Our nation’s data security practices have been so sloppy that recent major data breaches could have been avoided with simple protectionsFew would disagree with the view that the world has changed more in the last 20 years than it did in the 2,000 years before that.In today’s connected world, breaking news is streamed live into the palm of our hands in seconds. The dark side to that connectivity is that the minute details of our personal lives are increasingly collected and stored by governments and corporations. Continue reading...
BEIS has ‘national security’ concerns over China-owned Nexperia which took control of Newport Wafer FabThe British government has blocked the takeover of the UK’s largest producer of semiconductors by a Chinese-owned manufacturer, citing “a risk to national security”.The business department’s decision on Wednesday comes more than a year after semiconductor company Nexperia first announced that it had taken control of Newport Wafer Fab in south Wales in July 2021, in a £63m deal. Continue reading...
Remaining staff given until Thursday to confirm they will work ‘long hours at high intensity’ as part of ‘the new Twitter’Elon Musk has given Twitter’s remaining staff a Thursday deadline to commit to working “long hours at high intensity” and being “extremely hardcore” or else leave with three months’ severance pay.In an email to the social media platform’s employees, seen by the Guardian, its new owner said building the next iteration of Twitter would require “exceptional performance”. Continue reading...
Wakey Wines goes viral after selling Logan Paul and KSI’s ‘hydration drink’, with people travelling miles to visit shopDarren Grieves has travelled 130 miles (209km) from Carlisle with his three children to spend £66 on four drinks from an off-licence in Wakefield.The wagon driver has brought Darcy, 12, and nine-year-olds Lacy and Ryan to a fairly nondescript shop in the West Yorkshire city centre that has become an unlikely TikTok sensation. Continue reading...
The Tesla CEO was in a Delaware court to defend a 2018 $56bn pay package that helped him become world’s richest manElon Musk told a court on Wednesday that he expects to reduce his time at Twitter and eventually find someone else to run the social media company.“There’s an initial burst of activity needed post-acquisition to reorganize the company,” Musk said in his testimony. “But then I expect to reduce my time at Twitter.” Continue reading...
Crypto exchange promoters such as Larry David, Naomi Osaka, Gisele Bündchen and Shaquille O’Neal also named as defendantsA class action lawsuit has been launched against FTX’s former chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried over the crypto exchange’s collapse which also names as defendants a host of its celebrity backers including Larry David, Naomi Osaka, Gisele Bündchen and Shaquille O’Neal.Filed in Florida by class action attorney Adam Moskowitz, the case is one of the first to attempt to hold the sports stars and entertainers who promoted cryptocurrencies in the boom years responsible for their support. Continue reading...
Caleb Simpson’s man-on-the-street TikTok videos capture the insides of stranger’s homes for millions of followersCome inside a shoebox studio apartment with a stripper pole in downtown Manhattan that rents for $2,095 (£1,764) a month. Or an $800 (£674) housing project unit with hand-painted kitchen walls. What about a luxury $5,000-a-month rental with marble countertops? Curious voyeurs can see them all on Caleb Simpson’s TikTok, and they won’t be alone. Nearly 6 million people follow his short-form house tours, romps that he bills as “this generation’s MTV Cribs”.“Seeing the inside of someone’s home is one of the most intimate things you can ever do,” Simpson, 30, tells the Guardian. “And then there are the price points, what you pay for your space – people will be curious about that.” Continue reading...
‘Well-worn’ German sandals owned by Apple co-founder set record at auctionSteve Jobs left an indelible footprint on the technology industry. Now, a different kind of legacy – in the form of a “well-used” pair of Birkenstocks that still retain his feet’s imprints – has fetched a record-breaking price at auction.A suede pair of the beloved German sandals, worn by Steve Jobs in the 1970s and 1980s, sold this week for nearly $220,000, the highest price ever paid for a pair of sandals, according to an auction house. Continue reading...
The collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange will cost investors billions. But why would anyone give money to a man who plays video games in important meetings?
