Hacoo is positioning itself as an where people can openly share real-life experiences, practical recommendations, and honest feedback after trying things themselves.��

In a digital economy shaped by attention-led platforms, Hacoo’s startup proposition is different: it aims to make authenticity the engine of discovery.

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An Authenticity-First Algorithm

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Hacoo’s strongest platform feature is its authenticity-first recommendation engine. Traditional, algorithm-driven social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest often favour content that is highly edited, visually refined, or optimised for fast engagement. Hacoo takes a different approach by actively circulating “unfiltered realities.”

This means honest feedback is treated as a meaningful trust signal. Positive opinions still matter but they are not the only form of valuable input. A balanced post, a practical note, or even a critical experience can help users make better lifestyle decisions.

This is also where Hacoo’s disruption of legacy social platforms becomes clearer. Instead of rewarding perfection as the main growth mechanic, the platform rewards relevance, credibility and real-life usefulness. That turns authenticity into a form of digital value.

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Governance As A Trust Layer

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When sceptical users inevitably ask, “Is Hacoo legit?”, the platform responds not with corporate marketing, but by enforcing a strict progressive penalty system against deceptive content. That enforcement ladder can range from content removal to potential permanent account deactivation, making trust an operating principle rather than just a brand message.

Hacoo strives to act as a strict ecosystem referee. Its governance model uses AI content tracing, cross-platform monitoring and community oversight to identify and mitigate bot networks, inauthentic engagement, malicious links and deceptive lifestyle claims before they gain visibility across the feed.

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Redefining The User Experience

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This transparency extends to the user experience. For users searching for “Hacoo reviews UK”, this means the recommendation engine points towards verified realities rather than manufactured hype.

Hacoo is deliberately moving away from the toxic perfection filters that have shaped much of legacy social media culture. Instead of encouraging users to present only the most polished version of their lives, the platform is building a UI/UX where inspiration connects directly with genuine community validation.

That means real, imperfect, and even critical opinions are part of the platform’s value. A user explaining what did not work can be just as helpful as someone sharing what did. This creates a more practical discovery layer where users gain context, not just aspiration.

The “unfiltered reality” positioning is important because many people no longer want lifestyle inspiration that feels unreachable. They want recommendations rooted in lived experience. They want feedback that sounds human. Hacoo’s interface is designed to support that shift by making authentic feedback easier to surface and easier to trust.

Hacoo’s Dual-Layer Infrastructure

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Another key part of Hacoo’s platform architecture is its dual-layer infrastructure. The platform distinguishes between everyday users, who share genuine lifestyle inspiration freely, and professional Affiliate Partners, who use tracking tools to transparently monetise their influence.

This distinction matters because many social platforms blur the line between casual sharing and professional influence. Hacoo’s model makes that relationship clearer. Everyday users can contribute authentic feedback and unfiltered experiences, while professional partners operate with more structured tools and clearer accountability.

In this sense, Hacoo’s discovery ecosystem functions as social infrastructure, bringing community feedback, creator tools, and trust signals into the same operating model.

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Monetizing Authenticity In The Digital Economy

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Hacoo’s wider digital economy story is about whether authenticity can scale. Many social platforms begin with community ideals, but those values can weaken as growth pressure increases. Hacoo’s response is structural. It builds authenticity into its recommendation logic, moderation systems and creator tools.

That is why the platform stands out as a startup case study. If traditional social media platforms monetise attention, Hacoo is exploring how authenticity can become a more durable form of digital capital. The platform is not only competing for screen time; it is attempting to rebuild the trust layer beneath lifestyle discovery.

Its use of AI-assisted moderation also reflects a broader shift in social tech. As communities grow, manual review alone becomes difficult to scale. Hacoo’s use of AI content tracing and cross-platform monitoring shows how governance can become part of the technical architecture rather than a reactive support function.

At the same time, community oversight keeps the experience human. This combination of machine-assisted detection and user validation gives Hacoo a more layered approach to trust.

Hacoo challenges traditional social media by asking a more fundamental product question: what should a discovery platform reward?

By prioritizing unfiltered realities, authentic feedback, AI-powered governance, and transparent creator tools, Hacoo is building a model that treats trust as infrastructure. Its goal is not to remove aspiration from digital culture, but to reconnect inspiration with real-life experience.

The post Engineered For Trust: What Is The Hacoo App Doing To Fight Fake Perfection? appeared first on 91̽��.

Graduate hiring in the UK tech sector went down 46% over the past year as employers recruited fewer people into junior digital and coding jobs and this is according to The STEM Skills Outlook, produced by the Centre for Economics and Business Research and STEM workforce consultancy SThree.

The report calculates that a 2% drop in graduates from tech subjects would lower that contribution to £172 billion. That would leave a £14.5bn difference in economic output.

