Tech News

• Space ride with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sells for £19.8m at auction

  A trip into space with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has sold for $28million (£19.8m) at auction.

• From Halo's return to a new Nintendo Switch - five things to watch out for at E3 2021

  All eyes will be on E3 this weekend as the world's biggest gaming convention gets going online, with some exciting announcements expected.

• Delta variant 60% more transmissible than Alpha indoors and more vaccine resistant

  The Delta (Indian) variant is 64% more transmissible than the Alpha (Kent) variant indoors and vaccines are less effective against it, Public Health England has said.

• New Venus mission aims to unlock mysteries of 'Earth's twin'

  Scientists aim to explore the mysteries of Venus, including whether it was once habitable, with a new space mission.

• Meat giant pays almost £8m ransom to hackers after cyber attack

  The world's largest meat processing company has paid a ransom worth $11m (£7.8m) to hackers behind a cyber attack on its computer systems.

• Biden revokes Trump's bid to ban Americans from downloading TikTok

  President Joe Biden has reversed his predecessor Donald Trump's plans to ban the popular video app TikTok in the US.

• Tech firm behind internet outage explains issue that took down major websites worldwide

  US tech company Fastly has revealed that a software bug triggered a global internet outage which took several major websites offline on Tuesday.

• El Salvador votes to become first country to use Bitcoin as legal tender

  Bitcoin will be used as legal tender in El Salvador after President Nayib Bukele's proposals to embrace cryptocurrency were approved by congress.

• Flying taxi start-up Vertical Aerospace in $2bn SPAC merger

  A British 'flying taxi' company set up by the founder of OVO Energy is in advanced talks about a $2bn 'blank cheque' merger that will see another major British technology company heading for the US public markets.

• Why the UK is still some way short of herd immunity despite impressive vaccine rollout

  It's antibodies that protect us from COVID-19 and the latest data from the Office for National Statistics seem to offer some hope.