The UK government has committed to wiping thousands of pounds off the outstanding settlements of everyone who remains in scope of the Loan Charge, in response to the latest independent review into the controversial disguised remuneration policy.

The retroactive tax policy has left thousands of IT contractors living under the shadow of life-changing tax bills since it came into force in April 2019, who previously participated in loan-based remuneration schemes between December 2010 and April 2019.

Scheme participants are typically paid in part for the work they do in the form of non-taxable loans, allowing those involved to bolster their take-home pay. The Loan Charge policy was introduced to recoup the tax that scheme participants avoided paying. However, the policy’s critics claim it fails to take into account that, before and during the time period the Loan Charge covers, many of these schemes were mis-sold to participants as being an “HM Revenue & Customs compliant” means for contractors to boost income.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, the government set out plans in the Autumn Budget 2024 to commission an independent review of the policy to “help bring the matter to a close for those affected, whilst ensuring fairness for all taxpayers”. This was the second independent review carried out into the policy, with former HMRC assistant director Ray McCann appointed by HM Treasury to oversee the process, starting with a call for evidence in March 2025.

On the same day as the Autumn Budget 2025 took place, the content of McCann’s review was published, where he made nine recommendations that he said would “create a means whereby everyone who wants to settle their tax position through agreement with HMRC, can settle”.

As stated in the McCann review: “Its method, as part of a structured approach to settlement, is to use a series of standard adjustments to suspend a portion of an individual’s current liability which, if the terms of the suspension and payment plan are met, would in time be written off.”

This approach is, he continued, intended to incentivise people to reach a settlement with HMRC and deter them from any further involvement in tax avoidance schemes.

“The review recommends a new approach to settlement which suspends (subject to conditions) part of the overall tax owed to make allowance for the proportion of the income taken by the [loan scheme] promoters and further suspends part of the overall liability equivalent to late payment interest and penalties,” said the McCann review.

Some of the McCann review’s recommendations include:

• Individuals work with HMRC to agree a reduced settlement amount, with the difference to their current Loan Charge liability suspended and eventually written off provided the terms of the suspension are met.
• Late payment interest on outstanding Loan Charge settlements should be suspended, and so should up to 10% of the gross scheme income per tax year to account for fees paid.
• Payment plans of up to five years should be offered by HMRC by default, but HMRC also has the option to approve repayment plans of 10 years.

In its response to McCann’s review, the government said it “accepts all but one” of McCann’s recommendations, and “in several cases, will go further” by offering to write off the first £5,000 of each individual’s outstanding Loan Charge liabilities.

The one recommendation in McCann’s report that the government said it would not carry forward says the time to repay Loan Charge settlements can be extended by up to 10 years, with HMRC’s approval. This recommendation further states that if the person is unable to settle their liabilities within this timeframe “as a backstop – the remainder could be suspended”.

In response, the government said it would be willing to give those in scope of the policy longer than 10 years to settle their liabilities, but does not accept the recommendation that the remaining liabilities should be suspended if people cannot pay within 10 years.

“The government believes that this recommendation would lead to unnecessary, potentially protracted, engagement between HMRC and taxpayers over payment plans and would not support the objective to draw a line under the issue,” said the government response. “However, the government commits to ensuring the existing process for taxpayers who cannot afford to pay is made clearer.”

Overall, the settlement recommendations put forward by McCann would “substantially reduce the outstanding liabilities of those yet to settle with HMRC”, said the government, in its response, adding: “Most individuals could see reductions of at least 50% in their outstanding loan charge liabilities, and an estimated 30% of individuals could have these liabilities written off entirely.”

It also stated that it would push through legislation in the forthcoming Finance Bill to allow McCann’s recommendations to be put in force.

However, despite the positive impact the government said the settlement reforms will have on those in scope of the Loan Charge, a group of cross-party MPs – operating as the Loan Charge and Taxpayer Fairness All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) – have hit out at the contents of McCann’s review, describing its recommendations as “discriminatory and unfair”.

Greg Smith, co-chair of the Loan Charge and Taxpayer Fairness APPG, said the review also fails to “adequately recognise the industrial mis-selling” that contributed to so many people falling foul of the policy in the first place.

“The chancellor [Rachel Reeves] herself acknowledged last year that instead of pursuing victims of mis-selling, HMRC should go after the perpetrators. Yet instead, the government then commissioned a highly restricted review that didn’t even consider this,” said Smith.

“While concessions are a step forward and will help some of those involved, it will not end the nightmare for others and it fails to hold HMRC to account for its clear failures and its decision to discriminate so ruthlessly against people shown to be victims of mis-selling, which has led to 10, possibly now 11 suicides.”

Smith added: “There still needs to be a proper independent inquiry, which unlike the McCann Review, must actually be independent of HMRC and not led by someone who used to work there”.

Meanwhile, campaigners from the Loan Charge Action Group (LCAG) also outlined their disappointment at the contents of the review, which they described as being too narrow in scope and “clearly not independent” due to McCann’s former role working for HMRC.

LCAG spokesperson Steve Packham said the recommendations will help to reduce the size of the liabilities people are facing, but will not resolve the “thousands of cases” that remain open for a long time to come.

“There are many people [in scope of the Loan Charge] who now have lost income due to Covid, IR35 changes and the mental distress caused by the Loan Charge. There are many people who will still face unaffordable bills, which is likely to mean further bankruptcies and more distress,” he said.