We a similar development in cybersecurity when the DSIT’s Cybersecurity Skills in the UK Labour Market 2025 report estimated that entry level candidates accounted for 17% of cybersecurity job postings in 2024 compared to 2022 when that share was 25%. The research also found that 63% of vacancies asked for candidates with between two and six years of experience.

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What Is Happening To Entry Level Tech Work?

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The Cebr and SThree report says graduates are finding it harder to enter the sector as ai automates or reshapes junior positions that traditionally helped people gain workplace experience.

That comes as employers recruit fewer newcomers… The Institute of Student Employers recently reported that graduate hiring in the UK tech sector went down 46% during the past year as employers reduced recruitment for junior digital and coding jobs.

Rakesh Patel, Managing Director UK and Rest of Europe at SThree, said, “If those entry-level routes narrow further, the UK risks deterring the next cohort of graduates needed to sustain tech growth over the next decade – and that comes at a huge cost to the economy.

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“The UK’s tech sector is already a major contributor to growth, which is why even a marginal weakening of the talent pipeline could cost the country billions.”

Patel also said, “Entry-level positions give graduates commercial experience that underpins long-term productivity and innovation. So as AI reshapes parts of that work, it’s increasingly important for employers and policymakers to strengthen the pathways from education into the workplace.”

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Why Are Employers Asking For More Experience?

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The cybersecurity labour market shows what many employers want from . According to the government commissioned research, there were an average of 2,698 cybersecurity job postings each month during 2024.

Most vacancies were for candidates who already had experience. Mid level workers accounted for 63% of postings, leaving fewer openings for people at the start of their careers.

That leaves graduates in a difficult situation where employers want workplace experience, but fewer jobs are available for people trying to gain it.

The STEM Skills Outlook says entry level jobs help graduates develop commercial knowledge and workplace skills that support productivity and innovation later in their careers.

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What Could This Mean For The UK Economy?

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Tech related industries currently contribute £122bn to the UK economy and support nearly 1.8 million tech related jobs, according to The STEM Skills Outlook.

Sam Miley, Head of Forecasting and Thought Leadership at Cebr, said, “Periods of technological transition often create temporary mismatches between labour market demand development. Computer Science remains one of the UK’s most popular degree subjects, but rising living costs, larger student debt burdens and growing scrutiny over graduate outcomes could weaken future demand for technology degrees over time.”

Miley added, “That matters because the UK’s wider growth ambitions are increasingly tied to high-productivity sectors such as AI, advanced tech and digital infrastructure, all of which depend on a steady supply of specialist talent. The STEM Skills Outlook shows how quickly long-term economic projections can shift when workforce trends begin to change.”

The report’s conclusion is that graduate recruitment is not only a question for universities and employers. It also relates to the future workforce that tech, AI and projects will need in the years to come.

The post Where Have All The Junior Tech Jobs Gone? appeared first on 91̽��.

So what’s next? A technology called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Calls are made using the Internet instead of a copper wire phone line. Not only does it make calling significantly cheaper, but VoIP systems offer modern features from call forwarding to virtual receptionists.

These are things that a traditional phone system simply can’t do. And if businesses are getting that and more for a fraction of the price, it’s easy to see why so many are making the switch. Especially with the 2027 landline switch-off approaching.

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How Will Businesses Be Affected By The Landline Switch-Off?

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Most, if not all, UK businesses will be aware by now that come January 2027, traditional landlines permanently. The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), which is the copper wiring infrastructure that has carried UK calls for over a century, will officially retire on 31 January.

That means that any business still relying on analogue or ISDN lines will need to have moved to a digital alternative before then, otherwise their phone system will simply stop working.

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Why You Shouldn’t Wait Until The January Deadline

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January might feel like a comfortable distance away but in reality, the preparation window is narrowing. Openreach, who owns the physical infrastructure, implemented a stop-sell on copper-based services back in 2023 meaning businesses can’t order or even modify existing copper lines.

Leaving it too late means fewer options and tighter timelines, not to mention being under more pressure to find a setup that fits your needs.

What some might not realise is that the switch-off doesn’t only affect phones. Alarm systems, CCTV or any other equipment that runs will all need alternatives. And for businesses who have multiple locations, it will take a fair amount of time to plan for the change properly.

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How Can VoIP Benefit Your Business?

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While the most obvious benefit is the cost-savings aspect, VoIP has far more to offer than just a reduction on your monthly phone bills. It provides a reliable way for remote and hybrid teams to stay connected, features that assist with time-consuming tasks and the ability to grow alongside your business.

Its flexibility makes it a worthwhile option for corporate organisations, smaller teams and everything in-between.

