If your chosen supplier is Sky Broadband, there could be some good news about your internet connection. The UK Internet Service Provider (ISP) has just confirmed it’s releasing a useful upgrade that will ensure the most used gadgets get the very best download speeds.
The update, which is called Device Priority, does exactly what it says on the tin: Certain phones, laptops, and tablets are given the most importance over other devices.
This basically means that if you are making an important video call to the office, you can set your laptop to receive the very best connection.
So, when the kids start downloading games on their PlayStation consoles, you won’t start stuttering when chatting to the boss.
“Whether it’s wearable tech, home appliances, working from home, 4K streaming or gaming, by prioritising household devices, people can get the most out of their WiFi,” Sky explained in an email sent to Express.co.uk.
“Other devices will stay active, but the prioritised device will get the best performance.”
It’s a pretty useful boost. Sky says that people are now using connected devices more than ever at home, with the UK average now standing at 21 smart devices per household. Many of these need vast amounts of data to get the most from them. This system should help cut down on clashes, and it could save a few arguments in the process.
So, who gets this boost, and how can you activate it?
It’s been confirmed that those with Sky’s WiFi Max service can access Device Priority from today at no extra cost.
If you have WiFi Max, you’ll find the settings in the MySky App. Once switched on the you will be able to prioritise a device in your home for up to 8 hours.
This latest addition to Sky Broadband’s WiFi Max now joins other features of this service including our Sky’s WiFi guarantee, advanced security, parental controls, convenient engineer visits, Sky Mobile integration.
Don’t have this bonus? It can be added for £4 per month.
It could soon be time to consider ditching your Wi-Fi router and switching to something totally new. The team at Nokia has just announced a swathe of new internet devices, and they look set to make current technology seem stuck well in the past. The latest routers to come from the Finnish firm’s labs feature futuristic Wi-Fi 7 access. This much newer internet technology is not only capable of connecting more devices at once but it can also beam much faster speeds around homes.
In fact, Nokia is boasting that its most premium Beacon 9 device will be able to supply the web to smartphones, tablets, TVs and PCs at speeds in excess of 9.4Gbps.
At that rapid rate, which is around 100 times faster than the UK average, it would take seconds to download a full HD movie.
Along with that mighty Wi-Fi device, the company is also launching a slightly less powerful booster called the Beacon 4, which offers 3.4 Gbps speeds.
“Wi-Fi 7 is a pivotal new technology that will power the connected home of the future. Operators can now make Wi-Fi 7 a reality for customers, with two new affordable solutions that ensure multi-gigabit speeds are delivered to every corner of the home for the ultimate experience,” said Dirk Verhaegen, Head of Broadband Devices, Fixed Networks at Nokia.
Of course, to get those rapid downloads, you’ll need an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that offers broadband that fast in the first place.
Right now, most UK ISPs can only offer downloads at around 1Gbps, so even if you installed the Nokia router you won’t get 9Gbps speeds.
However, the UK’s infrastructure is getting better, with some ISPs, including Community Fibre, now offering internet access at 3Gbps.
Even better speeds are expected in the future, and it’s never a bad idea to future-proof your home and move away from Wi-Fi 5 routers.
In fact, recent advice from Broadband Savvy says all homes should check with their provider and see if an upgraded router is available.
Many homes are still using ageing Wi-Fi 5 routers, which simply can’t cope with modern needs. Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 6E offer big improvements, but it seems Wi-Fi 7 is now the future.
“Compared to more modern standards, like WiFi 6, 6E, and 7, WiFi 5 has significant limitations for the end-user,” Tom Paton, founder of Broadband Savvy explained.
There’s no word on a release date or price for Nokia’s new routers, but watch this space.
There’s very little doubt that the Galaxy S25 range of smartphones are some of the best Android devices on the planet. The latest call makers from the Korean technology firm are now smarter, can snap better photos and get their power from the ultimate Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. Samsung is even making things more attractive thanks to the offer of a free tablet and £200 off when you trade in. These are good offers on great phones, but don’t ignore one of Samsung’s biggest Android rivals.
Google has just announced a massive cost cut on its premium Pixel 9 Pro phone, slashing it from £999 to just £699 at a number of UK stores. That’s huge, with Argos even confirming that it’s now the ‘lowest ever’ price for this device.
