List of All Articles with Tag 'tech'

A cyber attack which disrupted access to a council website and its systems is being investigated with the relevant authorities to establish the full impact of the crime, officials have said. On Tuesday, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) suffered a suspected ransomware attack. The website remains down and the local authority says it is currently uncertain of the extent of the damage caused by the attack. A ransomware attack is where hackers maliciously infiltrate an organisation’s website or systems, stealing sensitive data which they in turn use for monetary gain. While investigative work continues, the Comhairle’s priority in response to this incident remains to restore and secure services, ensuring their continued delivery to those in our communities who need them most Comhairle nan Eilean Siar spokesman The council says it is working alongside Police Scotland, the Scottish Government and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to establish the full impact of Tuesday’s incident. A council spokesperson said: “While investigative work continues, the Comhairle’s priority in response to this incident remains to restore and secure services, ensuring their continued delivery to those in our communities who need them most. “One key aspect of achieving this aim has been work on the processing of benefit and support payments. “While payments have been made to the public, restrictions to file access has affected other scheduled payments. “The impact to IT systems has also meant that invoices due to creditors cannot be paid at this time.” The spokesperson added: “The Comhairle appreciates the impact late payments can have and is working to resolve these issues as soon as possible. “The Comhairle will be in contact with the affected individuals to provide updates and support. “The Comhairle’s email system is now restored and work is ongoing to redirect numbers for key public services. “A temporary website is also in development which will allow members of the public to access key information.” Temporary phone numbers for social care and social work services can be found on Comhairle nan Eilean Siar’s page on X, formerly known as Twitter. The council says its human resources, occupational health and ardseileach care home can be contacted on their usual telephone numbers. A spokesperson for NCSC said: “We are working with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar to fully understand the impact of an incident.” Police Scotland and the Scottish Government were contacted for comment. Read More Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute Guidance urges parents not to buy smartphones for primary school children William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network

WhatsApp might be getting ads, according to its boss. The company has categorically ruled out that it would be put advertising in the inbox. But it might come elsewhere in the app, such as WhatsApp’s “Status” feature, which works like Instagram stories. WhatsApp has long resisted introducing ads to any part of its platform. That sets it apart from other Meta platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, which heavily integrate advertising. WhatsApp has long been rumoured to be considering putting ads into its app, with rumours stretching back as long as five years ago. But it has largely resisted the temptation, in part because of worries about whether it would concern privacy-conscious users, whom WhatsApp has particularly targeted. In September, the Financial Times reported that it was looking at changing that. The company was evaluating whether it would work to show ads in the conversation list, the paper reported. Meta outright denied that it had been testing or working on that feature, or that it planned to. “We aren’t doing this,” WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said on Twitter. But in an interview with Brazilian newspaper Folha De S.Paulo, Mr Cathcart was asked whether the app would continue to be free and not show ads. And he said that some ads might come to other parts of the platform. The app will not put ads within the “messaging experience”, such as the inbox or chats themselves. Instead, it could come in other parts of the app, such as the Status feature as well as the new Channels tool that allows people to subscribe to messages from creators. The company could also introduce the option to charge people to subscribe to those channels, he said. That could also be advertised within those Channels. He did not give any firm information about when the feature would arrive, or any commitment that it would actually be introduced. Read More Political ads on Instagram and Facebook can be deepfakes, Meta says Instagram working to let people make AI ‘friends’ to talk to Big tech poses ‘existential threat’ to UK journalism, survey of editors finds

By Saeed Azhar and David French NEW YORK Goldman Sachs is working on a dozen projects which will

LONDON (Reuters) -Allen & Overy has suffered a "data incident", the London-founded law firm said on Thursday, after social media

