British Gas pledges to focus on customers after being overtaken by Octopus

The boss of British Gas has said that losing its spot as Britain’s biggest energy supplier for the first time in four decades should “galvanise” its staff to focus on customer service and lowering bills.Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of Centrica, which owns British Gas, said monitoring its customer service was an “obsession” that would continue after Octopus Energy toppled it from the position as the largest energy supplier in the market last year.“This is something that should galvanise my wonderful colleagues at British Gas, but I don’t sit looking at league tables trying to figure out if we’re first, second or third,” O’Shea said.“What I look at, on a daily basis, is how quickly they’ve answered the phones for our customers, what is our complaint rate, what is the price we have given our customers, what is the service they’ve been given? That will continue to be my obsession,” he added, as Centrica reported a slump in profits.The supplier’s customer service has come under fire in recent years as the energy crisis has caused bills to rise, and households have raised concerns about faulty smart meters

Energy network owners have made £3.9bn ‘excess profit’ from higher bills, says report

The companies behind Great Britain’s gas pipes and power lines have pocketed a windfall of nearly £4bn from household bills during the energy and cost crisis, according to a report.The analysis, by Citizens Advice, argued that energy network owners were able to make the “excess profits” over the past four years after the industry regulator misjudged their costs.The companies may have made up to £3.9bn more because Ofgem overestimated their borrowing costs as interest rates began to climb, the report calculated. It found that Ofgem allowed regional network companies to recover these costs from household bills even though many were able to secure fixed-rate terms on some of their borrowing which helped them to avoid the impact of rising interest rates

Microsoft unveils chip it says could bring quantum computing within years

Quantum computers could be built within years rather than decades, according to Microsoft, which has unveiled a breakthrough that it said could pave the way for faster development.The tech firm has developed a chip which, it says, echoes the invention of the semiconductors that made today’s smartphones, computers and electronics possible by miniaturisation and increased processing power.The chip is powered by the world’s first topoconductor, which can create a new state of matter that is not a solid, liquid, or gas – making it possible to design quantum systems that fit in a single chip smaller than the palm of a hand, and to create more reliable hardware, a peer-reviewed paper published in Nature reports.Paul Stevenson, a professor of physics at the University of Surrey, said Microsoft could be “very serious competitors” in the race to build the first reliable quantum computers if the company successfully built on this research.“The new papers are a significant step, but as with much promising work in quantum computing, the next steps are difficult and until the next steps have been achieved, it is too soon to be anything more than cautiously optimistic,” he said

EU accused of leaving ‘devastating’ copyright loophole in AI Act

An architect of EU copyright law has said legislation is needed to protect writers, musicians and creatives left exposed by an “irresponsible” legal gap in the bloc’s Artificial Intelligence Act.The intervention came as 15 cultural organisations wrote to the European Commission this week warning that draft rules to implement the AI Act were “taking several steps backwards” on copyright, while one writer spoke of a “devastating” loophole.Axel Voss, a German centre-right member of the European parliament, who played a key role in writing the EU’s 2019 copyright directive, said that law was not conceived to deal with generative AI models: systems that can generate text, images or music with a simple text prompt.Voss said “a legal gap” had opened up after the conclusion of the EU’s AI Act, which meant copyright was not enforceable in this area. “What I do not understand is that we are supporting big tech instead of protecting European creative ideas and content

Harassment of Emma Raducanu reminds us women still bear brunt of abuse | Emma John

If you watched any of Emma Raducanu’s Tuesday match against Karolina Muchova, it was probably only the two clips, stitched together neatly for the news highlights. Raducanu approaching the umpire. Raducanu wiping away tears with a towel.An emotional Raducanu is an instant headline, although this wasn’t a case of injury or frustration. Having seen a man in the crowd whose off-court behaviour had already concerned her, she was doing the sensible thing and reporting it

Steve Smith’s enduring brilliance gives England sinking feeling once again | James Wallace

Coldplay’s Chris Martin tells a story about the litmus test of playing stadium gigs. Well, the lavatory test. “When you are singing somewhere like Wembley Arena, you can only really see the outline of the exits.” During some songs, Martin explains that all you can see is a clear gangway under the exit light. “You think, ‘wonderful, this song is great’… But when those lights get blocked and everyone is going to the bathroom, you’re like ‘Gah, that song is out, we should never have put that song on the setlist!’”The Oval