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Netflix's 'The Crown' season 3 trailer shows off the new cast
With less than a month until the premiere of The Crown season three, Netflix has shared its official trailer. Set to a cover of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changing," the two-minute teaser ushers in a new cast and a new political climate in Britain.
YouTube will reduce conspiracy theory recommendations in the UK
YouTube plans to tweak its recommendation algorithm to cut back on conspiracy theory videos in the UK, eight months after it conducted a similar experiment in the US. The platform is in the middle of rolling out the update to its British users, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. It's unclear when exactly the change will occur.
Anti-Brexit RPG ‘Not Tonight’ is coming to Switch
The anti-Brexit game Not Tonight may be a year old, but it's still just as relevant. With the Brexit deadline pushed back to October and heightened political tension in the US, the game's digs at the gig economy, right-wing extremism and nationalism are timely. Soon, you'll be able to take all of that on the go. No More Robots and developer PanicBarn are bringing the RPG game to Nintendo Switch with new content.
The Bank of England will honor Alan Turing on its new £50 note
The Bank of England has chosen Alan Turing, computing pioneer and a code-cracker during World War Two, to be featured on its new £50 note. Turing contributed significantly to the field of mathematics, but his achievements were not fully recognized during his lifetime as he was gay, which was illegal at the time.
UK's NHS will anonymize data to enable AI doctors
If you were miffed about Britain's National Health Service (NHS) giving your sensitive data away to Google's DeepMind, how you respond to today's news is probably a crapshoot. The NHS has announced that it will begin anonymizing said data that's been used to analyze blood test results and to detect risk of acute kidney injuries and other ailments. To be clear, these are separate events (the data use and today's announcement), but one led to the other. In 2016, the NHS and DeepMind caught their fair share of criticism over how data was shared with implied -- not explicit -- consent from 1.6 million patients.
Brexit may exclude UK from the EU's GPS satellite program
Europe plans to exclude the UK from its GPS-like Galileo satellite program because of Brexit, and Britain isn't happy about it. In a letter to the UK government, Europe said that UK businesses may no longer be able to bid on the project and the UK military might not be able to use the system. That's because the UK will no longer be part of the EU on March 29th, 2019, so Galileo's security would be "irretrievably compromised" if it continues to participate, the EU said.
Theresa May wants to force tech giants to curb extremist content (updated)
British Prime Minister Theresa May called on global leaders at the G7 conference in Sicily to force internet and social media companies stop the spread of terrorist content available online. "Make no mistake: the fight is moving from the battlefield to the internet," she said in a statement. May called on companies to develop tools to automatically identify and remove extremist materials, block the users who post it and report such activity to the authorities. The Prime Minister also announced the creation of an international forum to encourage industry leaders to share information and technologies to curb the spread of terrorist content. In addition, May proposed that regional governments cooperate by returning and prosecuting foreign fighters via improved "intelligence-sharing, evidence gathering and bolstering countries' police and legal processes. The Guardian's Anushka Asthana reported on Twitter that May's initiatives have the backing of President Trump, as well.
Britain has its first day of coal-free power in 135 years
Coal power has been a fixture of British culture ever since the country's first plant went live in 1882. It shaped the Industrial Revolution (and the air pollution that followed), was involved in major labor disputes and even led to a famous album cover. However, the country is now backing away from coal -- and it just achieved an important milestone in weaning itself off of this dirty energy source. The National Grid has confirmed that, on April 21st, Britain went without coal-generated power for its first full day in 135 years. There had been relatively long stretches in recent times (19 hours in May 2016, for instance), but none as long as this.
Uber loses High Court bid to block English language driver tests
Uber's operations in London have been dealt a fresh blow after the High Court ruled that it, and other private hire companies in the city, must force drivers to pass an English language test. The ride-hailing provider was attempting to overturn strict new rules proposed by Transport for London (TfL) last year that included reading and writing tests for drivers, better customer support and private-hire insurance for period when drivers weren't even working.
EE looks to drones and big balloons to tackle 4G 'notspots'
One of EE's biggest challenges is connecting rural customers. The UK network's 4G coverage is slowly improving, but there are still countless subscribers stuck in so-called "notspots." To help, EE is working on drones, balloons and trucks that can provide temporary access in a pinch. They'll never replace a traditional base station, but in the case of an emergency -- a flood or severe power outage, for instance -- they could offer a crucial line to the rest of the world. In the future, these "air masts" could also provide ongoing internet access, similar to Alphabet's Project Loon, while EE wrestles for planning permission to build new, permanent network hubs.
Half of UK electricity now comes from nuclear and renewables
A record 50 percent of the UK's electricity was generated from renewables and other low carbon energy sources in the third quarter of 2016. That's up from 45.3 percent the year prior, a milestone fuelled by a sizeable increase in wind, solar and nuclear energy. A neat quarter came from renewables, including hydroelectric, while the other 25 percent was sourced from nuclear reactors. According to the UK government, the growth in green energy can be attributed, at least in part, to "improved weather conditions" across the UK, including higher wind speeds, increased rainfall and longer stretches of sunlight (though I don't remember that last one happening).
Sony hack 'caused' f-bombs to go out on British daytime TV
Did you know that the Sony hack, amongst other things, caused scores of British children to hear some salty language on TV? That's what the UK's telecommunications authority believes after the company showed the adults-only version of a classic film in the early afternoon. Sony-owned channel Movie Mix showed the Paul Newman courtroom drama The Verdict on December 14th, and in one scene, characters drop f-bombs as if they were candy wrappers. The excuse for such flagrant sweariness was that when Sony's servers were hacked, a nefarious type had "erased" the safe-for-daytime-viewing version of the flick, with the unedited version taking its place.
