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Facebook blocks Trump 'at least until transition complete'

Donald Trump has been suspended from his Facebook account for at least two weeks - and possibly indefinitely.
It means the president will be unable to post on Facebook and Instagram until after the transition of power to Joe Biden on 20 January. The social network had originally imposed a 24-hour ban after his supporters attacked the US Capitol. Facebook's chief Mark Zuckerberg wrote that the risks of allowing Mr Trump to post "are simply too great". In a video posted to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Mr Trump told the rioters attacking the seat of government "I love you" before telling them to go home. He also repeated false claims about election fraud.

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Capitol riot: Calls grow for Trump to be removed from office

US President Donald Trump's opponents in the two houses of Congress have called for him to be removed from office after the violent invasion of the Capitol by a mob of his supporters.
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer said Mr Trump should be removed immediately. If he is not, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says he could be impeached. Four people died during the riot, and 68 have now been arrested. Police have faced criticism for failing to stop the rioters breaking in. The official responsible for security in the House of Representatives, the sergeant at arms, has now resigned. Mr Schumer has called for his counterpart in the Senate to be sacked.

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AI draws dog-walking baby radish in a tutu

Avocado-shaped armchairs, radishes in tutus and cats in sunglasses are among some surreal works of art created by an artificial-intelligence system.
Dall-E was trained to generate images from short text-based descriptions, using 12 billion images and their captions sourced from the internet. Creator OpenAI previously produced a text generator that turns short phrases into stories, poems and articles. Experts said the results of its latest innovation were impressive, if patchy. Combining an understanding of both language and pictures will be the key to making AI smarter and the models devised by OpenAI make good strides towards this, most researchers agree.

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Georgia election: Democrats on course for Senate control

The Democratic Party of US President-elect Joe Biden is on the verge of taking control of the Senate as results come in from two elections in Georgia.
Pastor Raphael Warnock is projected to win one seat. Fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff leads narrowly in the other. If they both win, Mr Biden will have a much better chance of pushing through his legislative agenda. It comes as US lawmakers prepare to confirm Mr Biden's presidential election victory. A joint session of Congress will be held to count and confirm electoral college votes, but some Republicans are seeking to overturn the results in a number of states. The bid is almost certain to fail. However, both houses of Congress may have to spend hours debating their objections.

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TalkRadio: YouTube reverses decision to ban channel

YouTube has reinstated TalkRadio's channel on its platform hours after saying it had been "terminated" for breaking the tech firm's rules.
It said the broadcaster had posted material that contradicted expert advice about the coronavirus pandemic. But it explained its U-turn saying it sometimes made exceptions to guidelines that state repeat offenders face a permanent ban. TalkRadio said it had yet to be given a full explanation for the affair. The decision to ban TalkRadio had appalled digital rights campaigners, with one group - Big Brother Watch - claiming it was evidence that "big tech censorship is spiralling out of control". The Google-owned service has issued a brief statement explaining its actions. "TalkRadio's YouTube channel was briefly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated," it said.

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Jacob Blake: No police officers charged over Kenosha shooting

No police officer will face charges over the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin - an incident which sparked protests in the US.
Mr Blake was left paralysed from the waist down after being shot several times in the back as he got into a car where his three children were sitting. The shooting of Mr Blake, a black man, by a white police officer on 23 August aggravated racial tensions. Two people died and one was injured in another shooting in Kenosha days later. Kyle Rittenhouse, now 18, denied six charges including first-degree reckless homicide over the shootings when he appeared at a virtual arraignment with his lawyer, Mark Richards, on Tuesday.

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Google workers form tech giant's first labour union

More than 200 workers at Google-parent Alphabet have taken steps to form a labour union in a rare development for an American tech giant.
They said the organisation will give staff greater power to voice concerns about discriminatory work practices at the firm and how it handles issues like online hate speech. The move follows walkouts and other actions by staff in recent years. Google said it would "continue engaging directly with all our employees". "We've always worked hard to create a supportive and rewarding workplace for our workforce," Kara Silverstein, director of people operations, said in a statement. "Of course our employees have protected labour rights that we support. But as we've always done, we'll continue engaging directly with all our employees".

