UK government unveils its post-Brexit Digital Strategy

After a year of delays, the UK government has finally shared its plans for a more prosperous digital Britain. Unveiled by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), the Digital Strategy report outlines steps to plug skills gaps and deliver free training to people who need it, pushing forward important UK technology sectors like AI and allowing UK companies to remain competitive as they come to terms with life after Brexit.

Skills

One thing the report makes clear is that the government can’t do it alone. It’s enlisting the help of some of the UK’s biggest employers and companies, which will offer four million free digital skills training “opportunities” to people who need them. Many are existing initiatives or have been expanded, but Google will offer five hours of free digital skills as part of its Garage initiative (unveiled late last year) and launch a summer programme in coastal towns, BT’s Barefoot Computing Project will give teachers free extra computer science resources and O2 will continue to deliver online safety tips via its partnership with the NSPCC.

Those companies, along with Apple, Sky, Microsoft, Samsung, Lloyd’s, Barclays and Cisco, will contribute to the government’s new Digital Skills Partnership, which collates all of that outside help and matches people with the training they need.

Connectivity

The government has long touted better broadband and mobile infrastructure, but progress has been slow going. In today’s Digital Strategy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Karen Bradley outlined plans to force providers to share their infrastructure with competitors, which was something that BT was told to do last year. The Universal Service Obligation is still on course for 2020, which aims to give all residents the right to request at least a 10Mbps internet connection, and there will one day be free WiFi on trains, although the rollout is expected to be completed by the end of 2018, not 2017 as originally planned.

Mobile planning laws could be shaken up, giving carriers the opportunity to build more masts in more places, reducing “notspots” in the process. There will also be tighter regulation on how broadband companies sell their services. The ASA has already made progress in this area by asking providers not to mislead customers over potential speeds but it doesn’t have the regulatory power to enforce legislation, The government will step in and ensure that services are sold without hidden pricing and deliver what is advertised.

As part of the Autumn Statement, the government dedicated £1 billion to new fibre broadband and 5G connectivity. The Digital Strategy report notes that ministers are currently drawing up a dedicated 5G strategy, but we won’t see anything concrete until the Spring Budget next week.

Robotics, VR and AI

In order to understand the importance of robotics, VR and AI, the government is conducting independent reviews into each sector. Professor Dame Wendy Hall, Regius Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, and Jerome Pesenti, CEO of BenevolentTech, will look at the best ways to boost skills, lure talent and provide investment in the artificial intelligence industry.

Another independent review will delve into the world of music and video game development, looking at ways to promote growth and nurture the development of new technology. To that end, it’s allocating £17.3 million in Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grants to support new AI and robotics projects in UK Universities.

The government says it also wants to support the UK’s burgeoning VR and AR sectors, giving companies the ammunition to push their creations to a global audience.

Other notable inclusions

Much of the Digital Strategy report touches on previous commitments that have today been incorporated into a dedicated plan that will serve Britain as it negotiates terms and ultimately leaves the European Union. However, there are some other notable pledges that could make things easier for people living and working in the UK:

• Police officers will be allowed to use biometric tools and apps that can match fingerprint and DNA samples at the scene of a crime, speeding up investigations.
• After school “cyber” clubs will be offered to the most talented students in UK schools, “to ensure that the UK has a pipeline of cyber skills that meets its current and future needs.”
• The government will push ahead with age checks for underage internet users, introducing a “robust regulatory regime” to protect children from harmful content.
• In a bid to improve public services, the government intends to make it easier to renew passports and report crimes online.

“The UK’s world-leading digital sectors are a major driver of growth and productivity, and we are determined to protect and strengthen them,” said Bradley. “This digital strategy sets a path to make Britain the best place to start and grow a digital business, trial a new technology, or undertake advanced research as part of the government’s plan to build a modern, dynamic and global trading nation.”

Source: Gov.uk

NYT: Snapchat built its own drone

Snapchat’s second or third reinvention was to describe itself as a “camera company,” but really it wants to become a hardware maker. At least, that’s the theory coming out of the New York Times, which has spoken to three anonymous employees who claim the startup has been working on a photography drone.

It’s not uncommon for tech companies to try to build an outlandish product and then leave it rotting in a drawer. It’s entirely possible that Evan Spiegel and chums tried building a drone and found that it wasn’t worth the effort.

