Techlaw

Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 30.04.2026

Synergy Research figures put Q1 cloud revenues at $129bn. Meanwhile, AWS, Microsoft and Google have 63% of the world market, which shows an acceleration delta of 13%

Umbrella companies not working for IT contractors, survey finds

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 30.04.2026

IT skills market impacted as contractors forced to use umbrellas or opt out altogether, while tax compliance remains deeply uncertain, with late payments and payslip inaccuracy rife

Claude AI agent’s confession after deleting a firm’s entire database: ‘I violated every principle I was given’

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 30.04.2026

PocketOS was left scrambling after a rogue AI agent deleted swaths of code underpinning its businessIt only took nine seconds for an AI coding agent gone rogue to delete a company’s entire production database and its backups, according to its founder. PocketOS, which sells software that car rental businesses rely on, descended into chaos after its databases were wiped, the company’s founder Jeremy Crane said.The culprit was Cursor, an AI agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.6 model, which is one of the AI industry’s flagship models. As more industries embrace AI in an attempt to automate tasks and even replace workers, the chaos at PocketOS is a reminder of what could go wrong. Continue reading...

IT workers say AI is making their jobs more demanding

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 29.04.2026

As workflows adapt to a shifting technological landscape, IT professionals risk being overwhelmed by ‘AI brain-fry’

MPs call on UK government to learn from central bank’s IT project success story

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 29.04.2026

Members of a parliamentary committee want the wider government to learn from success of Bank of England project

Meta found in breach of EU law for failing to keep children off platforms

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 29.04.2026

Commission says tech company does not have effective measures to keep under-13s off Facebook and InstagramThe tech company Meta has been found to be in breach of EU law for failing to prevent children under 13 from using its Facebook and Instagram platforms.Issuing the preliminary findings of a nearly two-year investigation, the European Commission said on Wednesday that Meta did not have effective measures in place to stop under-13s accessing its services. Continue reading...

Meet the AI jailbreakers: ‘I see the worst things humanity has produced’

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 29.04.2026

To test the safety and security of AI, hackers have to trick large language models into breaking their own rules. It requires ingenuity and manipulation – and can come at a deep emotional costA few months ago, Valen Tagliabue sat in his hotel room watching his chatbot, and felt euphoric. He had just manipulated it so skilfully, so subtly, that it began ignoring its own safety rules. It told him how to sequence new, potentially lethal pathogens and how to make them resistant to known drugs.Tagliabue had spent much of the previous two years testing and prodding large language models such as Claude and ChatGPT, always with the aim of making them say things they shouldn’t. But this was one of his most advanced “hacks” yet: a sophisticated plan of manipulation, which involved him being cruel, vindictive, sycophantic, even abusive. “I fell into this dark flow where I knew exactly what to say, and what the model would say back, and I watched it pour out everything,” he says. Thanks to him, the creators of the chatbot could now fix the flaw he had found, hopefully making it a little safer for everyone. Continue reading...

HSBC collaborates on noisy qubit real-world application

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 29.04.2026

Researchers have demonstrated that usable results for financial modelling are achievable even on current noisy quantum computers

MP committees to double up on Capita’s civil service pension crisis

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 29.04.2026

Parliamentary committees to hold joint hearing to investigate the problems experienced in Civil Service Pension Scheme

Vernon Building Society uses AI to amplify human touch

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 29.04.2026

Century-old mutual society is using artificial intelligence to bring mortgage processing onto a single platform

In the coming AI future, Britain must not end up at the mercy of US tech giants | Rafael Behr

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 29.04.2026

Trump is volatile, capricious and unreasonable – but he belongs to the old world of analogue power. What comes next will be harder to manageDonald Trump is not impressed by soft power. He respects hard men with military muscle. But he can be moved by pageantry, which is the purpose of King Charles’s visit to Washington this week. Trump is flattered to rub shoulders with majesty. The good vibes are then supposed to radiate warmth through a political relationship that has been chilled by the war in Iran.It might work, but not for long. Trump’s irritation with Keir Starmer and other European leaders for what he calls cowardice in the Middle East is aggravated daily by evidence that the war is a strategic calamity.Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnistGuardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink? On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here or at guardian.live Continue reading...

Why AI agents are triggering a rethink of enterprise identity

Published in Cloud revenues up 35% YoY in a hot market that’s accelerating on 28.04.2026

The Computer Weekly Security Think Tank considers the intersection of AI and IAM. In this article, we look at the specific impacts of agentic AI on the security stack.

‘They’re supposed to be handmade’: zine creators fight to resist AI influence

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 28.04.2026

Artists and writers argue scrappy nature of self-published booklets is incompatible with artificial intelligenceThe self-published zine has long been central to cultural revolutions, from queer activism to Black feminism and the riot grrrl punk movement, producing titles such as Sniffin’ Glue and Sweet-Thang along the way. But now the traditionally analogue art form faces a new shift: artificial intelligence.AI may seem incompatible with the these cult DIY booklets, but some creatives, designers and artists have begun to experiment with the technology, causing alarm in parts of the underground publishing world. It has been their Dylan-goes-electric moment. Continue reading...

MacBook Pro M5 review: serious power, still long battery life

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 28.04.2026

Apple laptop sets new performance bar with more storage, new chips and plenty of options, but now has two-tier specs depending on processorApple’s Macs have been on a roll this year with the brand new budget MacBook Neo and a faster MacBook Air M5, but now it’s time for its workhorse MacBook Pro to be upgraded with the fastest, most powerful M-series chips.The latest MacBook Pro comes in two screen sizes and a large range of chip and configuration options. The 14in version starts with the M5 chip costing £1,699 (€1,899/$1,699/A$2,699) and then jumps to the more powerful M5 Pro from £2,199 (€2,499/$2,199/A$3,499) before climbing further for the 16in version or the top M5 Max chip. A pricey machine for professional workloads. Continue reading...

Humanoid robots to become baggage handlers in Japan airport experiment

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 28.04.2026

Japan Airlines will introduce the robots for trial run at a Tokyo airport amid country’s surge in inbound tourism and worsening labour shortagesJapan’s famously conscientious but overburdened baggage handlers will soon be joined by extra staff at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – although their new colleagues will need to take regular recharging breaks.Japan Airlines will introduce humanoid robots on a trial basis from the beginning of May, with a view to deploying them permanently as a solution to the country’s chronic labour shortage. Continue reading...

Elon Musk and Sam Altman face off in court over OpenAI’s founding mission

Published in Technology | The Guardian on 27.04.2026

Musk’s lawsuit accuses Altman of fraud, while OpenAI says that Musk is ‘motivated by jealousy’A trial between two of Silicon Valley’s biggest tycoons kicked off on Monday in California, the culmination of a years-long bitter feud. Elon Musk has accused Sam Altman of betraying the founding agreement of the non-profit they started together, OpenAI, by changing it to a for-profit enterprise.Jury selection began at a federal courthouse in Oakland with Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers presiding. As she began, she assured the dozens of prospective jurors that this trial wasn’t going to be highly technical, despite it centering around artificial intelligence. “This is just a case about promises and breaches of promises, it won’t get technical at all,” she said. Continue reading...