The high street retailer has also said that the whopping deal is proving popular with it currently “in demand” and “selling fast”.
The Pixel 9 Pro is Google’s flagship device and comes packed with features such as a 6.3-inch display, a premium design that’s covered in polished metal and glass plus a speedy Tensor G4 processor.
There’s a triple lens camera on the rear case that shoots pin-sharp close-ups, offers an impressive zoom and stunning images even when the sun goes down.
It gets all-day battery life, 16GB RAM and fast charging, plus the bright screen gets 120Hz technology for speedy scrolling.
Of course, this is a Google phone so it gets plenty of smart features such as automatic photo editing and ways to make everyone smile in your images along with adding people to group shots.
There’s also help from the Google Gemini assistant which is built into this device and it offers other smart upgrades such as Circle to Search for a faster way to find things.
Want to know more? You can read our full Pixel 9 Pro review here.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Federal Aviation Administration is demanding an accident investigation into this week’s out-of-control Starship flight by SpaceX.
Tuesday’s test flight from Texas lasted longer than the previous two failed demos of the world’s biggest and most powerful rocketwhich ended in flames over the Atlantic. The latest spacecraft made it halfway around the world to the Indian Ocean, but not before going into a spin and breaking apart.
The FAA said Friday that no injuries or public damage were reported.
The first-stage booster — recycled from an earlier flight — also burst apart while descending over the Gulf of Mexico. But that was the result of deliberately extreme testing approved by the FAA in advance.
All wreckage from both sections of the 403-foot (123-meter) rocket came down within the designated hazard zones, according to the FAA.
The FAA will oversee SpaceX’s investigation, which is required before another Starship can launch.
CEO Elon Musk said he wants to pick up the pace of Starship test flights, with the ultimate goal of launching them to Mars. NASA needs Starship as the means of landing astronauts on the moon in the next few years.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The government on Friday (May 30, 2025) approved an additional instalment of ₹81,735 crore as tax devolution to States, which will be released on June 2.
This release is in addition to the regular monthly instalment of tax devolution of ₹81,735 crore, which will be released on June 10, 2025.
“The Union Government has approved an additional instalment of ₹81,735 crore as Tax Devolution to the State Governments, which will be released on June 2, 2025,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The additional instalment of devolution to States is in line with the principle of cooperative federalism and the aim of becoming ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047, it added.
“The additional instalment of devolution will enable the States to speed up their Capital spending, finance their development and welfare-related expenditure and also make available resources for priority projects/schemes of the States,” the Ministry said.
Currently, 41% of taxes collected by the Centre is devolved in instalments among States during a fiscal year.
PRAGUE — Czech Republic Justice Minister Pavel Blažek resigned from his post over a bitcoin-related scandal on Friday.
Blažek was under fire from the opposition after his ministry accepted a donation of bitcoins and sold them for about 1 billion Czech koruna (more than $45 million) earlier this year.
Blažek said that he wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing, but didn’t want the four-party coalition government led by Prime Minister Petr Fiala to be harmed by the scandal. Fiala said that he appreciated his resignation and believed that Blažek acted with goodwill.
Blažek was a close ally of Fiala in the government, and also in his conservative Civic Democratic Party. It’s not clear who might replace him.
The issue focused on the fact that the bitcoins were donated to the ministry by a person who was previously convicted of drug dealing and other crimes. The opposition has accused Blažek of possible money laundering, because it wasn’t clear where the bitcoins came from. It was also not clear why the person donated the bitcoins to the ministry.
The issue has been investigated by the police organized crime unit. The scandal took place just months before the Oct 3-4 parliamentary election. The main opposition ANO (YES) party led by former populist Prime Minister Andrej Babiš is predicted to win the vote.
NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans celebrated the return and burial of the remains of 19 African American people whose skulls had been sent to Germany for racist research practices in the 19th century.
On Saturday, a multifaith memorial service including a jazz funeral, one of the city’s most distinct traditions, paid tribute to the humanity of those coming home to their final resting place at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial.
“We ironically know these 19 because of the horrific thing that happened to them after their death, the desecration of their bodies,” said Monique Guillory, president of Dillard University, a historically Black private liberal arts college, which spearheaded the receipt of the remains on behalf of the city. “This is actually an opportunity for us to recognize and commemorate the humanity of all of these individuals who would have been denied, you know, such a respectful send-off and final burial.”