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What Your Savings Will Look Like

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Traditional phone systems come with multiple lines rentals, expensive international calls, hardware and maintenance contracts. And all too often, these costs add up faster than most businesses would like.

But because VoIP uses the Internet connection that you already have, there’s no need to pay for separate infrastructure. Most providers will charge a flat monthly fee per user, which includes international calls, and you can save anywhere from 30% to 50% compared to a traditional system.

On the hardware side of things, there’s no need to have a cabinet full of equipment that needs to be updated. Most VoIP setups run through software, meaning lower upfront costs.

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Your Office Number Moves With You

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According to the Office for National Statistics, around 40% of the UK population works on a . Having a phone system that only works when you’re physically at your desk just doesn’t work anymore.

With VoIP, your number isn’t tied to a physical line and you can take calls from just about any device whether it be a smartphone, laptop or tablet. Regardless of where you are.

It matters much more than it might seem. You don’t have to worry about missing any calls because you’re away from your office or having to manually forward calls.

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VoIP Integrations Can Save You A Lot Of Time

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Modern VoIP systems have a range of features bundled in, even on the most basic plans. In the past, they would have been costly add-ons or only for enterprise-level tiers.

Whether you need a call recording option, call routing, video conferencing or call analytics, you can choose a VoIP plan that caters to your needs – and frees up you and your team’s time.

Aside from its features, most VoIP systems can also integrate with tools that your team may already use to Microsoft Teams and Slack. It’s particularly helpful for sales and customer service teams who can check a customer’s history before they’ve even explained why they’re calling.

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Fewer Growing Pains As Your Business Scales

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In the past, expanding your team came with the headache of having to wait for an engineer to add new lines and paying for new hardware.

With a VoIP system, adding a new user is usually as simple as creating a new account from your dashboard. This can generally be done in a few minutes and without needing a professional to help or buying hardware.

If you open at a new location, you don’t have to build a phone infrastructure from scratch, you can just simply extend your existing one.

The post Hello, Savings: The Business Case For Switching To VoIP appeared first on 91̽��.

Murray Thom, vice president of quantum technology evangelism at D-Wave, said, “The era of enterprise quantum computing adoption has arrived. Companies are no longer asking if they should explore quantum, but how quickly they can implement it.”

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What Are The Numbers Saying?

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The responses from the survey indicate that early use of quantum will probably start with optimisation tasks in daily operations and resource planning after 90% identified workforce scheduling as an area needing improved optimisation.

Resource allocation reached 89%, supply chain optimisation reached 88%, and manufacturing processes reached 82%.

These tasks involve large sets of variables and many possible outcomes: a manufacturer may coordinate production schedules across multiple sites, while a logistics operator may manage movement of goods between warehouses and distribution hubs. Employers need to do things like organise thousands of shift patterns every week.

So, conventional computing would handle such calculations, but it does become a bit more complex once operations scale and variables multiply. This all looks good to these industries because optimisation problems match the type of calculations quantum systems process.

Thom said, “This study shows that increasingly see quantum computing as a tool for tackling real business challenges, from supply chain optimisation to manufacturing to AI. As a result, we are beginning to see the Quantum Effect take shape across the UK market.”

Manufacturing systems, logistics networks and workforce scheduling therefore stand as early candidates for commercial use.

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Could AI Systems Gain Early Quantum Benefit?

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AI needs more computing capacity and heavy processing workloads and business leaders examine ways to improve efficiency and outcomes from existing systems.

The Censuswide and D-Wave survey found that 35% of UK business leaders said AI delivered some ROI, even though results were less than they had expected it to be.

Energy use has become a concern for organisations running large AI workloads. The survey found that 62% of respondents questioned whether existing energy infrastructure could support continued expansion of AI and other compute intensive technologies.

Where organisations see value in quantum has to do with how they believe it may support complex computational workloads that challenge conventional systems.

The survey says 87% of the respondents believed quantum computing could, in fact, support optimisation of AI related processes and computational tasks.

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Which Sectors Receive Government Quantum Funding?

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Government funding is one of the ways to assess where early may develop.

The UK’s Commercialising Quantum Technologies Challenge invested more than £174 million, supported by more than £390 million from industry, to develop quantum based products and services.

The programme identified automotive, healthcare, infrastructure, telecommunications, cybersecurity and defence as priority sectors.

Healthcare receives interest due to demand for advanced research and data analysis work. Telecommunications organisations study system performance and communications systems. Cybersecurity programmes examine methods for protecting digital systems and information.

Automotive research focuses systems, engineering processes and operational efficiency. Infrastructure projects also receive funding for quantum related development.

This is all important for startups especially, because funding priorities give us an idea on where commercial use may first develop once technology becomes usable at scale.

