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A bug caused UK election ad spend data to disappear on Facebook
Earlier this week, an unspecified bug caused as many hundreds of thousands of political ads to disappear from Facebook's Ad Library, a tool the company rolled out globally earlier this year to provide more transparency on political spending. According to CNN Business, the bug caused ads to go missing in several countries across the world, including the UK.
UK set to allow Huawei in 'non-contentious' parts of 5G networks
After months of talk, the UK is reportedly close to letting Huawei into its 5G networks. Sunday Times sources claim Prime Minister Boris Johnson is close to allowing the Chinese tech giant into "non-contentious" parts of 5G service in the country. While there wassn't much elaboration on what that meant, past reports suggested these would be areas where the potential damage from Chinese surveillance (if any) would be limited.
The Uber effect: government report shows London's private taxi boom
Private taxi apps like Uber and Hailo are becoming ever popular, but not everyone is happy with their UK expansion. But how widespread are they? According to new figures from the Department of Transport, the number of private hire vehicles in England has risen by 11.8 percent since 2013, with London seeing a massive 26 percent rise alone. There are now a record 62,754 private vehicles operating in the capital, up from 49,854 in 2013.
London's getting another 51 all-electric buses
London's public transport is already going green, but there's still a lot of work to do before all of the city's buses are switched over to alternative energy sources. Just two weeks after mayor Boris Johnson announced the capital will host the world's first purpose-built all-electric double decker, Transport for London (TfL) today confirmed a further 51 green vehicles will hit the streets by autumn in a bid to lower carbon emissions and improve London's air quality.
Uber clashes with London mayor over cap on minicab numbers
While the city's black cab drivers wait for the High Court to decide whether Uber's operation in London is legal, they may soon be given a helping hand by mayor Boris Johnson. The Financial Times reports that the recently-elected MP has backed proposals limit the number of minicabs operating in the capital, effectively blocking Uber's expansion plans. The private taxi company isn't prepared to take it lying down, though, and has already sought to meet with the mayor to discuss the issue. In a letter seen by the newspaper, Uber UK head Jo Bertram argued that action would result in "higher prices" and negatively affect Londoners' ability to move around the capital.
London's 'Boris bikes' get an app for paying and planning rides
Using one of London's "Boris bikes" isn't as simple as, say, taking the Underground or catching a bus. You have to find a docking station with an available bike, work out your journey time and how much you'll be charged, and then find another drop-off point that's close to your destination and not already full. To make the process a little simpler, Santander and Transport for London (TfL) are launching an app for iOS and Android. You can use it to find your nearest docking station, check how many bikes are available and pay for your next ride. Once you've selected a 24-hour or annual pass, a unique release code will be sent to your phone, which can then be used to unlock a two-wheeler.
London will be a 5G city by 2020, promises Boris
As London becomes the bright shining center of the European tech scene, it's only natural that the city would like to maintain its place at the top of the pile. That's why mayor Boris Johnson is pledging that London will roll out a 5G network across the city by 2020. It's part of a long-term infrastructure investment plan that'll see connectivity given equal prominence to more conventional resources like transport, energy and water. At the same time, broadband speeds for each home in the capital will be made public alongside data from the networks in order to find communication blackspots that require additional work. Of course, given that 5G as a standard has yet to be defined, it'll be interesting to see if the mayor can make good on his promise -- unlike the one about turning London into a giant WiFi hotspot by 2012.
French billionaire to bring 3,000 all-electric hire cars to London
Electric cars have yet to wow British drivers, but that doesn't mean the government is ready to give up on putting more greener vehicles on UK streets. With help from a French billionaire, the city is set to become home to more than 3,000 electric hire cars and 6,000 charging points in the next two years, quadrupling the number of available outlets that are available today. It's all part of a £100 million investment by businessman Vincent Bollore, whose company won the rights to assist London Mayor Boris Johnson in getting 100,000 electric vehicles on the road and putting every resident within one mile of a charge point. While the charging network will be run for Transport for London, the car-sharing scheme is commercial. Bollore reckons around 100 "Bluecars" will be available by the end of the year, which can be rented using a smartphone app for £10 per hour (nearly twice as much as some petrol car services like ZipCar). While it's certainly no Tesla Supercharger network, we can expect EVs to suddenly become a lot more visible on the streets of Britain's capital city.
