Tech and Science Daily | The Standard

Virus mutation latest: Top immunology professor on latest developments. Developments that Treasury and Commerce departments hack were ‘part of months-long espionage campaign’. Online platforms failing to protect users or remove harmful content face multimillion-pound fines and being blocked in UK under new laws. Amazon-owned Zoox reveals first robo-taxi without a steering wheel with 16-hour batter...

Russian hackers are in the frame for spying on Treasury emails - as White House calls emergency meeting. EA swoops in to buy Dirt Rally-makers Codemasters. Rare services outage for Google products, including Gmail and YouTube. Apple launches Fitness+ services for Watch. New smart bands light up and vibrate to enforce social distancing. Virgin Galactic’s rocket fails to launch as space attempt abor...

Researchers in Australia are ‘devastated’ after a vaccine they were developing produced a false positive HIV response in participants. They say despite the jab having no possibility of causing HIV infection and it being ‘safe and producing a robust response’ against Covid-19, they’re abandoning the vaccine. Plus, Disney unveils plans to stream a galaxy of new series and films, the Geminid meteor s...

SpaceX’s Starship blasted off several miles into the air from a remote corner of Texas, but the six-and-a-half minute test flight ended in an explosive fireball at touchdown. Even so, Elon Musk hailed the launch, tweeting afterwards: ‘Mars here we come!’ Plus, Cyberpunk 2077 finally launches, Facebook labels anti-trust lawsuit ‘revisionist history’, and Alexa learns the rules of football.  Li...

Apple has released its first over-the-ear, noise cancelling headphones, the AirPods Max. Their eye-watering price and even the design has been met with a frenzied reaction of shock and ridicule. But if history is anything to go by, Apple will have the last laugh. And, doctors discover patients of mystery illness have traces of lead and nickel in their blood, Google and Facebook could face multi-mi...

The UK’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said the coronavirus vaccine is ‘the route out’ as he marked the start of the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine in the UK. 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first patient in the world to receive the jab, and Mr Hancock said millions more could receive it by the end of next year. Plus, Donald Trump ‘came close to revealing secrets of an alien Galacti...

In just 25 weeks this year, the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out 25 years of progress in everything from health to the economy, according to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Girl Effect’s Jonathan McKay says for adolescent girls in developing countries the impact is particularly stark, but an agony aunt chatbot is helping them through. Plus, a mystery illness sweeps through a town in southern Ind...

Here’s what the plasma inside a neutron star sounds like, thanks to MIT scientists. Facebook to ban false claims about Covid-19 vaccines after criticism of becoming hotbed for conspiracies. Facebook says it will start removing false claims about Covid-19 vaccines to prevent what the social network calls “imminent physical harm”. Meet the London doctor who’s using TikTok to fight Covid anti-vax con...

Hackers have tried to infiltrate the coronavirus vaccine distribution chain. Twitter expands hate speech rules to include race and ethnicity. Amazon build cheap cloud spy tech for bosses to make sure workers wear facemasks. Dua Lipa and other Spotify artists’ pages hacked by Taylor Swift ‘fan’ Chinese researchers quit U.S. after spies target Biden team. High-def streaming hurts the planet - drop y...

Covid Pfizer vaccine approved for use next week in UK, care home residents and health workers at front of queue. Netflix content given age rating by algorithm for parents to cut sex and violence scenes. Spotify, Apple and Tik Tok release their year-in-review ‘best bits’. Salesforce to buy workplace app Slack in $27 billion deal. China’s Chang’e 5 lands on the moon to collect the first fresh lunar...

Microsoft files patent to record and score meetings on body language. World Aids Day: Global solidarity amid concerns for treatment as frontline services stretched. One of biology’s biggest mysteries ‘largely solved’ by DeepMind AI. Astronauts could stop burning underwear in Nasa plans to make first space detergent. Australian telescope maps deep space at record speed. Australia, US to develop hyp...

Cyber Monday ‘deals’: Don’t believe the hype and do your resesearch, says Which? consumer expert. Step into actual Super Mario World in Florida - Nintendo to open experience for fans at Universal Studios next year. Spotify testing new Instagram-esque Stories feature. Huawei ban from UK 5G network brought forward by British government. China’s Chang’e 5 enters lunar orbit for historic attempt to re...

