Latest posts

  • Chelsea flower show garden designers clash over use of AI

    Horticulturalists express alarm after award-winning Matt Keightley launches app that can automate designs With glasses of champagne sipped among the peonies, Chelsea flower show is generally a friendly and genteel occasion. But this year, the secateurs have been drawn as gardeners clash over the use of AI in designing the exhibits. Matt Keightley, an award-winning…

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  • Is Big Brother watching you shop? – podcast

    From supermarkets to corner shops, live facial recognition could be coming to retailers near you. Jessica Murray on the AI systems increasingly used by the police and stores Live facial recognition is being hailed as a powerful new frontier in the fight against crime, not only by police but by private companies too. Retailers from…

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  • AI-powered hacking has exploded into industrial-scale threat, Google says

    Criminal groups and state-linked actors appear to be using commercial models to refine and scale up attacks Business live – latest updates In just three months, AI-powered hacking has gone from a nascent problem to an industrial-scale threat, according to a report from Google. The findings from Google’s threat intelligence group add to an intensifying,…

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  • Palantir’s access to identifiable NHS England patient data is ‘dangerous’, MPs say

    Health service has given US tech firm ‘unlimited access’ to certain data to build integrated platform, according to reports UK politics live – latest updates MPs have warned that an NHS decision to grant Palantir access to identifiable patient information in its plan to use AI to improve the health service is “dangerous” and will…

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  • Forget the AI job apocalypse. AI’s real threat is worker control and surveillance

    A new divide is emerging: between workers who use AI at work and those who are managed by it The real danger that artificial intelligence poses to work is not just job loss – it is the growing divide between people who use AI to extend their skills and those whose working lives are increasingly…

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  • UK firefighters called to one lithium-ion battery fire every five hours

    FoI responses collected by insurer show brigades tackled 1,760 battery-linked fires in 2025, up 147% in three years Fire brigades across the UK are tackling lithium-ion battery fires at a rate of one every five hours, figures show, as fire chiefs warn that public awareness and government regulation have not kept pace with the ubiquity…

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  • UK schools should remove pupils’ online photos as AI blackmail threat grows, say experts

    Criminals are manipulating pictures found on school websites and social media to create sexually explicit images UK schools should remove pictures of pupils’ faces from their websites and social media accounts because blackmailers are using them to create sexually explicit images, experts have said. Child safety experts and the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) warn…

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  • Meta sues Ofcom over fines regime for breaches of Online Safety Act

    Facebook and Instagram owner claims charges should not be calculated based on a company’s global revenue Meta has launched a legal challenge against the UK’s media regulator over the fees and fines regime it is enforcing under landmark digital safety legislation. The Facebook and Instagram owner is claiming that Ofcom’s methodology for calculating the charges…

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  • ‘No one has done this in the wild’: study observes AI replicate itself

    World is approaching point where no one can shut down a rogue AI, says director of body behind research It’s the stuff of science fiction cinema, or particularly breathless AI company blogposts: new research finds recent AI systems can independently copy themselves on to other computers. In the doom scenario, this means that when the…

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  • ‘RAMageddon’: is the era of cheap phones and laptops over?

    Bargains are disappearing and the cost of gadgets such as MacBooks and PS5s is rising as AI competes for memory chips The end of the cheap laptop, the bargain phone and affordable games consoles may be on the horizon. Not because new models are more hi-tech, but because the cost of computer components has shot…

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