X and Meta: Who’s benefiting from Tiktok’s brief hiatus? January 20, 2025 As Tiktok temporarily went down on Sunday afternoon, rival social media platforms such as X and Meta scrambled to fill the void left by the app’s absence. Several competitors moved quickly to capitalise on its downfall, hoping to attract its 170m US user base by picking up its various features. Before the ban took effect [...]
Crypto rises: Bitcoin soars as Donald Trump returns to the White House January 20, 2025 Bitcoin hit record highs on Monday, as President-elect Donald Trump, and soon-to-be First Lady-again Melania Trump launched their meme coins, days ahead of the inauguration. The cryptocurrency leader reached above $108,000(£88,668) for the first time ever on Monday morning, ahead of Trump’s official return to office. Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves [...]
Supreme Court upholds Tiktok ban despite Trump’s efforts January 17, 2025 On Friday, the Supreme Court confirmed the federal law banning Tiktok in the US from 19 Sunday, unless the app is sold. This unanimous decision to ban-or-sell the video app was made due to national security claims. “There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, Tiktok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet [...]
Elon Musk wants to ban WFH for millions in the US government January 17, 2025 Elon Musk may terminate remote work for millions of federal employees, as he steps into his new role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E). The tech titan and outspoken Trump supporter outlined plans to announce a mandatory return to office policy to reduce the size of the US government workforce and cut [...]
Apple: AI news alerts on iPhones halted after backlash January 17, 2025 Apple has paused its new artificial intelligence (AI) feature for news apps, after facing criticism over repeatedly inaccurate alerts. Pressure mounted for the tech behemoth as BBC, among others, complained to Apple that their articles were being wrongly summarised. Media groups like Reporters Without Borders and Bluesky pushed for the company to halt the feature [...]
M&C Saatchi: Ad giant maintains momentum as revenue grows January 17, 2025 Ad giant M&C Saatchi reported solid revenue growth for the financial year, as its transformation strategy began taking shape. The company told markets this morning that full year revenue grew by 3.5 per cent on a like-for-like basis, to approximately £243m. According to Friday’s trading update, the firm maintained its first half momentum of ‘significant [...]
Ofcom cracks down on inflation-linked price hikes January 17, 2025 Telecoms providers must set out upfront price rises that will apply to customer contracts to protect consumers from uncertain and volatile inflation. From today, Ofcom will require any price rises linked to future inflation to be clearly written into a customer’s contract at the point of sale. Many leading phone, TV and broadband firms already [...]
Financial sector splashes out for cyber resilience January 16, 2025 Costs to UK businesses and employees rise as the financial sector prepares for the launch of the Digital Operations Resilience Act (DORA), which comes into effect on Friday. The regulation was designed to increase the financial system’s resilience to cyber threats by introducing requirements for ICT risk management, operational testing and contingency planning. Nearly half [...]
Ofcom floats age verification crackdown for UK adult sites January 16, 2025 Under new Ofcom rules, pornography websites, starting with pay sites, will have to show how they are protecting underage viewers from adult content. Other platforms, including content aggregators such as PornHub and OnlyFans have until July to comply. Platforms which publish their own adult content from now will have to take steps to introduce robust [...]
UK ‘lacks understanding’ on tech procurement as taxpayer foots bill January 16, 2025 The UK’s approach to technology procurement ‘lacks understanding’, resulting in costly setbacks whilst leaving its public services on outdated systems. The government has accumulated 29 years of delays across major IT projects and £3bn in cost overruns, according to a recent report by the National Audit Office (NAO). This comes as Keir Starmer recently launched [...]
