New mobile system to be launched this year ‘will put lives at risk’
The introduction of 5G mobile phone networks could seriously affect weather forecasters’ ability to predict major storms.
That is the stark warning of meteorologists around the world, who say the next-generation wireless system now being rolled out across the globe is likely to disrupt the delicate satellite instruments they use to monitor changes in the atmosphere.
Continue reading...Arrests in Germany, Brazil and US relate to sale of drugs, stolen data and malicious software
German police have shut down one of the world’s largest illegal online markets in the so-called dark web and arrested the three men allegedly running it, prosecutors said on Friday.
The “Wall Street Market” (WSM) site enabled trade in cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines as well as stolen data, fake documents and malicious software.
Continue reading...Diesel cars older than 15 years will be barred next year as first part of anti-pollution drive
Cars and motorbikes running on petrol or diesel will be banned from driving in Amsterdam from 2030.
The city’s council plans to phase in the change as part of a drive to clean up air pollution, which the authorities blame for shortening the life expectancy of Amsterdammers by a year.
Continue reading...At annual F8 developer conference, CEO focuses on ‘sense of intimacy’ and unveils plans for payments tools
Even Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t keep a straight face.
The Facebook founder and chief executive repeatedly broke out in laughter as he announced a product roadmap for his company’s new “privacy-focused social platform” at its annual developer conference, F8, in San Jose on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Biggest fall since October 2012 follows worse-than-expected quarterly results
Google’s share price has had its biggest fall in nearly seven years, wiping $70bn (£54bn) off its market value, after disappointing sales figures sparked investor fears that advertisers have been shifting their business to digital rivals such as Facebook and Amazon.
Shares in Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube, fell at one point by more than 8% on Tuesday, the biggest fall since October 2012, after the company produced first quarter results on Monday that were worse than expected.
Continue reading...Deceased may outnumber the living if current growth rates continue, raising questions about what happens to our data
Facebook may eventually have more dead users than living ones.
If Facebook continues to grow at its current rate, the site could have 4.9 billion deceased members by 2100, according to a study by Oxford researchers. Even if growth had stopped entirely last year, the study finds, Facebook would be looking at about 1.4 billion dead members by 2100. By 2070, in that scenario, the dead would already outnumber the living.
Continue reading...Virginia recruitment company removes discriminatory listing following a backlash on Twitter
The tech industry has long grappled with problems tied to diversity and inclusion, but a job listing this month seeking “preferably Caucasian” applicants has proved a particularly egregious example.
A job listing from Cynet Systems, a tech recruiting firm based in Virginia, sought an account manager who is “preferably Caucasian who has good technical background”. After a number of Twitter users called attention to the listing, it was removed on Sunday.
Continue reading...Chinese firm’s technology is security risk, says Strayer after council gives partial go-ahead
A US official has warned that the UK’s leaked proposal to adopt Huawei technology for 5G mobile phone networks risks affecting intelligence cooperation with the United States, prompting further criticism from Conservatives opposed to the plan.
Robert Strayer, a deputy assistant secretary at the US state department, said on Monday that Huawei “was not a trusted vendor” and any use of its technology in 5G networks was a risk, contradicting the British stance.
Continue reading...Mother alarmed after anti-vaccination propaganda found inside book bought for son, who is about to receive the HPV jab
Concerns have been raised that the anti-vaccination movement is targeting children via Amazon warehouses, after a Hampshire mother found a leaflet condemning the HPV vaccine tucked inside a children’s book she had purchased from the online retailer.
Lucy Boyle bought Ali Sparkes’ Night Speakers along with several other novels as a birthday present for her 12-year-old son at the start of April. He began reading the novel last week, “got a few pages in, turned over the page and there was the leaflet,” she told the Guardian.
Continue reading...One of the world’s foremost authorities on child mental health today warns that technology is threatening child development by disrupting the crucial learning relationship between adults and children.
Peter Fonagy, professor of Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Developmental Science at UCL, who has published more than 500 scientific papers and 19 books, warns that the digital world is reducing contact time between the generations – a development with potentially damaging consequences.
Continue reading...It takes about an hour on the ferry, across often choppy waters, to reach the newest bit of the Netherlands. For those sailing in from the port of Lelystad, the first sign of the Marker Wadden is a long finger of sand dunes designed to protect against flooding.
“You see the cormorants, the black birds?” asks the environmentalist Roel Posthoorn, pointing skywards.
