US drops tariff threat against nations who dished out digital taxes to American tech giants as OECD members hash out new deal

15% tax minimum to hit tech firms

The US government and administrations in Europe have come to an agreement that will drop the threat of tariffs in response to policies on digital services taxes (DSTs).

The Department of the Treasury announced the deal would mean Austria, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom could keep their DSTs while multinational rules negotiated with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) were introduced.

Back in June, nations where digital services taxes were deemed to disproportionately affect the US tech industry were threatened with 25 per cent tariffs on up to $2bn of their goods by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR). At the same time, it announced an immediate 180-day suspension of the tariffs so G20 and OECD nations had time to complete their negotiations on a global tax law, which would also hit tech companies.

Nobody really cares about DAB radio – so let's force it onto tech platforms' smart speakers, says DCMS Radio Review

UK's anti Amazon and Google war gets a second front

The UK might pass laws forcing smart speakers such as Amazon Echo and Google Home devices to broadcast UK DAB radio stations, over government fears that Brits aren't consuming enough of the unloved radio tech.

Under the guise of "protecting UK radio stations' accessibility" the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has published a report calling for smart speakers to rebroadcast domestic radio stations' output.

The call, made in the Ministry of Fun's Digital Radio and Audio Review, was backed by national broadcaster the BBC and commercial radio groups.

IPSE: More than a third of freelancers have quit contracting since IR35 reforms

Exodus, movement of the people... to the Middle East or elsewhere

More than a third (35 per cent) of contractors in the UK have become permanent employees, retired, shifted to work overseas or are "simply not working" since IR35 tax legislation was revised earlier this year.

This is according to the Association of Independent Professionals (IPSE) which found 35 per cent fewer freelancers among those it surveyed since 6 April when the government pushed through the delayed reform.

"This research shows the devastating impact the changes to IR35 have had on contractors, needlessly compounding the financial damage of the pandemic," said Andy Chamberlain, director of policy at IPSE. "Now, just when contractors are needed the most - amid mounting labour shortages across the UK and particularly in haulage - government decisions have drive out a third of the sector."

New Relic guzzles down CodeStream to help devs jump straight from app error telemetry to offending code

'I can debug production from the IDE,' said CS boss Peter Pezaris

Observability company New Relic has acquired CodeStream, specialists in developer collaboration, with the aim being to connect observability data with code in the development environment.

CodeStream, founded in 2017 by Peter Pezaris, adds instant developer communication to coding environments. For example, a developer puzzling over some code written by a colleague can click next to that code, type a message to the other dev, and they will receive it either in the IDE if they happen to be working on the same project, or in a messaging tool such as Slack, complete with a reference to the code in question. They reply, and a discussion begins.

Although it may seem a small thing, given that they could just use Slack (or any number of other messaging services) directly, the context and convenience makes it a worthwhile collaboration tool. CodeStream also integrates with pull requests from GitHub, GitLab, BitBucket, and issue management from Jira, Trello and others.

Analogue tones of a ZX Spectrum Load set to ride again via podcast project

Remember the R Tape Loading Error?

The glory days of audio-cassette loading are set to return in the coming weeks, with retro fans to be treated to a broadcast for them to hit Play and Record to.

Audio cassettes were the medium of choice for software back when Sinclair and Commodore's 8-bit hardware ruled the roost. The floppy disk seemed impossibly glamorous for the average home computer user and code was instead delivered via audio.

While the sound of those files was unintelligible for most, for some enthusiasts it was possible to discern the type of data being loaded. Right up until the all-too-common R Tape Loading Error (which usually seemed to come right at the end of a lengthy period staring at a loading screen).

Unhappy customers and their own tricks used against them, REvil ransomware gang reportedly pulled offline by 'multi-country' operations

The second vanishing of the cybergang... for now

As we noted a few days back, notorious ransomware gang REvil "disappeared" again this week. Recent reports have now shed light on why that may be.

The REvil leaks blog, known as Happy Blog, was made inaccessible on October 17, the same day one of its operators announced the group was shutting down due to a hijacking of their domain on Russian forum XSS, security vendor Flashpoint said at the time.

Now we may know why. Reuters reported the cybergang was taken down by a multi-country operation.

Apple's Safari browser runs the risk of becoming the new Internet Explorer – holding the web back for everyone

WebKit engine is well behind the competition

Feature The legacy of Internet Explorer 6 haunts web developer nightmares to this day. Microsoft's browser of yore made their lives miserable and it's only slightly hyperbolic to say it very nearly destroyed the entire internet. It really was that bad, kids. It made us walk to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways. You wouldn't understand.

Or maybe you would. Today developers who want to use "cutting-edge" web APIs find themselves resorting to the same kind of browser-specific workarounds, but this time the browser dragging things down comes from Apple.

Apple's Safari lags considerably behind its peers in supporting web features. Whether it's far enough behind to be considered "the new IE" is debatable and may say more about the shadow IE still casts across the web than it does about Safari. But Safari – or more specifically the WebKit engine that powers it – is well behind the competition. According to the Web Platform Tests dashboard, Chrome-based browsers support 94 per cent of the test suite, and Firefox pulls off 91 per cent, but Safari only manages 71 per cent.

Judging by the way your face lit up, my inbox just got more attractive

A message for you, (on your) rudie

Something for the Weekend, Sir? "You've got mail!" announces a voice on the tram.

How very 1990s, I think, imagining myself as a double-taking, pre-gravitas Tom Hanks in a remake of the lightweight romantic comedy. I tear my attention away from my book and look up to see who uttered this famous refrain.

A man standing across the aisle is staring straight at me. OK, I'm no Tom Hanks but this guy's definitely no Meg Ryan. It is unsettling. I look up and down the carriage for other potential sources.

BOFH: So you want to have your computer switched out for something faster? It's time to learn from the master

Corporate will make you jump through hoops – but there's always a window

Episode 19 "It's just … so slow," my user complains.

"Slow, or comparatively slow?" I ask.

"What do you mean?"

How to keep a support contract: Make the user think they solved the problem

Look what you found! Aren't you clever!

On Call Let us take a little trip back to the days before the PC, when terminals ruled supreme, to find that the more things change the more they stay the same. Welcome to On Call.

Today's story comes from "Keith" (not his name) and concerns the rage of a user whose expensive terminal would crash once a day, pretty much at the same time.

The terminal in question was a TAB 132/15. It was an impressive bit of kit for the time and was capable of displaying 132 characters of crisp, green text on a 15-inch CRT housed in a futuristic plastic case. Luxury for sure, unless one was the financial trader trying to use the device.

Apple kicked an M1-shaped hole in Intel's quarter

Chipzilla braces for a China-gaming-ban-shaped hole in future results, predicts more product delays

Intel has blamed Apple's switch to its own M1 silicon in Macs for a dip in sales at its client computing group, and foreshadowed future unpleasantness caused by supply chain issues and China's recent internet crackdowns.

Chipzilla's finances were robust for the third quarter of its financial year: revenue of $19.2 billion was up five per cent year over year, while net income of $6.8 billion was up 60 per cent compared to 2020's Q3.

But revenue for the client computing group was down two points. CFO George Davis – whose retirement was announced today – was at pains to point out that were it not for Apple quitting Intel silicon and Chipzilla exiting the modem business, client-related revenue would have risen ten per cent.