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Updated 2024-04-29 10:46
TechScape: The end of the ‘free money’ era
In this week’s newsletter: From massive venture capital investment to sky-high salaries, the days of constant growth backed by low-cost loans may be over
Garmin Forerunner 265 review: runner’s best friend gets screen upgrade
Brighter, crisper touchscreen and week-long battery life prove potent combination, but cost increasesThe Forerunner 265 ushers in a new era for Garmin, bringing bright and sharp OLED screens to its class-leading running watches while keeping week-long battery life.But the screen upgrade comes with a price hike. The Forerunner 265 costs £430 ($450/A$769), making it £80 more than its excellent LCD-equipped sibling, the Forerunner 255 Music. OLED screens have long been a feature of smartwatches, such as the Apple Watch, but this marks a departure for serious sports watches. Continue reading...
EA Sports PGA Tour 2023 review – serious players have much to master in EA’s return to the virtual fairway
Electronic Arts; PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
The Super Mario Bros Movie breaks opening weekend records
Families flock in over Easter despite poor reviews, helping Mario collect more than £300m worldwide to become highest grossing game adaptation and animated film over opening weekendThe animated Super Mario Bros Movie has shot to the top of the global box office, taking $377m (£304m) worldwide on its opening weekend.The new film is an origin story about how Brooklyn plumbers Mario, voiced by Chris Pratt, and Luigi (Charlie Day), fall into a rogue pipe and wind up in a world populated by Nintendo’s most famous characters. Continue reading...
‘I’m terrified’: what does AI Tom Brady mean for the future of media?
The hosts of the Dudesy podcast were shocked when their robot companion created an hour-long standup specialHave you heard the one about the American football player who tries standup comedy?After Tom Brady’s deadpan appearance in the February film 80 for Brady, rumors swirled that the NFL legend might try standup. His recent divorce, second pro football retirement and forthcoming commitment to a televised comedy roast made the prospect seem believable enough. Continue reading...
Cybercrime: be careful what you tell your chatbot helper…
Alluring and useful they may be, but the AI interfaces’ potential as gateways for fraud and intrusive data gathering is huge – and is only set to growConcerns about the growing abilities of chatbots trained on large language models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-4, Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing Chat, are making headlines. Experts warn of their ability to spread misinformation on a monumental scale, as well as the existential risk their development may pose to humanity. As if this isn’t worrying enough, a third area of concern has opened up – illustrated by Italy’s recent ban of ChatGPT on privacy grounds.The Italian data regulator has voiced concerns over the model used by ChatGPT owner OpenAI and announced it would investigate whether the firm had broken strict European data protection laws. Continue reading...
Creative tech firm Talenthouse is close to failure as debts mount
Company that matches artists with brands is understood to have laid off most of its staff and faces legal action by creditorsA tech company that claimed to “democratise creativity” by matching artists with design briefs for major brands is on the brink of collapse after being issued with a winding-up petition over unpaid debts.Talenthouse, whose clients have included Netflix, Coca-Cola, Nike and the UN, is facing legal action by creditors in the UK and is understood to have laid off most of its workforce, with top executives also departing its parent company in recent days. Continue reading...
Shock and ore: UK firms race to get in on electric car battery recycling act
A startup in Devon is among those who spy opportunity in the process of turning old power cells into valuable raw materials
‘War of attrition’: why union victories for US workers at Amazon have stalled
A year after a ‘historic’ victory in Staten Island, New York, hope for a wave of union victories is looking less momentousA year ago, Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York won a “historic” victory – overcoming a multimillion-dollar campaign by the multibillion-dollar corporation to win the right to organize Amazon’s first-ever union.A year on from that victory – which labor leaders had hoped would trigger a wave of union victories – is looking less momentous and another union election win at Amazon has remained elusive. Continue reading...
Tesla workers shared ‘intimate’ car camera images, ex-employees allege: ‘Massive invasion of privacy’
Cameras affixed on cars sent videos of customers and their property to the EV maker’s offices and spread ‘like wildfire’Tesla assures its millions of electric car owners that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us”. The cameras it builds into vehicles to assist driving, it notes on its website, are “designed from the ground up to protect your privacy”.But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to interviews by Reuters with nine former employees. Continue reading...
