Month: June 2022

Transfers also ‘paused’ between Celsius accounts as value of digital asset market slips below $1tn The cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius Network has halted withdrawals because of “extreme market conditions” as the value of the digital asset market slipped below $1tn (£820bn). Bitcoin dropped to a 17-month low of $23,880 after the Celsius announcement, while Ether, …

Crypto lender Celsius halts withdrawals due to ‘extreme market conditions’ Read More »

Hospitality businesses look to hi-tech gadgets amid staff shortages after Covid pandemic and Brexit As worker shortages are felt across the hospitality sector, the owners of the Bella Italia chain are turning to robots to provide table service to customers. Big Table Group, which also owns Café Rouge and Las Iguanas, is testing out the …

Not-so dumb waiter: UK restaurant chain Bella Italia trials robot service Read More »

The rising price of electricity and the plunging value of the cryptocurrency could burst the speculative bubble for today’s prospectors In the bad old days, prospecting for gold was a grisly business involving hysterical crowds, pickaxes, digging, the wearing of appalling hats, standing in rivers panning for nuggets, “staking” claims and so on. The California …

As energy prices soar, the bitcoin miners may have struck fool’s gold | John Naughton Read More »

From music on the go to GPS watches and apps such as Strava, tech to help you clock up the miles Running is a great way to keep fit this summer and needs little more than some trainers and a pavement or a park. But even the most enthusiastic of us need some way to …

Best running gear: top gadgets to keep you motivated Read More »

Blake Lemoine says system has perception of, and ability to express thoughts and feelings equivalent to a human child The suspension of a Google engineer who claimed a computer chatbot he was working on had become sentient and was thinking and reasoning like a human being has put new scrutiny on the capacity of, and …

Google engineer put on leave after saying AI chatbot has become sentient Read More »

Kamal Gandhi, 70, and his Coventry chip shop became a sensation after its name was turned into a catchy song It has been two weeks since his Coventry chip shop became a TikTok sensation drawing in crowds from around the country, and 70-year-old Kamal Gandhi is exhausted. He has had to take on and train …

‘A gift from God’: Binley Mega Chippy owner basks in TikTok fame Read More »

The desire to meet a new partner remains undimmed. But they might be more easily found at a film club than on a phone screen It all started a year ago when, having been divorced for a while, I thought I might dip a toe in the dating world. I wasn’t thrilled by the idea …

The demise of the dating app? Why singles are swapping online matching for real life meetings Read More »

Future EV designs offer drivers more space and leisure, with fewer parts making production more sustainable Take any petrol car sold today and show it to a mechanic working on a Ford Model T 100 years ago and there is a fairly good chance they would understand roughly how it works. An internal combustion engine …

A living room on a skateboard: how electric vehicles are redefining the car Read More »

The street photographer was in the right place at the right time to capture this beachside scene If you look closely under the red umbrella at the centre of this photo, you’ll see four distant feet. The anonymous duo they belong to had just taken off on a parasailing trip above the sea at Nice …

‘If it makes you feel something – happy, sad, anything – that’s enough for me’: Hannibal Renberg’s best phone picture Read More »

Airbnb and its competitors have made tourism a year-round prospect in many places, but locals say that locks them out of the rental market Tourism is the lifeblood of Kangaroo Valley. Travellers flock to the lush greenery of the New South Wales town for the trails, rivers and wineries. It also hosts folk and arts …

Short-term rentals, long-term anguish for Australian towns struggling to find homes for locals Read More »