TikTok’s book reviewing community is here to stay, having even received publishing awards for innovation, but issues of authenticity and safety aboundBookTok, the nickname for TikTok videos in which books are discussed, analysed, cried about and turned into “aesthetic” moodboards, began as a small group of the app’s users who wanted a place to talk about books. It has since grown into a hugely influential community that has the power to pluck authors out of relative obscurity and propel them into the bestsellers charts.Earlier this month it was named FutureBook Person of the Year, an accolade which recognises digital innovation and excellence across the book trade. According to James Stafford, Head of Partnerships and Community at TikTok, BookTok is a community of “creative people around the world with a shared passion for literature”. Publishers, creators and writers have generally agreed that this corner of the platform has had an overwhelmingly positive effect, having led to huge increases in book sales and the discovery of new writers. The Bookseller even recently called it “the last safe place on the internet”. Continue reading...
Users on gamer-focused platform manage to respond to posts despite government blocking all commentsThe UK Treasury has opened an account on Discord to a torrent of abuse from users of the gamer-focused chat app – abuse they managed to send despite the government blocking all comments on the service.As Twitter’s future looks increasingly uncertain, prominent users are preparing alternatives, directing followers to Facebook and Instagram accounts, handing out their Mastodon addresses, and setting up servers on chat apps such as Discord. Continue reading...
Bankman-Fried promoted himself as an eccentric genius. In reality, his image was a distraction from what was going on inside FTXLast Tuesday, FTX, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, closed withdrawals, blaming “severe liquidity problems”. By Friday, FTX had filed for bankruptcy.After a stupendously profitable asset bubble in 2021, the cryptocurrency industry suffered harsh reversals in 2022. A string of high-profile collapses – Terra-Luna, Three Arrows Capital, Celsius Network, Voyager Digital – lost investors a fortune, tanked prices and demolished market confidence. But FTX’s sudden collapse caught almost everyone by surprise.David Gerard is the author of Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain (2017) and Libra Shrugged (2020). He writes the cryptocurrency and blockchain news site Attack of the 50 Foot Blockchain Continue reading...
President Nayib Bukele bet on bitcoin and its tumbling value has put the Central American country in a financially precarious spotAs crypto-Twitter cascaded with apocalyptic memes about the bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange FTX and the sharp drop in the bitcoin price, one account has remained notably silent on the topic.Unlike in previous crashes, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who made bitcoin legal tender a year ago, did not exhort his followers to “buy the dip”. The laser eyes, popular among crypto currency traders, have long since been removed from his Twitter profile. Continue reading...
Case is a historic win for consumers after an investigation found the tech company tracked users’ location even after they opted outGoogle has agreed to a $391.5m settlement with 40 states to resolve an investigation into how the company tracked users’ locations, state attorneys general announced on Monday.The states’ investigation was sparked by a 2018 Associated Press story, which found that Google continued to track people’s location data even after they opted out of such tracking by disabling a feature the company called “location history”. Continue reading...
Entrepreneur at center of FTX scandal put luxury residence up for sale the same day crypto exchange filed for bankruptcySam Bankman-Fried, the crypto trader entrepreneur at the center of the FTX scandal, reportedly put his luxury $40m Bahamas penthouse up for sale on Friday – the same day the cryptocurrency exchange filed for bankruptcy.Bankman-Fried’s penthouse – “the Orchid”, located in Albany, an exclusive private community in Nassau – was listed by real estate agent Seaside Bahamas at $39,500,000. The offering was first reported on Twitter by Autism Capital. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and agencies on (#65T0Q)
Tesla’s autopilot faces criticism it contributes to accidents and deaths – but has technology advanced faster than legal standards?Tesla will play a major role in a manslaughter trial this week over a fatal crash caused by a vehicle operating on autopilot, in what could be a defining case for the self-driving car industry.At the trial’s heart is the question of who is legally responsible for a vehicle that can drive – or partially drive – itself. Continue reading...
First it was Italian, then I added French, Portuguese and even Latin. But does the language learning app, which has almost 15 million people using it, really work?This morning, before checking in on my young son or making a coffee, I opened the Duolingo app on my phone and translated “They love smelling meat” into Italian. I’ve been starting my days like this for a few months now: wake up, wash face, grapple with the gerund. I usually spend between 10 and 20 minutes on it while the kettle boils or I load CBeebies or write some emails. It used to be eBay. Then Wordle. Now it’s this.Duolingo is a language learning app and pretty simple to use. After you’ve chosen which language you want to learn, you are presented with about 100 skill-sets divided by scenario or grammar (grocery shopping, the future tense and so on). Each level is structured like branches of a tree, and when you complete one, you move down the tree earning gems to “spend” on the app or hearts that you need to perform the exercises. Make a mistake, and you must correct it before moving on. It’s all fun and games until you make too many mistakes, run out of hearts and lose your progress. This is when you’ll engage with Duolingo’s mascot, an officious green owl called Duo who, if you’re anything like me, will eventually define your self-esteem. Duo’s face is the first thing I see each day and increasingly, the last thing, too. Continue reading...
