub will be led by The Alan Turing Institute, supported by the British Standards Institution and the National Physical Laboratory.
Posted: 13/01/2022
Nokia is to drive 5G private wireless adoption with a new partnership. Tech Mahindra, a digital transformation, consulting, and business re-engineering service company, will use Nokia’s private wireless DAC for customers across industries and facilitate in automating 5G Private Wireless network management on a cloud.
Posted: 12/1/2022
Residents across the UK’s small towns and villages are being digitally excluded from key services due to underinvestment in rural connectivity and skills, a new report has warned. The research, published today by Rural England CIC, found that while the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital-first lifestyles in rural areas.
Posted: 12/1/2022
Transport for London (TfL) has partnered with digital twin startup Spinview to accelerate the organisation’s zero carbon railway goals for 2030.The project ,funded by a government Smart Grant awarded to Spinview, will support the Mayor of London’s ambition for a zero-carbon railway and is also aimed at driving smarter, more efficient running of the capital’s train network.
Posted: 12/01/2022
UK consumers are spending around 4 hours a day on mobile apps, according to a report by App Annie. The report found a significant rise in consumer UK mobile app usage since 2019, when it averaged just three hours a day.
Posted: 12/01/2022
Digital health start-up Oto has announced the close of a £510,000 pre-seed funding round. The platform aims to support those suffering with tinnitus by using what it describes as “accessible, science-backed, and evidence-based” digital tools.
Posted: 11/1/2022
Cybersecurity failure was ranked the number one short-term risk to the UK by British respondents to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report. The report collected the views of over 12,000 country-level leaders who identified critical short-term risks to their 124 countries.
Posted: 11/01/2022
CLO Virtual Fashion, the developer of 3D fashion technology, has announced an investment in PixelPool, a company that creates 3D software solutions for the apparel retail industry.
Posted: 11/1/2022
Sales of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) hit $24.9 billion in 2021, according to data from market tracker Dapp Radar. An NFT is a unit of data stored on a digital ledger - or a blockchain - that certifies the uniqueness of a digital asset.
Posted: 11/01/2022
The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has awarded a multi-million-pound contract to Involve Visual Collaboration (Involve) as part of plans to virtualise the UK benefits system.
Posted: 11/1/2022
O2 and Virgin Media customers will be able to continue to use data, calls, and texts in the EU with no extra charge. The move comes months after the other UK mobile networks – Vodafone, EE, and Three – announced that they will reintroduce roaming fees this year.
Posted: 10/1/2022
Nearly two thirds of manufacturing leaders will make their organisations' supply chains more resilient in 2022, according to research from Digital Catapult. The survey of 100 UK manufacturing leaders at director level and above conducted by the technology consultancy firm in November 2021 also found that supply crises were listed as the main reason for manufacturers to innovate business models this year.
Posted: 10/01/2022
UK challenger bank Starling has announced that it has stopped all paid advertising on Facebook and Instagram. In a company statement last week, the bank’s chief executive Anne Boden said that Starling could no longer pay to “advertise on a platform alongside scammers” that are going after the savings of its customers.
Posted: 10/1/2022
Technology firms that fail to protect their users could be fined up to £18 billion under the government’s upcoming Online Safety Bill, according to the culture secretary.
Posted: 10/1/2022
A cross-party group of MPs and Lords in the UK Parliament have formed a new group focused on the UK’s cryptocurrency and digital assets sector. The Westminster All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) is backed by digital asset trade association CryptoUK, who said the group will act as a forum for parliamentarians, policymakers, and the UK crypto sector to discuss policy and regulation of the industry.
Posted: 10/01/2022
Matterport, the spatial data company designed to digitise and index the world, has acquired AI company Enview for $35.5 million. Matterport has a 3D data platform which can design, build, and operate real-life spaces by turning them into immersive digital twins.
Posted: 7/1/2022
Finnish advertising technology firm Smartly has purchased London-based digital advertising firm Ad-Lib. The size of the deal was undisclosed, but sources reported by the Wall Street Journal said that the deal was worth “more than $100 million”.
Posted: 07/01/2022
Samsung Electronics has announced a set of new sustainability initiatives designed to accelerate the production of “eco-concious” home appliances. The move comes as the company reveals that it is expecting a 52 per cent hike in profits for the final 12-weeks of 2021.
Posted: 7/1/2022
OpenSea has announced a $330 million funding round, valuing the company at $13.3 billion. Paradigm and Coatue led the round with participation from new and existing investors.
Posted: 7/1/2022
iProov, the online biometric face authentication business, has announced a $70 million growth investment. It said it would use the capital, put forward by investor Sumeru, to build on its existing business in the US and to expand its international customer base.
Posted: 6/1/2022
TomTom has announced that more than five million vehicles now use its maps for automated driving. According to the geolocation tech business, this figure has increased tenfold over the past three years.
Posted: 6/1/2022
Amazon has announced that it is sending Alexa to space as part of a technology demonstration on an upcoming NASA mission. Artemis I is the first of several missions by the space agency intended to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon.
Posted: 6/1/2022
Optimism about artificial intelligence (AI) is significantly higher in emerging economies, according to research from the World Economic Forum. The findings come from a 28-country survey of 19,504 adults under the age of 75 between 19 November and 3 December 2021, conducted by market research firm Ipsos.
Posted: 06/01/2022
Sony is reportedly planning to establish a business this year that will explore a potential move into the electric vehicle (EV) industry. A report by Reuters revealed that the new company will be called ‘Sony Mobility’ and that it would use Sony’s sensor and entertainment abilities to become a player in the future of mobility.
Posted: 5/1/2022
The National Security and Investment (NSI) Act has fully commenced today, which gives the government greater powers to intervene in technology industry mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals. The government said the act is the biggest shake-up of the UK’s national security regime for 20 years.
Posted: 05/01/2022
Electric commercial vehicle manufacturer Volta Trucks has partnered with HERE Technologies to incorporate a last-mile navigation system. The company’s forthcoming Volta Zero will use EV Range Assistant, a feature tailored for inner-city deliveries.
Posted: 5/1/2022
London-based hospitality app start-up theUp.co has raised £7 million. The start-up said the funding round was led by an unnamed private investor and included Jägermeister, Tom Blomfield, the former chief executive of Monzo, and JamJar Investments.
Posted: 05/01/2022
Google Cloud is set to acquire Siemplify, an Israel-based cybersecurity orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) provider. The BigTech’s cloud computing division said Siemplify will join its security team to help companies better manage their threat response.
Posted: 05/01/2022
The government has said it will spend £19 million on setting up five low carbon heat networks across the UK. Two will be based in Bristol, while the other three will be located in Liverpool, London, and Worthing.
Posted: 4/1/2022
Tesla has faced criticism from US human rights groups over a recently opened showroom in the Xinjiang region of China. The area is where the Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim minority ethnic group, are currently facing a myriad of human rights violations.
Posted: 4/1/2021
John Edwards has started his role as the new UK information commissioner. The former privacy commissioner of New Zealand is joining on a five-year term.
Posted: 4/1/2022
Apple became the first US company in history to be valued at over $3 trillion in Monday trading. The BigTech’s shares hit $182.88 each before falling to $182.01 at the close of play, giving the firm a market value of $2.99 trillion.
Posted: 04/01/2022
2021 was a record year for UK broadband usage, according to data released by Virgin Media O2. The telecoms company said its users downloaded 19 per cent more broadband data per day year-on-year compared to 2020 and that mobile traffic was up 45 per cent.