But then again, it also points to a company that is looking to build products to widen a portfolio that began with Spectacles. Snap will also have to work out a way of turning a better profit on its hardware offerings, since the video-recording glasses don’t make a lot of cash.

There’s also the fact that Snap conceded in its IPO documents that it is a young company without a lot of experience in building hardware. But hardware is probably a safer bet than trying to innovate the Snapchat app itself — especially since Facebook quickly copies its innovations.

Source: NYT

Polk Audio parent company nabs Hi-Fi brands Denon, Marantz

There’s big news for audiophiles: Sound United, the company behind Polk Audio and Definitive Technology, has purchased D+M Group, the owner of Denon, Marantz and Boston Acoustics brands. That will let Sound United, a company mostly known for speakers, sell some of the best-known (and priciest) receivers and home theater systems around.

The combined company will be called Sound United and continue to market each brand separately. Apart from speakers and receivers, there’s a fair amount of product overlap — both Denon (via its HEOS brand) and Polk Audio make Sonos-like wireless multi-room speakers, for instance. Denon and Marantz also sell turntables, and virtually all the brands make headphones and earphones.

None of the company’s products are what you might call cheap, but Denon and Marantz aren’t as expensive as you might remember from their 1970s and ’80s heydays. It’ll be interesting to see, nonetheless, if the consolidation causes the prices to go down. There’s increased interest in old-school Hi-Fi, in part because of the resurgence of vinyl. That said, most new receivers and other audio products need to handle 4K video, Spotify Connect, Bluetooth and other new technology.

Apple Pay Japan ‘New Life’ Promotion Brings Support For Six New Credit Cards

Apple today posted a limited-time promotion on its Japanese site for its “New Life” campaign, which allows customers using certain company-issued credit cards to receive cashback and other benefits on Apple Pay purchases and store rewards.

As noted by Japanese blog Ata Distance, the Apple Pay promotion runs between March 1 and April 30 and takes in app purchases and online services including Japan Taxi, Toho Cinemas, Demae-Can, Jalan, Minne, Base, and Giftee. The available online rewards range from coupons to free shipping on orders, while purchases from brick-and-mortar convenience stores are also touting similar benefits.

As part of its “New Life” campaign, Apple has added more firms to its list of participating card issuers: APLUS, EPOS, JACCS, Cedyna, POCKETCARD and Life all now offer some sort of reward as part of the promotion. UCS integration has also been confirmed but a timeline for activation has not been announced.

Apple Pay debuted in the Japanese market last October following the release of iOS 10.1, making it available for use at all locations that accept the Suica prepaid money card, QuicPay, or iD. Apple Pay in Japan also works with credit and debit cards issued by American Express, JCB, Mastercard, Aeon Financial, Orico, Credit Saison, SoftBank, d Card, View Card, MUFG Card, and more.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Japan
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‘Google Keep’ iOS Notes Now Integrate With Google Docs on the Web

Google has integrated Google Keep notes into Google Docs, allowing users of the Google Keep iOS app to drag-and-drop their notes directly into online documents.

With Google Keep for iOS, users can input notes, lists, photos, and voice memos, set reminders about notes, and organize their note collections with labels and colors.

While in Docs on the web, users can now access the Keep notepad via the Tools menu. The new integration means users can copy their Keep notes into Docs and create new Keep notes right from inside Docs (accessed via the web, not through the Docs app), after which they will sync back to the Keep iOS app.

Google has offered some tips on making the most of the new feature:

Here are a few ways you can now work better with the integration between Keep and Docs:

• Drag your notes from Keep directly into your work documents
• Easily search your notes in Keep while in Docs to find the information you need to complete your project
• Add a new note in the Keep notepad or select text from inside of your document and easily add it to a new note (just right click and select “Save to Keep notepad”). When you open that note in Keep, we’ll include a link back to the source document so you can always refer back to it.

Google Keep is a free download for iPhone and iPad available from the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tags: Google Keep, Google Drive
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Rattle cattle with a drone in this U.S. state and you could end up in the slammer

Why it matters to you

With drone ownership becoming more widespread, lawmakers are trying to keep pace by bringing in regulations for irresponsible pilots.

For lawmakers in Utah, it’s not just airports and prisons that should be out of bounds for drone owners. Cattle ranches, too, should be off-limits, with officials concerned that some quadcopter pilots are using their flying machines to spook farm animals for fun.

