Technology

Prizes of up to £1,000 are up for grabs at Great British Hack-Off summer festival hackathon, an event designed to supercharge the campaign to lobby for a ‘peoplevote& on Brexit with the option to remain in the EU.

The event is aimed at engineers, designers, UX experts, data scientists, social media influencers and experts. Anyone interested can apply to attend the event via this form.

In a 2-day intensive, overnight &hackathon& on the weekend of July 21-22, the aim will be to connect people with their decision makers and MPs about their concerns for jobs, services and the economy, and put pressure on MPs to back ‘peoplevote& using democratic tech tools.

The event is being held by Tech For UK (Twitter, Hashtag:#GBhackoff, Instagram,Facebook) the tech industry body and anti-Brexit group Best For Britain.

There will be a £1,000 first prize for the best product produced by a team, and a £500 second prize for the second-placed team. Participants will also get exclusive merchandise like T-shirts. All products will need to be open source and may be progressed later with other vendors by Best For Britain.

Tech For UK says the ultimate goal will be to engage the tech community to help Best for Britain connect people in local communities to the information they need on Brexit and, in turn, connect them to their decision makers and MPs. Attendees to the Hackathon will also be able to work on their own projects and ideas related to Brexit.

Tech For UK says this will be the first event in a series, to be continued at other cities around the UK, not just in London.

Structured like a &Hackathon& it will be held at a central London venue, bringing together engineers, designers, storytellers, marketers, data scientists, designers, artists, journalists / PR / media people, analytics experts and social media influencers to work on these problems.

Participants will be selected from applications and given full instructions about the event.

There will be capacity for 100 people and the opportunity to stay over-night at the hackathon. Food and beverages will be provided. The event will be an &18s and over& event.

A decision in a long running EU antitrust probe of GoogleAndroid OS is due to land shortly.

European Commission officials are trailing a press conference with competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager — to announce an &antitrust decision& at 1pm CET, with a link to watch the event streamed live.

Bloomberg is reporting the EUfine for Android will be in the region of $5BN — which would be the largest ever antitrust penalty handed down by the Commission.

The case focuses on whether Google has abused its market dominance and crowded out rivals by taking steps to ensure its own-brand apps and services are pre-loaded on Android devices.

In April,Reuters reported on a 2016 document it had reviewed which said the Commission planned to levy a large fine against Google and would also order the company to stop giving revenue-sharing payments to smartphone makers to pre-install only Google Search. Reuters also reported then thatGoogle would be ordered to stop requiring its own Chrome browser and other apps to be installed alongside GooglePlay store.

The Commission will confirm the full details of its Android decision in the next few hours.

Stay tuned for more as we get it…

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The operator has unveiled two new "digital building" solutions that Vodafone says can help the likes of airports, office and shopping centres get a better, smarter insight into how their businesses function on