“Despite the fact ministers have acknowledged that those affected are victims of mis-selling, the report does nothing to pursue the perpetrators of the industrial mis-selling – including chartered accountants, recruitment agencies and scheme promoters. This is despite Rachel Reeves herself calling for HMRC to pursue the perpetrators, not the victims, just last year.

“The review also excludes those who were pushed to settle under duress from HMRC, which means they will have ended up paying more than those who didn’t, which is grossly unfair when HMRC told them to settle and threatened them with far greater demands if they did not. There still needs to be a proper and genuinely independent inquiry into the whole thing. Only that can resolve the Loan Charge scandal and expose the truth about this whole fiasco.”  

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Software development is associated with the idea of not reinventing the wheel, which means developers often select components or software libraries with pre-built functionality, rather than write code to achieve the same result.

There are many benefits of this approach. For example, a software component that is widely deployed is likely to have undergone extensive testing and debugging. It is considered tried and trusted, mature technology, unlike brand-new code, which has not been thoroughly debugged and may inadvertently introduce unknown cyber security issues into the business.

The Lego analogy is often used to describe how these components can be put together to build enterprise applications. Developers can draw on functionality made available through application programming interfaces (APIs), which provide programmatic access to software libraries and components.

Increasingly, in the age of data-driven applications and greater use of artificial intelligence (AI), API access to data sources is another Lego brick that developers can use to create new software applications. And just as is the case with a set of old-school Lego bricks, constructing the application from the numerous software components available is left to the creativity of the software developer. 

A Lego template for application development

To take the Lego analogy a bit further, there are instructions, templates and pathways developers can be encouraged to follow to build enterprise software that complies with corporate policies.

A developer self-service platform provides a way for organisations to offer their developers almost pre-authorised assets, artefacts and tools that they can use to develop code Roy Illsley, Omdia

Roy Illsley, chief analyst, IT operations, at Omdia, defines an internal developer platform (IDP) as a developer self-service portal to access the tools and environments that the IT strategy has defined the organisation should standardise on. “A developer self-service platform provides a way for organisations to offer their developers almost pre-authorised assets, artefacts and tools that they can use to develop code,” he says.

The basic idea is to provide a governance framework with a suite of compliant tools. Bola Rotibi, chief of enterprise research at CCS Insight, says: “A developer self-service platform is really about trying to get a governance path.”

Rotibi regards the platform as “a golden path”, which provides developers who are not as skilled as more experienced colleagues a way to fast-track their work within a governance structure that allows them a certain degree of flexibility and creativity.

As to why offering flexibility to developers is an important consideration falls under the umbrella of developer experience and productivity. SnapLogic effectively provides modern middleware. It is used in digital transformation projects to connect disparate systems, and is now being repositioned for the age of agentic AI.

SnapLogic’s chief technology officer, Jeremiah Stone, says quite a few of the companies it has spoken to that identify as leaders in business transformation regard a developer portal offering self-service as something that goes hand-in-hand with digital infrastructure and AI-powered initiatives.

SnapLogic’s platform offers API management and service management, which manages the lifecycle of services, version control and documentation through a developer portal called the Dev Hub.

Stone says the capabilities of this platform extend from software developers to business technologists, and now AI users, who, he says, may be looking for a Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoint.

Such know-how captured in a self-service developer portal enables users – whether they are software developers, or business users using low-code or no-code tooling – to connect AI with existing enterprise IT systems.

Enter Backstage

One platform that seems to have captured the minds of the developer community when it comes to developer self-service is Backstage. Having begun life internally at audio streaming site Spotify, Backstage is now an open source project managed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF).

While many teams that implemented Backstage assumed that it would be an easy, free addition to their DevOps practices, that isn’t always the case. Backstage can be complex and requires engineering expertise to assemble, build and deploy Christopher Condo and Lauren Alexander, Forrester

Pia Nilsson, senior director of engineering at the streaming service, says: “At Spotify, we’ve learned that enabling developer self-service begins with standardisation. Traditional centralised processes create bottlenecks, but complete decentralisation can lead to chaos. The key is finding the middle ground – standardisation through design, where automation and clear workflows replace manual oversight.”

Used by two million developers, Backstage is an open source framework for building internal developer portals. Nilsson says Backstage provides a single, consistent entry point for all development activities – tools, services, documentation and data. She says this means “developers can move quickly while staying aligned with organisational standards”.

Nilsson points out that standardising the fleet of components that comprise an enterprise technology stack is sometimes regarded as a large migration effort, moving everyone onto a single version or consolidating products into one. However, she says: “While that’s a critical part of standardising the fleet, it’s even more important to figure out the intrinsic motivator for the organisation to keep it streamlined and learn to ‘self-heal’ tech fragmentation.”

According to Nilsson, this is why it is important to integrate all in-house-built tools, as well as all the developer tools the business has purchased, in the same IDP. Doing so, she notes, makes it very easy to spot duplication. “Engineers will only use what they enjoy using, and we usually enjoy using the stuff we built ourselves because it’s exactly what we need,” she says.

The fact that Backstage is a framework is something IT leaders need to consider. In a recent blog post, Forrester analysts Christopher Condo and Lauren Alexander warned that most IDPs are frameworks that require assembly: “While many teams that implemented Backstage assumed that it would be an easy, free addition to their DevOps practices, that isn’t always the case. Backstage can be complex and requires engineering expertise to assemble, build and deploy.”

However, Forrester also notes that commercial IDP options are now available that include an orchestration layer on top of Backstage. These offer another option that may be a better fit for some organisations.

AI in an IDP

As well as the assembly organisations will need to carry out if they do not buy a commercial IDP, AI is revolutionising software development, and its impact needs to be taken into account in any decisions made around developer self-service and IDP.

