Tech Digest daily roundup: Porn websites will have to verify age of users
Porn websites in the UK will be legally required to verify the age of their users under new internet safety laws. The legislation, which is part of the draft Online Safety Bill, aims to give children better protection from explicit material. The measures, to ensure users are 18 or over, could see people asked to prove they own a credit card or confirm their age via a third-party service. Sites that fail to act could be fined up to 10% of their global turnover. The Online Safety Bill is expected to be introduced to parliament over the next few months and is designed to protect users from harmful content. Children’s safety groups have long been calling for age verification on porn sites, over fears it is too easy for minors to access publically available material online. BBC
Sleeping for an extra hour each night can help people shave around 270 calories off their daily diet – the equivalent of three chocolate biscuits, new research has found. Over three years, this could lead to a weight loss of 26lb – simply by sleeping more, the researchers said. A team from the University of Chicago wanted to look at how sleep interacts with obesity. Writing in the journal Jama Internal Medicine, they found that young, overweight adults who habitually slept fewer than 6.5 hours a night were able to add an extra 1.2 hours per night after undergoing counselling to improve their sleeping habits. Sky News
The $40bn (£30bn) US takeover of Arm, one of Britain’s most successful tech companies, has collapsed in the face of mounting opposition from regulators. Arm’s Japanese owner SoftBank, alongside its proposed buyer Nvidia, announced on Tuesday that they had abandoned the deal due to “significant regulatory challenges”. SoftBank said it would prepare to float Arm within the next year, in what is likely to kick off a charm offensive in London and the US over where the listing takes place. Simon Segars, Arm’s chief executive, has stepped down immediately as part of the move, and will be replaced by Rene Haas, a chip industry veteran who has been at the company nine years. Telegraph
Gran Turismo developer Polyphony Digital and Sony AI are teasing a “breakthrough” collaboration set to be announced in full this Wednesday, 9th February. Details are limited as present, as is the way with teases, with Sony AI’s Twitter feed only saying that Wednesday will see it “launch [its] Gaming Flagship and announce a breakthrough project in AI created through a collab with Polyphony Digital Inc. and Sony Interactive Entertainment.” The tweet is accompanied by an (equally unilluminating) video – also shared by Polyphony, alongside the words, “Change the game.” Eurogamer
Microsoft appears to be working on several new Windows 11 features that the company has not yet publicly announced. References to stickers for desktop wallpapers, the ability to hide the taskbar for tablets, and a sustainability section in Settings have all been discovered in the latest test version of Windows 11. The new features have been uncovered just days after Microsoft announced it would test more experimental Windows 11 features. The new customization feature to bring stickers to desktop wallpapers in Windows 11 has been shared by Windows enthusiast Albacore on Twitter. Screenshots show you’ll be able to pick stickers, commonly found in messaging apps, for a wallpaper and edit them from the desktop. The Verge
