Rise of cyber scams after IT outage, Half of EV owners admit to ‘ghost charging’

Cyber-security experts and agencies around the world are warning people about a wave of opportunistic hacking attempts linked to the IT outage. Although there is no evidence that the CrowdStrike outage was caused by malicious activity, some bad actors are attempting to take advantage. Cyber agencies in the UK and Australia are warning people to be vigilant to fake emails, calls and websites that pretend to be official. And CrowdStrike head George Kurtz encouraged users to make sure they were speaking to official representatives from the company before downloading fixes. BBC 

Half of electric car drivers admit to ‘ghost charging’ – a simple tactic used to get priority parking at supermarkets, restaurants and shopping centres,according to a new study. The selfish move is particularly prevalent in large cities where parking is at a premium. Cardiff, Birmingham and Belfast are said to have the worst offenders, an ‘EV first’ piece of research carried out by Sainsburys claims. In a poll of 505 EV owners, 51 per cent said they ghost charge. This is the act of pretending to charge their battery car so they can use an EV charging bay. ThisIsMoney

How do the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram affect what you see in your news feed? To find out, Guardian Australia unleashed them on a completely blank smartphone linked to a new, unused email address. Three months later, without any input, they were riddled with sexist and misogynistic content. Facebook was able to gather some other information, such as the phone’s type and its location in Melbourne, but we opted out of ad tracking so it could  not tell what we were doing outside of the app. Guardian

Despite recent layoffs in its Reality Labs division, Meta is still barreling ahead with plans for a Quest 4 in 2026 and a higher-end headset in 2027, The Information reports. While the report didn’t reveal much about hardware, this is the first time we’ve heard about specific timelines for the devices. The Quest 4 will purportedly have a standard and premium version. Meanwhile, a higher-end version codenamed “La Jolla” is set for 2027 and is meant to compete with the Apple Vision Pro. The Verge

It’s been a little while since we heard anything about the iPhone SE 4 – the follow-up to the iPhone SE 3 from 2022 – but a fresh rumor suggests it’s going to share some design similarities with the upcoming iPhone 16. According to tipster Fixed Focus Digital on Chinese social media site Weibo (via MacRumors), the more affordable Apple phone is going to use the same rear chassis manufacturing process as the flagship Apple phone for 2024. Tech Radar

Imagine you could catch a plane from London to Sydney that took four hours, instead of 22. This was the exciting idea kindled by Reaction Engines, an Oxfordshire start-up that evoked the spirit of the famous British-Franco project Concorde. In 2013, Reaction was feted by experts and the UK government as a British champion poised to “revolutionise air travel and reduce the cost of reaching space”. But just over a decade later, the company has been forced into sharp manoeuvres to shore up its finances amid concerns the original project looks like a boondoggle. Telegraph