Posted: 23/12/2021
The digital infrastructure minister has launched a consultation on proposals to change building regulations so that new homes have “next-generation” gigabit broadband installed as standard practice.
Posted: 23/12/2021
2021 may have been a new year, but the onus which Covid-19 placed on businesses to be agile in the face of adversity remained. Tech innovation continued to define almost every industry’s approach to change.
Posted: 23/12/2021
With the end of 2021 in sight, we crunched the numbers to bring you a round-up of National Technology News’ most popular stories of the year.
Posted: 23/12/2021
The government has confirmed that John Edwards will become the new information commission from 3 January next year. In August, the government revealed that it had chosen Edwards as its preferred candidate to head up the UK’s privacy watchdog.
Posted: 22/12/2021
Marketers’ digital skills have declined in the past 12 months, according to new research. The study, published by training body Target Internet in association with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), found that the decline has occurred across almost all sectors and at all job levels.
Posted: 22/12/2021
OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely is set to step down as chief executive of the online subscription platform. The company said the founder will be replaced by Amrapali “Ami” Gan, formerly head of communications, and currently head of marketing.
Posted: 22/12/2021
2.1 million young people in the UK are at risk of becoming digitally excluded, according to new research from Nominet. The organisation’s Nominet Digital Youth Index, which surveyed 2,000 eight to 25 year olds, also found that 15 per cent of young people who have a smart phone have no access to a laptop or desktop.
Posted: 22/12/2021
The British Council has been hit with two successful ransomware attacks over the past five years, according to data obtained by Parliament Street through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
Posted: 21/12/2021
Nearly two thirds of IT security decision makers believe ransomware threats should be prioritised at the same level as terrorism, according to new research from Venafi. The figures come from a survey of 1,506 IT security officers across the UK, Australia, France, Germany, Benelux, and the US.
Posted: 21/12/2021
The chief executives of Boeing and Airbus Americas have called for a delay to a planned roll out of 5G in the US. According to a letter seen by Reuters, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and Airbus boss Jeffrey Knittel asked the US transportation secretary to back the postponement of the implementation of AT&T and Verizon’s 5G wireless services, which is due early next year.
Posted: 21/12/2021
Three in five tech businesses in the UK believe there is still a long way to go to improve diversity, equality, and inclusion in their sector according to research by Thoughtworks. The research found that 33 per cent of those in the tech sector said their organisation either had no plans to address career development issues for minority groups or did not know where to start.
Posted: 21/12/2021
Altada and Trinity College Dublin’s Tagent have announced that applications for its 2022 Alsessor AI Acceletrator Programme are open. The accelerator programme, which will run for five months starting in February, will award up to €250,000 by investing in the company considered to have greatest commercial and AI potential.
Posted: 20/12/2021
The government has pledged £26 million to support biomass projects across the UK. Biomass is sustainably derived plant material that could be used as fuel to produce energy for heating and powering homes and businesses.
Posted: 20/12/2021
Cambridge is the top city in the UK for technology outside of London, according to analysis by the UK’s Digital Economy Council. The city narrowly beat Manchester due to a combination of high levels of venture capital (VC) funding, VC rounds, advertised tech salaries, the number of unicorns - tech companies worth more than $1 billion - and “futurecorns”, companies predicted to hit that valuation in the future.
Posted: 20/12/2021
Amazon has partnered with Barclays to enable customers to pay in instalments in the UK. Instalments by Barclays will enable to split the cost of purchases of £100 or more on the e-commerce giant’s UK website.
Posted: 20/12/2021
The number of UK homes with full-fibre broadband has increased by 10 per cent in a year. There are now 8.2 million homes – 28 per cent of the population – with full-fibre broadband, according to figures from Ofcom.
Posted: 17/12/2021
The Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) has published its survey of nearly 1,000 businesses which reveals how AI and data is being used across the UK and the barriers to its adoption.
Posted: 17/12/2021
Sainsbury’s has been affected by a ransomware attack on payroll system provider Kronos. The Big Four supermarket confirmed that though it had lost a full week of data its employees would be paid before Christmas.
Posted: 17/12/2021
Scientists working on NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover mission have discovered that the bedrock their six-wheeled explorer has been driving on since landing in February likely formed from red-hot magma.
Posted: 16/12/2021
London-based AI start-up Signal AI has raised $50 million in a Series D funding round. The round, which was led by technology investment fund Highland Europe, brings the company's total funding to date to $100 million.
Posted: 16/12/2021
The British government has published its new national cyber strategy. The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said that the strategy builds on the progress made on cyber over the past five years, which has seen the UK cyber security sector grow rapidly.
Posted: 16/12/2021
Reddit has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to a proposed initial public offering (IPO). The news comes after the San Francisco-based company hit a $10 billion valuation after raising $700 million in its latest funding round in August.
Posted: 16/12/2021
The government has announced that its grant scheme for zero-emission vehicles has been updated to target less expensive models. The existing plug-in grant scheme has supported nearly half a million vehicles over a decade.
Posted: 15/12/2021
MAUER is partnering with The Sandbox to bring its Berlin Wall NFT to the Metaverse. The partnership aims to add a layer of gamification to the historical storytelling of its NFTs.
Posted: 15/12/2021
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned seven adverts promoting cryptocurrencies. The advertisements included one from pizza chain Papa Johns which promoted “free bitcoin worth £10” and “Save £15 when you spend £30 or more & get £10 worth of Bitcoin from Luno!” on its website and Twitter.
Posted: 15/12/2021
Google has been ranked the leading tech company in terms of overall future readiness. The research from the Institute for Management Development (IMD) found that the search giant came in ahead of Amazon and Microsoft, who came in second and third place on the list, respectively.
Posted: 15/12/2021
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has let a contract with the University of Liverpool and its start-up company Gearu Robotic Research. The government department announced that the robotic chemist project has received £1 million in funding.
Posted: 14/12/2021
Apple Inc is worth nearly $3 trillion, according to a report by Reuters. The news agency said that on Monday the tech giant’s shares fell by just over 2 per cent at $175.74. Because of this, the company just missed the $3 trillion mark.
Posted: 14/12/2021
33 per cent of UK gamers are discovering new brands while playing computer games, according to research from Wunderman Thompson Commerce. The study, which surveyed more than 2,000 respondents in the UK, also found that 56 per cent of gamers are also more likely to buy from a brand that features in their favourite game.
Posted: 14/12/2021
A Joint Committee on the Online Safety Bill has recommended major changes to the draft law, including new criminal offences. The Bill is expected to be put to parliament for approval next year.
Posted: 14/12/2021
The BSI, Germany’s cybersecurity regulator, reportedly issued a red alert warning at the weekend over a flawed software. The watchdog revealed that a vulnerability in a widely-used software posed an “extremely critical threat” to web servers, said a report by Reuters.
Posted: 13/12/2021
Regulators, government, and parliament need to work together to make sure there is ‘joined-up’ digital regulation, a new House of Lords report says. According to the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee, systems are not rigorous or accountable enough to address regulatory gaps and overlaps.
Posted: 13/12/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced it is investigating an anticipated acquisition by Microsoft of Nuance Communications.
Posted: 13/12/2021
HMRC has reported 17 serious data breaches to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) between January 2020 and March 2021. In the government department’s annual reports and accounts publication, it revealed that these incidents impacted 3,017 people.
Posted: 13/12/2021
Meta’s crypto wallet Novi is to enable WhatsApp users to send and receive money via the platform.
Posted: 10/12/2021
The government has secured a Digital Economy Agreement (DEA) with Singapore which it says will cut costs and slash red tape. The deal is the first digitally-focussed trade agreement ever signed by a European country.
