CrowdStrike IT outage affected 8.5 million Windows devices, Microsoft says

Microsoft says it estimates that 8.5m computers around the world were disabled by the global IT outage.
It’s the first time a figure has been put on the incident and suggests it could be the worst cyber event in history.
The glitch came from a security company called CrowdStrike which sent out a corrupted software update to its huge number of customers.
Microsoft, which is helping customers recover said in a blog post: "We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices."

The post by David Weston, vice-president at the ...

Is AI the answer for better government services?

Long before ChatGPT came along, governments were keen to use chatbots to automate their services and advice.

Those early chatbots "tended to be simpler, with limited conversational abilities," says Colin van Noordt, a researcher on the use of AI in government, and based in the Netherlands.
But the emergence of generative AI in the last two years, has revived a vision of more efficient public service, where human-like advisors can work all hours, replying to questions over benefits, taxes and other areas where the government interacts with the public.
Generati ...

Amazon at 30: What next for 'The Everything Company'?

Three decades on from the day it began, it is hard to get your head around the scale of Amazon.
Consider its vast warehouse in Dartford, on the outskirts of London. It has millions of stock items, with hundreds of thousands of them bought every day - and it takes two hours from the moment something is ordered, the company says, for it to be picked, packed and sent on its way.
Now, picture that scene and multiply it by 175. That's the number of "fulfilment centres", as Amazon likes to call them, that it has around the world.
Even if you think you can visualise ...

How Microsoft and Nvidia bet correctly to leapfrog Apple

Life comes at you fast.

Last month, AI chip giant Nvidia briefly became the world’s richest company, overtaking Microsoft, which had in turn risen above Apple.
When this news was mentioned on stage at a tech industry event I attended in Copenhagen, there was spontaneous applause from the audience.
As I write, Nvidia is now back in second place, after a fall in its share price took its combined value down to $3tn (£2.4tn) compared with $3.4tn for Microsoft.
Two things have propelled these two US tech titans to such a dizzying pinnacle: AI and foresight.
Mi ...

Why data is being stored in glass and holograms

The year 2039 might seem like a long way off, but Ian Crawford is already planning for it.

It will mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two - a big year for his employer, the Imperial War Museum.
Mr Crawford is chief information officer at the museum, and oversees a project to digitise its huge collection of pictures, audio and film.
With a collection of around 24,000 hours of film and video, and 11 million photographs, it's a vast task.
And in the run-up to 2039, World War II material will be a priority.
Making digital copies of those ...

Donald Trump joins TikTok despite previously wanting ban

Donald Trump has joined TikTok, despite attempting to ban it on national security grounds during his presidency.
In 2020 he signed a presidential executive order attempting to ban the platform for its links to China, which was ultimately blocked by US courts.
He has since criticised recent attempts to curtail it, saying this would empower Facebook-owner Meta.
Mr Trump, who has amassed more than 3.6 million followers since launching his account on Saturday, said he will use "every tool available to speak directly with the American people".
President Joe ...

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.
They belong to the same gang which this week claimed to have hacked Ticketmaster.
The bank - which employs 200,000 people worldwide, including around 20,000 in the UK - has confirmed data has been stolen.
Santander has apologised for what it says is "the concern this will understandably cause" adding it is "proactively contacting affected customers and employees directly."
"Following an investigation, we have now confirmed ...

Wordle in legal row with geography spinoff, Worldle

The owner of the hit online game Wordle is legally challenging a geography-based spinoff called Worldle.
In the filing, the New York Times, which purchased Wordle for a seven figure sum in 2022, accuses its near-namesake of "creating confusion" and attempting to capitalise on "the enormous goodwill” associated with its own brand.
But the creator of Worldle, software developer Kory McDonald, is vowing to fight back on the grounds that there are many other games with similar titles.
“There's a whole industry of [dot]LE games,” he told the BBC.
“Wordle is about ...

'The chatbot has transformed my life'

While for many of us AI chatbots are perhaps just an interesting novelty, for some people they are proving to be transformational.

Yasmin Shaheen-Zaffar, from North Yorkshire, has dyslexia, dyspraxia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
As a result of these conditions, she would struggle with written assignments. Then AI came into her life.
“It was a few years ago that I was introduced to [popular AI chatbot] Jasper, and that transformed my life,” says Ms Shaheen-Zaffar, who is a qualified psychotherapist. “It became my friend.”
She uses Jasper ...

Ex-FTX executive sentenced to over 7 years in prison

Another former executive of FTX has been jailed over his part in the cryptocurrency giant's implosion in late 2022.
Ryan Salame, who was the co-CEO of FTX's Bahamian subsidiary, was sentenced to 90 months in prison, US federal prosecutors said.
Salame - who was a top lieutenant to Sam Bankman-Fried, the bankrupt crypto exchange's founder - pleaded guilty in September last year to violating political campaign finance laws and operating an illegal money-transmitting business.
Earlier this year, Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing $8bn (£6.3bn) from FTX c ...