ShinyShiny tech roundup: Rolls-Royce to invest in mini nuclear reactors
Rolls-Royce will move ahead with a multibillion pound plan to roll out a new breed of mini nuclear reactors after securing more than £450m from the government and investors. The engineering firm will set up a venture focused on developing small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, in partnership with investors BNF Resources and the US generator Exelon Generation with a joint investment of £195m to fund the plans over the next three years. The government will match the consortium’s investment, which is set to receive a second phase top-up of £50m from Rolls-Royce, with £210m to help roll out the mini nuclear reactors as part of the government’s green 10 point plan to kickstart the green economy over the next decade. Guardian
OnePlus has announced its latest limited edition smartphone dubbed Nord 2 PAC-MAN Edition. It will have the same internals as the regular Nord 2 5G, down to the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, but its back will be glowing in the dark, and it will have a theme filled to the brim with Pac-Man references. The smartphone’s design is yet to be unveiled, but you can already compete to win the phone, a pair of Buds Z or early access vouchers from the OnePlus store. All it takes is to visit the company website, play the classic Pac-Man game and with a “high enough score” you’re already in the raffle. The phone will be sold in the EU, United Kingdom, and India. It is priced at €529, £499, and INR37,999, respectively. GSM Arena
The Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are two of the finest Android phones around but they do have one annoying trait. As many users have pointed out, the in-display fingerprint scanners on the new phones aren’t the quickest around. But, according to Google, this isn’t something that will be fixed by a software update. In a tweet sent from the @madebygoogle account replying to a user claiming the fingerprint sensor ‘is ruining my experience’, Google said the scanner uses ‘enhanced security algorithms’ and that ‘in some instances these added protections can take longer to verify’. Hence the slow speeds. Trusted Reviews
Astronaut Tim Peake has said he is “disappointed” that space travel is starting to be seen as luxury tourism for the super-rich, and warned we will never tackle climate change without it. Major Peake made the comments at the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow. Asked how he feels about space travel becoming the preserve of billionaires, he said: “I personally am a fan of using space for science and for the benefit of everybody back on Earth so in that respect I feel disappointed that space is being tarred with that brush.” But he said humans do not face a choice between space exploration and tackling climate change, adding that the widely reported figure that one rocket launch emits more than 300 tonnes of carbon is false. Yahoo!
Hyperfast gigabit broadband is now available to more than 90% of Virgin Media O2’s UK network, the company has said, meaning more than 14 million homes can access faster internet speeds. As part of today’s gigabit switch-on, Virgin Media O2 has upgraded its network to 1.6 million more homes in Lincoln, Bath, Lancaster, Fife, Huddersfield, Ipswich, Slough and Salisbury among many others. With average download speeds of 1,130Mbps, Virgin Media’s next-generation Gig1 broadband service is the fastest available from a major broadband provider in the UK – 22 times faster than the national average. Tech Digest
