Author: techbizweb

You cannot fault them for a lack of news sense. The imminence of the Queen’s jubilee celebrations has created a news opportunity for those with longstanding grievances against England in general, or the monarchy in particular, to use the “hook” of the festivities to secure attention for their particular cause.Last week it was the shocking abuse of indigenous Canadian schoolchildren in church schools. I do not wish to diminish these grievances, some of which certainly deserve recognition. As England has fought or colonised vast parts of the world over its long history, there is plenty of scope for horror.Most of…

Let’s face it, England’s historic houses tend to be too big. They look nice in photographs, but they sprawl impractically. They are virtually impossible to heat, let alone maintain. Their wings are as unused as an ostrich’s. Their aristocratic owners are reduced to project managers.Marble Hill is much better. Sitting by the river Thames in Richmond, it is the kind of size that wouldn’t quite satisfy a modern banker moving to the Cotswolds. It is a grand property that you can actually imagine feeling like a home.And that is precisely the point. Marble Hill was built in the 1720s by…

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) II: The Sith Lords is heading to the Nintendo Switch on June 8th, as announced at this year’s Star Wars Celebration event. The sequel to the classic KOTOR RPG is supposed to feature some performance enhancements and resolution upgrades, as well as a Restored Content DLC set to arrive post-launch. Image: Aspyr Media As you might’ve guessed, the Restored Content DLC comes with the content that Obsidian Entertainment and Aspyr Media, the game’s developers, left out during their rush to launch the game in 2004. There’s already a fanmade mod for KOTOR…

G7 energy ministers have called on the Opec group of oil-producing countries to pump more oil as Russia’s war in Ukraine pushes crude prices to their highest levels in a decade.The call was contained in the final communique of a meeting of G7 energy and environment ministers in Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the group of advanced industrial economies.The ministers noted that the war had triggered an increase in prices for oil, gas and coal, stoking a surge in inflation that was putting huge strain on low-income households as well as businesses and industry.“We call on oil and…

There are one or two things that are difficult to confess, things that can alienate good friends, change relationships forever. You know the kind of thing — recreational nose-picking, organising your bookshelf by colour, performing satanic rituals in your garage. If it floats your boat, that’s cool, but you might not want to mention it in front of people. This, I regret to say, is how I have been made to feel about salad cream, the pale, yellowish condiment most commonly used as salad dressing and sandwich spread. I love the stuff, but people I care about won’t have it…

Twitter started testing Circle earlier this month with a limited group, and now it looks like it’s starting to roll out to more users (via Android Police). The feature works a lot like Instagram’s Close Friends, as it allows users to send out tweets to a specific group of people rather than all of Twitter. To check if you have access to Twitter Circle, update your Twitter app or head to Twitter in a web browser. When you start composing a tweet, you’ll see a dropdown menu at the top that reads Everyone. From here, you can choose Twitter Circle…

This article is an on-site version of our Europe Express newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday and Saturday morningGood morning and welcome back to the Financial Times’ Europe Express Weekend newsletter. Thanks for voting in last week’s poll. Two thirds of you think Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova should become EU members.This week I’m peering through the fog of domestic Turkish politics and Turkey’s foreign policy in an attempt to explain why President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is blocking Finland and Sweden from joining Nato.Fog is the operative word.Swedish and Finnish entry into…

More than 20,000 people, including 140 traditional marching bands, are expected to parade through Belfast on Saturday as the loyalist Orange Order celebrates the centenary of Northern Ireland with what organisers are billing a “colourful and joyous spectacle”.The event, delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic from last year’s anniversary of the region’s founding, is expected to be one of the largest ever. Organiser Harold Henning, deputy grandmaster of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, described it as a “celebration of thanksgiving for this wee country of ours, for the 100 years we have had . . . and for the future”.The parade will be a…

Ayn, the maker of the Odin Android handheld, is releasing a lineup of what it calls the “most affordable” portable Windows gaming consoles yet (via Liliputing). The cheapest of the bunch starts at just $299 — $100 less than the 64GB Steam Deck. Ayn announced the news in a YouTube video and a series of posts on Instagram, giving us a look at what we can expect for looks, tech specs, and pricing. While the entry-level $299 Loki Mini comes with 64GB of storage and an Intel Alder Lake U chip, the standard Loki handheld has an AMD Ryzen 5…

Kurdish-led forces have long been a pillar of western efforts to rout Isis militants from Syria. But Turkey’s antipathy to these groups endangers not only calm in Syria but also plans for Nato expansion. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has threatened to block Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to the western military alliance over their links to Kurdish militants whom Ankara sees as a domestic security risk. Ethnic Kurds live across Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, but lack their own state. Erdoğan has threatened a fresh incursion into Syria to tackle the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which it sees as…