In a session in Utah’s House on Monday, representatives voted overwhelmingly (71-0) to pass a bill making it an imprisonable offense to harass cattle with drones, as well as all-terrain vehicles and dogs. It now goes to the Utah Senate.

Bill sponsor and rancher Scott Chew said that if it becomes law then a first offense would be considered a Class B misdemeanor with a possible six-month jail term — provided no livestock are killed or injured. A subsequent offense would be a considered a Class A misdemeanor, with the perpetrator facing up to a year behind bars. Fines of up to $2,500 could also be levied.

Chew told local media that a bill of this kind that aims to protect cattle from deviant drone owners is a first for the country.

Speaking to the Daily Beast, Chew said he first discovered that some drone pilots were hassling animals when several constituents told him they’d found crash-landed drones in their horse pastures.

According to the Beast, an increasing number of ne’er-do-wells are using their remotely controlled copters to intimidate and stress animals that are located inside small, fenced-in spaces.

More: Drones gone wild — 10 acts of unmanned aerial idiocy

However, it’s also fair to say that a growing number of farmers are incorporating drone technology into their daily work, using camera-equipped quadcopters to monitor livestock and also herd them.

A farmer in Ireland, for example, has already got the hang of moving his sheep from field to field using a drone, while Australian ranchers are also learning how to use the machines to move cattle across vast distances in the outback.

But it’s the irresponsible pilots that spook cattle for entertainment that Utah has in its sights, and lawmakers there are clearly hoping its bill will go on to become an effective measure against such behavior.

Take a seat and read all about this awesome shape-shifting chair

Why it matters to you

We spend much of our life sitting in chairs, so it’s worth taking a little time to choose one that suits.

Sitting comfortably? Then let us tell you all about this new chair that could have you sitting even more comfortably should you ever choose to park your butt on it.

But it’s not just the prospect of a comfy seating session that had our tush twitching with interest — it’s the overall design of the Ollie Chair that really made us sit up.

Created by Brooklyn-based engineering and design firm RockPaperRobot (RPR), Ollie is trumpeted as “space-saving, lumbar-supporting, weather-resisting, personality-enhancing, and mechanically-marveling.” And on closer inspection, it seems these are indeed all valid highlights.

Besides its stylish good looks, Ollie’s standout feature is its ability to quickly flatten down to under 2.25-inches thick, making it  convenient to transport and easy to store. It can do this thanks to its “tambour” slatted wood seat, while its articulated aluminum base helps to keep it light at a reasonable 16 pounds.

RPR knows that while it’s important for a chair to look great, the proof of the pudding is really in the sitting. The final seat design, which sports “lumbar-supporting contours,” was achieved after people of all shapes and sizes tried it for long and short periods of time, with the resulting curvy profile one that hopefully we can all rest and relax in.

And Ollie’s rust- and warp-resistant materials mean it can be used inside or out, kinda important for a portable chair. “We salt-tested, immersion-tested, froze, and thawed to make sure your Ollie Chair could brave the elements,” RPR reassures.

More: Ikea’s stretchy 3D-knitted chairs are like shoes you sit in

A nice touch is the personality-connected features that the Ollie Chair offers, so you can easily swap out the wooden seat depending on the occasion. “Use a felt tambour for a more formal occasion, swap in the teak for the bbq, or switch in a custom graphic to make a statement when the chairs are stored on the wall,” RPR suggests.

The Ollie Chair is a Kickstarter project that’s looking for $80,000 of funding to make it a reality. A pledge of $300 secures you a teak seat and a silver, black, or white base — that’s a decent $150 off the expected retail price. Of course, put your name down for multiple Ollie Seats and you’ll get an even better deal — all the possibilities are shown on RPR’s Kickstarter page.

If all goes to plan, backers will be able to unfurl their Ollie in September, 2017.

Snapchat users could soon have a drone to go with their Spectacles

Why it matters to you

With its Spectacles already enjoying success, it’s not unreasonable to think that Snap could follow up with an integrated camera-equipped drone.

With Snap preparing to go public this week, you’ll be hearing a lot about the darling of tech startups in the coming days.

What you might not hear about is that the company is rumored to be developing its very own drone. That’s right, the team behind the wildly popular visual messaging Snapchat app is said to be working on a remotely controlled flying machine, according to three people claiming to know about the project who spoke to the NY Times this week.

