Apple risks breaking a 14-quarter growth streak during the peak holiday period as chaotic conditions at its assembly plant in China hit iPhone production, marking the company’s biggest supply chain challenge since the onset of the pandemic. Analysts have been cutting Apple earnings estimates after the group issued a rare warning on November 6 that manufacturer…
Read more
More than half of UK civil servants have warned their departments lack the technological tools, resources and skills necessary to transform public services, according to a government-backed survey. Earlier this year, ministers set out a “road map” to improve digital public services by 2025, with the ambition to deliver “world-class” systems and “attract and retain…
Read more
The UK government is scrapping controversial powers to force internet companies to take down “legal but harmful” content, following a backlash from the tech industry and free speech advocates. The measure had been expected to form part of the long-awaited Online Safety Bill and would have represented a radical departure from existing global rules that…
Read more
Elon Musk has claimed that Apple is curbing advertising on Twitter and threatening to “withhold” the social media platform from its App Store, as the world’s richest man locks horns with the most valuable tech company. In a flurry of more than a dozen tweets on Monday focused on the iPhone maker, Musk wrote that…
Read more
I killed a man last night. I shot him three times. I aimed for the head but hit his shoulder. He staggered. I aimed again. I shot him in the chest. He fell backwards, I shot him again, this time in the stomach. Of course, I didn’t do any of this in real life. I…
Read more
Dulux owner Akzo Nobel has warned of a “big scarcity” of painters and decorators exacerbated by Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic as the group backs a start-up developing a paint robot to ease the labour crunch. The company’s UK head called on the government to help resolve worker shortages that he said was creating “big…
Read more
This week’s problem I am a corporate lawyer working with emerging companies and venture capital clients in Silicon Valley. I like my job, the pay is great and I enjoy working with founders and investors. However, I don’t want my career to be forever tied to billable hours. I want to listen to a founder’s…
Read more
Newport in south Wales finds itself on an unlikely geopolitical faultline. The UK government cited national security concerns to retrospectively block the sale of one of Britain’s biggest semiconductor plants, Newport Wafer Fab, to a Dutch company owned by China’s Wingtech. The UK is not alone: Germany has blocked two similar deals, with its vice-chancellor,…
Read more
TikTok has enlisted the help of tech start-ups to improve its struggling ecommerce operations, as the fast-growing social media platform ramps up a push to diversify its revenues amid a slowdown in digital advertising. Social commerce, where users can buy items without leaving the social media app, has seen massive success in China. TikTok’s sister…
Read more
A Japanese chip equipment supplier has started to reorganise its supply chains and factories in a strategy designed to access both US and Chinese markets after Washington rolled out new chip export controls. The group chief executive of Tokyo-based Ferrotec told the Financial Times that the company was accelerating plans to expand production outside China…
Read more