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The cash would be used to support any staff striking over Google's work on a search engine for China. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2U6e0ts

Labour demands an ethics probe after health secretary talks about "GP at Hand" app in an interview. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2QqAaYo

Annual prize intended to show up the worst sexual description in fiction singles out some famous names for a second time – but no women Bad sex award 2018: the contenders in quotes Female authors have managed to avoid including bad sex scenes in their novels this year – at least according to the Literary Review, which has announced an all-male shortlist for that least-coveted of literary prizes, the Bad sex in fiction award. Haruki Murakami, often named as a contender for the Nobel prize, makes the cut for passages from his latest novel Killing Commendatore in which impossible amounts of semen are ejaculated by the protagonist. The controversial US novelist James Frey, who was exposed for inventing parts of his memoir A Million Little Pieces, was selected for a scene in his novel Katerina described by judges as “almost like wish fulfilment”. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2SjVU5h

German automobile company BMW, in partnership with companies from diverse industry backgrounds, has launched a cobalt pilot project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to improve working conditions for artisanal cobalt miners. Other stakeholders in the pilot project include chemicals firm BASF SE, South Korean battery maker Samsung SDI, and Samsung Electronics. The partners have signed a contract with German development agency Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to improve the living conditions of communities based in areas surrounding cobalt mining zones. DRC is home to the world’s largest known reserves of cobalt, which is used in making batteries that power electric vehicles and phones. The demand for cobalt and lithium is on the rise as carmakers are increasingly focused on launching more environmentally friendly electric models. Between 80% and 85% of the country’s cobalt production comes from industrial mining, while around 15% of the produ

Marriott says details of up to 500 million guests may have been accessed in a database breach. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2zxgHeX

Satellite communications company Inmarsat has partnered with mining equipment, technology and services (METS) provider IMDEX to enhance its drilling intelligence solutions with satellite connectivity. The addition of Inmarsat’s L-band satellite connectivity to IMDEX’s cloud-based software solution IMDEXHUB-IQ will eliminate the need for mining and drilling companies to procure their own communications and enable them to analyse and instantly upload field data in real-time from their remote field sites to be sent to headquarters. IMDEX’s cloud-based hub aggregates and transmits field data from subsurface instrumentation and mobile units. IMDEX Product Development general manager Michelle Carey said: “For mining and exploration operations to be successful, accurate subsurface data needs to be quickly collected and analysed to provide teams on the ground with intelligence to maximise the value of their decisions. “This collaboration will allow our IMDEXHUB-IQ solution to connect to th

Why do we embrace monogamy over sexual experimentation? Artists and writers who tried more radical arrangements have a lot to teach us, writes Lara Feigel In 1919 the German Dada artist Raoul Hausmann dismissed marriage as “the projection of rape into law”. It’s a statement that relishes its own violence: he is limbering up to fight marriage to the death. A strange mixture of dandy, wild man, provocateur and social engineer, Hausmann believed that the socialist revolution the Dadaists sought couldn’t be attained without a corresponding sexual revolution. And he lived as he preached. He was married, but was also in a four-year relationship with fellow artist Hannah Höch . Hausmann and Höch form one of the couples in the Barbican’s Modern Couples exhibition, which shows the freewheeling experimentation of interwar art to be inseparable from even more extravagant experiments in sexuality and coupledom. The exhibition includes several of the partly whimsical, partly grim collages Höch m

Almost half of all business IT directors would hand over money to cyber hackers in order to avoid the costly fines that come with falling foul of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to a new survey conducted by digital security company Sophos, some 47% would ‘definitely’ be willing to hand over a ransom if it meant avoiding reporting the breach to authorities. Likewise, another 30% said that they would consider paying off the cyber criminals. Just one in five ruled out any possibility of paying off a ransom altogether. The survey found those less likely to pay a ransom were small businesses. More than half of respondents from companies with less than 250 employees said that they would pay up. Likewise, only one in 10 from companies with 500 – 750 employees would consider paying a ransom. The reason for this is likely the consequences that come with breaching GDPR, which would likely be far more costly for larger businesses. Under the new laws, businesses that a

