Category: News
ShinyShiny snippets: Mastodon users fall by 30% since peak
The number of active users on the Mastodon social network has dropped more than 30% since the peak and is continuing a slow decline, according to the latest data posted on its website. There were about 1.8 million active users in the first week of January, down from over 2.5 million in early December. Mastodon, an…
ShinyShiny snippets: NASA satellite to fall to Earth after 38 years in space
Image: NASA A NASA satellite is expected to fall to Earth this weekend after nearly 40 years in space. The Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) was launched in 1984 aboard the space shuttle Challenger. It was initially sent into space with a lifespan of just two years to study how the…
ShinyShiny snippets: Apple Books launches AI-narrated audiobooks
Apple has launched a raft of audiobooks narrated by artificial intelligence to its Apple Books platform, but maintains it “remains committed to celebrating and showcasing the magic of human narration”. According to The Guardian, which said the tech giant had “quietly” uploaded the text-to-speech content in “an attempt to upend the lucrative and fast-growing audiobook…
ShinyShiny snippets: VW ID.7 EV comes to CES in Las Vegas
The roll-out of Volkswagen's ID family of models continues with this, the VW ID.7 electric saloon, which has been shown off at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The German firm has pulled the covers off its Tesla Model 3 rival and confirmed the ID.7 name, but has stopped short of revealing the vehicle's full design; we'll…
ShinyShiny snippets: Tesla delivered record number of EVs in 2022
Electric car maker Tesla says it delivered a record 1.3m vehicles last year, 40% more than in 2021. It comes after the company delivered more than 405,000 vehicles in the last three months of 2022. However, that figure missed Wall Street forecasts of around 430,000 deliveries for the period. This year the motor industry is…
ShinyShiny snippets: Sales of AR and VR headsets tumble, data shows
Worldwide shipments of virtual and augmented reality headsets dropped 12% to 9.6 million this year according to data from CCS Insight - a problem for Meta and other tech companies that are invested in the digital worlds' potential. VR headset sales in the U.S. also slumped 2% from a year earlier to $1.1 billion as of…
ShinyShiny snippets: Tesla in California crash was in full self-driving mode
The driver of a 2021 Tesla Model S told California authorities the vehicle was in “full self-driving mode” when the technology malfunctioned, causing an eight-vehicle crash on the San Francisco Bay bridge last month. The crash on Thanksgiving Day resulted in two juveniles being transported to hospital and led to lengthy delays on the bridge. The…
ShinyShiny snippets: Sharing Netflix password details may be illegal, government suggests
Users of online streaming platforms such as Netflix could be breaking the law by sharing their account with other households, a government agency has said. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) said password sharing may amount to “secondary copyright infringement”. In guidance published this week, the IPO said: “Pasting internet images into your social media without permission, or accessing…
ShinyShiny snippets: UK’s first space mission ready for lift off
Image: Virgin Orbit The first space mission on British soil is due for lift-off in the coming weeks after the regulator granted licences. Virgin Orbit has been awarded licences to operate the UK's first space launch. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson's company demonstrated it has "taken…
Trustpilot reports fewer positive reviews
Review platform Trustpilot has reported 50,000 fewer positive reviews since April, a five per cent drop on the previous year. The biggest problem areas raised by reviewers are deliveries, response times to enquiries and mistakes made with orders. The data was released by the review platform, which also commissioned research of 2,000 UK consumers which found 30…