by Reported by Josh Taylor and presented by Laura Mur on (#65S7Q)
After hackers infiltrated Medibank’s systems last week, sensitive health data from their customers, including information about abortions and reproductive healthcare, was posted on the dark web. The Australian federal police say they have identified the hackers, who they believe are primarily based in Russia, and will work with Interpol to try to bring them to justice.
World’s richest man has made a spectacle of his ownership of the social media platform, and advertisers, employees and regulators are none too pleasedElon Musk has unleashed chaos at Twitter in the few short weeks since he took the helm of the company, and experts say lawsuits, regulatory intervention and ultimate financial collapse could be on the horizon.The billionaire has let his decision making play out on a public stage from the start, tweeting about new policies before promptly reversing them and polling users about features like verification. Continue reading...
President had been asked if he thought the new Twitter boss was a threat to US national securityJoe Biden thinks Twitter boss Elon Musk’s relationships with other countries is “worthy of being looked at”.Biden was asked at a news conference on Wednesday whether he thought Musk was a threat to national security and if his acquisition of Twitter with help from a Saudi Arabian conglomerate should be investigated by the US government.Reuters contributed to this report Continue reading...
As the brand-new CEO experiments with changes at the company, major brands pause spending on the platformElon Musk sought to reassure advertisers on Twitter on Wednesday that his chaotic takeover of the social media platform won’t harm their brands.But his effort came after a day of changes to the platform’s account verification systems, and an acknowledgement from Musk that some “dumb things” might happen as he transforms the company. Continue reading...
Efficiency experts say we should process our emails promptly, even if it’s just by marking them as read. But that’s not the way some of us rollName: Inbox ZeroAge: The idea was first introduced by efficiency expert Merlin Mann in 2006. Continue reading...
Becoming a parent has made my Elder Scrolls marathons and hours-long Zelda sessions mostly a thing of the past. Now taking on a video game after hours is a rare lifeline to my former selfWhen I was a kid, I was only allowed to play video games on Fridays and Saturdays – an attempt by my parents to keep my gaming passion under control. (Narrator: it did not keep it under control.) For the rest of the week, I was happy doing other things and reading my Nintendo magazines, but come Friday evening, I was ready to pick up a controller. I would stock up on Haribo and fizzy juice on the way home from school in preparation for an evening in front of the TV. My parents, presumably grateful for a few hours of peace, would throw a Pizza Hut delivery through the door of the spare room where our games consoles lived and leave my brother and I to it.We would sit and play Zelda or Diddy Kong Racing or another parent-approved, non-violent obsession of the day until we were commanded to go to bed. Once my mum pulled the cord out of the wall while we were in the middle of the final Bowser boss battle of Super Mario 64, causing a meltdown still spoken about in our family. I still think my behaviour was justified; pulling the plug is the equivalent of blowing the whistle moments before you’re about to score a winning goal. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#65MBD)
Bigger and longer-lasting with a new rugged design, but falls short for adventurers and endurance athletesFor the first time in years, there’s a new top Apple smartwatch model available that’s beefier, hardier, lasts longer and is aimed squarely at dethroning Garmin at the top of the adventure watch market. But does the Apple Watch Ultra really compete? Not quite.The new watch is not cheap, of course, and only works with an iPhone. It costs £849 ($799/A$1,299) – well above the entry point SE which starts at £259 and the Series 8 in the middle of the range costing £419 and up. That said, you can easily spend £779 on the nicest Series 8 models. Continue reading...
Company executive says governments, companies, media outlets and public figures will receive label, which is not for saleTwitter will introduce an “official” label for select verified accounts when it launches its new $8 Twitter Blue service, Esther Crawford, the company’s early stage products executive, said on Tuesday.“Accounts that will receive [the label] include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures,” Crawford tweeted. Continue reading...
Parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram is among others in the tech industry to suffer a severe slowdownMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed to executives that the company will begin laying off employees on Wednesday morning, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.Zuckerberg addressed hundreds of executives at the company on Tuesday morning, foreshadowing large cuts. He mentioned recruiting and business teams as groups that would see layoffs, according to the WSJ, adding an internal announcement of the company’s layoff plans is expected around 6am eastern time on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Public squabble between the two largest offshore exchanges’ bosses led to run on FTX and forced saleThe two largest offshore cryptocurrency exchanges are merging, after a week of public squabbling between Binance’s chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and FTX’s boss, Sam Bankman-Fried, triggered a bank run at the latter’s exchange and an embarrassing forced sale on Tuesday.“This afternoon, FTX asked for our help,” tweeted Zhao. “There is a significant liquidity crunch. To protect users, we signed a non-binding [letter of intent], intending to fully acquire FTX.com.” Continue reading...
Call them crazy, but more and more online daters are choosing to start conversations without vetting each other’s profile pictures. It’s almost as if looks aren’t the only thing that matters!If speed dating mixed with blind dating sounds like your idea of hell, look away now. Ten years since dating app Tinder first encouraged users to swipe through potential partners based largely on their looks, some singles are doing away with profile photos altogether. In the absence of Cilla and “our Graham”, those looking for love are turning instead to a new cohort of “blind dating apps” in the hope of making more meaningful connections.“I’m already on Tinder, Badoo, Bumble, Hinge – all of them!” says Victoria Brown, a 26-year-old client success manager from Upminster, east London. “A blind dating app seemed like a good idea because usually you think: ‘Oh, he’s really good-looking’ but then, when you start talking, the chat’s not that good. Not seeing what someone looks like, at least at first, gives it a bit of a twist – although I was nervous about the reveal.” Continue reading...
by Haroon Siddique Legal affairs correspondent on (#65J1B)
Exclusive: Hollie Dance believes 12-year-old was ‘influenced, persuaded or peer-pressured’ into taking part in online challengeThe mother of Archie Battersbee, the 12-year-old boy who died in August after his life support was switched off, wants a coroner to consider what role exposure to TikTok videos may have played in his death.Archie sustained a catastrophic brain injury on 7 April at his home in Southend, Essex, when a ligature was found over his head. His mother, Hollie Dance, believes he was injured as a result of taking part in an internet challenge known as the “blackout challenge” and wants the inquest into his death to scrutinise how social media may have contributed. Continue reading...
Ride-sharing company is attempting to force taxi firms to pay VAT on journeysTaxi firms outside London could be forced to hike their prices by a fifth if Uber wins a high court battle this week that would mean they pay VAT on journeys.A ruling is expected to be handed down on Friday after the ride-sharing app sued Sefton council in Merseyside over VAT terms for operators outside London. Continue reading...
Since buying it, the billionaire has wasted no time shaking up the struggling social media firm, cutting staff and introducing fees. But can he make the platform matter again – or will it become a hellscape of hateful content and misinformation?
