The number of single-use plastic bags sold by UK retailers has fallen by 98% since a charge was introduced in October 2015. CC-licensed photo by Newtown grafitti on Flickr.
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The Overspill is going on a break for two weeks. Back on August 18.
A selection of 10 links for you. Reusable. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
UK online safety law leads to five million extra age checks a day for pornography sites • The Guardian
Dan Milmo:
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Five million extra online age checks a day are being carried out in the UK since the introduction of age-gating for pornography sites, according to new data.
The Age Verification Providers Association (AVPA) said there had been a sharp increase in additional age checks in the UK since Friday, when age verification became mandatory for accessing pornography under the Online Safety Act.
“As a result of new codes under the Online Safety Act coming into force on Friday, we have seen an additional 5m age checks on a daily basis, as UK-based internet users seek to access sites that are age-restricted,” said Iain Corby, the executive director of the AVPA.
The UK has also seen a surge in popularity of virtual private networks, which obscure a user’s real location and thus allow them to access sites blocked in their own country. Four of the top five free apps on the Apple download store in the UK are VPN apps, with Proton, the most popular, reporting a 1,800% increase in downloads.
Last week the UK’s communications regulator and enforcer of the act, Ofcom, indicated that it could start formal investigations into inadequate age checking this week. Ofcom said it would be actively checking compliance with age-checking requirements and if necessary would launch investigations into individual services.
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If that’s every day, then there have been 30 million new checks in six days since the mandatory move. That’s either going to stop dead now that 30 million adults have logged on afresh, or it’s going to continue for some time as they all log on to different sites.
One story that hasn’t been examined is quite where the AVPA’s members reside and pay taxes. Is it the UK? Separately, they are, obviously, a huge target for hackers. And staying un-hacked is very, very hard.
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Official stats show renewables generated over half UK’s electricity for the first time in 2024 • Renewable UK
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New statistics released by the Government today show that renewables generated a record 50.8% of the UK’s electricity in 2024 – the first year in which renewables have exceeded 50%, and a substantial increase on the previous high of 46.4% in 2023. These are the first figures to be published by the Government covering 2024 in its entirety.
They are included in the latest Energy Trends report by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which also shows that a record amount of clean power was produced last year, reaching a new high of 144.7 terawatt hours (TWh), up 6.5% from 135.8TWh in 2023.
The report states that wind generation increased to a record 29.5% (84.1TWh), up from 28.1% (82.3TWh) in 2023, due to higher wind speeds and further increases in capacity. Offshore wind generated 17.2% (48.9TWh) and onshore wind 12.3% (35.1TWh).
Solar provided 5.2% (14.8TWh) and nuclear 14.25% (40.6TWh) of the UK’s electricity in 2024. Low carbon sources (renewables and nuclear) generated a record 65% (185.2TWh), while fossil fuels fell to levels last seen in the 1950s at 31.5% (89.7TWh).
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I think it means that the fossil fuel amount was comparable to the 1950s, rather than the proportion. A remarkable and worthwhile achievement. Separately, fuel consumption outside electricity generation is down by 10%.
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Tim Cook says Apple is ‘open to’ AI acquisitions • The Verge
Emma Roth:
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Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company is “open” to mergers and acquisitions as it “significantly” increases its investment in AI, as reported by CNBC. Cook’s statements were made alongside the release of Apple’s third-quarter earnings results, which revealed that the iPhone-maker raked in $94 billion between April and June, marking a 10% increase over the same period last year.
The remarks come as Apple continues to be seen as behind the AI race, with its efforts on Apple Intelligence lagging relative to its peers and Meta poaching some of its top engineers. The company is increasingly turning to AI startups for help — and reports have suggested that Apple is even open to making big acquisitions to catch up.
Last month, a report from Bloomberg said that Apple may enlist the help of AI giants, like OpenAI and Anthropic, to power its “LLM Siri.” Bloomberg also reported in June that Apple leaders discussed acquiring the AI search startup Perplexity. The discussions come after Apple swapped in Vision Pro head Mike Rockwell as the leader of AI and Siri in March.
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The question is, does what Cook said actually mean anything? Being “open” to buying a company is a nice way to placate Wall Street when every other question is “when you going to do more AI, huh?” but is there actual intent there? Because if so, the price of acquisition is going up every day. (Apple has $133bn in cash.)
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St. Paul, Minnesota, was hacked so badly that the National Guard has been deployed • Ars Technica
Nate Anderson:
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St. Paul, Minnesota …suffered a significant cyberattack last Friday that it has been unable to mitigate. Things have gotten so bad that the city has declared a state of emergency, while the governor activated the National Guard to assist.
