National / International News

Sports governing bodies have given their approval to the Government's new school sports policy, the BBC learns.

The M4 eastbound reopens at Newport after an earlier crash in which a 67-year-old man died but congestion remains at the Brynglas tunnels.

Rapid drug treatment after HIV infection may be enough to "functionally cure" about one in 10 patients, say researchers in France.

Detectives investigating the death of a man found in a cement mixer are to have his body exhumed.

Science fiction loves the merger of the human body and machine. In mid-March 2013, what's the status of the merger?

Will Oremus, a writer for Slate who has been working on a series about using tech to build better people, joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to explain how far we've come and where we are headed.

McLaren have admitted they are off the pace and have "a lot of work to do" to become competitive.

The battle to stop MPs speaking directly to each other

Money is tight so shops are being forced to come up with ingenious new ways to get people spending.

Netflix is waving around $100,000 dollars in prize money for people with the best ideas to tune up and improve Netflix's data cloud.

Netflix cloud systems director of architecture Adrian Cockcroft joins Marketplace Tech host David Brancaccio to talk through the challenges of managing the company's remote data.

Incidentally, Marketplace Morning Report host Jeremy Hobson points out that if you are part of the majority of Americans who think cloud computing involves an actual cloud or is somehow related to the weather, the contest may not be for you.

 

In part of what it calls "spring cleaning," Google is sending its content aggregator Google Reader out to the landfill.

The company blamed declining usage, though noted that Reader "has a loyal following" -- and that loyal following isn't taking this lying down. More than 100,000 people have signed online petitions to keep the Reader. But euthanizing the Reader is a reminder that although many of us get dependent on online tools, big Internet companies can change the rules at any time.

"Look, Google works for Google," says Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the The Googlization of Everything. "Google doesn't work for us, it doesn't work the for the government, it doesn't answer to our needs as citizens."

Vaidhyanathan sees the Reader's death sentence as a sign Google isn't that interested in what we call the World Wide Web. He argues Google, like Facebook, wants to be the web.

"Google is deciding to double-down on its vision for being the operating system of our lives, not just the operating system of the web," Vaidhyanathan says. "The web may be something we think of as a sort of quaint medium in 10 years."

In the meantime, other companies are jumping in to fill the impending gap. The startup Feedly is quickly finishing up an alternative.

In part of what it calls "spring cleaning," Google is sending its content aggregator Google Reader out to the landfill.

The company blamed declining usage, though noted that Reader "has a loyal following" -- and that loyal following isn't taking this lying down. More than 100,000 people have signed online petitions to keep the Reader. But euthanizing the Reader is a reminder that although many of us get dependent on online tools, big Internet companies can change the rules at any time.

"Look, Google works for Google," says Siva Vaidhyanathan, author of the The Googlization of Everything. "Google doesn't work for us, it doesn't work the for the government, it doesn't answer to our needs as citizens."

Vaidhyanathan sees the Reader's death sentence as a sign Google isn't that interested in what we call the World Wide Web. He argues Google, like Facebook, wants to be the web.

"Google is deciding to double-down on its vision for being the operating system of our lives, not just the operating system of the web," Vaidhyanathan says. "The web may be something we think of as a sort of quaint medium in 10 years."

Other companies are jumping in to fill the impending gap. The startup Feedly is quickly finishing up an alternative.

Oscar-winning film director Ang Lee will direct the pilot episode of new US series Tyrant.

North Korea accuses the US and its allies of attacks on its internet servers, amid tensions on the peninsula.

Swiss carrier Helvetic is pulling out of Cardiff Airport, two years after the Welsh government spent £500,000 marketing Wales in Switzerland.

More than 30 families have taken legal action against a hospital in north-west England for a catalogue of baby and maternal deaths and injuries.

A fancy dress shop in south London which was looted and set on fire during the riots in 2011 reopens.

The government announces the start of a major review of the way the NHS in England deals with complaints from patients and their relatives.

The Earned Income Tax Credit has been embraced by every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama.

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U.S. officials and security experts regularly highlight the cyberthreat, but they also note that the prospects of a major cyberattack are remote. Cyberespionage and "nuisance" cyberattacks may be a problem now, but all-out cyberwar is not.

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A giant reservoir of natural gas lies under the ocean floor, and no one had successfully extracted it until this week. Japanese engineers pulled it up through a well from under the Pacific. But there are still lots of unanswered questions about the viability of this new gas supply.

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