Tech Digest daily roundup: O2 option lets you switch phone whenever you want
Mobile operator O2 is to allow some new and existing customers to switch their phone for a new one whenever they like during their contract at no extra cost. From Thursday, the O2 Switch Up option will be automatically included with all the firm’s Plus Plans, or can be added to other custom plans as a Bolt On for £3.99 a month. It will allow users to change their phone within their contract as many times as they like, O2 said, with no limits on how long customers need to have had their current handset or how long is left on their existing contract. The company said the deal will allow users to enjoy the latest handsets without having to pay extra to do so. Yahoo!
Tesla boss Elon Musk has sold another 7.92 million shares in the electric car maker, worth around $6.88bn (£5.7bn). The sales took place after the firm’s annual shareholder meeting last week, regulatory filings show. Mr Musk says he needs the money in case he is forced to buy Twitter for $44bn. The multi-billionaire is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the social media platform after saying last month he would pull out of a deal to buy it. The latest transactions were carried out on 5, 8 and 9 August, according to six filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. BBC
Among the photo captions of his 500-year-old house in Lindos, Rhodes, Jasper Conran had some advice for Instagram’s chief executive. With its ornate door knocker and mosaic floors, the house has remained in its original form for five centuries, Conran wrote. The British fashion designer had captured this stillness in photographs, for years the defining feature of Instagram that made it popular with celebrities and brought in billions of dollars in advertising revenue. But Conran expressed growing frustration over a redesign that millions of users feel is being forced upon them by the social media app. “Please don’t let us down in the frankly callous way that you appear to be doing. Make Instagram Instagram again…” he wrote to Adam Mosseri, Instagram chief at Meta. Telegraph
A former Twitter employee has been convicted of failing to register as an agent for Saudi Arabia and other charges after accessing private data on users critical of the kingdom’s government in a spy case that spanned from Silicon Valley to the Middle East. Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen and former media partnership manager for Twitter’s Middle East region, was charged in 2019 with acting as an agent of Saudi Arabia without registering with the U.S. government. A jury found him guilty on six counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. The jury acquitted him on another five charges involving wire fraud. AP News