Posted: 10/12/2021
The government has said that up to 11,000 people could be trained to become HGV drivers as the first free intensive short courses get under way. Free ‘Skills Bootcamps’ in HGV driving have opened up across the country to help speed-up the training process in an attempt to address the UK’s driver shortage.
Posted: 10/12/2021
Almost half - 46 per cent - of younger Millennial and Generation Z people in the UK believe it is too late for them to pivot to a career in technology. The young people surveyed by the report from Finsbury Glover Hering said as they didn’t have the opportunity to study subjects in school that would prepare them for a career in tech, they now believe it is too late for them to make the switch.
Posted: 10/12/2021
Italy’s competition authority has fined Amazon €1.2 billion. The regulator claimed that Amazon had harmed its e-commerce logistics competitors by leveraging its dominant position in the market.
Posted: 9/12/2021
London education technology start-up Atom Learning has raised $25 million in a Series A funding round, according to a report by TechCrunch. The report said the capital came from Japanese conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2, which was launched in 2019.
Posted: 09/12/2021
British digital secretary Nadine Dorries and the United States commerce secretary Gina M. Raimondo have issued a statement on a commitment to deepen the existing UK-US data partnership.
Posted: 9/12/2021
Facebook and Instagram owner Meta has built an AI system designed to tackle harmful content online. The social media giant claims that its Few-Shot Learner (FSL) technology can adapt to take action on new or evolving types of harmful content within weeks instead of months.
Posted: 9/12/2021
Amazon Web Services (AWS) was hit with an outage on Tuesday that impacted Netflix, Disney+, Robinhood, and Amazon’s e-commerce platform according to sources reported by Reuters. The issue primarily affected AWS’ US-East-1 region hosted in northern Virginia.
Posted: 08/12/2021
The government has announced plans to phase out 2G and 3G in the UK by 2033. It said that the move forms part of new measures to boost the security of telecoms supply chains and to support a smooth transition to faster mobile networks.
Posted: 8/12/2021
French gaming company Ubisoft has announced the launch of a new platform for players to acquire what it describes as the first Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) playable in an AAA game and running on energy efficient technology.
Posted: 8/12/2021
TikTok is set to host its first live e-commerce event today and tomorrow. The event, dubbed “On Trend”, will see the social media platform collaborate with brands such as JD, L'Oréal Paris, LOOKFANTASTIC, and Nutri Bullet.
Posted: 08/12/2021
The government will spend over £116 million to support British businesses that are developing new green technology to reduce carbon emissions, utility bills, and remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Posted: 7/12/2021
Virgin Media O2 has announced that it has completed the upgrade of its national network to “gigabit speeds”. The company claims that it has now delivered nearly two-thirds of the government’s broadband ambition, four years ahead of the target date.
Posted: 7/12/2021
On Tuesday Instagram said it was launching a new set of tools and features to keep teenagers safe on the platform. The announcement comes a day before the social media app is due to attend a US senate hearing into the impact of the platform on young people.
Posted: 7/12/2021
A cyberattack has impacted 300 Spar stores in the North of England. Spar said the incident had impacted all its systems including email.
Posted: 07/12/2021
Four new tech companies have joined a National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Plexal led initiative to help the government solve some of the UK’s pressing cyber challenges. The businesses will develop and pilot technology, working at the NCSC For Startups HQ in Cheltenham.
Posted: 6/12/2021
The government has announced plans for a liquid hydrogen plane that could enable passengers to fly anywhere in the world with zero emissions and just one refuelling stop. The concept aircraft was unveiled on Monday by the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) ahead of the fourth meeting of the Jet Zero Council, chaired by the Transport Secretary.
Posted: 6/12/2021
73 per cent of digital workers expect to switch positions in the next two to three years, according to new research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Four-in-ten of these workers are actively job hunting according to the study, which surveyed approximately 9,900 workers in digital fields from 190 countries.
Posted: 06/12/2021
Crypto exchange Bitmart lost $150 million worth of assets on Sunday in what it described as a large-scale security breach. The company revealed that the hack was related to one if its ETH hot wallets and one of its BSC hot wallets.
Posted: 6/12/2021
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued to block Nvidia’s $40 billion acquisition of chip designer Arm.
Posted: 3/12/2021
The UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has announced the launch of a new campaign to help move customers online.
Posted: 3/12/2021
UK subscription app Glorify has raised $40 million in a Series A funding round. The London-based app was founded in 2020 by British entrepreneurs Ed Beccle and Henry Costa and has around 250,000 daily users, mostly in the United States and Brazil.
Posted: 03/12/2021
Some Virgin Media customers were unable to access TV services for over 10 hours yesterday after the company experienced a “major power outage”.
Posted: 3/12/2021
Technology trade association techUK has launched a report which sets out recommendations to help support CISOs during the digital transformation of their organisations.
Posted: 2/12/2021
Facebook-owner Meta has revealed that it took down six international networks for violations of its security policies this year. Four networks located in China, Palestine, Poland, and Belarus were removed for what Meta describes as ‘Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB).
Posted: 2/12/2021
US private investment platform Republic has agreed to by UK-headquartered company Seedrs. Seedrs, a leading online private investment platform in Europe, will be valued at around $100 million – equivalent to roughly £75 million – following the acquisition.
Posted: 2/12/2021
All 193 member states of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have adopted an agreement that defines common principles which address ethical issues related to AI. A first draft of the 141 measures was published in May 2020, after being developed by a unit of 24 AI specialists known as the Ad Hoc Expert Group (AHEG).
Posted: 02/12/2021
Two new hybrid trains have joined the internal rail network at British nuclear site Sellafield, the government has announced. The trains replace older and less environmentally friendly engines.
Posted: 1/12/2021
Twitter has announced that it is expanding its private information policy to include media, including personal images.
Posted: 1/12/2021
The chief of MI6 has said that the changing nature of threats needs a greater degree of openness from modern intelligence agencies. In his first speech since taking on the role last year, Richard Moore spoke about human intelligence in the digital age.
Posted: 1/12/2021
5G will account for nearly half - 49 per cent - of all mobile subscriptions by 2027, according to a new report by Ericsson. There are currently around 8.1 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide according to the report, which Ericsson projects will increase to around 8.9 billion by the end of 2027, with 92 per cent of these being for mobile broadband.
Posted: 01/12/2021
O2 has recently opened what it describes as a new “AR Store of the Future” on Snapchat. As of Black Friday last week up until 8 December, Snapchat users will be able to visit a virtual O2 store to shop for three hero Samsung products by clicking on them to explore more detail and buy through a Shop Now button present throughout the lens experience.
Posted: 30/11/2021
The UK government has launched one of the world’s first national standards for algorithmic transparency.
Posted: 30/11/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has confirmed that Meta – formerly Facebook – must sell GIF-sharing platform Giphy. The UK watchdog found the deal would reduce competition between social media platforms and said it had already removed Giphy as a potential challenger in the display advertising market.
Posted: 30/11/2021
Jack Dorsey has stepped down as chief executive officer of Twitter. Twitter’s board of directors unanimously appointed chief technology officer (CTO) Parag Agrawal as Dorsey’s replacement as chief executive and a member of the board, effective immediately.
Posted: 30/11/2021
Sadiq Khan has launched a new initiative to tackle the underrepresentation of young black men in London’s technology sector. The move is part of the mayor of London’s Workforce Integration Network programme which is focussed on increasing the number of young Black men in the capital’s key industries.
Posted: 29/11/2021
Nissan Motor has announced it will invest two trillion yen – the equivalent of around £13.2 billion – to accelerate its electrification plans over the next five years. The company said that across the next decade it plans to deliver electric vehicles (EVs) and technological innovations while expanding its operations globally.
