The Rise and Fall of Pret a Manger

Pret cashed in as office workers spent thousands on coffees, baguettes and fruit pots. As shops stand empty, what comes next might be worse | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Free VPNs are a privacy nightmare. You shouldn’t download them

Downloading any old free VPN from Android’s Play Store or the App Store can be problematic. Data harvesting, leaks and logging are just the start | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The illegal Airbnb nightclubs wreaking havoc on London

Short-term rental listings across London are being turned into illegal pop-up nightclubs that risk aiding the spread of coronavirus | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Belarus has torn up the protest rulebook. Everyone should listen

One messaging app helped protesters fight Alexander Lukashenko's digital blackout. Can it bring him down? | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The US Air Force is turning old F-16s into pilotless AI-powered fighters

Unmanned QF-16s could be used to fly decoy routes to distract from a manned aircraft operating in stealth mode | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones

With improvements across the board, the Sony XM4s are our new favourite headphones bar none and, most importantly of all, they’re a joy to listen to | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

How the BBC micro:bit will kick-start a coding revolution (2015)

The BBC is giving schools a million free micro:bit computers. It hopes it will kick-start a coding revival. This is the inside story | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Trains: Coronavirus has made the season ticket obsolete

Train companies have always failed at flexible travel. After coronavirus, it could be the only thing to save them | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

As Facebook and Google avoid the office, King’s Cross is desolate

Google's offices could stay empty until July 2021 and Facebook's could stay empty forever. For King's Cross, which was built as London's new tech hub, it's a problem | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Fleets of Chinese boats have been hiding in North Korean waters

A combination of satellite tech and AI has helped uncover more than 900 Chinese vessels that might be illegally fishing in North Korean waters | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

London's Silicon Roundabout dream turned into a nightmare

Politicians thought they could create a new Silicon Valley in London’s East End. But they ended up making things bigger, not better | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Why can't Twitter stop Elon Musk Bitcoin scams? It's complicated

Verified Twitter accounts – including Google's G-Suite and Matalan – are getting hacked and pretending to be Elon Musk. The bitcoin scams are making thousands but why can't Twitter do anything about them? | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Samsung Sero review: a rotating TV no one asked for

The Sero transforms TikTok content for home viewing. But with a small screen for the money it is impossible to justify (unless you spend considerable parts of your day watching cat vids) | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

We’re stuck in a lockdown work from home purgatory

As the world reopens, people working from home feel stuck in a lockdown rut. But it's really a mental health crisis | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

London’s National Gallery was hit by the biggest art heist in history

A guerrilla group is putting thousands of priceless artworks online for people to add to their own virtual museums | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

How to remember anything using the memory palace technique

Four-time USA Memory Champion Nelson Dellis and psychological scientist Julia Shaw explain how to use the memory palace technique to boost your memory skills | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

There’s a scam hiding behind Google’s search results

People around the world are populating search engine results for a few dollars an hour. But some have found a way to make a tidy profit | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The race is on to grow crops in the sea and feed millions of people

With the quality of arable land declining and seawater encroaching on fertile cropland, researchers are trying to find a way to make crops grow in seawater | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Live Sport – Virtual Crowd Sounds

Fans are using giant screens, Zoom calls and video game soundboards to create an atmosphere for games played behind closed doors | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Top composers used to head to Hollywood. Now they’re into games

Composers are ditching blockbuster films to take on the challenge of video game music | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Microwave oven baffled astronomers for decades (2015)

The source of strange radio signals that have left astronomers at Australia's most famous radio telescope scratching their heads for 17 years has finally been discovered. It turns out that it was a microwave oven | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Google got rich from your data. DuckDuckGo is fighting back

In July 2018, Google was fined €4.34 billion for limiting search on Android phones. Almost two years later, its rivals claim little has changed and the company is as dominant as ever | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Revolut staff claim they’ve been told to quit their jobs or be fired

Staff members at Europe's biggest fintech startup say that they have been pressured into leaving their jobs and taking salary cuts as the company embarks on cost-saving measures | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Google Meet is free. Here’s how to master its most useful features

