Cyber-attacks on health bodies appear to be on the rise again after a hiatus early in the pandemic• Fears for patient data after attack on NHS software supplierA ransomware attack on a software supplier has hit the NHS across the UK and there are fears that patient data may have been the target.Advanced, the UK company hit by the attack last week, said it was working with government agencies, including the National Cyber Security Centre and the Information Commissioner’s Office, in the aftermath of the incident. Continue reading...
Owner of Facebook and Instagram is using code to follow those who click links in its apps, according to an ex-Google engineerMeta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has been rewriting websites its users visit, letting the company follow them across the web after they click links in its apps, according to new research from an ex-Google engineer.The two apps have been taking advantage of the fact that users who click on links are taken to webpages in an “in-app browser”, controlled by Facebook or Instagram, rather than sent to the user’s web browser of choice, such as Safari or Firefox. Continue reading...
Fusion of tech firm software and local council infrastructure may herald on-demand bus services 2.0During the early stages of the pandemic, Transport for Wales (TfW) decided to try something new. In May 2020 it launched fflecsi, an app-based service that allows people to book a shuttle minibus from “floating bus stops” near their homes directly to their destination.Available in 11 locations across Wales, the service was an immediate hit: in five weeks passenger numbers grew 150%, and in its first 12 months it served 50,000 trips. Best of all, 9% of its riders were people who hadn’t previously used public transport. As one passenger said: “This is too good to be true. This is Pembrokeshire, we don’t get transport like this.” Continue reading...
Search engine updates ‘featured snippets’ to reduce the number of often comical errors it makesGoogle will stop giving snappy answers to stupid questions, the company has announced, as it seeks to improve its search engine’s “featured snippets” service.That means users should see fewer answers to questions such as “When did Snoopy assassinate Abraham Lincoln?”, to which the service would once merrily respond with “1865” – the right date, but very much the wrong assassin. Continue reading...
Tesla CEO has sold $7bn worth of shares in the carmaker in case he loses his bid to walk away from the $44bn takeoverElon Musk did not become the world’s wealthiest person through a lack of confidence.But the Tesla CEO revealed on Tuesday that he had sold $6.9bn (£5.7bn) worth of shares in the carmaker, in case he loses his attempt to walk away from a $44bn takeover of Twitter. Continue reading...
From Jeff Goldblum as the Big Bad Wolf to an incident involving Fabio and a goose, the illustrator @filthyratbag shares the things that make her laugh most
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#62BTV)
Cutting-edge folding phone unveiled with Z Fold 4 folding tablet, Galaxy Watch 5 and Buds 2 Pro earbudsSamsung has unveiled updated versions of its cutting-edge folding-screen devices, including its popular reinvention of the flip phone, the Galaxy Z Flip, adding better cameras, bigger screens and slimmer bodies.The Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 were announced on Wednesday during a live-streamed event alongside revamped versions of Samsung’s top Buds Pro earbuds and the Galaxy Watch 5, all containing recycled materials such as ocean-bound plastic. Continue reading...
Tesla CEO admits he could need the funds if he loses a legal battle with Twitter and is forced to buy the social media platformElon Musk has sold $6.9bn (£5.7bn) worth of shares in Tesla after admitting that he could need the funds if he loses a legal battle with Twitter and is forced to buy the social media platform.The Tesla chief executive walked away from a $44bn deal to buy Twitter in July but the company has launched a lawsuit demanding that he complete the deal. A trial will take place in Delaware in October. Continue reading...
Facebook’s parent company has created a bot capable of weighing in on almost any topic – from radicalisation to sending Mark Zuckerberg to jailLast week, researchers at Facebook’s parent company Meta released BlenderBot 3, a “publicly available chatbot that improves its skills and safety over time”. The chatbot is built on top of Meta’s OPT-175B language model, effectively the company’s white-label version of the more famous GPT-3 AI. Like most state-of-the-art AIs these days, that was trained on a vast corpus of text scraped from the internet in questionable ways, and poured into a datacentre with thousands of expensive chips that turned the text into something approaching coherence.But where OPT-175B is a general-purpose textbot, able to do anything from write fiction and answer questions to generate spam emails, BlenderBot 3 is a narrower project: it can have a conversation with you. That focus allows it to bring in other expertise, though, and one of Meta’s most significant successes is hooking the language model up to the broader internet. In other words: “BlenderBot 3 is capable of searching the internet to chat about virtually any topic.” Continue reading...
