‘Significant exposure’: Amazon Web Services outage exposed UK state’s £1.7bn reliance on tech giant

Amazon chief executive Andy Jassy beamed as he met Keir Starmer in Downing Street’s garden to announce £40bn of UK investments in June. Starmer was equally effusive, gushing: “This deal shows that our plan for change is working –bringing in investment, driving growth, and putting more money in people’s pockets.”Four months later, and the tech company was left scrambling to fix a devastating global outage on Monday that left thousands of businesses in limbo – and shed light on the UK government’s reliance on its cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services (AWS).Figures compiled for the Guardian hint at the British state’s increasing reliance on the services of the giant US internet group, which has also drawn criticism from unions and politicians about working conditions within its logistics and internet retailing business.AWS has won 189 UK government contracts worth £1

Salesforce’s CEO backtracks after saying Trump should send troops into San Francisco

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host and editor, Blake Montgomery. What I’m watching this week: South Park’s caricature of Peter Thiel and his obsession with the antichrist. Read our reporting on the show’s inspiration: Thiel’s bizarre off-the-record lectures on the subject. And now, let’s get into things

UK women in tech: we would like to hear from you

The Lovelace Report 2025 in collaboration with WeAreTechWomen has found that between 40,000 and 60,000 women leave the UK’s tech sector every year, costing the economy an estimated £2 billion to £3.5 billion annually.They either exit the industry altogether or move to a new tech employer. An estimated £1.4 billion to £2

Garmin Fenix 8 Pro review: built-in LTE and satellite for phone-free messaging

The latest update to Garmin’s class-leading Fenix adventure watch adds something that could save your life: phone-free communications and emergency messaging on 4G or via satellite.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The Fenix 8 Pro takes the already fantastic Fenix 8 and adds in the new cellular tech, plus the option of a cutting-edge microLED screen in a special edition of the watch

Bryan Cranston thanks OpenAI for cracking down on Sora 2 deepfakes

Bryan Cranston has said he is “grateful” to OpenAI for cracking down on deepfakes of himself on the company’s generative AI video platform Sora 2, after users were able to generate his voice and likeness without his consent.The Breaking Bad star approached the actors’ union Sag-Aftra with his concerns after Sora 2 users were able to generate his likeness during the video app’s recent launch phase. On 11 October, the LA Times described a Sora 2 video in which “a synthetic Michael Jackson takes a selfie video with an image of Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston”.Living people must ostensibly give their consent, or opt in, to feature on Sora 2, with OpenAI stating since launch that it takes “measures to block depictions of public figures” and that it has “guardrails intended to ensure that your audio and image likeness are used with your consent”.But when Sora 2 launched, several publications including the Wall Street Journal, the Hollywood Reporter and the LA Times reported widespread anger in Hollywood after OpenAI allegedly told multiple talent agencies and studios that if they didn’t want their clients or copyrighted material replicated on Sora 2, they would have to opt out – rather than opt in

‘I’m having a great day’: AWS outage offers some a brief glimpse of a tech-free existence

Workers were sent home, exams were delayed, coffee machines had to be turned on manually and language app users feared their hard-won progress was lost as a result of the global outage of Amazon Web Services on Monday, as some made light of their briefly tech-free existence.A glitch in the AWS cloud computing service brought down apps and websites for millions of users around the world affecting more than 2,000 companies, including Snapchat, Roblox, Signal and language app Duolingo as well as a host of Amazon-owned operations.Many of the sites were restored after a few hours, but some experienced persistent problems throughout the day. By Monday evening, Amazon said all of its cloud services had “returned to normal operations”.But amid the chaos affecting vital services around the world, some more unexpected consequences arose