The post What Industries Are Most Likely To Benefit First From Quantum Computing? appeared first on 91̽��.

While the data looks strong, it masks a persistent pattern. A disproportionate share of the companies built on the back of that early-stage investment end up acquired by American buyers, relocated to access US markets or starved of the late-stage capital needed to scale independently. The UK builds and then watches them leave. The pattern has continued for long enough that it now has its own name: the late-stage funding gap, estimated at between $4 billion and $11 billion annually.

The data specifies exactly where the break occurs – UK institutional investors participate in 57% of domestic deeptech seed rounds, by late stage, that figure drops to under 10%. The capital to get a company started in Britain is available, but the capital to keep it British is not.

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Failing By Design, Not By Chance

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The Royal Academy of Engineering’s State of UK Deep Tech report and the 2026 European Deeptech Report from Dealroom and Walden Catalyst trace back to identical core issues: the UK is proportionally strong at creating deeptech companies and proportionally weak at scaling them.

University spinouts account for 34% of the UK deeptech sector and generate 37% of enterprise value, confirming the research pipeline is working, even as the scaleup infrastructure around it hasn’t kept pace.

The initial numbers show that the UK really does have some solid advantages. British deeptech startups reach development milestones at 40% to 60% of the cost of their US equivalents, according to analysis presented to the British Consulate General. The sector is focused on areas with real long-term commercial value – AI (39% of deeptech funding), quantum computing (18% of global investment since 2020), biotech, medical devices – rather than chasing funding cycles. has attracted 18% of all global quantum investment since 2020 from a country of 67 million people – the foundations aren’t the problem.

The problem is what happens at Series C and beyond, when the cheques needed to grow a deeptech company to commercial independence require institutional capital that British pension funds and sovereign wealth vehicles still allocate at a fraction of American equivalents. The US investors who fill that gap come with US expectations: listings on American exchanges, access to American talent pools, proximity to American customers. Accepting the capital often means accepting the trajectory.

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What Would Change The Pattern

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The policy response has historically focused on early-stage incentives: R&D tax credits, Innovate UK grants, the Enterprise Investment Scheme. These have worked, which is why the early-stage numbers look strong. What’s absent is equivalent support for the growth stage, where companies need patient capital over a five-to-ten-year horizon rather than venture returns over a three-to-five-year one.

The UK government committed £2 billion to AI over four years and approximately £1 billion toward sovereign compute capacity – neither of these is primarily a growth-stage deeptech instrument. The distance between building a world-class quantum or biotech company to Series B and having the domestic capital base to take it to independent scale hasn’t been closed by any announced policy so far.

The unvarnished truth of this discussion also involves a point the industry rarely admits: some of the UK’s best deeptech founders choose American acquisition not because they’re forced to but because British capital markets offer a less attractive exit pathway, British institutional investors are less willing to hold illiquid positions at scale, and the cultural default in remains selling early rather than building long.

Those aren’t problems that more government grants fix. They’re problems that require a different relationship between Britain’s institutional capital and its most ambitious technology companies.

The post Britain Leads Europe In DeepTech Funding – So Why Do Its Best Companies Keep Leaving? appeared first on 91̽��.

The orange traffic cone has been on our devices for decades. It costs nothing, asks for no subscription, shows no adverts and, according to VideoLAN, does not track users. VideoLAN says VLC has recorded more than 286 million downloads of its current version alone. The project announced in January last year that it had passed 6 billion downloads in total.

Modern software often comes with ads, data collection, premium tiers and monthly fees. But VLC seems to exist in a completely different universe. In modern day, with all these platforms turning to ads and data mining, why exactly is VLC different, and how on earth are they still standing? Well, that’s what we’ll be getting into.

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Where Did VLC Come From?

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When doing research, an article on The Hot Jem came up called The Person Behind VLC Media Player And Why It Has Been Ad Free All These Years. The article traced VLC’s beginnings to a student project in France.

VLC began life in 1996 at École Centrale Paris. According to VideoLAN and also Wikipedia, called VideoLAN to stream video around a university campus network. At that time, VLC was known as the VideoLAN Client and worked with a server system.

The software did not stay a campus experiment for long until the code was rewritten in 1998, and the project became open source in 2001 after receiving approval from the school’s leadership, Wikipedia says.

Anyone could inspect the code and also improve it or help develop the software. Contributors from around the world joined the project, coordinated through VideoLAN, a non profit organisation.

One piece of history stayed with the software. According to Wikipedia, the famous traffic cone icon came from traffic cones collected by the university’s networking students’ association.

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Why Did Millions Of People Start Using It?

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VLC earned a reputation for opening almost anything – can handle files, discs, webcams, devices and streams. It supports formats such as MPEG 2, MPEG 4, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV and MP3 without requiring extra codec packs.

