Scotland has narrowly missed a target to generate the equivalent of 100% of its electricity demand from renewables in 2020. New figures reveal it reached 97.4% from renewable sources. From a report: This target was set in 2011, when renewable technologies generated just 37% of national demand. Industry body Scottish Renewables said output had tripled in the last 10 years, with enough power for the equivalent of seven million households. Chief executive Claire Mack, said: "Scotland's climate change targets have been a tremendous motivator to the industry to increase deployment of renewable energy sources. "Renewable energy projects are displacing tens of millions of tonnes of carbon every year, employing the equivalent of 17,700 people and bringing enormous socio-economic benefits to communities." In 2019 Scotland met 90.1% of its equivalent electricity consumption from renewables, according to Scottish Government figures. Scotland has some of the most ambitious climate targets in the world, with its Climate Change Bill setting out a legally binding target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2045. By 2030, ministers want renewable energy generation to account for 50% of energy demand across electricity, heat and transport.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is calling for new legal protections for workers, warning that they could soon be "hired and fired by algorithm." "Among the changes it is calling for is a legal right to have any 'high-risk' decision reviewed by a human," reports the BBC. From the report: TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said the use of AI at work stood at "a fork in the road." "AI at work could be used to improve productivity and working lives. But it is already being used to make life-changing decisions about people at work -- like who gets hired and fired. "Without fair rules, the use of AI at work could lead to widespread discrimination and unfair treatment -- especially for those in insecure work and the gig economy," she warned.

The union body is calling for:
- An obligation on employers to consult unions on the use of "high risk" or "intrusive" AI at work
- The legal right to have a human review decisions
- A legal right to "switch off" from work and not be expected to answer calls or emails
- Changes to UK law to protect against discrimination by algorithm

Grantbridge writes: Nominet is the UK Domain registrar and has been increasing prices for years. This resulted in the various UK domain hosting companies setting up a campaign to make them obey their public service mission. This has resulted in an emergency meeting and the voting out of the CEO and half the board members. "In an extraordinary turn of events, half of Nominet's board has been voted out with immediate effect; the culmination of a long-drawn public campaign calling for the board's overhaul," reports TechRadar. "Board members of the Internet infrastructure firm Nominet, which regulates UK domain names, had been under fire for several months now for their decisions to take the company away from its not-for-profit mission."

"I find it sad that we've got to this point," said board chairman Mark Wood at the start of the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) as reported by The Register. "In the past, we clearly haven't listened well enough to our members. We know that many things we need to do better," said Wood, who was one of the members voted out, along with Nominet CEO Russell Haworth.

It's unclear what happens next, but as it stands, non-executive director Rob Binns has been asked to serve as acting chair.

The Bank of England has unveiled the new 50-pound note featuring mathematician and computer science pioneer Alan Turing, who helped the Allies win World War II with his code-breaking prowess but died an outcast after facing government persecution over his homosexuality. NPR reports: The bank revealed the note's design and features -- which include a number of clever visual references to Turing's work -- on Thursday, nearly two years after first announcing that it would honor Turing. The banknote will officially enter circulation on June 23, Turing's birthday. Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, noted in prepared remarks that Turing is arguably best known for his code-breaking work, which historians credit with shortening World War II by about two years and saving millions of lives. But far beyond that, he said, Turing's pioneering work in computing and artificial intelligence "has had an enormous impact on how we all live today."

Instead of paper, the new note is made from polymer, which is longer-lasting and harder to counterfeit. It completes the bank's "family" of polymer banknotes, Bailey said, joining the Winston Churchill 5-pound, Jane Austen 10-pound and J.M.W. Turner 20-pound. The note itself features an image of Turing and his signature as it appeared in a 1947 visitor's sign-in book on display at Bletchley Park Trust, where he worked during the war. It includes a quotation, taken from a 1949 interview in which Turing was speaking about his ground-breaking Pilot ACE machine, one of the world's first computers: "This is only a foretaste of what is to come and only the shadow of what is going to be."

Symbolic designs on the note include a mathematical table and formulae from Turing's 1936 paper "On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem," technical drawings of the British Bombe code-breaking machine and ticker tape depicting his birth date in binary code. A sunflower-shaped foil patch, containing the initials "AT, "represents Turing's work in morphogenetics, a branch of developmental biology focused on the algorithms behind patterns occurring in nature. It's another scientific field for which Turing helped lay the groundwork, Bailey noted.