This year brought artificial intelligence into the mainstream, showed big data in a bad light and called upon blockchain to provide a solution to all of our problems – but what does the future hold for technology? Ahead of the new year, Rocket Software, a company with plenty of knowledge in analytics, networks, data, storage and enterprise technology, offers its technology predictions for 2019. Blockchain will streamline business This year, blockchain has been hailed as the solution to Brexit , Russian election meddling, counterfeiting and falling revenue in the music industry . However, if the price of a Bitcoin is any indication, a year on since prices peaked at around $19,000, the blockchain hype is finally starting to die down. Yet, while blockchain might not revolutionise everything as many previously predicted, businesses will start to see its full potential in 2019, with the technology helping to streamline transactional, ordering, invoicing, payment and stocking processes,

Smartwatch prices are set to reduce in the next year, fuelling 26% growth in the wider wearable device market, according to research by Gartner. Smartwatches have grown in popularity since their emergence as a market segment in 2014, aided significantly by the release of the Apple Watch in 2015. However, as they are traditionally seen as a supporting technology, and have remained at a relatively high price point, they have largely stayed in the realm of technology enthusiasts rather than reaching true mass-market appeal. According to Gartner, this is set to change in 2019, with lower price points driving a growth in shipments from 53 million units to 74.09 million units. By 2022, the organisation predicts shipments will reach 115.20 million units. “At the moment, the smartwatch market is bolstered by the relatively stable and higher average selling price (ASP) of the Apple Watch,” said Alan Antin. senior director at Gartner. “But the overall ASP of smartwatches is expected to slow

In an open letter, published today on Medium , more than a hundred Google employees have urged the tech giant to halt the development of Project Dragonfly, a controversial plan to bring a censored version of its search engine to China. Backed by Amnesty International, the letter condemns Dragonfly, warning that it is complicit in China’s efforts to “openly expanding its surveillance powers and tools of population control”. But what is Dragonfly, and will it penetrate The Great Firewall of China? The Great Firewall of China The Great Firewall of China , the moniker given to the county’s restrictive internet model, is one of the most extreme examples of online censorship in the world. The authorities are able to block access to certain content, and also monitor individuals’ internet use, thanks to more than 60 regulations put in place by the Chinese government. It forms part of the country’s efforts to protect its values and political ideas. Certain topics, including sex, free speec

Customers can leave electric cars to charge while shopping, under a partnership with Volkswagen. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Sj3zB6

Referenced by Rachel Maddow and Bob Woodward, a pulpy thriller about a commander-in-chief losing command of reality is receiving a timely rerelease “Nobody in this country can tell a president of the United States that his mind is sick.” That’s the blunt assessment of the defense secretary in Night of Camp David, a political thriller from 1965 that stands to be rescued from an undeserved obscurity by its republication this month. The coal-black front cover of the new edition is unadorned apart from one line, in white block letters: “What would happen if the president of the USA went stark-raving mad?” Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2U154Fo

Mystery Writers of America withdrew Grand Master award from ex-prosecutor after writers expressed outrage over the decision The Mystery Writers of America (MWA) withdrew a major honor on Thursday from author Linda Fairstein after other writers condemned the ex-prosecutor’s role in New York’s notorious “Central Park Five” case. Related: Donald Trump and the Central Park Five: the racially charged rise of a demagogue Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2RtDfUU

Found in a box, the 400-year-old volume is one of the largest handwritten collections of the poet’s verse and is expected to sell for more than £200,000 A previously unrecorded handwritten manuscript of John Donne’s poetry has been found in a box at an English country house in Suffolk. Dating back 400 years, the bound collection was kept for at least the last two centuries at Melford Hall in Suffolk. Sotheby’s expert Dr Gabriel Heaton was on a “standard checking visit” to the property when he found it in a box with other papers. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Rl2nwM

The author on discovering Carter’s fairytales as a teenager, enjoying Proust, and her introduction to kinky historical fiction The book I am currently reading I’ve just reread, with enormous pleasure, Alan Sillitoe’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ; a great companion to it has been Richard Vinen’s study of postwar British conscription, National Service . And I’m about to start Guy Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City . The book that changed my life Angela Carter ’s collection of rewritten fairytales, The Bloody Chamber . I read it when I was 17, and its mix of feminism, sex and literary fireworks – the sheer lusciousness of it – was like nothing I’d ever encountered before. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2DUH2Xo

