Month: October 2023

TaxWatch analysis estimates British arms of seven major tech firms paid £750m in corporation tax instead of possible £2.8bn The UK might have missed out on as much as £2bn in tax in 2021 from big tech companies shifting their profits elsewhere, according to an estimate by a group campaigning for greater tax transparency. Seven …

UK lost out on £2bn in tax in 2021 as big tech shifted profits abroad, claim campaigners Read More »

Dubbed the ‘crackberry’, it was a tech gamechanger and status symbol. So what happened to the first smartphone and why didn’t the execs see it coming? A decade and a half ago, there was no bigger status symbol than the BlackBerry. Lady Gaga tweeted from hers. Madonna slept with one under her pillow. Kim Kardashian …

Blackberry smartphone was status symbol then crashed and burned Read More »

As the world’s wealthiest men chest-thump in low-Earth orbit, others wonder how their mess will eventually be cleaned up You’re a mega-billionaire. You already own one of the world’s most influential social media platforms, and dominate more than half of the US electric car market. You are regularly named as one of the world’s most …

Billionaire space race: can Bezos’s Project Kuiper catch up to Musk’s Starlink? Read More »

The social network owner’s business model appears to include a slurry of unmoderated toxicity, such as footage of a murder At 4am a couple of weeks ago, Ryan Carson, a young activist for social justice, was sitting with his girlfriend at the B38 bus stop at Lafayette Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard in New York. …

Musk’s plan X: keep users in the dark, feed them dung and watch sales mushroom | John Naughton Read More »

Microsoft; PC, XboxWith the spin-off series eclipsing Forza’s original game, Turn 10 has upped the ante with a return to Motorsport after six years that might even win over some Horizon fans What is a studio to do when their spin-off eclipses the original? That is where Turn 10 finds themselves in 2023, as it …

Forza Motorsport review – an icy, luxuriant driving sim that honours raw V8 power Read More »

While falling sales suggest the demise of print, the industry has proved adaptable and remains attractive to media barons The imminent auction of the Telegraph is being viewed as a litmus test of the value of influential national newspaper titles in the era of increasingly digitally led profitability. Media barons and conglomerates, who have hung …

Telegraph auction poses litmus test for value of newspapers in digital age Read More »

It was the photographer’s birthday, and this image was a gift Frédéric Murarotto remembers the day he took this shot because it was his birthday. He was headed to a meeting via the Paris Métro and just ahead of him stood this man, waiting for the next train. “I was drawn to the way his …

‘Even in his wrinkled suit, I found him elegant’: Frédéric Murarotto’s best phone picture Read More »

The former Alameda CEO offered stunning testimony against her ex-boyfriend and failed crypto mogul being tried for fraud In the second week of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto fraud trial, Manhattan federal prosecutors called their star witness to the stand: former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. She delivered stunning, detailed testimony against the failed crypto …

Caroline Ellison’s testimony against Sam Bankman-Fried: five key takeaways Read More »

Young app seems to have few viral falsehoods, perhaps because it’s still small and used differently from competitors When Meta launched Threads, its Instagram-linked Twitter clone, in July, the company promised a kinder and friendlier experience than the divisive content and extremism that often dominate other social networks. Now, as social media users seek out …

Israel-Hamas war poses early disinformation test for Meta’s Threads Read More »

Competition regulator had initially moved to block acquisition but concerns addressed The UK’s competition watchdog has cleared Microsoft’s $69bn (£54bn) deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the maker of games including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, in a move that paves the way for both companies to complete the transaction. The Competition and Markets …

Microsoft’s $69bn deal to buy Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard cleared by UK Read More »