Samsung to cut chip production as profits plunge by 96%
Sales fall at world’s biggest memory chip maker amid decline in global demand for semiconductorsSamsung Electronics will cut back on chip production, as it faces a sharp decline in global demand for semiconductors that has sent prices plunging.The world’s biggest memory chip maker said it would make a “meaningful” cut to chip output after sales dropped sharply and it flagged a 96% drop in first-quarter profits, worse than expected. The fellow South Korean firm SK Hynix and Micron Technology of the US have also reduced production. Continue reading...
‘I was the ultimate in cool’: VW Golf owners remember the iconic cars
Half a century after its debut, the end of the combustion engine Golf is nigh – but it will always have a place in drivers’ heartsAfter nearly 50 years in production, the Golf Mark 8 will be the last combustion engine version of the VW Golf. For many drivers, it spells the end of an era. Here, Guardian readers share their memories of driving the vehicles in decades past. Continue reading...
Are chatbots changing the face of religion? Three faith leaders on grappling with AI
Mainstream adoption of generative AI and conversational bots has left few spaces untouched, even religious communities“Write a sermon in the voice of a rabbi of about 1,000 words that relates the Torah portion Vayigash to intimacy and vulnerability. Cite Brené Brown’s scholarship on vulnerability.” That was the prompt Rabbi Joshua Franklin put in ChatGPT, the results of which he used to deliver a sermon to congregants of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in December 2022.The sermon the chatbot came up with spoke of Joseph, the son of Jacob and a prophet in the Abrahamic faiths. It quoted from a book by Brown, a professor who specializes on topics of intimacy, to define vulnerability as “the willingness to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome”. Being vulnerable could mean “we are able to form deeper, more meaningful bonds with those around us”, the chatbot wrote. Continue reading...
This economist won every bet he made on the future. Then he tested ChatGPT
Bryan Caplan was skeptical after AI struggled on his midterm exam. But within months, it had aced the testThe economist Bryan Caplan was sure the artificial intelligence baked into ChatGPT wasn’t as smart as it was cracked up to be. The question: could the AI ace his undergraduate class’s 2022 midterm exam?Caplan, of George Mason University in Virginia, seemed in a good position to judge. He has made a name for himself by placing bets on a range of newsworthy topics, from Donald Trump’s electoral chances in 2016 to future US college attendance rates. And he nearly always wins, often by betting against predictions he views as hyperbolic. Continue reading...
UK regulators warn influencers of risks of promoting NFTs and cryptocurrencies
‘Finfluencers’ to be asked to consult checklist before accepting deals for ‘get-rich-quick’ schemesThe UK financial and advertising regulators have warned social media influencers of the risks of promoting “get-rich-quick schemes” such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens to their followers.The Financial Conduct Authority and Advertising Standards Authority have launched a campaign to prevent content creators from marketing investment scams and risky financial products. Continue reading...
Can you make an AI understand love? The experimental games festival about relationships
Play a cat trying to please its human, uncover pickup artists’ dark arts or find out how being pregnant feels at Now Play This in London, designed to make us look at video games differentlyOutside Somerset House this week, you might notice that two lampposts are blinking at each other. Unless you are fluent in Morse code, however, you probably won’t clock that they are performing Act II, Scene II of Romeo and Juliet. The installation by Geraint Edwards welcomes you to Now Play This, an experimental games festival, where you could also play a game about getting over a breakup by wielding a sword while riding a motorbike through a neon city, or listen to artist Laurence Young give a talk about getting his mother into the fantasy video game Elden Ring. Inside, attendees lounge around a digital fire, browsing books of love poetry.Now Play This – now in its ninth year at Somerset House – can be relied upon to bring people together in unexpected ways. It has hosted everything from giant ball mazes to outdoor playground games and a game about chucking fascists out of your garden. But this year’s theme, love, has created an especially open, even intimate atmosphere. On a giant arcade cabinet in the largest exhibition room, you can play Breakup Squad, a game about keeping your friend away from their toxic ex at a party; outside, you can play Triangulate, a puzzle game where three players are given random instructions (“point at someone with one leg; rotate slowly; hold hands with a different person”) and have to negotiate how to use their bodies to find a solution that works for everyone.Now Play This is at Somerset House, London, until 9 April Continue reading...
Why has gaming taken over? – Pop Culture with Chanté Joseph
You don’t need to look far to see that gaming is everywhere with film versions of Tetris, Super Mario Bros and Dungeons & Dragons in cinemas this week. Chanté talks to Rhianna Pratchett, video game writer on Tomb Raider, Timi and Joey from The Nerd Council podcast and the Guardian’s video games editor Keza MacDonald about why it is dominatingSign up to the Guardian’s Documentaries newsletter Continue reading...
The Super Mario Bros Movie review – wackily eccentric gamer guys fall flat on screen
The second film adaptation of the phenomenally successful video game is a disappointment to rival the firstFilms or TV shows based on games don’t have to be terrible – as proved in various ways by Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and The Last of Us. Even The Angry Birds Movie wasn’t too bad. The trick is usually to make it look as if the game was based on the movie, rather than the other way round. But this much-trailed, much-hyped new animated feature is tedious and flat in all senses, a disappointment to match the live-action version in 1993. It’s visually bland in ways that reminded me of European knockoff animations and utterly inert in narrative terms, with a baffling lack of properly funny lines.It is of course based on the global video game phenomenon, born in the 80s, from Kyoto-based gaming giant Nintendo, with its wackily eccentric idea of Italian-American plumbers Mario and Luigi. They are called the Super Mario Bros, even though “Mario” is not their surname – like Dostoevsky inventing a videogame called The Brothers Dimitri. This movie revives the ancient and surreal quest undertaken by Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day), Brooklyn plumbers who only do the silly and borderline-offensive cod Italian voice for their cheesy TV ad. Continue reading...
Alexa, I’m in the dark. Why has my Amazon account disappeared?
When I couldn’t turn on the lights she told me there was ‘no account associated with this device’In December I came home and, as usual, shouted to Alexa to turn on the lights but was surprised when she responded that there was “no Amazon account associated with this device”. Frustrated and in the dark, I tried to log in, only for the app to confirm there was no account associated with my email.I have a disability that means I cannot make phone calls, so my husband used his account to seek help. Eventually, someone called us back but confirmed there was no account and told me to set up a new one. Continue reading...
Twitter legacy blue ticks remain despite Elon Musk’s subscription threat
Removal of verification badges reportedly could take a long time as it may involve many manual elements
Social media analyst Emily Hund: ‘We can never know the truth behind an influencer’s seeming authenticity’
Today influencers sell ideas about science and medicine as well as products. But the integrity on which their status rests, says the US author, is as unknowable as the algorithms that push their contentIn the early 00s, Emily Hund dreamed of a career as a journalist at a glossy fashion magazine. But after internships with New York media companies and having witnessed falling circulations and redundancies, she switched to studying one of the catalysts for these changes: social media and the influencers whose YouTube, TikTok and Instagram posts sell ideas, lifestyles and products to their followers. The influencer industry ranges from global stars such as the Kardashians to micro-influencers who post on niche interests. What they have in common is that they work with brands to promote or sell to an audience. Hund is now a research affiliate at Pennsylvania University’s Centre on Digital Culture and Society and her first book on influencers is published in the UK this month.How did social media take hold in people’s lives?