New submitter Grantbridge writes: On Monday, 740 members of .uk internet registry operator Nominet made the drastic decision to ditch five of its 11-strong board of directors, including the CEO and chairman, in a fierce rebuke of the company's efforts to move from a non-profit organisation to a commercial one. Today, Nominet has an interim chair -- one of the remaining non-executive directors -- and no CEO. Two of its senior management -- Eleanor Bradley and Ben Hill -- were also removed from the board, and remain in their jobs at Nominet for the moment. The fifth board member to get the boot is non-executive director Jane Tozer MBE, OBE. And while the remainder of the board have said they "will be working on a strategic change in direction," the reality is that they have all supported the CEO and chair's action over the past five years, all unanimously opposed the vote, and in some cases were highly critical of the reasoning behind it. The vote was close. The 740 members in favor faced 632 opposing, resulting in a narrow five per cent margin of victory. Of those opposed, many acted on the former chair and CEO's claims that a yes vote would be destabilizing for the organisation. That still might be the case.

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Phys.org: A new study is the first to identify how human brains grow much larger, with three times as many neurons, compared with chimpanzee and gorilla brains. The study, led by researchers at the Medical Research Council (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, identified a key molecular switch that can make ape brain organoids grow more like human organoids, and vice versa. The study, published in the journal Cell, compared "brain organoids" -- 3-D tissues grown from stem cells which model early brain development -- that were grown from human, gorilla and chimpanzee stem cells.

During the early stages of brain development, neurons are made by stem cells called neural progenitors. These progenitor cells initially have a cylindrical shape that makes it easy for them to split into identical daughter cells with the same shape. The more times the neural progenitor cells multiply at this stage, the more neurons there will be later. As the cells mature and slow their multiplication, they elongate, forming a shape like a stretched ice-cream cone. Previously, research in mice had shown that their neural progenitor cells mature into a conical shape and slow their multiplication within hours. They found that in gorillas and chimpanzees this transition takes a long time, occurring over approximately five days.

Human progenitors were even more delayed in this transition, taking around seven days. The human progenitor cells maintained their cylinder-like shape for longer than other apes and during this time they split more frequently, producing more cells. This difference in the speed of transition from neural progenitors to neurons means that the human cells have more time to multiply. This could be largely responsible for the approximately three-fold greater number of neurons in human brains compared with gorilla or chimpanzee brains.

Most major global companies no longer plan to reduce their use of office space after the coronavirus pandemic, though few expect business to return to normal this year, a survey by accountants KPMG showed on Tuesday. From a report: Just 17% of chief executives plan to cut back on offices, down from 69% in the last survey in August. "Either downsizing has already taken place, or plans have changed as the impact of extended, unplanned, remote working has taken a toll on some employees," KPMG said. Many offices in London, New York and other Western cities have been empty for months after health authorities ordered staff to work from home where possible, but the roll-out of vaccines means some firms are now planning for a return. Most chief executives said they wanted vaccination rates to exceed half the population before they started to encourage staff back to the office -- a target which is close to being met in Britain but remains distant in much of Europe. More than three quarters of chief executives also wanted the government to encourage people to return to offices before employers themselves started to request it.

New submitter ytene writes: As covered by a fascinating and hilarious video from the BBC, Twitch Streamer and YouTube star, Kitboga, has teamed up with some software developers to produce an AI that can interact directly with phone scammers. Although only brief samples of the solution at work were shown in the clip, the reporter suggests that it has worked for periods of up to 30 minutes. Will this be enough to finally put an end to the phone scammers, or do you think even more drastic steps will be required?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The size of the Army is to be reduced to 72,500 soldiers by 2025 as part of a move towards drones and cyber warfare. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said "increased deployability and technological advantage" meant greater effect could be delivered by fewer people. He set out plans for new capabilities such as electronic warfare and drones in a command paper in the Commons. Labour has warned that "size matters" when it comes to defence.

Announcing a major overhaul of the armed forces, Mr Wallace said it marked a shift from "mass mobilization to information age speed," insisting they must be able to "seek out and understand" new threats to the country's security. A cut to the size of the Army had been anticipated -- with a reduction of 10,000 widely trailed. What Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced was a cut to the target for the number of fully trained people in the Army, from 82,040 today to 72,500 in 2025. The changes set out in the paper -- titled Defence in a Competitive Age -- include 3 billion pounds for new vehicles, long-range rocket systems, drones, electronic warfare and cyber capabilities. The UK is putting more resources into cyber warfare via the creation of the National Cyber Force based in the North West of England. It's also putting more resources ($6.6 billion for research and development) into space that may function similarly to the U.S. Space Force.

