unitedkingdom

On October 3, the British government announced that it was giving up sovereignty over a small tropical atoll in the Indian Ocean known as the Chagos Islands. The islands would be handed over to the neighboring island country of Mauritius, about 1,100 miles off the southeastern coast of Africa.

The story did not make the tech press, but perhaps it should have. The decision to transfer the islands to their new owner will result in the loss of one of the tech and gaming industry’s preferred top-level domains: .io.

Whether it’s Github.io, gaming site itch.io, or even Google I/O (which arguably kicked off the trend in 2008), .io has been a constant presence in the tech lexicon. Its popularity is sometimes explained by how it represents the abbreviation for “input/output,” or the data received and processed by any system. What’s not often acknowledged is that it’s more than a quippy domain. It’s a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) related to a nation—meaning it involves politics far beyond the digital world

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Once this treaty is signed, the British Indian Ocean Territory will cease to exist. Various international bodies will update their records. In particular, the International Standard for Organization (ISO) will remove country code “IO” from its specification. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which creates and delegates top-level domains, uses this specification to determine which top-level country domains should exist. Once IO is removed, the IANA will refuse to allow any new registrations with a .io domain. It will also automatically begin the process of retiring existing ones. (There is no official count of the number of extant .io domains.)

The BBC Weather website and app are suffering a data issue, meteorologists have said, after forecasts showed hurricane force winds hitting the UK.

Graphics show estimated wind speeds of 13,508 mph in London and overnight temperatures of 404C in Nottingham.

Presenter Matt Taylor said in a post on X: “Don’t be alarmed folks - Hurricane Milton hasn’t made it to us here in the UK! There’s been a data glitch between our suppliers and the app/online. Folk are working to solve the issue”…

Ministers to review the BBC’s Charter to examine the BBC’s future funding
Licence fee to rise in line with annual CPI inflation in 2025 to provide the BBC with stable financial footing
Thousands more households to be offered support to pay TV licence fee

Seems like the guy in the article was a bit stupid and did the exact things that banks tell you not to like giving personal info and 2FA codes to a cold-caller, but also that Revolut’s claims of biometric security didn’t stop the scammers nicking all his money.

I’ve not had much experience with the “challenger banks” but apparently Revolut gets the most complaints by a long way. Anyone got any similar stories?

North East Derbyshire has been given a post-apocalyptic makeover in the Brownie’s Adventure series.

Our NHS is broken, but not beaten. Together we can fix it.

The NHS has been there for us for over 76 years. But to make sure the NHS is here for the next 76 years, doing all it can to support the health of everyone, we need your help.

We want to have the biggest ever conversation about the future of the NHS.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a lot or a little to say. Your views, experiences and ideas will shape a new 10 Year Health Plan for England.

This is open to everyone. If you are a member of the public or someone who works in health and care in England, ‘Start Here’, to tell us how the NHS needs to change.

If you are contributing as a representative of an organisation, complete the organisation questionnaire. This is an early opportunity to share your insights as we begin an extensive programme of engagement to develop the 10 Year Health Plan.

If you register your email address, we will stay in touch to seek your views as the 10 Year Health Plan develops.

Social media platform Bluesky says it has seen a surge in signups in the United Kingdom in recent days.

Since X owner Elon Musk made controversial comments about the riots in the UK, a number of influential figures said they would leave the platform or scale back their use, including home office minister Jess Philips.

Now, Bluesky says it has seen a 60% jump in general activity from accounts in the UK, with several MPs also joining the platform recently.

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“For 5 out of the last 7 days, the UK had the most Bluesky signups of any country,” said Bluesky in a statement on Monday.

Apologies for editorialising the headline with brackets. The original headline was quite bad for context, lol

Maker of triangular-shaped almond-and-honey-laced chocolate bar says it has made ‘difficult decision’ to withdraw product

I’m not sure I even realised there was a dark chocolate version.

The most popular form of surveillance was monitoring active work hours, with 54 percent saying this was going on, and employees’ emails and chat logs were also examined by employers (36 percent and 28 percent, respectively).

One in five confirmed they track the locations from which employees are working – bad news for the digital nomads

cross-posted from: feddit.uk/post/27168720

The company says the new site is expected to create 28,000 jobs and generate £50bn for the economy.

cross-posted from: metawire.eu/post/5637

The UK government sought to keep details of its row with Apple over requested access to its encrypted cloud storage tool private.

Publish Date: 07.04.2025, 15:22

The new owner will rebrand the High Street chain as TGJones, but said it would keep the Post Office outlets that operate in many branches.

I think they’ve missed a trick here. My uncle used to call it Smudgers. Much better name!

Archive

Apple is stepping up its fight with the British government over a demand to create a “back door” in its most secure cloud storage systems, by filing a legal complaint that it hopes will overturn the order.

The iPhone maker has made its appeal to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent judicial body that examines complaints against the UK security services, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Silicon Valley company’s legal challenge is believed to be the first time that provisions in the 2016 Investigatory Powers Act allowing UK authorities to break encryption have been tested before the court. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal will consider whether the UK’s notice to Apple was lawful and, if not, could order it to be quashed.

The case could be heard as soon as this month, although it is unclear whether there will be any public disclosure of the hearing. The government is likely to argue the case should be restricted on national security grounds.