Our dependence on internet services of a few key tech companies leaves us vulnerable to cloud failures, bugs and more, experts say

It happened again. A power outage hit a datacentre in London, and things cascaded from there: multiple banking services faltered, court hearings were put on hold and patients reported temporary glitches on the NHS app.

The datacentre in question was in Google’s europe-west2-b zone, one of more than a dozen “zones” that the US search giant maintains in Europe to service its clients.

Services restored for most users, but power fault stalled hearings and left Revolut, Lloyds and HSBC customers unable to pay or move money

An outage at Google’s cloud services in the UK has caused widespread disruption, hitting courts and leaving millions of customers unable to access or send cash at banks including Lloyds, HSBC and Revolut.

Google blamed a “power event” for the failure at its London-based Cloud computing operations on Tuesday, which affected its “europe-west2-b zone”.

Google apologises after suffering a major Cloud outage in its London region that caused problems at banks, Revolut, and court video cameras

The pound has rallied after Britain’s unemployment rate fell unexpectedly this morning to 4.7%.

Sterling has gained half a cent against the US dollar to $1.3352, as the City welcomes the news that employment rose in the last quarter.

“This data has caught the market on the hop, with traders scrambling to respond and boost exposure to the pound. Good news has been a touch more prevalent for the UK of late, which is just the kind of framing the government needs heading into the budget, though signs of more resilience in the labour market do of course mean the BoE has more room to respond to higher inflation.”

“The labour market remains relatively flat overall. This resilience in the face of headwinds driven by global events is welcome. But underlying problems remain, with around one million young people not in education, employment or training and overall employment more than two million short of the Government’s 80% employment rate target.

To fix those challenges we need to change the benefit system so it offers active help to all who need it, but also make it easier for employers to create jobs. “

Great hardware let down by software flaws on these pricey machines that combine ChromeOS with Android

Google’s attempt to create a new type of laptop to compete with Windows and macOS machines is finally here, combining the best of ChromeOS and Android into the new Googlebook. With advanced links to Android phones and the best of Google built in, can these Googlebooks really compete with a MacBook Air or Surface Laptop? I took two for a spin to find out.

For years, Chromebooks have been the boss of budget laptops, but Googlebooks take a different, far more premium approach. Made by a range of traditional PC makers, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo, they start at £999 (€1,099/$899/A$2,299) – a far cry from the £160 Chromebooks.

Appointment or renewal reminder appears in victims’ calendar to lure them into logging in to fake Google, Microsoft or PayPal page

You’re preparing for the week ahead and take a look at your Google calendar. There’s an entry for a meeting that you must have completely forgotten. The note that pops up when you click on it says you’ll be reviewing a project and includes a link to more details. Confused, you follow it to find out more; the website you land on asks for logon details, and you provide them.

Unfortunately, this was not a failure of your memory but a calendar phishing scam. You have handed your name and password to fraudsters who will sell it on in a batch with other people’s details, use it to break into your work email, or to persuade you that they are contacting you from your bank, or another institution.

Move expected to make pump pricing more transparent and encourage competition after diesel hits record £2 a litre

Drivers will be able to see live petrol prices on Google Maps for the first time from Thursday, in a move that will help motorists shop around for the cheapest fuel.

Millions of motorists will be able to find the cheapest petrol and diesel prices by searching for a local forecourt in the Google app, in what could prove to be “a major development” in making fuel prices more fair, according to campaigners.

Order on two construction sites comes after Google failed to carry out environmental impact assessments

Google has been ordered to temporarily stop work on two datacentres in Finland after failing to do the necessary environmental impact assessments on its construction sites.

The planned datacentres in Muhos and Kajanni are part of a €13bn (£11bn) project across multiple sites in northern Finland by the technology company amid huge demand for space to house online infrastructure.