The BBC reports: The number of daily Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in the UK has hit a record high for a third consecutive day. A combined total of 844,285 first or second doses were given on Saturday, up from 711,157 on Friday. On Twitter, Prime Minister Boris Johnson thanked "everyone involved".

More than 27.6 million people in the UK — more than half the adult population — have now received at least one dose of a vaccine... Of the vaccinations administered on Saturday, 752,308 were first doses and 91,977 were second, meaning 2,228,772 people in the UK have now been fully vaccinated.
How does that compare to other regions? In the USA — which has roughly five times the UK's population — 81.4 million people have received at least one dose of vaccine, representating about 24.5% of the eligible population. But 41.9 million Americans have been fully vaccinated (according to figures compiled by the Washington Post).

And here's some more figures from the Los Angeles Times, including vaccination stats for the state of California — roughly 60% of the UK's population: The last six days have seen the six highest single-day totals of shots given out statewide, according to data compiled by the Los Angeles Times. During that stretch, roughly 2.35 million doses were administered statewide — including 344,489 on Thursday and 387,015 on Friday... To date, nearly 13.8 million shots have been administered statewide [and] 23.5% of Californians have received at least one vaccine dose — a proportion that ranks 33rd out of all states and U.S. territories, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By comparison, 31.4% of New Mexico's population has gotten at least one shot, as have 29.6% of Alaskans and 29% of those living in South Dakota. California measures up better compared with more populous states. As of Friday, 24.3% of residents had received one shot in Pennsylvania, 24.2% in New York, 22.2% in Florida and 20.9% in Texas, CDC data show.. Roughly 11.8% of all Californians have been fully vaccinated. California is somewhat ahead of the national curve when it comes to vaccinating its older residents. Roughly 71.9% of residents ages 65 and older have received at least one dose, according to the CDC, compared with the nationwide figure of 67.1%.

The Biden administration "is preparing a series of aggressive cyber attacks on Russia in a major shift in tactics designed as a warning shot to rival powers," reports the Telegraph newspaper: The attack, which is expected in the next fortnight, is in retaliation for the SolarWinds hack, the large-scale infiltration of American government agencies and corporations discovered late last year that was traced back to the Kremlin... The U.S. will not target civilian structures or networks, but the hack is instead designed as a direct challenge to Mr Putin, Russia's President, and his cyber army, The Telegraph understands.

The White House confirmed it will take "a mix of actions" — both "seen and unseen" — although it did not provide specifics on when and how it would do so... "I actually believe that a set of measures that are understood by the Russians, but may not be visible to the broader world, are actually likely to be the most effective measures in terms of clarifying what the United States believes are in bounds and out of bounds, and what we are prepared to do in response," Jake Sullivan, U.S. National Security Adviser, told the New York Times last week.

Mr Sullivan stressed that traditional sanctions alone do not sufficiently raise the cost to force powers like Russia, or China.

Computer maker Acer has been hit by a ransomware attack "where the threat actors are demanding the largest known ransom to date, $50,000,000," writes Bleeping Computer: Yesterday, the ransomware gang announced on their data leak site that they had breached Acer and shared some images of allegedly stolen files as proof...

In response to BleepingComputer's inquiries, Acer did not provide a clear answer regarding whether they suffered a REvil ransomware attack, saying instead that they "reported recent abnormal situations" to relevant law enforcement and data protection authorities... In requests for further details, Acer said "there is an ongoing investigation and for the sake of security, we are unable to comment on details."
PC Magazine reports that data from Advanced Intel's Andariel cyberintelligence platform "was able to link the possible breach to the Microsoft Exchange issue."

Police have warned students in the UK against using the Sci-Hub website, which they say lets users "illegally access" millions of scientific research papers. Specifically, the police say the website could "pose a threat to their personal information and data." The BBC reports: The police are concerned that users of the "Russia-based website" could have information taken and misused online. The Sci-Hub says its website "removes all barriers" to science. It offers open access to more than 85 million scientific papers and claims that copyright laws should be abolished and that such material should be "knowledge to all." It describes itself as "the first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers."

