Tech Digest daily round up: Spotify founder teams up with ‘Invincibles’ to attempt Arsenal FC buy-out
Spotify founder Daniel Ek has reportedly recruited three of Arsenal’s legendary Invincibles team as he prepares to buy the club from beleaguered owner Stan Kroenke. The new report in The Telegraph comes after Ek, who is estimated to be worth £3.4billion, said on Twitter that he was interested in taking over the north London side. “As a kid growing up, I’ve cheered for Arsenal as long as I can remember,” Ek wrote last week. “If KSE would like to sell Arsenal I’d be happy to throw my hat in the ring.” It’s now believed that Thierry Henry, Patrick Viera and Dennis Bergkamp are all keen to work with Ek on his bid to take control of the club, and could be handed key roles if the move proves successful. NME
Israel is developing an AI “super-brain” that uses an array of high-powered sensors to help tanks and robots patrol battlefields and find enemy targets, as it looks to a new age of warfare. The artificial intelligence, dubbed Athena after the Greek goddess of war, is in an early stage of development at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) but could be deployed within the next decade. The Daily Telegraph was given exclusive access to the Athena programme, including a mock demonstration of the “brain” being used by tanks in a combat scenario. In the scenario, Israeli Carmel tanks were fitted with the smartphone-sized AI, which collected data from infrared and radar sensors, among others, to tag enemy fighters hidden underground and in buildings on the battlefield. In an instant, the data was beamed to the commanding officer and turned into a “battle menu” with the best methods of attacking the targets. Telegraph
Today’s Google doodle is honouring the British scientist who helped pioneer IVF treatment, Anne McLaren. One of the most respected and significant reproductive biologists of the 20th century, Dr McLaren helped develop the technology to grow embryos in vitro – that is, in lab equipment outside of a mammal’s womb. Her research was built upon to carry out the first in vitro fertilisation (IVF) birth of a human baby in the UK in 1978. Dr McLaren, who is 94 years old today, later sat on the influential Warnock Committee in the 1980s, whose work led to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 1990 – the UK’s watershed legislation which regulates research and technology around creating human embryos in the lab. Independent.
China will launch its next robot lunar lander in 2024, and it will carry equipment from France, Sweden, Russia and Italy, the official news agency reported. Plans call for Chang’e 6 to land near the lunar south pole and collect samples for return to Earth, the program’s chief designer, Hu Hao, said at a conference Saturday, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The Chang’e landers are part of Chinese space exploration efforts that also include a probe that is preparing to land a robot rover on Mars. There are also plans for a crewed orbital station, landing a human on the moon and retrieving soil from an asteroid. In December, the previous moon probe, Chang’e 5, returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the 1970s. Yahoo! News
Thousands across India are outraged after the government ordered social media platform Twitter to remove posts critical of its handling of the virus. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed it had blocked some material from being viewed in India. The country faces a massive surge in cases, with many of its hospitals facing an oxygen shortage. One Twitter user accused the government of “finding it easier to take down tweets than ensure oxygen supplies”. BBC
More than four million iPhone users could be in line for £750 each in compensation from Google as the company this week defends itself against a class action claim over data tracking in the Supreme Court. The tech giant will fight claims, potentially worth £3bn in total, that it “illegally” collected personal data from British iPhone users who used the Safari browser between 2011 to 2012. Richard Lloyd, a former director at Which?, launched the mass legal action in 2018. The case was later thrown out after the judge ruled the defendants had not been able to prove the basis for their compensation claim against Google. However, in 2019, three Court of Appeal judges overturned the earlier ruling. Telegraph
