Amazon order to recall 400,000 products in US, Gen Z switching off live TV
Amazon has been ordered by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to recall over 400,000 products sold on its platform due to serious safety risks, including death and electrocution. The e-commerce giant failed to adequately warn over 300,000 customers about these hazards, despite tests by the CPSC verifying the products to be defective. The products were sold between 2018 and 2021. The CPSC has determined that Amazon is legally responsible for the recall of these purchases, including highly flammable children’s pyjamas, faulty carbon monoxide detectors and unsafe hair dryers. Daily Mail
For the first time, less than half of 16-24-year-olds are now watching broadcast TV in an average week, according to Ofcom’s annual study into the nation’s media habits. Just 48% of young audiences tuned in in an average week last year, down from 76% in 2018. Children aged 4-15 are tuning out at a similar rate, with only 55% watching broadcast TV each week in 2023, compared to 81% in 2018. Overall, the weekly reach of traditional TV fell by a record amount in the last year. Tech Digest
The Competition and Markets Authority has begun a preliminary investigation into a partnership between Google and the AI startup Anthropic, marking the latest in a string of investigations into deals between big tech companies and smallerAI ones. Google invested $2bn (about £1.56bn) into Anthropic in 2023, shortly after signing a cloud computing agreement with the startup, which develops the Claude LLM and chatbot. The Guardian
Apple has just rolled out two new versions of iOS – the iOS 18.1 developer beta, which includes some highly anticipated Apple Intelligence features, and iOS 17.6. The latter is what we’ll look at here, and while it’s the less exciting of the two software updates, it’s also by far the safest one to download. In fact, iOS 17.6 includes bug fixes and security updates, so should make your phone more stable and secure. Those bug fixes and security updates are arguably the most important part of this update, and the main reason you should download it. But iOS 17.6 does also contain a neat new feature in the form of ‘Catch Up’. Tech Radar
A global outage affecting Microsoft products including email service Outlook and video game Minecraft has been resolved, the technology giant said in an update. The firm said preliminary investigations show the outage was caused by a cyber-attack and a failure to properly defend against it. Earlier, the company issued an apology for the incident, which lasted almost 10 hours and caused thousands of users to report issues with Microsoft services. BBC
Rules that prevent energy firms from offering cheaper deals to new customers will remain in place until March 2025, regulator Ofgem has confirmed. It means you’re less likely to be able to cut your bills by switching supplier for the time being – though there are still some deals worth considering now. The ‘ban on acquisition-only tariffs’ was introduced by Ofgem in April 2022 during the height of the energy crisis, and was designed to stop energy firms from offering low prices to win new customers. MoneySavingExpert