But Max Bruce, the City of London Police's cyber protection officer, has urged universities to block the website on their network because of the "threat posed by Sci-Hub to both the university and its students." "If you're tricked into revealing your log-in credentials, whether it's through the use of fake emails or malware, we know that Sci-Hub will then use those details to compromise your university's computer network in order to steal research papers," he said. "Students should be aware that accessing such websites is illegal, as it hosts stolen intellectual property," said Det Insp Kevin Ives. He warned that visitors to the website, whose Twitter account has been suspended, are "very vulnerable to having their credentials stolen."

The highly contagious variant first identified in the U.K. likely accounts for up to 30% of Covid-19 infections in the United States, White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday. From a report: The variant, called B.1.1.7, has also been reported in at least 94 countries and detected in 50 jurisdictions in the U.S., Fauci said during a White House news briefing on the pandemic, adding that the numbers are likely growing. The U.K. first identified the B.1.1.7 strain, which appears to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, last fall. It has since spread across the world, including the U.S., Fauci said. U.S. researchers have identified 5,567 cases through genetic sequencing as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. U.S. health officials say the variant could become the dominant strain in the U.S. by the end of this month or in early April. New variants are especially a concern for public health officials as they could become more resistant to antibody treatments and vaccines. Top health officials, including Fauci, have urged Americans to get vaccinated as quickly as possible, saying the virus can't mutate if it can't infect hosts and replicate.

A digital certificate to kick-start foreign travel should be given to citizens across the EU "without discrimination," officials say. From a report: The aim is to enable anyone vaccinated against Covid-19, or who has tested negative or recently recovered from the virus to travel within the EU. The 27 member states will decide how to use the new digital certificate. Vaccine passports have faced opposition from some EU member states over concerns they might be discriminatory. Some argue that they would enable a minority to enjoy foreign travel without restrictions while others, such as young people who are not seen as a priority for inoculation, continue to face measures such as quarantine. European Commission officials have made clear they want to avoid discrimination.

Another issue raised has been that data on the efficacy of vaccines in preventing a person from carrying or passing on the virus is incomplete. Ahead of the EU's announcement, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that it was working to "create an international trusted framework" for safe travel, but that vaccinations should not be a condition. Separately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has threatened to withhold exporting vaccines to the UK and any other countries outside the EU that do not supply doses in a reciprocal way. "We're still waiting for doses to come from the UK," she said. "So, this is an invitation to show us that there are also doses from the UK coming to the European Union."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: For years, Uber has successfully deployed armies of lawyers and lobbyists around the world to fight attempts to reclassify drivers as company workers entitled to higher wages and benefits rather than lower-cost, self-employed freelancers. Now the ride-hailing giant is retreating from that hard-line stance in Britain, one of its most important markets, after a major legal defeat. On Tuesday, Uber said it would reclassify more than 70,000 drivers in Britain as workers who will receive a minimum wage, vacation pay and access to a pension plan. [It does not give the full protections of the classification known as full "employee," which includes paternity and maternity leave and severance pay if dismissed, among other benefits.] The decision, Uber said, is the first time the company has agreed to classify its drivers in this way, and it comes in response to a landmark British Supreme Court decision last month that said Uber drivers were entitled to more protections.

The decision represents a shift for Uber, though the move was made easier by British labor rules that offer a middle ground between freelancers and full employees that doesn't exist in other countries. That middle ground makes it unclear whether Uber will change its stance elsewhere. More labor battles are coming in the European Union, where policymakers are considering tougher labor regulations of gig-economy companies, as well as in the United States. In a statement, Uber said last month's court decision "provides a clearer path forward as to a model that gives drivers the rights of worker status -- while continuing to let them work flexibly, in the same way they have been since Uber's launch in the U.K. in 2012." Uber hasn't disclosed how much the reclassification would increase its operating costs, but the company maintains that it will become profitable this year.

According to Reuters, "India will propose a law banning cryptocurrencies, fining anyone trading in the country or even holding such digital assets." From the report: The bill, one of the world's strictest policies against cryptocurrencies, would criminalize possession, issuance, mining, trading and transferring crypto-assets, said the official, who has direct knowledge of the plan. The measure is in line with a January government agenda that called for banning private virtual currencies such as bitcoin while building a framework for an official digital currency. But recent government comments had raised investors' hopes that the authorities might go easier on the booming market.