Omegle, a popular website used to video chat with strangers, is shutting down after almost 15 years. The closure comes amid increasing criticism that the site endangered its users, with reports of child sexual abuse and other crime on the platform. Omegle allowed users to sign up and then be launched into a video chat with another stranger using the site. The two could chat for as long as they wished – until they ended that conversation and embarked on a new one. The app was launched in 2009, and became popular almost straight away. Its founder said that its popularity was a result of “meeting new people being a basic human need”. Quickly, however, it became known for explicit and other criminal content. Leif K-Brooks, the company’s founder, admitted that Omegle had been misused, “including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes”. The site attempted to introduce new features to stop that misuse, such as “monitored chats” that would allow moderators to try and stop criminals using the site. But they did not work, and the site continued to receive criticism for its lack of safety. Now Mr K-Brooks has said that the criticism has become too much, and Omegle will shut down. The intensity of the fight over use of the site had forced him to decide to shut it down, he said, and it will stop working straight away. “As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s,” wrote Leif K-Brooks, who has run the website since founding it. Omegle saw a huge surge in popularity during the pandemic, as people not only flocked to the site but recorded their interactions and shared them on social media. But that popularity also brought more awareness of the problems on the site, and increased criticism of it. Mr K-Brooks acknowledged that criticism. But he also suggested that at least some of it was in bad faith, and that it was intended to force the site to shut down. “In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users,” he wrote. He said that the site had been shut down on the basis of “fear”. “If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next?”, he wrote, comparing the end of Omegle to “shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil”. The decision to shut down Omegle comes amid increasing concern about regulation of the internet and how best to protect its users. It comes just days after the introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Act, for instance, which aims to hold platforms to account for crimes on their platform, including online grooming.

Omegle, a popular website used to video chat with strangers, is shutting down after almost 15 years. The closure comes amid increasing criticism that the site endangered its users, with reports of child sexual abuse and other crime on the platform. Omegle allowed users to sign up and then be launched into a video chat with another stranger using the site. The two could chat for as long as they wished – until they ended that conversation and embarked on a new one. The app was launched in 2009, and became popular almost straight away. Its founder said that its popularity was a result of “meeting new people being a basic human need”. Quickly, however, it became known for explicit and other criminal content. Leif K-Brooks, the company’s founder, admitted that Omegle had been misused, “including to commit unspeakably heinous crimes”. The site attempted to introduce new features to stop that misuse, such as “monitored chats” that would allow moderators to try and stop criminals using the site. But they did not work, and the site continued to receive criticism for its lack of safety. Now Mr K-Brooks has said that the criticism has become too much, and Omegle will shut down. The intensity of the fight over use of the site had forced him to decide to shut it down, he said, and it will stop working straight away. “As much as I wish circumstances were different, the stress and expense of this fight – coupled with the existing stress and expense of operating Omegle, and fighting its misuse – are simply too much. Operating Omegle is no longer sustainable, financially nor psychologically. Frankly, I don’t want to have a heart attack in my 30s,” wrote Leif K-Brooks, who has run the website since founding it. Omegle saw a huge surge in popularity during the pandemic, as people not only flocked to the site but recorded their interactions and shared them on social media. But that popularity also brought more awareness of the problems on the site, and increased criticism of it. Mr K-Brooks acknowledged that criticism. But he also suggested that at least some of it was in bad faith, and that it was intended to force the site to shut down. “In recent years, it seems like the whole world has become more ornery. Maybe that has something to do with the pandemic, or with political disagreements. Whatever the reason, people have become faster to attack, and slower to recognize each other’s shared humanity. One aspect of this has been a constant barrage of attacks on communication services, Omegle included, based on the behavior of a malicious subset of users,” he wrote. He said that the site had been shut down on the basis of “fear”. “If something as simple as meeting random new people is forbidden, what’s next?”, he wrote, comparing the end of Omegle to “shutting down Central Park because crime occurs there – or perhaps more provocatively, destroying the universe because it contains evil”. The decision to shut down Omegle comes amid increasing concern about regulation of the internet and how best to protect its users. It comes just days after the introduction of the UK’s Online Safety Act, for instance, which aims to hold platforms to account for crimes on their platform, including online grooming. Read More Omegle anonymous chat app shuts down after 14 years Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case New AI Pin clips ChatGPT to your clothes Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case New AI Pin clips ChatGPT to your clothes Google issues three-week warning to Gmail account holders

