Tech Digest daily roundup: iPhone maker invests in Tesla Cybertruck challenger
Foxconn, which makes iPhones for Apple, says it is deepening its investment in a US electric pick-up truck firm, which could challenge Tesla’s Cybertruck. The technology giant is spending up to $170m (£147.8m) on shares in the loss-making start-up Lordstown Motors. The major cash injection comes as the company aims to ramp up production of its debut model, the Endurance. Lordstown recently began building the vehicle at a former General Motors plant in the US state of Ohio. Under the deal, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of electronics bought a more than 18% stake in Lordstown, making it the biggest investor in the company. BBC
Britain will struggle to fill the jobs of the future if computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) are not made part of the school curriculum, research has warned. Demand for jobs that require such skills is estimated to rise by 40% over the next five years – but with only 15% of UK businesses having adopted AI, a report says the country risks falling behind. Research by Capital Economics suggests teaching AI skills in secondary schools may help fill rising demand for computer science and other such roles, supporting an average of £71bn of economic output annually to 2030. Sky News
Twitter has confirmed it has delayed the rollout of its updated Twitter Blue subscription, which will allow people to pay to be verified on the site, until after the US midterm elections on Tuesday. New owner Elon Musk had announced that the company would let users buy a blue-tick verification badge by subscribing to Twitter Blue – a badge previously only given to prominent accounts which Twitter had identified as authentic. Concerns were raised that this new system could be used by bad actors to pose as public figures and spread misinformation. Yahoo!
Apple is reportedly keen to ditch its famous “Hey Siri” trigger phrase, choosing instead to allow people to simply say “Siri” to invoke the assistant. All digital voice assistants require users to say a specific phrase in order to get their attention, with “Hey Siri” having been Apple’s phrase of choice for years. But a new report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, writing via his weekly Power On newsletter, has that about to change. Gurman reports that Apple is already testing the removal of “Hey” from its trigger phrase. Pocket Lint
Twitter is laying off half its workforce. Meta, the company that owns Facebook and WhatsApp, is set to start a deep round of redundancies. Google is reported to be getting rid of staff while Amazon is freezing hiring and the technology unicorns that only a few months ago were fretting about how they were going to attract talent are now worrying about how they can get rid of dead wood instead…Sure, some of that might be due to the state of the global economy, and some might be due to the crashing stock market. And yet in reality there is a better explanation – even if no one is talking about it yet: working from home (WFH). Telegraph
