HONG KONG (Reuters) -Chinese electric car company Xpeng said it will acquire ride-hailing giant Didi's smart electric vehicle unit and

By Shivangi Acharya NEW DELHI U.S. trade chief Katherine Tai has raised concerns with India over the Asian

Metropolitan Police chiefs should carry out a thorough investigation of the force’s cyber security practices following an IT breach, industry experts have said. Scotland Yard said on Saturday that it had been made aware of “unauthorised access to the IT system of one of its suppliers”. The company in question had access to names, ranks, photos, vetting levels and pay numbers for officers and staff. The force is now working with the company to understand if there has been any security breach relating to its data, and was unable to confirm how many personnel might be affected. Cyber security experts said the possible data breach is “extremely worrying” but unsurprising as cyber attackers frequently target third-party companies. The Met Police are extremely good at keeping their own data secure, but they do use third parties. As they have to use these parties, if they aren’t up to date with their own security then that becomes a weakness that could be targeted Jake Moore, ESET Jake Moore, global cyber security adviser for software firm ESET, told the PA news agency: “This is another extremely worrying episode of what we seem to be seeing quite a lot of this year. “It’s just worrying to think these police forces are coming under attack in what I would suggest are relatively simple ways.” Mr Moore said the current suspected breach appears to have been “a targeted attack to test the security within the supply chain” where criminals were “looking for the weakest link”. He added: “The Met Police are extremely good at keeping their own data secure, but they do use third parties. “As they have to use these parties, if they aren’t up to date with their own security then that becomes a weakness that could be targeted.” Mr Moore suggested that current cyber security systems used by police forces, coupled with a lack of resources, may have led to flaws opening up. He said: “It’s not impossible to stop this. It’s to do with understanding where all your data is. “When you amalgamate systems, particularly when police forces join together, they tend not to understand completely where all their data is or who has access to it, and that can cause problems down the line. “They need to do a complete analysis on who has access, why they have access to their data, and to reduce all of those weak points as best they can. “It will take time – not necessarily too much money – but it will take resources and people power to mitigate this in the future, and hopefully something like this will shake the boots of all the chiefs around the country to wake up and act faster.” We do have best practices and guidelines in the industry on how to protect the systems, so maybe it comes down to someone conducting an external audit in the aftermath to see whether or not they are following these practices Professor Kevin Curran, Ulster University Kevin Curran, professor of cyber security at Ulster University, agreed that the breach is likely to be down to “a third-party supplier issue”. He said: “I’m not surprised really – data breaches are such a common occurrence and police are no exception. “They have the same resources as a lot of other companies, where any data systems which have external access to the internet are a risk.” Mr Curran said questions need to be asked about why third parties have access to such information, and if the Met has the right data classification methods in place. He added: “It boils down to resources. Every organisation has to allocate a percentage of their IT budget to cyber security. “It’s a publicly-funded organisation so there’s only a finite amount of resources you have, but we do have best practices and guidelines in the industry on how to protect the systems, so maybe it comes down to someone conducting an external audit in the aftermath to see whether or not they are following these practices.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Social media firms should reimburse online purchase scam victims – Barclays Hozier would consider striking over AI threat to music industry Snapchat experiences ‘temporary outage’ as My AI chatbot posts own Story

A Nasa scientist has said chemicals found on Mars would be considered signs of ancient life if they were found on Earth, leading to suggestions the Red Planet could potentially have harboured life. Dr Michelle Thaller said: “On Mars we see chemistry that on Earth, if it were here, we would say is due to life. “But the question is, how well do we understand Mars and are we being fooled by something?” It’s not a done deal, of course. Signs of ancient life that we find regularly on Earth may not mean the same thing elsewhere, particularly with the vastly different conditions between the two planets. Dr Thaller told The Sun she is certain there is life out there in our solar system, but did not reveal the exact chemical substance that had been found. Nasa has previously found methane on Mars, which it said “could have supported ancient life”, and the organisation has also revealed plans to look for amino acids that haven’t yet been destroyed by space radiation. Organic chemicals like amino acids are used by archaeologists to determine whether life was present. A blog post from the US space agency said: “Amino acids can be created by life and by non-biological chemistry. “However, finding certain amino acids on Mars would be considered a potential sign of ancient Martian life because they are widely used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins. “Proteins are essential to life as they are used to make enzymes which speed up or regulate chemical reactions and to make structures.” Alexander Pavlov of Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, added: “Our results suggest that amino acids are destroyed by cosmic rays in the Martian surface rocks and regolith at much faster rates than previously thought. “Current Mars rover missions drill down to about two inches (around five centimeters). “At those depths, it would take only 20 million years to destroy amino acids completely.” That may sound like a long time, but Nasa is looking for life that is billions of years old, because scientists think Mars would have been more like Earth back then. Dr Thaller said it was important not to actually say there were signs of life until there is 100 per cent confirmation. “The solar system may be teeming with simple life, microbial life. “We just have to get that 100% certainty to say that we found it and we don’t have that yet.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 26, 2023--