by Sirin Kale with data by David Blood on (#62BEV)
Families in Gwynedd county are being evicted as swathes of property are converted to short-term rentals for the tourism industry – and the situation being played out across the country. Can anything be done to help?Sitting at her kitchen table, a shellshocked Cherylyn Houston reflects on an ordeal that is finally over. It all started in September 2021. Houston, a 42-year-old secondary school teacher, opened the door to find her landlady on her doorstep. “She said: ‘I’m really sorry. My circumstances have changed and I need to give you six months’ notice. I can get four times as much money on Airbnb and I’d like you to leave, ideally by March, so I can start the new season.’”At the time, Houston was living in a four-bedroom cottage in the village of Dinorwig, in the county of Gwynedd, north Wales. Houston, her two teenage children and their stepfather had lived there since January 2020 and never been late on their £800-a-month rent. She pulls out her phone. “Christmas was heaven,” she sighs, pausing on an image of the spacious kitchen with a flagstone floor and log-burning stove. “You’d just snuggle down and close the curtains.” Continue reading...
Launched on Friday, the conversational AI fueled by material found online spews uncomfortable truths and blatant liesIf you’re worried that artificial intelligence is getting too smart, talking to Meta’s AI chatbot might make you feel better.Launched on Friday, BlenderBot is a prototype of Meta’s conversational AI, which, according to Facebook’s parent company, can converse on nearly any topic. On the demo website, members of the public are invited to chat with the tool and share feedback with developers. The results thus far, writers at Buzzfeed and Vice have pointed out, have been rather interesting. Continue reading...
Professional test driver using Tesla’s Full Self-Driving mode repeatedly hit a child-sized mannequin in its pathA safe-technology advocacy group issued claimed on Tuesday that Tesla’s full self-driving software represents a potentially lethal threat to child pedestrians, the latest in a series of claims and investigations into the technology to hit the world’s leading electric carmaker.According to a safety test conducted by the Dawn Project, the latest version of Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software repeatedly hit a stationary, child-sized mannequin in its path. The claims that the technology apparently has trouble recognizing children form part of an ad campaign urging the public to pressure Congress to ban Tesla’s auto-driving technology. Continue reading...
Cybersecurity expert Ron Deibert to testify to Canadian MPs about troubling spread of invasive surveillance toolsThe mercenary spyware industry represents “one of the greatest contemporary threats to civil society, human rights and democracy”, a leading cybersecurity expert warns, as countries grapple with the unregulated spread of powerful and invasive surveillance tools.Ron Deibert, a political science professor at the university of Toronto and head of Citizen Lab, will testify in front of a Canadian parliamentary committee on Tuesday afternoon about the growing threat he and others believe the technology poses to citizens and democracies. Continue reading...
Allow a budget of £4,000 to do-it-yourself, from the editing and design through to marketing“A top-of-her-game literary agent tells us she receives about 3,000 submissions a year,” says Joe Sedgwick, the head of writing services at The Literary Consultancy. “Of those, she requests to see the full manuscripts of about 70. Of those writers, she will take on maybe five to 10.”Faced with these odds, many people who dream of getting their writing into the hands of readers are turning to self-publishing. Continue reading...
Disturbing global trend should be ‘entirely preventable’, says Internet Watch Foundation headIncidents of children aged between seven and 10 being manipulated into recording abuse of themselves have surged by two-thirds over the past six months, according to a global report.Almost 20,000 reports of self-generated child sexual abuse content were seen by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) in the first six months of this year, compared with just under 12,000 for the same period this year. The disturbing global trend has grown rapidly since the initial coronavirus lockdown, with cases involving that age group up 360% since the first half of 2020.The NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#628WT)
From tablets and fitness trackers to robot toys, here are some tech ideas to keep the kids entertainedWith the long school summer holiday well under way, you may need a bit of help keeping the kids entertained. From walkie-talkies and cameras to tablets, robot toys and fitness trackers, here are some of the best kid-aimed tech to keep the little (and not-so-little) ones occupied. Continue reading...
