It’s the 12th of April, and while this will probably be overshadowed by the huge news that hundreds of businesses can reopen today, we still have a rundown of the latest tech news for you! This week, we’re giving you a caution over pet-name-passwords, the ability to see if you were included in the Facebook data breach, a video showing a pong-playing monkey and the news Huawei are taking on Tesla. Read on for all the details…
Millions of British people are using their pet's name as their online password, despite it being an easy target for hackers, a survey has found.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) said 15% of the population used pets' names, 14% use a family member's name, and 13% pick a notable date. And 6% of people are still using "password" as all - or a part - of their password.
NCSC communications director Nicola Hudson warned: "We may be a nation of animal lovers but using your pet's name as a password could make you an easy target for callous cyber-criminals.
The NCSC urged people to choose random words that cannot be guessed instead. And if you’re struggling to remember a tonne of different passwords? Check out a password manager.
People can now enter their phone numbers into a website to see if they appeared in a recent Facebook data breach. Details of more than 530 million people were leaked in a database online, largely consisting of mobile numbers.
People can use the Have I Been Pwned online tool to check if their numbers or emails were compromised.
Facebook says the data is from an “old” breach in 2019 but privacy watchdogs are now investigating.
Facebook said it had "found and fixed" the breach more than a year-and-a-half ago. But the information has now been published for free in a hacking forum, making it widely available.
The database covers 533 million people in 106 countries, according to researchers analysing the data. That includes 11 million Facebook users in the UK, 30 million Americans and 7 million Australians.
Be sure to check your details here: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink has released a video showing how it has taught a monkey - Pager, a nine-year-old macaque - to play the video game Pong with its mind.
The video follows Mr Musk's assertion in February that the company has "a monkey with a wireless implant in their skull with tiny wires" that it uses to play video games.
At the time of the video, Pager was six weeks on from having had the Neuralink devices installed - one in each side of his brain - and in that time has learned to interact with a computer for a "tasty banana smoothie" delivered through a straw.
The implants work by recording signals in Pager's motor cortex that normally coordinates hand and arm movements.
"Our goal is to enable a person with paralysis to user a computer or phone with their brain activity alone," says the narrator during the video of Pager.
Huawei Technologies Co. will invest $1 billion on researching self-driving and electric-car technologies, accelerating plans to compete with Tesla Inc. and Xiaomi Corp. in the world’s biggest vehicle arena.
Huawei’s autonomous-driving technology has already surpassed Tesla’s in some spheres, for instance by allowing cars to cruise for more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) without human intervention, Rotating Chairman Eric Xu told analysts in Shenzhen Monday.
The Chinese telecom giant will partner with three automakers initially to make self-driving cars that carry the Huawei name as a sub-brand, said Xu, one of three executives who take turns to fill the post. It will keep its circle of partners small and get its logo onto cars -- not unlike how Intel Corp. calls attention to its microprocessors on PCs -- that adopt its autonomous driving technology, he added. The mobile giant has so far agreed to team up with BAIC Group, Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.
Huawei aims to join tech giants from Apple Inc. to Xiaomi in targeting the vehicle industry, betting future cars will grow increasingly green, autonomous and connected. EV sales in China may climb more than 50% this year alone as consumers embrace cleaner automobiles and costs tumble, research firm Canalys estimates.