Welcome to the Radcomm UK’s Weekly Tech Roundup. Here, you will find the latest and greatest tech stories all in one convenient spot; ensuring you are kept up to date with current events. If you wish to join our mailing list, feel free to drop us an email at sales@radcommuk.co.uk and we’ll sign you up straight away. Make sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter for news updates and exclusive online deals.

1. Self-driving cars involved in crashes

Two self-driving cars were involved in two separate road accidents in California. The cars in question – the Tesla Model S and a General Motors Chevy Bolt – are currently legal to drive on the road providing someone is behind the wheel in the case of an emergency.

Shocking scenes on Monday as the Tesla Model S plowed into the back of a Culver City fire truck. According to The Culver City Fire Department, the Tesla was traveling at 65mph at the point of impact. The US National Transportation Board had announced that a full investigation is now underway to investigate the cause of the crash. Remarkably, no one was injured during the collision.

While working a freeway accident this morning, Engine 42 was struck by a #Tesla traveling at 65 mph. The driver reports the vehicle was on autopilot. Amazingly there were no injuries! Please stay alert while driving! #abc7eyewitness #ktla #CulverCity #distracteddriving pic.twitter.com/RgEmd43tNe

— Culver City Firefighters (@CC_Firefighters) January 22, 2018

Tesla vehicles already have the ability to analyse data from its onboard computer to determine the cause of crashes and have shared information with the press in the past. Tesla have since reiterated that “Autopilot is intended for use only with a fully attentive driver”.

To tackle the risk of automated crashes in the future, Tesla have announced they will be implementing an update which required the drivers’ hands to be on the wheel. Failure to do so will result in the car slowing down to a halt.

In light of this recent event, information has also come to light regarding the self-driving GM Chevy Bolt; which crashed into the back of a Motorcyclist on 7 December. According to an accident report filed by GM, the vehicle was attempting the change lanes when the gap ahead closed.As the Chevy Bolt attempted to re-centering itself in the original lane, the Motorcyclist traveling at a faster speed collided with the car, causing the vehicle to fall over.

In response to the incident, GM stated ‘Safety is our primary focus when it comes to developing and testing our self-driving technology, as reported by BBC.

‘In this matter, the SFPD [San Francisco Police Department] collision report stated that the motorcyclist merged into our lane before it was safe to do so.’

The owner of the Chevy Bolt, who sustained a serious injury, is now looking to sue GM according to local media.

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January buy price: £̶1̶3̶9̶.̶9̶9̶
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If you were considering adding an additional radio to your fleet this new year, now is the time to do so. The TC-620 is available in both UHF or VHF and is therefore fully compatible with your licensed radio fleet. Don’t miss out on this great offer and take advantage today.

Email us at sales@radcommuk.co.uk or give us a call on 0115 952 2777 for further details.

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2. Sky set to scrap the satellite dish

Sky plans to move all its channels content available online, therefore, eliminating the need for a satellite dish to receive their service in the future.

The TV giants already offer an online viewing service to their customers as part of their Sky Go service. Sky claim that by moving their service completely online, it would reduce costs for the firm; as well as opening different doors to new markets.

Italy is the first country that Sky is planning to go completely online later this year, followed by Austria with the UK expected to follow suit later this year, or early 2019.

The changes will open the market to new potential customers without satellite dishes, however, a Sky box will still be required. The decision is thought to have taken place so that Sky may continue to challenge increasingly popular alternative media outlets such as Netflix and Amazon.

Image result for netflix and amazon prime — Sky hope to be able to compete with other popular streaming companies, by proving an internet-based service

Reporting its results for the six months to 31 December, Sky said that the average revenue per user in the UK and Ireland had fallen from £1 to £46 a month.

3. Premier League team becomes first to sign crypto-currency deal

Premier League club Arsenal are the first major footballing outfit to sign a deal which promotes a crypto-currency.

