The BoE and City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority will aim to ensure the four main providers of cloud and tech services to banks are resilient and actively reducing the risk of cyber attack. The BoE and City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority will aim to ensure the four main providers of cloud and tech services to banks are resilient and actively reducing the risk of cyber attack. Direct oversight of'critical third parties' such as Oracle and Microsoft given to ensure resilient cyber-defences and help safeguard UK economy The Bank of England has been handed powers to regulate important tech firms including Amazon and Google from next week, amid fears that system failures could threaten financial stability and harm consumers. From Monday, the Bank and fellow City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will be in charge of ensuring that four large-scale providers of cloud and tech services to banks are resilient and actively reducing the risk of cyber-attacks and major outages that could disrupt services for millions of people and businesses across the UK. This will mean having "direct" oversight of local arms of Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Oracle and Microsoft, all of which have been identified as "critical third parties" by the UK government, according to an announcement on Friday.

EU says Facebook and Instagram's'addictive' design is illegal EU says Facebook and Instagram's'addictive' design is illegal The European Commission says Meta's current mitigation measures can't prevent social media addiction. The European Commission says Meta did implement addictive designs for Instagram and Facebook, and it is in violation of the bloc's Digital Services Act. It started investigating the company over addiction and safety concern for minors in May 2024, focusing on features such as infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and the apps' highly personalized recommendation systems. Now, the commission has released its preliminary findings, wherein it said that the company did not adequately assess the risks of its addictive design on the physical and mental wellbeing of users, including minors and vulnerable adults. Meta, the commission concluded, did not take into account that those aforementioned features will fuel users' urge to keep scrolling, thereby contributing to unhealthy habits and compulsive use of social media. Further, it said the company disregarded how formats like stories and reels could lead to excessive use of its services.

These are the cleaning robots, water monitors, and toys actually worth buying for pool season. This is not news to anyone who owns one, but the uninitiated may not know about the inordinate amount of daily labor and chores that lie behind a pool's clear, sparkling, perfectly chlorinated (or salted) water. Luckily, pool tech has come a long way in the past decade--gone are the hours spent scooping leaves and dead bugs out of the water with a long-handled net, laboring over pH strips, and trying to relax on floaties too small for your adult-sized behind. We've now got robots that clean your pool, apps that monitor water quality from your phone, and even a slushie machine for proper pool-party margs. With gas and plane ticket prices soaring to astronomical levels, there's never been a better time for a staycation at your own pool.

Customers inside a B&M store, which is one of more than 100 businesses that will be using the technology. Customers inside a B&M store, which is one of more than 100 businesses that will be using the technology. Civil liberties groups say Facewatch system in stores such as Sainsbury's and B&M is'dangerous escalation' Fri 10 Jul 2026 06.19 EDTLast modified on Fri 10 Jul 2026 06.57 Facial recognition technology in shops will soon alert police in real time to the presence of serious offenders, with civil liberties groups warning of a "dangerous escalation" towards surveillance and criminalisation in the retail sector. Facewatch, a facial recognition system used by more than 100 businesses including Sainsbury's, B&M and Spar to monitor thieves, said it was launching a UK-first feature to "alert police instantly when the most serious offenders trigger a live facial recognition match".

England and Norway players will face off under extreme and dangerous levels of heat stress, scientists say, thanks to a Wet Bulb Index of nearly 90 F. For Norway's national men's soccer team, Saturday's World Cup quarter-final against England will be a first in more ways than one. As the Scandinavian side prepares for the biggest match of its history, it will also face conditions almost unimaginable back home: the punishing combination of South Florida heat, humidity, and blazing sunshine that scientists warn can push the human body to its limits. South Florida's mix of strong sun, hot-air temperature, and high humidity--boosted by a plume of dusty air from the Sahara desert sweeping across the Atlantic through the state--will put the northern European players under a level of heat stress rarely experienced in their native countries. Scientists quantify this heat stress by calculating the WetBulb Globe Temperature. On top of air temperature, the index takes into account humidity, which limits evaporation of sweat from the skin; wind, which can act as a coolant; and solar intensity, as sunshine directly raises individuals' skin and core temperatures.

Is the war entering a new phase? Patriot missile interceptors are the most coveted Western-made weapon Ukraine needs - right now and every night when Russia attacks. Frequent Russian strikes depleted Ukraine's stock of the pricey United States-made interceptors - and US President Donald Trump has now offered hope, giving Kyiv a licence to make them. We'll show them how to do it, it's very complex actually. But it's - you'll figure out the complexity quickly," Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a NATO summit in Turkiye on Wednesday. "This way, you can't complain that we're not giving them enough." Trump has not specified when the production might start - and said that Washington would hold on to its own stash. Ukraine said it will attempt to master domestic production as soon as possible. In the short-term perspective, Ukraine "perhaps, gets nothing," according to Nikolay Mitrokhin, a researcher with Germany's Bremen University.

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Ukraine has used massed drones and missiles to strike oil refineries and Black Sea tankers, degrading Russia while its strikes fail to break Ukrainian resolve.

AI has prompted fears over job security for City workers, particularly staff that do back-office work. AI has prompted fears over job security for City workers, particularly staff that do back-office work. Reeves to launch City'skills compact' committing firms to retrain staff in AI Chancellor Rachel Reeves is to announce a new City "skills compact" that will commit firms such as Barclays and Lloyds to retraining thousands of financial sector workers for the AI revolution. The financial services skills compact will be launched on Tuesday, during what is likely to be Reeves's final Mansion House speech to City bosses before Andy Burnham's expected takeover of No 10. The government-backed initiative will commit employers to improving workers' skills and helping them "keep pace" with significant technological changes that have prompted fears of mass redundancies.

Headlong's take on Karel Čapek's 1920 tale of romance and robots is rife with timely debates about tech's threat but at times the philosophical discussions drag on I f our world is currently thinking through the brave new future of generative AI and super intelligence, Karel Čapek's 1920 play RUR: Rossum's Universal Robots proves the notion of robot consciousness and rebellion is not a new anxiety. So does Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which Čapek's drama resembles in its philosophical debates and moral warnings, despite its futurism. Ella Road adapts Čapek's play for our times in this Headlong and Schwarzman Centre co-production, its science apparently informed by research from Oxford University academics, which gives it a cutting-edge, real-world underpinning. The stage is presented as the operations office for the company, also named RUR, which is creating humanoids by mixing human flesh and blood with code and data at its headquarters on an island (a lovely, lush foliage and scaffold design by Loren Elstein). Dom (Trevor Fox) is the company's boss - a "dom" in more ways than one as he is having a Secretary-style, S&M romance with his robot personal assistant, Sulla (Tiffany Gray).