Rio Tinto is preparing to develop its 100% owned Koodaideri iron ore mine in Western Australia following the full approval of a $2.6bn investment. Koodaideri, which is located about 35km north-west of Rio Tinto’s Yandicoogina mine site, will incorporate a processing plant and infrastructure including a 166km rail line that will connect the mine to the existing network. Construction on the mine is set to begin next year and the first production is expected in late 2021. It will have a capacity of 43 million tonnes per annum upon completion. Phase I of the operation is expected to help sustain Rio Tinto’s existing production capacity by replacing depletion elsewhere in the system. The higher-value lump component of the Pilbara Blend is expected to increase from the existing average of about 35% to around 38% with the new project. Furthermore, it is set to deliver a 20% internal rate of return and capital intensity of around $60 per tonne of capacity a year. Rio Tinto chief executiv

The regulator says the celebrities did not tell followers they had been paid to promote some investments. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2PaQkAc

Tarana Burke first used the phrase 12 years ago before it became a global movement last year. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2zGF1ev

The coffee chain says watching porn has always been banned, but it will now block access to content. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2rdnLsn

Founder of UK software giant is charged with fraud seven years after the firm's sale to Hewlett-Packard. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2Q7wcnZ

Fox News Breaking News Alert 3 dead, 8 injured after high-speed chase at border 11/29/18 11:45 PM

Fox News Breaking News Alert Deputy US marshal killed in Arizona shooting 11/29/18 8:55 PM

West African Resources has awarded a $110m underground mining contract to Byrnecut Burkina Faso SARL (Byrnecut) for its Sanbrado gold project. The contract includes the construction of an underground portal at M1 South pit, decline and level development, ore driving, stope production, raise drilling, and cemented rock back-fill. Byrnecut specialises in underground mining works, while West African Resources is engaged in gold and copper exploration. Both the companies involved in the transaction are based in Australia. Eurasian Resources has signed an agreement with Société Nationale d’Électricité (SNEL), ZESCO, and Rawbank for securing power supply for its Frontier copper mine. ZESCO will supply 41MW to the mine, as part of the agreement. Based in Luxembourg, Eurasian Resources is engaged in the production of diversified natural resources, while SNEL is an electric utility. “Galaxy intends to use the proceeds raised from the transaction for the development of the Sal de Vida P

Rio Tinto has agreed to sell its 68.62% stake in Rossing Uranium Limited to National Uranium Corporation (CNUC), under a $106.5m binding agreement. CNUC will pay $6.5m following the completion of the transaction and the remaining $100m over the subsequent seven years, subject to uranium spot prices and the total income from the mine. Rio Tinto will also earn a cash payment if CNUC sells the Zelda 20 mineral deposit. Based in Australia, Rio Tinto is engaged in mining activities, while CNUC is a subsidiary of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). Alliance Mineral and Tawana Resources have agreed to merge under a scheme of arrangement, through which the former will acquire the entire issued capital of Tawana. “Rio Tinto will also earn a cash payment if CNUC sells the Zelda 20 mineral deposit.” The implementation of the scheme is subject to the approvals of the Federal Court of Australia, and, if approved, the Tawana shareholders will receive 1.1 Alliance shares for each share

As the Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreak approaches five months since declaration, responding to the outbreak continues to be a challenge; nevertheless, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and partners, WHO remains focused on the ongoing containment efforts to end the outbreak. Published on November 29, 2018 at 06:01AM

Fewer smart meters are being fitted despite the government insisting all homes will have one by 2020. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2E4ldFo

Fox News Breaking News Alert President Trump cancels meeting at G20 with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine tensions 11/29/18 8:44 AM

Problems with credit checks led some customers to be wrongly refused smartphone contracts. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2E4L5kO