Posted: 29/11/2021
O2 has announced a new partnership with The Big Issue, which will see more than 200 of the magazine’s vendors receive free data plans every month. The move is designed to enable vendors to make cashless sales, access online services, and stay connected with their families.
Posted: 29/11/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is set to block Meta, formerly known as Facebook, from acquiring online GIF platform Giphy, according to sources reported by The Financial Times. This would be the first time that the competition watchdog has blocked a BigTech acquisition according to the newspaper’s sources.
Posted: 29/11/2021
The performance of UK venture capital (VC) funds has increased sharply over the last 12 months, according to research by the government-backed British Business Bank. The Bank said VC returns were driven by higher company valuations combined with strong exit activity in 2020 and 2021.
Posted: 26/11/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it has secured improved commitments from Google on its proposals to remove third-party cookies and other functionalities from its Chrome browser. The competition watchdog has been investigating Google’s ‘Privacy Sandbox’ since the start of 2021.
Posted: 26/11/2021
The Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) has announced recommendations on how to prevent violence against women online.
Posted: 25/11/2021
The Indian government could potentially “prohibit all private cryptocurrencies” in a newly proposed bill, according to a parliamentary bulletin from November 23. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill would be aimed at forming “a facilitative framework for creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India”.
Posted: 25/11/2021
UK robotics company Cyberselves, which uses ‘telepresence technology,’ has won a spot in the finals of the global ANA Avatar XPRISE robotics competition. The tech enables humans to ‘teleport’ into a robot and control it.
Posted: 25/11/2021
Consumer mobile devices to ‘create over 3,500 petabytes’ of data roaming traffic by 2026. Over 3,500 petabytes of data roaming traffic will be created by consumer mobile devices by 2026, according to research from roaming consultancy firm Kaleido Intelligence.
Posted: 25/11/2021
High-power electric vehicle charging network IONITY has announced a new €700 million investment. The funding comes from the company’s current shareholders and new partner BlackRock.
Posted: 24/11/2021
The government has announced a new cyber bill designed to protect people’s personal tech devices from hackers. The bill will require manufacturers, importers, and distributors of digital tech which connects to the internet or other products to make sure they meet tough new cyber security standards, with “heavy fines” for those who fail to comply.
Posted: 24/11/2021
Samsung has announced that it will build its new $17 billion chip plant in Texas, USA. In March, documents filed with Texas state officials revealed that the multinational electronics business was looking at sites in Arizona, New York and, Texas for a new chip plant.
Posted: 24/11/2021
Tech giant Apple has filed a lawsuit against NSO Group and its parent company over the alleged surveillance and targeting of its users. In the complaint, the company claimed it had “new information” on how the Israeli company infected user devices with its Pegasus spyware.
Posted: 24/11/2021
The government has said that digital transformation, as well as recruitment, training, and retention of staff will be put at the heart of the NHS in England under new reforms announced by the health secretary.
Posted: 23/11/2021
Lush Cosmetics has announced plans to deactivate its Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat to address consumers’ mental health challenges. The brand said that its global presence across these platforms would remain deactivated until they take action to “provide a safer environment for users.”
Posted: 23/11/2021
Italy’s antitrust watchdog has reportedly fined Amazon and Apple more than $225 million for alleged anti-competitive cooperation in sales of Apple and Beats products. The authority said that contractual conditions of an agreement made in 2018 between the tech giants meant that only select resellers were able to sell the products on Amazon.it.
Posted: 23/11/2021
Swedish telecoms giant Ericsson is set to pay $6.2 billion in cash for cloud-based telecoms services group Vonage. Vonage, founded in 2001 in New Jersey, provides cloud communications services, including unified communications platforms and VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services.
Posted: 23/11/2021
El Salvador’s president has announced plans to build the world’s first ‘Bitcoin City. At the weekend, president Nayib Bukele said that the city would be funded by bitcoin-backed bonds.
Posted: 22/11/2021
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is not set to introduce end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for messaging on Instagram and Messenger until 2023, according to sources reported by The Sunday Telegraph. The BigTech firm had originally said it planned to introduce encrypted messaging for Instagram and Messenger by default in 2022.
Posted: 22/11/2021
The UK Spectrum Policy Forum (SPF) has submitted a report to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) which outlines a set of new recommendations to drive the development of 6G.
Posted: 22/11/2021
All new homes and buildings in England will be required to install electric vehicle (EV) charge points from 2022. The rule comes under new legislation to be announced by the prime minister today.
Posted: 22/11/2021
The government has announced the introduction of new technology to make sure “consistent and reliable” information is available on UK motorways and major A roads. The service provides information that will help National Highways’ operations teams and the emergency services respond to incidents as efficiently as possible and to keep traffic moving.
Posted: 19/11/2021
Benchling, a cloud technology provider to the biotechnology industry, has raised $100 million in Series F funding round at a $6.1 billion valuation. Benchling said it will use the funding to continue its European expansion and to further develop its cloud-based R&D platform.
Posted: 19/11/2021
Roughly six million Sky routers had a ‘significant software bug’ that could have led to hackers taking over home networks, a BBC report has revealed. According to researchers, while the issue has been fixed, it took a year and a half to address.
Posted: 19/11/2021
UK electric bus and van manufacturer Arrival has reportedly launched its new electric bus prototype. According to a report from Reuters, the company expects to start producing these new buses in 2022 and hopes to sell at a similar price to standard diesel buses.
Posted: 18/11/2021
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), the executive agency of the Ministry of Defence, has showcased its latest technology designed to tackle knife crime. Kit Malthouse, minister for crime and policing, met scientists from the lab to see how the tech worked.
Posted: 18/11/2021
The number of cryptocurrency investors in the UK has jumped 57 per cent since 2018, according to research from market research firm GWI Zeitgeist. The firm surveyed UK internet users aged between 16-64 about their attitudes towards crypto.
Posted: 18/11/2021
Apple has announced that it will allow customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs access genuine device parts and tools. ‘Self Service Repair’ will first be available for iPhone 12 and iPhone 13. This will soon be followed by Mac computers featuring M1 chips.
Posted: 18/11/2021
Ideas from social media influence 56 per cent of 18-34 year olds who invest, according to new research. The study, commissioned by Hargreaves Lansdown, surveyed 2,000 people in September.
Posted: 17/11/2021
Nokia plans to offer cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions targeting telecom companies covering analytics, security, and data management. The Finnish company said offering SaaS for communication service providers (CSPs) is a natural evolution of “Everything-as-a-Service”, which it said is a key element of its overall strategy.
Posted: 17/11/2021
Amazon has announced that next year it will no longer accept Visa credit cards as a form of payment on its e-commerce platform in the UK. The online giant said that the move was due to Visa’s “high costs.”
Posted: 17/11/2021
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has tackled 777 cyber incidents over the past year, including attacks on coronavirus vaccine research, distribution, and supply chains. The organisation’s annual review revealed that the number of incidents had increased by more than fifty compared to the previous year.
Posted: 17/11/2021
A fast internet connection is one of the top factors for people buying a new home, according to new research. A survey of 294 estate agents across the UK found that speeds of 300Mbps are being sought by 34 per cent of buyers, the BBC reported.
Posted: 16/11/2021
IT companies could be forced to follow new cyber rules under new measures designed to improve the cyber security of digital supply chains. The government said that IT service providers could be required to follow new rules such as the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) Cyber Assessment Framework as part of the new proposals.
