M&S issues Sparks update after cyber attack, China’s EV price war is heating up

Marks & Spencer has issued an update for its loyal Sparks customers as the cyber attack continues to wreak havoc on the retailer. It’s good news for anyone eyeing up their birthday treat. Shoppers due their annual freebie this month have been fearing they’d miss out thanks to the attack, but M&S has confirmed that birthday perks are still very much on the cards — albeit a little delayed. The chaos began in April, when cyber crooks launched a “highly sophisticated” attack that’s still causing carnage behind the scenes, hitting everything from online orders to in-store stock. The Sun 

Doctors have developed an artificial intelligence tool that can predict which men with prostate cancer will benefit from a drug that halves the risk of dying. Abiraterone has been described as a “gamechanger” treatment for the disease, which is the most common form of cancer in men in more than 100 countries. It has already helped hundreds of thousands with advanced prostate cancer to live longer. But some countries, including England, have stopped short of offering the “spectacular” drug more widely to men whose disease has not spread. Guardian 

Competition in China’s electric car market just got fiercer with consequences for the domestic economy and even the global auto market. Industry giant BYD last week announced a slew of discounts — some of nearly 30% or more — across several of its lower-end battery-only and hybrid models. The budget-friendly Seagull compact car saw its price drop to 55,800 yuan ($7,750). Other major Chinese automakers have begun following suit. “BYD’s action this time has made the industry rather nervous,” Zhong Shi, an analyst with the China Automobile Dealers Association, said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. CNBC

The locations of tens of millions of Virgin Media O2 mobile customers were exposed for up to two years because of a network security flaw which has been reported to the UK’s communications and data protection regulators. The defect meant that the location of any of Virgin Media O2’s phone customers with a device capable of making a 4G call could be tracked to the nearest mobile mast by anyone with a Virgin Media O2 sim card. The locations of customers could be tracked most precisely in urban areas, where mobile masts are often attached to lampposts and cover areas as small as 100 square metres. FT.com

We’ve been told that the Nothing Phone 3 is landing in July, but we don’t know much more about it than that – except for a couple of intriguing new teasers that have just been posted to the Nothing social media feed on X (formerly Twitter). First up, we have the declaration that “it’s all in the details”, accompanied by a close-up of what seems to be a detail on the back of the handset. It doesn’t reveal much, but it fits in with the quirky Nothing approach to smartphone aesthetics. Speaking of aesthetics, the second teaser says the Nothing Phone 3 is going to do away with the light-up glyphs that have traditionally been on the rear of Nothing phones. Tech Radar 

We killed the Glyph Interface. pic.twitter.com/wlLHNzzc72

— Nothing (@nothing) May 29, 2025