From Hamas warnings to VIP perks and criminal clients: the US regulator’s claims against Binance
Just months after the FTX collapse, a US watchdog is suing Changpeng Zhao’s firm, the world’s biggest digital-asset market, over a slew of allegations that make jaw-dropping readingBinance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and a cornerstone of the $1tn digital asset market. It has 128 million customers, handles $65bn in daily trades and its commercial partners include Cristiano Ronaldo, Italy’s Lazio football team and TikTok megastar Khaby Lame. So when a US regulator announced last week it was suing Binance for “wilful evasion of US law”, it was a significant moment for a sector still reeling from the collapse of FTX.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed the civil enforcement action in a federal court in Chicago, seeking punishments including fines and permanent trading bans. It is suing Binance’s Canadian founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and three entities that operate the Binance global trading platform over numerous alleged violations of its regulations and of the Commodity Exchange Act. Binance’s former chief compliance officer, Samuel Lim, is also being sued. Continue reading...
Italy’s privacy watchdog bans ChatGPT over data breach concerns
Measure is in place ‘until ChatGPT respects privacy’, says Italian Data Protection AuthorityItaly’s privacy watchdog has banned ChatGPT, after raising concerns about a recent data breach and the legal basis for using personal data to train the popular chatbot.The Italian Data Protection Authority described the move as atemporary measure “until ChatGPT respects privacy”. The watchdog said it was imposing an “immediate temporary limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data” by ChatGPT’s owner, the San Francisco-based OpenAI. Continue reading...
Letter signed by Elon Musk demanding AI research pause sparks controversy
The statement has been revealed to have false signatures and researchers have condemned its use of their workA letter co-signed by Elon Musk and thousands of others demanding a pause in artificial intelligence research has created a firestorm, after the researchers cited in the letter condemned its use of their work, some signatories were revealed to be fake, and others backed out on their support.On 22 March more than 1,800 signatories – including Musk, the cognitive scientist Gary Marcus and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – called for a six-month pause on the development of systems “more powerful” than that of GPT-4. Engineers from Amazon, DeepMind, Google, Meta and Microsoft also lent their support.Reuters contributed to this report Continue reading...
The best theatre to stream this month: Emilia Clarke in The Seagull and more
Our roundup of drama to watch at home includes a Big Night of Musicals, You Bury Me and James Earl Jones in King LearGame of Thrones stars Emilia Clarke and Indira Varma reunited for Jamie Lloyd’s typically bold and radical Chekhov production in the West End last year. It now joins the National Theatre at Home archive alongside the Donmar Warehouse’s Henry V, starring another GoT alumnus, Kit Harington. Continue reading...
Elon Musk broke law with threat to Tesla workers’ stock options, court rules
Appeal judges uphold previous ruling, citing ‘implied threat’ in CEO’s tweet directed at Fremont employees who wanted to join unionA US appeals court has ruled that Elon Musk violated federal labour law by tweeting that employees of Tesla would lose stock options if they joined a union.The New Orleans-based 5th US circuit court of appeals upheld a decision by the US National Labor Relations Board that said the 2018 tweet amounted to an unlawful threat that could discourage unionising and ordered Musk to delete it. Continue reading...
Misinformation, mistakes and the Pope in a puffer: what rapidly evolving AI can – and can’t – do
Experts have sounded a warning on artificial intelligence as it becomes increasingly sophisticated and harder to detectGenerative AI – including large language models such as GPT-4, and image generators such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion – is advancing in a “storm of hype and fright”, as some commentators have observed.Recent advances in artificial intelligence have yielded warnings that the rapidly developing technology may result in “ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control”. Continue reading...
TikTok: why the app with 1bn users faces a fight for its existence
Chinese-owned firm caught in geopolitical standoff, with US lawmakers leading charge against itSitting at the heart of youth culture, TikTok is beloved of its more than 1 billion users worldwide.With a range of compelling content that extends from viral dances to comedy skits, cleaning hacks, BookTok, music and the Gen Z melancholy of the corecore trend, it is the app of the 21st century. Continue reading...
Amazon workers in Coventry announce six new strike dates
April dates come as GMB union prepares to test support for stoppages at five other sitesWorkers at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse have announced six fresh strike dates, as the GMB union prepares to test support for stoppages among staff at another five of the delivery company’s sites.Strikes at the vast Coventry centre, known as BHX4, began in January – the first industrial action ever taken against Amazon in the UK. Staff are demanding pay of £15 an hour. Continue reading...