Posted: 16/11/2021
Google has announced plans to spend $740 million across five-years in Australia. At a virtual event in Sydney, Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said that the investment would focus on a number of key areas.
Posted: 16/11/2021
Twitter is to set to expand amount of data it provides to third party developers for free. Twitter said the move will allow software developers to produce tools and products that encourage new types of innovation that will lead to greater impact on the public conversation.
Posted: 16/11/2021
The commission for the Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group (BFEG) has been renewed by the government. The group will continue to provide independent advice to Home Office ministers on ethical issues related to biometrics, forensics, and data-driven projects.
Posted: 15/11/2021
Virgin Media O2 has partnered with the Good Things Foundation to roll out a National Databank across the UK to help tackle data poverty. The company will dish out free O2 mobile data to the 1.5 million homes in the UK without internet access.
Posted: 15/11/2021
The first bitcoin update in four years, dubbed Taproot, went live on Sunday. The update was first confirmed in June of this year, when over 90 per cent of bitcoin miners signalled their support.
Posted: 15/11/2021
IBM and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have announced they are collaborating to develop a comprehensive data tool for the energy sector. The new partnership will combine IBM Open Data for Industries for IBM Cloud Pak for Data and the AWS Cloud.
Posted: 15/11/2021
The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport has partnered with Microsoft to digitally preserve and restore ancient Olympia using AI.
Posted: 12/11/2021
Vodafone has expanded its partnership with CityFibre to become Britain’s largest full-fibre broadband provider. The move aims to roll out full-fibre broadband across eight million homes by April next year, as part of a £4 billion investment programme.
Posted: 12/11/2021
BT has developed what it describes as ‘epidemiological AI’ based on the viruses in humans to combat cyber-attacks.
Posted: 12/11/2021
Swedish music streaming giant Spotify has acquired digital audiobook distributor Findaway. Spotify did not share the financial terms of the deal, which is set to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Posted: 12/11/2021
The US Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Uber for charging “wait time” fees to passengers who need more time to enter a car because of a disability. The Department claims that Uber’s policies of charging wait time fees based on disability have harmed many passengers throughout the US.
Posted: 11/11/2021
The government has said that all new heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in the UK will be zero emission within the next two decades.
Posted: 11/11/2021
The Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (MPFT) has chosen Agilisys to support its digital strategy. The new partnership will see the organisations work to deliver a roadmap to inform the Trust’s decisions around migrating data into cloud, including what the structure of the data environment needs to look like.
Posted: 11/11/2021
Google has lost its appeal against a €2.42 billion online EU competition fine, which alleged that the BigTech favoured its “own comparison-shopping service over competing services”. The ruling by The General Court of Luxembourg, dates to accusations first made in 2017, when EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager first launched an investigation into Google's position in the e-commerce market.
Posted: 11/11/2021
Coinbase shares dropped 15 per cent in Tuesday trading after the cryptocurrency exchange missed Wall Street analyst expectations. Coinbase reported revenues of $1.31 billion in its third quarter, a 300 per cent rise year-on-year, but well below the $1.58 billion predicted by Wall Street analyst firm S&P Capital IQ.
Posted: 10/11/2021
Automotive companies around the world are planning to spend over half a trillion dollars on electric vehicles and batteries by 2030, exclusive analysis from Reuters has revealed. Just under three years ago the news agency published similar analysis which found carmakers planned to spend $300 billion on electric vehicles and related technologies.
Posted: 10/11/2021
An original Apple-1 computer has sold at auction for $400,000. In 1976, 200 of these computers were designed by Steve Wozniak and assembled and tested by Steve Jobs, his sister Patty Jobs, and Daniel Kottke in Jobs’ home.
Posted: 10/11/2021
Google has won an appeal in the UK Supreme Court against a case brought over an alleged breach of personal data. Richard Lloyd sought compensation under the Data Protection Act for damage allegedly suffered by Apple iPhone users due to the unlawful processing by Google of their personal data.
Posted: 10/11/2021
Ofcom has said it will protect thousands of vital phone boxes from closure under new rules. As part of the move to digital phone lines, which will require investment to upgrade phone boxes, BT is currently assessing which ones are no longer needed and can be decommissioned.
Posted: 9/11/2021
The government has committed £210 million to the development of one of the world’s first small modular reactors (SMR.) The funding will be matched by private sector funding of more than £250 million.
Posted: 9/11/2021
11 British organisations have won a share of just under £7 million to help action the latest advances in space innovation.
Posted: 9/11/2021
The US Justice Department has charged a Ukrainian and a Russian over their involvement in the cyberattack on Florida-based software provider Kaseya. The attack on the IT firm, which occurred during the weekend of July 4, caused significant damage to firms worldwide, forcing Swedish grocery chain Coop to shut almost all its 800 stores.
Posted: 09/11/2021
The rising growth of UK technology is being threatened by a skills crisis, the latest Harvey Nash Group Digital Leadership Report has found. The research surveyed 2,100 digital leaders, including 823 based in the UK.
Posted: 8/11/2021
Daimler has partnered with Visa to develop native in-car payments. From Spring 2022, Visa’s authentication technology will enable Mercedes-Benz customers in Europe to pay for goods and services by using their fingerprint in the car.
Posted: 8/11/2021
The government has announced that satellite data will be used to monitor and map heat in locations at greatest risk from climate change as part of a new project backed by the UK Space Agency.
Posted: 8/11/2021
Electric vehicle (EV) charging business Connected Kerb has announced plans to install 190,000 public on-street EV chargers across the UK by 2030. The chargers, worth up to £1.9 billion, would provide EV charging for tens of millions of drivers without off-street parking.
Posted: 8/11/2021
Antivirus software firm McAfee is in advanced talks to go private in a $14 billion deal, according to sources originally reported by The Wall Street Journal. The sources said the deal is led by Boston-based private equity firm Advent International, which reports $75 billion under management.
Posted: 08/11/2021
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has discussed opening physical retail stores across the world. The move was first made public by The New York Times, which saw company documents revealing the plans and heard from sources with knowledge of the project.
Posted: 5/11/2021
The government has announced the opening of its climate satellite design competition. The aim of the competition is to encourage space scientists to design a small satellite to help inform solutions for climate change.
Posted: 5/11/2021
Google parent company Alphabet has launched a new business, Isomorphic Laboratories, that will use AI for drug discovery. The new company will build on work done by London-based AI firm DeepMind.
Posted: 05/11/2021
The new culture secretary has warned tech giant bosses that if they don’t remove their “harmful algorithms” they could face criminal prosecution. At a parliamentary committee about the draft Online Safety Bill, Nadine Dorries, who became secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport last month, said that executives at social media platforms would be deemed liable for hateful content online 18 months earlier than had originally been planned.
Posted: 5/11/2021
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has returned nearly $60 million to 140,000 drivers whose tips were “illegally withheld” by Amazon. The US consumer watchdog said that the funds would serve as reimbursements for tips that Amazon allegedly illegally withheld from drivers between 2016 and 2019.
Posted: 4/11/2021
Sofant Technologies, the Scottish radio technology company, has received a significant £6.2 million backing from the UK Space Agency (UKSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA.) The funding will support the the commercialisation of its low-cost low-power satellite communications platform.
Posted: 4/11/2021
Amazon has announced plans to launch two satellites at the end of 2022. Project Kuiper is a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation which the technology giant said will provide affordable broadband to unserved and underserved communities around the world.
Posted: 4/11/2021
The Labour Party has fallen victim to a third-party data breach, according to an email to its members. The Party was informed about a breach by the unnamed IT supplier involved in the incident on 29 October 2021.
