Technology

Amazon has unveiled a flying camera drone which can be used inside the home to stream video to residents’ phones in case of a break-in. The device has prompted concerns from privacy organisations and campaigners who warn it could permit unwanted surveillance. Ring, the Amazon company behind the device, said it was designed with privacy

An NHS coronavirus contact-tracing app has launched across England and Wales. As of Thursday evening, it had been downloaded more than one million times by Android users, according to the Google Play Store. The total figure is likely to be higher when iPhone downloads are included, but Apple does not provide similar figures for app

British volunteers are to be deliberately infected with COVID-19 to test whether a vaccine offers any protection. In the first trial of its kind, participants will be injected with an experimental vaccine and around a month later exposed to Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes the disease. According to FT, the studies – which are known

The British government is launching a new telecoms diversity task force to find a supplier capable of filling the void left by a ban on Huawei’s equipment within the UK’s 5G infrastructure. Mobile networks in the UK will be banned from purchasing 5G kit from Huawei from the end of this year, leaving only two

Police have arrested 179 people, including four in the UK, as part of a global crackdown on dark web opioid trafficking. More than $6.5m (£5m) in cash was seized in a series of arrests and raids across the US and Europe, which came more than a year after the Wall Street Market darknet site was

The mysterious cause of an entire rural Welsh village’s broadband being knocked out at 7am each morning has finally been uncovered – an old television set. Frequent tests consistently showed that Aberhosan’s network itself was working fine but even after local engineers replaced large sections of cable, the problems continued. After 18 months of fruitless

A deal to prevent TikTok from being banned in the US has been plunged into peril. The Chinese company ByteDance had reached an agreement with Oracle and Walmart that was designed to allay national security concerns, but Global Times, a newspaper backed by the Chinese state, has suggested Beijing is unlikely to give its approval.

Microsoft has agreed to buy the company behind hit games such as Fallout, Doom and The Elder Scrolls in a $7.5bn (£5.8bn) deal. The acquisition of ZeniMax will help Microsoft strengthen its Xbox video game offering as competition with rival Sony heats up ahead of Christmas. Gaming has been boosted by growing demand at a

Donald Trump’s plan to block downloads of the Chinese messaging and payment app WeChat has been blocked by a federal judge in California on first amendment grounds. The ruling put a temporary block on the president’s executive order which would have effectively banned the app on Sunday, despite Mr Trump and his administration describing it

Donald Trump says he has given his “blessing” to a proposed deal that could prevent TikTok from being banned in the US. He told reporters at the White House he is backing a deal with Oracle and Walmart that would create a new company to oversee TikTok’s US operations. Mr Trump said the new company

Just 6% of the UK’s population had COVID-19 antibodies at the start of September, the government’s scientific advisers have warned. Newly released documents from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) said current levels of immunity were unlikely to mitigate the impact of “a significant winter resurgence”. There is also evidence that antibody levels wane

A man has been caught asleep behind the wheel of a self-driving Tesla car that was travelling at 150km/h (93mph). Police in Alberta, Canada, received a call about a 2019 Tesla Model S speeding on a motorway near the town of Ponoka. Officers said the car appeared to be in self-drive mode, with both front

British universities and colleges have been warned about a spike in ransomware attacks targeting the education sector by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ. Academic institutions are being urged to follow NCSC guidance following a sharp increase in attacks which have left some teachers fearing they won’t be able to

Kim Kardashian West is shunning the social media site that helped make her a star, freezing her Instagram account for the day. She is one of a group of celebrities who have paused their Insta and Facebook feeds for 24 hours, protesting against the spread of “hate, propaganda and misinformation”. Kardashian, who has over 218m

Boris Johnson’s moonshot testing programme “can be done”, according to a Chinese company which has developed a new 30-minute COVID-19 test. The firm’s founder told Sky News it could provide the capacity to test one million people in the UK each day within a month. Sabrina Li, the founder and chief executive of biotech company

An Uber safety driver who was behind the wheel of a self-driving car that struck and killed a woman in the US has been charged over the death. Rafaela Vasquez pleaded not guilty to negligent homicide on Tuesday following the 2018 crash that resulted in the first recorded death involving a self-driving vehicle. Elaine Herzberg,