Trump loses, Paltrow wins: Twitter marks a historic afternoon for America
Social media highlights remarkable timing of verdicts in unusual cases that gripped a nationAn ex-president indicted for alleged hush money payments to a porn star. A wealthy actor and wellness guru vindicated in a nail-biting fight for justice against a retired optometrist. And all in the space of a few hours.The reaction on Twitter was clear: God bless America. Continue reading...
E3 2023: video game industry’s biggest expo cancelled
The annual event, which faced years of Covid disruption, will not return in 2023E3, the video game industry’s biggest annual expo, has been cancelled.The show had been due to make a return after years of Covid-19 disruption this June in Los Angeles, but in a joint statement, the US’s Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and events company Reedpop announced it would no longer be going ahead. Continue reading...
Bafta Games Awards: God of War wins six but Vampire Survivors is best game
The were gasps in the crowd as a cult indie shooter beat the blockbusters to the key award of the nightIt must be one of the biggest shock wins in the history of the Bafta Games Awards. Up against huge blockbuster titles such as Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök, the best game winner at this year’s ceremony, which took place on Thursday evening, was Vampire Survivors, a shoot-’em-up largely developed by lone coder Luca Galante.There were gasps in the crowd at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London when the title was read out, with Galante’s small team accepting the award on his behalf and looking shaken. The game, in which players attempt to survive as long as possible in an ever-changing landscape swarming with monsters, had earlier won the game design award. Continue reading...
‘Why am I crying over this?’: how corecore TikTok videos caught the mood of Gen Z
Sad clips from films, TV shows and TikTok are being spliced together over melancholy music – and they’re raising a smile among hopeless young peopleJimmy Nguyen, an 18-year-old student, saw his first “corecore” video on TikTok in January. He can’t remember which one it was – there are so many of them now. But he says it was typical of this new trend of video: other TikTok videos, celebrity or podcaster interviews, TV show and film clips spliced together over some sad or ambient music. They’re depressing, full of existential dread and usually on the theme of disconnection and alienation. Nguyen initially thought, like other users, that these videos were a joke. They’re crudely edited and the name in itself is a sarcastic reference to the proliferation of micro-trends emerging from TikTok since 2020. But he was soon staying up late at night in his bedroom making corecore of his own.“As I was making my first video I started to really see myself expressing how I was feeling and it felt relieving because I didn’t have anyone to talk to and explaining my emotions is hard,” he tells me. “But that video felt like an exit or gateway to those feelings.” In it, clips of Lee Jung-jae, the lead in Squid Game smiling broadly and falsely at the camera, someone recounting how in school kids would ask which super power you’d want out of invisibility and flying but he says “I’m already invisible” and Jake Gyllenhall in Stronger (2017) screaming “Why do you even want me? I’m such a fuck up!” run into each other over a morose Arcade Fire track. Now Nguyen makes these videos in an attempt to help people, he says, to let them know that they’re not alone. Continue reading...
Meta reportedly considering Europe political ads ban
Facebook owner weighing up move amid fears it could struggle to abide by new EU laws, say reports
Best podcasts of the week: The hidden history of the American right’s anti-trans agenda
In this week’s newsletter: The Anti-Trans Hate Machine returns with a second series looking back at America’s record of violence toward transgender people. Plus: five of the best pop culture podcasts
Panera to adopt palm-reading payment systems, sparking privacy fears
Bakery is first restaurant chain to use Amazon One biometric technology, which faces scrutiny from lawmakers and activistsThe US bakery and cafe chain Panera will soon allow customers to pay with the swipe of a palm, marking the first restaurant chain to implement the new technology and raising alarm among privacy advocates.The company announced last week it would roll out biometric readers in coming months that will allow customers to access credit card and loyalty account information by scanning their palms. Called Amazon One, the system was developed by Amazon and is in use at some airports, stadiums and Whole Foods grocery stores. Continue reading...
