A Turkish technology company said it will give free drones to Ukraine after learning of a grassroots campaign which raised 20 million US dollars (£16.3 million) to buy them. The Serhiy Prytula Foundation was set to buy Kyiv’s forces four Bayraktar TB2 drones after citizens and international supporters donated in huge numbers. Baykar’dan duyuru!*Announcement from […]
Archive | June, 2022
‘Worrying rise’ in crypto scams claiming to be celebrity-endorsed seen by bank
A “worrying” surge in reports about cryptocurrency scams which falsely claim to be endorsed by celebrities is being seen by a major bank. On average, people lost £11,872 to this type of scam in the first quarter of this year, Santander UK said. Based on the current growth in these frauds, Santander UK is expecting […]
Exoplanets may provide habitable conditions for billions of years, study says
Rocky exoplanets – planets outside our Solar System – with atmospheres dominated by hydrogen and helium could provide habitable conditions for billions of years, new research has suggested. The study suggests these planets can sustain temperate conditions and liquid water on their surface for long periods of time. As hydrogen and helium gases were readily […]
Amazon’s Alexa could mimic the voices of dead relatives
Amazon’s Alexa could soon replicate the voices of family members – even if they are dead. The capability, unveiled at Amazon’s Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas, is in development and would allow the virtual assistant to mimic the voice of a specific person based on less than a minute of recording. Rohit Prasad, senior vice […]
Instagram begins testing new age verification tools
Instagram is introducing new ways for users to verify their age on the platform as a way of providing more age-appropriate experiences. The Meta-owned firm said beginning in the US, it was testing tools that would allow users to ask others to vouch for their age or use technology to confirm it based on a […]
Zoom revamps product range with new Zoom One subscription packages
Video conferencing platform Zoom has unveiled a major update which will see the firm offer chat messaging features and translation tools as part of a new range of tiered annual subscription packages. It will offer six tiers as part of what it calls Zoom One, including a Basic free tier including access to 40-minute meetings […]
Microsoft’s Outlook email service hit by outage
Microsoft’s Outlook email platform has been hit by service issues, making it inaccessible to some users. The company has confirmed the problem and said it is working to fix it, with no other services currently appearing to be affected. According to Microsoft’s own service status website, some Outlook users “may be unable to access their […]
Cloudflare outage knocks hundreds of websites offline
Hundreds of websites were knocked offline after an outage at web infrastructure service Cloudflare. Internet users and web monitoring service Down Detector reported that a number of sites, including messaging platform Discord, Shopify and others, were having issues on Tuesday morning. The National Rail Enquiries website also briefly went offline and may have been affected […]
Work on AI algorithm could help create safe spaces from online abuse
A new algorithm being developed in a bid to tackle gender online abuse could help “drive positive social and cultural change”. The Scottish and UK Governments have both welcomed work being done by researchers at the National Robotarium, which involves Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh. Researchers there are working on advanced “machine learning” […]
Nintendo Switch fault should be investigated, consumer group says
Nintendo has been urged to commission an independent investigation into a known issue with the Joy-Con controllers on its Switch games console. Consumer group Which? has said the gaming giant should also make the findings and outcomes of any investigation publicly available. Since the Nintendo Switch was launched in 2017, there have been some reports […]