In call for tougher rules, consumer rights champion says phone networks cannot be trusted to self-regulatePhone networks are taking advantage of post-Brexit deregulation to baffle customers into racking up large roaming bills on EU holidays, consumer rights champion Martin Lewis has warned.At the end of June, a range of consumer protections that had been introduced after Brexit expired. As a result, phone networks are no longer required to send customers a message with pricing details when they begin roaming, nor to cap the maximum data roaming fees that can be charged monthly. Networks also no longer need to provide protections against inadvertent roaming. Continue reading...
Kathy Kleiman’s offers a valuable boost to our understanding of modern computers and their beginnings in wartimeIn 1942, the unthinkable happened. This “help wanted” ad appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin: “Looking for Women Math Majors.”The ad was placed by the US army, which was hiring women to work at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering, at the University of Pennsylvania. Kathleen McNulty was only 21, a brand new graduate of Chestnut Hill College, but she knew nothing like this had ever appeared outside the “Male Help Wanted” section of any newspaper before the US entered the second world war. Continue reading...
As Craig Wright’s legal tussles pile up, the world is no closer to knowing who the currency’s inventor really isWho is Satoshi Nakamoto? The mysterious inventor of bitcoin is a renowned figure in the world of cryptocurrency but his true identity is unknown.However, the British blogger Peter McCormack was certain about one thing: the answer isn’t Craig Wright. Continue reading...
Acquisition part of Amazon’s bid to accelerate its growth beyond retail, but concerns raised about market power of Bezos firmAmazon announced it has agreed to acquire the vacuum cleaner maker iRobot for approximately $1.7bn, scooping up another company to add to its collection of smart home appliances amid broader concerns about its market power.iRobot sells its products worldwide and is most famous for the circular-shaped Roomba vacuum, which is equipped to integrate with various smart home systems. Continue reading...
Tesla chief says social media company miscounted accounts as part of a ‘scheme’ to mislead investorsElon Musk has accused Twitter of deliberately miscounting the number of spam accounts on its platform as part of a “scheme” to mislead investors.The Tesla chief executive made the allegations in a countersuit against the social media company, which is taking Musk to court in an attempt to make him complete an agreed $44bn (£36.5bn) takeover of the business. Continue reading...
After his wife’s Lexus was stolen, Edmund King went the extra mile to ensure his keyless fob was safeA metal box inside a microwave is not most people’s idea of a sensible key cupboard, but the AA’s president has revealed it is where he stores his car fob.Edmund King already used a Faraday pouch – a bag with a metal lining to block signals – to hold his keyless fob but has gone to extra lengths since his wife’s £50,000 Lexus was stolen by hackers. Continue reading...
Union says about 700 workers in Tilbury warehouse joined action and some faced disciplinary measuresHundreds of Amazon employees have stopped work at the online retailer’s warehouse in Tilbury in Essex in response to a pay rise of only 35p – about 3% – compared with inflation that is now forecast to hit 13% later this year.The GMB union said about 700 of the roughly 3,500 workers at the site, which is one of Amazon’s largest in Europe, gathered in the facility’s canteen for a meeting as they tried to register a protest against the pay deal. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hollie Richardson, Hannah Verdier a on (#624ZG)
In this week’s newsletter: Follow the team who uncovered a $300m plot to rob ordinary people of their savings over the phone in Chameleon: Scam Likely. Plus: five of the best women’s football podcasts
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#624VK)
Novel design, good cameras, solid performance and battery life make a competitively priced packageThe Phone 1 is the first smartphone from the British technology startup Nothing, led by the OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, who set up on his own with the aim of bringing back a bit of interest and excitement to the increasingly samey world of consumer electronics.But the firm’s follow-up to the funky Ear 1 earbuds is no flashy top-spec phone. Priced at £399 (A$749), it looks to compete directly with more affordable models such as Samsung’s mid-range A-series and Google’s Pixel 6a. It does so while offering something unique: a series of white LED strips strewn across a transparent glass back to create patterns of light that Nothing calls “glyphs”. Continue reading...
Forget Netflix: millions are now tuning in to watch little yellow plane icons move across a map of the worldWant to watch a top-secret government flight live? Track a drug kingpin’s movements in real time? Or know how much Taylor Swift’s jets are polluting the air? They’re all streaming live on the sleeper hit of the summer: online flight trackers.On Tuesday, viewers set new records on Flightradar24, one of the largest flight tracker websites in the world, as they watched the seven-hour flight of Nancy Pelosi from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei. The trip, shrouded in secrecy until its final moments, grabbed international attention after China made military threats in the weeks leading up to the visit, and then launched live-fire exercises once she had departed. Continue reading...
