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Stop. Breathe. Just for a moment, switch off your phone, ignore the itch of social media, cast all thoughts of upcoming deadlines aside. Is the sun shining? Why not step outside for a few minutes, with a cup of coffee perhaps, and enjoy that spring sunshine? Don’t worry, I’m not about to start humming a yogic mantra. These are merely the thoughts that sprang to mind after I asked others what they’d do with their spare time if they could magically work 20% faster. You can read what our contributors said on p8 and fellow readers’ responses on p25. Most people said they would switch to a four-day week, but I think this would come as a culture shock. Over the past couple of decades, it feels like we’ve lost the ability…

Lee Grant Quite aside from his regular column from p111, we asked Lee to spend his free time on a computer doing what he does in his day job in a simulator. Read his verdict on p36. David Ludlow Not content with putting the latest NAS drives and external hard disks through the mill in our Labs, this month David also assesses the quality of big-name cloud services. See p76. Olivia Whitcroft The government is attempting to safeguard children with the Online Safety Bill, but what will the law mean in practice if it comes into effect? Lawyer Olivia shares her view from p114. Aidan Finn There is still much work to do after you’ve migrated services from on-premise servers to the cloud, explains Azure MVP Aidan. He reveals the common pitfalls and how to avoid them…

Background and analysis on all the important news stories Who could have predicted back when ChatGPT first went public in November 2022 that it would transform the entire tech industry so quickly? The chatbot, made by tech startup OpenAI, used the GPT 3.5 language model to talk to correspondents in an eerily human-like way. It could answer questions, tell jokes, code with a frightening level of competency – and even write battle raps, much to this writer’s delight. And just like the humans it was mimicking, if it didn’t know the answer, it would bluff its way through and make up something plausible-sounding instead. But it wasn’t all fun and games. It was also an earthquake through Silicon Valley as it became clear that this is the future. By January, Microsoft had invested…

They say no good deed goes unpunished, and this is especially the case if your good deeds happen to break copyright rules. It’s something the Internet Archive learned recently, when it lost a legal battle with the major book publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House and John Wiley & Sons. The crime? Back in 2020, during the pandemic’s darkest days, the Archive launched a “National Emergency Library” that let users virtually borrow books that the organisation had scanned and digitised. The case specifically hinged on 127 books in the collection, with the publishers arguing the library was committing “mass copyright infringement”, as the digitising of the books did not fall under the “fair use” rules in US copyright law that permits the redistribution of copyrighted material if a “derivative work” has been…

One of the big questions hanging over the future of UK tech is related to Tech Nation’s visa application function. Until now, it has been the custodian of the UK’s “Global Talent” visa, which lets tech firms bring in people from overseas to work in the UK. “It’s an incredibly important part of the ecosystem,” said Windsor. On 25 April, the Founders Forum Group (FF Group) announced it had acquired Tech Nation. But what of the visa scheme? The FF Group said: “[Tech Nation] will continue to process the Global Talent visa for the Home Office and applicants can continue to apply as normal with applications in process unaffected, while the Home Office identifies a new endorsing body to take over from Tech Nation.” We know that Barclays won’t be involved. “We…

Exclusive investigations into technology practices. Email probe@pcpro.co.uk if you have a story “The more we innovate, the more we can grow our economy, create the high-paid jobs of the future, protect our security and improve lives across the country,” said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in March, as the government unveiled its science and technology plan. The idea was to turn Britain into a tech “superpower” – and came after Sunak reorganised his government to focus on tech, with the creation of a Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT). So, it’s strange that 31 March 2023 marked the final day of operation for Tech Nation, a non-profit founded in 2010 that had been tasked with helping Britain’s most exciting tech firms scale up their businesses. Funded with a £12m grant from the…