Britain now prefers cashless payments to notes and coins
It's taken a while, but the UK is now primarily cashless. No, it's not all-digital, but for the first time, consumers and businesses are making more payments with cards, smartphones and online banking than standard notes and coins. That's according to the Payments Council, which found that 52 percent were completed without physical currency, with debit cards accounting for almost a quarter (24 percent) of all payments.
UK's £97 million supercomputer will predict the weather in your back yard
If someone asks you about UK weather, you can probably say "lousy" with about 75 percent accuracy. But the UK's national weather service, the Met Office, needs a bit more precision than that, so it just purchased a £97 million ($156 million) Cray XC40 supercomputer. With 480,000 CPUs, the 140 tonne (154 ton) machine will run about 13 times faster than its current IBM system. It'll also let the Met provide updates every hour, three times more often than it can now. All that speed will enable forecasts down to a resolution of 1.5km (1 mile), giving UK denizens the weather down to a specific London borough, for instance. It should also provide much better flood and wind warnings, along with more accurate fog, ice and snow reports for airports.
The Daily Grind: Is the term free-to-play intentionally misleading?
Earlier this month, Britain's Advertising Standards Authority barred EA from advertising its mobile game Dungeon Keeper as "free-to-play." Why? Because Dungeon Keeper has a countdown timer that blocks progress in the game, a timer that can be bypassed with money. "From the information available in the ad, players would expect the gameplay progression and their ability to advance to be unhindered by unexpected and excessively onerous delays," wrote ASA, "and we therefore considered that the length and frequency of these countdown events was beyond that which would be reasonably expected by players. [...] While we understood that the average consumer would appreciate that free-to-play games were likely to contain monetization functions, we considered that they would also expect the play experience of a game described as 'free' to not be excessively restricted." Welcome, ASA, to the MMO community's endless debate over what constitutes free-to-play! This "free-to-wait" game mechanic is nothing new to us; it pervades mobile titles as well as many MMORTS titles and indie MMOs (Glitch and Villagers and Heroes come to mind). As a gamer, I find the mechanic not so much exploitative as obnoxious, and I'd rather not see it spread. But I spy a slippery slope here. Do you think the ASA is right? Are MMOs with this mechanic (or similar mechanics) misleading consumers? Which F2P games could be legitimately F2P under the ASA's understanding of the term? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Colin Pillinger, Britain's Mars-rover chief, dies aged 70
Colin Pillinger, one of Britain's most famous space scientists, has died at the age of 70 from a brain hemorrhage. Professor Pillinger was the very definition of a plucky Brit, whose force of personality and optimism enabled him to oversee construction of the Beagle-2 Mars probe. Despite overwhelming odds, the academic convinced the European Space Agency to convey the device on the back of one of its rockets. Unfortunately, contact was never made with the probe, and it is believed to have crashed trying to land on the Red planet. Despite this, Pillinger was able to raise the profile of the British space program and bring together the nation's various industrial and technical communities.
Grand Theft Auto 5 breaks UK day one sales record
GFK Chart-Track, the company responsible for the weekly UK sales charts, stated this afternoon that Grand Theft Auto 5 is "officially UK's biggest ever video game launch." The game sold 1.57 million copies on its first day, with estimated sales of £65 million ($103.8 million). The company noted the previous record was held by Call of Duty: Black Ops, which sold 1.4 million copies in one day. Publisher Take-Two stated earlier this afternoon that Grand Theft Auto 5 has sold $800 million in total on launch day.
Saints Row 4 goes four in a row atop UK Charts
Saints Row 4 knows how to make the party last in the UK, holding the top spot on the charts for a month now. Only one new release broke the top ten last week, Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix, debuting in the number two spot. We won't even discuss what Farming Simulator 2013 is doing at number 23, while Puppeteer debuts at 40. And, just beyond the horizon, we see Grand Theft Auto 5 driving up, ready to thank Saints Row 4 for keeping its throne warm. Don't worry, Saints Row 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts will be extending the same courtesy to GTA 5 come November 5. Seek out the UK top ten after the break.
New Nexus 7 reportedly coming to the UK August 28th (update: confirmed)
We were pleasantly surprised by the latest version of the Nexus 7, which landed in the US at the end of July. A little more patience has been required of Nexus fans on the other side of the pond, however, but the wait will soon be coming to an end. According to Pocket-Lint, ASUS has confirmed that the device will launch at midnight on August 28th, and will offer an asking price of £199.99 for the 16GB WiFi model and £239.99 for the 32GB WiFi-only version. There's no word on an LTE unit hitting British shores, but we'll keep you posted if we hear more. Update: ASUS reps have confirmed to us that the Nexus 7 will indeed be available on August 28th for the prices quoted above.
Wii U no longer being stocked by UK retailer Asda
UK retailer Asda will no longer stock the Wii U, its games or accessories across its 555 locations. CVG received a follow-up statement from Asda that the retailer will continue to sell Wii U games through its online portal on a case-by-case basis. Asda had been at the forefront of price cuts to move the console out (of its stores, apparently). The company had committed two price cuts to the console during the first half of the year. Nintendo could really use some good Wii U news soon. The Asda departure comes after publishers have begun publicly addressing the lack of Wii U sales, which have forced them to delay one-time exclusives (Ubisoft), to get them on multiple consoles (Square Enix) or make rational business decisions (EA) – but there are always bizarre exceptions.