Posted: 04/11/2021
Volkswagen has invested in EU-backed sustainable energy company EIT InnoEnergy to a bid to boost carbon-neutral mobility. The partnership involves Volkswagen becoming a new shareholder of EIT InnoEnergy.
Posted: 3/11/2021
Netflix has announced the launch of its new mobile game service. Anyone that has a membership with Netflix can now access five new games on Android devices.
Posted: 3/11/2021
The independent commissioner for biometrics and surveillance cameras has told the government he has ‘serious concerns’ about its plans to absorb oversight of key police powers into the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO.)
Posted: 3/11/2021
Microsoft is set to introduce new metaverse features to Teams in the first half of 2023, according to sources reported by The Financial Times. The announcement came at the BigTech firm’s annual Ignite conference held in San Francisco.
Posted: 03/11/2021
A recent Female Founders Forum report has outlined some of the problems faced by women entering the industry and wanting to go on to set up technology businesses. The research found that only 17 per cent of technology workers in the UK are currently women.
Posted: 2/11/2021
The government announced the launch of a new consultation led by the Intellectual Property Office that will explore how the copyright and patent system should handle Artificial Intelligence (AI.)
Posted: 2/11/2021
Japanese conglomerate Softbank has led a $93 million Series B funding round in metaverse gaming company The Sandbox. The Sandbox, originally released in 2012, claims it provides a virtual metaverse where players can play, build, and own their own virtual experiences, which can then be monetized via non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Posted: 02/11/2021
A new report published by the Regulatory Horizons Council (RHC) has outlined how the UK could support the commercialisation of drones. The RHC is an independent expert committee which identifies the regulation needed to develop innovation and technology.
Posted: 2/11/2021
Almost 600,000 more rural UK homes and businesses are to be given access to better broadband through a government-backed scheme. The new connections targeted are in hard-to-reach locations across Cheshire, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Essex, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, Lincolnshire, the East Riding and North Yorkshire.
Posted: 01/11/2021
The value of UK net zero technology business has nearly doubled in a year, jumping from $24.4 billion to $47.6 billion, according to research from Tech Nation. The technology network has today published its Net Zero 2021 report to coincide with the launch of COP26.
Posted: 1/11/2021
Large-scale floating offshore wind ports and factories are expected to be built in the UK with the help of £160 million in new government funding. The money is designed to support the prime minister’s Ten Point Plan to deliver 1GW of energy through floating offshore wind by 2030, which is nearly nine times more than current volumes worldwide.
Posted: 01/11/2021
Mixed or “hybrid” clouds are now the order of the day, according to IBM research, but IT departments will have to adapt their systems to suit.The global study on cloud transformation shows a “drastic shift” in business needs, says IBM, as only 3 per cent of organisations reported using a single private or public cloud in 2021, down from 29 per cent in 2019.
Posted: 01/11/2021
Royal Mail has announced the launch of an all-electric delivery office in Glasgow ahead of the upcoming COP26 Climate Summit taking place in the Scottish capital. The G51 Delivery Office, located in the Govan area of Glasgow, will operate 13 electric vehicles (EVs) and two micro electric vehicles.
Posted: 29/10/2021
The world’s second largest cryptocurrency Ether reached a record high on Friday. According to a report from Reuters, the digital asset increased by 2.6 per cent to $4,400 this week, an all-time high for the cryptocurrency.
Posted: 29/10/2021
Facebook has changed its corporate name to Meta as part of a new branding that aims to reflect the company’s new focus on developing the metaverse. At a Facebook conference on Thursday, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told attendees that Meta would bring together the social media giant’s apps and technologies under one new brand.
Posted: 29/10/2021
Two technology businesses based in Manchester have claimed they are ‘leading the race’ to innovate the global education metaverse with their own science and tech campus. The campus, called Credersi World, uses a mixed reality platform that includes virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR.)
Posted: 28/10/2021
Regulators in the UK, USA, and Canada have identified 10 guiding principles to be addressed when medical devices use artificial intelligence (AI) or machine learning software.
Posted: 28/10/2021
techUK, the British trade association for the technology industry, has praised the chancellor’s reforms to R&D tax reliefs outlined in the latest Autumn Budget.
Posted: 28/10/2021
BT has launched a new digital advertising platform to make it easier for businesses to run their own marketing campaigns, helping them to better promote their goods and services online. BT’s Digital Marketing Hub gives firms the tools and support to create, publish and track their digital advertising across Google, Facebook and Instagram from a single platform.
Posted: 28/10/2021
The Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) has launched a new app that provides support for businesses in staying safe on and offline. Through targeted push notifications, businesses that download the app are informed of threats to their operations including cyber threats, traffic, and protestor activity, and be given accurate sector-specific guidance within minutes.
Posted: 27/10/2021
Ending the cycle of selling new smartphones on ever smaller timescales should be a top target for the COP26 climate change conference, according to a poll of members at BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.
Posted: 27/10/2021
Airband, broadband provider for rural homes and businesses across the West of England, has closed a £100 million debt package from a number of international banks. The debt facility, provided by HSBC, Lloyds, Nord LB, and Sabadell, enables the company to accelerate its rollout plan to service 600,000 premises with full fibre broadband by 2025.
Posted: 27/10/2021
Only 41 per cent of UK organisations are on track to meet the government’s target for net zero carbon emissions by 2050, according to research by Dr Chris Brauer from Goldsmiths, University of London, in partnership with Microsoft.
Posted: 27/10/2021
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen advised UK MPs and Lords to clamp down on Facebook over risk of “online harm” yesterday, on the same day the company reported a big jump in quarterly profits.
Posted: 26/10/2021
The UK markets watchdog has launched an investigation into Motorola’s Airwave network, the mobile radio network used by all emergency services in Great Britain. Motorola’s network provides the infrastructure and services that enable police, fire, and emergency services to communicate securely with each other when first responders are working in the field.
Posted: 26/10/2021
People are turning to robots to support their career development after the pandemic left them feeling lonely and disconnected, according to research from Oracle and Workplace Intelligence. The study of over 14,600 staff, managers, HR leaders, and C-level executives across 13 countries, including the UK, found that many people “felt stuck” in their personal and professional lives.
Posted: 26/10/2021
Amazon has won a contract with the UK’s spy agencies, which will see the tech multinational host top secret material on its cloud computing platform. The move, first reported by the Financial Times, aims to boost the use of data analytics and artificial intelligence for espionage.
Posted: 26/10/2021
49 per cent of Brits do not know if their smartphone has security software installed, or have none at all, according to research from Bacancy Technology.
Posted: 25/10/2021
The Government is set to build two new IT service centres in the Scottish Highlands, as part of a £225 million investment over the next five years. The centres, run by IT consulting firm Capgemini, will create 250 local jobs and boost region’s economy according to the Gov.
Posted: 25/10/2021
PayPal has said that it is not planning to buy Pinterest at the moment following recent media reports of potential acquisition. Last week sources at Bloomberg claimed that PayPal was exploring a $45 billion buyout of the social media platform.
Posted: 25/10/2021
Ofcom has reportedly ordered British phone networks to ban nearly all foreign internet calls pretending to be from UK numbers. The regulator told the BBC that one operator had already implemented the new plans, while other UK networks are looking for methods to carry this out.
Posted: 25/10/2021
Westminster City Council has opened a new digital academy designed to tackle digital exclusion. The academy will have a number of tech partners, including Microsoft, O2, and Google, as well as a range of programmes for residents and businesses, with the aim of improving access to groups underrepresented in tech careers.