According to remarks by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, the attack was first noticed early in the morning of Friday, July 25. It was, Carter said, “a deliberate, coordinated digital attack, carried out by a sophisticated external actor—intentionally and criminally targeting our city’s information infrastructure.”
The city had trouble stopping the attack over the weekend, however, so on Monday, it “initiated a full shutdown of our information systems as a defensive measure to contain the threat.” All Wi-Fi in city buildings is currently down, and numerous computerized city functions—including checking out library books—have been stopped. (According to a resident who spoke to local TV channel KSTP 5, books can still be checked out “the old school manual way, writing down the bar code number from your library card.”) Online payments to the city have been disabled, though emergency services remain operational.
The FBI and two national cybersecurity firms have been brought on to mitigate the attack, but it hasn’t been enough. Yesterday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated state units of the National Guard to assist the city.
“Unfortunately, the scale and complexity of this incident exceeded both internal and commercial response capabilities,” Walz said. “As a result, St. Paul has requested cyber protection support from the Minnesota National Guard to help address this incident and make sure that vital municipal services continue without interruption.”
According to the mayor, there have not yet been any demands for a ransom.
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Peculiar: it’s either script kiddies or, more worrying, state actors trying something out to test defences. Most betting would be on the kiddies, though.
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Microsoft researchers have revealed the 40 jobs most exposed to AI—and even teachers make the list • Fortune
Preston Fore:
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Translators, historians, and writers are among the roles with the highest AI applicability score, meaning the job’s tasks are most closely aligned with AI’s current abilities, according to the report released this month that ranked professions. Customer service and sales representatives—which make up about 5 million jobs in the U.S.—will also have to compete with AI.
Overall, the jobs most exposed are ones that involve knowledge work—like people doing computer, math, or administrative work in an office, the researchers wrote. Sales jobs are also high on the list, since they often involve sharing and explaining information.
While Microsoft said high applicability doesn’t automatically mean those jobs will necessarily be replaced by AI, the list of roles quickly went viral—with professionals deeming them “most at risk.” It comes as companies like IBM have been freezing thousands of would-be new roles that it expects AI will take over in the next five years, and graduates in the U.K. are facing the worst job market since 2018 as employers pause hiring and use AI to cut costs, says Indeed.
Of course, there are some jobs that are unlikely to be touched by AI: dredge operators, bridge and lock tenders, and water treatment plant and system operators are among the jobs with virtually no generative AI exposure, thanks in part to their hands-on equipment requirements.
Still, business leaders like Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang have said that every job will be touched by AI in some way, and so it’s best to embrace it.
“Every job will be affected, and immediately. It is unquestionable,” Huang said at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference in May. “You’re not going to lose your job to an AI, but you’re going to lose your job to someone who uses AI.”
Many of the jobs with high chances of getting upended by AI soon, like political scientists, journalists, and management analysts, are all ones that typically require a four-year degree to land a job. And as the researchers point out, having a degree—which was once considered a surefire path to career advancement—is no longer a safeguard against the changing tides.
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This is not unlike the list of jobs from the famous Frey & Osborne forecast of 2013, which suggested (on p61) that dentists and surgeons were probably OK, but telemarketers should worry.
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Nvidia AI chips worth $1bn smuggled to China after Trump export controls • Financial Times
Zijing Wu and Eleanor Olcott:
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At least $1bn worth of Nvidia’s advanced artificial intelligence processors were shipped to China in the three months after Donald Trump tightened chip export controls, exposing the limits of Washington’s efforts to restrain Beijing’s high-tech ambitions.
A Financial Times analysis of dozens of sales contracts, company filings and multiple people with direct knowledge of the deals reveals that Nvidia’s B200 has become the most sought-after — and widely available — chip in a rampant Chinese black market for American semiconductors.
The processor is widely used by US powerhouses such as OpenAI, Google and Meta to train their latest AI systems, but banned for sale to China.
In May, multiple Chinese distributors started selling B200s to suppliers of data centres that serve Chinese AI groups, according to documents reviewed by the FT. This was shortly after the Trump administration moved to prevent sales of the H20 — a less-powerful Nvidia chip tailored to comply with Joe Biden-era curbs.
It is legal to receive and sell restricted Nvidia chips in China, as long as relevant border tariffs are paid, according to lawyers familiar with the rules. Entities selling and sending them to China would be violating US regulations, however.
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Reminiscent of ZTE selling equipment to Iran in violation of US regulations during the first Trump administration, which was quickly followed by some tough sanctions. Who will the US go after for this, though?
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Google DeepMind says its new AI can map the entire planet with unprecedented accuracy • VentureBeat
Michael Nuñez:
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The system, called AlphaEarth Foundations, addresses a critical challenge that has plagued Earth observation for decades: making sense of the overwhelming flood of satellite data streaming down from space. Every day, satellites capture terabytes of images and measurements, but connecting these disparate datasets into actionable intelligence has remained frustratingly difficult.
