THE announcement of a £67 million contract to Malvern’s biggest employer, QinetiQ, is a vote of confidence in the company and in the town itself.

The town is widely known for its history, but it has had one foot in the future, technologically speaking, since secret radar research establishments arrived in Malvern a couple of years into the Second World War.

Since then scientists and engineers based in Malvern have been involved in numerous innovations which have since become the foundations for gadgets that almost all of us use every day of our working and personal lives.

It is true that the latest contract is to develop better satellite navigation techniques for the military, which some will find distasteful.

But these things have a way of leaking out of the secret world and into civilian life, so that a device originally intended to guide missiles close to their targets might end up sending ambulances to the exact place where a critically-ill person needs help.

There are some who say that the influx of technology into our lives has gone too far; that children spend far too much time staring into glowing screens; that too many people have become dependent on social media that all too often seen filled with hatred.

But all of us have the choice as to what extent we let these technologies into our lives, and those of our children.

The mightiest tech company in the world is powerless to do anything in the face of the customer, or rather non-customer, who says "No thanks, I'm not interested in what you have to offer."

It really is up to us.