Category Archives: Technology

Record numbers expected as Europe’s biggest arms fair opens in London

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Egypt, Vietnam and Indonesia among countries sending delegations to four-day DSEI at ExCeL

Europe’s biggest ever arms fair got under way in London on Tuesday with record numbers expected to attend, boosted by interest from countries with controversial human rights records.

Authoritarian Egypt and Vietnam are among those sending delegations, defence sources said, as well as Indonesia and India – all countries whose arms-buying strategies have been affected by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

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The owner of Bunnings and Kmart is now in the prescriptions business, raising fears over patient data

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Doctors and pharmacists concerned that Wesfarmers’ acquisition of InstantScripts could end the notion that ‘health data is sacrosanct’

The integration of a controversial online doctor service alongside Bunnings, Kmart and hundreds of pharmacies in the Wesfarmers portfolio has raised concerns among medical practitioners about potential risks to patient data security.

InstantScripts sprang to prominence during the pandemic, offering an alternative to the GP by generating prescriptions via an online form that was then remotely checked by a doctor. The business covers 300 low-risk drugs that patients can either pick up from a pharmacist or get delivered directly to their home.

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US to argue Google abused power to monopolize internet search as antitrust trial begins

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Outcome could reshape how public accesses and interacts with the internet, or embolden Google to pursue tighter grip on the market

The watershed antitrust trial pitting the US government against Google begins on Tuesday in a Washington district court, as the government is set to make its case that the tech giant illegally abused its power to monopolize internet search. It is the biggest test of antitrust law in decades, and the first such case against Google to go to trial.

Big tech companies and regulators are closely watching the trial, which could force a shift in how the industry is allowed to operate. Its outcome could reshape how the public accesses and interacts with the internet, or embolden Google to pursue an even tighter grip on the market.

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China reportedly extends iPhone ban to more workers as tensions with US rise

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Apple shares fall as local government and state-owned firms latest to face restrictions on devices at work

China’s government has reportedly expanded its ban of iPhones to local government workers and state-owned companies, a day after it emerged central government employees were forbidden from bringing the devices to work.

Several agencies had begun instructing employees not to bring iPhones to work and the ban was expected to be further extended, Bloomberg reported. Nikkei reported at least one state-owned company had told its employees that anyone working with trade secrets could not bring their iPhones, Apple Watches or AirPods into work from next month.

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Twitter ‘unfit’ for banking over alleged complicity in Saudi rights abuses

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Lawyers for family say Saudi government took brother’s data in breach and ‘arrested, tortured, and imprisoned’ him and others

The company formerly known as Twitter is “unfit” to hold banking licenses because of its alleged “intentional complicity” with human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and treatment of users’ personal data, according to an open letter sent to federal and state banking regulators that was signed by a law firm representing a Saudi victim’s family.

The allegations by lawyers representing Areej al-Sadhan, whose brother Abdulrahman was one of thousands of Saudis whose confidential personal information was obtained by Saudi agents posing as Twitter employees in 2014-15, comes as Twitter Payments LLC, a subsidiary of X (the company formerly known as Twitter), is in the process of applying for money-transmitter licenses across the US.

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Welcome to ‘the robot soundscape’: Australia’s music industry braces for the rise of music AI

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The spectre of intelligent technologies is looming over Australian artists, and dominating the chatter at Brisbane’s Bigsound music conference

Music conferences tend to follow a similar format: showcases of up-and-coming artists, panels about the business, and behind-the-scenes deals. But between the events and around the corridors of this year’s Bigsound in Brisbane, Australia, there was one topic dominating conversation: how AI was threatening the industry.

Musicians and composers are fascinated by – and terrified of – artificial intelligence, which has the potential to both help artists create, and steal their work. AI is already starting to weave into the everyday soundtracks of our lives, from a new track by the Beatles to Spotify’s “AI DJ”. It’s a new reality that scholars such as Oliver Bown from the University of New South Wales call “the robot soundscape”.

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Social media platforms to face £18m fines for publishing animal cruelty content

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In a change to the online safety bill, tech firms will have to proactively prevent material that facilitates animal torture from being posted

Social media firms must remove animal cruelty content from their platforms or face the threat of substantial fines under the latest change to the online safety bill.

Ministers said causing unnecessary suffering to an animal will become a priority offence in the bill, which means tech firms will have to proactively prevent such material from reaching users. Failure to do so could result in a fine of £18m, or up to 10% of a company’s global revenue.

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EU unveils package of laws to curb power of big tech firms

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‘Revolutionary’ Digital Markets Act aims to allow more competition and let consumers delete preloaded phone apps

The EU has unveiled a set of “revolutionary” laws to curb the power of six big tech companies, including allowing consumers to decide what apps they want on their phone and to delete pre-loaded software such as Google or Apple’s maps apps.

The package of laws will also pave the way for more competition in some of the areas most guarded by the tech firms, including Apple Wallet and Google Pay.

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Toyota blames factory shutdown in Japan on ‘insufficient disk space’

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‘Just in time’ production system minimises costs but technical glitch highlights risks

Toyota has blamed a recent shutdown of all of its factories in Japan on a system malfunction caused by “insufficient disk space”.

The Japanese carmaker said the stoppage on 29 August at all 14 of its domestic plants occurred after servers that process orders for vehicle parts broke down following a maintenance procedure carried out the previous day.

