DEBATE: Is it worth scrapping the digital tax for the sake of a UK-US trade deal? January 24, 2020 Is it worth scrapping the planned digital services tax for the sake of a UK-US trade deal? Morgan Schondelmeier, head of development at the Adam Smith Institute, says YES. Europe and the US fundamentally disagree about how to approach tech companies. The US has become a world leader by embracing permissionless innovation and growth, while [...]
Coronavirus: Four patients in Scotland tested for the virus January 23, 2020 A small number of patients in Scotland are being tested for coronavirus after showing symptoms of the infection. Professor Juergen Haas, head of infection medicine at Edinburgh University, told the BBC that there were three suspected cases in Edinburgh. He said they all had respiratory symptoms and had been in the city of Wuhan in [...]
The world has changed, but Davos has failed to keep up January 23, 2020 As the fiftieth World Economic Forum’s annual Davos meet-up continues, “grounded” British ministers are, according to Boris Johnson, focusing on priorities at home — or forging stronger relationships with African states at the UK-Africa Investment Summit. It’s a shrewd move, not only because of the way it looks in the press for the Prime Minister’s [...]
A day in the life of the worker of 2040 January 23, 2020 Looking back to 2000, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have truly seen what was about to hit us, not just in our personal lives, but our professional ones too — from the invention of the smartphone and social media, to the humble USB stick. So, as we enter the next 20 years, CWJobs [...]
DEBATE: With reports that Jeff Bezos was hacked, is WhatsApp a viable place to do business? January 23, 2020 With reports that Jeff Bezos was hacked, is WhatsApp a viable place to do business? Yoav Keren, chief executive of BrandShield, says YES. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos appears to be the victim of a classic “spear phishing” attack. But while people might be alarmed that one of the richest and most high-profile people in the [...]
We must not get stuck in an EU thicket January 22, 2020 Boris Johnson’s victory in the General Election means Britain will now, finally, after three years of dithering and obstruction, be free to set out on its own path of trade-energised growth and prosperity. Rather surprisingly, the UK’s political classes and business seem shocked that the UK will not be aligning to European regulations. They overlook [...]
BBC ‘set to slash jobs’ as it revamps news output in cost-cutting plan January 22, 2020 The BBC is said to be on the brink of announcing a wave of job cuts in its news division as it looks to revamp its output before the next director general takes the reins. The cuts are likely to affect popular news programmes such as Victoria Derbyshire on BBC Two and Radio 4’s Word [...]
As Vodafone quits, who’s left at Facebook’s Libra project? January 22, 2020 Vodafone has withdrawn from the organisation overseeing Facebook’s efforts to launch its Libra digital currency, making it the latest in a string of big companies to abandon the project. Facebook’s Libra project has faced intense scrutiny from regulators and politicians across the world over the social media giant’s plans for the launch of the stablecoin [...]
HS2: Right project, wrong pitch to the public January 22, 2020 HS2 will become a case study in the importance of having your corporate communications in order. Since the beginning, protestors have successfully framed the project as being about shaving 10 minutes of a journey between Birmingham and London, and this narrative has cut through to the media, members of the public, and even politicians. While [...]
What lessons have we learned from a decade in cyber security? January 22, 2020 A colleague recently asked me what I thought had changed in cyber security over the last 10 years. We agreed that it had certainly been a time of momentous change. In 2012, there was the Shamoon attacks in the Gulf region. In one stroke, 35,000 computers were wiped and disabled within a matter of hours. [...]