There’s no information on how far the apparent work has progressed, or if the project has been given the green light for further development, but the suggestion that it’s working on such a device certainly seems within the realm of possibility. We know, for example, that LA-based Snap was recently in talks with drone outfit Lily Robotics, though the company has since shuttered after running into money troubles.

And Snap is clearly interested in broadening its business, evidenced not only by an image makeover last September where it lopped off the “chat” part of its company name, but also the November release of a pair of camera-equipped spectacles, called, would you believe, Spectacles.

More: These drones are so easy to fly, you’ll feel like a pro pilot on day one

So what kind of drone might Snap be working on? Well, rather than try to take on big-hitters in the industry like DJI with a large machine that needs time to master and a big bag to carry around, we can imagine it rolling out something compact, portable, and, of course, camera equipped. Something along the lines of the Hover Camera or the even smaller AirSelfie. And it goes without saying — though let’s say it anyway — such a device would integrate fully with the Snapchat app, allowing users to shoot and share in a matter of seconds.

Fun gear like Spectacles, and possibly a drone, may be just what Snap needs to get users to spend more time interacting with its app — important for advertisers and vital to Snap as it focuses on growing its business over the long term and pleasing its incoming army of investors.

Is this our final look at the Samsung Galaxy S8 before it launches?

After Samsung revealed the release date of the Galaxy S8 to be 29 March at its press conference at Mobile World Congress, we may now have got our final look as to what it will look like. The image yet again comes courtesy of Evan Blass, with the line “I think this is what you’ve been waiting for”. Clearly he’s confident that this is indeed the Galaxy S8.

• Samsung Galaxy S8: Release date, rumours and everything you need to know

The image shows the S8 with display that covers the entire front of the phone, something we’ve seen several times before, and a few physical buttons on the sides. The display shows the phone’s lock screen with its confirmed release date, while the buttons on the left will likely be a volume key and a dedicated button for Bixby, Samsung’s own voice-controlled assistant and rival to Siri, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Finally, the button on the right could be for power.

On the display there are quick launch icons in the bottom corners for the phone and camera, it will be interesting to see if these can be changed and customised to launch different apps.

The Galaxy S8 will launch at the end of this month, and is expected to feature a Snapdragon 835 processor. It was initially thought the S8 would be the first phone of 2017 to have this chip, but Qualcomm has recently said there’s no contractual exclusivity. The recently announced Sony Xperia XZ Premium uses it too, although that phone won’t actually launch until June.

The Galaxy S8 should also feature 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The rear camera should feature a 12MP lens with f/1.7 aperture while the front-facing will be 8MP, also with f/1.7 aperture.

• Confirmed: Samsung Galaxy S8 launch date is 29 March

With LG already unveiling the G6 with a display that takes up the entire front of the device, it will be interesting to see how these two new style devices will fare against each other.

Tech CEO tweets sex hotline number at reporter

Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes didn’t like Bloomberg’s report questioning his company’s $1 billion valuation. He disliked it so much that he told its writer to call 1-800-328-3425 — or 1-800-EAT-DICK. Bloomberg’s write-up said the social media managing platform’s true valuation is around $700 million to $750 million, so it doesn’t really have “unicorn status.” The term “unicorn” is used to describe a start-up or a non-public company with a valuation of over $1 billion, and it’s a status that could help attract both talents and investors.

Holmes took to Twitter to call Bloomberg’s headline (“Hootsuite: The Unicorn That Never Was”) salacious, telling the writer, Gerritt De Vynck, that the piece was published before his company could make a statement. When De Vynck told him he waited for the company’s response for a day and asked for a phone number to get in touch, Holmes gave him the phone sex hotline number 1-800-328-3425. All those tweets are gone now, but Buzzfeed News was there to screencap it all:

it’s never a good time for tech ceo’s to be sending tweets like this, but this is a particularly bad week https://t.co/ik5OgCVJRo pic.twitter.com/yU8Yg4H39t

— Caroline O’Donovan (@ceodonovan) February 28, 2017

As Buzzfeed writer Caroline O’Donovan said, this is a particularly bad time for a tech CEO to tweet like this. Silicon Valley’s sexism problem recently became the center of attention after reports of sexual harassment at Uber, Tesla and other companies made headlines. Hootsuite might not be as big a name, but when all eyes are on you, it’s probably a bad idea to tweet inappropriate messages. That said, Holmes made a public apology in the end:

Apologies on an attempt at humour today. It was offside.

— Ryan Holmes (@invoker) March 1, 2017

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Buzzfeed News