The 19 people are all believed to have passed away from natural causes between 1871 and 1872 at Charity Hospital, which served people of all races and classes in New Orleans during the height of white supremacist oppression in the 1800s. The hospital shuttered following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The remains sat in 19 wooden boxes in the university’s chapel during a service Saturday that also included music from the Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective.
A New Orleans physician provided the skulls of the 19 people to a German researcher engaged phrenological studies — the debunked belief that a person’s skull could determine innate racial characteristics.
“All kinds of experiments were done on Black bodies living and dead,” said Dr. Eva Baham, a historian who led Dillard University’s efforts to repatriate the individuals’ remains. “People who had no agency over themselves.”
In 2023, the University of Leipzig in Germany reached out to the City of New Orleans to find a way to return the remains, Guillory said. The University of Leipzig did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It is a demonstration of our own morality here in New Orleans and in Leipzig with the professors there who wanted to do something to restore the dignity of these people,” Baham said.
Dillard University researchers say more digging remains to be done, including to try and track down possible descendants. They believe it is likely that some of the people had been recently freed from slavery.
“These were really poor, indigent people in the end of the 19th century, but … they had names, they had addresses, they walked the streets of the city that we love,” Guillory said. “We all deserve a recognition of our humanity and the value of our lives.”
Modern electric vehicles are not synonymous with bizarre aesthetics. They more or less look similar to gas-powered cars. Electrification happens under the hood, so contemporary automotive designers hardly need to deviate from the norm.
Older generations of EVs, though, would look odd to anyone today. The history of EVs goes back to the 19th century, when innovators in the U.S., the U.K., Hungary, and the Netherlands first dreamt up better alternatives to the horse and buggy and tested the idea of a battery-powered vehicles. British inventor Robert Anderson developed the first crude EV in 1832, but no practical version of the vehicle existed until the invention of rechargeable batteries in 1859.
Then came American chemist William Morrison, who created an electrified wagon, the first EV in the U.S., in 1890. These electrified carriages gained popularity among urban residents at the tail end of the century because they were quieter and easier to drive than steam- and gas-powered vehicles. Emitting zero smelly pollutants was also part of their charm. The first decade of the 20th century saw the glory days of EVs in the U.S.
However, the mass production of the Ford (F) Model T turned the tide, rendering gas-fueled cars more widely available, affordable and appealing to the public, and EV innovation was mostly dormant in the following decades. The 2000s ushered in the resurgence of electric cars with the unveiling of the Tesla Roadster in 2006 — and, more recently, the eyebrow-raising Cybertruck.
With that history in mind, here are five of wackiest EV designs to ever hit the road.
NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans celebrated the return and burial of the remains of 19 African American people whose skulls had been sent to Germany for racist research practices in the 19th century.
On Saturday, a multifaith memorial service including a jazz funeral, one of the city’s most distinct traditions, paid tribute to the humanity of those coming home to their final resting place at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial.
“We ironically know these 19 because of the horrific thing that happened to them after their death, the desecration of their bodies,” said Monique Guillory, president of Dillard University, a historically Black private liberal arts college, which spearheaded the receipt of the remains on behalf of the city. “This is actually an opportunity for us to recognize and commemorate the humanity of all of these individuals who would have been denied, you know, such a respectful send-off and final burial.”
The 19 people are all believed to have passed away from natural causes between 1871 and 1872 at Charity Hospital, which served people of all races and classes in New Orleans during the height of white supremacist oppression in the 1800s. The hospital shuttered following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The remains sat in 19 wooden boxes in the university’s chapel during a service Saturday that also included music from the Kumbuka African Drum and Dance Collective.
A New Orleans physician provided the skulls of the 19 people to a German researcher engaged phrenological studies — the debunked belief that a person’s skull could determine innate racial characteristics.
“All kinds of experiments were done on Black bodies living and dead,” said Dr. Eva Baham, a historian who led Dillard University’s efforts to repatriate the individuals’ remains. “People who had no agency over themselves.”
