News

Smartphone technology

• May 07, 2025 07 May'25

  Schools pilot exam results app that could save £30m

  Exam results and certificates will be provided digitally in a pilot the government hopes will lead to huge financial savings

• May 01, 2025 01 May'25

  Thomas Herdman’s legal battle over Sky ECC encrypted phone distribution set to enter fifth year

  Computer Weekly speaks to Julie Kawai Herdman, daughter of Thomas Herdman, the only person in custody for distributing Sky ECC encrypted phones

• April 29, 2025 29 Apr'25

  Three Business launches business eSIM trial

  Business arm of UK mobile operator unveils what it says is the UK’s first large-scale embedded subscriber identity module trial for business in two of the country’s largest cities to allow customers to test network capabilities before possible switch

• April 24, 2025 24 Apr'25

  ASEAN telcos going beyond the 5G hype

  Telcos from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are moving beyond the 5G hype as they focus on driving enterprise 5G and AI adoption to drive value for customers

• April 23, 2025 23 Apr'25

  Telenor IoT unveils ‘future-proof’ eSIM solution

  Internet of things division of leading Nordic telco becomes latest in glut of providers to launch solution in flourishing embedded subscriber identity module market with standardised SGP.32 product

• April 23, 2025 23 Apr'25

  Vodafone, A1, Ericsson unveil first 5G Standalone international roaming

  Global comms tech provider teams with operators in Germany and Bulgaria to confirm feasibility of cross-border 5G SA roaming to enhance responsiveness and reliability of services

• April 22, 2025 22 Apr'25

  Virgin Media O2 cuts carbon emissions 56% against its 2020 baseline

  Virgin Media O2 reveals that it is on track to achieve net zero across its operations, products and supply chain by the end of 2040, 10 years ahead of UK’s net-zero goal

• April 09, 2025 09 Apr'25

  GSA forms 5G RedCap interest group

  Global mobile ecosystem trade association launches working group to track, report and promote status of deployments, devices and service launches based on low-load next-generation mobile wireless standard

• April 08, 2025 08 Apr'25

  NCSC issues warning over Chinese Moonshine and BadBazaar spyware

  Two spyware variants are being used to target the mobile devices of persons of interest to Chinese intelligence, including individuals in the Taiwanese, Tibetan and Uyghur communities

• April 07, 2025 07 Apr'25

  Court rejects Home Office bid for blanket secrecy in hearings over Apple encryption case

  Investigatory Powers Tribunal rejects Home Office arguments that identifying the ‘bare details’ of legal action by Apple would damage national security, leaving open possibility of future open court hearings

• March 25, 2025 25 Mar'25

  UK regulator consults on enabling direct satellite to mobile comms

  UK to be first country in Europe to move ahead with plans to enable satellite calls to be made from standard smartphones, with people and businesses in hard-to-reach areas set to benefit most

• March 19, 2025 19 Mar'25

  EE makes 5G standalone upgrade for more than 28 million people

  UK’s leading mobile provider claims major milestone in its mission to deliver standalone mobile connectivity across the UK for smoother video calls, better video streaming and improved browsing experiences

• March 17, 2025 17 Mar'25

  Online Safety Act measures come into effect

  Regulator Ofcom is now able to take enforcement action against platforms under the Online Safety Act if they fail to proactively safeguard against content such as terrorist or child sexual abuse material

• March 14, 2025 14 Mar'25

  Apple encryption legal challenge heard behind closed doors despite calls for public hearing

  Investigatory Powers Tribunal hearing held behind closed doors as press and civil society groups argue for open hearings

• March 12, 2025 12 Mar'25

  iPhone, iPad update fixes critical WebKit flaw

  iPhone and iPad users are advised to update their devices as Apple addresses an out-of-bounds write issue in the WebKit browser engine that appears to have been exploited in targeted cyber attacks

• March 06, 2025 06 Mar'25

  UK cyber security damaged by ‘clumsy Home Office political censorship’

  Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre secretly censors computer security guidance and drops references to encryption

• March 05, 2025 05 Mar'25

  Apple IPT appeal against backdoor encryption order is test case for bigger targets

  The Home Office decision to target Apple with an order requiring access to users’ encrypted data is widely seen as a ‘stalking horse’ for attacks against encrypted messaging services WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal

