Tech Digest daily roundup: Free EV charging points down almost 40%
Britain’s electric car owners will have to pay more to recharge as thousands of free charging points have disappeared this year due to rising energy costs. The number of charging points that offer electricity for free has dropped from 5,715 to 3,568, a drop of almost 40 per cent in the past year, according to figures obtained by the Telegraph. This is in stark comparison to a year ago, when one in five chargers were free. According to data from Zap Map, at the end of April there were 42,566 electric vehicle charging points across the UK, across 24,909 charging locations. This is an increase of 37 per cent compared to April last year. This is Money
Your Twitter follower account is about to drop and possibly by a lot. Billionaire Elon Musk continues to bend Twitter, which he bought for $44 billion late last year, to his will. His latest move is, it seems, the fulfillment of a promise Musk made in December: purging inactive accounts from the platform. Last year, Musk promised to purge 1.5 billion inactive accounts from Twitter, targeting accounts where users haven’t logged in or posted from their accounts in years. Tech Radar
We’re purging accounts that have had no activity at all for several years, so you will probably see follower count drop
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2023
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could make scams and misinformation harder to spot. Mr Wozniak says he fears the technology will be harnessed by “bad actors”. Speaking to the BBC, he said AI content should be clearly labelled, and regulation was needed for the sector. The computing pioneer signed a letter in March alongside Elon Musk calling for a pause in the development of the most powerful AI models. Mr Wozniak, better known in the tech world as Woz, is a Silicon Valley veteran who co-founded Apple with Steve Jobs. BBC
When you think about the best options for Android smartwatches, Samsung’s Galaxy Watch series checks almost all the boxes. The Galaxy Watch 5, while great, still lacked certain health features at launch, but a future update will bring one essential function for users concerned about their hearts. In the upcoming One UI 5 Watch, watches that receive the software update will be able to start notifying users about irregular heart rhythms. The feature received FDA clearance this week. Android Police
The Apple Watch Series 8 launched last year was powered by the S8 chip, which, like the S7 powering the Watch Series 7, was similar to the S6 chip that powered the Series 6. However, according to Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman, the Watch Series 9, expected to arrive in a few months, will have a new processor at the helm instead of something that’s a rebadged version of the previous chip.
Gurman also believes this new chip would be based on Apple’s A15 SoC, which powered the iPhone 13 series. And while it’s unclear how different the Series 9’s chip would be from the A15, you can expect it to bring performance and efficiency improvements to the Watch Series 9. GSM Arena
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has added another string to his bow after winning gold and silver medals in his first ever jiu-jitsu tournament. The 38-year-old tech billionaire competed on Saturday in Redwood City, California, for the Guerrilla jiu-jitsu team, with which he trains. He shared the impressive news with his 11.3 million Instagram followers along with photos of him posing with his coaches and tussling with opponents on the ground. Sky News
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