Dutch space startup Hiber is set to launch the first of its nanosatellites into orbit today as part of its mission to provide the entire planet with internet access. While just over half of the world’s population has internet access , there are still many remote areas with limited or no connectivity. The shoebox-sized devices, known as ‘HiberBand’, aim to solve this connectivity gap by creating a constellation of nanosatellites that relay data back to anywhere on Earth, from “pole to pole” to “oceans, deserts, even mom’s backyard”. Affordable and reliable internet access in poorer, rural areas could enable farmers in these areas to use IoT devices to monitor soil conditions and improve crop yields. How do they work? The HiberBand satellites will orbit 600km above the Earth, passing the planet’s poles 16 times a day and the equator twice a day. During their orbit of the Earth, the Hiber nanosatellites will receive data beamed up from Earth-based modems and antennas. The nanosats w

Businesses around the world are now spending more on digital and technology assets than on traditional mergers and acquisitions, a comprehensive report by leading global law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has found. For the report, Freshfields analysed all 26,744 deals announced by the S&P Global 1200 between 2009 and 2017. During this period, digital asset spend rose more than 600%. In 2017, businesses spent a total of $258bn on digital assets, an all-time high. The findings show how big business has been on a five year bull run in this space and illustrates how business have increasingly seen the profitability of technology assets over the last nine years. The average digital or technology deal – classed as those that aid a company’s digital transformation, increase an existing digital offering or consolidate a company’s position in the market – is now bigger than the average non-digital transaction. Freshfield’s findings show that businesses are increasingly prepared t

Paper claims Lowell’s earlier writings can be seen in Hughes’s poem Pike and Lawrence’s The Rainbow, but her gender and sexuality made her unpopular Ted Hughes’s poem Pike is one of the late poet laureate’s best-known works, taught in schools across the UK and endlessly anthologised. But Hughes’s image of a fish with “green tigering the gold” has an unacknowledged debt to a forgotten poem by the American poet Amy Lowell, according to an English academic who claims that Hughes “confidently fished out the most appealing imagery from the earlier work” in a new paper. According to Dr Hannah Roche, a lecturer in English at the University of York, it is “nothing short of incredible” that Hughes’s 1959 poem Pike “has not been considered in its close relation” to Lowell’s 1914 work The Pike. In her paper Myths, Legends, and Apparitional Lesbians , which has just been published in the academic journal Modernist Cultures , Roche pinpoints similarities between the poems. Continue reading...

Fox News Breaking News Alert Ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen pleads guilty to lying to Congress in Russia probe 11/29/18 6:34 AM

Facebook starts to enforce its tighter political advertising rules in the UK following a delay. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2TVTpb1

The Democrats’ tactic of bombarding Donald Trump with legal action is the latest example of loaded US political vocabulary This week the Democrats, having regained power in Congress, promised that they would pursue legal action against the president by loading a “subpoena cannon” . A what cannon? A subpoena what? “Sub poena” is Latin for “under a penalty”, so a subpoena, in English since 1426, is a writ requiring the attendance of a defendant or witness at court, or the production of documents. But why load them into a cannon? A shower of burnt confetti would seem to help no one. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2FN2qA9

Microsoft complained to local police, who arrested more than 50 people in call centres. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2DR4ULp

Curt Shipman has over 35 years combined experience in the mining industry, working between cement and lime production. He has held various roles, from procurement and warehousing, too distribution, process improvement, operations, and most recently, as a full-time safety director for five group companies, including Linwood Mining & Minerals. Please tell us about the company’s ethos and approach to keeping its workers safe? Curt Shipman (CS) : While not there yet, our objective and efforts are focused on building a culture of ownership and accountability on the part of all leadership and employees. We have made significant strides to achieve this through bringing training in-house to insure quality and value. We have also put a significant emphasis on leadership development, specifically with front-line leaders. We aim to impress that safety is not something else to consider along with your job, it is part of all we do and is a primary consideration in all activity. In your opi

Indian company Adani Mining has announced that its Carmichael mine and rail project in central Queensland, Australia is set to begin operations and will be completely financed through the company’s resources. The latest announcement follows changes that were made recently to simplify construction and reduce the initial capital requirements for the scaled-back project, which was once priced at $16.5bn. Prior to this, the company carried out planning for a period of eight years, secured the necessary approvals and successfully contested legal challenges from anti-mining activists with regard to the project. Adani Mining CEO Lucas Dow said: “Our work in recent months has culminated in Adani Group’s approval of the revised project plan that de-risks the initial stage of the Carmichael mine and rail project by adopting a narrow gauge rail solution combined with a reduced ramp up volume for the mine. “This means we’ve minimised our execution risk and initial capital outlay. The sharpenin