Billionaire seeks material on how JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs advised platform during negotiationsLawyers for Elon Musk have subpoenaed JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs for records relating to the billionaire’s plan to buy Twitter.Musk has requested the banks turn over “documents and communications” relating to how they advised Twitter during negotiations, which Musk abruptly backed out of last month after offering to purchase the website for $44bn in April, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Continue reading...
by Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent on (#624D9)
Stationary roadside vehicle can also tell if passing drivers are not wearing seatbeltA van with technology that can automatically detect drivers holding a mobile phone at the wheel or not wearing a seatbelt is being trialled in the UK for the first time.National Highways are working with Warwickshire police to try out the “sensor test vehicle” on motorways and major A roads, and drivers who are caught may be prosecuted. Continue reading...
The listing was lambasted in a viral TikTok video and was taken down by the companyAirbnb publicly apologized after it allowed a property owner to list an “1830s slave cabin” for rent in Greenville, Mississippi.In a TikTok video that went viral, a New-Orleans civil rights and entertainment lawyer, Wynton Yates, criticized the listing, saying: “The history of slavery in this country is constantly denied and now it’s being mocked by being turned into a luxurious vacation spot.” Continue reading...
Solana Foundation, supporter of blockchain network, says ‘malicious actor’ has taken fundsNearly $6m (£4.9m) has been drained from accounts linked to the Solana crypto network after a hacker targeted 8,000 wallets.The Solana Foundation, an organisation that supports the blockchain network, said a “malicious actor” had taken funds from a number of wallets linked to Solana. Continue reading...
Meta’s president of global affairs is heading back to London, having never hidden his longing for homeNick Clegg’s Europhile leanings are not just a political and professional matter, as a prominent remainer and former MEP, but a personal one too.Meta’s president of global affairs has a Dutch mother, a half-Russian father and is fluent in Dutch, German, Spanish and French. His wife, Miriam González Durántez, a leading international trade lawyer, is Spanish. Continue reading...
Developer Visai Studio’s debut tells a story of how food bridges the gap between generationsFood is much more than mere sustenance. It’s an expression of love; for a culture, and for those eating. Venba isn’t so much a cooking game as it is a game about cooking – a narrative puzzle about restoring an old cookbook that made its way into the titular character’s hands. Venba is a Tamil woman who left India for Canada with her husband to start over; they’re already thinking about leaving when she gets the news of her pregnancy. The very first dish you make in the game, a savoury rice cake called idli, becomes a way for Venba to break the news to her husband, a clever way to show how food can be part of any memory.“Regardless of what’s happening on any particular day, the kitchen is always busy in south Asian homes,” says the lead designer, who goes by the name Abhi. “When kids grow up and assimilate [into a new culture], they may forget their mother tongue, but they never forget the food that’s cooked.”Venba will be released later this year for PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Continue reading...
From the real story of a virus that took out Iran’s urianium centrifuges to a surprisingly good Dan Brown novel, these are some of the best stories of our new era of ill online deedsA generation ago cybercrime was as esoteric a subject to write about as quantum mechanics or fluctuations in the derivatives market. Now it’s a central feature of many novels.Whether it’s criminal gangs phishing to steal sensitive data to sell on the dark web, or that creep from college catfishing people on Facebook, or the daily texts asking us to click a link to claim a prize or verify a payment, we are under continuous attack. Pension scams, identity thefts, all those strangers following our children on TikTok, everywhere we turn, someone is trying to turn the technology on which we rely against us. Continue reading...
The news comes on the heels of a dire revenue report, with company shares taking a 3% tumble in extended tradingRobinhood, the trading platform that gained notoriety for allowing amateur stock investors to play the market, is laying off nearly a quarter of its staff – citing economic conditions and the crash of the cryptocurrency market.The news it was slashing 23% of its staff came as the company posted a 44% decline in revenues on slumping trading activity, in a surprise earnings report that came one day earlier than scheduled, and sent the company’s shares down more than 3% in extended trading. Continue reading...
The National Cyber Security Centre advised of a hacking risk to online voting by party membersThe delivery of ballot papers to Conservative members to vote for the next prime minister has been delayed following security concerns.The postal ballot packs were due to be sent out from Monday to about 160,000 Tory members to choose between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. Continue reading...
