Blackberry ups full-year forecast despite revenue fall and growing losses December 20, 2016 Declining revenue at former phone-maker Blackberry continued in the latest quarter, but the former star tech company has increased its full-year forecast. Sales fell to $289m in the third quarter to the end of November. That was down 47 per cent on the same period last year and 13 per cent on the previous quarter as [...]
Brussels slams Facebook’s WhatsApp deal over “misleading” information December 20, 2016 Authorities in Brussels have slammed Facebook over its 2014 deal to buy WhatsApp for $19bn. The EU competition commission has accused the tech giant of providing "misleading information" in connection with the deal in light of changes to the WhatsApp privacy policy announced in August. Official charges, known as a Statement of Objections, have been filed against Facebook, with a [...]
Are you with Britain’s most complained about telecoms provider? December 20, 2016 The number of people complaining about their broadband service is on the rise, according to the regulator. There were 20 complaints for every 100,000 customers in the three months to the end of September, up from 15 in the previous quarter according to the latest complaint data from Ofcom. BT topped the naughty list with 36 complaints [...]
NatWest and RBS mobile banking apps hit by technical problems December 20, 2016 RBS and NatWest have assured customers that its mobile banking is now running as normal after after experiencing technical problems that left people unable to use the service.. RBS had been tweeting customers directly on Twitter saying it is aware of some issues and that it was working to fix them. NatWest, owned by RBS, also experienced [...]
Reform visas to make Britain the tech leader of the twenty-first century December 20, 2016 In my career, I have been privileged to work in some of the world’s greatest universities – Imperial, UCL, Harvard – on some of the world’s most interesting problems. Most recently, we used quantum systems to sense individual electrons, a billion times smaller than had been possible before, helping to transform what humans can understand and effect [...]
Apple and Ireland challenge European Commission over €13bn tax ruling December 19, 2016 The battle between the European Commission and Apple and Ireland reignited today. Apple and Ireland both filed appeals against a ruling by the EU regulator saying the tech firm should pay the country €13bn (£11bn) in back taxes. The iPhone maker, which has its European headquarters in Ireland, where the standard rate of corporation tax is [...]
Airbnb’s UK tax bill comes under scrutiny December 19, 2016 Airbnb's tax bill has come under scrutiny after it paid £317,000 in UK tax, despite London being the third biggest city from which the company offers rental accommodation. The tech business' international HQ is based in Ireland, but its payments division – Airbnb Payments UK – is based in London. This part of Airbnb handles the rental payments between [...]
Uber eyes even more expansion as it announces partnership with Indonesia’s second biggest taxi firm December 19, 2016 Uber's showing no sign of slowing up in its expansion. The ride-hailing app company has announced a partnership with Indonesia's Express Transindo Utama, the country's second biggest taxi operator. The deal will give Uber access to some of Express's 11,000-strong fleet of taxis and 17,000 drivers. It should also help the firm meet regulations on [...]
Yahoo would be liable to pay a $198m fine were GDPR already enforced December 19, 2016 At the dawn of the internet, Google and Yahoo were in stiff competition for search dominance. Many think the former’s success was due in part to its name becoming a ubiquitous verb for searching online. But decades on, semantic development has finally caught up with Yahoo. Its name is now synonymous with bad data practice. [...]
Tyrie calls for national cyber centre to ensure finance is “high priority “ December 19, 2016 An influential MP has called on the government's intelligence agencies to ensure cyber security within the financial services industry is a top priority in the wake of several high profile banking data breaches and failing legacy IT systems. Andrew Tyrie, the chair of the Treasury Select Committee, has written to the chief executive of the National Cyber Security [...]