‘Luigi has sweet notes of apple’: testing out Lush’s unlikely Super Mario soaps
Animal-friendly cosmetics brand Lush is releasing a range of Mario-themed products – so our reporter tried them, for scienceThe announcement that cosmetics chain Lush would be running a collaboration with the Super Mario Bros Movie was met with some incredulity in the video game press last week. The animal-friendly brand is not exactly associated with either movie licences or tech tie-ins, so the idea of Mario shower gel or Princess Peach body spray came as a shock.So, driven by an insatiable desire for journalistic investigation, I acquired some. And, look, it’s good stuff: the gloopy red Mario shower gel has a lovely subtle cola tang, while the Luigi has sweet notes of apple and rose and the vibrant green colour and consistency of fluorescent play slime. The gold coin soap uses the brand’s popular and giddily candied Honey I Washed the Kids scent, while Bowser’s version has a spicy, dare I say it, masculine aroma. Most of those are based on established Lush ingredients, but the Princess Peach body spray is a brand new fragrance, a sugar bomb of peach and pineapple, which I probably shouldn’t be wearing but totally am. I smell like a walking sweet shop. Continue reading...
Cryptocurrencies add nothing useful to society, says chip-maker Nvidia
Tech chief says the development of chatbots is a more worthwhile use of processing power than crypto miningThe US chip-maker Nvidia has said cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society” despite the company’s powerful processors selling in huge quantities to the sector.Michael Kagan, its chief technology officer, said other uses of processing power such as the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT were more worthwhile than mining crypto. Continue reading...
TikTok banned on London City Hall devices over security concerns
Move by Greater London authority comes after Chinese-owned app was blocked on UK parliamentary devicesLondon City Hall staff will no longer have TikTok on their devices in the latest ban imposed on the Chinese-owned social media app over security concerns.The Greater London authority (GLA) said the rule was implemented as it takes information security “extremely seriously”. Continue reading...
Gordon Moore, Intel co-founder who predicted rise of the PC, dies at 94
Engineer, whose microchip forecast became known as ‘Moore’s Law’, foresaw mobile phones and home computers decades before they existedIntel Corp co-founder Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry whose “Moore’s Law” predicted a steady rise in computing power for decades, has died at the age of 94, the company announced.Intel and Moore’s family philanthropic foundation said he died on Friday surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii. Continue reading...
Can an AI program really write a good movie? Here’s a test
The increasing sophistication of programs like ChatGPT has led to unease over the future of film-making. What happened when we gave it a chance?The rise of AI programs like ChatGPT has triggered a tidal wave of ethical handwringing, most prominently from within the industries that it threatens to destroy. After all, just because you can get a robot to instantly write code or write contracts or provide customer support for free, should you?Well, the answer from the Writers Guild of America is a qualified yes. This week, the Writers Guild of America proposed that ChatGPT would absolutely be allowed to write scripts in the future, provided that the credit (and the money) goes to the human writer who came up with the prompts in the first place. Continue reading...
TikTok CEO grilled for over five hours on China, drugs and teen mental health
Shou Zi Chew attempts to play down concerns over data and privacy as lawmakers call for ban on Chinese-owned appThe chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, was forced to defend his company’s relationship with China, as well as the protections for its youngest users, at a testy congressional hearing on Thursday that came amid a bipartisan push to ban the app entirely in the US over national security concerns.The hearing marked the first ever appearance before US lawmakers by a TikTok chief executive, and a rare public outing for the 4o-year-old Chew, who has remained largely out of the limelight as the social network’s popularity soars. TikTok now boasts tens of millions of US users, but lawmakers have long held concerns over China’s control over the app, which Chew repeatedly tried to assuage throughout the hearing. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said in Thursday’s testimony. Continue reading...
Key takeaways from TikTok hearing in Congress – and the uncertain road ahead
Lawmakers grilled the social media app’s CEO over its relationship with China and protections for young usersThe first appearance in Congress for TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew stretched more than five hours, with contentious questioning targeting the app’s relationship with China and protections for its youngest users.Chew’s appearance comes at a pivotal time for TikTok, which is facing bipartisan fire after experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years. The company is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, raising concerns about China’s influence over the app – criticisms Chew repeatedly tried to resist throughout the hearing. Continue reading...