Posted: 22/10/2021
Amazon has opened a new robotics manufacturing warehouse in Westborough, Massachusetts. The facility is designed to expand upon the technology giant’s existing Amazon Robotics manufacturing market in the US.
Posted: 22/10/21
Almost one five vehicles - 19 per cent - sold in the European Union during the third quarter were electric, according to research from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA). This is up from just 5.9 per cent of all vehicles sold in the EU in 2017.
Posted: 22/10/2021
The government has announced it will phase out the Digital Services Tax (DST) and transition to a new global tax system. On Thursday, the UK struck a deal with the US and other European countries which outlines a DST-credit system that will bridge the gap between the existing tax and the start of the new system, due to be implemented in 2023.
Posted: 22/10/2021
Spanish company Multiverse Computing, which describes itself as the first quantum computing start-up dedicated to finance, has announced a seed funding round of €10 million.
Posted: 21/10/2021
Shopify has announced a new partnership which will enable artists to showcase and sell products directly on their Spotify accounts. Musicians can now introduce products using the music streaming service by connecting their Spotify for Artists accounts with their Shopify online stores.
Posted: 21/10/21
Facebook was hit with a £50.5 million fine this week after it breached an order imposed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) during its investigation into the company’s purchase of Giphy.
Posted: 21/10/2021
PayPal is exploring a $45 billion acquisition of social media platform Pinterest, according to sources reported by Bloomberg. Pinterest, founded in 2009, has more than 450 million users worldwide and experienced rapid user growth over the pandemic.
Posted: 21/10/2021
Samsung has launched a new service which enables UK households to manage their energy usage directly from their phones.
Posted: 20/10/2021
Google has launched two new smartphones that are powered by the company’s first-ever processor, a mobile system on a chip that uses the company’s artificial intelligence technology.
The tech giant said that the AI-driven system enables “entirely new capabilities” for its phones.
The tech giant said that the AI-driven system enables “entirely new capabilities” for its phones.
Posted: 20/10/2021
Facebook reportedly has plans to rebrand with a new name next week to reflect its new focus on developing the metaverse.
Posted: 20/10/2021
Facebook has partnered with Coinbase to help with logistics for Novi, its new digital wallet for cryptocurrencies. The wallet, which is currently being piloted in the US and Guatemala, allows users to send ‘SDP’, a stablecoin tied to the US dollar created by tech firm Paxos.
Posted: 20/10/2021
The government has launched its long awaited net zero strategy, which includes plans to implement a zero-emission vehicle mandate and details of widescale investment across a number of green technologies.
Posted: 19/10/2021
Spotify is reportedly planning to launch a recruitment drive to boost sales across Europe, Australia, and Canada.
Posted: 19/10/2021
Open industry association FIDO Alliance has announced the launch of its online authentication barometer which tracks the uptake of authentication technologies among the general public.
The barometer provides baseline insights into the state of online authentication across 10 countries.
The barometer provides baseline insights into the state of online authentication across 10 countries.
Posted: 19/10/2021
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is planning to launch a probe into the UK music streaming industry. Following a discussion by the authority’s board, the organisation said it will now carry out work to consider and develop the final scope of a market study, before formally launching it as soon as possible.
Posted: 19/10/2021
Berkshire-based Occuity has received funding for its non-contact, optical glucose meter. The device is designed to enable the 4.7 million people living in the UK with diabetes to monitor their blood-sugar levels through an eye scan.
Posted: 18/10/2021
Apple is expected to release a new Mac laptop that will include more powerful chips on Monday. According to a report from Reuters, analysts believe that the company will unveil its new computers at an event later today.
Posted: 18/10/2021
Facebook has announced that it will create 10,000 new jobs across the European Union to help develop the “metaverse.” The social media giant describes the metaverse as a new phase of interconnected virtual experiences using technologies like virtual and augmented reality.
Posted: 18/10/2021
Nine secondary schools in North Ayrshire are set to begin taking payments for school lunches using facial recognition, according to sources reported by The Financial Times. The sources claimed the new system is faster and more Covid safe compared to the cards and scanners they were using previously.
Posted: 18/10/2021
Human rights in a digital world event held next week An international seminar will be held next Monday (18 October) on the theme of “Human Rights in the digital sphere”.
Posted: 15/10/2021
LinkedIn is closing its social network in China, citing “a challenging operating environment” and “greater compliance requirements”. The social network has 53 million users in the country, around 7 per cent of its total user base.
Posted: 15/10/2021
The UK government is seeking to “diversify” the telecoms market and stimulate the creation of products and services from SMEs and startups. The move will support the UK government’s aim of developing a domestic capability for 5G and making sure the telecoms market includes a variety of vendors, including a larger number of smaller firms.
Posted: 14/10/2021
The Metropolitan Police is facing calls for a formal investigation after it admitted to losing 2,280 electronic devices over the past two years. The data, obtained from the force by litigation practice Griffin Law using Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation, revealed the extent of losses and thefts of police laptops, tablets and mobile phones in both 2019 and 2020.
Posted: 14/10/2021
The US is now the world leader when it comes to bitcoin mining, overtaking China according to data published by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance. New bitcoin is created when high performance computers compete against other computers to solve mathematical equations, dubbed ‘mining’, which requires significant amounts of energy often derived from fossil fuels.
Posted: 14/10/2021
Capabilities provided by artificial intelligence (AI) could boost the UK economy by 10 per cent by 2030, according to research published by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The report, carried out by PWC, used workshops and publicly available government data to assess the impact of AI-related tech on the labour force in variety of different sectors.
Posted: 13/10/2021
Scotland has become the first country in the world to make digital therapeutics for anxiety and insomnia available nationally. NHS Scotland will offer Big Health’s therapeutics to all adults, providing them with cognitive behavioural therapy.
Posted: 13/10/2021
The Scottish Government's CivTech Accelerator programme has now started, with 12 startups chosen to develop their solutions to help tackle social challenges.The 15-week intensive programme will involve a series of specialised workshops with industry experts, to help the startups address areas such as the decarbonisation of Scottish manufacturing, enhancing social care services and improving educational facilities.
Posted: 12/10/2021
Improved connectivity can save a total of 27.8 megatonnes of transport-related carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions between 2021 and 2035, according to a new report commissioned by Huawei. This is the equivalent of taking 750,000 lorries off Britain’s roads or more than twice the annual CO2 emissions of Greater Manchester according to the report carried out by communications industry analyst Assembly.
Posted: 12/10/2021
Tech Nation has accepted 31 tech companies into its Upscale growth programme as investments in mid-stage UK companies take off. Nearly a quarter of the companies selected are HealthTechs and a sixth are EdTechs. The companies chosen reflect the wider growth of the UK’s mid-stage scaling tech companies (at the Series A funding stage).
Posted: 12/10/2021
The West Midlands has been named by the UK government as the country's fastest-growing tech region. The area is said to be on track to create an extra 52,000 digital tech jobs by 2025, helping to generate an extra £2.7 billion for the local economy.
Posted: 11/10/2021
Facebook executive Nick Clegg has said that the BigTech’s algorithms should be held to account, if necessary, by regulation. The former Liberal Democrat leader, who is now Fakebook’s vice president for global affairs and communications, also said the platform's users wanted to be exposed to more friends, less politics on NBC News' Meet The Press programme.
Posted: 11/10/2021
Cybersecurity incidents impacting businesses through suppliers that they share data with is getting worse, the latest edition of Kaspersky’s annual IT Security Economics report has revealed.
Posted: 8/10/2021
UK broadcaster Sky has announced the launch of its new WiFi-based Sky TV. Sky glass integrates hardware, software, and content.
