BATTERYFORPC BLOG
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 th ... Read more
2024-07-07 21:58:13
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 combi ... Read more
2024-07-02 20:36:58
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 hou ... Read more
2024-06-11 18:56:01
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 mor ... Read more
2024-06-04 02:59:15
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 ... Read more
2024-05-31 21:20:23
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 ... Read more
2024-05-31 03:35:07
'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 wa ... Read more
2024-05-29 20:23:42
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 polit ... Read more
2024-05-28 19:44:16
The influencers rallying South Africa's youth to vote
South Africa’s social media influencers, popular with the youth, have been stepping into a new role ahead of this week’s general election – political mobilisers. With 42% of registered voters under the age of 40, the younger demographic could have a big role to play in Wednesday's election. Nestled in between videos of jokes about power cuts and relationships, Karabo “Kay” Mahapa, a TikTok c ... Read more
2024-05-27 20:53:32
Glue pizza and eat rocks: Google AI search errors go viral
Google's new artificial intelligence (AI) search feature is facing criticism for providing erratic, inaccurate answers. Its experimental "AI Overviews" tool has told some users searching for how to make cheese stick to pizza better that they could use "non-toxic glue". The search engine's AI-generated responses have also said geologists recommend humans eat one rock per day ... Read more
2024-05-26 20:10:19