Facebook staff to work from home until July 2021 August 7, 2020 Facebook has said its employees will be allowed to work from home until July 2021, and will be given $1,000 towards the cost of building a home office. It follows in the footsteps of other big technology firms, after Google said last month it would permit those who do not need to be in the [...]
Trump issues executive order against Tiktok and Wechat over China links August 7, 2020 US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order promising a ban on Chinese-owned apps such as Tiktok and Wechat within 45 days. The two apps must be removed from Apple and Google’s app stores and all business ceased with US companies by the deadline. Tiktok owner Bytedance is currently in negotiations over a sale [...]
Uber’s food delivery business doubles but demand for rides falters August 6, 2020 Uber said demand for its food-delivery service doubled in the second quarter as users were locked down due to the pandemic, while demand for rides was hit. The company maintained it was sticking to its goal of being profitable on an adjusted basis before the end of next year. Today it reported that revenue in [...]
Tory MPs in China Research Group targeted by phishing attacks August 6, 2020 Cybersecurity experts have slammed Parliament’s online security training as “appalling” after members of the Sino-sceptic China Research Group of Conservative MPs have been targeted by phishing attacks. China Research Group Tom Tugendhat, chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee and co–founder of the China Research Group, last week revealed he believed Chinese state-sponsored hackers were [...]
Pompeo pushes to ban Tiktok, Wechat and other ‘untrusted’ Chinese apps August 6, 2020 The Trump administration is pushing to purge “untrusted” Chinese apps including Tiktok and Wechat from US app stores, amid increasing tensions across the Pacific. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo yesterday signalled that the US may soon order Apple and Google to remove certain Chinese apps over national security concerns. Pompeo said apps linked to [...]
Uber snaps up UK taxi tech firm Autocab August 6, 2020 Uber has acquired taxi tech firm Autocab, in a move that will allow it to operate in areas it has yet to launch in. The Stockport-based company sells booking and dispatch software to private hire firms, and will allow Uber to link people who open its app in locations where it does not run with [...]
Twitter hack bail hearing ‘Zoombombed’ with porn August 6, 2020 A virtual bail hearing for the American teenager accused of hacking Twitter in a high-profile bitcoin scam last month was interrupted by participants “Zoombombing” the court with pornography. Graham Ivan Clark, the 17-year-old from Florida who is accused of masterminding the biggest Twitter hack in history, appeared in court via Zoom yesterday to appeal his [...]
‘Edtech’ surges to the top of the class August 6, 2020 | City Talk From near-ubiquitous interactive whiteboards to cloud platforms, coding and coaching via video-call, education technology has travelled a long way since schools introduced basic computing laboratories in the 1980s. These advancements have been given a further powerful push by the digital acceleration triggered by coronavirus: most visibly in the need for teaching professionals to deliver classes [...]
DEBATE: Is Elon Musk right to predict that AI will overtake humans within five years? August 6, 2020 Is Elon Musk right to predict that artificial intelligence will overtake humans within five years? Chetan Dube, chief executive of IPsoft, says YES. Elon Musk is right. For the last few years we have been saying that by 2025 we will pass someone in the corridor and not know if they are human or android. [...]
Tiktok reveals new measures to fight misinformation for US 2020 election August 5, 2020 Tiktok has unveiled a host of new measures it is undertaking to fight misinformation ahead of the US 2020 presidential election, as the app tries to appease threats of a total ban. Tiktok, which is under fire for its alleged links to the Chinese government via parent firm Bytedance, said it was working with experts [...]