London mayor asks Apple to help curb iPhone-related thefts
London Mayor Boris Johnson has written to Apple and other smartphone manufacturers requesting help in curbing smartphone thefts in the capital. In London, 10,000 smartphones are stolen each month. V3 received a copy of Johnson's letter to Apple and other smartphone manufacturers; here are some highlights: "We need the companies who manufacture and supply smartphones to play their part and take this issue seriously. If we are to deter theft and help prevent crimes that victimise your customers and the residents and visitors to our city, we need meaningful engagement from business and a clear demonstration that your company is serious about your corporate responsibility to help solve this problem." "Each of your companies promote the security of your devices, their software and information they hold, but we expect the same effort to go into hardware security so that we can make a stolen handset inoperable and so eliminate the illicit second-hand market in these products. We hope you would support this objective. Customers and shareholders surely deserve to know that business cannot and must not benefit directly from smartphone theft through sales of replacement devices." The good news for Johnson is that Apple is already working hard on curbing iPhone theft. With iOS 7, Apple will introduce Activation Lock, a feature that will require a user's Apple ID and password to reactivate a stolen phone after being remotely wiped by the owner through Apple's Find My iPhone app. Activation Lock will also require the user's login information to turn off Find My iPhone. It is hoped that once thieves are made aware of how pointless it will be to steal an iPhone with Activation Lock, they will stop targeting the devices so much. Activation Lock will also make it easier to track stolen iPhones.
London scraps plans for cellular coverage on the tube, bums Huawei out
Technical complexity and financial naiveté have meant that London's ambitious plans to cover its underground train network with cellular signal by the 2012 Olympics are hitting the scrapheap. In spite of Huawei's most generous offer to provide £50 million ($81m) of equipment for the project for free, the London Mayor's wish that UK mobile operators be the ones to foot the installation bill -- without a penny coming out of public coffers -- has unsurprisingly found little favor. Compounded with the logistical hellride of trying to get everything up and running by next summer, that's now led to a mutual agreement among all parties concerned to abandon the project. Mind you, the plans to get WiFi up at 120 stations in time for the Olympics are still on track, so at least we'll be able to pull down some data before diving into those dark, damp tunnels.
Source London: network of 1,300 charging stations coming by end of 2013
London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced a plan to create a city-wide electric vehicle network dubbed Source London. It calls for 1,300 public-use charging stations to be installed by the end of 2013 - assuming the Mayan's weren't right about 2012. Any driver who registered for the network and paid an estimated annual membership fee of £100 (roughly $160 at the current exchange rate) could juice their EVs across all of the stations. For perspective, keep in mind that the city already has 250-plus stations with 16,729 electric vehicles and hybrids registered, of which only 2,100 draw power by being plugged in. That implies if the plan is completed, drivers would technically have better odds of finding a charging station than a gas pump in the city. Combined with Johnson's schemes to provide cell coverage in the tube and city-wide WiFi, it's also yet another example of how jolly old London is prepping for the future in between bites of scones and episodes of Top Gear. To learn more about the project, make sure to check out the source link below.
London to become one giant WiFi hotspot by 2012, because Boris says so
Look at this man. Just look at him. Isn't it obvious that Boris Johnson gets what Boris Johnson wants? In case you've been misinformed about the power this man's wishes hold, you should know that he's well on his way to establishing the first muni-fi project to actually work -- or so he hopes. By and large, every attempt to sprinkle WiFi onto entire US cities has fallen short in one way or another, but London has a motivator that no American borough ever did: the 2012 Olympics. Boris' plan is to blanket all of London in WiFi prior to the opening ceremony, with "every lamppost and every bus stop" having a router or repeater in it. The scheme is part of a larger plan to make London the "technology capital of the world," but unfortunately, your hopes of connecting for free may be dashed. According to the London Evening Standard, "no details of pricing have been given," and we get the impression that those in charge of the rollout would've jumped at the chance to gloat about its free-ness if that were indeed the case. But then again, who are we to question the might of London's Mayor?
London Mayor groups video games with illegal activities
London Mayor Boris Johnson mixed a bunch of elements into one great stew of silly for thelondonpaper. MCV reports the eccentric mayor, writing about the "London knife crisis," states he wants to show young people that "knives are not cool." He wants to do that by counteracting the damaging influences of drug-addicted celebrities, "violent video games" and the lure of gang life. Did he just lump violent video games in with narcotics and organized crime? Last year Johnson wrote in a piece that "computer games rot the brain" and that readers should "garrotte the Game Boy and paralyse the PlayStation." Meanwhile, the British games industry reports a shortage of young skilled labor.
