Meta launches UK hub for AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses July 9, 2025 Meta has opened a new £12m audio research lab in Cambridge, aimed at improving the sound capabilities of its AR and AI glasses, including the Ray-Ban Meta and the newly announced Oakley Meta. The move strengthens Meta’s focus on wearable technology that responds intelligently to users’ surroundings. The lab is built to simulate a wide [...]
Digital illusion: How the UK’s paper-based processes fuel cyber attacks July 9, 2025 Thousands of UK SMEs are operating with outdated, paper-based verification processes that expose them to cyber attacks, fraud, hinder growth, and erode confidence. A new report from regtech firm Umazi called for an urgent overhaul of the UK’s corporate identity infrastructure, warning that legacy verification systems have become a weak link in Britain’s digital economy. [...]
Google joins UK’s AI skills push July 9, 2025 The UK government has signed a sweeping partnership with Google Cloud to modernise public services, replace outdated tech systems, and upskill 100,000 civil servants in digital and AI tools by 2030 – a move ministers say could save billions and rescue Whitehall from decades of ‘ball and chain’ IT contracts. Announced at the Google Summit [...]
Morrisons taps Google’s Gemini AI to solve the supermarket scavenger hunt July 9, 2025 Morrisons has rolled out a generative AI-powered tool, backed by Google Cloud and Gemini, that helps customers find products in store, part of its ongoing digital revamp and data infrastructure overhaul, City AM can reveal. The feature allows users to type in queries for items, ranging from ‘tahini’ to ‘that tomato puree in a tube’, [...]
OpenAI’s security crackdown signals new AI battle July 8, 2025 Silicon Valley’s $300bn crown jewel, OpenAI, is shifting focus from building artificial intelligence to protecting it. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT and arguably the most scrutinised name in AI, has imposed a sweeping internal lockdown. From biometric fingerprint scans, to offline ‘tented’ R&D zones, the San Fransisco-based firm is tightening security across the board amid [...]
Oasis fans urged to keep reunion tickets as vintage prices surge July 8, 2025 Oasis fans lucky enough to snag a paper ticket for this summer’s reunion tour might be sitting on a future goldmine, with collectors paying hundreds for vintage stubs. Fans are being urged to hold onto their physical tickets, as demand for Oasis memorabilia jumps and vintage concert stubs reach eye-watering sums on eBay. A stub from [...]
Meta nabs Apple AI chief – a win for Zuckerberg or a sign of Apple’s weakness? July 8, 2025 Meta has reportedly secured another coup in the escalating race for AI dominance, poaching Apple’s head of AI models, Rooming Pang, in a deal said to be worth tens of millions of dollar a year. While Pang’s defection might be viewed as a clear win for Mark Zuckerberg’s much-hyped ‘super intelligence’ project, it also casts [...]
State pension could face insolvency by 2036 despite tax hikes July 6, 2025 Britain’s state pension could become financially unsustainable as early as 2036, despite recent increases in National Insurance contributions, according to new modelling by the Adam Smith Institute (ASI). The think tank warned the Treasury is on course to spend more on welfare payouts than it receives in National Insurance receipts within just over a decade. [...]
Hospitality jobs slump as Reeves’ National Insurance hike bites July 6, 2025 The UK hospitality industry has shed 69,000 jobs since chancellor Rachel Reeves’s rise in employers’ national insurance contributions took effect – a stark reversal from the 18,000 roles created in the same period last year under the previous government. The figures, sourced from the Office for National Statistics, or ONS, mark the steepest peacetime job [...]
Relief for startups as government U-turns on onerous Companies House rules July 3, 2025 Small businesses are breathing a sigh of relief after it emerged the government is set to U-turn on the introduction of new onerous Companies House rules. The new rules, which were due to come into effect in April 2027, would have required small and micro companies to disclose their profit and loss statements for the [...]
