Drones, cybercrime, AR, and robots – the tech trends to watch out for in 2019 January 3, 2019 It is finally 2019, and I can’t wait to see what surprises the technology industry has in store for us. What should we keep our eyes peeled for over the next 12 months? To whet your appetite about the future, I asked the experts for their predictions for the top tech trends of this year. Devious [...]
Oil prices rebound sharply after fall in early trading January 2, 2019 Oil has faced a turbulent day as an initial 1.6 per cent drop was wiped out when prices rebounded in the mid-afternoon. The price of Brent crude rose by over $2 to around $55.50 within half an hour, later jumping to $56.41, a 4.6 per cent increase over the session. Worries about oversupply had earlier [...]
Russia detains American on spying charges in Moscow January 1, 2019 Russian authorities have detained and opened a criminal case against an American they say is suspected of spying in Moscow. The Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had detained the US citizen on Friday, but did not give any details of the suspicions it has against him. The US state department said that Russia had [...]
Merkel and Macron demand release of Ukrainian sailors captured by Russia in November December 28, 2018 Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have demanded Russia release the 24 Ukrainian sailors captured last month in the Kerch Strait, which links the Black Sea with the Azov Sea. Moscow said the sailors, who were captured along with their ships, were crossing the Russian border illegally. Ukraine, on the other hand, said Russia’s capture of [...]
Russian regulator retaliates against Ofcom with legal checks on BBC December 21, 2018 Russia's media regulator has said it will carry out checks on the BBC following an announcment from Ofcom that it was considering imposing sanctions on Russian state-financed media service RT. The Russian regulator, Roskomnadzor, released a statement on Friday saying it would check whether the BBC's World Service and internet sites complied with Russian law. “The results of our check [...]
Here are all the predictions I got wrong in 2018 December 21, 2018 I should have given up making predictions in June 2017. Three months earlier, I had spoken at a conference on Brexit and suggested that the best way forward for Theresa May would be to call a snap election and strengthen her negotiating hand. I don’t know how the Prime Minister got word of my advice, [...]
Vladimir Putin says UK and Russia must break ‘deadlock’ in sour relations December 20, 2018 Vladimir Putin has held his annual press conference in which he said Russia and Britain must get out of the "deadlock" in the sour relations. The Russian president said he was interested in restoring "full relations" with Britain, which has imposed sanctions on Russia over the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter [...]
RT broke broadcasting rules on impartiality, says Ofcom December 20, 2018 Kremlin-funded broadcaster RT broke impartiality in news programmes after the Salisbury novichok poisoning in March, Ofcom said today. The media regulator said RT, formerly known as Russia Today, failed to preserve due impartiality in seven news and current affairs programmes over a six-week period. “Taken together, the seven breaches represent a serious failure of compliance with [...]
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 [...]
The Ghost of Christmas Past could tell us where the negotiations all went wrong December 19, 2018 In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge finds being haunted by the Ghost of Christmas Past unbearable. He begs it to stop. The Ghost replies: “These are the shadows of things that have been. That they are what they are, do not blame me.” It might almost be the Prime Minister speaking about the whole [...]