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What a week it’s been! So, if you follow me on social media, you’ll know it’s been a busy one! Lots happening – and the main thing is, I’ve been learning from everything. Like my Friday Thought – Never Lose… Only Win or Learn.

Ok, so let’s start with the week’s Top Two Tech Stories.

1. Apple Watch and Glucose Monitoring could be a thing!

There have been plenty of rumors about glucose monitoring being one of the new features that arrives with the new iWatch7, and that now looks more likely – after Apple mentioned the feature itself in one of its regular user surveys.

As reported by 9to5mac, the survey asks users about any apps they’ve got installed to track eating habits, medications and blood glucose levels. The implication is that Apple is thinking about adding blood sugar monitoring to its smartwatch in the future.

Other questions cover the health features built into the Apple Watch – step counting, activity rings, reminders to stand up, and so on – and how often they’re used, and the questionnaire then goes on to ask about third-party apps for managing health data.

2. Now, not really a top tech story item in itself as such, however – remember the days when we needed a big camera, lights, sounds and even more expensive equipment to get really good video’s produced.

Well, it all changed with our mobile phones – now with the ability to film 4K videos and easy to clip on mic’s for that great audio sound. But what about a telepromter?

Well…now you can do it all on your phone! That’s right – hav a ring light for that perfect lighting. Mic for the perfect sound… and now you can get your words perfect! Record with confidence with Teleprompter!

How awesome is this! – It’s all about having the ability to do everything from your phone!

So there you go…. My Top Two Stories, Glucose monitoring on your new iWatch whilst you say the right words for your next video!

Good Morning! – Another crazy week!! – A lot has been happening, such as the Apple Spring Event took place (but we spoke about this last week), UK politics (with up and coming local council and police commissioner elections) and finally, India – and how the new variant/wave 2 of Covid has hit the country!

So for the week gone, I’ll share my Top Two Tech Stories…

1. Up first, Britcoin!

Now, I’ve previously shared with you what Bitcoin is, how it works and that wonderful video by the young girl. So now you (kind of) understand it… Rishi Sunak is exploring the idea of a new digital currency called Britcoin!

A Bank of England backed digital version of sterling would potentially allow businesses and consumers to hold accounts directly with the bank and to sidestep others when making payments, upending the lenders’ role in the financial system.

“We’re launching a new taskforce between the Treasury and the Bank of England to coordinate exploratory work on a potential central bank digital currency (CBDC),” Sunak told a financial industry conference.

Soon after, Sunak tweeted the single word “Britcoin” in reply to the finance ministry’s announcement of the taskforce.

2. Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek has expressed an interest in purchasing Arsenal Football Club!

Daniel Ek and his business parter Martin Lorentzon founded the company (Spotify) in 2006 in Sweden, and launched the product in 2008. It was listed in 2018 and the 38 year old is currently worth a cool $4.7bn.

The company has more than 180 million users, 87 million of whom are paying subscribers – and many, went to twitter to share that they would happily move to the premium paid service of Spotify if it’d help Arsenal buy some top class players!

From a startup, to a huge company…. to now potentially purchasing Arsenal. Truly, anything is possible! (Makes me thinks, what were you doing in 2006?!) – Could you have gone the same route and potentially be buying your favourite football team…?

So there are my Top Two Tech stories for the week. From Britcoin (now I’m at the end of this blog post – my auto spellcheck finally recognises it and stops changing it to Bitcoin!) and Spotify. Who knows, in the future, you could pay for your music with Britcoins and spend it at the Emirates!

Hope you had a lovely Easter. I recall, this time last year – at the start of Lockdown, in April – it was HOT! Well, let me re-phrase… the weather was absolutely lovely, and we were in gardens enjoying the suns rays. This year… we’re not quite at those temperatures but to get you warmed up for the week ahead… here’s my Top Two stories of the week!

1. First up – it’s been a bit of a sad week. Not tech or innovation related – but nevertheless, would like to share my condolences to the families of DMX, HRH Prince Philip, Nikki Grahame, and others who passed away this week. It’s though when loved ones pass away – thoughts and prayers for anyone who’s going through tough times at the moment.
2. Moving to tech… and to share something that came in my newsfeed recently was Tesla – and their naming convention for cars.

Now, you may be aware, there’s the Model S, 3, X and Y. For those eagle eyed amongst us – you’ll see it could (kind of) spell SEXY. Now, the reason why Tesla didn’t release the Model 3 as Model E is because Ford own the copyright for that name and wouldn’t release it.

Anyway… so we have SEXY.. but what next? Well… sources inform us that Tesla in China are working on a Model 2.. which could also be built in the Berlin Factory. It’d be similar to a BMW 2 series, Audi A2, etc… so the 2, as a name, works. People will know.

After the 2… there’ll be a Tesla 4. Again, slightly bigger than the 3…

So we have the naming convention of 2, 3, 4…. and my shirt.

That’s correct. Tesla – rumoured – to have an idea, to build a car called, ‘my shirt’.

Bal… are you pulling our leg?

Not at all. Tesla honestly wanted a line up called SEXY, it’s just unfortunately the E wasn’t available and went for 3, so it’s S3XY.

And coming up… we have 2, 4 and my shirt. Why?

This is a requirement because then the lineup can be: 2 S-3-X-Y 4 My Shirt.

And with that…. I’ll leave you with the classic. (Have a great weekend!)

Who’s your biggest fan?

