TOKYO Japan plans to stoke competition in smartphone app payments, dominated by Apple and Google, by banning major

Microsoft Teams, the popular workplace chat app, has gone down in the middle of the working day. Users complained that they were unable to get online or talk to colleagues in what appeared to be a widespread outage. But soon after the problems were identified, many appeared to be able to get back online again. The problems began around lunchtime in the UK, and around the time that many in the US are beginning work, according to tracking website Downdetector. Numerous users complained on that site and elsewhere that they were unable to get online, particularly using their browser. Many of those users were hit by a mysterious message reading: “Operation failed with unexpected error”. Others saw similarly vague messages about not being able to connect to the internet or indistinct error codes. Microsoft confirmed on its official account that it was aware of an issue where “some users may be unable to access Microsoft Teams using web browsers”. But numerous users complained that they were unable to get online through the desktop app, either.

By Chavi Mehta, Max A. Cherney and Stephen Nellis (Reuters) -Intel forecast fourth-quarter revenue above Wall Street estimates on Thursday,

Twitter has launched yet another new feature in order to promote its fledgling paid subscription

Amazon Prime is a valuable service for many people. For $139 per year, you get

Five US senators are set to reintroduce legislation Wednesday that would block companies including TikTok from transferring Americans' personal data to countries such as China, as part of a proposed broadening of US export controls.

Nvidia’s AI chip exports to China are under threat, General Motors reaches deal with striking Canadian auto workers, and other news to start your day.

The Swiss National Bank sold most of its investment in AMC stock, and cut back in Apple, Nvidia, and Tesla investments in the third quarter.

Cotton futures gained for a second day in New York as extreme heat is increasingly risking the health

If there’s one thing the Covid pandemic taught us, it’s that viruses shouldn’t be underestimated. People are, therefore, taking note after scientists discovered a whole new range of giant virus-like particles (VLP) that have taken on “previously unimaginable shapes and forms.” The microscopic agents, resembling everything from stars to monsters, were found in just a few handfuls of forest soil. The sample was collected from Harvard Forest, near Boston in the US back in 2019, and flown over to Germany’s Max Planck Institute. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter There, its contents were carefully examined and, at the end of last month, the findings were finally released. The team of researchers behind the investigation said that their discoveries “question our current understanding of the virosphere” and “imply that giant viruses employ a much wider array of [...] structures and mechanisms to interact with their host cells than is currently known.” In other words, the results prove how little we actually know about the universe of viruses that exist here on Earth. They also noted that the origins and functions of the different viral structures they found remain unknown – so there’s still plenty of mystery left to solve. The team at the Max Planck Institute, led by Dr Matthias Fischer, were amazed to find “an astounding diversity of virus-like particles (VLP)," in such a small sample. "Amazingly, we found that a few hundred grams of forest soil contained a greater diversity [of the structures] than that of all hitherto isolated giant viruses combined," they wrote. These included one type that resembled a supernova: Another that the teamed named the “haircut”: Another called the “turtle” morphotype: Another christened the “Christmas star”: And another called the “Gorgon” – named after the sisters with snakes for hair from Greek mythology: To clarify, VLP are molecules that closely resemble viruses, but they differ from them in one crucial way: they are non-infectious. This is because they contain no viral genetic material. Still, as virus-host systems, they are key to better understanding their potentially noxious counterparts. “[Our] findings imply that giant viruses employ a much wider array of [...] structures and mechanisms to interact with their host cells than is currently known,” the authors wrote. They ended their paper: “This fascinating window into the complex world of soil viruses leaves little doubt that the high genetic diversity of giant viruses is matched by diverse and previously unimaginable particle structures, whose origins and functions remain to be studied.” Clearly, there’s still plenty of work to be done. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

By Joe Cash BEIJING European firms "urgently" need China to give clearer definitions of key terms in its

Apple is planning a new version of its AirTags trackers – but they might not arrive for some time, according to a new report. The company launched its AirTags in April 2021. Since then they have attracted some criticism but also proven popular as a simple way for iPhone owners to track the location of objects such as bags and keys. There have been few rumours about a possible new version of the trackers. But Apple is planning one, according to a report from usually reliable Apple analyst Ming-chi Kuo. But those new trackers will not arrive until late next year or even later, he reported. The company is not planning to put the second-generation AirTags into mass production until the fourth quarter of 2024, he reported. It is unclear what features the new version could have. But Mr Kuo suggested that one change would be better integration with Apple’s upcoming augmented reality headset, the Vision Pro. “I believe that spatial computing is a new ecosystem that Apple wants to build, using Vision Pro as the core to integrate other devices, including AirTag 2,” he wrote. That would presumably include ways of allowing the Vision Pro to show the location of AirTags overlaid on top of the real world, for instance. But it might also bring more deep integration. Apple has long been working on ways to allow for its devices to understand where others are in space, which might rely on some of the same technology currently found in the AirTags. Apple’s AirTags have been met with a largely positive reception, and there are few obvious opportunities for improvement in a new generation. But they did receive some heavy criticism for enabling stalkers to track people by placing AirTags on them without their knowledge – which led to a number of changes, including more messages alerting people when a tracker appears to be moving with them. Read More The iPhone 15 is going to help Apple achieve one very big dream New iPhone might have a mysterious button on its side – and this is what it could do iPhone users urged to check their photo library amid fears they could be deleted