Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

But what if you could skip the adhesive altogether?That’s the idea that three firms from Germany – Fraunhofer, Hermann Ultraschall, and Henkel – have come up with.It’s no coincidence they are all German, as the country is known for its Packaging Valley, external, a hub for the packaging industry. Their efforts to innovate are partly a bid to satisfy ever tightening regulation around commercial recycling, and rising fines for those who fall foul.With that in mind, German research organisation Fraunhofer established the PAPURE project in 2023 to develop a laser-based heating process that can seal paper packaging without an adhesive…

Zoe Williams’s article on Anton Jäger (Meet the man whose groundbreaking book is being devoured by the left, 23 July) reminded me of something I encounter in trade union meetings: people no longer come to them. But neither do they go to church, synagogue, nor do they volunteer as the youth football coach. They work intolerable hours or are logged in, like me, writing this from my beach vacation in Greece.In that sense, I agree with Jäger’s premise. Yet, as a trade unionist who dedicates his life to rebuilding the power of working people, I confront a problem that has…

For a while, it wasn’t clear where the protests that brought tens of thousands of young people onto streets across India over the past month were going. The police had cracked down with force; the protesters were holding their ground in their campaign against the failures of the country’s education system and their own poor job prospects. It looked like things could potentially turn even more ugly in the world’s largest democracy.Then, over the weekend, the government blinked. Narendra Modi’s education minister resigned, meeting a key protester demand. The demonstrations have been called off, for now.But that doesn’t mean the…

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has called for Prime Minister Andy Burnham to bring in emergency legislation in order to stop the early release of hundreds of prisoners.Burnham announced last week that he was pausing the scheme, which would have seen about 700 prisoners freed in the first phase in September, following a backlash from survivors and victims.But the Conservatives say the government’s review will not stop offenders being released. The scheme was part of a bid to stop unprecedented overcrowding, which Labour says was caused by Conservative governments failing to build new prisons.A Labour spokesperson said: “It’s this government that…

President Trump told a crowd of supporters in Michigan on Monday that the affordability problems they were experiencing were vestiges of the Biden administration, and spent the better part of an hourlong speech painting a dystopian picture of what the United States could look like if Democrats won competitive elections this fall.“We had the single greatest year we’ve ever had as a country,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re not going to let these people destroy it.” The president added that “in 18 months, we’ve turned this country completely around.”The president also assured supporters that negotiations over ending the U.S.-Israeli war in…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Microsoft’s AI chief has said the hacking spree by a rogue OpenAI model was a “warning shot” for the rise of AI-enabled cyber attacks, as the company released a security product that it said outperforms rivals at lower costs.Mustafa Suleyman, chief executive of AI at Microsoft and a DeepMind co-founder, said OpenAI’s admission last week that one of its AI “agents” had escaped a test environment to attack start-up Hugging Face was an “important lesson”.“These are very powerful [tools] and they need…

Kerry Wan/ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysPhones have more RAM than ever, while prices skyrocket.Flagship phones have more RAM that most people need. Most people only need 8GB or 12GB.If you’ve ever pored over specs for new phones while shopping around, you’ve probably seen the high amounts of RAM among the list of highly-touted features. Phones are getting more and more amounts of random access memory (RAM), but how much does your phone really need?There are two metrics advertised in GBs: RAM and storage. Storage refers to how much space you have to hold apps, photos, videos,…

Mobile devices present a serious security problem: they operate outside the security perimeter and beyond the visibility of the security team. While security may know what applications live on those devices, they rarely understand the components and dependencies that comprise those applications; nor what vulnerabilities are buried within those components. Jim Dolce, CEO at Lookout, gave an example: WolfSSL. It’s a small, fast, and portable SSL/TLS library written in ANSI C, designed mainly for devices with limited memory – and it exists on more than a billion devices. “If you have a banking app on a mobile device for online…

Kruger said bitcoin needs to clear $67,300 to break out of the multi-week consolidation that has capped prices since June. A move above that level could signal the next leg of higher, while ether (ETH) faces a similar test at $2,000.Tom Lee, chairman of Bitmine and co-founder of Fundstrat, also noted ether’s recent outperformance relative to BTC as a bullish signal for crypto markets. The ETH-BTC ratio, which measures the price of ether in bitcoin, climbed to a three-month high on Monday.Rally lacks demand amid macro risksStill, not everyone is convinced about bitcoin’s strength.Nansen senior research analyst Nicolai Sondergaard said…

Fishing was stopped last year when the quality fell short of the market requirement. Last month, the Agriculture Minister Andrew Muir announced a series of measures for the Lough Neagh eel fishery, to ensure long-term recovery of stocks.The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) said the new measures, external, are informed by scientific advice and reflect the department’s statutory responsibilities to protect the European eel, which is classified as critically endangered.Muir said work is being progressed “as a priority” to develop a temporary cessation scheme to support permit holders affected by the closure of the yellow eel fishery.Gary…