James O'Malley

Will the NHS Covid app really make a difference?

From our UK edition

Yesterday afternoon Health Secretary Matt Hancock revealed some rare good news: the new Covid-19 track and trace app, which launched last week, has already been downloaded over ten million times. Clearly, the British people are eager to use the promise of contact tracing technology to limit the spread of the virus. The app’s arrival is

Making the most of our electric cars

From our UK edition

One of the biggest contributors to our carbon footprint — and one of the clearest symbols of the polluted world we are trying to consign to the past — is our cars. With the average new car emitting 120.4g of CO2 for every kilometre driven, it’s clear we need to make the switch to electric transport

Why we can’t just break up Big Tech

From our UK edition

Yesterday was a historic day for Big Tech. For the first time, the CEOs of Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple were forced to bend the knee before members of the US Congress, to answer questions about their monopolistic activities. ‘These platforms enjoy the power to pick winners and losers, shake down small businesses, and enrich

Why the UK should consider banning TikTok

From our UK edition

If you’re over the age of 20, TikTok can be a bewildering experience. Fire up the app and you’ll be bombarded with a bottomless feed of short, inane and loud videos that play on a loop. But flick through a few videos and maybe, just maybe, you’ll start to see the appeal. It’s an endless

Why the NHS contact tracing app could be dead on arrival

From our UK edition

On Tuesday, the Isle of Wight became the nation’s Petri dish – the first place to try the NHS’s Covid-19 contact-tracing app. The app is definitely a clever idea: if our phones silently send a unique ID to everyone around us, when we get symptoms the government can alert everyone we have come into contact

The dangers of letting Huawei build our 5G network

From our UK edition

This afternoon Boris Johnson finally approved the use of equipment made by Huawei in building parts of Britain’s 5G network. The decision is a long time coming, having initially been kicked into the long grass by Theresa May last year, but it is also important. The decision will have profound strategic implications for the UK

How to stop a drone attack

From our UK edition

Drones have come of age in the war on terror. When the United States and Britain invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the technology was barely out of the lab. Today, these flying machines represent a huge security threat. If reports are to be believed, a Houthi rebel-launched drone attack in Saudi Arabia last weekend shut down

How to stop drones

From our UK edition

Drones have come of age in the war on terror. When the United States and Britain invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the technology was barely out of the lab. Today, these flying machines represent a huge security threat. If reports are to be believed, a Houthi rebel-launched drone attack in Saudi Arabia last weekend shut down

The all-seeing state

From our UK edition

The bullet train from Beijing to Shanghai is the fastest in the world. It takes just over four hours to travel the 819-mile journey. From the train, it is impossible to ignore China’s economic success. There are cities the size of London that many westerners will never even have heard of. They are filled with