Continue reading...Congresswoman received death threats following video Trump posted – but he didn’t technically violate the rules
The rules just aren’t the same for Donald Trump as they are for the rest of us. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apparently admitted as much this week on a phone call with Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar.
As reported by the Washington Post, Dorsey, often criticized for his inaction when it comes removing hateful and threatening content from the platform, was asked by Omar why he hadn’t taken down a video posted by Trump earlier in the month. The video, which spliced together misleading and out of context comments from Omar about the issue of Islamophobia with footage of the 9/11 attacks, was clearly targeted harassment to anyone who saw it.
Continue reading...Britain faces lobbying after Chinese firm wins approval to supply 5G network
Donald Trump’s administration is expected to put further pressure on the UK to reconsider the decision to allow Chinese telecoms company Huawei to help build parts of the UK’s 5G telecoms network.
The US has arranged for a representative from the state department, which has repeatedly warned of the risks of using Huawei, to give a briefing on Monday.
Continue reading...Top watchdog promises to force change following Cambridge Analytica scandal as New York announces new investigation
Facebook broke Canadian privacy laws when it collected the information of some 600,000 citizens, a top watchdog in the country said on Thursday, pledging to seek a court order to force the social media company to change its practices.
Canada’s privacy commissioner, Daniel Therrien, made his comments while releasing the results of an investigation, opened a year ago, into a data sharing scandal involving Facebook and the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
Continue reading...Company beat sales and profit expectations to join Apple and Amazon in prestigious club
Microsoft has become the third publicly listed US company, after Apple and Amazon, to boast a market value of more than $1tn after bumper quarterly results boosted its share price.
The company beat sales and profits expectations in the three months to 31 March, thanks in part to its cloud computing business, which signed up major corporate clients over the period.
Continue reading...For a century, the humble paper towel has dominated public toilets. But a new generation of hand dryers has sparked a war for loo supremacy.
By Samanth Subramanian
In the summer of 2005, a Chicago marketing consultant named George Campbell received a tantalising call from a headhunter. Was he open to an interview at Dyson? The company was secretively preparing to launch a new appliance, and it needed a sales strategy for the US: that was all the headhunter would divulge. Campbell was excited; he saw Dyson as “a company with the iconic quality of Apple, and an ability to take a basic product like a vacuum cleaner and make an 80% margin on it”.
He went along to Dyson’s office, a factory-like space with lofty ceilings and timber beams next to the Chicago river. In his first few conversations, he recalled, they wouldn’t even reveal what the product was. Finally, Campbell was told in strict confidence: it was a hand dryer. And he’d thought he was joining Dyson for the glamour. “My heart dropped to my stomach.”
Continue reading...Maha and Wafa al-Subaie called for Absher, which supports male guardianship system, to be removed by Google and Apple
Two runaway Saudi sisters on Wednesday urged Apple and Google to pull an “inhuman” app allowing men to monitor and control female relatives’ travel as it helped trap girls in abusive families.
Maha and Wafa al-Subaie, who are seeking asylum in Georgia after fleeing their family, said Absher – a government e-services app – was bad for women as it supported Saudi Arabia’s strict male guardian system.
Continue reading...We thank West Midlands police’s ethics committee for giving serious attention to the potential for harm arising out of data-driven offending prediction models (Alert over risk of bias in tool to predict who will reoffend, 20 April).
A wider public debate needs to be informed by research into how effectively the use of people’s data predicts and reduces criminality, who else experiences targeting and privacy intrusion due to prediction errors, and whether better use of data could reduce such collateral harm.
Continue reading...A letter on Github demanded companies comply with labor laws, limiting workers to 40 hours a week versus a 12-hour day standard
Microsoft employees have published a letter on the software development platform Github in solidarity with tech workers in China.
Workers at tech companies in the country have used the Microsoft-owned platform to complain about grueling working conditions and the “996” standard in the industry, a philosophy endorsed by the tech billionaire Jack Ma. The name is based on the idea of working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
Continue reading...Reviewers reported the screens on the $2,000 Galaxy Fold flickering, freezing and dying on test units within days
Samsung is pushing back this week’s planned public launch of its highly anticipated, $2,000 folding phone after reports that reviewers’ phones were breaking.
The company had been planning to release the Galaxy Fold on Friday, with a 3 May release date in the UK, but instead it will now run more tests and announce a new launch date in the “coming weeks”.
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