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Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman have only just revealed that they are leaving Strictly Come Dancing but speculation over their replacements is already rife.

Labour has faced mounting criticism for its deal to surrender the British Indian Ocean Territory to Mauritius - a close ally of Beijing - earlier this year.

The cost of Motability - which accounts for more than one in five new cars sold in Britain - increased by almost 10 per cent from £2.8billion to £3.074billion last year.

The current hosts, who have fronted the show together since 2014, announced their departure in an emotional social media video to fans on Thursday.

iPhone and iPad users vexed by denial of spreadsheets

Microsoft Excel for the past week has been hanging or crashing on iOS and iPadOS devices, to customers' great annoyance.…

The government has awarded £5million to researchers to help develop improved ways of diagnosing the disease and boost the quality of life of people living with it.

More than £600million was swindled from innocent victims by scammers in the first half of the year, a report today reveals.

Lyle lifts this murder mystery, set in a small New Zealand town, out of the rut of the ordinary, because she's so good at conveying inner tension.

Microsoft is retiring Office Online Server on December 31, 2026, ending support and updates for organizations running browser-based Office apps on-premises. The Register reports: After this, there won't be any more security fixes, updates, or technical support from Microsoft. "This change is part of our ongoing commitment to modernizing productivity experiences and focusing on cloud-first solutions," the company said. Office Online Server provides browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote for customers who want to keep things on-prem without having to roll out the full desktop applications. Microsoft's solution is to move to Microsoft 365, its decidedly off-premises version of its applications. The company said it is "focusing its browser-based Office app investments on Office for the Web to deliver secure, collaborative, and feature-rich experiences through Microsoft 365." Other than migrating to another platform when the vendor pulls the plug, affected customers have few options. The announcement will also hit several customers running SharePoint Server SE or Exchange Server SE. While those products remain supported, Office Online Server integration will go away. The company suggested Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise and Office LTSC 2024 as alternatives for viewing and editing documents hosted on those servers. Skype for Business customers will also lose some key features related to PowerPoint. Presenter notes and high-fidelity PowerPoint rendering will go away. In-meeting annotations, which allow meeting participants to write directly to slides without altering the original file, will no longer be available, and embedded video playback will run at lower fidelity. Features like whiteboards, polls, and app sharing shouldn't be affected. Microsoft's solution is a move to Teams, which the company says "offers modern meeting experiences."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Celebrity Traitors Jonathan Ross, Alan Carr and Cat Burns struck again on Thursday night's episode, killing off a fan favourite faithful.

A UK tribunal ruled that Apple abused its dominant position by charging app developers unfair commissions through its App Store, potentially costing the company hundreds of millions in damages. It marks the first major tech "class action" victory under the UK's collective lawsuit regime. Reuters reports: The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled against Apple after a trial of the lawsuit, which was brought on behalf of millions of iPhone and iPad users in the United Kingdom. The CAT ruled that Apple had abused its dominant position from October 2015 until the end of 2020 by shutting out competition in the app distribution market and by "charging excessive and unfair prices" as commission to developers. Apple -- which has faced mounting pressure from regulators in the U.S. and Europe over the fees it charges developers -- said it would appeal against the ruling, which it said "takes a flawed view of the thriving and competitive app economy." The case had been valued at around $2 billion by those who brought it. A hearing next month will decide how damages are calculated and Apple's application for permission to appeal. "This ruling overlooks how the App Store helps developers succeed and gives consumers a safe, trusted place to discover apps and securely make payments," an Apple spokesperson said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Airbus, Leonardo and Thales seek to 'strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy in space'

Three European aerospace giants plan to combine their space units into a single heavyweight, hoping to boost the continent's space autonomy.…

What?! No complimentary credit monitoring?

The Canadian outpost of retailer Toys R Us on Thursday notified customers that attackers accessed a database, stole some of their personal information, then posted the data online.…

Two years ago, Dana Burton was standing under a tree, shielding from the rain, when her life changed forever...

An anonymous reader shares a report: China's Communist Party elite vowed on Thursday to build a modern industrial system and make more efforts to achieve technological self-reliance, moves it sees as key to bolstering its position in its intensifying rivalry with the United States. As expected, the Party's Central Committee also promised more efforts to expand domestic demand and improve people's livelihoods - long-standing goals that in recent years have been little more than an afterthought as China prioritised manufacturing and investment - without giving many details. [...] The full five-year plan will only be released at a parliamentary meeting in March, but the post-plenum outline from state news agency Xinhua hinted at policy continuity, which concerns economists who have been calling for a shift towards aâgrowth model that relies more on household demand. Building "a modern industrial system with advanced manufacturing as the backbone" and accelerating "high-level scientific and technological self-reliance" were listed ahead of the development of "a strong domestic market," the communique showed.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung and SK Hynix have raised DRAM and NAND flash prices by up to 30% for the fourth quarter, Korean publications report. The two Korean memory giants passed the new rates on to customers as analysts predict the AI-driven memory supercycle will be longer and stronger than past boom periods. Several leading international electronics and server companies are stockpiling memory and negotiating long-term supply deals spanning two to three years. U.S. and Chinese electronics firms and data center operators are exploring mid-to-long-term contracts. Companies typically sign DRAM contracts on a quarterly or annual basis.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I remember the relief when I first took the pills prescribed to me by the GP, the vague glimmer of hope I felt when I popped the Prozac out of its foil and put it in my mouth.

Fancy a winter break abroad, a brief respite from the socialist misery at home? Better book now, then, just to be on the safe side...

The amount of energy required to supply the data centers powering AI is so vast that meeting that need may be more than a lifetime away, according to a senior executive at Apollo Global. From a report: "The gap between what AI is demanding and what we have everywhere in the world on the grid in terms of generation and transmission is huge and will not be closed in our lifetime," Dave Stangis, who has led and developed Apollo's sustainability strategy over the past four years, said in an interview. That means sustainable energy investors need to accept that renewables alone aren't enough to power the AI age, he said. The comments encapsulate a new approach across the finance industry, where the economics of the energy transition -- a concept intended to represent the shift to a low-carbon future -- are becoming merged with the economics of an unprecedented boost in supply. "So what is happening around the world, there's no doubt about it, is what you might call energy addition," Stangis said. "The world is scrambling to add every source of power."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's only one post office in Essex listed to carry it