Spotify’s Nilsson believes it is important for IT leaders to figure out how to support AI tooling usage in the most impactful way for their company.

“Today, there is both a risk to not leveraging enough AI tools or having it very unevenly spread across the company, as well as the risk that some teams give in to the vibes and release low-quality code to production,” she says.

According to Nilsson, this is why the IT team responsible for the IDP needs to drive up the adoption of these tools and evaluate the impact over time. “At Spotify, we drive broad AI adoption through education and hack weeks, which we promote through our product Skill Exchange. We also help engineers use context-aware agentic tools,” she adds.

Looking ahead

In terms of AI tooling, an example of how developer self-service could evolve is the direction of travel SAP looks to be taking with its Joule AI copilot tool.

When structure, automation and visibility are built into the developer experience, you replace bottlenecks with flow and create an environment where teams can innovate quickly, confidently and responsibly Pia Nilsson, Spotify

CCS Insights’ Rotibi believes the trend to integrate AI into developer tools and platforms is an area of opportunity for developer self-service platforms. Among the interesting topics Rotibi saw at the recent SAP TechEd conference in Berlin was the use of AI in SAP Joule.

SAP announced new AI assistants in Joule, which it said are able to coordinate multiple agents across workflows, departments and applications. According to SAP, these assistants plan, initiate and complete complex tasks spanning finance, supply chain, HR and beyond. 

“SAP Joule is an AI interface. It’s a bit more than just a chatbot. It is also a workbench,” says Rotibi. Given that Joule has access to the SAP product suite, she notes that, as well as providing access, Joule understands the products. “It knows all the features and functions SAP has worked on, and, behind the scenes, uses the best data model to get the data points the user wants,” she says.

Recognising that enterprise software developers will want to build their own applications and create their own integration between different pieces of software, she says SAP Joule effectively plays the role of a developer self-service portal for the SAP product suite.

Besides what comes next with AI-powered functionality, there are numerous benefits in offering developer self-service to improve the overall developer experience, but there needs to be structure and standards.

Nilsson says: “When structure, automation and visibility are built into the developer experience, you replace bottlenecks with flow and create an environment where teams can innovate quickly, confidently and responsibly.”

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Google Cloud has confirmed the withdrawal of a complaint it filed with the European Commission (EC) in September 2024, relating to Microsoft’s controversial cloud licensing strategy, whereby it charges customers higher fees for wanting to run its software in competing cloud environments.

The issue has seen Microsoft repeatedly come in for criticism and scrutiny from regulators, trade bodies and cloud market stakeholders from around the world in recent years, with research previously claiming the tactic is costing enterprises billions in additional annual licensing fees.

As previously reported by Computer Weekly, Google Cloud announced in September 2024 its intention to file an antitrust complaint with the EC, on the basis that Microsoft’s cloud licensing strategy put customers at increased risk of supplier lock-in by making it cost-prohibitive for them to switch between providers.

Speaking at the time of the complaint’s filing, Amit Zavery, former vice-president, general manager and head of platform at Google Cloud, said Microsoft’s products – particularly Windows Server – were prevalent across the enterprise IT market, with users running them in private datacentres, on-premise environments and in the cloud.

“What Microsoft does is restrict those licences to be taken to other cloud providers and puts them all towards Azure, and [in doing so is] linking the on-premise products, as well as Windows Server, to Azure, which are really two different markets. One is around the operating system and on-premise, and the other one is about cloud,” said Lavery, who left Google in October 2024.

“That’s why we believe this regulatory action is the only way to end Microsoft vendor lock-in and for customers to have a choice, and create a level playing field for customers.”

Despite these concerns, Google has confirmed its complaint against Microsoft has now been withdrawn, as of Friday 28 November 2025, in the wake of the EC’s decision to launch its own probe into Microsoft’s hold on the continent’s cloud market.

In a statement, Giorgia Albetino, head of government affairs and public policy at Google Cloud Europe, said the company stands by its previous misgivings about Microsoft’s behaviour, and the contents of its original complaint.

“We filed our antitrust complaint with the European Commission (EC) to give voice to our customers and partners about the issue of anti-competitive cloud licensing practices,” said Albetino.

“We are withdrawing it in light of the recent announcement that the EC will assess problematic practices affecting the cloud sector under a separate process.”

Albetino continued: “We stand behind the arguments outlined in [our earlier blog], and we continue to work with policymakers, customers and regulators across the EU, the UK, and elsewhere to advocate for choice and openness in the cloud market.”

The EC investigation into Microsoft was announced 10 days before Google decided to withdraw its complaint, which will centre on whether Microsoft should be brought into scope of the Commission’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).

This would potentially see Microsoft being given “gatekeeper” status by the EC, in recognition of how much control the company has on the overall cloud computing market.

As per the terms of the DMA, gatekeepers are typically large tech firms that are able to control access to digital services markets and, in turn, make it difficult for smaller companies to gain a foothold in them.

They must also meet a specific set of market value, revenue generation and user number metrics to be labelled gatekeepers, and are expected to abide by rules set by the EC to encourage competition to thrive within the parts of the digital services market they operate in.

Failing to follow these rules can result in the commission issuing fines of up to 10% of a company’s annual revenue for a first-time violation, rising to 20% for repeat offences.

The EC also confirmed that a separate investigation along the same lines is also being launched into Amazon Web Services (AWS), with a final report on the findings uncovered as a result of these probes due within 18 months.

