Musk’s Space X finally launches first US national security space mission December 23, 2018 A Space X Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched in the US this afternoon, after four successive failed attempts to carry out the company's first national security space mission. The rocket, which was carrying a satellite worth roughly $500m (£393.7m) built by Lockheed Martin, blasted off from Florida just before 2pm GMT. The satellite's launch was initially planned [...]
China rebuffs accusations of major cyber hacks on UK and US December 21, 2018 China has said it strongly opposes "slanderous" accusations made by foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, the US and other nations, which criticised the country for utilising cyber hacks for "economic espionage". The UK government yesterday said a group known as APT 10 acted on behalf of the Chinese Ministry of State Security to carry out a "malicious" cyber [...]
Delivery Hero sells off German operations in €930m deal December 21, 2018 The world's biggest online food delivery firm Delivery Hero has agreed to partially sell its operations in Germany to Dutch rival Takeaway.com, in a deal valued at €930m (£838.3m). The tie-up includes businesses owned by Delivery Hero in the region, including Deliveroo-style app Foodora, Lieferheld and Pizza.de. It brings to an end the expensive battle for dominance of [...]
Super Smash Bros Ultimate review: A stylish Switch brawler, and a comprehensive celebration of the series December 20, 2018 The Super Smash Bros series has been around since the halcyon days of the Nintendo 64, which launched – you might want to sit down for this – 20 years ago. The original starred characters from a bunch of disparate Nintendo games beating seven shades of shandy out of one another, and as the series [...]
Twitter shares slide as company dubbed ‘Harvey Weinstein of Social Media’ December 20, 2018 Shares in Twitter are down 12.6 per cent as the social media giant heads towards for its biggest one-day fall in nearly five months. It comes after a report from Citron Research said the technology company “has become the Harvey Weinstein of Social Media”, following a damning Amnesty International study. The human rights charity said on [...]
The UK’s ‘Brexit-proof’ tech startups land Christmas number one for European funding December 20, 2018 British tech firms brought in more funding from venture capital firms than any other country in Europe in 2018, as well as achieving the highest amount of exits. Startups in the UK attracted £6.3bn in venture backing this year, according to new figures released today by Tech Nation and Dealroom. In the same period, the [...]
Qualcomm triumphs against Apple in German iPhone hardware case December 20, 2018 A court in Germany has ruled that Apple infringed a hardware patent owned by chipmaker Qualcomm in some of its iPhone models. The judge said the US firm will not be able to sell some iPhone models in Germany containing an Intel chip from Apple supplier Qorvo, which violated one of Qualcomm's patents around so-called envelope [...]
Snapchat filter brings Big Ben back to life for Christmas December 20, 2018 Snapchat today unveiled a new filter that will bring Big Ben back to life for Westminster visitors over the Christmas period. The iconic clock tower is currently undergoing repair work and the Great Bell, known as Big Ben, has been silent since August last year. But the photo app will now strip away the scaffolding, [...]
Billionaire Elon Musk to attempt fresh Space X rocket launch in US national security mission December 20, 2018 Space X chief Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to attempt to launch again this afternoon, after two previously-scheduled launches this week were cancelled due to last-minute technical issues. The rocket is set to carry a satellite worth roughly $500m (£393.7m) built by Lockheed Martin up to space, taking off from Florida at around 2pm GMT. [...]
For Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, 2018 was the year when trust in the tech giants evaporated December 20, 2018 The Faangs (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google-owner Alphabet) have been the darlings of the stock market for years. These tech giants have helped to change how we shop, communicate, work – even how we watch movies. But as they have grown in size, fears have also grown, especially about what they may do with so [...]