Tag: amazon
Tech Digest daily roundup: Apple Pay Visa ‘hack’ revealed
Large unauthorised contactless payments can be made on locked iPhones by exploiting how an Apple Pay feature designed to help commuters pay quickly at ticket barriers works with Visa. In a video, researchers demonstrated making a contactless Visa payment of £1,000 from a locked iPhone. Apple said the matter was "a concern with a Visa…
Tech Digest daily roundup: Meet Astro, Amazon’s house robot
Amazon is launching Astro, its first household robot, powered by its Alexa smart home technology. The company said it can be remote-controlled when not at home, to check on pets, people, or home security. It can also patrol a home automatically and send owners a notification if it detects something unusual. Amazon said it was…
Tech Digest daily roundup: New Amazon products to be announced Sep 28th
Amazon will hold its annual hardware and services event on September 28 at 9 am PST / 12 pm EST / 5 pm BST, the company announced today. The annual event is Amazon’s chance to show off its latest Echo devices ahead of the holiday season and is typically the place we hear about upgrades coming…
Amazon confirms Omni and 4-Series TVs, launches Fire TV Stick 4K Max
Amazon is officially a TV manufacturer. The company has announced its first lineup of Amazon-branded 4K Fire TVs, which will begin shipping in October, reports The Verge. This is a major expansion from the company’s “Fire TV Edition” collaborations, where its popular streaming software comes preloaded on sets manufactured by other TV makers. Instead, with its…
Tech Digest daily roundup: WhatsApp fined €225m for breach
WhatsApp has been fined €225m (£193m) by Ireland's data watchdog for breaching privacy regulations. It is the largest fine ever from the Irish Data Protection Commission, and the second-highest under EU GDPR rules. Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, has its EU headquarters is in Ireland, and the Irish regulator is the lead authority for the tech…
Online sales of 25% ‘new normal’, claims ParcelHero
As shoppers return to the High Street, online sales have fallen for four months in a row, with Amazon and Etsy reporting a marked slowdown in growth. However, e-commerce expert ParcelHero predicts online will level out at a quarter of all retail sales.... Shoppers may be flooding back to High Streets and shopping centres, but…
Tech Digest daily roundup: Amazon drone deliveries in doubt
Amazon has cut back its Cambridge drone delivery project, shooting down hopes of airborne package drop-offs in the near future. The US technology giant has reportedly slashed up to 100 staff at its Prime Air division, many of them in Cambridge, where the online retailer has been testing unmanned drone deliveries from a secret airfield.…
Tech Digest daily roundup: Amazon Echo speakers to work with Siri, Google Assistant
Amazon's Echo smart speakers are about to get a lot smarter. An upgrade to Matter – an open-source standard platform – should make Amazon's smart speakers work with more voice assistants, not just Alexa. Matter is the new name for Project Connected Home over IP (or CHIP for short). It's a coalition of big-name companies…
Amazon suspends China-based sellers following investigation
Amazon appears to have suspended a number of China-based sellers from its site which have been linked to fake and incentivised review practices. Many of the brands affected offered products that were extremely popular on the platform, regularly appearing in bestseller lists and bearing the Amazon’s Choice badge. The move follows the Competition and Markets…
Tech Digest daily round up: AirCar completes 35 minute flight
A prototype flying car has completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked…