Kingfisher, the group that owns DIY retailers B&Q and Screwfix, has launched a generative AI-powered virtual assistant in its French Castorama stores. The virtual assistant, which is built on top of a reusable platform called Athena, has been trained to answer customers’ DIY queries and provides step-by-step advice on a range of home improvement projects,…
Kingfisher develops AI-agnostic platform to power DIY assistant Read More »
After much deliberation, the UK-US data bridge finally took effect on 12 October. This new framework is expected to speed up processes and increase opportunities for companies that are exporting data-enabled services. Previously, organisations that wanted to do this had to have contract clauses in place to guarantee UK data protection and privacy standards are…
The new data landscape: how will the new UK-US data bridge affect businesses? Read More »
As the Global AI Safety Summit prepares to bring together leaders from around the world in November, research reveals that a large majority of UK IT professionals are concerned about the government’s ambitions for the use of generative AI (GenAI). To be held at Bletchley Park on 1-2 November 2023, the Global AI Safety Summit…
UK IT professionals express concerns about government’s generative AI goals Read More »
The Scottish biometrics commissioner has written to Police Scotland outlining his ongoing concerns over the cloud-based digital evidence sharing system used by the force, which uses hyperscale public cloud infrastructure to store and process sensitive biometric data despite major data protection concerns. At the start of April 2023, Computer Weekly revealed the Scottish government’s Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC)…
Scottish biometrics watchdog outlines police cloud concerns Read More »
Four UK regulators have joined forces in a pilot scheme to offer businesses tailored support to meet requirements across various sectors while safely innovating. The pilot service will be run by members of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum (DRCF), made up of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), Ofcom, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), and…
Multi-agency pilot aims to help innovators navigate regulatory landscape Read More »
In the past, IT departments embarked on huge enterprise application integration programmes to connect silos of business software data. IT no longer has the luxury of being able to plan such a long-term strategy, however. The age of software as a service (SaaS) and public cloud-based computing has led to an explosion of applications, each…
TikTok, the video-sharing social medial platform, is to be fined €345m for failing to protect children’s privacy. Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) announced the fine against the video-sharing app for breaches of the GDPR data protection law. TikTok exposed children aged 13 to 17 to risks by making their accounts publicly available by default and…
TikTok fined €345m under GDPR for failing to protect children’s privacy Read More »
Just 15% of organisations have a clearly defined and well-understood AI strategy in place, research from Mesh-AI has found, which also exposed that the top technical challenges to AI adoption are poor data quality (40%) and accessibility (38%). Based on the responses from 200 business leaders, the IT consulting firm looked at what organisations are…
Ahead of next week’s Oracle CloudWorld in Las Vegas, Oracle and Microsoft have announced Oracle Database@Azure. This is said to give direct access to Oracle database services running on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and deployed in Microsoft Azure datacentres. It also opens up Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI services to Oracle customers. “Our expanded partnership with Oracle…
Microsoft to offer Oracle cloud database on Azure Read More »
Automotive industry leaders are struggling with competing cyber risk and security priorities, and as such, many are increasingly concerned that their organisations will be unprepared for new, United Nations (UN)-backed vehicle safety regulations that come into force next year, leaving drivers exposed to unacceptable security risks. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe World Forum…
As vehicle safety regulations loom, carmakers fret over cyber risks Read More »