“AlphaEarth Foundations functions like a virtual satellite,” the research team writes in their paper. “It accurately and efficiently characterizes the planet’s entire terrestrial land and coastal waters by integrating huge amounts of Earth observation data into a unified digital representation.”
The AI system reduces error rates by approximately 23.9% compared to existing approaches while requiring 16 times less storage space than other AI systems. This combination of accuracy and efficiency could dramatically lower the cost of planetary-scale environmental analysis.
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Ever so slightly suspicious of “approximately 23.9%”. If that’s approximate, what’s your measure of exactitude? But research groups are finding it useful, according to the reporting, especially for places where there isn’t much “ground truth”, ie people on the ground. (Thanks Gregory B for the link.)
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YouTube most popular first TV destination for children, Ofcom finds • The Guardian
Michael Savage:
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Children are now heading to YouTube from the moment they turn on the television, in the latest sign of the video platform’s migration from the laptop to the living room.
YouTube is the most popular first TV destination for generation Alpha, according to a comprehensive survey of the UK’s viewing habits by Ofcom, the communications regulator.
One in five young TV viewers aged from four to 15 turned straight to the platform last year. The survey showed Netflix close behind. While BBC One was in the top five first destinations, children were just as likely to choose BBC iPlayer.
YouTube’s increasing presence on televisions is not just down to the very young. In a gradual cultural shift, viewers aged 55 and over watched almost twice as much YouTube content last year as they did in 2023, up from six minutes a day to 11 minutes a day. An increasing proportion of that – 42% – is viewed through a TV set.
…The rise of YouTube is presenting a major challenge for public service broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, who have to decide how much of their content to place on the platform.
While doing so helps them reach new and younger audiences, YouTube also takes a huge chunk of advertising revenue. There is also a risk that putting shows on YouTube ensures viewers spend less time on a broadcaster’s own platforms.
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Amazon invests in Fable, the ‘Netflix of AI’ which generates playable TV shows • Variety
Todd Spangler:
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Edward Saatchi isn’t totally sure people will flock to Showrunner, the new AI-generated TV show service his company is launching publicly this week. But he has a vote of confidence from Amazon, whose Alexa Fund venture-capital investment arm has invested in Fable, Saatchi’s San Francisco-based start-up.
The amount of Amazon’s Alexa Fund investment in Fable isn’t being disclosed. The money is going toward building out Showrunner, which Fable has hyped as the “Netflix of AI”: a service that lets you type in a few words to create scenes — or entire episodes — of a TV show, either from scratch or based on an existing story-world someone else has created.
Fable is launching Showrunner to let users tinker with the animation-focused generative-AI system, following several months in a closed alpha test with 10,000 users. Initially, Showrunner will be free to use but eventually the company plans to charge creators $10-$20 per month for credits allowing them to create hundreds of TV scenes, Saatchi said.
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This feels like a cross between video games (very popular with younger demographics!) and TV (less popular with younger demographics!). Which might be successful.
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Single-use plastic carrier bags charge: data for England 2024 to 2025 • GOV.UK
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Since 5 October 2015, large retailers (those with 250 or more full-time equivalent employees) in England have been required by law to charge customers for all single-use plastic carrier bags given out. This charge was originally set at 5 pence per bag. Large retailers are also required to report certain information to Defra, including:
• the number of single-use carrier bags sold under the charge
• gross proceeds
• any costs incurred
• the use of the net proceeds…In the reporting year from 7 April 2024 to 6 April 2025, the total number of single-use plastic bags sold by the 102 retailers in England who reported data for the period was 437 million, up 7% since 2023 to 2024 and down 79% since 2016 to 2017, the first full year of reporting since the single-use plastic carrier bag charge was introduced. This is equivalent to around 8 single-use plastic bags per person sold by all retailers who reported data for the most recent reporting year.
Over the same period, the total number of single-use plastic bags sold by the main 7 retailers in England was 164 million, up 6% since 2023 to 2024 and down 88% since 2016 to 2017. This is equivalent to around 3 single-use plastic bags per person sold by the main retailers in 2024 to 2025.
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has previously reported that the main retailers in England issued 7.6 billion single-use carrier bags in the calendar year 2014. Our data indicates that, based on this year’s return, there has been a decrease of almost 98% in the annual number of single-use carrier bags sold by the main retailers (over 7.4 billion fewer bags) since the charge was introduced.
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That’s an incredible reduction which goes to show that price is an amazing incentive when you want to change behaviour. It also generated £7.7m for good causes; since 2015 the total donated is over £225m.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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