VLC also supports DVD Video, Video CDs, streaming protocols, media streaming over networks and multimedia transcoding.

Many people first found VLC after encountering a file that would not open elsewhere. They downloaded VLC, opened the file and got on with what they were doing.

The software also reached almost every major platform. VideoLAN says VLC runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Unix, even Android and iOS. Users could keep the same media player regardless of which device they owned.

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Why Did VLC Turn Down Millions Of Dollars?

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As VLC became one of the world’s most popular media players, tech companies saw a business opportunity.

The Hot Jem reported that advertising and tech companies made proposals worth tens of millions of dollars to add advertising, tracking or paid features to VLC.

Jean Baptiste Kempf, who joined the project in the early 2000s and later became president of VideoLAN, rejected those proposals.

The publication wrote, “Despite receiving multiple offers worth tens of millions of dollars to put advertisements on VLC, he has refused them all, ensuring that the software remains free and accessible to everyone.”

That article explained Kempf’s reasoning: “He believed that adding ads or making users pay for extra features would go against the spirit of the project.”

That philosophy can be seen on VideoLAN’s website today. The organisation describes VLC as “Completely Free – no spyware, and no user tracking.”

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How Does VLC Make Money And Stay Alive?

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Many people ask how VLC continues operating after turning down such lucrative proposals.

The starting point is VLC’s structure: VideoLAN is a non profit organisation, not a software company built around subscription income.

Open source projects often operate very differently from commercial software businesses. Contributors volunteer their time, organisations support development and operating costs stay lower than those of many commercial software products.

The Hot Jem article explained that Kempf continued leading development while keeping the software free and open source. The article also said VLC exists to benefit users instead of maximising profit.

Public funding has helped at times reports that the European Parliament approved funding in 2017 for a bug bounty programme involving VLC to improve European IT infrastructure.

Development continued year after year and then, VLC reached version 1.0 in 2009, expanded onto Android and iOS, added 4K and 8K playback support in version 3.0, and in January last year, it came out with offline AI powered translation and subtitling at CES while announcing more than 6 billion downloads.

Nearly three decades after a university networking project became a , VLC continues doing what made people download it in the first place. No adverts or tracking or subscription fees. Just a traffic cone that opens your video file and gets the job done.

The post The Free Media Player That Said No To Millions: How VLC Survived Nearly 30 Years Without Ads appeared first on 91̽��.

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— , a self-development platform with over 400,000 monthly active users globally, announced the launch of Speech Analyzer, an in-app feature designed to give users objective, actionable feedback on how they articulate their thoughts and give presentations. Users record short speech samples directly in the app, and the system returns a structured assessment across four parameters along with specific recommendations to apply on the next take.

Unlike video tutorials or written guides that explain what effective delivery looks like in the abstract, Speech Analyzer evaluates the user’s own voice. The feature, now available to all premium subscribers, addresses a recurring challenge for professionals preparing for presentations, interviews, and high-stakes conversations: knowing what good speaking looks like in theory, but having no structured way to identify what to fix in practice.

“Most people who want to speak more clearly already know the theory,” said Oleksandr Matsiuk, CEO and Founder of RiseGuide. “They’ve watched the videos. They’ve read the books. What they don’t have is a way to overcome their fears and blockers by practicing many times and getting feedback on what they need to improve specifically. Our lessons give them the highlights and best practices of top speakers. Speech Analyzer completes the loop: learn, record, analyse, adjust, learn and record again – all without needing a coach in the room.”

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Market Context

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The global self-improvement market is projected to reach $56.66 billion by 2027, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.1%, according to industry research. Within that, communication and public speaking remain among the most cited skill gaps for early- and mid-career professionals — particularly in roles that require frequent presentations, client meetings, or interviews.

Existing options tend to fall into two categories: personalised one-on-one voice and speech coaching, which delivers structured feedback but is typically priced beyond reach for most professionals, and self-directed video content, which delivers knowledge but no practice or feedback. Speech Analyzer is built for users in between — those who want individualised feedback on their speaking without the cost or scheduling commitment of one-on-one coaching.

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The Problem Speech Analyzer Solves

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Most speech improvement resources address either knowledge or practice, but rarely both. Watching a tutorial explains what effective delivery looks like. Rehearsing alone — in front of a mirror, in the car, into a phone memo — provides repetition without signal on what is working. Speech Analyzer is built for the gap between the two: a feedback layer that turns solo practice into structured input, surfacing patterns that are difficult to assess without an outside listener.

