The banking and finance sector has already seen some major changes in technology use in recent years. These show no signs of slowing down but newer developments like AI are starting to have an impact too.

Here are some expert views on what may be in store for the fintech sector in the year to come.

Could the strange lights, glowing orbs, and supposed UFO sightings in the night sky actually have a simple explanation? With the launch of the T-Mobile Starlink beta program, it’s possible that what people think are mysterious flying objects are, possibly, Starlink satellites being deployed to make mobile dead zones a thing of the past.

Elon Musk’s Starlink, operated by SpaceX, has been rapidly expanding its satellite constellation as part of its partnership with T-Mobile to bring direct-to-cell satellite coverage across the United States. These satellites, designed to function like cell towers in space, are now at the center of a beta program that promises to connect customers in areas where traditional infrastructure can’t reach.

New research shows 88 percent of security leaders believe machine identities, specifically access tokens and their connected service accounts, are the next big target for attackers.

The survey from Venafi of 800 security and IT decision-makers from large organizations across the US, UK, France and Germany, finds 56 percent have experienced a security incident related to machine identities using service accounts in the last year.

Social media has seen a 335 percent boom in new scams using deepfake videos and company-branded posts to lure victims into fraudulent investment schemes.

The latest threat report from ESET tracks these as HTML/Nomani, the countries with the most detections being Japan, Slovakia, Canada, Spain, and Czechia.

One of the changes in Windows 11 that continues to generate lots of complaining is the removal of a vertical taskbar option. Microsoft decided that it wanted everyone to have their taskbar anchored to the bottom of the screen, and that was the end of that.

But not anymore. Now there is a way to vertically align your taskbar in Windows 11, giving you the chance to make better use of a widescreen/ultra-widescreen monitor’s available space. It doesn’t matter whether your preference is for the left or the right -- both are possible.

With the increasing importance of observability in digital operations, businesses need to ensure the reliability and relevance of their telemetry data in order to maintain system and application performance, debug, troubleshoot, respond to incidents and keep their systems secure.

We spoke to Tucker Callaway, CEO of Mezmo, to discuss the strategic considerations and concerns enterprises face in managing and optimizing their telemetry data.

The Xfce team has officially dropped version 4.20 after nearly two years of development, bringing a host of updates and experimental Wayland support to the popular lightweight desktop environment. It’s clear a lot of work went into this release, but the version number might also make you wonder -- did the developers celebrate a little too hard when naming it?

One of the headline features is experimental support for Wayland. Thanks to the new “libxfce4windowing” library, many Xfce components can now run natively on Wayland without relying on XWayland. However, this feature is far from perfect. Critical elements like workspace support and components such as Xfwm4 and Xfce4-screensaver still lack full Wayland functionality. If you’re feeling adventurous -- or maybe a bit “chill” -- you can give Wayland a try, but the team advises caution. Bugs and missing features are part of the deal for now.

As 2024 comes to an end, we expect to see a new year of innovation and greater adoption of new technologies and an increase in cybersecurity vulnerabilities for businesses. As such the sophistication of cyber security threats will likely rise in 2025 and the proliferation of technologies such as AI will make organizations more prone to falling victim to threat actors.

This is set to be impacted by the cyber skill shortage of 2024 which has been a challenging year with budget cutbacks and layoffs. Other trends that we expect to see are highlighted below.  

Introduced a couple of years ago, the Suggested Actions feature of Windows 11 was designed to make life easier, simplifying dealing with information encountered on websites, in documents and so on. Now the feature is being ditched.

Microsoft introduced Suggested Actions as a productivity-enhancer that worked across all aspects of Windows. While the company has said nothing about why it is killing off what is ostensibly a useful tool, the answer can probably be summed up in two letters: AI.

You close out one year, looking for a fresh start on the next. But old content doesn’t just disappear when you hang up a new calendar. There’s always a chance of something in previous data reemerging to challenge the plans you have for the upcoming year. While nothing can completely counter that possibility, enterprise search can help keep tabs on all information, past and present, to mitigate such a risk.

Enterprise search enables instant concurrent searching across terabytes after first indexing the data. A single index can hold up to a terabyte, and there are no limits on the number of indexes enterprise search can create and end-users simultaneously query.

As we close out 2024, we Linux enthusiasts are once again looking ahead to what the future holds. While Linux has long been the unsung hero of technology, powering servers, supercomputers, and the cloud, it’s also a dominant force in the consumer space, even if many don’t realize it. With Android leading the way as the most widely used Linux-based operating system, 2025 is shaping up to be another landmark year for the open source world.

First and foremost, Linux will continue to dominate the enterprise sector. Businesses have realized the cost and flexibility benefits of moving away from proprietary systems. Linux already powers most cloud infrastructure, and as organizations look to tighten budgets, more companies will opt for open source solutions to run their operations. With major providers like AWS and Google Cloud leaning heavily on Linux, its role in the corporate world is only growing stronger.

As we approach the end of the year it's time to start wondering what the next one will have in store. As always we'll be running a series of pieces looking at what industry experts think will be key tech industry trends for 2025.

We start with a look at quantum, which is getting ever closer to widespread commercial deployment and could open up great opportunities but is also leading to increasing fears about security.

Six-hundred-twenty-five in a series. Welcome to this week's overview of the best apps, games and extensions released for Windows 10 and Windows 11 on the Microsoft Store and elsewhere in the past seven days.

Microsoft lifted several blockers that prevented earlier Windows 11 systems from upgrading to version 24h2. The company announced that the update will be offered to more devices going forward.

2024 has been a year of seismic change in the UK, what with a new government coming into power and a budget that will undoubtedly impact the UK’s small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 2025. So, as we look ahead to next year, what technology trends will lead?

We see several dominant trends: a larger proportion of the workforce returning to the office, the increasing adoption of AI, and a heightened focus on security. Additionally, data sovereignty issues will come to the forefront as organizations worry about where their data resides, and ever-growing compliance requirements will become a business necessity -- no matter the organization's size.

At the dawn of a new year most people plan to make lifestyle changes like losing weight or giving up smoking. But new research commissioned by Tech Show London reveals that over 12 million UK consumers plan to make learning AI a New Year's resolution for 2025.

This growing interest in mastering AI signals a shift towards greater understanding and engagement with the technology that is increasingly shaping our lives. 46 percent of those surveyed agree that AI will fundamentally transform our relationship with technology.