Silicon UK Pulse: Your Tech News Update: Episode 3

Welcome to Silicon UK Pulse

This is your weekly round-up of the top tech news stories.

Every Friday, Silicon UK surveys the week’s tech news.

Stay up-to-date with what’s happening in your industry or sector.

I’m James Marriott with all the big technology news from the last week.

Vodafone is to cut 11-thousand jobs as it sets out a new roadmap to turn around its fortunes.

That’s over a tenth of its workforce worldwide.

It comes after a five month strategic review.

And it’s the first major decision taken by the new CEO Magherita Della Valle, who was recently confirmed as the new permanent boss after being in interim charge since the turn of the year.

The job losses are planned over a three year period and will impact the firm’s UK headquarters, as well its operations in other countries.

Inactive Google accounts are going to be deleted.

Alphabet, which is the parent company, announced changes this week.

It will cull accounts that haven’t been used for two years, starting December.

It says it’s an effort to minimise security threats, including potential hacks.

A blog post said older accounts are less likely to have two factor authentication set up, and could be using old passwords.

It’s been a really messy week in the proposed Microsoft acquisition of the games studio Activision.

First, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority put extra blocks in place to prevent the deal from happening.

But then the European Commission gave its seal of approval for the buyout.

So that means the EC is OK with the deal, but the UK and the US have both rejected it – but the companies are appealing.

Legal experts are predicted the saga is likely to run on for some time.

AI could be coming to your Amazon searches.

The company is reportedly working to bring ChatGPT-style interactions to its main web product search offering.

That’s been spotted because of wording in some recent job ads.

One listing for a senior software development engineer said the firm is adding an “interactive conversational experience” to Amazon Search.

A survey in the UK has suggested that up to a million people have cancelled their broadband in the last year.

Citizens Advice says it’s down to the high cost of living here.

It’s only a few weeks since Ofcom revealed that millions of people who qualify for a cheaper so -called ‘social’ tariff weren’t claiming it – with many not even knowing they exist.

Now it wouldn’t be a weekly tech news round-up with at least a couple of stories surrounding Elon Musk.

First, he’s finally appointed a chief executive at Twitter.

NBC Universal advertising boss Linda Yaccaruno was unveiled on Monday.

It comes five months after Musk ran a poll asking if he should step down from the role and bring someone in – of course a majority did indeed vote for that to happen.

Since then he’s joked several times that in fact his dog is now CEO.

It sounds like he isn’t taking too much of a step back though, saying he’ll continue as CTO.

Meanwhile, it looks like Musk could be turning more of his attention back to Tesla.

He’s told managers that all new hires at the car manufacturer must be approved by him.

They have to send him a weekly list of proposed hires, including contractors, and he’s told them to ‘think carefully’ before making any proposals.

Last month, Tesla posted its lowest quarterly gross margins in two years.

We can pay for a blue tick on Facebook and Instagram.

Meta has followed Twitter’s lead in rolling out paid for verification in the UK.

Starts at 9 pounds 99 a month – you need to be at least 18 and have a government issued ID.

The first full size driverless buses in the UK have started operating.

This is in Edinburgh in Scotland.

Don’t panic too much though – there is still someone sat in the driver’s seat to make sure everything works OK.

In fact the services have two staff on board, because there’s also someone else who helps people with their tickets.

They run on a 14 mile stretch of road and can go up to 50 miles an hour.

And the new Zelda game is out.

The Legend of Zelda – Tears of the Kingdom sold more than 10 million copies in just three days according to Nintendo.

That makes it the fastest selling in the series.

It’s the sequel to Breath of the Wild which has sold more than 30 million copies since its release in 2017.