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Covid: New lockdown for England amid 'hardest weeks'

Everyone in England must stay at home except for permitted reasons during a new coronavirus lockdown expected to last until mid-February, the PM says.
All schools and colleges will close to most pupils and switch to remote learning from Tuesday. Boris Johnson warned the coming weeks would be the "hardest yet" amid surging cases and patient numbers. He said those in the top four priority groups would be offered a first vaccine dose by the middle of next month. All care home residents and their carers, everyone aged 70 and over, all frontline health and social care workers, and the clinically extremely vulnerable will be offered one dose of a vaccine by mid-February.

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Croatia earthquake: Seven dead as rescuers search rubble for survivors

A magnitude 6.4 earthquake has struck central Croatia, with reports of many injuries and at least seven deaths.
A 12-year-old girl was killed in Petrinja, the prime minister said as he visited the town. Five people died in the nearby town of Glina, his deputy said. A seventh victim was found in the rubble of a church in Zazina, state media reports. Petrinja's mayor said around half the town had been destroyed and people were being pulled from the rubble. The earthquake could be felt in the Croatian capital Zagreb, in neighbouring Bosnia and Serbia, and as far away as Italy. One woman was pulled alive from the rubble of the town hall in Petrinja, Croatian media reported.

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Brexit deal mentions Netscape browser and Mozilla Mail

References to decades-old computer software are included in the new Brexit agreement, including a description of Netscape Communicator and Mozilla Mail as being "modern" services.
Experts believe officials must have copied and pasted chunks of text from old legislation into the document. The references are on page 921 of the trade deal, in a section on encryption technology. It also recommends using systems that are now vulnerable to cyber-attacks. The text cites "modern e-mail software packages including Outlook, Mozilla Mail as well as Netscape Communicator 4.x." The latter two are now defunct - the last major release of Netscape Communicator was in 1997. The document also recommends using 1024-bit RSA encryption and the SHA-1 hashing algorithm, which are both outdated and vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

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Wonder Woman 1984: 'Surprisingly robust' US debut for film sequel

The sequel to 2017's superhero hit Wonder Woman has opened in US cinemas, generating "surprisingly robust" ticket sales, according to one industry paper.
Variety said Wonder Woman 1984's $16.7m (£12.3m) debut was "the biggest opening weekend haul in the coronavirus era". The Warner Bros film was made available on the HBO Max streaming service on the same day it opened in more than 2,000 cinemas in the US and Canada. Its distributor said HBO Max's viewing hours had tripled as a consequence. According to Warner Media, nearly half of the platform's retail subscribers viewed Wonder Woman 1984 when it became available on Christmas Day. It said HBO Max's total viewing hours on 25 December were more than three times that of a typical day in the previous month.

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Health to be on cyber-security's front line in 2021

Covid-19 catapulted the health sector to the forefront of cyber-security in 2020, but the next year is likely to see the dangers continue and evolve.
Threats from nation states and criminals to the health system are a growing concern.The huge logistical challenge of rolling out vaccines faces the risk of disruption to complex supply chains. And criminal ransomware poses a threat at a time when the pandemic has increased our reliance on technology. The distribution of the various coronavirus vaccines may bring relief, but it also brings with it a major challenge: many of those involved have not had to think hard about security in the past. The complex global supply chain for vaccines ranges from factories in one country to internet-connected fridges in another.

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Signal: Cellebrite claimed to have cracked chat app's encryption

Israeli security firm Cellebrite has claimed that it can decrypt messages from Signal's highly secure chat and voice-call app, boasting that it could disrupt communications from "gang members, drug dealers and even protesters".
A blog on its website detailing how it did it has since been altered. According to one cyber-security expert, the claims sounded "believable". But others, including Signal's founder, have dismissed them as being risible. The BBC has contacted Cellebrite and Signal for comment. Highly encrypted apps such as Signal and Telegram have become popular among people keen to keep their messages private. The adoption rates have worried law enforcement agencies, who feel they are hampering their ability to investigate crimes. "Apps like these make parsing data for forensic analysis extremely difficult," writes Cellebrite.