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How Speech Analyzer Works

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Users record up to 60 seconds of speech in the app, either following a built-in scenario prompt or speaking freely on their own topic. The recording is then analysed by RiseGuide’s AI system across four parameters:

• Pace — speaking rate and variability across the recording.
• Confidence — vocal tone, intonation, volume, and degree of monotony.
• Pauses — placement and absence of pauses, plus filler words such as “um,” “uh,” and “like.”
• Structure — presence and logical flow of an opening, body, and conclusion.

The result is a Speech Score from 0 to 100. Each parameter is rated as Improve or Good and accompanied by two to three specific recommendations the user can apply on the next attempt.

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Availability

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Speech Analyzer is available now to premium subscribers on iOS and Android as part of RiseGuide’s Charisma Mastery journey covering communication, presence, and confidence.

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About RiseGuide

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RiseGuide is an expert-powered self-improvement app with over 1 million total downloads and 400,000 monthly active users. The platform distills thousands of hours of expert knowledge and turns it into short, mobile-first lessons covering communication, intelligence, confidence, and discipline, with structured learning journeys for skills such as memory, decision-making, public speaking, and leadership. Founded in 2024, the company employs 70 full-time staff and serves users globally, with its largest markets in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Learn more at riseguide.com.

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Media Contact

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Anastasiia Sliusarenko
Head of Communications | RiseGuide
anastasia.sliusarenko@riseguide.com

The post RiseGuide Launches Speech Analyzer: In-App Tool That Turns Solo Speech Practice Into Structured, Personalised Feedback appeared first on 91̽��.

The tool was built for authoritarian states – think China, Iran, Russia – the kind of . But Sarah Rogers, the US Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, has confirmed the site has been “inundated” with British users – and that a clear majority of the traffic is coming from the UK. British people, living in a NATO ally and close trading partner of the United States, are using a US government censorship circumvention tool to bypass their own country’s laws.

This is a fairly pointed indicator about how the Trump administration views the UK’s Online Safety Act.

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What The Online Safety Act Actually Does

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The came fully into force in stages during 2025, with illegal content duties applying from March and child safety duties from July.

Platforms are required to remove illegal content, protect children from harmful material including pornography, self-harm content, eating disorder promotion and bullying, implement age assurance and report compliance failures to Ofcom. Non-compliance carries fines of up to £18 million or 10% of global revenue.

The US State Department’s view of these requirements is unambiguous. Officials have described the OSA as “worse than Iran” and characterised it as Orwellian overreach. The specific concerns are threefold: the Act’s ambiguous content categories, which the Trump administration argues will inevitably restrict adult content well beyond what’s intended for children; the UK Home Office’s demands for encryption backdoors to access cloud content globally; and the OSA’s enforcement funding model, which levies around £70 million from Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple and TikTok – a charge Republicans describe as an extraterritorial tax grab on American companies.

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The EU Is In The Same Conversation

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The Online Safety Act is merely one of several in the U.S.

The EU’s Digital Services Act, which regulates very large platforms through a combination of transparency requirements, user rights and complaint systems, has also come under sharp criticism. X was fined €120 million for DSA non-compliance in December 2025. Germany issued 482 removal orders in 2024, leading to the removal of 16,771 pieces of content. Senator Anna Paulina Luna went as far as threatening to sanction the UK Prime Minister and Britain itself if Labour banned X, placing the UK rhetorically in the same category as China, Iran and Russia.

The two European frameworks differ in ways that matter for compliance. The OSA is content-based – it specifies categories of material that must be removed and gives ministers powers to mandate “accredited technology”, which critics argue could erode encryption. The DSA is process-based – focused on platform transparency, user rights and accountability mechanisms rather than mandating specific content outcomes.

The US administration’s criticism covers both, but the encryption and content mandates in the OSA attract the sharpest language.

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Navigating The Shift

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Google and Elon Musk are warning that the imposes compliance burdens so severe that digital platforms could abandon the country entirely. The fact that tech giants with the deepest resources to adapt or fight the rules are making this threat speaks volumes. The question for UK founders building products subject to the OSA – content platforms, community tools, anything with user-generated content – is more granular and more urgent.

Compliance costs are the most immediate argument. Building age assurance, content moderation systems and Ofcom reporting infrastructure into a product from scratch is expensive, and the requirements hold true regardless of the scale.

The OSA’s drafters may not have fully accounted for this when building for safety at the Meta and Google tier. The debate concerning regulatory divergence focuses on the distant future. The US government is now actively helping British users circumvent UK law. That creates an asymmetry: UK platforms are required to comply with the OSA, while US-based tools give UK users routes around it – that’s not a stable regulatory equilibrium.

Sarah Rogers put the American stance clearly: “It’s no coincidence. America, our roots are in Britain, the roots of our common law are in Britain. We have more in common with these people than divides us. Just because government and key sectors of civil society are hostile to freedom of speech doesn’t mean the people are.”

