Month: October 2021

From bibliotherapy to burpees, gratitude journals to cathartic workouts, Nadine von Cohen logs into Australia’s new crop of wellbeing apps Australians are the world’s biggest consumers of health and wellness apps, punching well above our per capita weight in our quest for peak physical and mental condition, according to research from telecommunications company Uswitch. In …

‘At once intolerable and addictive’: five wellbeing courses and apps, road-tested Read More »

Warning that online giant’s move will lead to higher prices and empty shelves in shops Amazon is offering signing-up bonuses of up to £3,000 in areas of Britain with labour shortages, to attract workers in time for the Christmas surge in demand. The Food and Drink Federation says there is a “battle for labour” in …

Small firms’ fury as Amazon offers £3,000 sign-up bonus to attract Christmas staff Read More »

After games boom in pandemic, gangs are using phishing and malware to cheat fans out of money and reveal their personal data Players of online video games such as Roblox, Fortnite and Fifa are being warned to watch out for scammers, amid concerns that gangs are targeting the platforms. Multiplayer games boomed during the pandemic …

From Fortnite to Fifa, online video game players warned of rise in fraud Read More »

Digital activists around the world are urging Facebook to take seriously how its algorithm incites misinformation and ethnic violence On a cloudy evening in Nairobi, Berhan Taye is scrolling through a spreadsheet in which she has helped document more than 140 Facebook posts from Ethiopia that contain hate speech. There are videos of child abuse, …

Facebook’s policing of vitriol is even more lackluster outside the US, critics say Read More »

Client-side scanning, as the technology is called, should really be treated like wiretapping and regulated accordingly For centuries, cryptography was the exclusive preserve of the state. Then, in 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman came up with a practical method for establishing a shared secret key over an authenticated (but not confidential) communications channel without …

Apple’s plan to scan images will allow governments into smartphones | John Naughton Read More »

Beanless brews can cut deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions dramatically – but what will happen to workers in traditional coffee-growing regions? Heiko Rischer isn’t quite sure how to describe the taste of lab-grown coffee. This summer he sampled one of the first batches in the world produced from cell cultures rather than coffee beans. “To …

Eco-friendly, lab-grown coffee is on the way, but it comes with a catch Read More »

Campaigners say Face Pay, launched in over 240 stations, is ‘dangerous step’ in efforts to control population The Moscow metro has rolled out what authorities have lauded as the world’s first mass-scale facial recognition payment system, amid privacy concerns over the new technology. The cashless, cardless and phoneless system, named Face Pay, launched at more …

Privacy fears as Moscow metro rolls out facial recognition pay system Read More »

Although the platform bans content promoting dangerous weight loss, hashtags such as #skinnycheck can still be found Instagram has attracted a firestorm after whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed internal research showing the platform downplayed proof of its toxic effects – including the rise of eating disorders – on children. But such issues are not limited to …

‘It spreads like a disease’: how pro-eating-disorder videos reach teens on TikTok Read More »

Some workers at the company viewed the firing as retaliation for her role as an organizer, the Verge reported Apple has fired one of the leaders of #AppleToo, an employee movement organized in response to alleged patterns of discrimination, racism and sexism at the company. The tech company terminated Janneke Parrish, a program manager on …

Apple fires employee Janneke Parrish, leader of #AppleToo movement Read More »

Users can set encryption key for chats on Google Drive or iCloud to prevent authorities demanding access from provider WhatsApp is allowing users to encrypt their backed-up chats, making them unreadable without access to a password or 64-digit encryption key. Facebook, the messaging app’s owner, said from Thursday some users would be able to fully …

WhatsApp to bring in encryption for backup chats after privacy fears Read More »