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Coronavirus spreads to Antarctic research station

Coronavirus has reached the Antarctic continent, which had so far been free of Covid-19.
The Chilean army has reported 36 cases at its Bernardo O'Higgins research station on the Antarctic Peninsula. The 36, 26 of whom are military personnel and 10 maintenance workers, have been evacuated to Chile. The news comes just days after Chile's navy confirmed three cases on a ship which had taken supplies and personnel to the research station. The news means that Covid cases have now been recorded on all seven continents. The Sargento Aldea arrived at the research station on 27 November and sailed back to Chile on 10 December. Three of its crew tested positive upon their return to the Chilean naval base in Talcahuano.

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How tech can just about save Christmas Day

Christmas 2020 is not what any of us would have planned. Covid-19 restrictions and travel bans suddenly imposed on the UK have left millions of Brits cut off from one another and facing a potentially depressing Christmas Day.
These may be hard times, but technology can help. It has its flaws. It’s not accessible to everybody. But the BBC Tech team has pulled together some ideas for digital solutions to aid us in this bleak, midwinter moment. Zoom, Facetime, Google Meet and others might seem an obvious alternative when meeting in-person isn’t possible, but not everyone finds these virtual gatherings rejuvenating. Thanks to the pandemic, many of us have spent long hours on work-based video conferences during the year, notes Sascha Miller, who is involved in the Germ Defence project, which provides information about Covid-19. “It’s actually quite intense,” she notes. Christmas Day video calls might be best kept short and sweet but scattered throughout the day, she suggests.

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Covid: Flights shut down as EU discusses UK virus threat

EU officials are discussing a joint response to a new, more infectious Covid-19 variant in the UK, which has sparked travel bans by many countries.
Canada and India joined European states in blocking flights from the UK while Europe-bound train services via the Channel Tunnel have been halted. The new variant is said to be up to 70% more transmissible, but there is no evidence that it is more deadly. There is also no proof to suggest that it reacts differently to vaccines. Two meetings are taking place in Brussels on Monday - one involving health ministers and another with the EU's crisis response team. But no decision is expected until Tuesday, when EU ambassadors meet.

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Climate change: 2021 will be cooler but still in top six warmest

UK Met Office scientists are forecasting that 2021 will be a little cooler around the world, but will still be one of the top six warmest years.
The La Niña weather phenomenon will see temperatures edge down but greenhouse gases will remain the biggest influence. Researchers say the world will likely be around 1C warmer than the pre-industrial era. It will be the seventh year in a row close to or above this mark. According to Met Office projections, the Earth's temperature for 2021 will likely be between 0.91C and 1.15C above what they were in the years from 1850-1900 with a central estimate of 1.03C. The 2021 forecast is slightly lower than in recent years, due to the onset of the La Niña event in the tropical Pacific. A La Niña develops when strong winds blow the warm surface waters of the Pacific away from South America and towards the Philippines.

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Microsoft's December update for Windows 10 is causing performance woes on some PCs

Complaints include unusually high CPU and RAM usage, and even blue screen errors.
Unfortunately for some Windows 10 users, this month's cumulative update is causing headaches, and it does not appear as though a fix is in sight. Those affected by whatever is going on report a range of performance symptoms, such as long load times for certain programs, and jumps in resource usage.
Otherwise known as a Patch Tuesday update, these kinds of cumulative patches are doled out to Windows PCs on the second Tuesday of every month. In this case, December 8. Users started complaining of issues almost right away.

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China's Chang'e-5 mission returns Moon samples

China's Chang'e-5 mission has returned to Earth with the cargo of rock and "soil" it picked up off the Moon.
A capsule carrying the materials landed in Inner Mongolia shortly after 01:30 local time on Thursday (17:30 GMT, Wednesday). It's more than 40 years since the American Apollo and Soviet Luna missions brought their samples home. The new specimens should provide fresh insight on the geology and early history of Earth's satellite. For China, the successful completion of the Chang'e-5 venture will also be seen as another demonstration of the nation's increasing capability in space.

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Facebook pours fuel on Apple privacy row

Facebook has launched a public offensive against Apple, dragging a long-simmering row between the two tech giants into the public sphere.
Earlier this year, Apple announced it planned to ask users if they want their data to be shared for targeted, personalised advertising. The move is likely to hurt Facebook, which has warned it could cut the money earned through its ad network by half. But Facebook is portraying itself as "speaking up for small businesses". A blog post from Dan Levy, vice-president of ads, suggested that Facebook needs it to be possible to track users' activities across other apps and websites, in order to help its advertisers target their posts at those people who would most likely be responsive.