Industry news

Apple's latest MacBook Pro will be powered by their own chips.

The M1 chip is expected to provide 20 hours of video playback on a single battery charge. These claims haven’t been confirmed by independent testing yet.

Apple previously relied on Intel for chips which could only run less than 10 hours of video playback in one battery charge.

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The European competition commissioner is set to report antitrust charges against Amazon over concerns that they are collecting data in order to compete against rival firms. 

The US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission is also investigating Amazon for antitrust violations.

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Nokia has signed a contract with A1 Austria to provide “industrial-grade private wireless technology and services” to LTE and 5G campus network deployments.

A1 Austria provides digital services and communications. 

Nokia will deliver operational support for their existing campus networks in order to drive digital transformation. They will also provide infrastructure, software and services to set up private LTE networks. 

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The UK Government's use of management consultancy firms has increased during the pandemic in order to source PPE and healthcare equipment. 

News reports are now suggesting that the UK Government wants to create an in-house consultancy firm - "Crown Consulting." 

This in-house consultancy firm will reduce the government's reliance on private sector consultancy firms such as Deloittes.

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Bitcoin’s share price hit $14,900 this week, the highest level since January 2018. This comes during the US election uncertainty and as investors hope that more central bank stimulus will be available to support economies hit by the pandemic.

Bitcoin’s share price has been rising as digital payment companies such as PayPal have announced that they will accept Bitcoin to purchase goods and services on their platform.

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The pandemic has altered how companies are spending their tech investment funds.

Many companies are choosing to investment in technology to enable working from home and the migration to cloud technology.

This has increased demand massively for cloud-based video conferencing tools like Teams and online productivity tools to enable communication and collaboration in a remote setting.

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Huawei has filed a lawsuit against the US Government over allegations of “stonewalling” Freedom of Information Act requests. 

Huawei requested access to documents regarding the state of trading relations between China and the US alongside the competition over the development of 5G over a year ago. These requests have been ignored according to Huawei’s lawsuit.

The US Government now has 20 business days to respond to the claim and provide the documents. If they refuse to provide the documents, they must give justification.

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Microsoft has signed a contract with Bukalapak, a leading e-commerce website, to provide them with Azure Cloud, digital skills and strategic investment.

This deal will help to improve and strengthen Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure. 

They are going to work together on three key initiatives according to Microsoft’s Statement:

• "Building resilient infrastructure" 
  
• "Bridging the digital gap" 
  
• "Skilling" 
  

Read Microsoft’s full Statement here

A data protection specialist has filled a lawsuit against Oracle and Salesforce, two major software companies for breaching GDPR rules.

The case estimates damages worth more than £10bn. This will then be given back to consumers in England and Wales that have had their data sold on to a third party by these firms. 

The case is focused on their part in collecting and selling consumers personal information to third parties which they then use to monitor, track and collect the consumers online browser history.

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) has signed a contract with the UK government to improve the public sectors digital transformation, digital skills and to increase the level of participation among smaller cloud providers. 

The contract is a three year memorandum of understanding (MoU) between AWS and the Crown Commercial Service (CCS).

The contract has two tiers to offer support to public sector organisations that are adopting cloud with training, workshops and access to AWS cloud credits to fund research. The other tier is for larger firms that are already using cloud to ensure that they are making the most of it.

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