Monthly Archives: November 2021

The Chinese province of Henan is building a surveillance system with face-scanning technology that can detect journalists and other “people of concern”. Documents seen by BBC News describe a system that classifies journalists into a “traffic-light” system – green, amber and red. Journalists in the “red” category would be “dealt with accordingly”, they say. The […]

South Africa’s president has condemned travel bans enacted against his country and its neighbours over the new coronavirus variant Omicron. Cyril Ramaphosa said he was “deeply disappointed” by the action, which he described as unjustified, and called for the bans to be urgently lifted. The UK, EU and US are among those who have imposed […]

As people rush to snap up their Black Friday deals, there are mounting worries that some gadgets won’t be available for Christmas. Silicon, which is in most products, is in short supply because of high demand and manufacturing problems since the start of the pandemic. The world now faces one of the most extreme chip […]

Amazon workers in 20 countries – including the US, UK, and several in the EU – are planning protests and work stoppages on Black Friday. The shopping-centric day is among Amazon’s busiest all year. The Make Amazon Pay group says: “Amazon takes too much and gives back too little.” It is backed by a coalition […]

Apple’s much promoted digital driver’s licence feature is now to be delayed to early 2022. Announced in September, the scheme will allow residents in eight US states to store state IDs and driver’s licences inside the Apple Wallet app on their iPhone. The delay follows Apple’s announcement it was looking for “sole control” over how […]

The people behind a failed bid to buy a rare original copy of the US constitution are facing an avalanche of refunds – up to $40m for 17,000 donors. The ConstitutionDAO team used a “decentralised” approach – largely unregulated and using cryptocurrency – to amass the fortune. But large fees for those crypto-transactions are eating […]

Plans to roll out end-to-end encryption on Facebook and Instagram have been delayed amid a row over child safety. Meta – as Facebook’s parent company is now called – said messaging encryption on the apps would now come in 2023. The process means only the sender and receiver can read messages, but law enforcement or […]

Tesla drivers say they have been locked out of their cars after an outage struck the carmaker’s app. Dozens of owners posted on social media about seeing an error message on the mobile app that was preventing them from connecting to their vehicles. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk personally responded to one complaint from a […]

Facebook says it is introducing new features to give people more control over what appears in their news feeds. The social network has been under intense scrutiny in recent years for how its algorithms promote content. Now, it says it is testing controls to “adjust people’s ranking preferences” and customise the feed. That includes, for […]

A crowd-funded effort to buy a rare 1787 copy of the US constitution at auction claims to have received more than $13m (£9.6m) worth of cryptocurrency donations. The group, ConstitutionDAO, says it plans “to put the constitution in the hands of the people”, and hopes to raise at least $20m. But it is not clear […]