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Want to dust off that flash luggage set? We Concur, says German giant

Business travel is back – kinda – said SAP as it filed results showing total calendar Q2 revenue down 1 per cent year-on-year to €6.67bn.…

Proposed changes to EU law would force companies that transfer Bitcoin or other crypto-assets to collect details on the recipient and sender. From a report: The proposals would make crypto-assets more traceable, the EU Commission said, and would help stop money-laundering and the financing of terrorism. The new rules would also prohibit providing anonymous crypto-asset wallets. The proposals could take two years to become law. The Commission argued that crypto-asset transfers should be subject to the same anti-money-laundering rules as wire transfers. "Given that virtual assets transfers are subject to similar money-laundering and terrorist-financing risks as wire funds transfers... it therefore appears logical to use the same legislative instrument to address these common issues," the Commission wrote. While some crypto-asset service providers are already covered by anti-money-laundering rules, the new proposals would "extend these rules to the entire crypto-sector, obliging all service providers to conduct due diligence on their customers," the Commission explained. Under the proposals, a company transferring crypto-assets for a customer would be obliged to include their name, address, date of birth and account number, and the name of the recipient.

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Fancy new system shown off at online summit

Google has introduced a new Intrusion Detection Service together with "Adaptive Protection" for its cloud firewall, but such services make security a costly feature.…

Amid the varied cast of people whose numbers appear on a list of individuals selected by NSO Group's client governments, one name stands out as particularly ironic. Pavel Durov, the enigmatic Russian-born tech billionaire who has built his reputation on creating an unhackable messaging app, finds his own number on the list. From a report: Durov, 36, is the founder of Telegram, which claims to have more than half a billion users. Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging and users can also set up "channels" to disseminate information quickly to followers. It has found popularity among those keen to evade the snooping eyes of governments, whether they be criminals, terrorists or protesters battling authoritarian regimes. In recent years, Durov has publicly rubbished the security standards of competitors, particularly WhatsApp, which he has claimed is "dangerous" to use. By contrast, he has positioned Telegram as a plucky upstart determined to safeguard the privacy of its users at all costs.

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Wildfire smoke from Canada and the Western United States stretched across North America this week, covering skies in a thick haze, tinting the sun a malevolent red and triggering health alerts from Toronto to Philadelphia. Air quality remained in the unhealthy range across much of the East Coast on Wednesday morning. From a report: The map below, based on modeling from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shows how the smoke spread across the country. It reflects fine particulate pollution released by wildfires and does not include pollution from other human sources, like power plants and cars. It's not unprecedented to see smoke travel such long distances, said Roisin Commane, an atmospheric scientist at Columbia University, but it doesn't always descend to the surface. The air quality index, a measure developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, spiked across the Midwest and East Coast this week, with numbers hovering around 130 to 160 in New York City, a range where members of sensitive groups and the general public may experience adverse health effects. (The index runs from 0 to 500; the higher the number, the greater the level of air pollution, with readings over 100 considered particularly unhealthy.)

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Microsoft said Wednesday it's acquiring CloudKnox, a start-up whose software helps companies reduce the amount of access they provide to their cloud resources. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. From a report: The move represents another step Microsoft is taking to expand its security business, in addition to working to keep Windows and its other products secure. In January, Microsoft said it had generated over $10 billion in security revenue in the previous 12 months, up more than 40% year over year, meaning that it's growing faster than most other product areas. Just last week Microsoft announced the acquisition of another security company, RiskIQ, which can spot threats across a given company's entire information-technology footprint. CloudKnox's software works with Microsoft's Azure public cloud, as well as the Amazon and Google clouds. The software spots and can remove cases of permissions for employees and virtual identities that aren't being actively used, and it can show alerts about unusual activity.

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Olly Joshi talks environmental issues, fundraising, and whether he'd hire '70s Jobs himself

A former ad exec is trying to make some cash history by pitting two copies of a job application penned by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in 1973 against each other at auction – one the original physical copy, and the other a cryptocurrency-backed non-fungible token (NFT).…

Google is expanding the number of cities where Maps offers information about public transport crowding. The number of cities covered is increasing from around 200 today, to "over 10,000 transit agencies in 100 countries," the company says. As well as crowdedness, Google says Maps is also being updated to offer more information about past travel. From a report: Google Maps' crowdedness information originally launched pre-pandemic in 2019, but over the past year social distancing has made it more important than ever. Crowdedness information is generated from a mixture of historical location data, as well as self-reporting from Maps users on individual trains. Google says it anonymizes the location history data used. As well as expanding the crowdedness predictions to more cities, Google is also making them more granular in New York and Sydney. In these cities users will see how crowded individual train carriages are instead of just general crowding on the transit line. The feature works using data provided by transit agencies themselves, and Google says it plans to expand the capability to more cities soon.