Adam Mosseri relocates temporarily as Meta continues attempts to counter TikTok’s riseThe head of Instagram is temporarily relocating to London less than a week after the Meta-owned company faced outrage from influencers such as Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner over changes to the popular photo-sharing app.Adam Mosseri, who has a strong relationship with the billionaire Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg, will move to the company’s offices in King’s Cross amid the tech firm’s battle for users with its Chinese rival TikTok. Continue reading...
Educational publisher’s move into non-fungible tokens is intended to claw back some of the income lost to secondhand salesTextbook publisher Pearson plans to profit from secondhand sales by turning its titles into non-fungible tokens (NFTs), its chief executive has said.Educational books are often sold more than once, since students sell study resources they no longer require. Publishers have not previously been able to make any money from secondhand sales, but the rise of digital textbooks has created an opportunity for companies to benefit. Continue reading...
Passengers took 1.87bn trips during the spring and early summer, company says, a 24% increase compared with same time last yearUber’s bookings hit an all-time high in the last three months as anxiety over Covid-19 eased and workers headed back to the office.Passengers took a total of 1.87bn trips on Uber during the spring and early summer, the company reported on Tuesday, a 24% increase compared with the same time last year. That’s about 21m trips a day, on average. Continue reading...
Stray, a new indie title starring the internet’s favourite animal, is delighting players and pets alike, and its creators at BlueTwelve have been charmed by the reactionWhen a video game has us playing as an animal, it’s usually some psychedelic anthropomorphic cartoon creature such as Crash Bandicoot or Sonic the Hedgehog. Rarely do we actually behave like an animal, although when we do, it can be hilarious: 2019’s breakout cult hit Untitled Goose Game stars a nasty goose honking, pecking and chasing its way around a village of peeved humans, for instance. Stray, released last week, has us playing as the internet’s favourite animal, a cat, doing cat stuff: pattering across roofs, snoozing on cozy cushions, pushing things off shelves for no discernible reason.Players and critics have lapped Stray up. Even Peta likes it. But it’s also been winning over the feline population. Players have been posting pictures and videos of their own cats watching the game, apparently fascinated by the virtual cat’s surprisingly realistic movement and meows. The Twitter account @CatsWatchStray has now compiled hundreds of them. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6227X)
New and improved earbuds sound better, have noise cancelling, last longer and are very comfortableGoogle’s latest Pixel Buds earbuds have been given the “pro” treatment, with better sound, noise cancelling, multipoint Bluetooth and a comfier design aimed at rivalling Apple’s AirPods Pro but for Android users.The Pixel Buds Pro cost £179 ($199/A$299), sitting above the firm’s £100 Pixel Buds A-Series as Google’s new top model. They will work with any standard Bluetooth device, including PCs and iPhones, but have special features designed for Android. Continue reading...
The Forsage pyramid scheme cheated investors out of $300m worldwide over more than two yearsUS authorities have busted a huge cryptocurrency pyramid scheme, charging 11 people for their role in defrauding retail investors for more than $300m worldwide.The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the charges Monday, which relate to a Ponzi scheme called Forsage that had operated for more than two years. The agency charged the alleged founders of the pyramid scheme as well as several promoters. Continue reading...
When asked if he’s proud of his son’s accomplishments, Errol Musk says: ‘No … we are a family that have been doing a lot of things’The father of Elon Musk said during an interview that he isn’t proud of his billionaire son, saying that Elon is unhappy with his own career progress.During the strange interview Monday with the Australia radio The Kyle and Jackie O Show, 76-year-old Errol Musk was asked if he was proud of Elon’s accomplishments. Continue reading...
Research says conspiracy theorists shifting from QAnon and Covid to disinformation about crisis caused by Russia’s war in UkraineTwitter accounts that have promoted QAnon and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories are switching focus and increasingly spreading disinformation about the global food crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a new study.The research by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), found that conspiracy theorist social media accounts started pushing the idea that western countries are responsible for the interruption of wheat, barley and maize exports from Ukraine. Continue reading...
Rachael Maskell, the York Central MP, has proposed a bill to tackle shortage of private rental housingLandlords are evicting tenants and switching to Airbnbs and holiday lets because the money is better and they “do not have to worry about bad tenants”.Research has found a boom in rental properties being used for short-term lets, caused by a rise in domestic holidays and increased regulations for long-term landlords. Continue reading...