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Analysis from GlobalData is forecasting that fixed wireless access (FWA) service revenue in Hong Kong is expected to increase at a “healthy” compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6% between 2025 and 2030.

The latest Hong Kong Total Fixed Communications Forecast set out to quantify current and future demand and spending on mobile services for the special administrative region of China. It noted that growth was being driven by Hong Kong’s extensive 5G network coverage and could also be attributed to local operators’ efforts to expand FWA services and position it as an alternative to traditional fibre broadband services for both residential and commercial sectors, meeting growing demand for high-speed connectivity in areas where extending fibre lines is challenging.

“High-density urban and suburban centres of Hong Kong create a strong business case for FWA services due to their cost-effective and rapid deployments without the complex infrastructure and civil work required for extending fibre-optic lines to such locations,” said Neha Misra, senior analyst at GlobalData.

“Competitive, feature-rich plans from the operators will also help drive its adoption over the forecast period. For instance, HKBN’s 5G Home Broadband Plan provides unlimited 5G broadband data (subject to a 300GB with a fair-usage policy) for HKD118 per month on a 24-month contract, along with a seven-day trial guarantee. The plan also includes a waiver of the HKD28 monthly administration fee and complimentary access to the basic HomeShield security plan.”

In addition to HKBN, the study noted that operators such as 3 Hong Kong and HKT are also using their extensive 5G networks to offer home broadband services, particularly in areas with limited fibre infrastructure. It cited HKT as recently having successfully deployed mmWave-based FWA to deliver ultra-high-speed internet to rural areas and outlying islands.

“Growing demand for FWA provides operators a strong revenue opportunity by expanding home and SME broadband without the high capital intensity of fibre roll-out,” Misra added. “By leveraging nationwide 5G coverage, introducing competitively priced service plans and bundling digital home services, operators can unlock higher ARPU [average revenue per user], accelerate market penetration in underserved areas and diversify beyond traditional revenues.”

GlobalData believes the Hong Kong government’s smart city initiatives will also open new opportunities for FWA, especially 5G FWA, which can deliver high-speed internet to power applications such as the digital economy, digital governance and e-health services, while supporting the city’s dense urban environment and digital transformation goals under the Smart City Blueprint 2.0.

The original blueprint was set out in December 2017, outlining 76 initiatives under six smart areas, namely Smart Mobility, Smart Living, Smart Environment, Smart People, Smart Government and Smart Economy. Blueprint 2.0 puts forth more than 130 initiatives that continue to enhance and expand existing city management measures and services. The new initiatives aim to bring benefits and convenience to the public so that residents can better perceive the benefits of smart city innovation and technology.

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For some time now, networking and security strategies have been slowly merging for years. Driven by hybrid work, cloud migration and rising security challenges that demand simplified, end-to-end architectures, the shifting of software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) to secure access service edge (SASE) is now reshaping enterprise connectivity strategies, according to a study from GlobalData.

The Competitive landscape assessment of SASE and SD-WAN report noted that over the past decade, SD-WAN transformed enterprise routing by offering operational efficiency, centralised management and the ability to use cost-effective broadband alongside or instead of legacy multi-protocol label switching  (MPLS). It added that SD-WAN’s single-pane-of-glass model, policy-driven traffic handling and support for zero-trust network access (ZTNA) have helped accelerate adoption. 

However, as threats evolved and branch security stacks became difficult to manage as isolated products, the analyst observed that the need for consolidation intensified. This created the foundation for SASE, bringing SD-WAN, firewall services, secure web gateways, CASB, ZTNA and threat protection into a unified, cloud-based platform.

As a result, it said, SASE has become the focal point of branch and remote-location security modernisation. In addition, the report stated that enterprises were increasingly seek architectures that unify routing, security and policy enforcement and reduce reliance on MPLS through secure broadband-based alternatives.

GlobalData believes that the push for universal identity-driven policy, end-user experience monitoring and scalable cloud-based controls is reshaping supplier evaluations. It observed that in 2025, the market also saw major strategic moves, including HPE’s acquisition of Juniper and Arista’s purchase of VMware’s Velocloud SD-WAN, reshuffling competitive positions.

“For several years…it has become increasingly clear that most SD-WAN implementations are going to be tied to security,” said Steven J. Schuchart Jr., principal analyst of enterprise security and infrastructure at GlobalData. “Networking and security have been slowly merging for years, and the continual rise of cyber security incidents worldwide will only accelerate that trend. There will still be ongoing new stand-alone implementations of SD-WAN, but that use case is in decline.”

Looking at the key players driving the SD-WAN and SASE markets, the report cited suppliers such as Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Arista, HPE and Versa Networks were now shaping the next phase of SASE evolution, each with distinct approaches reflecting their networking or security heritage. It reported that as enterprises navigate operational pressures, cost containment and a more mobile workforce, SASE and SD-WAN were becoming essential to delivering secure, consistent and optimised access under a single operational umbrella.

“Enterprises want integrated, cloud-delivered platforms that unify networking and security,” added Schuchart. “Providers with proven strength in both SASE and SD-WAN are best positioned to lead this transformation and support the modernisation strategies shaping the enterprise edge.”

The report comes hot on the heels of a similar analysis by Omdia, which noted that for many organisations, secure access service edge has become a critical initiative to modernise their network and security approaches to better support hybrid work, cloud-centric environments and generative AI application use. Yet it warned that even six years after SASE was introduced as a concept, many organisations still have difficulty seeing themselves deploy a truly unified, single supplier SASE architecture.

