My daughter used my credit card to book a five-month stay using Airbnb after taking up an internship in Toronto. After the host accepted the booking, she got an email saying the price for the overall stay had increased by £4,000 – a further 39%.Panicked, and unable to afford the extra sum, she cancelled. Airbnb has taken a £1,962 fee, plus a further £682 for cleaning and taxes. As my daughter cancelled immediately, it is extremely unlikely that a booking was lost.Airbnb is endlessly quoting T&Cs and says it ...

Splitting the bill with Venmo, paying with your Starbucks app, tap-and-go with your phones – how we pay for things has changed forever. But while our options have changed, and are still changing, some small business owners seem determined to either keep us counting bills or jump feet first into their idea of the future.Case in point from my home town: the owner of the restaurant in South Philadelphia who “doesn’t accept credit cards” and instead forces their customers to use an ATM machine which – convenien ...

For more than two years Starbucks has fought fiercely against unionization. Now the company appears willing to come to the bargaining table.Starbucks and its union made a surprise joint announcement in late February: they had agreed to seek “a constructive path forward” on “the future of organizing and collective bargaining”.On Tuesday, the Starbucks union said it would resume in-person bargaining with the company in late April, with the aim of achieving a “foundational framework agreement”. It said there w ...

The US government on Thursday filed a sprawling antitrust case against Apple, alleging that the tech giant has illegally prevented competition by restricting access to its software and hardware. The case is a direct challenge to the company’s core products and practices, including its iMessage service and how devices such as the iPhone and Apple Watch connect with one another.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its contro ...

Like many people who were laid off and house-bound during the Covid lockdowns, I spent an unfathomable amount of time learning an arcane skill that in no way would bolster my CV. Bookbinding was a hobby many of my friends and family were surprised I’d taken up – I wasn’t particularly skilled with my hands, and until then my life had largely revolved around technology and the internet.I spent hours learning complicated stitching techniques, the chemical composition of adhesives, and how to determine by touch ...

The chipmaker Nvidia has extended its lead in artificial intelligence with the unveiling of a new “superchip”, a quantum computing service, and a new suite of tools to help develop the ultimate sci-fi dream: general purpose humanoid robotics. Here we look at what the company is doing and what it might mean.What is Nvidia doing?The main announcement of the company’s annual develop conference on Monday was the “Blackwell” series of AI chips, used to power the fantastically expensive datacentres that train fro ...

Airbnb said Monday that it’s banning the use of indoor security cameras in rentals around the world by the end of next month.The San Francisco-based online rental platform said it is seeking to “simplify” its security-camera policy while prioritizing privacy. The change will take effect 30 April.“These changes were made in consultation with our guests, Hosts and privacy experts, and we’ll continue to seek feedback to help ensure our policies work for our global community,” Juniper Downs, Airbnb’s head of co ...

Facebook and Instagram are experiencing severe issues, as of Tuesday afternoon UK time, with the services refusing login attempts and feeds stalling. The outages were first reported at about 3.30pm GMT.Unusually, the issues have coincided with login problems on Google’s platform, suggesting a common cause between the outages at two tech conglomerates who largely control their own infrastructure.Meta’s business status page reported a number of disruptions, including “major disruptions” for the group’s admin ...

Misleading viral clickbait dominates Facebook and Instagram in Canada after Meta pulled news from its platforms nine months ago, according to an expert. Now Australia could face a similar scenario online with the company preparing to battle the Australian government over payments to news organisations.Last week Meta announced it would no longer pay Australian news publishers, prompting the Australian government to explore the use of legislative powers to force the platform to negotiate with news media for p ...

The lawyers who successfully argued that Elon Musk’s $56bn pay package was excessive are seeking a record legal fee worth $6bn, payable in the electric car maker’s stock, according to a court filing.“We recognise that the requested fee is unprecedented in terms of absolute size,” Friday’s filing by the three law firms with the court of chancery in Delaware said.The fee works out to an hourly rate of $288,888, according to the filing.The electric vehicle maker is being asked to pay the fee because it benefit ...