Brits want a human driver ready to take control in their driverless cars March 20, 2019 The majority of Brits are still sceptical about driverless cars ever being allowed to become truly “autonomous”, according to research. Just one-in-seven people think autonomous vehicles (AVs) should be able to travel without a human occupant ready to take the wheel, according to an Opinium survey. Read more: GM takes stake in British startup as [...]
Google hit with €1.5bn EU penalty for ‘killing competition’ with Adsense advertising practices March 20, 2019 Google has been hit with a €1.49bn (£1.28bn) fine for abusing its dominant online advertising market position. Read more: Google Doodle celebrates 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web The European Commission accused the tech giant of preventing rivals from gaining a foothold in the market it loomed over with its Adsense software, thereby denying [...]
Emojis are a better metric for national wellbeing than traditional data methods March 20, 2019 HMRC’s programme to make tax digital continues to roll out. Anyone with a small business will know about the imminent deadline of 1 April, when VAT returns become digital. Quick to seize an opportunity, several companies have developed software to ease the task. The digitisation of tax raises the wider issue of whether technology will [...]
Google announces Stadia game streaming platform March 19, 2019 Google has announced a video game streaming service called Stradia as the tech giant attempts to challenge Sony and Microsoft in the $140bn gaming market. Stadia will allow users to play games on their internet browser without having to download any content or buy a new console, Google announced at the Game Developers Conference in [...]
Hyundai teams up with Russian tech giant Yandex to build driverless cars March 19, 2019 Hyundai has today moved up a gear in the global race to manufacture driverless cars, as it teams up with Russian tech giant Yandex. The announcement signals Hyundai’s intentions to move into the slipstream of rivals Toyota and Ford, who have teamed up with Softbank and Chinese internet giant Baidu respectively to work on autonomous [...]
UK national security at risk over Huawei 5G plans, Trump officials warn March 19, 2019 The UK’s plans for building a 5G mobile network are putting national security at risk, Trump officials have warned, as the US urges its allies not to partner with Huawei. Senior US officials warned the UK’s system of testing Huawei equipment would not be enough to ensure the country’s 5G network is secure, the Financial [...]
Netflix will not partner with Apple’s streaming service, says boss March 19, 2019 Streaming giant Netflix has said it will not make its films and TV shows available on Apple’s on-demand video platform, as competition in the sector begins to heat up. Chief executive Reed Hastings told reporters in Hollywood the firm will not cooperate with Apple, which is expected to unveil a new video platform at an [...]
Myspace loses 12 years worth of music in botcher server migration March 19, 2019 Fallen social media giant Myspace has admitted to losing 12 years worth of music following a botched server migration. Read more: European data breaches hit 60,000 in eight months An estimated 50m songs from 14m artists that were uploaded onto the website between 2003 and 2015 are lost, the once-great social network said. The firm blamed a [...]
Putting sustainability at the heart of the fourth industrial revolution March 19, 2019 The first, second and third industrial revolutions all forged paths for momentous progress, driven by human ingenuity in manufacturing, science and technology. The unintended consequences, however, were that each revolution became markedly more detrimental to our planet, and – in many cases – people and their communities. The clock is running down to the point [...]
We don’t need to break up big tech to make a better internet – we just need more competition March 19, 2019 Last week saw the release of the government-commissioned Furman Review into digital competition. The commission, chaired by former Obama administration chief economic adviser Jason Furman, found that Google, Amazon, and Facebook don’t face enough competition. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the recent attention on tech giants’ business models by governments across the world. [...]