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On November 13, NASA launched a new unmanned mission to Mars under the name ESCAPADE, short for Escape and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers. The launch was met with fairly little fanfare in the press; unmanned Mars missions aren’t exactly novel, as the American space agency has sent over a dozen satellites and rovers to the red planet, most notably the Perseverance rover (which takes some really nice photos). However, ESCAPADE is unlike any of those previous endeavors. For the first time in its history, NASA will be operating not one, but two spacecraft simultaneously on a single mission. They are a pair of orbiters that will circle Mars over the course of a full year, and by doubling up on spacecraft, NASA will be able to survey opposing sides of the planet at once.

By placing eyes at multiple points around Mars, ESCAPADE is poised to reveal a vision of the red planet more thorough than anything we’ve seen before, although it will take more than two years before the orbiters start sending data back to NASA. The intrepid orbiters are nicknamed Blue and Gold, after the school colors of the University of California, Berkeley, where they were designed. This collaboration is another first for NASA, and it points towards something even more fascinating about the mission. Despite being the first extraplanetary mission to use two spacecraft at once, ESCAPADE is actually poised to be one of NASA’s cheapest projects in years, and it’s all thanks to a controversial gamble that the agency has undertaken.

NASA’s bold plan to explore space for cheap

Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images

The ESCAPADE mission will cost NASA $94.2 million. That’s objectively a lot of money, but in the context of space travel, it’s actually an incredible bargain. Space travel is the most expensive endeavor that humanity has ever undertaken, best exemplified by the $100 billion dollar price tag of the International Space Station, which is enormous and is the most expensive object ever made. However, even small-scale unmanned projects regularly push the billion dollar budget. The last orbiter that NASA sent to Mars was MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) in 2013, which cost almost $600 million dollars. For ESCAPADE, NASA managed to slash that cost significantly, and they’re hoping it sets a precedent for cheaper space travel going forward.

ESCAPADE is part of a broader NASA program called SIMPLEx which stands for Small, Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration. Launched in 2018, the SIMPLEx program aims to launch space missions for $55 million or less. ESCAPADE has eclipsed that, but the agency has said it is flexible on the price cap at this point due to SIMPLEx being in its very early stages. The truth is, NASA will be grateful to get this mission done at all, because SIMPLEx hasn’t yielded many successes so far, and they could really use a break. The low-cost initiative has had several issues, and the ESCAPADE program was no exception to this. In fact, the daring duet of Blue and Gold almost didn’t make it off the launch pad.

ESCAPADE almost didn’t happen

Blue and Gold are small, about the size of a mini fridge, which saves a lot of money. However, it’s going to take something much bigger to launch them out of Earth’s atmosphere. The SIMPLEx budget can’t cover the cost of the rocket, which means the orbiters have to hitchhike on another NASA mission. The original plan was for NASA’s 2022 Psyche mission to drop Blue and Gold off at Mars on its way to the asteroid belt, but this changed with the rise of NASA’s partnership with SpaceX. At the last minute, the agency decided to switch Psyche to a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which Blue and Gold were not equipped for.

After that, NASA decided that the orbiters should ride along with another private contractor: Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket. Unfortunately, the orbits of Earth and Mars only get close every two years, and 2022 was that moment. By delaying ESCAPADE to 2025, NASA has to make Blue and Gold travel a lot farther. Their solution is to have the New Glenn rocket drop the orbiters off at a Lagrange point, which is a point in space where gravitational forces are balanced just right for objects to hold in place. Blue and Gold are set to hang tight at a Lagrange point 1 million miles away, and then next year, Mars will pass close enough for the orbiters to slingshot towards it. Assuming that all goes to plan, ESCAPADE’s real work can get underway.

What exactly is ESCAPADE’s purpose?

Alones/Shutterstock

There’s a lot riding on ESCAPADE’s success in terms of proving that the SIMPLEx initiative’s goals are achievable, but we haven’t yet gotten into the actual scientific work that Blue and Gold will be doing. An ever-growing body of research tells us that Mars once looked much more like Earth, with liquid water and a thick atmosphere, but astronomers have puzzled over exactly how the Martian atmosphere changed to the point that it has virtually vanished today. It is likely that solar winds were responsible for stripping that atmosphere away, and Blue and Gold are equipped with instruments to record solar winds and their effects in real time.

The orbiters will also record magnetic data. Like its atmosphere, Mars’ magnetic field has degraded around most of the planet, but a few regions in its southern hemisphere strangely seem to have maintained strong magnetism. Blue and Gold will travel across both hemispheres in the hope of finding answers to this mystery.

Once the orbiters disengage from the Lagrange point, they will maneuver into orbit around Mars. At first, Blue and Gold will orbit in the same direction, one following the other, but then they will diverge, with one orbiter getting close to the planet and the other pulling away. This will give NASA a close-up and wide-angle shot of Mars at the same time. The potential for gathering data is unprecedented, but unfortunately, we’ll have to be patient. The orbiters won’t start sending their findings back to NASA until 2028.

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The UK’s proposed mandatory digital ID scheme will not help reduce illegal migration or stop people working illegally, and could instead set up the infrastructure for exclusion and mass surveillance, MPs have been told.

On 26 September 2025, UK prime minister Keir Starmer announced that the government planned to introduce a mandatory national digital ID scheme, arguing it would help crack down on illegal working and control the country’s borders.

The scheme will be compulsory for “right to work” checks by the end of the current Parliament, and includes name, date of birth, nationality and residency status information, and a photo.

The announcement follows the launch of the Gov.uk Wallet in January 2025, which will start by digitising driving licences and veterans’ cards, before moving on to include every government-issued credential by the end of 2027.

