BATTERYFORPC BLOG
Google app finds pets' 'art doubles'
They say dogs resemble their owners, but has your pet's portrait already been painted by Picasso or Rembrandt? Google's "Pet Portraits" uses machine learning to match pets to their "art doubles" held in the collections of institutions around the world. The furry-friend matching tool has been added to Google's Arts & Culture app for Android and iOS. A similar 2018 feature ... Read more
2021-11-09 18:41:37
Robinhood trading app hit by data breach affecting seven million
US share-trading app Robinhood has been hit by a security breach that has exposed the names or email addresses of more than seven million people. The company says the breach affected "a limited amount of personal information for a portion of our customers". And it does not believe the most sensitive information it gathers - US social security numbers and financial information - was rev ... Read more
2021-11-09 18:41:17
Twitter poll calls on Elon Musk to sell 10% stake in Tesla
Voters in a Twitter poll have urged Elon Musk to sell 10% of his stake in Tesla in order to pay tax. More than 3.5 million Twitter users voted in the poll, launched by Mr Musk on Saturday, with nearly 58% voting in favour of the share sale. The vote could see him dispose of nearly $21bn (£16bn) of stock in the electric carmaker. He has promised to abide by the result, in response to a "bil ... Read more
2021-11-08 18:48:27
REvil: Day of reckoning for notorious cyber gang
A global police operation has dealt a devastating blow to one of the most prolific cyber-crime gangs in history. The co-ordinated action against the REvil gang was announced on Monday by Romanian police, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and Europol. The raids, which took place both on and offline, led to the arrests of two alleged hackers in Romania and one from Ukraine. REvil has been blamed ... Read more
2021-11-08 18:47:26
Instagram: A blessing or a curse?
Wake up, reach for your phone, open Instagram and start scrolling. It is an all-too familiar routine for many of us. But how does the app affect our mental health? Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen warned that Instagram was "more dangerous than other forms of social media", after it was revealed that the company's own research showed it could be harmful. At the time, Instagram sai ... Read more
2021-11-07 19:07:12
US offers $10m bounty for Colonial Pipeline hackers
The United States government has offered a bounty of up to $10million (£7.4m) for information about the hacking group known as DarkSide. In May, a DarkSide ransomware attack shut down a vital 5,500-mile-long fuel pipeline on the east coast of the US. The pipeline carries 45% of the fuel used on the east coast. The bounty is offered for information which can lead to the "identification or l ... Read more
2021-11-07 19:06:20
Zuckerberg's metaverse: Lessons from Second Life
This week, I travelled back in time to visit the future. It has been about 10 years since I first entered the virtual world of Second Life, arguably the internet's first attempt at what every tech giant is now racing to build: the so-called metaverse. The term metaverse was coined in the 1990s in a science-fiction novel, Snow Crash, where it served as a virtual-reality successor to the internet, ... Read more
2021-11-05 19:31:31
US offers $10m bounty for Colonial Pipeline hackers
The United States government has offered a bounty of up to $10million (£7.4m) for information about the hacking group known as DarkSide. In May, a DarkSide ransomware attack shut down a vital 5,500-mile-long fuel pipeline on the east coast of the US. The pipeline carries 45% of the fuel used on the east coast. The bounty is offered for information which can lead to the "identification or l ... Read more
2021-11-05 19:30:56
Labour Party members' data hit by cyber incident
The Labour Party has been affected by a "cyber incident" involving its members' data. Labour said it was told on 29 October that it had been affected by the event by a third party firm that handled membership data on its behalf. As a result, "a significant quantity" of party data was "rendered inaccessible on their systems". The Information Commissioner's Office an ... Read more
2021-11-03 19:25:11
NSO Group: Israeli spyware company added to US trade blacklist
The Israeli company behind the controversial Pegasus spyware has been added to a US trade blacklist. Pegasus has reportedly been used by nation states to target the phones of rights activists and journalists. The US has now put its maker, NSO Group, on its "entity list", banning business dealings with them. NSO Group said it was "dismayed" by the decision, adding that its te ... Read more
2021-11-03 19:24:44