Directive aimed at government workers, but reports of wider implementation spark warnings of future Afghanistan-wide prohibitionThe Taliban have ordered a sweeping ban on the use of smartphones by government officials – in what some analysts say could foreshadow broader, population-level restrictions.In a directive issued by the Taliban’s military courts and reviewed by the Guardian, the ban was to take effect this week and prohibits “high rank, low rank, general mujahideen, or service staff” from using mobile phones. Continue reading...
Ordinary Taiwanese, young and old, are joining courses to learn how to fly drones amid looming China military threatIn a small, crowded room in Taipei, Pan Chien-chin is trying to keep a drone hovering steadily. Imagining himself flying a plane, he gently nudges controller joysticks to guide the insect-like device as it hums through the air.Cheers break out as Pan, who has never flown a drone before, steers it around a rectangular course marked by traffic cones without crashing. Around him are about two dozen fellow trainees, all signed up for the same course: Taiwan’s first civil defence drone training programme. Continue reading...
Forever running out of juice? Top up your battery-powered devices with our expert picks, from tiny smartphone chargers to super speedy models• The best iPhones: which Apple smartphone is right for youIt’s disempowering when your smartphone, laptop or other important gadget runs out of battery. With the flash of a graphic or a plaintive bleep, we lose a way to entertain ourselves, get things done, stay in touch or even get home safely. There’s a time and a place for a digital detox – but what is the time, and where am I?Carrying a power bank is your ticket out of electronic oblivion. These pocket-sized cuboids plug into compatible devices and charge them, often via assorted connections, including USB-C and USB-A. Most power banks are made for charging smartphones and smaller gadgets, such as fitness trackers and earbuds, but some models can also charge power-hungrier laptops and large portable speakers.Best power bank overall: Belkin BoostCharge Pro 3-port 20kBest budget power bank: Belkin BoostCharge 10k with integrated cable Continue reading...
Head of National Cyber Security Centre says UK in ‘ongoing contest with capable adversaries’ and AI could add to threat The UK’s critical national infrastructure has been hit by more than 200 cyber incidents over the past year and state-linked assailants were behind three-quarters of the attacks, according to the state cybersecurity body.Richard Horne, the chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), said hostile states such as Russia, China and Iran were increasingly targeting systems behind the UK’s key services. Continue reading...
The Computer Weekly Security Think Tank considers if Anthropic’s Claude Mythos frontier AI model is a benefit or barrier to achieving resilient enterprise IT security, and how security leaders need to adapt.
Hackers will use AI-enabled cyber capabilities to exploit known vulnerabilities in legacy technology at scale by 2028, says National Cyber Security Centre CEO Richard Horne
Ten years ago, after complaining that traffic was ‘driving him nuts’, Musk’s Boring Company began building underground tunnels to ease congestion on the roads. Did he overpromise and underdeliver?It’s another blindingly bright day in Las Vegas but I’m 30ft underground and strapped in for a rocket ride to the future. Actually, it’s a Tesla ride to the future, and not a self-driving one. And it’s pretty slow – my driver tells me the speed limit down here is 30mph. It’s also pretty short: the journey is over in a matter of minutes. In fact, the Vegas Loop is a pretty underwhelming experience: a brief trundle down a white-walled tunnel only slightly larger than the vehicle itself, lined by strips of LEDs that change colour every few seconds, in an attempt to inject some Vegas glitz. I’d been hoping to ask other Loop-riders what they made of the experience, but … there aren’t any. I’m the only person here.This is not the futuristic transport solution Elon Musk originally promised. When he first announced this innovative technology in 2017, it was accompanied by sci-fi visuals showing a car pulling over from the street traffic on to an elevator platform, which then descended into a network of tunnels and whizzed along on an “electric skate” at 200km/h (124mph). “There’s no real limit to how many levels of tunnel you can have … so you can alleviate any arbitrary level of urban congestion,” Musk said. A few months earlier, with characteristic edgelordly nonchalance, Musk had announced on Twitter: “Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging …” Followed shortly after by: “I am actually going to do this.” He did, and he named it the Boring Company. Continue reading...
Lot 2 of the contract to replace Fujitsu’s controversial Horizon EPOS system has still not been signed off
Celonis claims FTSE 100 firms could save £4.4bn by closing ‘execution gaps’ in workflows through process intelligence software, potentially rising to £50bn with agentic AI
Outsourcing firm’s botched takeover of civil service pension administration has seen scheme members experience financial hardship
The UK planning system is being reworked with artificial intelligence and computer vision to provide data in a consistent format
National Quantum Standards Network will be overseen by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory, with the aim of establishing the rules of the road for quantum computing and accelerating British innovation
UK government plans for a national digital identity scheme risk embedding further inequalities and barriers to public services for the 19 million people currently experiencing digital exclusion
Elon Musk’s firm briefly reached $2.97tn valuation days after its IPO following purchase of AI coding startup CursorSpaceX has overtaken Amazon to become the world’s fifth most valuable company days after its stock market debut.The milestone came as Elon Musk’s company agreed to buy the startup behind the AI-powered coding app Cursor for $60bn (£44bn), in an attempt to capitalise on the technology’s success as a coding tool. Continue reading...
Move to ChapsVision is to avoid ‘strategic dependencies’, says PM amid concern about reliance on US-controlled toolsFrance’s domestic intelligence service is to ditch AI data tools from the US tech company Palantir in favour of a domestic provider in an effort to avoid “strategic dependency”, the prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has said.“We must use our own AI models; we cannot accept new strategic dependencies in the digital sphere,” Lecornu posted on social media. “We cannot rely on tools developed by foreign powers. France must have its own tools.” Continue reading...
Tech is helping to identify and save new specimens and could open ‘genomic goldmine’ of fungi dataThe rise of AI and digitisation could be a turning point in the “race against extinction” faced by botanists trying to identify and save vital plants before they vanish, according to a major report from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.New technology is enabling scientists to track how flowering times have shifted by weeks around the world, rapidly identify new specimens and even get crucial genetic data from 180-year-old fungus specimens, potentially opening a “genomic goldmine”. Digitisation and online access to millions of specimens that were until now only accessible in archives is also producing new insights, especially in the global south. Continue reading...