TikTok could face a £27 million fine over a possible breach of UK data protection law by failing to protect children’s privacy when using the platform. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has issued the social media company with a notice of intent – a legal document that precedes a potential fine. It sets out that […]
A probe into the dominance of technology titans Amazon, Microsoft and Google in cloud services is being launched by UK watchdog Ofcom to check on the strength of competition in the sector. The regulator is set to launch a market study in the “coming weeks” that will assess how well the market is working, as […]
Astronomers have detected a hot gas bubble swirling around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole. They say the finding helps to us to better understand the mysterious environment of the black hole called Sagittarius A*. The observations suggest the gas bubble is on an orbit similar in size to that of Mercury, but making the […]
A senior executive from social media giant Pinterest has apologised as he admitted the site was “not safe” when schoolgirl Molly Russell used it. The company’s head of community operations, Judson Hoffman, told North London Coroner’s Court that self-harm or suicide content that violates its policies “still likely exists on our platform” and conceded it […]
Extra-terrestrial water has been found for the first time in a meteorite that has fallen in the UK. The Winchcombe meteorite, which crashed into a driveway in the Gloucestershire town last February, is also thought to hold clues about where the water in the Earth’s vast oceans came from. Ashley King, a researcher in the […]
Nasa has released new shots of Neptune, the solar system’s outermost planet, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. The pictures, taken in July, show not only Neptune’s thin rings, but its faint dust bands, never before observed in the infrared, as well as seven of its 14 known moons. Webb showed Jupiter at its […]
Experiencing good quality sleep is more important than getting the recommended seven to nine hours when it comes to keeping illnesses at bay, a study suggests. New research has found that people who do not get quality sleep or enough sleep are nearly three times as likely to fall ill with colds, flu and other […]
A robot has been taught to laugh at jokes in a bid to make it more human. Researchers at Kyoto University in Japan are using artificial intelligence (AI) to train robots about appropriate laughter – and to differentiate between chuckles and rip-roaring squeals. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Robotics and AI, they describe working […]
Microsoft’s proposed 68.7 billion US dollar (£59.7bn) takeover of games publisher Activision Blizzard is to face an in-depth investigation amid concerns the deal is anti-competitive, the UK’s competition watchdog has confirmed. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it has referred the takeover for a so-called phase two probe after Microsoft said it would not […]
The sex lives of constipated scorpions, cute ducklings with an innate sense of physics, and a life-size rubber moose may not appear to have much in common, but they all inspired the winners of this year’s Ig Nobels, the prize for comical scientific achievement. Held less than a month before the actual Nobel prizes are […]