Acacia Mining has signed a binding conditional agreement to end the earn-in agreement with Sarama Resources over the latter’s South Houndé gold project in south-western Burkina Faso. The termination of the earn-in agreement is subject to the companies agreeing upon definitive documentation by 30 April next year. Under the terms of the 2014 earn-in deal, Acacia Mining could acquire up to 75% in the South Houndé project by funding $14m of exploration costs over a period of four years and declaring a mineral reserve of at least 1.6Moz Au. Acacia stated that the divestment of the project is in line with its strategy of offloading non-core assets. As part of the termination agreement, Sarama can now regain 100% ownership of the project by paying $2m to Acacia in tranches. Additionally, Acacia will be entitled to receive a further $2m once Sarama begins commercial production at the project. The agreement also offers the company an improved net smelter return royalty (NSR) of 1-2%. Mea

The gaming giant will now let players share videos on YouTube, Twitch and others. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2E5Vc91

Multinational metals and mining firm BHP has reportedly resumed operations at its Spence copper mine in northern Chile after a workers’ union went on strike yesterday. The strike was a result of safety concerns triggered by the retrenchment of more than 50 workers and eight supervisors at the deposit, Reuters reported, citing workers’ union president Ronald Salcedo. Salcedo was quoted by the news agency as saying: “These layoffs are strange given that costs are under control at the mine and even more so given that the company is pushing the upgrade project, which should mean contracting more workers.” BHP confirmed to the news agency that it had cut 57 jobs at the project and the affected roles included mine operators, supervisors and maintenance workers.  According to the firm, operations at mine have returned to normalcy. BHP attributed the job cuts to a review of “its operational situation, processes and the resources necessary to conduct its operations safely and sustainably ov

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so the saying goes. The maxim is well-suited to technically complex heavy industries such as mining, which plays host to large mine sites that are intricate both in their development and in the vast reams of operational data they generate. As digital technologies and 3D visualisation software continue to mature, a new world of opportunity is opening up for mining firms. The prospect of visualising an entire mine site in realistic 3D graphics, exploring it immersively through virtual reality (VR) and analysing overlaid information through augmented reality (AR) without having to trawl through siloed databases is starting to gain traction in the industry. The technology opens up new avenues in mine site planning, logistics, training and stakeholder engagement. Visualisation technologies are making inroads in mining despite the industry’s traditional reluctance to embrace new and unproven concepts. “The truth is that many mining companies are stil

Andy Serkis has directed the new movie Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle using motion capture effects. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2KK6j80

Fear stalks the veteran writer’s 46th novel – a disturbing love story set in a totalitarian US Joyce Carol Oates’s Hazards of Time Travel is her 46th novel, which is in itself an astonishing achievement (it’s published alongside a reissue of her bestselling novel Blonde ). It is a dystopian narrative in which the indomitable Oates seems to be flexing new muscles. She is an extraordinary veteran of fiction and turns clairvoyant (perhaps drawing on anxiety about the US’s toxic political present) with the same authority she brings to everything she writes. But brace yourself: it is an unrelentingly disturbing read. The time is 20 years from now and the setting the totalitarian North American States, or NAS. People live in fear, their speech anything but free. The punishment for speaking out is likely to be “deletion” (which sounds like a particularly writerly form of doom). Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2ShlLLq

Bookseller praises word-of-mouth hit as ‘cementing her reputation as the voice of her generation’ In a win for literary fiction amid declining sales, Sally Rooney’s novel Normal People has been named Waterstones book of the year. Rooney’s second novel, which follows two young people falling in love in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland, has sold just under 41,000 copies in hardback in the UK since it was released in August – five times the hardback sales of her 2017 debut, Conversations With Friends. At 27, Rooney is the now the youngest winner of the award, which goes to the title staff at the UK’s biggest bookshop chain most enjoy recommending. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2zvkV6w

Investigating cyber criminals who use your password to threaten to expose you on social media from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2BDPGba