The North London club reached an agreement with CashBet, a gaming company which is looking to launch its own crypto-currency called ‘CashBet Coin’. The deal will ensure that CashBet Coin is promoted and advertised around Arsenal’s home ground during home games.

CashBet is a Californian based gaming business which was formed in 2012. The company aims to raise $40m through investors buying CashBet coins, which they can then use to bet on it’s online games.

When quizzed by the BBC as to whether or not this was a risky investment due to the highly volatile nature of crypto-currency, and if it encouraged fans to bet with CachBet coins, the club responded with the following:

“Not at all. The partnership aims to promote CashBet Coin ahead of their Initial Coin Offer on 24 January,” a spokesman for the club said.

“It does not exist to encourage fans to bet with CashBet Coin.”

However, David Gerard, author of “Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain” warns of the high risks of investing in crypto-currencies, and warned Arsenal fans to be cautious if they feel encouraged to bet with CashBVet coins.

“Crypto-currencies are less regulated than regular betting shops and it’s a lot harder to get actual pounds back out again,” Mr Gerard said.

4. Amazon’s top-selling laptops: 2018

Every week, we’ll take a look at the highest trending products on the net, to let you know the hottest gizmos and gadgets out there. This week, we’ll be taking a look at the top 5 laptops on Amazon, highlighting the model, the price and the people’s verdict.

See below the top 5 most sold gadgets currently on Amazon including features, price, rating and a hand-picked review from the Radcomm UK team.

5. Lenovo A9! Quad Turbo Laptop

Price: £378.88

Rating: 5 Stars

Lightweight but powerful, with battery life to spare, these laptops balance mobility and productivity perfectly.

Lenovo Laptop + 5 Year Collect & Return Warranty Included (Limited Time Special Offer Only)
AMD A9-9410 3.5GHz with Turbo, QUAD Processor (2 Cores, 2 Thread) + Fast DDR4 4GB Ram + Fast 500GB HDD Anti Shock & Drop® HDD
Windows 10 HOME ® 64 Bit + MS Office Web APPS inc Word,Excel, PowerPoint online & Outlook
**RADEON R5 Graphics**, + 15.6″ HD + USB 3.0 + New Bluetooth 4.0 + New Island Keyboard
Light Weight, Lay Flat Technology, Premium Lenovo® Sound, Built in Web Cam, MIC, HDMI, Multi Card Reader + DVD/CD RW DRIVE

Radcomm’s top review – brp

Quick delivery and I found the setup straightforward following on-screen prompts. Once the initial setup is completed the Lenovo laptop works very well and is a nice machine to use. For the price, I would recommend it.

4. iOTA ONE, 10.1-Inch 2-in-1 Laptop

Price: £149.99

Rating: 4 Stars

With Continuum, your apps and content are displayed beautifully in all modes, from a touch-focused tablet to a keyboard-and-mouse desktop experience.

Stylish and portable tablet with detachable keyboard (equipped with sensitive touch pad for effortless screen navigation).
Work, watch and play with easy access to all of your favourite games, apps, videos and music via the Windows Store.
With Continuum, your apps and content are displayed beautifully in all modes, from a touch-focused tablet to a keyboard-and-mouse desktop experience.
Includes Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile, and One Note to maximise your productivity.
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Micro HDMI and Micro USB – so you can always stay fully connected.

Radcomm’s top review – Jules Mountain

Bought this little cutie about 8 weeks ago, to carry out an e-learning project, the software for which wouldn’t talk to my main laptop, a MacBook Pro. The iota one attracted me with its price and size and the fact that it converts to a tablet. I’ve been really pleased with it. As others have noted, it’s quite heavy but as I’m mainly using it at my desk, in parallel with the MacBook, that hasn’t been a problem for me. I am using it for literally one project – the e-learning programme – and as its memory isn’t much to write home about, I imagine the iota one would struggle a bit with multi-tasking; it’s certainly slow at moving between the software elements (especially compared to the MacBook). The keyboard’s not the smoothest, and the trackpad’s quite noisy but hey ho – it’s small and it’s compact and I actually find I rather love it. Once this project’s done and I can remove all the files, I imagine I will use it when I want a portable machine for meetings and presentations, and don’t want to be porting two grand’s worth of laptop around with me…

In conclusion, this is a great little product and I would recommend it. I waited a few weeks to review it to see how I got on with it, and it only loses a star because of its clunkiness / speed.