• March 05, 2025 05 Mar'25

  MWC 2025: Smartphone users upgrade devices faster as AI cranks up

  Latest quarterly analysis from business services company finds decreasing age of trade-in devices in second half of 2024 coincides with launch of next-gen AI-enabled devices

• March 04, 2025 04 Mar'25

  Canadian businessman remains in French jail, accused of distributing Sky ECC cryptophones

  Canadian businessman Thomas Herdman has been held in pre-trial detention without trial for nearly four years – he has once again been refused bail

• March 03, 2025 03 Mar'25

  MWC 2025: NTT Docomo preps for beyond 5G future

  Leading Japanese operator unveils slew of announcements to boost advanced communications across domestic territory and Africa, encompassing the new era of 6G and aircraft-based systems

• March 03, 2025 03 Mar'25

  MWC 2025: Operators account for 85% of mobile infrastructure investments

  Research from global mobile trade association reveals operators alone contribute $109bn to infrastructure investments, far exceeding that made by content and application providers and cloud service providers

• March 03, 2025 03 Mar'25

  MWC 2025: AI is the new mobile UI for Qualcomm

  Connected processor and artificial intelligence company unveils AI-first modems for 5G networks, IoT and fixed wired access as artificial intelligence scales rapidly at the network edge to drive key business benefits

• February 27, 2025 27 Feb'25

  Verizon claims to ‘shatter’ US 5G upload speed record

  Leading comms provider reveals 5G trial results with record-breaking uplink speed through use of technologies including TDD carrier component aggregation with C-band spectrum and uplink MIMO

• February 26, 2025 26 Feb'25

  US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard probes UK demand for Apple’s encrypted data

  A secret order issued by the UK against Apple would be a ‘clear and egregious violation’ if it provides back door access to Americans’ encrypted data, says US director of national intelligence

• February 21, 2025 21 Feb'25

  Apple withdraws encrypted iCloud storage from UK after government demands ‘backdoor’ access

  After the Home Office issued a secret order for Apple to open up a backdoor in its encrypted storage, the tech company has instead chosen to withdraw the service from the UK

• February 14, 2025 14 Feb'25

  Top cryptography experts join calls for UK to drop plans to snoop on Apple’s encrypted data

  Some of the world’s leading computer science experts have signed an open letter calling for home secretary Yvette Cooper to drop a controversial secret order to require Apple to provide access to people’s encrypted data

• February 13, 2025 13 Feb'25

  UK accused of political ‘foreign cyber attack’ on US after serving secret snooping order on Apple

  US administration asked to kick UK out of 65-year-old UK-US Five Eyes intelligence sharing agreement after secret order to access encrypted data of Apple users

• February 13, 2025 13 Feb'25

  Interview: Why Samsung put a UK startup centre stage

  The launch of the flagship Galaxy S25 smartphone from Samsung showcased AI innovation from a company spun out of Oxford University

• February 10, 2025 10 Feb'25

  Apple: British techies to advise on ‘devastating’ UK global crypto power grab

  A hitherto unknown British organisation – which even the government may have forgotten about – is about to be drawn into a global technical and financial battle, facing threats from Apple to pull out of the UK

• February 10, 2025 10 Feb'25

  Unionised drivers to stage ride-hailing app strike

  Drivers employed by Uber, Bolt and Addison Lee are set to log off for six hours on 14 February 2025 in long-running disputes over poor pay, work conditions and algorithmic transparency

• January 31, 2025 31 Jan'25

  Police swoop on Sky ECC cryptophone distributors in Spain and Holland

  Dutch and Spanish police have arrested four people accused of making millions of euros by distributing Sky ECC encrypted phones to criminal organisations

• January 28, 2025 28 Jan'25

  Over 40 journalists and lawyers submit evidence to PSNI surveillance inquiry

  Angus McCullough, who is leading a review into the police surveillance of journalists and lawyers in Northern Ireland, says victims will be informed if they were unlawfully spied on – subject to ‘legal constraints’

• January 22, 2025 22 Jan'25

  How smartphones are transforming global health

  Shyam Gollakota, winner of the 2024 Infosys Prize in Engineering and Computer Science, is bringing medical care to underserved communities through with smartphone-based diagnostic tools