Instead, the bill would give holders of cryptocurrencies up to six months to liquidate, after which penalties will be levied, said the official, who asked not to be named as the contents of the bill are not public. Officials are confident of getting the bill enacted into law as Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government holds a comfortable majority in parliament. If the ban becomes law, India would be the first major economy to make holding cryptocurrency illegal. Even China, which has banned mining and trading, does not penalize possession. According to the senior official, the plan is to ban private crypto-assets while promoting blockchain. "We don't have a problem with technology. There's no harm in harnessing the technology," said the official, adding the government's moves would be "calibrated" in the extent of the penalties on those who did not liquidate crypto-assets within the law's grace period.

The report notes that 8 million investors in India now hold 100 billion rupees ($1.4 billion) in crypto-investments.

Apple says its App Store now supports more than 330,000 jobs in the U.K., a 10% increase over the past year, despite the pressures of the global health crisis on the nation's economy. From a report: According to Apple, 2020 was a "breakthrough year" for the iOS app economy, with developers in the U.K. generating more than $5 billion in total earnings, which represents 22% in growth compared to the previous year. The company says a similar trend was reflected in Europe, where the iOS app economy has grown to support 1.7 million jobs -- a 7% percent increase since 2019. Apple published similar press releases in Germany and France, claiming that the App Store supports over a quarter of a million jobs in each of those two countries.

In 2020, the average US driver spent 26 hours stuck in traffic. While that's still more than a day, it's a steep decline from pre-pandemic times; in 2019 the average American sacrificed 99 hours to traffic jams. Around the world, it's a similar story. From a report: German drivers averaged an identical 26 hours of traffic in 2020, down from 46 the year before. In the UK, 2019 sounded positively awful, with 115 hours in traffic jams. At least one thing improved for that island nation in 2020: its drivers only spent 37 hours stationary in their cars. This data was all collected by traffic analytics company Inrix for its 2020 Global Traffic Scorecard that tracks mobility across more than 1,000 different cities around the world based on travel times, miles traveled, trip characteristics, and the effect of crashes on congestion in each city.

And unless you've spent the past 12 months in a cave -- in which case, gee, do I have some crappy news for you -- you'll instinctively know that there were big declines in traffic in 2020, and in particular a drop in people traveling to downtowns and central business districts. Still, traffic didn't actually disappear completely, and averages hide a lot in a country as large as the United States. The worst traffic of 2020 was experienced in New York City, up from 4th worst in 2019, where drivers lost 100 hours to traffic jams. But New Yorkers still spent 28 percent less time stuck in traffic, traveled 28 percent fewer miles, and experienced 38 percent fewer crashes than in 2019. The biggest decline in traffic was seen in Washington, DC. In the nation's capital, drivers spent 29 hours in traffic, a whopping 77 percent decrease over pre-pandemic times. However, the city only saw a 26 percent reduction in crashes and a 25 percent decrease in vehicle miles traveled.

Google is failing to do enough to combat fake reviews within its business listings, and must be held to account by a UK watchdog, according to Which? The BBC reports: Which? conducted its research by essentially setting up a "sting" operation to catch unscrupulous operators in the act. It created a fake business listing which it called "five-star reviews," and searched online for companies advertising paid-for Google reviews. It then spent $150 on their services. Which? told each company it wanted five-star reviews only, and between three and five of them a day -- and the consumer group's researchers wrote the reviews themselves, "praising how good the made-up business and its fake owner Catherine are." The fake reviews appeared over the following week, a few at a time.

But in investigating the "reviewers" behind them, the Which? team found, among others:
- 15 reviewers who had rated both an Edinburgh search engine optimization business and a London psychic as five stars, which it called "an unlikely coincidence"
- A stockbroker in Canary Wharf who, having had several bad reviews in mid-2020, received 30 five-star ones "in quick succession" a few months later
- A reviewer who claimed to have lived in Surrey for years while praising a local car company, and a Glasgow electric gate firm 412 miles (663 km) away for work on his home
- The same reviewer also praised a dentist in Manchester, a paving firm in Bournemouth, and a Cambridgeshire locksmith, who allegedly saved his toddler from a locked car

Which? said it linked some 45 businesses scattered across the country to three suspicious "reviewers." That suggested they had each paid the same review seller to post their reviews, it said. It called on regulators and Google to take action. When it presented Google with the findings, the fake sting company was immediately deleted, Which? said.