Tag: Google
Tech Digest daily roundup: Vodafone to bring back roaming charges
Vodafone has become the second UK mobile company to reintroduce roaming charges for users travelling in Europe. From January, new and upgrading customers will be charged at least £1 a day to use their mobile phone in EU destinations, on several tariffs. It follows similar plans from rival EE, announced in June. Initially, all operators…
Tech Digest daily round up: Tech firms alter return-to-work plans
Big tech firms are altering their return-to-work plans for employees, as Covid-19 cases rise in the US - with some stipulating that staff working in the office must be vaccinated. Google announced that it would delay a return to the office until 18 October. The company joined Facebook in saying it would require US workers…
Tech Digest daily round up: Alexa to get male voice, Ziggy
Amazon is rolling out a brand new voice for Alexa that will give users a more masculine option over the assistant’s default voice, and it even comes with its own new wake word. Named Ziggy, this deeper-voiced alternative has certainly been a long time coming for Alexa compatible devices. Much like the celebrity voices of Shaquille O’…
Charity develops smart speaker tool for product recalls
A new development for smart speakers could help to prevent fires in UK homes. The add on, compatible with Google Home and Alexa, will inform users, when prompted, if a manufacturer has issued a product recall. The response rate to electrical product recalls in the UK is typically low mainly due to products not being…
Tech Digest daily round up: Top journalists ‘targeted with phone malware’, reports claim
Rights activists, journalists and lawyers around the world have been targeted with phone malware sold to authoritarian governments by an Israeli surveillance firm, media reports say. They are on a list of some 50,000 phone numbers of people believed to be of interest to clients of the company, NSO Group, leaked to major news outlets.…
Tech Digest daily roundup: FIFA 22 on PC won’t include next gen improvements
FIFA 22’s PC version will not feature next-gen improvements seen on PS5 and Xbox Series X, including its new animation tech. The PC edition of FIFA 22 will instead be comparable to the last-gen version, to the dismay of its small but vocal core of fans. It will follow in the footsteps of FIFA 21, which likewise…
Tech Digest daily round up: Toddington hopes to transform service stations
Toddington Harper thinks he may have been destined to transform the motorway network since his parents named him after Toddington services on the M1 in Bedfordshire. The businessman from Iver, in Buckinghamshire, is promising to make major improvements at motorway service stations allowing more drivers to charge the batteries of their electric vehicles quickly and…
Tech Digest daily round up: AirCar completes 35 minute flight
A prototype flying car has completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked…
CMA to investigate Amazon and Google for fake reviews
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is to gather further information to determine whether Amazon and Google may have broken consumer law by taking insufficient action to protect shoppers from fake reviews. The move comes after an initial CMA investigation, which opened in May 2020, and assessed several platforms’ internal systems and processes for identifying…
Tech Digest daily roundup: China tells banks to stop supporting cryptocurrency
China has expanded its clampdown on cryptocurrencies, telling banks and payments platforms to stop supporting digital currency transactions. That follows an order on Friday to shut down Bitcoin mining operations in Sichuan province. The price of Bitcoin slumped by more 10% on Monday but stabilised in Asian trading on Tuesday. The value of the cryptocurrency…
