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UK’s coronavirus tracing app strategy faces fresh questions over transparency and interoperability

The UK’s data protection watchdog confirmed today the government still hasn’t given it sight of a key legal document attached to the coronavirus contacts tracing app which is being developed by the NHSX, the digital transformation branch of the country’s National Health Service . Under UK and EU law, a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) […]




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Apple’s online WWDC kicks off June 22

Back in March, Apple joined a rapidly growing number of companies announcing an online-only model for their annual tech events. At the time, SVP Phil Schiller promised the event would be “an innovative way to reach millions of developers around the world, bringing the entire developer community together with a new experience,” as planners across […]




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NHS COVID-19: The UK’s coronavirus contacts-tracing app explained

The UK has this week started testing a coronavirus contacts-tracing app which NHSX, a digital arm of the country’s National Health Service, has been planning and developing since early March. The test is taking place in the Isle of Wight, a 380km2 island off the south coast of England, with a population of around 140,000. […]




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UK eyeing switch to Apple-Google API for coronavirus contacts tracing — report

The UK may be rethinking its decision to shun Apple and Google’s API for its national coronavirus contacts tracing app, according to the Financial Times, which reported yesterday that the government is paying an IT supplier to investigate whether it can integrate the tech giants’ approach after all. As we’ve reported before coronavirus contacts tracing […]




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Apple awards $10 million to rapidly scale COVID-19 sample collection kit production

Apple has awarded $10 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund to COPAN Diagnostics, a company focused on producing sample collection kits for testing COVID-19 to hospitals in the U.S. The money comes from the fund that Apple established to support the development and growth of U.S.-based manufacturing, but is particularly notable because to date, the […]




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Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch review

With the new MacBook, Apple closes one of the more unfortunate product chapters in its history. The upgraded 13-inch mercifully marks the end of the failed five-year experiment that was the butterfly switch. I won’t go into too much detail here. If you’ve purchased a MacBook in the past several years, you almost certainly know […]




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Marx, Gramsci and strikes: life at Tony Benn University

Thinking up the most leftwing ideas imaginable is tricky when several were in the last Labour manifesto




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A Budget that backs Boris Johnson’s hunches

The Conservatives will not lightly give up their newly acquired working-class voters




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Why coronavirus is making me miss Brexit

In a choice between discussing the WTO and the WHO, I’d take a rules-of-origin trade debate any day




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UK must tailor coronavirus action to restore faith

Britain has less margin for error because it is zigging to everyone else’s zag




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Home working’s fine — if you’re home alone

’I’m on my second day, drinking too much coffee and feeling I’d enjoy it more if everyone else wasn’t here too’




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The Gatekeeper, by Kate Fall

A pacy, personal but unrevealing account of David Cameron’s government




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Can Matt Hancock’s 5-point plan solve the testing crisis?

Health secretary pledges to increase tests to 100,000 a day in England by enlisting big companies and private labs




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UK parliament has been shamefully missing in this crisis

Democratic politics functions on the premise that accountability improves outcomes




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Wishing this Passover night was more like other nights

Coronavirus lockdown limits celebration of one of Judaism’s most festive occasions




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Covid-19: how I’m betraying my class in the lockdown

No family song on Facebook, no dance routine, no home-grown tomatoes… is it time to raise our game?




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Robert Shrimsley: After the coronavirus phone tracker, a few other life-saving apps

Post-lockdown, technology could help us contain Covid-19. But why stop there?




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Culture wars are infecting the UK’s pandemic strategy

The attempt to set up gender equality and ethnic diversity as the enemies of prosperity is telling




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The end of lockdown will risk a new health divide

Those with the fewest rights are least able to demand a safe workplace




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Andy Street: can the Tory ‘red wall’ mayor help transform the UK?

The John Lewis veteran came late to politics — and wants to bring power back to the regions




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How this crisis will take us all back to the 1970s

Robert Shrimsley on why he’s braced for a return to the most dismal of decades




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MacBook Pro 16” first impressions: Return of the Mack

In poker, complacency is a quiet killer. It can steal your forward momentum bit by bit, using the warm glow of a winning hand or two to cover the bets you’re not making until it’s too late and you’re out of leverage.  Over the past few years, Apple’s MacBook game had begun to suffer from […]




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Adobe celebrates Photoshop’s 30th anniversary with new desktop and mobile features

Adobe’s Photoshop celebrates its 30th birthday today. Over that time, the app has pretty much become synonymous with photo editing and there will surely be plenty of retrospectives. But to look ahead, Adobe also today announced a number of updates to both the desktop and mobile Photoshop experiences. The marquee feature here is probably the […]




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iPads become more laptop-like with the arrival of full mouse and trackpad support

Apple just dumped a bunch of hardware news online via press release. That’s just the world we live in right now. We’ll probably be seeing a whole lot of this in the coming weeks and months, as companies adjust to the new online reality. Along with a new MacBook Air and update to the Mac […]




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Daily Crunch: Apple unveils new iPad Pro and MacBook Air

Apple has new hardware coming, the U.S. government may use cell phone data to track the spread of COVID-19 and Fox acquires a streaming company. Here’s your Daily Crunch for March 18, 2020. 1. Apple announces new iPad Pro The new iPad Pro looks more-or-less like the existing iPad Pro, but with better specifications, plus […]




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Can Apple keep the AR industry alive?