First and foremost – Happy Easter! Hope you’re enjoying Easter and have not consumed tooooo many Easter Eggs! With so much going on in the World, it’s becoming more and more difficult to pick only two stories – and for those asking will I include more, unfortunately not at the moment. But will try to do more blog posts…

Ok, let’s get to it this Easter Weekend!

1. First up – Whatsapp Scam! – So this first appeared on Twitter. Basically, there’s a very clever scam that’s going around which concerns all Whatsapp users. The attack revolves around the six-digit verification code that WhatsApp gives out when you want to regain access to your account.

The message reads ‘Hello, sorry I sent you a six-digit code by SMS by mistake, Can you transfer it to me please? It’s urgent.’

What has actually happened is your friend’s account has been hacked.

Scammers are now trying to hack all their contacts. You are one of them.

They are trying to set up WhatsApp on a new device with your number.

WhatsApp acknowledges this and sends a six-digit authorisation code to your mobile phone by SMS.

“The scammers now try and get you to forward it to them by pretending to be a friend of yours,” he said.

“If you send them the code, your WhatsApp will be hacked.”

Which? and Mr Alexis urged users to turn on two-step verification as protection. They also suggested confirming whether the verification message is real by contacting the friend who sent the message without using WhatsApp.

2. And this week gone…. we had April’s Fool Day! – Now we had some really good ones this year, and some… not so good ones!

You are probably wondering which ones were my favourite… well, personally for me, I think VW did very well, they came in early, made it very believable and did all the ground work required. Innocent also teamed up with Heinz which was clever…. especially after the whole beans on Weetabix situation!

Which was your favourite?

So there we have it… whatsapp scams and April Fool Jokes which had us all believing…

Today’s Friday Thought, is from a friend of mine. She’s shared this with me, and I think it’s great to think about what it really means… especially on a cloudy day.

And we carry straight on.. straight through March with lots still happening!! With lockdown rules easing, Covid cases coming down.. it’s important to ensure we stay safe – but also, for our mental health, we get some fresh air, and go on nice walks (where possible!).

Ok… my top 2 from this week!!

1. Cost of Electric Car Charing! Now whilst we’re all being told, electric is the future (even though I think Hydrogen will play a big part)… the cost of ‘charging our cars’ can be expensive!

So… when we’re all driving electric cars, we won’t need petrol stations, we’ll need charge stations. And like petrol stations, they all charge differently.

There’s some cheaper ones and you guessed it, there’s some expensive ones. Below is a table showing the cost of charging a new iX3 at various charge stations. One thing to point out, it’s cheapest to charge at home…. but you will need, to charge at a charge station if you’re out and about!

2. Delivery Robots – they’ve have gained major traction over the last year with more and more people looking for contactless deliveries due to Covid-19. Postmates X is the robotics spinoff of the popular delivery startup acquired by Uber in 2020 and recently became its own company known as Serve Robotics. With nearly 50% of restaurant deliveries in the U.S. being located within walking distance, their technology negates the need for a car, making deliveries more accessible.

It will be interesting to see how many restaurants and local retailers turn to robots to deliver their products. So many have pivoted because of the pandemic. Many restaurants have complained about delivery services, so maybe robots could be a solution…

So there you go… my top 2 stories from this week. I will continue to share more new tech (though the robot delivery has been happening for a while… and is now taking off!), but ones that impact you, and could be coming to you soon.

If you need more information, or are a business that needs some innovative solutions – reach out to me! Happy to talk, understand and collaborate.

What a rocketing start into March! – It’ll be good to reflect on these stories at the end of the year and think – wow… what a year!

And so it continues, a lot happening in the news, especially about the Royals and not the Royals (as they are now)… but for me, I’m going to focus on the Top 2 stories in my opinion that matter.

1. SpaceX Lands! – Now, if you’re not up to speed, Elon Mush (yes, the Tesla guy) is working on a number of other projects. One is SpaceX. This is where, him and his team are building rockets that can go into space (the Moon…Mars, etc..) and then come back and land safely! A bit like an aeroplane does – but Elon wants this same principle for Space Travel.

Now, as you can imagine, it’s not an easy task. To design, build and launch a rocket that can go into space… then come back and land safely! However, Serial Number 10 (SN10) touched down in Boca Chica, Texas – in contrast to its predecessors SN8 and SN9, which crashed into the ground. Unfortunately, it then blew up.

I know. Sad. However – the good thing is a) it landed!!! (unlike SN8 and SN9) and b) it’s progress!!! – Which means, SpaceX can learn, and go again and you know… it’s only a matter of time they get it right… (and we’ll be on the moon before you know it).

2. Amazon Fresh finally landed in the UK… in Ealing!

That’s right – Amazon now have a physical store in the UK!! And yes, people were queuing up to use it. You’re probably wondering how it works? – well… all you do is… walk up to the barrier, flash your phone so the store knows its you and you’re coming in… then you go in… get what you want, and then simply walk out and you get billed for what you took! – they know what you took because they have hundred’s of camera’s everywhere!!!

Now… Amazon say they don’t record any faces or personal info as such… (so no face recognition). They’ll track you and your phone as you walk around, tracking what you’re picking up and also what you’re putting down, so you get billed for the bits you walk out with.

Will this be the new norm?

Who knows… some folk like the interaction with shopkeepers etc… some just want to walk in, get what they want and walk out. Let’s be honest – we’re all busy these days.

So there you go… my top two from the week. Personally, I don’t think it’ll be long before we pop into an Amazon store, pick up a few last minute essentials before we go to the Moon for a short break.