That remark by the US Under Secretary of State to Britain is a classic diplomatic prelude to a tougher conversation.

The post The US Built A Free Speech Tool For Oppressed Nations – So Why Are Brits Using It Most? appeared first on 91̽��.

There’s a single thread running through all four announcements: to build an durable competitive advantage. It knows what you listen to, when you listen and how you engage with artists. It’s now using that data to power personalised audio creation, gated superfan access and AI-generated content. That’s a different kind of platform play than streaming – it’s closer to what a company looks like when it decides to own an entire category.

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Spotify Studio: AI Podcasts On Demand

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Spotify Studio is an experimental desktop app, rolling out in beta to users aged 18 and over across more than 20 regions, that lets users generate personalised and data sources including their own listening history. Think daily briefings, conversational audio, curated playlists – all generated rather than recorded. It’s Spotify’s direct answer to tools like Google’s NotebookLM, which has built a sizable audience around AI-generated audio briefings.

The strategy makes perfect sense – Spotify already has the distribution and the audience data. Adding an AI creation layer on top means it captures the creator side of the audio market as well as the listener side. If the tool works well, this also poses a tough challenge for indie podcast creators: what happens to your show when the platform can generate a comparable experience for free?

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UMG Deal: AI Remixes With Real Artists’ Music

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The Universal Music Group agreement stands out as the most important of the four. Spotify and UMG have signed a licensing agreement that will let Premium subscribers create AI-generated covers and remixes of participating artists’ tracks directly on the platform. The feature will launch as a paid add-on within Premium, with UMG artists receiving a revenue share from AI-derived tracks. This is the first time Spotify has openly allowed user-created AI music on its service.

This is a notable shift in how the music industry is approaching AI. Rather than fighting in court, UMG is licensing into a controlled, revenue-generating version of them. For artists, that means exposure to a new form of fan engagement and a share of the revenue. For Spotify, it creates a Premium feature that has no analogue anywhere else in music streaming. For the broader music-tech startup space, it’s a reminder that the major labels will move to capture AI value rather than block it.

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Superfan Ticketing: Data As A VIP Pass

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Reserved is Spotify’s new superfan ticketing programme, built with Live Nation. It identifies superfans through on-platform behaviour – streams, saves, shares – and reserves two tickets per show for them, giving them an exclusive purchase window before the general sale. It’s limited to Premium users and local-area shows, with no additional fees. The goal is to cut out bots and resellers by tying ticket allocation to authenticated listening behaviour.

Fans get a massive amount of value out of this. For Spotify, it’s a compelling Premium retention argument that has nothing to do with audio quality or catalogue size – which are the usual battlegrounds in streaming. Tying ticket access to platform behaviour is a smart loyalty mechanic, and it positions Spotify as something closer to a fan relationship platform than a music delivery service.

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ElevenLabs Audiobooks: Self-Publishing Gets A Voice

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Though the least publicised of the four, the ElevenLabs integration could ultimately be the biggest game-changer for creators. Spotify, through its Findaway Voices arm, is now accepting audiobooks narrated using ElevenLabs’ text-to-speech voices. A creator uploads a manuscript in ePUB, PDF or DOCX format, edits pacing and tone in Studio by ElevenLabs, generates a full narration and distributes directly to Spotify and other major retailers. According to ElevenLabs, the entire workflow is software-driven.

Creating an audiobook is no longer a massive hurdle. Professional narration has historically been one of the most expensive parts of self-publishing. Removing cost and friction opens the audiobook format to a much larger creator base – and positions Spotify as the natural home for that content.

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What This Means If You’re Building In Audio

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Together, Spotify’s string of product releases highlights three simultaneous bets the company is making: democratised audio creation through AI podcasts, audiobooks and remixes; data-as-moat through personalised briefings and superfan mechanics; and rights-holder alignment through the UMG deal and ElevenLabs partnership. Each bet reinforces the others.

If you’re working in audio, music tech, or the creator economy, it’s worth taking a second to think about how this changes the competition. When a platform with Spotify’s scale and data moves into AI content creation, it redraws the map of what independent tools can viably offer. The products that survive this are the ones solving problems Spotify’s scale makes harder to personalise: niche communities, specific genres, live interaction, creator monetisation outside the major-label system.

Spotify just showed the market where the audio industry is heading over the next five years. Everyone else now faces a critical reality check: is their product enabling this future, or trailing behind it?

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For years, the landline switch-off has sounded like one of those slightly abstract bits of infrastructure news that most people mentally file under “someone else will sort that out”. If your mobile works and your broadband is fine, it can feel like the rest is just background noise.

