Posts by Paul Stradling

Despite the whirlwind of hype, new research suggests that generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude have, so far, made barely a ripple in the labour market, leaving jobs and wages largely untouched. A Grounded Reality Check A comprehensive study by economists Anders Humlum (University of Chicago) and Emilie Vestergaard (University of Copenhagen) has found…

In this Tech Insight, we look at how a major ransomware attack on M&S could happen, who was behind it, how it caused such widespread disruption, and what it means for the company, its customers, and the wider UK retail sector. What Happened and When? To help understand how the cyber attack on Marks &…

Google’s app marketplace has shed nearly half its titles since early 2024, in what looks like the biggest quality purge the platform has ever seen. A Surprising Stat with Big Implications Whereas at the start of last year, Google Play Store had around 3.4 million apps, according to new analysis from app intelligence platform Appfigures,…

The recent mass blackout in Spain and Portugal has raised concerns over whether something similar could hit the UK, and what the fallout would be for British businesses. Spain And Portugal Plunge Into Darkness On 28 April, large parts of Spain and Portugal lost power in a sudden, widespread outage. Train lines stopped mid-journey, airports…

Apple has been referred for possible criminal contempt by a US judge who found it wilfully defied a court order to open its App Store to greater competition, escalating its long-running legal battle with Epic Games and raising the stakes for one of the world’s most powerful tech firms. Dramatic The ruling marks a dramatic…

Meta has changed the default settings on its Ray-Ban smart glasses, meaning voice recordings and photos may now be stored and used to train its AI, unless users take action to stop it. The update, which came into effect in late April, enables AI features by default. When triggered by a wake word like “Hey…

Google says the future of AI depends on a new generation of electricians and that’s why it’s investing massively to train them. A Different Kind of Skills Shortage As artificial intelligence (AI) systems grow ever more powerful, so too does their appetite for energy. From data centres to new-generation processors, it seems that the infrastructure…

You can be working on one document (e.g. a MS Word document or a spreadsheet or Powerpoint presentation) and get CoPilot to intelligently source material from another location (such as another document or online source) and embed it in your working document. Not only that, it can also auto-format it for you so that it…

OpenAI has declared its interest in buying Google Chrome (if Alphabet is forced to sell it following an antitrust ruling against the tech giant), raising major questions about the future of internet browsing, AI, and search. OpenAI’s Interest Made Clear During Antitrust Testimony Speaking during a landmark antitrust trial in Washington DC, OpenAI’s Head of…

Toshiba Europe has successfully sent quantum-encrypted messages across a record 254km of standard commercial fibre optic cable, marking a major step towards achieving real-world quantum-secure communications without relying on highly specialised hardware. A Record-Breaking Achievement Using Everyday Infrastructure Quantum cryptography has long promised unbreakable security, but practical challenges have kept it largely confined to laboratories.…