In 2023, the University of Leipzig in Germany reached out to the City of New Orleans to find a way to return the remains, Guillory said. The University of Leipzig did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It is a demonstration of our own morality here in New Orleans and in Leipzig with the professors there who wanted to do something to restore the dignity of these people,” Baham said.
Dillard University researchers say more digging remains to be done, including to try and track down possible descendants. They believe it is likely that some of the people had been recently freed from slavery.
“These were really poor, indigent people in the end of the 19th century, but … they had names, they had addresses, they walked the streets of the city that we love,” Guillory said. “We all deserve a recognition of our humanity and the value of our lives.”
More than 2,000 jobs are expected to be created by the Lego toy factory and warehouse and distribution center, both of which will be located south of Richmond. The Port of Virginia is also benefiting from the project. (DC News Now via YouTube)
Virginia has landed a $366 million deal with The Lego Group to build a 2 million-square-foot warehouse and distribution center near Richmond to deliver the Danish company’s famous building-block toys throughout the region.
The warehouse and distribution center will pair with a nearby $1 billion Lego toy factory that is already under construction to create a Lego logistics hub that is expected to employ more than 2,000 people once fully operational.
The warehouse and distribution center — expected to generate about 300 jobs — will be located in Prince George County’s Crosspointe Business Centre along Interstate 95. The site, a former aircraft manufacturing operation, sits on 900 acres and also has access to I-85 and I-295. It is within 500 miles of 60% of the nation’s consumers.
The 1.7 million-square-foot toy factory under construction is located about 20 miles away in Chesterfield County’s Meadowville Technology Park. That project, which broke ground in 2023, will create more than 1,700 jobs once fully operational.
Both the factory and warehouse and distribution center are expected to open in 2027.
Map showing approximate driving directions from the site of the future toy factory (north) to the future warehouse and distribution center (south). (Google Maps)
“The Lego Group is not just a household name, it’s a symbol of creativity, innovation and quality that resonates globally,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a recent announcement. “Three years after choosing Virginia to establish its U.S. manufacturing plant, the Lego Group’s decision to expand into Prince George County is an exciting new chapter in this partnership, bringing 305 new, high-quality jobs to the region.”
Carsten Rasmussen, Lego Group chief operations officer, said, “The regional distribution center will bring greater flexibility to our network, ensuring we are well positioned to support long-term growth in the Americas. “Together with our future Virginia factory, the RDC will shorten our supply chain in the region — reducing lead times for our customers as well as our environmental impact. We are grateful for the continued support from the commonwealth of Virginia.”
The state provided economic incentives to land the latest Lego project. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Prince George County and Virginia’s Gateway Region to capture the deal, and Youngkin approved a $2.53 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund.
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“We make things, and we move things here in the Gateway Region, and the Lego Group’s decision to establish this major distribution center is a testament to our strategic location and world-class infrastructure,” said Keith Boswell, president and CEO of Virginia’s Gateway Region. “With direct access to key transportation corridors, they join a growing list of top brands like Amazon, Walmart, Aldi and Delhaize America that rely on our region to efficiently move products to market.”
The projected boom in business in the area is expected to impact the Port of Virginia. Consequently, Lego will be eligible to receive assistance from the Port of Virginia Economic and Infrastructure Development Zone Grant Program. This program is meant to provide financial incentives to companies that establish or expand maritime-related employment centers that support port growth. Grants can be as low as $1,000 per job for the creation of 25-49 jobs up to $3,000 per jobs for producing more than 100 jobs.
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“The Port of Virginia is investing in parallel to ensure we can meet the demand that this type of expansion requires,” said Stephen Edwards, Virginia Port Authority CEO and executive director. “This announcement shows the confidence the Lego Group has in Virginia and the port’s ability to safely and sustainability move its cargo to world markets for years to come. The Lego Group is a valued port user, and we welcome the opportunity to work with its team to ensure even greater success.”
Also in May, Lego opened a new U.S. office hub in Boston’s Back Bay West district, where the company aims to employ 800 people in a six-floor, 157,000-square-foot facility to support its “long-term growth ambitions in the U.S. and the broader Americas region,” Lego noted.
The Lego Group — founded in 1932 in Billund, Denmark, by Ole Kirk Christiansen — gets its name from two Danish words, “leg godt,” which means “play well.” The family-owned company sells its products in 120 countries.
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