Month: June 2020

Pressure from privacy group The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Mozilla has led to Zoom offering end-to-end encryption to all its users, not just paying customers. A U-Turn The decision to offer end-to-end encryption to all customers is a U-turn for Zoom. Previously, and after capitalising on the huge surge in...

Microsoft’s latest move in the battle between video conferencing and collaborative working online platforms is to add custom background effects and enable live captions. New Features Following on from its original announcement in April about the introduction of pre-selected backgrounds or a blur effect (introduced last year)  in video calls...

Big companies such as Google, Facebook and Netflix have committed to considerable financial support for black-owned businesses as Black Lives Matter gains momentum. Google In the wake of the killing of George Floyd by U.S. police, followed by world-wide support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign, Google has announced...

The global pandemic and news about tracking apps have put health and technology in the spotlight.  With this in mind, here are some examples of medical apps for smart devices and smart health products that involve a link between smart wearables, apps, and other smart products. Just A Look, Not...

German vertical take-off air taxi start-up company Lilium has just received a major funding boost from Baillie Gifford, the second-biggest shareholder in Tesla. Additional Funding Lilium, which had already raised $340 million, $240 million of which came from China’s Tencent, has boosted its coffers by a further $35 million thanks to...

With phone cameras, surveillance cameras with facial recognition seemingly everywhere and the world entering a new phase of social change, many people are looking at how they can take simple steps to retain and protect their privacy rights. Faces As enshrined in data protection laws, such as GDPR, and with...

Google Maps is now issuing COVID-19 related alerts to those looking for public transport directions in cities, looking for medical facilities and testing centres, and for those crossing borders. New Alerts Google has announced on its blog that it is augmenting its Google Maps information with alerts relating to COVID-19...

With 7 million electric vehicles already on the world’s roads and with predictions that 31 per cent of the overall car fleet will be electric by 2040 (i.e. 58% of all vehicles sold), how these vehicles are powered by (or can store) renewable energy are the subject of discussion, planning...

Facebook has announced the introduction of the ‘Manage Activity’ tool that allows users to archive or bulk-delete old Facebook posts based on a variety of filters. Change With most people being able to register with and become a user of Facebook over the last 14 years it is likely that...

Google has removed an app from its Play Store that was designed to help users to detect and delete apps that were made in China. More Than 1 Million Downloads The Remove China Apps, which is reported to have been downloaded by more than a million people on its first...