Bank of England's interest rate surprise; Do you have what it takes to win Apple's new reality show? And more news.

What's a few more weeks? Although analysts said there was an 80% chance of a rate cut, the Bank of England voted 8 to 1 to leave interest rates unchanged at 0.5%. It's extremely likely that the interest rate decrease will come at the next meeting in August — only a few weeks away — and the short delay will give Mark Carney and his cohorts more information about the state of the economy. Carney will also be meeting with new Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond (who replaced George Osborne last night, in Theresa May's first round of leadership shuffles) sometime today. If/when the Bank drops interest rates, it will be the first time in seven years. 

"Like The Bachelor, but you have to woo Eddy Cue with your iPhone app": App developers: time for your 15 minutes of fame. Apple is holding a casting call for its new reality show, punnily titled "Planet of the Apps." Details — from the format to where the series will actually air — are still murky, but it looks like some blend of Shark Tank, The Voice, and The Bachelor. Contestants will compete for mentorship from top tech talent, up to $10 million in VC funding, and marketing along the lines of featured placement in the App Store. In other words: it's worth submitting that entry video.

Those cute stickers are expensive: Japanese app Line opens today on the New York Stock Exchange (and tomorrow on the Tokyo Stock Exchange), and it's expected to raise up to $1.3 billion, making it the biggest tech IPO of the year. It's a bit weird for the messaging app to nab that title (and it's partially due to how few tech IPOs we've seen in 2016): user growth is slowing and the messaging app is only popular in a handful of countries — Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, and Taiwan. But in those markets, "Line is everything: a tool to call and message friends, a news and entertainment app, a mobile payments platform, a gaming studio, a music streaming service. Line has opened retail stores, delivered rides and groceries, and sells hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital stickers a year." 

One small step for faster Internet: Today the FCC will vote on widening the spectrum, the first step in ushering in the era of 5G connectivity. This will give the US a leg up in the global race for 5G: today's vote on the Spectrum Frontiers Order will make the US the "first country in the world to open high-band spectrum for 5G networks and technologies." But don't plan on a new phone just yet — it'll take years for 5G technology, and its necessary infrastructure, to be implemented. 

Google gets hit with more antitrust charges: The European Commission has announced additional antitrust charges against Google, this time in relation to online advertising and search-related shopping. The Commission has been filing antitrust charges against Google since early 2015, and the California company could face fines of up to 10% of its global annual revenues if it's in violation of Europe's tough competition rules, and those rulings could force Google and other US tech giants to change the way they conduct business in the region.

Well, that's awkward: US mag Consumer Reports wants Tesla to disable automatic steering — which is certainly understandable, given the Autopilot technology is under investigation by US regulators after a fatal crash. This "well-meaning advice," however, comes after Consumer Reports gave Tesla's Model S such a high rating that it broke their scoring system. On the magazine's 0-100 rating, the vehicle got a 103.