3. HP Stream 14-ax002na 14-inch HD Laptop

Price: £209.97

Rating : 3.5 Stars

Designed for the always connected life, this nimble laptop lets you easily shift from homework workhorse to marathoning your favorite shows. With its portable design and powerful Wi-Fi antenna, it delivers the essential productivity and features you want, without ever slowing you down.

Ideal for basic computing whether at home or on the go, enjoy web browsing, social media, chatting, video calling, use office apps, emails and download apps.
Office 365 Personal included; get full access to Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and access and easily store your files in the cloud with the 1 TB of OneDrive storage – 1 year subscription.
Ultra-portable design; with a thin, lightweight design, this laptop was never meant to stand still; it travels easily and comes in a vibrant, non-traditional colour for a distinctly personal look.
The enhanced wireless technology delivers a stronger, more reliable internet connection for buffer-free streaming, blazing-fast downloads and smooth web surfing.

Radcomm’s top review – Mr P.

A great lightweight portable Windows 10 device with long battery life. Some things to consider before purchase – This laptop is designed to be a handy lightweight portable device that runs Windows 10, its NOT designed for heavy or intensive computing tasks due to its specification. If your savvy with Windows then this machine is for you, the best advice I can give is when you first get it to download all the HP updates for BIOS etc with the HP assistant, register Windows 10 with your Microsoft account & print of a copy of your Windows 10 product key & then wipe the machine.
Reinstall Windows 10 & start afresh to get rid of all the pre installed factory bloatware & the machine will perform much better.
The other piece of advice is to go in to the touch pad settings & turn off the pinch to zoom function as it will drive you mad after a short while.
With any cheap device there are compromises to be made – there is no cd / dvd drive – a usb one is a cheap addition.
The keyboard isn’t the best but its useable, the screen is watchable & the speakers aint the loudest but they do the job.
I would suggest you add a SD card or use a USB memory stick for extra storage for your files & apps as once Windows 10 is up & running there is only around 10 Gb left for system updates.
The battery life is excellent in part due to the device not needing a cooling fan, this also means no annoying cooling fan noise.
All in all this is an excellent useable Windows 10 device when you consider the price, spec & portability.

2. 14.1″ Full HD Laptop Computer Lapbook Intel x5-Z8350

Price: £214.97

Rating: 4 Stars

The Intel Atom x5-Z8350 is a power efficient quad-core SoC for Windows and Android devices (tablets and convertibles), which has been presented in February 2016. It is clocked at 1.44 – 1.92 GHz and part of the Cherry Trail platform. Thanks to its new 14 nanometer low-power process (P1273) with tri-gate transistors, energy efficiency has been significantly improved over its predecessor Bay Trail-T (e.g. Atom Z3795). In addition to the CPU cores, the SoC offers a DirectX 11.2-capable GPU as well as a LPDDR3 Memory Controller (2x 64 bit, 25.6 GB/s).

AMAZING VIEWER EXPERIENCE – This Fusion5 Laptop PC come with an Amazing 14.1″ 1920*1080 Full HD display meaning you can now compute on the move in stunning Full HD and High resolution for the Ultimate portable Windows notebook laptop experience
AMPLE STORAGE SPACE & POWER – Your new Lapbook comes with 4GB RAM and 64GB of on-board eMMC storage with the option to expand the memory up to 1256GB with a Micro SD card (tf-card) so more than enough storage to meet your needs.
SUPER LIGHT AND FLEXIBLE – Your New notebook laptop is light and easy to carry around weighing just 1346 grams. It also stretches to 170° and becomes totally flat if needed!
THE BRILLIANT AND SUPER FAST – The Laptop also features the Intel Atom Cherrytrail Quadcore Processor – meaning you can now Launch your Windows programs with no lag whatsoever and play your favorite games in full speed
12 MONTHS UK WARRANTY AND SERVICE CENTRE ASSISTANCE – Fusion5 is honouring warranties since 2011. We have the upmost confidence in our product range of Laptops and Notebooks – so much so that we offer a full 12 month UK warranty period, applicable to our UK Service Centre.

