News and comment on what's happening in the technology industry, and the direction it's heading.
Getac’s K120-Ex rugged Mil-spec touch-screen tablet is designed to run Windows 10 in hazardous areas where a single spark can cause flammable gasses or combustible dusts to explode
The UK has a terrible record for delivering fibre to premises. While Ofcom is trying to change that, the slow progress of fibre to the home will ensure the UK is also a laggard when it comes to switching off today’s copper networks
The London-based Urban Innovation Company is now installing up to 30 Pulse Smart Hubs on the streets of Belfast.
Schools and charities beware: if someone pretending to be your boss emails you to buy Apple iTunes or Google Play gift cards, it’s almost certainly a scam.
Warren Buffett generally avoids technology stocks but Berkshire Hathaway’s latest moves include buying and selling Oracle, hanging on to Apple shares, and adding a small investment in Red Hat.
IBM’s latest financial results show three or four years of stasis. That is better than declines, but can the $34 billion purchase of Red Hat put Big Blue back on a growth track?
Intel’s Classmate PC not only led to a boom in netbooks, it prompted a whole new business for JP.IK, turning a small Portuguese computer company into a global technology provider working in more than 70 countries
The UK’s annual educational technology exhibition attracted a global audience for products that ranged from toys to enterprise-level offerings.
The “virtual nurse” will see you all the time. Electronic Caregiver is launching what it claims is “the world's first virtual caregiver” at CES in January, though it’s by no means the first chat-bot to offer medical help.
Barring any further stock market shocks, Microsoft will finish the year ahead of Apple and Amazon as America’s most valuable publicly-quoted company, despite never making it to $1 trillion.
Huawei's Eric Xu told CNBC that blocking the company's 5G networking products will increase prices and make it harder for the US to become No. 1 in 5G. However, it has been a huge benefit to the two Scandinavian suppliers: Ericsson and Nokia.
Apple was widely applauded for becoming the first American company to break the trillion dollar barrier. However, its value has slumped to $839bn for a variety of reasons, though other technology stocks have also suffered in a stock market reversal.
Which? tracked the prices of 94 selected tech products at four major UK retailers for six months before and six months after last year's Black Friday, and found that most were available cheaper at other times of the year. There certainly are Black Friday bargains for careful buyers, but you might get a better deal in the January sales.
Virtual Reality began in Binghamton with Link flight simulators, and the local TechWorks museum has won the Computer Conservation Society's Tony Sale Award for restoring three very different simulators from a bellows-mounted WWII Link to an all-digital Super GAT trainer from the 1980s.
French start-up Notilo Plus claims it has launched the world's first intelligent, autonomous, wireless (not tethered) underwater drone. It can follow and film one or more divers, but it could also be used to inspect hulls or underwater infrastructure, or monitor wildlife.
Hardware
Getac launches a ruggedized K120-Ex Windows 10 tablet for explosive environments
Security
These major scammers just switched focus to aim at schools, universities and charities
Tech Industry
BETT 2019: Portugal’s JP.IK is keeping the Classmate PC idea alive
Networking
UK finally makes it onto Europe’s list of the top countries in fibre broadband (right at the bottom)
Innovation