But the UK’s move away from the old copper-based phone network is starting to land in a much more practical way. And it’s not just about home phones disappearing from kitchen walls. It’s the systems running underneath everyday life; alarms, payment systems, even parts of transport access that are now being forced to adapt.

Once you start looking, it’s everywhere.

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The End Of An Era

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The UK’s traditional analogue phone network, known as PSTN, is being phased out and replaced with digital, internet-based systems. Openreach has been steadily working towards a full switch-off which will happen in January 2027.

On paper, it sounds great: modernise everything, move to fibre, simplify the network. In reality, the PSTN has been doing a lot more than carrying phone calls. It has been supporting equipment that nobody really thinks of as “telecoms” at all. And that is where the complications start.

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Alarms That Still “Phone Home”

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Take alarm systems. A large number of older burglar alarms and fire alarm panels still rely on a simple idea: if something goes wrong, they dial out over a landline. No WiFi. No app. Just a straightforward call to an alarm receiving centre.

That worked well when the copper network was universal and stable. But now that network is being retired, those systems suddenly need upgrades; often hardware replacements, not just a software tweak.

The tricky part is scale. These systems are not just in commercial buildings. They are in schools, small shops, care homes, rented flats. In many cases, nobody has touched the alarm panel in years, because there has been no reason to. But now there is.

And alarms are just one layer. Some telecare devices used by elderly or vulnerable people have also relied on landline connections. For those users, the switch is not just inconvenient, it can be disruptive if not managed carefully.

EPOS Systems: The Workhorse Of Retail

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Then there is retail.

EPOS systems, electronic point of sale terminals are the backbone of shops, cafés and restaurants. Most modern setups already run over broadband or mobile networks, but older terminals and card machines have often used fixed-line connections or hybrid systems that assumed a landline would always be available.

The shift away from PSTN does not necessarily mean your local coffee shop suddenly stops taking payments. But it can expose hidden dependencies in older setups – backup lines, failover systems, or legacy card terminals that were installed years ago and never updated.

For small businesses especially, this is not just a technical change. It affects timing, cost, and downtime all at once. Upgrading a payment system is not something you want to do on a busy Friday afternoon.

There is also a broader point here: most businesses did not design their systems with “the end of the phone network” in mind. They designed them to be reliable. The assumption was always that the phone line would just be there.

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Oyster Top-Ups Are In The Mix Too

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Transport payments are also affected in a more indirect but important way.

Many independent retailers that provide Oyster top-up services currently rely on analogue (PSTN) telephone lines for their payment terminals. These terminals may not be compatible with the new digital, broadband-based systems, potentially leading to a loss of top-up facilities in some shops.

That matters more than it might sound at first glance. For a lot of people, especially those who prefer paying cash or who top up in person rather than online, these small local shops are a key part of how they access the transport network.

If those terminals stop working and are not replaced in time, the change will not feel like a technical upgrade. It will feel like a familiar service disappearing from the high street.

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The End Of An Invisible Default

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The reason this switch-off is so disruptive in places is not because the technology is especially new or complicated. It is because the PSTN became the default for decades.

If a device needed a reliable way to send a signal, whether that was a burglar alarm, a card machine, or a ticketing service, a phone line was the obvious answer. It was everywhere, it worked, and it didn’t really need thinking about, until now.

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The Messy Reality Of “Upgrade Everything”

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In theory, moving from copper to fibre is a clean upgrade. Faster speeds, better reliability, fewer ageing cables buried under roads and pavements.

In practice, it is a long tail of equipment that was not designed to be replaced quickly. Some systems are deeply embedded in buildings. Others are managed by contractors who only get called when something breaks. And many users simply do not know their device still depends on a landline until they are told it will not work anymore.

That has led to a growing focus on compatibility rather than just connectivity. It is not enough for a building to have broadband, the equipment connected to it has to understand how to use it, which is a subtle but important shift.

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What People Tend To Underestimate

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One of the most common misunderstandings is assuming this is purely a telecoms story. In reality, it is closer to an infrastructure chain reaction. The phone network supported a surprising amount of everyday technology. Because it was so universal, it became the default way to send a signal, trigger an alert or confirm a transaction.

When that default disappears, everything built on top of it has to choose a new path and not all of those paths are straightforward upgrades.

Some are. Plenty of modern systems already use broadband or mobile networks and will not notice much difference. But others will need physical replacement, rewiring, or full system redesigns.

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A Transition Still In Progress

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The landline switch-off is not something that happens overnight. It is a gradual process, and in many areas it already feels like it has happened without people noticing. But the remaining edge cases are often the most important ones: safety systems, payment infrastructure, and small everyday services that keep local life running smoothly.

So while the headline might sound like the end of phone calls on copper wires, the real story is broader than that. It is about a reshaping of infrastructure that has been sitting in the background of daily life for decades.

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