• January 21, 2025 21 Jan'25

  Government to launch Gov.uk Wallet

  The digital wallet will allow citizens to have government-issued documents, including a digital driver’s licence, on their phone, alongside a new Gov.uk app

• January 21, 2025 21 Jan'25

  Greek authorities subject refugees to invasive surveillance

  Greek border authorities are subjecting asylum seekers to invasive phone confiscations and artificial intelligence-powered surveillance, in another potential violation of European data protection laws

• January 20, 2025 20 Jan'25

  The death of the piggy bank marks coming of age of a fintech

  Fintech is a broad church that can be applied to high finance and child savings alike, as the team at startup Those Beyond have demonstrated

• December 19, 2024 19 Dec'24

  Vodafone, Google unite to improve customer experience

  Vodafone and Google team up to boost 5G upload speeds for Pixel users with the introduction of new MIMO technology to support demand for high-quality, immersive and interactive applications

• December 19, 2024 19 Dec'24

  French court refuses to expedite trial of Sky ECC cryptophone distributor Thomas Herdman

  Canadian businessman Thomas Herdman, who was arrested by French police despite agreeing a deal to cooperate with US investigators, has been denied bail after 42 months in pre-trial detention

• December 17, 2024 17 Dec'24

  Conservative MP adds to calls for public inquiry over PSNI police spying

  Conservative MP David Davis calls for a public inquiry following a court ruling that the PSNI and Metropolitan Police unlawfully placed journalists under electronic surveillance

• December 16, 2024 16 Dec'24

  Nokia claims European 5G cloud RAN and standalone mmWave firsts

  Comms tech provider claims milestones in radio access networks and fixed wireless access connectivity, looking to provide more agile network services to customers by bringing network usage closer to the edge and closing digital divide

• December 13, 2024 13 Dec'24

  Mobile industry unlocks new opportunities with open APIs

  Intelligence arm of global mobile trade association finds significant progress made by mobile industry and cloud providers when it comes to opening up their networks to developers through open APIs

• December 10, 2024 10 Dec'24

  iOS vuln leaves user data dangerously exposed

  Jamf threat researchers detail an exploit chain for a recently patched iOS vulnerability that enables a threat actor to steal sensitive data, warning that many organisations are still neglecting mobile updates

• December 05, 2024 05 Dec'24

  CMA gives Vodafone-Three merger green light

  The deal is on. Now Ofcom will need to ensure Vodafone-Three doesn’t raise consumer or wholesale mobile network prices

• December 04, 2024 04 Dec'24

  Vodafone UK, eSIM Go look to remove MVNO barriers to entry

  Embedded subscriber identity module provider and operator look to allow organisations with subscription model able to provide UK mobile services via rapid, automated MVNO-in-a-box enablement without upfront risk, cost or commitment

• November 27, 2024 27 Nov'24

  Stage is set for legal battles over Big Tech dominance

  Having lost its case to drop a £7bn collective claim, Google is facing increased legal scrutiny on a number of fronts over its business practices

• November 25, 2024 25 Nov'24

  5G, AI reshape mobile trade-ins in record-breaking Q3

  Latest quarterly analysis from business services company finds that for the first time, 5G devices have become the top turned-in models for Android and Apple

• November 22, 2024 22 Nov'24

  CMA gets ready to take on Apple and Google over mobile browsing

  Preliminary investigation finds a lack of fairness and choice of mobile browsing on iOS devices like the iPhone is holding back innovation

• November 21, 2024 21 Nov'24

  US Department of Justice wants Alphabet to sell Chrome browser

  The regulator is looking to put a stop to what it sees as the search engine giant’s anti-competitive practices

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Apple addresses two iPhone, Mac zero-days

  Two zero-day vulnerabilities uncovered in Apple’s operating systems could have allowed for arbitrary code execution and cross-site scripting attacks

• November 20, 2024 20 Nov'24

  Government issues strategic priorities for online safety regulator Ofcom

  Technology secretary Peter Kyle sets out the government’s strategic priorities for how Ofcom should approach regulating online safety, including embedding safety by design and supporting innovation in technologies to help protect people online