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AFP calls on public to donate childhood photos in bid to combat child abuse with AI

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Project with Monash University will use images to train system to recognise pictures of children on dark web

The Australian federal police want the public to donate their childhood photos to an artificial intelligence project aimed at helping save children from abuse.

The project, run by AFP and Monash University, will help detect child abuse material on the dark web, or on devices that have been seized during criminal investigations.

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Swedish criminal gangs using fake Spotify streams to launder money

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Investigation claims networks convert illicit cash to bitcoin to pay people who sell false streams on the platform

Criminal gangs behind a rise in bombings and shootings in Sweden in recent years are using fake Spotify streams to launder money, a Swedish newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Criminal networks have for several years been using money from drug deals, robberies, fraud and contract killings to pay for false Spotify streams of songs published by artists with ties to the gangs, an investigative report in Svenska Dagbladet claimed.

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China’s share of Europe’s electric car market accelerates as UK leads sales

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Chinese-owned MG’s MG4 is Britain’s bestselling EV after Tesla’s Model Y in first seven months of year

China’s share of the European electric car market has more than doubled in less than two years as the world’s second largest economy tries to take the lead in the transition away from petrol and diesel cars.

The UK is the largest market in Europe for Chinese electric car brands, accounting for almost a third of sales in 2023 so far, according to data from Schmidt Automotive Research on the 18 largest European car markets. About 5% of all new car sales in the UK were from Chinese brands in the first seven months of 2023, a market share second only to Sweden.

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Twitter accused of helping Saudi Arabia commit human rights abuses

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Lawsuit says network discloses user data at request of Saudi authorities at much higher rate than for US, UK and Canada

The social media company formerly known as Twitter has been accused in a revised civil US lawsuit of helping Saudi Arabia commit grave human rights abuses against its users, including by disclosing confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities at a much higher rate than it has for the US, UK, or Canada.

The lawsuit was brought last May against X, as Twitter is now known, by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker who was forcibly disappeared and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail.

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‘A big shock’: the Israeli startup helping ultra-Orthodox Jews enter world of hi-tech work

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Entrepreneurs want Haredi men, many of whom live in poverty, to have access to the opportunities of Tel Aviv

Entering Bnei Brak, an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood just a few kilometres away from the gleaming towers that testify to Tel Aviv’s prowess as a global hi-tech hub, feels like stepping into a different world.

Despite the startups and advanced technology initiatives on their doorstep, much of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, population still shuns modern inventions such as television and smartphones, which are viewed as a threat to their way of life.

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Tesla investigated over funds ‘used to build secret Austin house for Elon Musk’

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Reports suggest plans for ‘Project 42’ included a glass structure that contained a residential element for the chief executive

US prosecutors are investigating Tesla over alleged use of company funds for a secret project described internally as a house for Elon Musk, the electric carmaker’s chief executive.

Information sought from Tesla by the US attorney’s office for the southern district of New York includes personal benefits paid to Musk, how much was spent on the project and its purpose, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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US restricts exports of Nvidia AI chips to Middle East

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Controls apply to A100 and H100 chips, in escalation of US efforts to curb China’s access to products

The US has expanded the restriction of exports of Nvidia artificial intelligence chips beyond China to some countries in the Middle East.

Nvidia, which is one of the world’s most valuable companies at $1.2tn, said in a regulatory filing this week the curbs affected its A100 and H100 chips, which are used to accelerate machine-learning tasks on major artificial intelligence apps, such as ChatGPT.

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TikTok removes 284 accounts linked to Chinese disinformation group

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Action by social media company comes after Facebook parent company Meta shut down 9,000 accounts tied to political spam network

TikTok has removed 284 accounts associated with a Chinese disinformation campaign after Guardian Australia raised questions about several accounts uncovered by the company’s rival Meta.

On Wednesday, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported it had shut down close to 9,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, groups and pages associated with a Chinese political spam network that had targeted users in Australia and other parts of the world.

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Australia will not force adult websites to bring in age verification due to privacy and security concerns

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The eSafety commissioner is to work with industry on a new code to educate parents about how to access filtering software and limit children’s access

The federal government will not force adult websites to bring in age verification following concerns about privacy and the lack of maturity of the technology.

On Wednesday, the communications minister, Michelle Rowland, released the eSafety commissioner’s long-awaited roadmap for age verification for online pornographic material, which has been sitting with the government since March 2023.

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Gangs forcing hundreds of thousands of people into cybercrime in south-east Asia, says UN

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Organised criminals use threats, torture and sexual violence to coerce victims to work in international scamming operations

Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked and forced to work for online scamming operations in south-east Asia run by criminal gangs, according to a UN report.

Billions of dollars are being generated each year by gangs who coerce victims into cybercrime, where they are subject to threats, torture and sometimes sexual violence, said the report, published by the UN human rights office on Tuesday.

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UK cybersecurity agency warns of chatbot ‘prompt injection’ attacks

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Scams and data thefts could be caused by individuals overriding chatbot scripts, NCSC says

The UK’s cybersecurity agency has warned that chatbots can be manipulated by hackers to cause scary real-world consequences.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has said there are growing cybersecurity risks of individuals manipulating the prompts through “prompt injection” attacks.

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