ShinyShiny snippets: UK Government axes EV car grant
The Government has axed the plug-in car grant, meaning EV buyers will no longer receive taxpayer-funded financial support towards the purchase price of their vehicles. Announcing the end of the scheme, the Department for Transport (DfT) boasted that the grant had helped to increase the sales of fully electric cars from less than 1,000 in the whole of 2011 to almost 100,000 in the first five months of 2022 alone. Electric car sales have risen 70 per cent in the last year and now make up one in six new cars sold in the UK. AutoExpress
The files needed to print a gun are not buried on the dark web. They can be downloaded in as little as three clicks from mainstream social media sites such as YouTube. 3D-printed gun technology has rapidly advanced in recent years – with a range of printable semi-automatic rifles, carbines and pistols available. Those who create and share the designs for these firearms have thousands of followers on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Although popular in the US, where they are legal, 3D-printed guns are beginning to appear more frequently in the UK. Sky News
Instagram will let parents set time limits on their children’s use in an attempt to counter claims it keeps young users addicted to the app. Parents of users under 18 will be able to enforce breaks, monitor who follows their children as well as who they follow, and set a limit on how long they spend on Instagram. Parents will also receive an alert when their child reports an account or post. Teenagers will also receive “nudges” if they have been looking at a certain type of content repeatedly. The changes were introduced following revelations last year that Instagram’s own research showed it could be harmful for teenagers. Telegraph
WhatsApp is adding the ability to transfer your conversation history from Android to iPhone after previously only allowing users to transfer chats the other way (from iPhone to Android). The functionality was announced by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post. Early signs of the feature, which is rolling out in beta for now, were previously spotted by WABetaInfo. The update helps with a long-standing WhatsApp issue, which is that it’s historically been difficult to transfer chats between the two mobile operating systems. It’s easy to transfer chats from one iOS device to another or from one Android device to another but generally not between the two different operating systems. The Verge
Netflix is recruiting participants for a reality TV show inspired by its most popular series of all time, Squid Game. However, it will not be life or death that is at stake, as depicted in the South Korean dystopian drama. Instead, 456 recruits from around the world will play games where “the worst fate is going home empty-handed” – missing out on a $4.56m (£3.8m) prize. Netflix also confirmed that the popular series would be renewed for a second season earlier this week. BBC