Radcomm’s top review – Tech Dude

Super fast and light weight.

So usually I don’t care much for laptops, being a PC user but figured that recent tech should make it pretty fast and at a reasonable price, why not?

When I received the laptop it came packaged well and in perfect condition. The screen and lid both having plastic protcectors on too.
The laptop itself is slim and light in weight making it comfortable to use for long periods. The slimline design makes it look very nice as well as being much more portable than most typical units.

So the thing that most probably want to know I’m sure will be battery life and speed in use. As a PC user with a pretty high end rig I can honestly say I am very surprised at the performance of this little beauty. With the SSD replacing more traditional HDD it really shows in speed. The CPU is also a good one being made by the leaders of course with Intel, four cores make this laptop run HD movies and Windows store games flawlessly. The battery is typical of most laptops in that it will need a charge after a few hours use depending on what that use is. I found that watching a couple of movies back to back was enough to require a charge however using it to watch my gaming servers alone enabled the whole days use with still half a battery power left.

The laptop comes with a complete full use Windows 10 key already installed which means the laptop is ready to use straight out of the box, allowing for charge time of course. Windows 10 is the latest and in my opinion best operating system available right now and is very usable on this laptop. The windows “Store” after a quick registration (includes regestering your windows key) gives you access to a whole manor of apps, games and all the typical things you might find in Apple or in deed Android, so giving you all the apps ready to go.

I tried to run a few different games via the Store page and found all to work flawlessly (within spec regs) and ejoyed the graphics capabilities about as much as playing the xbox 360 or ps3. I used my Xbox pad to run the games without any issues after windows auto installed the relevant drivers within seconds.

I think in recent times the 14.10 display is pretty typical and certainly sufficent for watching movies and playing games in close quarters to your machine and found the sound to be very good alongside my stereo headphones in the jack socket provided. The Display runs at 1366/768 resolution which to most people is similar to saying 720p. For those that may question the need for 1080p I’d argue that at this screen size the difference would be negligible. 720p HD is nice while watching either your favourite you-tuber or movie and I have no complaints to the quality of the display at all.

The SSD while being fast is not huge in storage size, although more than ample with the also available slot for a typical micro SD phone storage card. This means that yes you can give yourself far more space with I think a further 132gb but also great for sharing your music to your phone/tablet by simply popping your phones storage into the laptop and dragging and dropping the music you want for your phones into it! This could not be more simple and speedy to complete and a rather under-rated extra in my opinion. If like me you like to have up to date music on your phone or tablet for exercising or just general use then you will enjoy this as much as me, a great edition to the laptop.

Being a PC user of course my main interest in the laptop over a tablet is the attached keyboard. While this keyboard is great to look at and tactile in responce, the buttons (probably as new) seems a little on the sticky side. From this I do not mean like they have had your morning coffee dropped over them but that the buttons don’t seem as smooth in use as my expensive mechanical keyboard. There probably lays the point though, my keyboard cost almost as much as this laptop!

This laptop comes with WIFI already built in but no ethernet socket…I found the connection to be as reliable and consistant in connection as my mobile cell phone and have no issues getting a good speed.

Having now used this laptop for a couple of weeks I have found no issues to complain about and indeed am very happy with my order. The laptop has surprised me in more ways than just speed and its nice to see that you can actually get good technology for a reasonable price now!
Easy to recommend as a good little pocket rocket with a reasonable battery life and a nice slot for a typical phone sd card.