(Reuters) -Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp on Thursday lifted its annual capital expenditure forecast to around $7.5 billion and said it

Our understanding of the Sun may have completely changed after astronomers calculated that it might not be quite as big as we thought it was. The Sun is so powerful that it can disrupt the Earth’s magnetic field giving us the Northern Lights. It also continually baffles scientists, as one recent discovery found that part of the Sun is broken. Now, experts have discovered that the Sun may be a bit smaller than everyone thought, which could alter how we think of the star at the centre of our universe. Two astronomers made the calculation that the radius of the Sun is smaller, by a few hundredths of a per cent, than originally believed. The results, which are being peer-reviewed, are based on evidence gathered from sound waves that are made and trapped inside the burning hot sun. These sound waves are known as p-modes and they make noise like a growling stomach, suggesting a pressure change in the Sun’s interior. Analysing p-mode oscillations offers a “dynamically more robust” understanding of the Sun’s insides, according to astrophysicists Masao Takata from the University of Tokyo and Douglas Gough from Cambridge University. According to their research using evidence from p-modes, the solar photospheric radius is fractionally smaller than calculations made using the traditional reference model for the Sun’s seismic radius that analyses waves called f-modes. The reason for this difference is not very well understood. Astrophysicist Emily Brunsden told New Scientist: “To understand the reason for their difference is tricky because there’s just a lot of things going on.” How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Steven Scheer JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Wix.com, which helps small businesses build and operate websites, reported a higher-than-expected rise in quarterly

A US startup is set to unveil an AI-powered device that it claims could replace smartphones. Humane’s AI Pin, which launches today, will clip directly to a person’s clothes and is expected to feature a projector to turn any surface into a screen. An embedded camera and microphone means it could function as a wearable smartphone without a screen, with its creators say has been “built from the ground up for AI”. Leaks suggest the AI Pin will cost $699 and require a $24-per-month subscription fee to access AI models developed by Microsoft and OpenAI, which may include a version of the viral ChatGPT chatbot. Documents obtained by The Verge suggest it will come with two “battery boosters”, a “personic speaker”, and will be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It will also be able to summarise your email inbox, translate languages and come with an “AI DJ”. Humane did not respond to a request for comment but has announced that it will unveil the AI Pin on 9 November. A version of the device was revealed earlier this year at Paris Fashion Week, with models wearing a small square box on the lapels of their clothes. Humane co-founder Imran Chaudhri, who spent 22 years at Apple as a designer before forming his own startup, also gave details about how the clip will function in a TED talk in May. A demonstration showed the tech founder receiving a phone call through the device, using its laser-projected display to turn his palm into an interactive screen. “We believed that artificial intelligence would be the driving force behind the next leap in device design,” he said. “[The AI Pin] is completely standalone. You don’t need a smartphone or any other device to pair with it... It interacts with the world in the way that you interact with the world – hearing what you hear, seeing what you see – while being privacy first and safe, and completely fading into the background of your life.” Humane describes the experience as “screenless”, “seamless” and “sensing”. In a press release earlier this year, Humane co-founder Bethany Bongiorno said: “Our relationship with technology is changing profoundly, becoming even more personal as our devices morph into extensions of our bodies, minds and hearts.” Read More Elon Musk’s new AI bot will help you make cocaine which proves it’s ‘rebellious’ ChatGPT update allows anyone to make their own personalised AI assistant How Elon Musk’s ‘spicy’ Grok compares to ‘woke’ ChatGPT The mystery AI device that could replace your phone

LONDON The London Metal Exchange (LME), which faces lengthy delays to its trading technology revamp, said on Thursday

