Category Archives: Technology

Amazon fails to quash investigation into its Indian selling practices

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Inquiry will include company’s £1bn a year joint venture with Rishi Sunak’s father-in-law

The Indian competition commission is to relaunch an investigation into Amazon’s selling practices, which will examine the company’s £1bn a year joint venture with UK chancellor Rishi Sunak’s billionaire father-in-law.

The investigation, originally announced in January 2020, will proceed after an Indian court on Friday dismissed pleas by Amazon and its rival – the Walmart-owned Flipkart – to quash its investigation into the business practices of the huge US retailers.

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World’s biggest meat producer JBS pays $11m cybercrime ransom

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Brazil-based giant paid ransom in bitcoin after ransomware attack shut down operations across world

JBS, the world’s biggest meat processor, has paid an $11m (£7.8m) ransom after a cyber attack shut down operations, including abattoirs in the US, Australia and Canada.

While most of its operations have been restored, the Brazilian-headquartered company said it hoped the payment would head off any further complications including data theft.

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Quantum leap for medical research as microscope zooms in on tiny structures

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Australian scientists develop a microscope that works with 35% more clarity, raising hope for improvements in medical imaging

Australian researchers have developed a microscope that can image tiny biological structures that were previously not visible in what has been described as a significant step for quantum technology.

It is believed to be the first time that quantum technology has improved on existing light microscopes, which in future may lead to improvements in medical imaging and navigation systems.

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Fastly says single customer triggered bug behind mass internet outage

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Flaw was introduced in May and lay dormant until a customer updated their settings, firm says

An internet blackout that knocked out some of the world’s biggest websites on Tuesday was ultimately caused by a single customer updating their settings, the infrastructure provider Fastly has revealed.

A bug in Fastly’s code introduced in mid-May had lain dormant until Tuesday morning, according to Nick Rockwell, the company’s head of engineering and infrastructure. When the unnamed customer updated their settings, it triggered the flaw, which ultimately took down 85% of the company’s network.

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China denounces US Senate’s $250bn move to boost tech and manufacturing

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Beijing says bill seeks to exaggerate ‘so-called China threat’ and is ‘full of cold war thinking’

China has denounced a US Senate bill worth about $250bn (£175n) that aims to boost American technology and manufacturing prowess as an example of the US hyping up “the so-called China threat”, and accused Washington of attempting to hinder its development.

The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the Innovation and Competition Act, in a rare show of unity in a chamber often filled with political division between Democrats and Republicans.

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Major internet outage ‘shows infrastructure needs urgent fixing’

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Experts say outage shows internet services too centralised and lack resilience

One of the world’s biggest web outages should act as a “wake-up call” that internet infrastructure has become dangerously over-centralised and lacks resilience, security experts have warned.

An unexplained configuration error at a single infrastructure provider, Fastly, which handles 10% of the world’s internet traffic, was enough to render major websites and services inoperable for almost an hour on Tuesday morning.

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Apple’s new ‘private relay’ feature to be withheld in China

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Privacy protection is latest effort by the company to cut down tracking of users by advertisers and other third parties

Apple’s new privacy feature designed to obscure a user’s web browsing from internet service providers and advertisers will not be available in China, Saudi Arabia or Belarus, the company has said.

It was one of a number of privacy protections Apple announced at its annual software developer conference on Monday, the latest in a years-long effort by the company to cut down on the tracking of its users by advertisers and other third parties.

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Massive internet outage hits websites including Amazon, gov.uk and Guardian

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Technical problem traced to network run by Fastly brings some sites down entirely

A massive internet outage has affected websites including the Guardian, the UK government’s website gov.uk, Amazon and Reddit. The issue made the sites inaccessible to many users for more than an hour on Tuesday morning.

The outage was traced to a failure in a content delivery network (CDN) run by Fastly. It began at about 11am UK time, with visitors to a huge number of sites receiving error messages including, “Error 503 service unavailable” and a terse “connection failure”.

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Hundreds arrested in global crime sting after underworld app is hacked

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European and Australian police join forces with FBI to seize weapons, drugs and $148m in cash

A global sting in which organised crime gangs were sold encrypted phones that law enforcement officials could monitor has led to more than 800 arrests in 18 countries.

The operation by the FBI and Australian and European police, ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the narcotics trade.

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Revert to type: how Goa’s last typewriter repair shop defied the digital age

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Luis Abreu once thrived on servicing India’s many typewriters but computers are eclipsing his trade

In Goa’s capital, Panaji, on Rua São Tomé, not far from the main post office, is a shop that offers packaging services. For a small fee, they will wrap your parcel in a sheet of muslin sewn with precise stitches to protect its contents from being damaged in the post.

It started as a sideline to the main business of the store, but now it is the main earner for Luis Francisco Miguel de Abreu as he struggles to maintain one of the last typewriter repair shops in this Indian state.

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Australia urged to take control of Cocos .cc internet domain to foil scammers and child abuse sites

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Cocos (Keeling) Islands suffix is one of the most commonly used top-level domains for hosting child abuse material, researchers say

The .cc internet domain for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands should be claimed by the Australian government to stop it being abused by scammers and people hosting child abuse websites, Australian National University researchers have said.

Under the system that governs domain names on the internet, the .cc suffix was set up in the 1990s for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands territory, far off the coast of Western Australia.

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DoJ reclaims millions paid to hackers after attack that hobbled US pipeline

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Operation to recover cryptocurrency from Russia-based hacking group is first undertaken by new ransomware taskforce

The US Justice Department has recovered the majority of a multimillion-dollar ransom payment to hackers after a cyberattack that caused the operator of the nation’s largest fuel pipeline to halt its operations last month, officials said Monday.

