Self-driving car pioneer Waymo is teaming up with ride-hailing leader Uber in the Phoenix area to transport passengers and deliver food in robotic cars that triggered a bitter technological dispute between the two companies

A major bank has issued a warning about crypto investment scams, with victims standing to lose more than £10,000 on average and young adults often being particularly at risk. Lloyds Bank has recorded a 23% rise in reports of cryptocurrency investment scams by customers in its banking group (including Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland) between January and September 2023, compared with the equivalent period last year. Victims are losing £10,741 on average, up from £7,010 last year, the bank said, with many of the scams it analysed originating on social media. The most common age range for crypto scam victims is 25 to 34 years old, Lloyds said. Would-be crypto investors typically make an average of three payments before they realise they have been scammed, taking around 100 days from the date of the first transaction before they report it to their bank, Lloyds added. Crypto is a highly risky asset class and remains largely unregulated, which makes it an attractive area for fraudsters to exploit Liz Ziegler, Lloyds Bank Fraudsters often pose as investment managers, promising that any payments made by the victim will be invested on their behalf, often with the promise of huge returns. Sometimes the victim will be shown a fake investment account, suggesting that the funds are already making a profit, or a small amount of money will be transferred back into their bank account. But often there is no genuine crypto holding and the fraudster will disappear. In some cases, there will be an actual investment account held in the victim’s own name and registered with a legitimate platform. But once funds have been deposited, victims may be tricked into handing over their account login details, or passing control of their digital wallet over to the fraudster. They might also be directed to transfer cryptocurrency from within their own account to another digital wallet, which is under the control of criminals. Liz Ziegler, fraud prevention director at Lloyds Bank, said: “Crypto is a highly risky asset class and remains largely unregulated, which makes it an attractive area for fraudsters to exploit. If something goes wrong, you’re unlikely to get your money back.” Here are Lloyds’ tips for protecting yourself from crypto fraudsters: – Criminals often put adverts for scam crypto investments on social media. They can also send offers by direct message. They will promise returns that you cannot get elsewhere or make claims about “guaranteed” profits. If you are contacted out of the blue about an investment, it is likely a scam. – Fraudsters can easily set up fake companies, social media profiles and websites to clone real firms. Use the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) website to find genuine contact details for a company and check for warnings about fake firms. Always do your own research or seek professional financial advice. – Never share the log in details for your investment account or your private cryptocurrency keys with anyone else. A legitimate firm would never ask you for this. Remember, if you transfer funds to another account that is not in your name, you have lost control of your money. – Fraudsters may ask you to pay an account in a different name to the company you are meant to invest with. If the names do not match, it is a sign of a scam. Paying by card (rather than a bank transfer) may offer you more protection if something goes wrong. Read More Council investigating extent of cyber attack that affected website and systems Setback for Ireland as EU legal adviser recommends revisit of Apple tax case Smartphones ‘may be able to detect how drunk a person is with 98% accuracy’ Ireland and Apple await major development in long-running EU tax dispute Guidance urges parents not to buy smartphones for primary school children William ‘blown away’ by futuristic technology from Singapore start-ups

An hours-long outage that left people in the UK unable to call each other has now been resolved, according to the networks involved. Around lunchtime on Monday, many people found they were unable to make phone calls. Attempting to ring certain numbers just showed the call as failing. It was initially unclear what the problem was, and who was responsible. Tracking website Down Detector showed issues at a range of UK networks, and indicated that customers across the country were experiencing them. It soon became clear that the problem affected Vodafone numbers when they tried to call EE numbers. But it also affected people with Vodafone who attempted to call people who ported their number from EE – since the number remains the same, and so EE is still involved in the process, routing those calls to people’s new network. Vodafone indicated that the problem was with EE. It said that the problem was “an issue with the EE network”, and that the network was seeking to fix it. EE then said that it was aware of the problem and working to fix it. Now EE has said that the issue has been resolved, though it gave little information on what happened or whether it might be able to happen again. It also stressed that the issue only affected calls from Vodafone customers, and that mobile data and text messages had stayed functional throughout the outage. “The issue impacting some customers’ calls to and from a Vodafone number has been resolved,” a spokesperson said. “We’re very sorry for any inconvenience caused. Calls to other networks, mobile data and text messages were not affected.” Customers at some other networks reported problems, including those on O2, which said that users might experience issues when connecting with customers on EE. Those problems were presumably the result of those ported numbers. Read More Vodafone users say they can’t call people SpaceX abandons YouTube for live streams of launches in favour of X/Twitter Spy attire: US investing $22m in surveillance socks and other wearable tech

By Blake Brittain and Katie Paul A group of writers including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon sued Meta

A humble Corolla running on liquid hydrogen has made its racing debut, part of a move to bring the futuristic technology into the racing world and to demonstrate Toyota Motor Corp.’s resolve to develop hydrogen vehicles

Warren Buffett-backed Occidental Petroleum Corp. agreed to buy Canadian startup Carbon Engineering Ltd. for $1.1 billion as the

The revised standards for black history lessons suggest some received "personal benefit" from slavery.

While the previous Lexar internal solid-state drives we have reviewed—the Lexar NM610 and NM620—are rather

Check out the best weapons in Apex Legends Season 18, including the Nemesis and the C.A.R., after some major weapon buffs, nerfs, and reworks.

European Union member states have given final approval for the bloc’s master plan to expand semiconductor production

Amazon’s cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services experienced an outage on Tuesday, affecting publishers that suddenly found themselves unable to operate their sites

Best Amazon Prime Day robot vacuum deals Arguably the most flex-worthy of all floor types,