Tech

UK fixed line wholesaler Openreach has outlined plans to extend its fibre rollout to three million rural premises. This takes its total pledge to 25 million premises connected and is apparently in line with the government commitment to deliver ‘gigabit capable broadband’, whatever that mean in practice, to 85 percent of the UK by 2025.

Orange Ventures has set up a new investment vehicle to back what could probably best be described as ‘worthy cause’ start-ups, giving it €30 million of funding to dole out. The new vehicle, known as Orange Ventures Impact, will back French and other European start-ups in their seed stage or with proven development potential, the

Among Us will be free to download via Epic Games Store till June 3, 2021. The popular social deduction game is being offered free-of-charge as part of Epic Games Store’s Mega Sale that kicked off on May 20 and will last till June 17. Among Us was released in 2018 but it gained massive popularity

Tech giant Amazon is so concerned about its warehouse workers’ mental health that it’s providing capsules in which they can sit and sort their heads out. They’re called AmaZen, presumably because they’re so calming and reassuring. ‘During shifts employees can visit AmaZen stations and watch short videos featuring easy-to-follow wellbeing activities, including guided meditations, positive

Singtel distracted the industry from a weak set of full-year results with the publication of a new strategy that includes the planned sale of a broad swathe of infrastructure assets. The Singaporean incumbent joins a long list of global telecoms operators looking to monetise infrastructure. It has already made a start, having kicked off the

Tata Sons has acquired a majority stake in online grocery seller BigBasket, putting the Indian conglomerate in a direct race with e-commerce players Amazon, Walmart’s Flipkart, and Reliance. The stake was bought by Tata Digital, a unit of Tata Sons. Tata on Friday declined to give further details on the deal, while BigBasket did not

Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo has launched a new phone that contains the first eSIM compatible with standalone 5G. We don’t know what special sauce has to go into an eSIM for it to work with SA (proper) 5G, as opposed to NSA (preliminary) 5G but, with help from French tech company Thales, Oppo reckons it’s

Vodafone Germany is expanding what it terms its “network offensive,” building out new base stations and 5G masts at a time of increasing network traffic. The mobile operator this week declared that it will undertake more than 7,000 mobile infrastructure build projects in the current financial year, which began in April, including 3,000 5G projects

EPF withdrawal online is possible through the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) website. Employees’ Provident Fund — commonly known as EPF — is a compulsory contribution provident fund that offers the workforce in India with saving, pension, and insurance benefits. All regularised workers in the country need to contribute to the fund with 12 percent

As rumoured a week ago, etail and cloud giant Amazon is buying movie studio MGM to augment its Amazon Prime SVoD offering. The word on the street was that MGM would cost around $9 billion when we covered the rumour, but in the end Amazon managed to shave over half a bil off that. For

Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, Telia, and Vodafone jointly start Eco Rating labelling scheme to score how sustainable mobile phones are, aiming to encourage device makers and device buyers to be more environmentally minded. Starting from June, the labelling scheme will stamp a score on phones to show how environmentally friendly the devices are throughout their

Samsung has recently launched its Crystal 4K and 4K Pro UHD TV series, with unmatched picture quality and stunning design. Here are the top five reasons why you should buy one now! 1. Billion True colors display The high-tech display delivers the best possible viewing experience no matter what you’re watching. Its Crystal 4K Display

There are signs that bulk censorship and state surveillance may have reached their high-water mark, at least in the West. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has signed a Senate Bill designed to allow Florida residents to sue social media platforms if they feel they have been unfairly censored. It specifies greater transparency regarding content moderation practices

Last week Google almost apologetically slipped out the news that it’s merging its wearable device OS with Samsung’s one. Wear is the stripped-down version of Android designed for smart watches and that sort of thing. It doesn’t seem to have taken off, presumably in part due to the fact that the biggest Android device maker

Google’s Project Starline 3D videoconferencing system, unveiled last week, is well-timed for a post-pandemic world but still has a long way to go in seamlessly marrying the in-person and the virtual, three people who have used the system say. Alphabet’s Google and rivals, including Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook, all view “mixed reality,” as it is sometimes

Telecoms.com periodically invites expert third parties to share their views on the industry’s most pressing issues. In this piece Paul Wright, VP of Sales and Customer Operations at Cambridge Broadband Networks Group (CBNG), looks at what it will take to make a success of FWA. As regulators worldwide prepare for 5G, some operators with enterprise Fixed

CEO Tim Höttges on Thursday kicked off the sort of capital markets day aimed more at making Deutsche Telekom investors feel more like they were at a spa than a high-level strategy briefing. It wasn’t just his branded bomber jacket paired with matching magenta trainers that gave off a health club vibe, it was his

A federal judge on Friday grilled Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook over whether the iPhone maker’s App Store profits from developers such as Fortnite maker Epic Games are justified and whether Apple faces any real competitive pressure to change its ways. Cook testified for more than two hours in Oakland, California, as the closing witness in Apple’s