While the government has already confirmed that digital ID will be available in the Wallet, underpinned by the existing Gov.uk One Login digital identity platform, there is currently a lack of clarity over how a digital ID system will work in practice.  

To scrutinise the government’s digital ID plans and its claimed benefits, the Home Affairs Committee (HAC) launched an inquiry in June 2025 into the introduction of new forms of digital ID.

The committee has received dozens of publicly available submissions – the vast majority of which expressed strong opposition to mandatory digital ID – and its first evidence session with expert witnesses was held on 18 November 2025.

Digital ID benefits

Commenting during that session on the potential benefits of a digital ID system, Alexander Iosad, director of government innovation at the Tony Blair Institute, said it would allow people to prove things about themselves “in a much more convenient, private and secure way”, adding that it would also enable a high degree of personalisation in the delivery of public services.

“The ability to access services on the basis of who you are and what we know to be true about you … opens really exciting possibilities for how public services, and services more broadly, operate,” he said.  

The ability to access services on the basis of who you are and what we know to be true about you … opens really exciting possibilities for how public services, and services more broadly, operate Alexander Iosad, Tony Blair Institute

“It allows us to move from a reactive, one-size-fits-all model that was built for a different age, to a personalised, preventive model with a layer of accessibility that is not possible with a traditional model, where you have to apply for every service and prove again and again things about you that the state may already know.”

Laura Foster, an associate director of tech and innovation at trade association TechUK, also highlighted the benefits of time savings and convenience, which is why most people currently turn to digital IDs: “The government’s own statistics show that 44% of the people they surveyed have already used some form of digital ID service in the UK.”

She added that digital ID services are currently most developed in the financial services industry, and are already delivering benefits for the sector in terms of streamlined services and reduced compliance costs.

Iosad added that although digital ID will inevitably become a target for fraudsters itself, as “anything that becomes central to a process becomes a target”, there are examples where such systems have helped reduce fraud significantly. Iosad cited Norway’s introduction of a digital ID system, which has “reduced payment fraud from 1% to 0.00042% of transactions”.

However, at the centre of the digital ID debate are questions of trust, with many opposed to a mandatory system expressing concerns about data storage and centralising information on citizens, which could be repurposed down the line without people’s input or consent.

For Edgar Whitley, a professor in practice (information systems) at the London School of Economics, there needs to be a framework in place to ensure there is absolute clarity on how people’s sensitive personal data is used in the context of digital ID.

“Unfortunately, the announcement of the right-to-work proposals says, ‘Create intelligence data on businesses that are conducting checks’. That immediately makes everyone think there’s probably a record-keeping activity going on,” he said.  

“The BritCard proposals, which were one of the influences of this, said, ‘A digital identity would allow the Home Office to build a canonical record of where and when [immigration] checks have been successfully completed’.”

He added that while design choices can be made to not build certain record-keeping capacities into the system, people will remain concerned if they believe these aspects could be turned on and off by the state at will.

Illegal immigration and work checks

On the government’s stated goal of using a digital ID system to clamp down on illegal immigration and conduct right-to-work checks, multiple witnesses pointed out that employers are already able to carry out these checks digitally, and have been doing so since June 2025, when the Data (Use and Access) Act was passed in Parliament.

They also noted that a digital ID system would make little difference to employers already illegally hiring workers.

“For a rogue employer who is employing illegal immigrants, a digital ID is not suddenly going to make them go, ‘Oh, I’ll behave myself and do the appropriate checks and not hire these people’,” said Whitley.

He also questioned the government’s framing of a digital ID as “voluntary”.

“As I understand it, the current proposal is that any time you want to take on a job, with a new contract of employment, you will have to have a digital ID, and the only way an employer will be able to employ you is if they have checked the digital ID. That is the thing that most people are reacting against. There were reports saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s going to be voluntary’ – until you have to change jobs, which means that everybody is going to have to have it.”

He added that making digital ID mandatory will inevitably create all sorts of problems around identity exclusion.

On the exclusion aspect, James Baker, a programme manager at the Open Rights Group, said such a system “has the potential to marginalise people from being able to participate in the economy” because if something goes wrong with their digital ID, they are automatically excluded from being able to earn a living.

He further added that the use of digital IDs is already mandatory for migrants under the Home Office’s electronic visa (eVisa) scheme, which has created a range of issues for those affected.

Highlighting how the eVisa scheme has so far been plagued by data quality and integrity issues, Baker said there are many real-world examples of where the mandatory scheme is causing harm.

“People with the right to work in the UK have lost out on job opportunities because they have not been able to access their share code to prove their right to work,” he said.

“We have had examples of people going into a shop and being asked to show their eVisa share code to purchase alcohol, and they have been unable to do it. Where you have mandatory systems introduced like that, it is not hypothetical. We are already seeing real-world examples of exclusion in existence.”

A government-issued, mandatory digital ID has the potential to create an incredibly intrusive system of surveillance and data collection Silkie Carlo, Big Brother Watch

Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, added that while the eVisa is currently limited to migrants, a mandatory digital ID system would create a situation where everyone needs a permit to go about their everyday lives.

“A government-issued, mandatory digital ID has the potential to create an incredibly intrusive system of surveillance and data collection, and it opens up possibilities for the government to issue and revoke permissions in certain ways,” she said.

“Unless you have this digital ID card, you will not be able to work. Already, other government departments are talking about renting, benefits, education, and so on. I think we would be having a completely different conversation if the government were talking about a system that they thought was so attractive that, if they made it available, lots of people would want to use it. Instead, it is a mandatory system that is paired with restrictions on people’s liberties.”