Google has watched Zoom usage soar from ten million daily meeting participants to 300 million in just four months. So now it’s made Meet free | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Sweden’s coronavirus experiment has well and truly failed

The country gained early praise from some for shunning lockdown, but it now has one of the highest per-capita rates of coronavirus death in the world | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

We need to fix GDPR’s biggest failure: broken cookie notices

A mix of European legislation has resulted in cookie notices that use dark patterns to nudge people into accepting online tracking. And regulators aren’t taking strong action | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Werewolf: A parlour game became a tech phenomenon

Margaret Robertson reports on the explosion of tech-crowd pastime, Werewolf -- a parlour game about deceit and manipulation | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

India made its contact tracing app mandatory

India’s contact tracing app playbook comes straight from China. People are being forced to download the app – if they don’t their freedoms are limited | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

ICO (UK privacy regulator) suspends GDPR enforcement blaming coronavirus

Information Commissioner’s Office has effectively downed tools as a result of the pandemic, raising concerns about outstanding cases and ongoing privacy issues | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

‘Randonauts’ have found a great way to spice up lockdown walks

Thousands of people are using the Randonautica app to tell them where to go during lockdown – and they’re spotting some weird coincidences | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The lockdown has exposed the fatal flaw in Deliveroo’s business

The coronavirus lockdown should have been a sales bonanza for Deliveroo. Instead, it almost collapsed | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Skype lost its crown to Zoom

Skype should have dominated lockdown communications, but now we’re all stuck on Zoom calls. What went wrong? | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

World of Warcraft's Global Pandemic

An accidental pandemic in the online game offers a valuable insight into the way people are behaving during the coronavirus crisis | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Tristan Cross recreated his local pub in VR

Drinks over Zoom just weren't cutting it – so I recreated my local pub in virtual reality, with working pints and motion-captured versions of my friends | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory just took a dark turn

A broadband engineer who was spat at by an enraged conspiracy theorist is now ill with suspected coronavirus | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The runaway success of Apple’s AirPods

The wireless headphones have been a surprise hit. Here’s how | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Can Universal Basic Income fix the coronavirus crisis?

The idea that we should give everyone free money is back in vogue in the age of Covid-19. Here's why | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

‘It’s bullshit’: Inside the weird, get-rich-quick world of dropshipping

In Bali, western immigrants are selling products they've never handled, from countries they've never visited, to consumers they've never met | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Coronavirus contact tracing apps were meant to save us. They won’t

With little evidence to show how effective such apps are and growing privacy concerns, there’s a risk they could do more harm than good | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Small talk should be banned

Dan Ariely from Duke University and Kristen Berman from Irrational Labs believe when small talk is removed, it changes the game | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Germany says GDPR could collapse as Ireland dallies on big fines

Ireland is right to be careful with GDPR enforcement, but delays highlight flaws in the EU enforcement system | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Is this the end of Airbnb?

Hosts are calling it the Airbnb apocalypse. But it’s more akin to an enema | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Improbable's simulation tech could help us build better pandemic models

The British unicorn’s simulation technology can build video games. Can it help us understand the coronavirus crisis? | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

London’s rental market is being flooded by bargain Airbnb listings

The capital is awash with rentals that bear all the hallmarks of hastily rejigged Airbnbs | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

NHS Nightingale, the front line in the UK's coronavirus battle

This how one of the world’s largest convention centres is being transformed into NHS Nightingale, a mega-hospital that will become a key facility in the UK’s battle against coronavirus | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

The UK’s biggest coronavirus symptom tracker app

ZOE was planning to help you eat more healthily. Then coronavirus happened | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

Hackers are targeting hospitals crippled by coronavirus

“Our message to ransomware gangs is: stay the hell away from hospitals” | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago

As humans go home, Facebook and YouTube face a coronavirus crisis

The artificial intelligence systems replacing human moderators simply can’t cope | Continue reading


@wired.co.uk | 4 years ago