Britain's Best Biking Buddies - by Devitt insurance - vote for Calli!

Britain's Best Biking Buddies - the search for four-legged motorcycle fans!

Share top quality photos of your pets biking, dressed as bikers, posing by your bike or other great animal-biker shots for a chance to win a brand new Kriega R20 backpack and Shoei NXR helmet from Sportsbikeshop.

www.devittinsurance.com

Fake news 'crowding out' real news, MPs say

The volume of disinformation on the internet is growing so big that it is starting to crowd out real news, the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairman has said.

Tory MP Damian Collins said people struggle to identify "fake news".

MPs in their committee report said the issue threatens democracy and called for tougher social network regulation.

www.bbc.co.uk

Microsoft Discovers Supply Chain Attack at Unnamed Maker of PDF Software

Microsoft said today that hackers compromised a font package installed by a PDF editor app and used it to deploy a cryptocurrency miner on users' computers.

The OS maker discovered the incident after its staff received alerts via the Windows Defender ATP, the commercial version of the Windows Defender antivirus.

Microsoft employees say they investigated the alerts and determined that hackers breached the cloud server infrastructure of a software company providing font packages as MSI files. These MSI files were offered to other software companies.

One of these downstream companies was using these font packages for its PDF editor app, which would download the MSI files from the original company's cloud servers during the editor's installation routine.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

Quantum computing: Seven truths you need to know

Quantum computers promise to be able to solve tasks that would be impossible using conventional machines.

But those benefits are still theoretical at present, with quantum computers lacking a sufficient number of processing units, known as qubits, and enough stability to do useful work.

Companies are going to huge lengths to build quantum computers, cooling devices to a few micro kelvins above absolute zero. Even then challenges remain, while IBM has a 50-qubit prototype machine and Google a 72-qubit computer, each has their own roadblocks that prevent them from being truly useful devices at this moment.

Here is the expert view on what quantum computers will and won't be able to do, and the challenges we still face.

Want to know more? Learn about Microsoft's unique approach to Quantum Computing: watch the Future Decoded Quantum Computing Keynote Lecture on YouTube (I was there, it's an excellent video - highly recommended!).

www.techrepublic.com

Bloodbiker volunteer rider found not guilty after police stop

A volunteer from Devon Freewheelers, Ian Hopkins, 49, from Exeter has been cleared of all charges of breaking the law whilst responding on a blood bike to an emergency call for a hospital in Plymouth at Exeter Magistrates Court today.  He was found 'not guilty' by a District Judge who heard the case and took nearly three hours to reach a decision.

Ian Hopkins was stopped by a traffic officer whilst travelling under blue lights and sirens when he was responding to a 'life at risk' call to the Plymouth Nuffield Health Hospital on the A38 in October 2017. The case which has taken nearly nine months to reach a conclusion was found in favour of the volunteer rider after all of the evidence was presented to the court.

Devon Freewheelers are a team of volunteers who are dedicated to providing a 24hrs a day, 7 days a week service supporting our NHS in delivering essential blood supplies for the purposes of transfusion, blood samples for the purposes of testing, organs and human tissue samples for the purposes of transplant, medication direct to the patient at home in the case of urgent need and Donor Breast Milk (which also comes under the Human Tissue Act) to the Neonatal Intensive Care Units throughout Devon.

www.bloodbikesdevon.org.uk

Google Chrome v68 users met with ‘Not secure’ warnings when visiting HTTP sites

If you’re still running a website that is using insecure HTTP then it’s probably too late. Some of your website’s visitors are going to be greeted with a message that tells them that they can’t trust your website to be secure.

That’s the message they’re going to get from Google Chrome which - in version 68 released on Tuesday 24 July 2018 - is changing its behaviour, and will start labelling all sites that continue to use unencrypted HTTP as “not secure”.

And as Chrome is the world’s most widely-used browser, that’s an awful lot of visitors who might feel unsettled visiting your website from Tuesday.

www.grahamcluley.com

UK heatwave: What does the law say on employee rights during hot weather?

The hottest day of the decade could be on its way to the UK – with the mercury set to climb to highs of 34 degrees on Wednesday 25 July, according to the Met Office.

But, for employees, the sun’s rays can make the working environment almost unbearable.

Laura Kearsley, partner and solicitor in the employment team at East Midlands-based Nelsons Solicitors, explains what the law says on employee rights during hot weather.

www.businessadvice.co.uk