The operation to recover the cryptocurrency from the Russia-based hacker group is the first undertaken by a specialized ransomware taskforce created by the Biden administration, and reflects what US officials say is an increasingly aggressive approach to deal with a ransomware threat that in the last month has targeted critical industries around the world.

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Apple paid woman millions after technicians used her iPhone to post explicit videos

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Videos uploaded by Apple-approved team falsely appeared to have been shared by Oregon woman herself, filing says

Apple has paid a multi-million dollar settlement to an Oregon woman after iPhone repair technicians uploaded explicit images and videos to the internet from a phone that she sent in for repair.

Legal filings, first reported on by the Telegraph, revealed the unnamed woman sent her iPhone for repair on 14 January 2016 to an Apple-approved repair contractor called Pegatron Technology Service in California. Technicians there then uploaded “extremely personal and private material” to the woman’s Facebook account and other internet locations, the documents said.

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China blocks cryptocurrency Weibo accounts in ‘judgment day’ for bitcoin

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Several popular accounts on Twitter-like service are closed down, displaying message saying account ‘violates laws and rules’

China has stepped up its crackdown on bitcoin trading and mining, blocking a slew of cryptocurrency-related accounts on the Twitter-like Weibo platform over the weekend.

More actions are expected, including linking illegal crypto activities in China more directly with the country’s criminal law, according to analysts and a financial regulator.

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Cupid’s needle? UK under-30s wooed with dating app vaccine bonus

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Apps such as Hinge and Bumble will offer benefits to vaccinated users amid fears of low take-up

First came the idea of making Covid vaccinations mandatory to go to the pub, while Israel offered free pizza and beer with a shot. Now UK officials have hit on what they hope is an even more persuasive reason for young people to get their jab: more chance of getting a date.

In an eye-catching policy coinciding with the rollout of vaccinations for the under-30s beginning this week, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has teamed up with popular dating apps to encourage take-up of the programme.

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Microsoft’s Kate Crawford: ‘AI is neither artificial nor intelligent’

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The AI researcher on how natural resources and human labour drive machine learning and the regressive stereotypes that are baked into its algorithms

Kate Crawford studies the social and political implications of artificial intelligence. She is a research professor of communication and science and technology studies at the University of Southern California and a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research. Her new book, Atlas of AI, looks at what it takes to make AI and what’s at stake as it reshapes our world.

You’ve written a book critical of AI but you work for a company that is among the leaders in its deployment. How do you square that circle?
I work in the research wing of Microsoft, which is a distinct organisation, separate from product development. Unusually, over its 30-year history, it has hired social scientists to look critically at how technologies are being built. Being on the inside, we are often able to see downsides early before systems are widely deployed. My book did not go through any pre-publication review – Microsoft Research does not require that – and my lab leaders support asking hard questions, even if the answers involve a critical assessment of current technological practices.

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Why cryptocurrencies may remain merely a bit on the side

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Wise Bank of England heads are pondering the case for a state-run digital currency this week. But do we really need one?

When Google announced that bitcoin traders would be allowed to buy advertising space on its pages from August, central banks were alerted to the next likely surge in publicity for cryptocurrencies.

The increasing activity around digital currencies has not gone unnoticed at the Bank of England, and on 7 June Threadneedle Street’s brightest will publish a consultation document, setting out how a publicly operated electronic coinage system – one that would rival bitcoin – might work.

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The new summer of love: ‘People are desperate to have sex – it’s been a long year’

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Whether single, curious or just plain horny, many people are planning to make the most of life after lockdowns. Are we ready to get up close and personal?

The past year has changed 35-year-old Georgie’s outlook on dating. Several disappointing socially distanced dates and limp text exchanges meant she stopped using dating apps at the beginning of 2021. And now her parents have been vaccinated, she feels confident about returning to physical dates, “but not to the apps”, she says. “As things open up, I’m going to lean into spontaneity; I’m going to say yes to every invitation and seize every opportunity. If I feel a connection with someone at a social gathering, a festival or even a bus stop, I’ll go and talk to them. I’m going to be way more carpe fucking diem about it.”

Liam, 25, lives in Manchester and has never had a serious relationship. He can’t wait to meet people in real life: “If I never have another conversation via Zoom or WhatsApp, I’d be very happy – especially within my love life.” He gave up on dating apps this year, and is looking forward to the return of proper flirtation. “Vibing with someone on an app or a screen is not the same as seeing someone across a room and feeling that excitement in your stomach. That’s what I need right now.”

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Frightened terns abandon 3,000 eggs after drone illegally crashes on beach

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Departure marks one of the largest-scale abandonments of eggs ever at coastal site north of San Diego

About 3,000 elegant tern eggs were abandoned at a southern California nesting island after a drone crashed and scared off the birds, a newspaper reported Friday.

Two drones were flown illegally over the Bolsa Chica ecological reserve in Huntington Beach in May and one of them went down in the wetlands, the Orange County Register said.

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Microsoft blocks Bing from showing image results for Tiananmen ‘tank man’

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Company blames ‘human error’ after users in US, Germany, Singapore and France reported no results shown on the crackdown’s anniversary

Microsoft has blamed human error after its search engine, Bing, blocked image and video results for the phrase “tank man” – a reference to the iconic image of a lone protester facing down tanks during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square – on the 32nd anniversary of the military crackdown.

Users reported that no results were shown for the search query in countries including the US, Germany, Singapore, France and Switzerland, according to Reuters and Vice News.

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