Users of the Windows Phone incarnation of the popular collaborative messaging platform Slack have been advised to look elsewhere. The latest update of the application arrived last week, with a message warning that this was it. There would be no further tweaks. Slack's support site agreed. Though it'll remain available in Microsoft's moribund app store, there won't be any more updates beyond version 2018.614.0.0 Even Microsoft's lost interest in Windows Phone: Skype and Yammer apps ...

The US Supreme Court will scrutinize an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, opening the door for the computing giant to escape censure over its app store policies and potentially millions of dollars in claims. The lawsuit claims that Apple – which has had its fair share of legal challenges from alleged wage fixing to defective keyboards – has a monopoly on the app market, partly demonstrated by the fact it is able to claim a 30 ...

On Wednesday, Google's cross-platform mobile framework Flutter reached Preview Release 1, a designation that places the code somewhere between buggy beta and less buggy 1.0. "The shift from beta to release preview signals our confidence in the stability and quality of what we have, and our focus on bug fixing and stabilization," said Google group product manager Tim Sneath in a blog post. Introduced in May 2017, Flutter provides a way for Linux, macOS and ...

Microsoft has given Windows developers a helping hand by releasing a new UI recorder. Fresh up on GitHub, "WinAppDriver UI Recorder" is described by Microsoft's Hassan Uraizee as helping users “easily create automated UI tests”. For developers using WinAppDriver, Microsoft already offers a tool called “Inspect”, which allows developers to view UI element attribute data. Uraizee wrote that Inspect doesn’t offer a complete view, so Redmond has released the UI Recorder tool. “Though Inspect serves ...

Updated A report into the IT meltdown at TSB has suggested the British bank did not carry out rigorous enough testing and that the problems went beyond previously reported middleware issues. The chaos at the bank, a subsidiary of the Spanish Sabadell Group, saw many customers unable to access services for a week at the end of April after the bank bodged a long-planned migration off its former parent firm Lloyds Banking Group's systems. The ...

For some, online shopping was a way to buy things without needing to drive to a brick and mortar store to make the purchase. For others, it also included the added bonus of not having to pay sales tax from select merchants. This was due to 50 years’ worth of legal rulings which prevented states from charging sales tax on purchases made from out-of-state retailers. However, in a landmark decision today, with a ruling of ...

Google made a few announcements for Google Assistant and Google Home last month during Google I/O. One of the more exciting new features they talked about was “Continued Conversations.” The feature aims to improve the experience of issuing multiple commands to Assistant and Home devices. Starting today, Continued Conversations is rolling out to users in the Google Home app. With Continued Conversations, you don’t have to say “Hey Google” or “Ok Google” before every single command ...

Speaking to shareholders on Wednesday, BlackBerry CEO John Chen said he believes it will be a decade before self-driving cars become mainstream. A large part of this is not just the difficulty of developing the technology, but also how long it will take for governments to come up with the regulations to support them. BlackBerry is highly involved in this process and trusted with its reputation for security. The company is working with the American ...

The retail giant admitted there’s “plenty of work to do” Dixons Carphone saw pre-tax profits for 2017/18, falling 24pc to £382m from £500m year-on-year. The financial year ended April 28 for the group. The retail giant admitted there’s “plenty of work to do” in regards to improve the business. Profit for 2018/2019 is forecasted to be fall further to £300m. Group revenue was up four per cent  (£10.5bn) due to strong growth in Greece and ...