Carlo said while the government is introducing the system to ostensibly deal with illegal immigration, she doubts “anyone in this room genuinely believes … [the system] is about illegal working”, adding that she is “incredibly” concerned about function creep and what the system will ultimately end up being used for.

“That begs the question, what is it really about, and what will the other uses be? This was announced by the prime minister on a Friday afternoon, and just hours later, the government webpage about digital ID was talking about tax, benefits, education, childcare and many other uses for a digital ID,” she said.

Multiple witnesses also raised issues around the cost of updating the UK’s legacy systems for a government digital verification stack to work, and highlighted the importance of open source for trust in this area.

“There is a risk in this debate about digital ID where, if we see it as separate from the broader digital transformation, the digital transformation will head in one direction, the digital ID ambitions will head in another, and they will not connect,” said Tony Blair Institute’s Iosad.

“In our view, the conversation about digital ID is an opportunity to pay the kind of attention we should have done for a decade or more to digital transformation in government. The scale of opportunity is immense; we have missed out on a lot of what we should have done, and now is the time to mitigate.”

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Windows has access to a vast selection of free, paid, open-source, and proprietary applications. While you can find many of these in the bundled Microsoft Store, others are scattered across the different corners of the web. This makes app discovery slightly harder for even the savviest of users. As a result, many of us often end up using the same set of popular apps, such as Chrome, VLC, and WinRAR. However, there are so many more exciting and helpful apps that you can install on your Windows PC to take its performance to the next level or replace native functions, like a file explorer on steroids.

So, let’s take a look at five gems from the massive Windows app universe that should be installed on every PC. Our recommendations are suitable for most Windows users and enhance the operating system’s experience by either adding new functionality or by offering a better way of doing things than what’s available in Windows.

Everything

The built-in search on Windows isn’t the best and can take ages to find files. It’s also slow to index and extremely resource-heavy. An excellent replacement for this is Everything, which is a free-to-download app from Voidtools. It’s significantly faster than Windows search while being resource-efficient and easy to use. If you remember the file name, it’ll barely take a second to find your file.

Unlike Windows search, it only indexes the file and folder names, which makes the indexing process much faster, and the company claims it can index a million files in about a minute. Although it doesn’t index file content, you can specifically ask the app to find files featuring specific content, but that will take a lot of time as it has to index and search everything. Besides your computer’s contents, you can ask Everything to index your mapped network drives to search through them. Moreover, the app supports Boolean operators and wildcards for advanced searches.

Flow Launcher

Another useful addition to your Windows PC is Flow Launcher. It’s a more versatile alternative to Mac’s Spotlight Search for Windows that can help supercharge your Windows workflow by reducing your reliance on the Start Menu and File Explorer. It’s basically a quick launcher and search tool at its core, which you can trigger with a simple keyboard shortcut, such as Alt + Space, but it can do much more. It allows you to open apps, search for files, settings, bookmarks, and the web, run shell and select system commands, perform basic mathematical calculations, and more.

Interestingly, if you already use Everything for Windows search, Flow Launcher can leverage Everything’s index while giving you file and folder search results. You can also customize its look and expand its functionality using hundreds of community-made plugins. Some of the popular plugins include Steam search, Obsidian Notes, and GitHub notifications. Most importantly, Flow Launcher is free and open-source.

NanaZip

If you’re someone who frequently has to deal with archives, a good archive manager is an essential utility. While Windows 11 includes basic archiving and unarchiving capabilities, you can greatly expand them with NanaZip. It’s an open-source app that’s forked from 7-Zip, which is another popular archive management tool. It essentially wraps 7-Zip in an interface that’s designed for a modern Windows experience. It’s also free to download and use, and available via the Microsoft Store. Nanazip supports more archive formats in both creation and extraction than the built-in Windows solution.

For example, you can use it to create ZIP, 7z, TAR, GZ, XZ, BZIP2, and other archive formats, and it can extract RAR, ISO, WIM, and many others. It also has better encryption protocols, a dark mode, and context menu integration. Moreover, it’s faster than Windows at creating and extracting larger archives. In other highlights, it can split archives, select different compression levels, and more.

Microsoft PowerToys

Microsoft PowerToys is a set of tools and utilities designed for power users who are looking to get more out of their Windows experience. However, it can be an excellent addition to any Windows install, as it gives you immediate access to several utilities for which you would otherwise need separate apps. Some of its most useful tools include Command Palette — a quick launcher similar to Flow Launcher or Mac’s Spotlight, PowerRename, which lets you rename files in bulk, and FancyZones, which lets you create and customize window layouts for snapping windows.

There is also Peek for a quick preview of a file and Always on Top to keep a window pinned on top of other windows. Moreover, you get utilities like Advanced Paste, Image Resizer, Text Extractor, Color Picker, Screen Ruler, and Light Switch, which are pretty self-explanatory. There are many more such utilities and advanced options to help you increase your productivity and improve your workflow. PowerToys can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store for free.

Ferdium

Many of us use web apps on a daily basis, and it can quickly become a chore to manage them across browser tabs and dedicated containers on Windows. Fortunately, there is an app called Ferdium, which solves this problem by giving you a one-stop shop for all your web apps. It’s a free-to-download open-source tool, built as a fork of a similar app called Franz, which is focused on chat apps. 