The Metropolitan Police has been made aware of “unauthorised access the IT system of one of its suppliers”, the force said. Scotland Yard is now working with the company to understand if there has been any security breach relating to its data. The company in question had access to names, ranks, photos, vetting levels and pay numbers for officers and staff, but did not hold personal information such as addresses, phone numbers or financial details, the force said. A spokesman for the force was unable to say when the breach occurred. The Met has taken “security measures” as a result. The matter has been reported to the National Crime Agency – and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is also aware, the Met said. It follows an admission by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) that personal data on all its serving members was mistakenly published in response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request. Details of around 10,000 PSNI officers and staff included the surname and first initial of every employee, their rank or grade, where they are based and the unit they work in. After the PSNI breach was revealed, Norfolk and Suffolk Police announced the personal data of more than 1,000 people – including crime victims – was included in another FOI response. On Wednesday, South Yorkshire Police referred itself to the ICO after noticing “a significant and unexplained reduction in data stored on its systems”. The force said it is now urgently working with experts to recover footage filmed by officers as they attended incidents or engaged with the public and which, in some cases, could be used as evidence in court.

One of the programs set up to ensure affordable internet for all is set to run out by the middle of 2024

A slew of viral conspiracy videos on social media have made baseless claims that the Maui wildfires were started intentionally as part of a land grab, highlighting how quickly misinformation spreads after a disaster.

This weekend, the Class of 2027 checks into their college dorms at US institutions, from Columbia University in New York City to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to the University of Colorado Boulder.

With the rise of AI, we've all seen how powerful this new technology can be particularly when it comes to music. As a result, people have been using AI to perfectly replicate the singing voices of different artists such as Drake, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift and Harry Styles in order to make AI covers of different songs. For example, there is a viral AI cover of Harry Styles singing in a duet with Taylor Swift on her track Style which fans have been going crazy about. While AI can also be used to create deep fakes of celebrities too - where the celeb's face is digitally imposed on someone else's body which is often used to spread misinformation or for malicious intent. But what do artists think about this issue? Here are the celebrities who have spoken out so far on the topic of AI: Drake An AI song called "Heart on My Sleeve" that used Drake's and the Weeknd's voices went viral before being taken down by music streaming services. While Drake himself hasn't commented on all the AI songs that have been created, he did express his disapproval of the practice after the rapper responded to an AI-generated cover of him rapping Ice Spice’s “Munch”, writing: “This is the final straw AI.” Grimes Grimes has expressed enthusiasm towards the new AI-generated songs - and has told her fans they can use her voice to create their own tracks. Taking to Twitter, she shared a New York Times article about the viral AI-generated song using Drake and The Weeknd's voice. She wrote: "I'll split 50 per cent royalties on any successful AI-generated song that uses my voice. Same deal as I would with any artist I collab with. Feel free to use my voice without penalty. I have no label and no legal bindings." "I think it's cool to be fused w a machine and I like the idea of open-sourcing all art and killing copyright," she added. Though, later she did add a clarification on the platform as to what circumstances would cause her to get certain AI songs taken down for copyright - where "rly rly toxic lyrics," are used with her voice. "Ok hate this part but we may do copyright takedowns ONLY for rly rly toxic lyrics w grimes voice: imo you'd rly have to push it for me to wanna take smthn down but I guess plz don't be *the worst*. as in, try not to exit the current Overton window of lyrical content w regards to sex/violence. Like no baby murder songs plz," she wrote. "I think I'm Streisand effecting this now but I don't wanna have to issue a takedown and be a hypocrite later. ***That's the only rule." Rly don't like to do a rule but don't wanna be responsible for a Nazi anthem unless it's somehow in jest a la producers I guess "- wud prefer avoiding political stuff but if it's a small meme with ur friends we prob won't penalize that. Probably just if smthn is viral and anti abortion or smthn like that. Grimes added: "Rly rly don't like adding rules so I apologize but this is the only thing." Most recently, the singer and producer has shared a guide on how to do this, and shared the link in a tweet: "HOW TO MAKE MUSIC FEAT GrimesAI - we can distribute it for you and you can earn royalties from your work." Billie Eilish During an appearance on The Late, Late Show with James Corden back in May this year, Billie Eilish shared her thoughts on AI. "I feel like my approach is not as optimistic, I'm a little bit scared of it," she admitted. "I'm a little scared of what someone could create of me doing something with it." Eilish added: "Scary, scary to me, it just looks so real," as she went on to note how it's "One of the most impressive things I've encountered in my life." The singer's comments come after deepfake porn' of singer Eilish was promoted on people's TikTok in December last year. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter 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.

Databricks Inc., the closely held software maker widely viewed as a candidate to go public, is in discussions

By Greg Roumeliotis (Reuters) -Private equity firm Veritas Capital has made an offer to buy BlackBerry Ltd, according to a