Communications watchdog supports removal of fax services from rules governing telecoms provisionFor 20 years, the fax machine’s beeping, static-strewn screech was the sound of the future. But the pace of technology is pitiless: like carrier pigeons, portable cassette players and videocassette recorders, the fax machine is finally an official relic of the past.The death sentence was handed down on Tuesday in the form of Ofcom’s announcement that it was minded to back the government’s decision to remove the requirement for fax services under the Universal Service Order (USO) legislation. These are the rules that ensure phone services are available to people across the UK at an affordable price.Julia Roberts and Matthew Perry indulged in some heavy-duty flirting over fax prior to Roberts appearing on Friends in 1996. “There was a lot of flirting over faxing,” said Friends co-creator Kevin Bright. “She was giving him these questionnaires like, ‘Why should I go out with you?’ And everyone in the writers’ room helped him explain to her why.” The technology seems to have worked: the couple dated from 1996 to 1997.Dolly Parton still uses a fax machine as her primary mode of communication.In 2011, Prince William and Kate Middleton sent out their wedding invites by fax. Courtiers told the press that faxing was the most efficient way of sending out the invites across the world.Camille Paglia and Julie Burchill engaged in what must be history’s most vitriolic fax war in 1993 when Paglia was asked to review Burchill’s book for the Modern Review. Burchill had previously given Paglia’s own book a bad review, so Paglia refused. This spiralled into the pair duelling via fax, with Burchill calling Paglia “pathetic” and Paglia firing back that Burchill was “a sheltered, pampered sultan of slick, snide wordplay, without direct experience of life of any kind”, who nobody had even heard of outside England. The faxes were later published in the Modern Review by the then editor, Toby Young, who, in doing so, also incurred Paglia’s wrath.Stephen Hawking sent a fax to the music and fashion magazine the Face in 1995 in response to them asking for the formula for time travel. Hawking replied, via his personal assistant: “Thank you for your recent fax. I do not have any equations for time travel. If I had, I would win the national lottery every week.”When David Bowie told Laurie Anderson he thought she could read minds, her response was: “You know, I’m pretty sure I can’t.” But Bowie was convinced and had the musician randomly fax him pictures she had drawn to see if they matched up with his own. Apparently they did. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#65ATZ)
Funky design, cylindrical case and decent sound without blocking your ear help these earbuds stand outThe British tech firm Nothing is back with some novel rivals to the AirPods: a set of fashion-forward Bluetooth earbuds with an open fit and see-through design. However, those hoping to be cut off from the world may be disappointed.They aren’t Nothing’s first earbuds. The £149 Ear 1 from last year landed with a buzz, introducing the firm’s semi-transparent styling and good sound with traditional silicone tips. Now the £99 Ear Stick offer a similarly interesting look in an open-fit design without silicone tips, which lets outside sound in for those who don’t want to be isolated. Continue reading...
The billionaire owner suggests the platform could have different video game-style modes, including a ‘player versus player’Elon Musk has indicated that Twitter could be split into different strands where users give their posts content ratings and stage online rows in a specially created space on the platform.The world’s richest man moved to assuage concerns about a rise in harmful content under his ownership on Friday by announcing the creation of a content moderation council. Continue reading...
The British photographer said his son could ride the ghost train – but didn’t expect to see him quite so spookedLooking back, Mark Chilvers says he thought the ghost train he put his then six-year-old son Louie on would be a “Scooby-Doo level of scary”. The pair were at a London funfair in the early summer of 2016 when they bumped into Louie’s school friend Zavian and his mum.“Zavian was pestering to go on the ghost train, and my son tagged along with the idea. We watched other young kids getting on the cars, and relented.” Continue reading...
A chronicle of months of corporate to-and-fro, distrust and unpredictabilityThe saga is over. Elon Musk has finally bought Twitter after months of to-and-fro marked by legal rows, U-turns and, inevitably, Twitter spats.There will be more drama to come, by virtue of the platform’s centrality to news and politics as well as the unpredictable personality of its new owner. But the months leading up to the deal have been compelling corporate entertainment for bystanders. Here is a timeline of what happened. Continue reading...
Some advise using the app’s filters to block haters while others rejoice at Trump’s possible second coming to the platformElon Musk appeared to have taken control of Twitter on Thursday, after months of legal wrangling over the billionaire’s $44bn bid to take over the social media site.People familiar with the matter said Musk completed the deal on Thursday afternoon, and terminated several top executives at the company, including the chief executive, Parag Agrawal. Continue reading...
With Elon Musk poised to take over the social media site, it’s time for a look back at some of its best momentsElon Musk has reportedly taken over Twitter, and some of its regular users worry that a new billionaire owner could spell the beginning of the end of the site as we know it.In preparation for the potential vibe shift, and a callout from journalist Ben Collins, Twitter users have been posting some of their favourite ever tweets and “kissing them goodbye”. Here is a selection: Continue reading...
by Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier and Hollie Richard on (#655R1)
In this week’s newsletter: from zipline stunts to illegal parties, British Scandal charts the highs and lows of the former prime minister’s career. Plus: the five spookiest podcasts fit for Halloween.
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#654GX)
New base model gets bigger screen, better speakers, faster chip and 10-hour battery, but jumps in priceApple’s base model iPad gets a much-needed modern redesign with a bigger screen and a bunch of new accessories – but also a nasty price increase.The 10th-generation iPad costs from £499 ($449/A$749). Apple is still selling the old ninth-generation iPad for £369, while the similarly sized iPad Air costs £669 after price increases due to weak currency rates. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian