Easyjet is reported to have backed plans to develop and introduce commercial passenger aircraft powered by electric batteries on its short-haul routes, possibly by 2030. Prototype A prototype battery-powered, electric aircraft with a range of 335 miles is already being built by one-year-old US company Wright Electric, the same company that Europe’s no.2 low-cost airline Ryanair has been working in partnership with. Wright Electric’s prototype is reported to be a nine-seater plane, although its CEO Jeff Engler, is reported as saying that the company is also starting work on a 50-seat version. Wright Electric estimates that an electric aircraft of [...]

Microsoft's Windows 10 contains speech recognition linked to Cortana that allows you to dictate speech through your Windows machine's microphone, and convert it into typing in a text field. Here's how to use it: - Go to Settings. - Go to Time & Language > Speech > Related settings and click "Speech, inking and typing privacy settings". This will enable speech services and typing suggestions. - Use the Windows Key-H hotkey combination in any text field to load a Cortana box that records your voice (through the machine's microphone). You may have to type manual punctuation, but you can still [...]

UK businesses are looking for a boost in the speed and scope of communications in the form of 5G, but how soon will having a 5G phone that delivers all the 5G benefits become a reality, and what will it take to make it happen? What Is 5G? 5G is the fifth generation of cellular mobile communications. i.e. you use it to call, text and (when not connected Wi-Fi network) get online. It is thought that 5G should be much faster than previous generations, and may open up new opportunities for mobile data, stimulate innovation, and make UK companies even [...]

Figures from merchant services company Worldpay Inc show that for the first time, more payments were made in UK shops using contactless than Chip and PIN over the 12 months from June 2017. Jump This Year Worldpay reports a 30% rise in contactless payments over the last year. A MasterCard survey from September concurs with the trend found by Worldpay by showing that nearly half of all UK payments (including cash) were contactless-enabled. Big Rises - Fashion Retail According to the survey, fashion retailers (415% year-on-year increase in contactless payments), and even betting shops have seen large increases in contactless [...]

A pilot scheme involving NCR, the US self check-out machine maker for Asda, Tesco and other UK supermarkets, and Yoti’s digital identity app will use an integrated camera linked to facial recognition software to help improve, simplify and speed up age approval at self check-outs. Speed & Frustration Reduction The system is intended to tackle problems such as frustration and delays caused when customers wait for approval when buying alcohol at self check-outs, challenges faced by supermarket employees who have to determine a shopper’s age and either accept or deny them a sale of alcohol or cigarettes, and to help [...]

No sooner had Facebook announced new rules to force political advertisers to prove their identities and their ad spend than an anonymous pro-Brexit campaign website with a massive £257,000 ad spend was discovered. Mainstream Network The anonymous website and campaign identified only as ‘Mainstream Network’ was discovered by Campaign group 89up. Clicking on the Facebook adverts by Mainstream Network takes users to a page on their local constituency and MP, and clicking from there was found to generate an email to their MP requesting that the Prime Minister should abandon her Chequers Brexit deal. It has also been discovered that [...]

In partnering with charity ‘Made by Dyslexia’, and in signing the Made by Dyslexia pledge, Microsoft has announced that it is the first company to sign a global pledge to help people with dyslexia. Dyslexia Dyslexia is a lifelong condition that is not related to intelligence. Those with the condition experience difficulty with reading, spelling, writing and sometimes speaking because their brains have trouble recognising or processing some types of information. It is estimated that it affects 700 million people worldwide and at least 5% of schoolchildren have dyslexia. In many cases, these schoolchildren are often (mistakenly) labelled as having [...]

If you sometimes have too many windows open and you need to clear things up and / or get back to the desktop view in Windows 10 as quickly as possible, here are a couple of tips that can help. Windows 10 has a ‘shake your screen’ feature that enables you to quickly clear all the open windows so you can focus on one. Here’s how it works: Grab the window you want to focus on from the top title bar. Hold it and shake it. All other open Windows will then automatically minimise. Shake it again to bring everything [...]

Researchers in the US have presented a paper based on their research that identified a real-time, activity recognition system capable of interpreting collected sounds that could well be used by home smart speakers. Identify Other Sounds, and Issue Responses Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in the US claim to have discovered a way that the ubiquity of microphones in modern computing devices, and software that could use a device's always-on built-in microphones could be used to identify all sounds in room, thereby enabling context-related responses from smart devices. For example, if a smart device such as an Amazon Echo were [...]

After the US and Brazil, the UK has become the next country to be subject to Facebook’s new rules that require those who wish to place a political advert on the social media platform to verify their identity and say who is funding the advert. Verification The new rule in the UK means that anyone who wishes a place an advert relating to a live political issue or promoting a UK political candidate, referencing political figures, political parties, elections, legislation before Parliament and past referenda that are the subject of national debate, will need to prove their identity, and prove [...]