A developer proved phone numbers and encrypted passwords of One Planet York users could be found on the app. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2FKNQcv

New Zealand's bar on the company's 5G kit raises questions about why the UK seems less concerned. from BBC News - Technology https://ift.tt/2FHtUam

Writer, campaigner and passionate critic of austerity who found fame late in life with his bestselling book Harry’s Last Stand If proof were ever needed that it is never too late to make a major impact, Harry Leslie Smith , who has died aged 95, surely offers it. He was 91 when his bestselling memoir-cum-polemic in defence of the welfare state, Harry’s Last Stand (2014), was published, winning him a mass following in Britain’s ascendant left and beyond. Following the book’s publication, he was invited to address that year’s Labour party conference before a speech by the then shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham . His passionate denunciation of benefits cuts and austerity – including the line “Mr Cameron, Keep your mitts off my NHS!” – reduced delegates to tears and made headline news. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2KF5IV1

While miners are starting to trial and make small investments in technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and cloud computing, the traditionally conservative mining sector remains focused on improving efficiency and productivity by continuing to invest in mine management software and predictive maintenance. GlobalData’s latest report, Global Mine-Site Technology Adoption Survey 2018 , reveals that while investment by the majors is currently well ahead of mid-tier miners and producing juniors, higher shares of the latter two groups are planning investments in mine management software and predictive maintenance given their immediate impact on improving productivity. Source: GlobalData Mining Intelligence Center The report includes data and analysis from the company’s survey of over 200 worldwide mine sites which investigated the extent to which mines had invested in 13 different technologies ranging from communication systems to drones, predictive maintenance

Sequel to the Canadian author’s bestselling feminist dystopia will be published around the world in September 2019 Margaret Atwood has announced a sequel to her bestselling feminist dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, titled The Testaments. “Dear Readers,” wrote Atwood in a press release announcing the book on Wednesday. “Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Awsjys

The Gibraltar Stock Exchange has been awarded a license for its subsidiary the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX), making it the first fully regulated blockchain exchange to be owned by a stock exchange. The distributed ledger technology (DLT) licence was awarded by the Gibraltar Financial Services commission. It followed a rigorous process to ensure the GBX met the standards of a European Union exchange. Blockchain exchange furthers Gibraltar’s goal to be blockchain leader As a key financial hub in Europe, Gibraltar is setting its sights on becoming a leader in the blockchain space, making this approval extremely important for the region. “The awarding of this licence is further evidence of the effective collaboration taking place between the public and private sectors in Gibraltar that is making this jurisdiction a force to be reckoned with in the global blockchain industry,” said Albert Isola, MP and Gibraltar’s Minister for Commerce. “The DLT regulatory framework continues t

Sunday marked six months since Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation came into force. Since the 25 May, there have been a number of high-profile data breaches that have reinforced the importance of data protection, for consumer and boardroom alike. Looking back at GDPR six months on, is it having the impact that regulators intended? First, we must look at why European regulators created the GDPR in the first place: to give control of personal data back to the individual. Beforehand, many companies had been taking advantage of lax legislation and toothless fines, creating an environment in which personal data has been exploited. In some cases, this  undermined democracy , as evidenced by the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The GDPR forced businesses to change their data practices to meet a range of compliance tests. Failing to do so risks maximum penalties of 4% of global turnover or €20m. But after six months of GDPR, there is still confusion among some organisations.  Verdict

With so many versions of seven titles and several Fantastic Beasts film tie-ins, the books that changed my life are now being spun into dead weight Harry Potter was the first book I ever read. I was eight and amazed by the fact I had read more than 200 pages without any illustration in a single day. I have been a superfan ever since. At the age of 13, I became a volunteer at Brazilian fan site Potterish . Now I am editor-in-chief and last year I was invited to visit the set of Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald – a dream I never imagined could be possible. But even I can no longer bear the over-publishing of Harry Potter books. There has been a constant stream of new editions and tie-ins that add nothing more than weight to my bookshelf, and money to the publishers’ pockets. And it’s a lot of money – Potter books sent Bloomsbury’s revenue to £161.5m last year, the highest level in its 32-year-history. Continue reading... from Books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2raea5B