BATTERYFORPC BLOG
Oculus Quest 2: Meta to discuss children's VR safety with watchdog
The Information Commissioners' Office (ICO) is to talk to Meta about how its virtual reality (VR) business Oculus complies with the regulator's "children's code". The code aims to ensure that online services likely to be accessed by children are appropriate for their use. A campaign group recently found evidence of harassment of under-18s in a popular third-party VR chat app. Meta say ... Read more
2022-01-10 19:52:24
Sulli Deals: Police arrest man for making app to auction Muslim women
Police in India have arrested a man suspected of creating an app that put up photos of more than 80 Muslim women for "sale" online last year. The open source app - Sulli Deals - had been hosted on web platform GitHub in July 2021. The 25-year-old was arrested days after a similar app - Bulli Bai - uploaded photos of more than 100 Muslim women. Four students, including a 21-year-old st ... Read more
2022-01-10 19:51:11
Tesla adds chill and assertive self-driving modes
Tesla's automated driver assist feature has added an assertive driving mode. The setting will follow other cars more closely, change lanes more frequently, not leave the overtaking lane, and perform rolling stops. Such driver behaviour by humans is often discouraged by safety groups. However, it could sometimes be safer for an automated system to be more assertive, like a human driver, rather t ... Read more
2022-01-10 19:50:38
Virgin Mobile and O2 users will not face EU roaming charges
Virgin Mobile and O2 phone users will not face roaming charges following announcements by other networks to reintroduce extra fees after Brexit. It means customers travelling to Europe will be able to use their mobile data and make calls and texts on the same deal as they have in the UK. Vodafone, EE and Three are set to reintroduce roaming fees this year for customers travelling to Europe. Con ... Read more
2022-01-10 19:50:02
Crisis-hit Sri Lanka asks China to restructure its debt
The president of crisis-hit Sri Lanka has asked China to restructure its debt repayments as part of efforts to help the South Asian country navigate its worsening financial situation. Gotabaya Rajapaksa made the request during a meeting with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on Sunday. In the last decade China has lent Sri Lanka over $5bn (£3.7bn) for projects including roads, an airport and port ... Read more
2022-01-09 19:51:21
France fines Google and Facebook over cookies
French regulators have hit Google and Facebook with fines totalling 210m euros (£175m) over use of cookies. Data privacy watchdog the CNIL said both sites were making it difficult for internet users to refuse the online trackers. Consent for the use of cookies is key to the EU's data-privacy regulation and a major priority for the CNIL. The social-media firms have three months to comply or face ... Read more
2022-01-07 18:40:04
Google loses Sonos smart speakers patent fight
Smart-speaker firm Sonos has won a major legal battle against Google over patents it said the firm had infringed. The decision means that Google's smart speakers and other smart home tech that uses the offending systems cannot be imported to the United States. Sonos contends that Google will have to "degrade" its speakers if it refuses to pay Sonos a licensing fee. But the tech giant ... Read more
2022-01-07 18:39:37
CES 2022: Colour changing cars and remotes that eat wi-fi
One of the tech calendar's biggest annual events, CES, has been taking place in Las Vegas this week. The pandemic and fears over the spread of the Omicron variant meant numbers of attendees were down and some of the largest firms, including Meta, Google and Amazon, pulled out. But there was still plenty of weird and wonderful technology on show. Here's a look at some of the trends and more outl ... Read more
2022-01-07 18:38:49
Bitcoin prices fall to lowest in months after US Fed remarks
Bitcoin prices have fallen to their lowest level in months following remarks from the US Federal Reserve. The crypto-currency dropped in value from $47,000 (£34,700) earlier this week to less than $42,000 (£31,000) per digital coin. It follows minutes from a meeting of the Federal Reserve, which suggested it may raise interest rates. Political events in Kazakhstan have also raised concerns abou ... Read more
2022-01-07 18:38:06
NFT marketplace OpenSea valued at more than $13bn
An online marketplace OpenSea says it is now worth $13.3bn (£9.8bn) following a new investment of $300m. The platform enables trade in NFTs (non-fungible tokens), unique pieces of digital code that can be associated with a digital asset such as a work of digital art. Some NFTs have sold for millions of dollars. OpenSea says trades on the platform rose 600-fold last year, but some critics say th ... Read more
2022-01-06 19:17:02