A legal expert at Europe’s top court has said a lower court committed “errors in law” when it threw out a decision by the European Commission which would force Apple to pay more than 13 billion euro in back taxes to Ireland. The non-binding opinion is seen as a significant setback to Ireland’s defence of its past tax treatment of the US technology giant. In 2016, following an EU investigation which launched in 2014, the commission concluded that Ireland gave undue tax benefits to Apple, which would be illegal under EU state aid rules. Ireland and Apple fought the commission on the matter and in July 2020, the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision. However, the European Commission subsequently appealed against the decision to the European Court of Justice (CJEU) saying the lower court’s ruling was legally incorrect. On Thursday, Giovanni Pitruzzella, an advocate general at the CJEU, agreed that the earlier ruling had contained “a series of errors in law”. He said the judgment should be set aside and referred the case back to the General Court for a new decision. While the opinion of the advocate general is non-binding, it is usually followed by the court and therefore could have significant implications for corporation tax bills. There was no sweetheart deal Finance Minister Michael McGrath The commission’s original position was that that tax rulings issued by Ireland to Apple in 1991 and 2007 substantially and artificially lowered the tax paid by the iPhone manufacturer in the country since the early 90s, in a way which did not correspond to economic reality. As a result, competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Ireland had granted illegal tax benefits which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other business over many years. The investigation found that Apple had paid an effective corporate tax rate of 1% on its European profits in 2003, down to 0.005% in 2014, 50 euro for every one million euro of profit. The process involved recording almost all sales profits of two Irish incorporated companies, which the commission said only existed on paper. The companies, fully owned by Apple, held the rights to use the firm’s intellectual property to manufacture and sell its products outside North and South America. The commission said this situation allowed Apple to avoid taxation on almost all profits generated by sales of its products in the entire EU single market. It said this was due to Apple’s decision to record all sales in Ireland rather than in the countries where the products were sold. The findings were disputed by the Irish State, which said all tax owed had been collected, and Apple, which had come under scrutiny in the US for its tax practices years earlier. At the time, Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, branded the EU findings as “political crap”, maddening and untrue. The Irish Government, which was also used to defending a comparatively low 12.5% corporation tax rate, said Europe had overstepped the mark in attempting to dictate tax laws and enforce retrospective taxes decades later. Ireland and Apple fought the commission on the matter and in July 2020, the General Court of the European Union annulled the decision. The General Court found that the commission had not shown that there was an advantage deriving from the adoption of the tax rulings. However, the commission subsequently appealed the decision to the European Court of Justice with Ms Vestager saying the lower court’s ruling contained errors of law. On Thursday, the advocate general agreed the General Court had erred when it ruled that the Commission had not shown to the requisite legal standard that the intellectual property licences held by the two incorporated companies and related profits, generated by the sales of Apple products outside the US, had to be attributed for tax purposes to the Irish branches. The advocate general was of the view that the General Court also failed to assess correctly the substance and consequences of certain methodological errors that, according to the Commission decision, “vitiated the tax rulings”. It is the non-binding opinion of Mr Pitruzzella that it is necessary for the General Court to carry out a new assessment. The decision of the CJEU on the matter is expected next year and will have significant implications for how member states grant tax breaks to major firms. Apple has argued it has been paying tax on the profits in question in the US, while Ireland has seen it necessary to defend its reputation on taxation issues to protect foreign direct investment. Last weekend, Finance Minister Michael McGrath had said the advocate general’s opinion would be “significant” but added it is not the final step in the process. Mr McGrath said: “We are confident in our position in respect of the Apple case. “We take encouragement from the findings they have made so far, but it is a significant day.” He added: “There was no sweetheart deal. “This was the application of Ireland’s statutory corporation tax code.” In the interim, the 13.1 billion euro has been held in an escrow fund pending the outcome of the case. The money, with interest, is due to be entered into the Irish exchequer if the commission wins the case. However, other member states may make claims that they are owed some of the money. If the commission loses the appeal, the large sum will be returned to Apple. Read More Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute Guidance urges parents not to buy smartphones for primary school children William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups Return of original Fortnite map causes record traffic on Virgin Media O2 network NatWest creates new AI-powered chatbot capable of ‘human-like’ conversations