Ferdium provides you with a single window, and you can seamlessly switch between different web apps in the same window, removing the need to deal with multiple tabs and open apps. It also supports using multiple instances of the same web apps for different accounts, workspaces for easy app management, and custom services if yours is not in their database. Additionally, there is a built-in To-do list panel and a password lock for security. In other highlights, Ferdium gives you the choice of creating an account to sync your services across devices or using it locally on a single machine.

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The UK’s broadband sector has quietly witnessed a tipping point as fibre-based connections direct to premises superseded kerb-side connectivity for the first time, according to analyst Point Topic, while two of the country’s leading independent broadband service providers (altnets) have geared up fibre offerings for businesses.

The Point Topic survey found that the UK broadband market overall regained momentum in the third quarter of 2025, adding 64,000 subscribers and returning to growth across a total base of 28.94 million lines. Most significantly, full-fibre (FTTP) adoption surged ahead at its fastest rate since nationwide roll-outs began, reaching 11.56 million connections and overtaking fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) for the first time, with the latter decreasing to 10.6 million.

Full-fibre coverage climbed to 79.5% of premises, with multi-network overbuild increasing sharply, and the analyst expects FTTP take-up, while strong, to stabilise over the next year as the early-mover surge eases. BT’s broadband provision division Openreach has expanded to 20.31 million premises and added 551,000 FTTP customers, while the BT Consumer division delivered a second consecutive quarter of growth.

Openreach saw its FTTP subscriber base rise to 7.65 million, while the Consumer division saw growth again for the second consecutive quarter, with 1,000 net broadband additions to reach 8.21 million. This figure excluded its Business segment, which had an estimated 576,000 connections.

Altnets were found to have collectively added 193,000 connections, lifting their FTTP base to 3.02 million, with leading altnet CityFibre posting what Point Topic called a “standout” 108,000 net adds as its Sky partnership went fully live, bringing its total base to 730,000.

Yet with FTTP now mainstream and competition intensifying, Point Topic warned that altnet pricing and operational models are facing increasing pressure, raising questions about how many can remain sustainable as take-up normalises and overlap with larger networks grows.

This dynamic notwithstanding, ITS and Zen Internet were switching on full-fibre networks for their respective growing customer bases.

Dedicated business full-fibre provider ITS has now rolled out its XGS-PON-enabled network across Newcastle upon Tyne and Glasgow, with connectivity services now live in both cities.

Glasgow marks the company’s first expansion into Scotland, with the network now ready for service for more than 7,000 business premises. Organisations across the city – spanning sectors including financial services, digital industries, life sciences and the creative sector – can access gigabit-capable connectivity, with coverage extending to key hubs such as the International Financial Services District, the Glasgow Riverside Innovation District and Merchant City.

In Newcastle, the network reaches over 4,000 business premises. It said the city has a higher-than-average concentration of large employers and a growing base of organisations in health, education and technology sectors, increasing demand for scalable, high-capacity services. Newcastle is home to hubs including Newcastle Helix, the National Innovation Centre for Data, and the Digital Quarter.

Meanwhile, Zen Internet has strengthened its direct business offering, claiming to be giving organisations across the UK more choice and greater coverage when it comes to the connectivity solutions available to them. 

Explaining its actions, the provider cited a survey it carried out in 2024, which found that 44% of businesses didn’t yet have a solution in place ahead of the ISDN switch-off and that 30% were still using ISDN despite the upcoming withdrawal of services, highlighting a clear readiness gap.

To address this issue, the launches include CityFibre’s Ethernet and FTTP Business products, as well as BT’s SoTAP (Single Order Temporary Access Product). The result, said Zen, was “a future-proof”, all-IP solution for businesses still on ADSL that are not yet in full-fibre or FTTC footprints. The expansion of its Business FTTP offering also builds on Zen and CityFibre’s long-standing partnership and comes as demand for business-grade fibre connectivity accelerates across the UK. CityFibre’s enterprise-grade Ethernet and FTTP services are now available to more than 260,000 UK businesses through Zen. 

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Opera Neon just got another big upgrade. The AI agentic browser now offers updated models, new features, and an all-new Deep Research feature that can produce structured reports in about a minute. Following Google’s introduction of the new Gemini 3 Pro and Nano Banana Pro, Opera now allows users to choose the AI model that they want to use when interacting with Neon Chat. As usual, customers can also switch models mid-conversation if they want to.

Besides that, Opera Neon now features Opera Deep Research Agent, which works alongside the Chat, Do, and Make agents to enhance user productivity. With that, Opera says you can transform your browser into a powerful research hub, as it “mitigates the need for manual searching by cross-referencing diverse sources.” 

“Opera Neon is our experimental playground that allows us to tap into the most cutting-edge AI technologies that exist on the web. We’re developing this product together with our community – at an extreme speed. The way Opera Neon’s AI engine is set up allows us to integrate the latest technologies barely hours after they become available,” said Krystian Kolondra, EVP Browsers at Opera.

Opera Neon now integrates with Google Docs

José Adorno/BGR

Opera also upgraded its Neon Do agent to be able to create a Google Doc. One of the most requested features, this allows Opera Neon users to integrate one of the internet’s most popular word processors into their workflows. The agent can create a Google Doc of virtually anything, such as one researching products and automatically creating a comparison document. To use this feature, users need to select the Do agent in the browser’s omnibox and write a prompt.

Unlike ChatGPT Atlas and The Browser Company’s Dia, Opera Neon is still limited to invited users as part of an early access program. While the Norwegian company is continuing to roll out access to more users, they still need to register on Opera Neon’s website to wait for a access. That said, the company offers a wide range of browsers for free as well, including Opera One and Opera Air.

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