Business & Tech
The latest stories from independent business & tech media.
Chaos ensues when AI interviewer meets AI interviewee
Things got weird, but there's a lesson to be learned: Don't trust a bot to negotiate for you
UK economy grows by 0.1% but interest rate rise fears mount
The UK economy grew by just 0.1% in August, but stronger growth over the past three months has raised concerns that the Bank of England could increase interest rates. Figures published today (15 October) by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed GDP growth slowed
Catherine Trimble: The most dangerous business continuity strategy
When the social reformer and former prime minister David Lloyd George said “the most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps”, he was warning us against using half measures. The protection equivalent is a business continuity plan that relies on individual protection
Jev and other decision models can still be tricked with prompt injection
Never making type errors does not mean never making errors
Linux kernel devs drop obligatory confession of AI tool usage
Torvalds says contributors must understand their code, whatever tools they use
Leap seconds face judgment day as time lords prepare to vote
Proposal would let UTC drift an hour from Earth's rotation, sparing computer systems awkward adjustments for centuries
Researchers cig-nal their faith in AI by taking up smoking
What are they puffing? Tobacco, apparently. Cancer researcher tells El Reg it's a bad bet
Fire up that iPhone 1 emulation and party like it's 2007
Browser-based fun to remember a time before Apple's annual cash grab became a thing
Cisco make-me-root email bug exploited as a 0-day by unknown crims
Both Switchzilla and CISA sound the alarm
European active ETF inflows hit record €28.9bn before year-end
European active ETFs attracted a record €28.9bn of net inflows during the first nine months of 2026, surpassing the previous annual record set in 2025 with a quarter still remaining.
US tech giants warn Europe that ditching US tech giants could cost €115B
Amazon, Google, Meta among members of lobby group funding dire warnings over cloud sovereignty plans
Franklin Templeton launches Putnam’s first UK active ETF
Franklin Templeton has launched Putnam Investments' first actively managed ETF in the UK, continuing its push into the fast-growing active ETF market.
Security researchers spent 6 days doing their Chromework, built 1B user exploit
Xbow earned a $250K bug bounty and all the AI model got was a lousy t-shirt
Ivanti patches Connect Secure zero-day after researchers confirm in-the-wild attacks
Vendor promises fix for separate privilege-escalation flaw in the coming weeks
One to Watch - nolabs on sandboxes and securing agents
Co-founder and CEO Luke Hinds on isolating agentic actions, sandboxes, and open source infrastructure.
New motherboards, old RAM, plenty of life left in yesterday's PCs
DDR4 makes a comeback as component costs rise, while Linux offers an escape from forced upgrades
Tiny11 puts Windows 11 on a diet without the PowerShell workout
New desktop app simplifies stripping out bundled software, with heavier cuts carrying security and support risks
Cisco, Nvidia team up to build fatter, faster pluggable
If you thought 1.6 Tbps was fast, just wait, Cisco's USFP targets 12.8 Tbps in a single optical pluggable
Four in five fund managers fear cash holdings are costing them returns
More than four in five fund managers believe they are missing out on potential income from their cash holdings, despite holding an average of £705m in cash and reviewing allocations almost every week. Research from cash management provider MillTech, based on a survey of 125
Fund selectors favour active Asian equities as index concentration rises
Professional fund selectors are increasingly favouring active Asian equity strategies over passive alternatives as concentration risk grows in regional stock market indices, according to research from Rathbones Asset Management.
Python 3.15 goes global with UTF-8 support
Decades of cross-platform character corruption finally comes to an end for Windows coders
JPMorgan Chase blocks outside AI agents from directly accessing customer accounts
Weeks after the launch of Meta's Muse AI assistant, Jamie Dimon says JPMorgan Chase is not going to allow outside agents to directly access accounts on behalf of retail customers.
NatWest enlists Nvidia to help its AI spending tool understand regional accents
NatWest has harnessed AI speech recognition technology from Nvidia to help its new audio-visual spending insights tool understand customers' accents and pronunciations.
Starling becomes first bank to train AI model on UK sovereign cloud
Starling is working with AI chip making giant Nvidia to build a transactional foundational model that is trained and hosted within a UK sovereign cloud.
BoE and IMF warn of cyber threat to banking system
Such is the concern about cyber risks, that consumers could revert to keeping their money in a shoebox under the bed rather than depositing it with a bank.
Visa secures China card business green light
US behemoth Visa has secured approval from the People’s Bank of China to set up a domestic bank card clearing business in the country.
From Single Rails to Full Ecosystems: How Payments Have Transformed
At Sibos 2026, Bottomline’s Edward Ireland reveals how banks can harmonise fragmented payment infrastructures into unified, API-enabled ecosystems.
LSEG in talks over $3.5bn deal for credit specialist Octus
The London Stock Exchange Group has confirmed that it is in talks to buy credit specialist Octus from private equity group Permira in a $3.5 billion deal.
Kraken parent to buy European bank Saldo
The parent of crypto exchange Kraken has struck a deal to buy Finland-based Saldo Bank in a move that would enable the firm to offer deposits and lending products in Europe.
Debbie Mitchell appointed as next CII president
Debbie Mitchell has been appointed president of the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) for 2027, supported by Mandy Hunt as deputy president. These appointments were formally confirmed this afternoon at the CII’s AGM.