TikTok hearing: CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before US Congress amid looming ban – as it happened
App’s future in doubt as Biden administration threatens to ban it entirely in the country
TikTok CEO shown video threatening committee chair during Congress hearing –video
TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, testified before US Congress on Thursday amid growing security concerns, with the Biden administration threatening to remove the app from the US entirely. During the hearing, Republican Kat Cammack showed Congress a TikTok video inciting violence towards the house energy and commerce committee, which named the chair of the committee in the captions. The video was uploaded to the platform 41 days ago and was still circulating despite company guidelines assuring users it would take down threatening content. Shou Zi Chew was denied a chance to respond to Cammack's claims by the chair. The video was removed from TikTok during the hearing
Dredge review – horrors lurk in the deep in this eldritch fishing game
PC, Xbox, PlayStation 4/5, Nintendo Switch; Black Salt Games/Team17
The spirit of 80s racing games lives on in Lego 2K Drive
A new collaboration between 2K Games and Lego takes the form of an open-world racing game with buildable, breakable carsClassic video games never really die. While they’re still remembered by designers and producers, their influence lives on and they can crop up in the most unexpected places. 2K Games has announced a new agreement with Lego, which will begin with Lego 2K Drive, an open-world racing game created by veteran studio Visual Concepts. It combines the explorable world and discoverable challenges of Forza Horizon with the fun handling, weapons and power-ups of Mario Kart – but its origins lie in a completely different set of car games.Executive producer Mark Pierce started his games career at Atari in the late 1980s, working on the company’s classic racers RoadBlasters, Road Riot and San Francisco Rush, and was around while another team was crafting the legendary 3D racing sim Hard Drivin’. “I was so fortunate because a lot of the original Atari guys were still there,” he recalls. “David Sheppard, who was the second software engineer hired and Peter Takaichi’s group who did all the mechanical design. I knew Jed Margolin, one of the guys who invented force feedback steering. It was incredible, the culture was just so strong, so creative … A lot of us at Visual Concepts South have a heritage in making arcade racing games. We really wanted to make an arcade-style game that would be easy to learn, but hard to master.” Continue reading...
Robot lips invented for long-distance kissing – video
A Chinese startup has invented a long-distance kissing machine that transmits users’ kiss data collected through motion sensors hidden in silicon lips, which simultaneously move when replaying kisses received.The device, MUA, also captures and replays sound and warms up slightly during kissing, and users can download kissing data submitted via an accompanying app by other usersOnline reviews were mixed. One person described it as feeling like 'a warm pacifier', while many complained about its 'lack of tongue'
A weekend with Diablo 4: bleak, brutal, and potentially brilliant
The newest instalment of the action-RPG is an enticing blend of old and new ideas offering a bleak, brutal and potentially brilliant return to formWith a click of the right-mouse button, my musclebound barbarian sinks his axe into the ground behind him, sweeps it forward and creates a shock wave that obliterates everything in its path. Ahead, a horde of undead creatures is repulsed by the blast, zombies flayed by the force of the air, skeletons scattered across the ground, wraiths dissipating into spectral dust. The room’s furnishing fly with them, chairs, candlesticks and barrels smashing into the far wall. The ground itself is scarred by the attack, a conical depression left in the floor as if struck by a meteorite airburst.I’ve performed this attack countless times over the last weekend, and it never fails to light up my brain like Blackpool in September. The Diablo series represents video gaming in its purest and perhaps most reductive form and has exploited these feedback loops to enormous success in the last 25 years, reworking the complex rulesets of role-playing games into something less cerebral and more sensory. While there’s an argument to be had about how intellectually nourishing these games may be, Diablo 4 has a lot of seductive power. Clicking monsters to death in this game feels dangerously good. Continue reading...
Marjorie Prime review – gently uncanny sci-fi shows us how to love an AI
Menier Chocolate Factory, London
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