Interesting news from around the World

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Ticketmaster confirms data hack which could affect 560m globally

Ticketmaster owner Live Nation confirmed “unauthorised activity” on its database after a group of hackers said they had stolen the personal details of 560 million customers.

All Santander staff and ’30 million’ customers hacked

Hackers are attempting to sell what they say is confidential information belonging to millions of Santander staff and customers.

AI is so good at predicting company results, “it can beat some analysts”

Large language models are capable of playing “a more active role” in financial decision-making, per a new draft study.

C. Gordon Bell, father of the PDP-8 and VAX, has died

Not just a name from computer history, Bell’s work is as fresh as today’s headlines about Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC Replay feature.

Electricity grids creak as AI demands soar

A generative AI system might use around 33 times more energy than machines running task-specific software.

Google accidentally deleted a $125 billion pension fund’s account

About half a million customers of the Australian fund UniSuper were locked out of their accounts for a week.

Microsoft looks to ease the shift to hybrid work with its Places app

The company is one of several software vendors that have identified the difficulty of coordinating flexible work patterns; Places is positioned as a tool that can encourage more in-person interactions.

Christie’s £670m art auctions hit by cyber attack

Auction house Christie’s attempts to sell art and other high-value items worth an estimated $840m (£670m) are being hampered by a cyber attack.

Microsoft Word just fixed its default paste option

Have you ever pasted text into your beautifully formatted Microsoft Word document, only for it to ruin everything? Well, the days of the should finally be over, as Microsoft Word will now merge the text’s formatting with your document by default.

Obsolete, but not gone: The people who won’t give up floppy disks

The last floppy disk was made over a decade ago and doesn’t even have enough capacity to store a modern smart phone picture, so why do some people still love using them?

Dell warns of data breach, 49 million customers allegedly affected

The computer maker began emailing data breach notifications to customers yesterday, stating that a Dell portal containing customer information related to purchases was breached.

Google paid Apple $20 Billion in 2022 to be default Safari search engine

Google has been the default search engine on Apple devices since 2002, though the deal has been renegotiated several times.

MoD data breach: UK armed forces’ personal details accessed in hack

The hack targeted a payroll system used by the Ministry of Defence, which includes names and bank details of both current and some past armed forces members.

Binance crypto boss Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison

The founder of the world’s largest crypto exchange has been sentenced to four months in prison in the US for allowing criminals to launder money on his platform.

What is Windows 11 ‘AI Explorer’? Everything you need to know about it

Windows 11 will be ‘supercharged’ with AI designed to enhance productivity and search across the OS.

What happens after your country runs on 99% renewable electricity?

Costa Rica gets more than 99 percent of its electricity from renewables – it’s still not enough.

USA’s FTC votes to ban noncompete agreements nationwide

The change will force companies to reverse existing noncompete agreements and notify employees about the change.

EU and California’s new right-to-repair rules force companies to repair out-of-warranty devices

The consumer may also borrow a device during the repair or, if it can’t be fixed, opt for a refurbished unit as an alternative.

Will the four-day work week finally come to pass?

With 30% of US companies at least exploring the idea now, and a small but growing number of companies actually trying it, there’s a real possibility it will take hold.

The cloud under the sea (well worth a read)

Internet cables and the undersea deep-repair ships that keep the world connected.

‘Bad at almost everything’: AI wearable panned by reviewers

A new AI-powered wearable device designed by two former Apple executives has been scorned by reviewers “this thing is bad at almost everything it does, basically all the time”.

You’re not really still using Windows XP, are you?

It’s been 10 years since Windows XP support expired and ~5.5 million XP computers are still running.

Bots account for half of all web traffic

The proportion of web traffic associated with bad bots grew to 32 percent in 2023.

Worldwide smartphone sales up 7.8% but Apple down by 9.6%

in the first quarter of 2024, Samsung moves back into the top position.

USA internet service providers (ISPs) to have ‘nutrition labels’ for broadband plans

It appears that a nearly eight-year-long battle by the FCC to require internet companies to display information on the costs, fees, and speeds of their broadband services is finally over.

TikTok to take on social media rival, Instagram, by launching photo-sharing app

The company said it was working on a ‘dedicated space’ for images and text.

Microsoft announces new AI office in UK, not the USA

“There is an enormous pool of AI talent and expertise in the UK,” said Microsoft’s AI boss Mustafa Suleyman.