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Plastic-backed TFT part positioned as perfect for the Internet of Things

Researchers at chip designer Arm have shown off a prototype microprocessor - dubbed PlasticARM - built on flexible plastic, letting it curve around surfaces and even flex backwards and forwards.…

Talks of increased interest in EUV, nations' desire to take tech production native

Lithography specialist ASML, one of the companies that sells chipmakers the things they need to actually make chips, has announced a barnstorming Q2 with its highest order intake ever - as customers scramble to fill a depleted supply chain eager for parts.…

A 22-year-old UK national was arrested today in Spain for his role in hacking Twitter's internal network and hijacking high-profile accounts in July last year. From a report: Joseph O'Connor, 22, was arrested today in the city of Estepona, in southern Spain, by Spanish National Police pursuant to a US arrest warrant. O'Connor marks the fourth man linked to the Twitter 2020 hack, after three men were charged and detained on July 31, last year. O'Conner, who went online as "j0e," worked with the other three to gain access to one of Twitter's internal Slack channels. The group found credentials in the Slack workplaces that allowed them to gain access to Twitter's moderation panel.

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Ah shucks, industry and investors will have to wait a little bit longer

The UK government looks set to delay the publication of its much-anticipated Hydrogen Strategy, Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), told MPs this morning.…

Tesla plans to open its network of superchargers to other electric vehicles later this year, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Twitter. From a report: The electric-car maker's fast charging network, with over 25,000 superchargers globally, has given it a competitive edge. Meanwhile, other carmakers have formed alliances or invested in startups for networks as they rush new electric vehicle entrants to market. "We're making our Supercharger network open to other EVs later this year," Musk said on Tuesday, adding that over time Tesla's charging network will be opened to other electric vehicles in all countries.

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There is no escaping Microsoft's messaging platform

There are few constants in life, though death and taxes spring to mind, as does Microsoft forcing its Teams collab platform down the throat of any passing users.…

Remembering the second American in space

Somewhat lost in the hubbub over Jeff Bezos' jaunt into space is the 60th anniversary of Virgil "Gus" Grissom's suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ohio State News: Scientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China. Most of those viruses, which survived because they had remained frozen, are unlike any viruses that have been cataloged to date. The findings, published today in the journal Microbiome, could help scientists understand how viruses have evolved over centuries. For this study, the scientists also created a new, ultra-clean method of analyzing microbes and viruses in ice without contaminating it. The researchers analyzed ice cores taken in 2015 from the Guliya ice cap in western China. The cores are collected at high altitudes -- the summit of Guliya, where this ice originated, is 22,000 feet above sea level. The ice cores contain layers of ice that accumulate year after year, trapping whatever was in the atmosphere around them at the time each layer froze. Those layers create a timeline of sorts, which scientists have used to understand more about climate change, microbes, viruses and gases throughout history. Researchers determined that the ice was nearly 15,000 years old using a combination of traditional and new, novel techniques to date this ice core. When they analyzed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses. Four of those viruses have already been identified by the scientific community. But at least 28 of them are novel. About half of them seemed to have survived at the time they were frozen not in spite of the ice, but because of it.

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'Campaign of engagement and communication' might not include letter, but junior minister doesn't rule it out

The UK government has refused to commit to sending a letter to 55 million patients in England informing them about its plans to extract their medical data from GP IT systems.…

Company can't seem to help running its mouth, despite ASA's ruling last year

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has warned mobile network Three not to repeat claims that it is "building the UK's fastest 5G network" and that its network represents "real 5G" – after pulling the company up on the same claims a year ago.…

Gather 'round, kids, and I'll tell you stories of rotary dial phones, modems, and FTP

Mozilla has finally expunged File Transfer Protocol (FTP) from the Firefox browser – an action already taken by other major browsers like Chrome and Edge, making Firefox 89.0 the last bastion of the protocol.…

Yet they lose anonymity bid before High Court

Hundreds of Westminster political staffers are suing the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) after it allegedly published their salaries, holiday entitlements, and number of hours worked.…