Posted: 8/10/2021
Many tech companies – including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter – are violating the newly introduced Children’s Code, according to research by charity 5 Rights. The research, submitted to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on Friday and originally reported by the Financial Times, alleged that many social media platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter “nudged” children into sharing their locations and receiving personalised advertising.
Posted: 08/10/2021
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has launched the first stage of the Integrated Data Service (IDS), a cloud-based platform designed to give analysts and researchers greater access to data from a range of sources.
Posted: 8/10/2021
US lawmakers have proposed a bill which if enacted will force US-based companies to report ransomware payments within 48 hours. The Ransom Disclosure Act seeks to provide the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with greater insights about how the criminal gangs behind ransomware operate.
Posted: 07/10/2021
Twitter has announced that it has entered an agreement to sell MoPub to marketing software company AppLovin Corporation for $1.05 billion in cash.
Posted: 7/10/2021
The Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has been assessing the potential use of autonomous systems for resupply operations in the British Army’s logistics division.
Posted: 7/10/2021
Amazon-owned video live streaming service Twitch has confirmed that it was hit by a significant data breach. The company said that the data was exposed to the internet due to an error in a Twitch server configuration change that was accessed by a hacker.
Posted: 7/10/2021
Science minister George Freeman has launched a Fusion Green Paper which outlines how the government plans to legislate the deployment of fusion energy. The government claims that the move makes the UK the first country in the world to detail its legal approach to the technology.
Posted: 6/10/2021
The chief executive and co-founder of Facebook has denied claims made by a whistleblower that the company puts profits before tackling hate speech.
Posted: 6/10/2021
Ofcom has introduced new measures to crackdown on terrorism, child sexual abuse, and racism related content on video sharing platforms (VSPs). The watchdog claim that one third of users have seen “hateful” content on VSPs such as TikTok, Snapchat, OnlyFans, Vimeo, and Twitch.
Posted: 06/10/2021
Amazon has announced the opening of its first 4-star store outside of the US. Amazon 4-star stocks a curated range of products that have been rated four stars and above, are top sellers, or are trending on Amazon.co.uk.
Posted: 6/10/2021
Electric commercial vehicle manufacturer Volta Trucks is expanding its UK-based engineering capabilities to support the development of upcoming vehicle programmes. The company is launching a recruitment drive which will see it scale to more than 280 employees by the end of the year.
Posted: 5/10/2021
Experian has launched a data partnership with Handelsbanken to reduce the number of high-carbon emission cars within their current lending portfolio.By combining data sets from both organisations, including information on CO2 emissions, Experian’s data analytics will provide a deeper understanding of what percentage of vehicles within Handelsbanken’s asset finance portfolio are considered high or low in carbon emissions.
Posted: 05/10/2021
Starbucks is launching on Deliveroo at over 400 stores across the UK. Deliveroo customers will now be able to have coffee, plus menu options including sandwiches, wraps, and juices, delivered in under 30 minutes.
Posted: 5/10/2021
Brain implants can used to treat depression according to a new study from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The study, first published in science magazine Nature, said the implant acts as a “neural pacemaker” which detects brain activity associated with irrational thoughts, which it then interrupts with an electrical burst.
Posted: 05/10/2021
Alphabet-owned AI firm Deepmind are facing legal proceedings over allegations they obtained and processed NHS patient records without consent. The London-based firm signed a deal in 2015 with the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust that gave it access to patient data to develop a patient monitoring app called Streams.
Posted: 04/10/2021
The defence secretary has announced that the government’s new National Cyber Force (NCF) will be located in Samlesbury in the Northwest. The NCF, which will be the new home of offensive cyber operations, was announced by the Prime Minister as part of the Integrated Review in November 2020.
Posted: 4/10/2021
Digital supply chain and freight platform, Beacon has raised over $50 million in its Series B round.The round was led by Northstar.vc, with Upper90 also participating as a new investor. The round follows on from $15 million Series A, announced in June 2020, which was led by Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder and 8VC.
Posted: 04/10/2021
Over the weekend a Facebook whistleblower accused the social media platform of prioritising profit over dealing with misinformation and hate speech.
Posted: 4/10/2021
15 projects have been awarded funding to help support UK airports in handling new forms of electric and hydrogen aircraft. Transport secretary Grant Shapps this week announced the winners of the £3 million competition designed to find projects that can make zero emission flights a reality.
Posted: 1/10/2021
E-bike and scooter-hire company Lime has said it is changing its vehicles to stop vandals peeling off their QR codes. Customers scan the QR code to hire a vehicle.
Posted: 1/10/2021
A British business has built what it describes as one of the world’s smallest quantum computers. Orca Computing told the BBC that its novel approach will make quantum computing more commercially viable.
Posted: 1/10/2021
Instagram users that follow celebrities like Kim Kardashian have a more negative self-image, according to Facebook research unearthed by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ.)
Posted: 1/10/2021
Artificial intelligence can improve the accuracy of short-term weather forecasts, according to new research by the UK Meteorological Office and Alphabet-owned AI firm DeepMind. The organisations’ research was aimed at predicting short term weather fluctuations - within the next two hours - otherwise known as “nowcasting”.
Posted: 30/09/2021
ABB has announced the launch of what it describes as the world’s fastest electric car charger. The all-in-one electric vehicle (EV) charger can deliver 100km of range in less than three minutes.
Posted: 30/9/2021
Vulnerabilities in Apple Pay and Visa could enable hackers to bypass an iPhone’s Apple Pay lock screen and make unauthorised contactless payments, according to new research.
Posted: 30/9/2021
The National Technology Awards took place yesterday evening at a glitzy gala dinner at the Marriott in London’s Grosvenor Square. The Awards are the most comprehensive celebration of technology in the year, with a total of 33 trophies up for grabs, celebrating the best technologies across a range of industries.
Posted: 30/9/2021
Digital platform and smart baggage management company AirPortr has entered a partnership with Swissport, the provider of airport ground services. The collaboration aims to enable off-airport baggage processing for airlines and airports.
Posted: 29/9/2021
Tech Nation has announced that 30 companies have joined its growth programme ‘Libra’, designed to equip black and multiracial entrepreneurs with knowledge, tools, and networks to help scale their businesses.
Posted: 29/9/2021
Amazon has announced the launch of a new robot that helps customers with a range of tasks, including home monitoring and keeping in touch with family.
Posted: 29/9/2021
UK robotic process automation (RPA) software company Blue Prism has agreed to a £1.1 billion takeover by US private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. RPA software looks to automate repetitive digital tasks normally performed by people, such as extracting data from documents or filling in forms.
Posted: 29/09/2021
Seven projects have been awarded funding to develop technologies that support the coexistence of offshore windfarms and UK air defence systems. The funding is part of the second phase of Windfarm Mitigation for UK Air Defence, a competition which aims to develop tech that reduces the impact of offshore windfarms on Air Defence surveillance.
Posted: 28/9/2021
The government has launched a consultation on measures to help put the UK at the forefront of transport technologies like drones and electric vehicles. The government said that it plans for a robust and expansive charge point network that will “allow everyone to make the switch to electric.”
Posted: 28/9/2021
Instagram has announced that it will pause the launch of its platform for under 13s. The social media company said that it wanted to work with parents, experts, and policymakers to “demonstrate the need for this product.”
Posted: 28/9/2021
TikTok has announced it now has 1 billion users worldwide. This number is almost eighteen times the 55 million users it reported in 2018, three times more than the 271 million it reported in 2021, and just under double the 507 million it reported in December 2009.
Posted: 28/09/2021
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
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