Category: All News

A U.S. federal court jury has decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected by anti-competitive barriers that have damaged smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire. The unanimous verdict reached Monday came after just three hours of deliberation following a four-week trial revolving around a lucrative payment system within Google’s Play Store. The store is the main place where hundreds of millions of people around the world download and…

Britain has issued more than 120 financial penalties to offshore companies that have failed to comply with transparency legislation designed to uncover illicit wealth hidden in the UK property market. The Register of Overseas Entities was created after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to help the UK government crack down on oligarchs and other kleptocrats. Individuals that own British property through offshore vehicles had until the end of January 2023 to register such entities and publicly reveal their ownership at Companies…

Toyota Financial Services (TFS) is warning customers it suffered a data breach, stating that sensitive personal and financial data was exposed in the attack. Toyota Financial Services, a subsidiary of Toyota Motor Corporation, is a global entity with a presence in 90% of the markets where Toyota sells its cars, providing auto financing to its customers. Last month, the company confirmed that it detected unauthorized access on some of its systems in Europe and Africa, following a claim from Medusa ransomware about…

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israel last month to use “smaller bombs” to limit civilian casualties in Gaza only to turn around a few weeks later and send the Israel Defense Forces over 100 2,000-pound bunker busters. From the New York Times on Nov 4: From The Wall Street Journal, Dec 1, “U.S. Sends Israel 2,000-Pound Bunker Buster Bombs for Gaza War”: The U.S. has provided Israel with large bunker buster bombs, among tens of thousands of other weapons…

Genetic testing company 23andMe announced on Friday that hackers accessed around 14,000 customer accounts in the company’s recent data breach. In a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission published Friday, the company said that, based on its investigation into the incident, it had determined that hackers had accessed 0.1% of its customer base. According to the company’s most recent annual earnings report, 23andMe has “more than 14 million customers worldwide,” which means 0.1% is around 14,000. But the company…

Security researchers developed a new attack, which they named AutoSpill, to steal account credentials on Android during the autofill operation. In a presentation at the Black Hat Europe security conference, researchers from the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Hyderabad said that their tests showed that most password managers for Android are vulnerable to AutoSpill, even if there is no JavaScript injection. How AutoSpill works Android apps often use WebView controls to render web content, such as login pages within…

A French juvenile court on Friday convicted six teenagers for their roles in the beheading of a teacher by an Islamist extremist that shocked the country. Teacher Samuel Paty was killed outside his school in 2020 after showing his class cartoons of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad during a debate on free expression. The attacker, a young Chechen who had radicalized, was killed by police. The court found five of the defendants, who were 14 and 15 at the time of the…

TALLINN: Russian police have put prominent Russian-American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army. It is the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown against dissent in Russiathat has intensified since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine more than 21 months ago, on Feb.24, 2022. The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the…

US-based genomics scientist Kevin McKernan says he has lost an estimated US $200,000 worth of research data after his account on file hosting service MEGA was deleted overnight. It appears that McKernan’s account was deleted by MEGA in response to an urgent injunction granted to New Zealand’s (NZ) Ministry of Health (MOH) to prevent the sharing of anonymised data leaked by whistleblower Barry Young. Young, a 56-year-old database administrator and former employee of the MOH, leaked data from a ‘pay…

In a bid to counter the impact of U.S. sanctions, Iran and Cuba announced their commitment to enhancing relations during a joint statement in Tehran. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel emphasized the need for cooperation to counter the economic challenges posed by the sanctions imposed on both nations by the United States. Raisi highlighted the potential for neutralizing sanctions through the exchange of capacities between the two countries. “There is a serious determination between the two…

SEATTLE – Amazon.com is sharply cutting fees for merchants selling clothing priced below US$20 (S$26.80), a sign it is hunkering down for a price war with Chinese fast-fashion upstart Shein. On Dec 5, Amazon announced it would reduce seller fees on clothing products priced below US$15 to 5 per cent beginning in January. The rates on clothing priced from US$15 to US$20 will drop to 10 per cent. The commissions on both categories had previously been 17 per cent. It…

A former Ukrainian MP regarded by Kyiv as a traitor has been shot dead in a park in suburban Moscow, in an attack attributed to Ukraine’s SBU security service. Illia Kyva was a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but fled to Russia a month before the start of the war and frequently criticised Ukrainian authorities online and on Russian state TV talkshows. Russian investigators said in a statement on Wednesday that Kyva…

LONDON: The Bank of England on Wednesday said its multiple interest-rate hikes aimed at cooling high inflation would prolong a cost-of-living crisis but stressed UK retail banks could contain the fallout. The BoE’s Financial Policy Committee (FPC) said in a report that almost five million UK homeowners would see mortgage repayments soar over the next three years. Retail banks tend to pass on BoE rate hikes, hitting customers whose home loans come with variable rates and those whose fixed-term deals…

Consumers who want to watch movies or TV-shows online are limited to the content that they are permitted to see in their home country. This means that the Netflix or Amazon library in one country can be entirely different to those made available in a neighboring nation. This is a direct result of the territorial licensing deals the entertainment industry is built on. However, now that people are more connected online, these restrictions are an increasing source of frustration. That…

The crisis-hit CBI has turned to Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson to help steer it back from the brink of financial oblivion. The business lobbying group confirmed a Sky News report on Tuesday that Rupert Soames, the former boss of Aggreko and Serco, has been lined up to succeed Brian McBride as its next president. Mr Soames will take on the role next year after the CBI’s 2024 annual meeting. He will join months after the CBI was brought to the…

  WASHINGTON – The US government concluded that short-seller Hindenburg Research’s allegations of corporate fraud against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani weren’t relevant before extending his conglomerate as much as US$553 million (S740 million) for a container terminal in Sri Lanka, a senior US official said. Allegations in a scathing report by US-based Hindenburg Research, which erased around US$100 billion from the Adani Group’s market value earlier this year, were front and centre as the International Development Finance Corp., or DFC,…