Bafta Games Awards: Lara Croft voted most iconic character ever

Lara Croft has been named the most iconic video game character of all time to mark the 20th Bafta Games Awards.

Amazon ditches ‘Just walk out’ checkouts at Its grocery stores

Though it seemed completely automated, Just Walk Out relied on more than 1,000 people in India watching and labeling videos to ensure accurate checkouts. The cashiers were simply moved off-site, and they watched you as you shopped.

79% of security pros don’t think their company has adequate protection

Half of security professionals say it’s almost impossible to find the right balance between security and employee productivity, and 79 percent don’t think their security protections are adequate.

AT&T data breach: Millions of customers caught up in major dark web leak

Personal data belonging to 73 million current or former AT&T customers has been leaked online.

Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years for FTX fraud

He was found to have stolen billions from customers ahead of the failure.

Data centre power use ‘to surge six-fold in 10 years’

The boom in artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing will drive a spike in energy use, the UK’s National Grid has predicted.

Are Hong Kong’s days as a global business hub over?

There is a new running joke in Hong Kong: locals mock their city for losing its status as the darling of global capital. As one joked, it is the newest UNESCO world heritage site.

Carmakers’ shady data sharing takes spotlight in GM connected car scandal

There are better alternatives to clicking a EULA the first time you drive your car.

Judge rules computer scientist not Bitcoin inventor

The judge overseeing a legal battle about who invented Bitcoin has ruled that it is not Australian computer scientist Craig Wright.

Nationwide strikes deal to buy Virgin Money for £2.9bn

The deal would create one of the UK’s largest mortgage and savings groups.

Was HPE’s $14B Juniper acquisition a wise move?

Two weeks after the announcement, investors seem less than enthused

Beware if buying a HP printer as it makes printing a monthly subscription

HP’s All-In Plan may not come with any up-front costs, but there’s a monthly fee and a cancellation fee, too.

As banks buy up bitcoins, who else are the ‘Bitcoin whales’?

The price of Bitcoin is close to its all-time high, thanks in large part to US finance giants.

Scientists pinpoint the exact moment people lose interest in a presentation

How quickly do people lose interest? Thanks to new research, we have an answer. We’ve also learned proven tactics for keeping the audience’s attention.

Polish mint creates world’s first ‘flying coin’

Named UFO MP-1766 due to its likeness to a science-fiction spaceship and in reference to the year the mint was founded, the coin also glows in the dark thanks to the use of fluorescent paint.

Peering through Lenovo’s transparent laptop into a ‘sci-fi’ future

The ThinkBook Transparent Display Laptop concept even comes with a built-in drawing tablet. Lenovo just needs to find something worth seeing on the other side.

Leisure firm told scanning staff faces is illegal

The UK data watchdog has ordered a leisure centre group to stop using facial recognition tech to monitor its staff.

How AI is helping the search for extraterrestrial life

Bill Diamond, CEO of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti) Institute, navigates the challenge of searching for habitable worlds amid billions in the galaxy, employing AI to sift through data for signs of extraterrestrial life and to analyse Martian rock samples.

The pros and cons of adding ‘soft skills’ to your resume

While many recruiters still think a resume should speak exclusively to more measurable “hard skills,” there is an argument to be made that soft skills aren’t just unnecessary filler but say enough about what you might bring to a team to warrant being included.

Microsoft and OpenAI say hackers are using ChatGPT to improve cyberattacks

A number of nation-backed groups are starting to use large language models to help with research, scripting, and phishing emails.

100 years ago, IBM was born

The renaming of C-T-R signified the company’s high-tech global ambitions

World’s first fault-tolerant quantum computer launching this year

QuEra has dramatically reduced the error rate in qubits — with its first commercially available machine using this technology launching with 256 physical qubits and 10 logical qubits.

Facebook and Instagram to label all fake AI images

Meta says it will introduce technology that can detect and label images generated by other companies’ artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Finance worker pays out $25 million after video call with deepfake ‘chief financial officer’

The elaborate scam saw the worker duped into attending a video call with what he thought were several other members of staff, but all of whom were in fact deepfake recreations, Hong Kong police said.

Evergrande: Crisis-hit Chinese property giant ordered to liquidate

Judge said “enough is enough” after the troubled developer repeatedly failed to come up with a plan to restructure its debts.

We keep making the same mistakes with spreadsheets, despite bad consequences

Spreadsheet blunders aren’t just frustrating personal inconveniences. They can have serious consequences.

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