Tech Digest daily roundup: UK Government announces more details about emergency alert system
The government has released further details about next week’s UK-wide test of an emergency alert system. A message will appear alongside a loud alarm on millions of mobile phones at 3pm on 23 April. The text that will appear has now been revealed – and it will say: “This is a test of Emergency Alerts, a new UK government service that will warn you if there’s a life-threatening emergency nearby. In a real emergency, follow the instructions in the alert to keep yourself and others safe. Visit gov.uk/alerts for more information. Sky News
Smart motorways will no longer be built in the UK after Rishi Sunak admitted that the public has lost confidence in them. Fourteen planned smart motorways have been axed after years of campaigning by the families of crash victims and accusations that ministers have “blood on their hands” for a “deadly” 18-year experiment with Britain’s highways. Roads that have already been completed will be allowed to remain but subjected to a safety refit to increase the number of emergency stopping places. Telegraph
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is expected to send the biggest rocket ever built on a test flight next week. A round-the-world unmanned test flight of Starship was granted by the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday and could blast off as early as Monday. With the 120-metre tall spacecraft, SpaceX has the long-term ambition of transporting people to the moon and Mars. The test flight will be the first time Starship has ever blasted into the stratosphere since being fully built. ITV.com
Malware has infected more than 60 legitimate apps in the Google Play Store that together have been installed over 100 million times. The malware that makes these apps so dangerous is a new brew known as ‘Goldoson’ and the developers behind these apps accidentally added the malware by using a third-party library that included components that already contained malware. These components are used by app developers to save the time it might take to develop certain parts of an app. PhoneArena
SWISS has announced plans to trial the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to conduct the passenger count during boarding. The trial will take place on selected flights between April and June, with a camera being temporarily installed in the cabin to record passengers as they embark and determine total numbers. SWISS said that the recording would be used to train the AI application, for example to ensure that it can distinguish whether a passenger is carrying an infant in their arms. Business Traveller
The James Webb Space Telescope keeps finding galaxies that shouldn’t exist, a scientist has warned. Six of the earliest and most massive galaxies that Nasa’s breakthrough telescope has seen so far appear to be bigger and more mature than they should be given where they are in the universe, researchers have warned. The new findings build on previous research where scientists reported that despite coming from the very beginnings of the universe, the galaxies were as mature as our own Milky Way. Independent
If you’ve been wondering why your Samsung phone’s battery has been absolutely dire of late, you are far from the only one. Thankfully, Samsung says that it knows what’s wrong, and even better, there’s already a fix available for it. The issue seems to be affecting people across a range of devices including the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S22, and Galaxy Z Fold 4 as well as other variants. And it only seems to have kicked in after installing the One UI 5.1 update. Pocket Lint
