Welcome to Tech World, your quick roundup of some of the top technology news stories from across the globe.
This month, we bring you the latest on Uber’s colossal hack, Alphabet’s $1.8bn court battle and much more.
For this episode’s Hot Topic interview, we spoke to Des O’Connor about digital selling and the opportunities and challenges for technology startups and scaleups.
First though, here are your top international stories.
Uber’s hack
UK authorities are looking into a hack suffered by popular ride-sharing app Uber.
The breach, which exposed the information of more than 50 million users from across the world, was concealed by Uber, which paid hackers $100,000 to erase all the stolen data taken last year.
The Independent Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said Uber’s concealment raised “huge concerns around its data protection policies and ethics”.
Uber has so far estimated that approximately 2.7 million people in the UK were affected by the breach.
Alphabet vs Uber
Overall, it hasn’t been a good month for Uber, after accusations implying it has been operating a sophisticated unit to steal trade secrets affected its valuation surfaced this month.
The new revelations were made in a $1.8bn court battle with Alphabet’s self-driving unit, Waymo, in which Uber is accused of stealing confidential tech for its own autonomous car projects.
The testimony, offered in court during a pre-trial hearing, suggests the dispute with Google’s parent company may be part of a wider effort by Uber to improperly draw on work done by its rivals.
Russian meddling
Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have said they will cooperate with a UK probe into Russian meddling in the Brexit referendum.
The social media firms confirmed they would work alongside the UK inquiry to find out what happened on their platforms in the run up to and following the referendum.
Hybrid electric engines
Siemens, Airbus and Rolls-Royce have come together to develop hybrid electric engine plane technology in a bid to push towards a cleaner aviation industry.
The E-Fan X programme, as the project is known, will place an electric engine with three jet engines on a BAe 146 aircraft.
The firms say they want to fly a demo version of the plane by 2020. An commercial application would follow by 2025
Bitcoin hits $10,000
Last but not least, bitcoin has been at it again.
The cryptocurrency made headlines yet again after it hit an-all time high of $10,000, and surpassed the $11,000 mark on 29th November.
That’s it for our top global tech news roundup, but keep watching to see this episode’s Hot Topics interview.
We spoke with Des O’Connor from EY about digital selling and the opportunities and challenges for technology startups and scaleups.
That’s all for this episode. For more of the latest top tech headlines, head to www.uktech.news.