1. HP Stream 14-ax000na 14-inch HD Laptop

Price: £209.97

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Get the job done on the go with the sleek HP Stream 14 laptop. Designed for cloud computing, the HP Stream 14 features a thin, lightweight design and long battery life, making it ideal for travel. Access apps and store your documents, photos, videos and more on Microsoft’s OneDrive.

Ideal for basic computing whether at home or on the go, enjoy web browsing, social media, chatting, video calling, use office apps, emails and download apps
Office 365 Personal included; get full access to Microsoft Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneNote and access with the included 1-year subscription and easily store your files in the cloud with the 1 TB of OneDrive storage
Ultra-portable design; with a thin, lightweight design, this laptop was never meant to stand still; it travels easily and comes in a vibrant, non-traditional colour for a distinctly personal look
The enhanced wireless technology; the improved 802.11 ac 2 x 2 Wi-Fi antenna delivers a stronger, more reliable internet connection than before for buffer-free streaming, blazing-fast downloads and smooth web surfing
It is highly recommend that customer should raise an escalation to HP support to make sure the office is activated properly if s/he still faces any issue.

Radcomm’s top review – Mr P.

– RADCOMM UK Promotion –

TC-620 Analogue Radio

January buy price: £̶1̶3̶9̶.̶9̶9̶
Now only £114.99!

Superior Audio Clarity
Reliable Mechanical Design
Enhanced Speaker Protection
Added Benefit for Your Business

Grab yourself a bargain this January with the fully licensed TC-620 for an amazing £114.99!

If you were considering adding an additional radio to your fleet this new year, now is the time to do so. The TC-620 is available in both UHF or VHF and is therefore fully compatible with your licensed radio fleet. Don’t miss out on this great offer and take advantage today.

1. Self-driving cars involved in crashes

– RADCOMM UK Promotion –

TC-620 Analogue Radio

January buy price: £̶1̶3̶9̶.̶9̶9̶ Now only £114.99!

Superior Audio Clarity

Reliable Mechanical Design

Enhanced Speaker Protection

Added Benefit for Your Business

Grab yourself a bargain this January with the fully licensed TC-620 for an amazing £114.99!

If you were considering adding an additional radio to your fleet this new year, now is the time to do so. The TC-620 is available in both UHF or VHF and is therefore fully compatible with your licensed radio fleet. Don’t miss out on this great offer and take advantage today.

Email us at sales@radcommuk.co.uk or give us a call on 0115 952 2777 for further details.

– RADCOMM UK Promotion –

2. Sky set to scrap the satellite dish

3. Premier League team becomes first to sign crypto-currency deal

5. Lenovo A9! Quad Turbo Laptop

Price: £378.88

Rating: 5 Stars

4. iOTA ONE, 10.1-Inch 2-in-1 Laptop

Price: £149.99

Rating: 4 Stars

3. HP Stream 14-ax002na 14-inch HD Laptop

Price: £209.97

Rating : 3.5 Stars

2. 14.1″ Full HD Laptop Computer Lapbook Intel x5-Z8350

Price: £214.97

Rating: 4 Stars

1. HP Stream 14-ax000na 14-inch HD Laptop

Price: £209.97

Rating: 3.5 Stars

– RADCOMM UK Promotion –

TC-620 Analogue Radio

January buy price: £̶1̶3̶9̶.̶9̶9̶ Now only £114.99!

Superior Audio Clarity

Reliable Mechanical Design

Enhanced Speaker Protection

Added Benefit for Your Business

Grab yourself a bargain this January with the fully licensed TC-620 for an amazing £114.99!

If you were considering adding an additional radio to your fleet this new year, now is the time to do so. The TC-620 is available in both UHF or VHF and is therefore fully compatible with your licensed radio fleet. Don’t miss out on this great offer and take advantage today.

Email us at sales@radcommuk.co.uk or give us a call on 0115 952 2777 for further details.

– RADCOMM UK Promotion –

January buy price: £̶1̶3̶9̶.̶9̶9̶
Now only £114.99!

January buy price: £̶1̶3̶9̶.̶9̶9̶
Now only £114.99!