Experts are warning shoppers to be wary of scams as they shop online during what retailers are expecting to be their biggest Black Friday sale yet. Promon’s Tom Lysemose Hanson says not clicking on links in emails and doing your research before downloading store apps are some of the easy ways to stay safe. Plus, Donald Trump’s furious with Twitter as #DiaperDon trends, mink in Denmark are resurfac...

After coming under fire earlier this year over a ‘seizure challenge’, TikTok is offering a new feature to its users who have photosensitive epilepsy. The tool will allow people to tailor their profile so that videos that could act as a trigger for a seizure are automatically skipped. Plus, robots could be the next front line workers, voice assistant users get special Black Friday deals and, space...

Elon Musk has pushed Bill Gates down to third place on the Bloomberg Billionaires index as his personal fortune soared by $7.2 billion dollars. It came as Tesla shares soared after it was announced they’d be added to the S&P 500, sending the company’s market value above $500 billion. Plus, how hackers are 3D printing your house keys from your Facebook photos, a treasure trove of ancient arrows...

Snapchat has become the latest competitor to TikTok, launching its own short form video feature Spotlight. And, for at least the rest of the year, users who create the most engaged-with content could receive a share of $1 million a day being handed out by the firm. Plus, China launches its ambitious mission to the moon, Amazon investigates after PlayStation 5 deliveries are reported missing, and a...

AstraZeneca and Oxford University report their vaccine could prevent up to 90% of people getting Covid-19, so how does it work? And, while we wait for the jab to be rolled out, scientists warn that as we head into winter, keeping a window cracked open could reduce the risk of infection by 70%. Plus, Space X launch a sea cartographer satellite and, K-pop band aespa introduce fans to their AI avatar...

Figures reveal Instagram removed almost 80 per cent less graphic content about suicide and self-harm between April and June this year than in the previous quarter - after Covid restrictions meant most of its content moderators were sent home. Many customers trying to get hold of PS5 were left disappointed after online retailers sold out of the console. NordPass reveals people are still using ‘1234...

Sony’s new PS5 is available to buy in the UK from today, with new titles including Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Apple to pay $113m to settle iPhone ‘batterygate’. Lyft’s Thanksgiving travel ads receives backlash amid US pandemic crisis. Free SIM cards help disadvantaged schoolchildren stay online amid families' Covid financial struggle. Former President Barack Obama talks to Oprah Winfrey on...

Facebook and Twitter chief executives are grilled again by Senators, who attacked their corporate policies. Donald Trump fires a top election security tech official who contradicted him. Bitcoin hits nearly a three-year peak, and closes in on a record high value. The French flying ‘Jetman’ has died in a training accident in Dubai. TikTok has added tougher controls for parents to keep tabs on their...

Elon Musk breaks into top three world’s richest people as Tesla stock soars. Virgin Galactic announces postponement of key test flight of its spacecraft because of a surge in Covid-19 cases in New Mexico. Pharmacy CVS has become the first retailer in the US to allow customers use PayPal and Venmo QR codes for checkout payments. Social network founders Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey will appear on...

Four Nasa astronauts blast off for the ISS on the first non-demo SpaceX flight. Microsoft says state-backed hackers from North Korea and Russia have been targeting organisations working on a coronavirus vaccine. The Trump administration has extended a deadline for ByteDance to restructure ownership of its short-form video app TikTok in the US amid legal battle. Ticketmaster UK fined $1.62m for fai...

The planet hunter, the world’s first space telescope, has been given the green light to study atmospheres of planets outside our own solar system. Professor Giovanna Tinetti says it’ll give a fuller picture of what exoplanets are made of, how they were formed, how they evolve and provide us with a better understanding of our own planet too. Plus, a two-million-year-old skull of a distant human cou...

Elon Musk’s aerospace company is to send four astronauts into low-Earth orbit on a Crew Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday - the first commercial human spaceflight system in history. Plus, a ‘factory in a box’ could produce 600 doses of RNA vaccines a minute, black and Asian ethnicities are up to twice as likely to be infected with Covid-19 and, a town in Japan deploys robot monster...

Apple’s M1 silicon chip promises a profound impact on performance of their computers. The tech giant says this will include better battery life, instant wake from sleep mode and the ability to run iOS apps. Plus, Russia says its Sputnik V vaccine is 92% effective against Covid-19, the newly discovered Popa langur is set to be listed as critically endangered and Santa prepares for a socially distan...