Augmented reality still has Apple’s enthusiasm behind it, but can that keep the whole industry afloat? On Wednesday, Apple debuted a new iPad Pro, the hallmark feature of which was a lidar time-of-flight sensor baked into the camera, which is designed to make augmented reality experiences more realistic and immersive. For most potential users, the […]




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Review: 100,000 miles and one week with an iPad Pro

For the past eighteen months, the iPad Pro has been my only machine away from home, and until recently, I was away from home a lot, traveling domestically and internationally to event locations around the world or our offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Every moment of every day that I wasn’t at […]




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Apple said to be planning fall iPhone refresh with iPad Pro-like design

Apple is readying a new iPhone for fall to replace the iPhone 11 Pro this fall, Bloomberg reports, as well as follow-ups to the iPhone 11, a new smaller HomePod and a locator tag accessory. The top-end iPhone 11 Pro successors at least will have a new industrial design that more closely resembles the iPad […]




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Apple’s iPad Pro Magic Keyboard arrives next week, ahead of schedule

The global supply chain is currently being squeezed from all angles amid a global pandemic. At least one product, however, will arrive ahead of schedule. Originally planned for a May arrival, the iPad Pro’s new trackpad-sporting Magic Keyboard is up for preorder now and set to start shipping next week. You can read all of […]




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Apple’s Magic Keyboard Review: Laptop class typing comes to iPad Pro

Over the past two years, I’ve typed nearly every word I’ve written while traveling on the iPad Pro’s Smart Keyboard Folio. For more on why, you can see my iPad Pro review here. For the purposes of this look at the new Magic Keyboard, though, you should probably just know two things about the old […]




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3D-printed glasses startup Fitz is making custom protective eyewear for healthcare workers

A lot of startups have answered the call for more personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essentials to support healthcare workers in their efforts to curb the spread and impact of COVID-19. One of those is direct-to-consumer 3D-printed eyewear brand Fitz, which is employing its custom-fit glasses technology to build protective, prescription specs for front-line […]




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As stocks recover, private investors aren’t buying the hype

You can easily read optimism in the stock market. Ask around the private markets, however, and you'll hear a very different narrative.




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Trump’s hype for state lockdown protests puts Twitter and Facebook’s new COVID-19 policies to the test

A new flurry of tweets from President Trump is pushing the limits of social platform policies designed explicitly to keep users safe from the spread of the novel coronavirus, both online and off. In a series of rapid-fire messages on Friday morning, Trump issued a call to “LIBERATE” Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan, all states led […]




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Twitter says Elon Musk’s tweets advocating against expert COVID-19 guidance don’t violate its rules

Twitter has said that tweets posted early Tuesday morning by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk that irresponsibly call for restrictions put in place to defend against the spread of COVID-19 don’t violate its guidelines around inaccurate or disputed information about the coronavirus that could cause harm. Musk tweeted a series of things on Tuesday, […]





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Tesla shares fall on Elon Musk ‘stock price too high’ tweet

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Friday that the company’s stock price was “too high” in his opinion, immediately sending shares into a free fall and in possible violation of an agreement reached with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last year. Tesla shares fell nearly 12% in the half hour following his stock price tweets […]




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Silver Lake to invest $747M in India’s Jio Platforms

Weeks after Facebook invested $5.7 billion in Jio Platforms, India’s top telecom operator, private equity firm Silver Lake is following suit — and is willing to pay a premium for it. Silver Lake announced on Monday it will be investing 56.56 billion Indian rupees (about $746.8 million) in Jio Platforms for about 1.15% stake in the Indian […]




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Wealth management could soon cost less than you’d think

Costs are falling — but it still looks far more expensive than it should




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Negative rates tarnish bankers’ halos

The failures of loose monetary policy could prompt a fall from grace




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WeWork, Woodford and the modern ‘bezzle’

The route to success these days is not chasing profits but hoarding market share




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Roadside recovery and an aggravating communications breakdown

In an overleveraged world headed for economic slowdown, don’t rely on the heavily indebted for rescue




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Banking fraud: 78,000 reasons to crack down

If you fall for a scam, who is to blame — you or your bank?




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Before we soak the rich, we need to figure out who they are

Look at the numbers and you can see how much age matters when it comes to wealth




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My Christmas book choices: fuel for the post-lunch argument 

From social mobility to how tax policy has shaped our history — and future




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The UK voted for capitalism — now go out and buy it

It’s time for unloved UK equities to take their place in investors’ portfolios




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UK Budget sides with small businesses, with a caveat

The chancellor need beware that policies introduced in a crisis are hard to end later




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Are you brave enough to hunt for value in a bear market? 

We have no real sense of how to value stocks in this environment




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Stock market crashes: lessons from history

The hum of the helicopters needs to start getting louder




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The UK’s employment and productivity puzzle

Favourable trends in employment relative to population are not going to be repeated




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The UK is about to shoot itself in both feet

Britain’s demands for its negotiations with the EU are unrealistic