ShinyShiny snippets: Police smash online phone fraud shop

Image: iSpoof website

The Met police have smashed a global online fraud shop selling tools that allowed criminals to carry out phone scams on hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting victims. Detectives disabled the iSpoof website as part of the biggest anti-fraud operation ever mounted in the UK. Criminals using software purchased from the illegal site targeted victims around the world in order to steal hundreds of millions of pounds. The subscription service, allegedly set up by 34-year-old Teejai Fletcher, who lived in a luxury flat in the Docklands, allowed heartless criminals to disguise their phone numbers and trick unsuspecting people into believing they were being called by their bank. Telegraph 

A Paralympic sprinter from the UK has been named among the latest intake of astronauts recruited by the European Space Agency. John McFall, 41, becomes the first astronaut with a physical disability, or para-astronaut, to be recruited by the space agency in a drive to overcome the barriers that prevent disabled people from participating in space missions. Also joining the astronaut class of 2022, the agency’s first new recruits since 2009, is Dr Rosemary Coogan, 31, who spent time in the Royal Navy reserve and gained a PhD in astronomy before working at the French Space Agency. Guardian 

Honor held a big two-day launch event in China where we saw the debut of the MagicOS 7.0 interface yesterday while the big hardware announcements were left for today – among which three new phones. Honor 80 Pro and Honor 80 bring 160MP main cameras as well as Qualcomm chips and curved OLED displays. Honor 80 SE is the most affordable entry among the three and gets a Dimensity 900 and 64MP main camera.

Honor 80 series debuts with 160MP main cams, 66W charging

The Honor 80 Pro is the star of the show and gets a 6.78-inch curved OLED with a 2700×1224px resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The 10-bit panel features a centered pill-shaped cutout below the ear speaker, which houses a 50MP selfie camera alongside a secondary 2MP depth module. GSM Arena 

Fiat is committed to a future line-up focused on small cars, despite other manufacturers withdrawing from the market – and company boss Olivier François has suggested Ford’s decision to axe the Ford Fiesta presents an “opportunity”. The Italian firm is beginning an overhaul of its European line-up as it shifts to becoming an all-electric brand. It plans to launch five new models in the next five years to join the existing Fiat 500e. Those models will start next year with a small hatch understood to use the Stellantis CMP platform that also underpins the Peugeot e-208 and Vauxhall Corsa-e. Autocar 

Apple supplier Foxconn has apologised for a “technical error” in its payment systems, a day after its iPhone factory in China was rocked by angry protests. Videos had showed hundreds of workers marching at the world’s biggest iPhone factory in the city of Zhengzhou, with complaints over Covid restrictions and claims of overdue pay. Those livestreaming the protests said workers were beaten by police…Last month, rising Covid cases saw the factory locked down, prompting some workers to break out and go home. The company then recruited new workers with the promise of generous bonuses. BBC 

 

Chris Price