Science and Tech

Payment app PayPal experienced a brief outage worldwide on Thursday, it confirmed. It said in a post on its service status page it was experiencing “a system issue” that affecting multiple PayPal Products – including account withdrawal and express checkout. The company said the technical issue was swiftly resolved. However, even a brief outage was enough to cause problems for …

Wikipedia/Makeworldpedia Jay Graber, the chief executive of Bluesky, said there were no plans to introduce advertising The chief executive of the social media network Bluesky – which has exploded in popularity in recent weeks – was unable to give the correct age limit for users on the platform in an interview with the BBC. While speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live’s Breakfast …

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has proposed a series of remedies aimed at stopping Google from maintaining its monopoly in online search. In a court filing late on Wednesday, the DOJ said the technology giant should sell off its Chrome web browser. Government lawyers also recommended that District Judge Amit Mehta force the firm to stop entering into contracts …

A London-born teenager nicknamed “God’s influencer” for his online skills will be made a saint in April. Carlo Acutis, who died of leukaemia in 2006 at the age of 15, will be the first millennial – a person born in the early 1980s to late 1990s – to be canonised by the Catholic church. Pope Francis previously cleared the way …

Anthony Stanley/WENN/Alamy The Sidemen have been among Britain’s most popular YouTubers for the past decade The Sidemen are used to making content for YouTube, but say they’ve now “hit the limit” on what they can achieve on the video sharing platform so are moving “to something even bigger”. The British YouTube superstars have announced that the second season of their …

A possible ban on social media for under-16s in the UK is “on the table”, the technology secretary Peter Kyle has told the BBC. Speaking on the Today programme, on BBC Radio 4, he said he would “do what it takes” to keep people and in particular children safe online. He also announced further research into the impact tech such …

Sir Keir Starmer has said he has “no plans” to join the Bluesky social media platform. There has been a rising wave of popularity for the app – an alternative to Elon Musk’s X – in recent weeks. Bluesky has at times been the most downloaded app on both the US and UK Apple Stores, with many social media users …

Who’s behind the robot dogs at Donald Trump’s house? Plus: Wasting scammers’ time.

Instagram is testing a new feature which allows people to completely remove all the content being recommended to them. Its “reset” tool – which it says will be available globally “soon” – effectively cleanses a user’s feed of content suggested by the site’s algorithm, though Instagram says recommendations will “start to personalise again over time.” It comes as Instagram has …

Reuters Google has said it would harm consumers and businesses if it is forced to sell Chrome, the world’s most popular web browser. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) will propose the measure to a judge on Wednesday, Bloomberg has reported. Judge Amit Mehta ruled Google operates an online search monopoly in August, and has been considering what remedies or …