by Hollie Richardson, Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier a on (#6HK1V)
In this week's newsletter: A killing in Belize which seems to implicate a British aristocrat takes a strange turn in White Devil. Plus: five of the best podcasts to get you through the dark days of winter Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Traitors: Uncloaked
US labor agency says eight employees were let go for circulating a letter calling the founder a distraction and embarrassment'The rocket and satellite maker SpaceX was accused by a US labor agency of unlawfully firing eight employees for circulating a letter calling the founder and CEO, Elon Musk, a distraction and embarrassment".A regional official with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a complaint claiming SpaceX violated the workers' rights under federal labor law to band together and advocate for better working conditions, according to Kayla Blado, a spokesperson for the agency. Continue reading...
Newsletter writers with thousands of subscribers threaten to leave platform, which says banning extremists makes things worseThe email newsletter service Substack is facing a user revolt after its chief executive defended hosting and handling payments for Nazis" on its platform, citing anti-censorship reasons.In a note on the site published in December, the chief writing officer, Hamish McKenzie, said the firm doesn't like Nazis", and wished no one held these views". Continue reading...
Starlink satellites, carried on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Tuesday, can beam signals directly to smartphones from spaceSpaceX launched a rocket on Tuesday carrying the first set of Starlink satellites that can beam signals directly to smartphones from space.Elon Musk's space business struck a deal in August 2022 with wireless carriers to provide phone users in dead zones" with network access via its Starlink satellites. Continue reading...
By reusing and repurposing existing writing into viral fragments on Twitter, the account functioned like today's chatbots. The Guardian spoke to Jacob Bakkila, the human behind the accountMore than a decade before an AI-powered chatbot could do your homework, help you make dinner or pass the bar exam, there was @Horse_ebooks. The primitive predecessor to today's chatbot renaissance began as a Twitter account in 2010, tweeting automated excerpts from ebooks that, decontextualized, took on unexpected and strangely poetic meanings.Purportedly a spambot, the account surfaced quotes from ebooks that went viral for their absurdist fragments - phrases like Hello saxophone," COULD THIS BE THE", and Today we are lucky to be talking". It amassed more than 200,000 followers at its peak and now, despite being inactive for a decade, the account still holds 131,000 followers. Its most memorable quip - everything happens so much" - still resonates today. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Steven Reece Lewis was introduced to investors with an impressive list of qualifications and achievements, but no organisation cited can find any record of himA chief executive officer whose claimed qualifications appear to have no basis in fact was used to promote the HyperVerse crypto fund, alongside celebrity messages of support, as part of a push to recruit new investors into the scheme.A Guardian Australia investigation last month revealed thousands of people have lost millions of dollars to the HyperVerse crypto scheme, which was promoted by the Australian entrepreneur Sam Lee and his business partner, Ryan Xu, two of the founders of the collapsed Australian bitcoin company Blockchain Global. Continue reading...
To farewell Guardian Australia's Full Story host, we asked her to share her favourite clips - which are part-political satire, part-toilet humour. She contains multitudes
Dutch firm says decision was down to licence change, after initial report connected it to US pressureA Dutch manufacturer has cancelled shipments of hi-tech microchip machinery to China after pressure from the US government, it has been reported.ASML, a key firm in the global semiconductor manufacturing supply chain, was due to export three chip-making machines to China but had its export licences revoked by the Dutch government before they were shipped. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Deputy political editor on (#6HHNX)
Paper ballots may act as barrier to cyber attacks, but introduction of voter ID could lead to a host of complicationsWhile the date of the next UK general election itself remains in the hands of the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, one thing is certain: when the campaign begins it has the potential to be one of the most perilous and chaotic in the country's history, for a variety of reasons.One point is worth noting immediately: although the UK is often lumped in with the long list of countries holding elections in 2024, Sunak could theoretically hold it as late as January 2025, maximising the Conservatives' full five-year term. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Internal communications suggest video platform working to protect its lucrative relationship with e-commerce firmTikTok staff were told they should avoid flagging potential problems on Amazon accounts to protect the video platform's lucrative commercial relationship with the e-commerce multinational, according to internal communications seen by the Guardian.Some moderators were told in the autumn not to take negative action against a list of more than 60 Amazon-related accounts on TikTok because the US company is a heavy advertiser on the platform. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Hollie Richardso on (#6H4PJ)
In this week's newsletter: Mortal Sin investigates the death of a pastor's wife that was more than it seemed. Plus: five of the best genre-defying podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereUncovering Roots
The fallout from AI's Pearl Harbor moment' has been dramatic. In tech, 12 months can seem like an eternityIf a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity in tech. Just over 12 months ago, the industry was humming along in its usual way. The big platforms were deep into what Cory Doctorow calls enshittification" - the process in which platforms go from being initially good to their users, to abusing them to make things better for their business customers and finally to abusing those customers in order to claw back all the value for themselves. Elon Musk was ramping up his efforts to alienate advertisers on Twitter/X and accelerate the death spiral of his expensive toy. TikTok was monopolising every waking hour of teenagers. FTX had just gone bankrupt and at least $1bn of investors' money had gone awol. Here in the UK, the bedraggled online safety bill was wending its way through parliament. And nobody outside the tech world had ever heard of Geoffrey Hinton or Sam Altman.And then one day - 30 November 2022, to be precise - everything changed. OpenAI, an upstart tech company headed by Altman that had been building so-called large language models (LLMs) for some years, released ChatGPT. The strange thing, though, was that, even weeks earlier, ChatGPT wasn't a product. OpenAI's focus was elsewhere - on GPT-4, the biggest and most powerful model the company had built. This was a machine that could apparently answer almost any question using information gleaned from having read" everything ever published, but which would sometimes also make stuff up and was therefore deemed not ready for public consumption. Altman, possibly spooked by the fear that a rival company, Anthropic, would launch something big, then made a fateful decision: to release an older, less powerful version of the GPT technology - GPT-3 with a bolted-on chatbot front end - and see what happened. Continue reading...
Study suggests mice react in the same way to stimulation in virtual environment as in real worldWhether exploring distant galaxies or dashing about a fantasy world, virtual reality has immersed humans in extraordinary places. Now, it seems, mice will be able to join us.Researchers have developed a pair of virtual reality goggles" that can plunge the rodents into various scenarios, from navigating mazes to experiencing the threat of a predator. Continue reading...
Paul Vogel moved to sell stock as shares soared after it was revealed 1,500 jobs would be cutSpotify has announced that the chief financial officer, Paul Vogel, is to leave, days after cashing in $9.3m (7.4m) in shares in the wake of the music streaming service announcing it is to cut almost a fifth of its global workforce.Vogel, who cashed in $9.3m in shares as Spotify's shares soared after the announcement that 1,500 jobs would be cut, will leave in March, ending an eight-year stint at the company. Continue reading...
The legendary soprano was celebrated for her emotional connection. This moribund gimmick intended to bring her back - but in fact took her further away
Cyber-attacks on parliamentarians, civil servants and journalists aimed at meddling in UK politics have been going on for eight yearsDowning Street is facing calls for an inquiry after it revealed Russian state spies have targeted British MPs, peers, civil servants and journalists with cyber-attacks for the last eight years and were behind a hack that influenced the 2019 election.The government summoned the Russian ambassador on Thursday to admonish Moscow over sustained" attempts to meddle in UK politics since 2015. As a result, the Foreign Office imposed sanctions on two members of a hacking group called Star Blizzard, one of whom is named as a federal security services (FSB) officer. Continue reading...
Tech firm says it has developed robust' safety measures after home secretary and campaigners condemn moveMark Zuckerberg's Meta has been accused by the UK government of empowering child sexual abusers after the tech firm began rolling out the automatic encryption of all messages on its Facebook and Messenger platforms.The home secretary, James Cleverly, described the move as a significant step back" for child safety after Meta said it would introduce end-to-end encryption on the apps. The move means that only the sender and receiver of messages on the platforms will be able to access their content. Continue reading...
Court decides postal service does not have to deliver licence plates, for now, in latest twist in row over collective bargainingTesla has lost a legal action against Sweden's postal service as a dispute with Nordic trade unions escalates.A Swedish court said on Thursday that PostNord did not, for the time being, need to deliver licence plates to the electric carmaker that were being blocked by the postal service's workers, in the latest twist in a battle over collective bargaining agreements. Continue reading...
Media watchdog says layoffs at top social media firms affecting moderation create toxic environment' as 2024 elections approachAs the 2024 elections approach, experts warn that top social media firms have rolled back vital safety policies and laid off moderation staff, creating a a toxic online environment" vulnerable to exploitation that threatens democracy.A new study from the non-profit media watchdog Free Press documented 17 major platform policies affecting online content integrity that have been rolled back in the past year at Alphabet, Meta and Twitter/X. It also cited more than 40,000 layoffs at these companies as a threat to the health and safety of their platforms. Continue reading...
Foreign Office minister tells MPs that FSB is behind sustained effort to interfere in our democratic processes' UK politics live - latest updatesRussian spies have been targeting British MPs, peers, civil servants, journalists and others with cyber-hacking since 2015 as part of a concerted attempt to meddle in British politics, a Foreign Office minister has said.Leo Docherty, a minister under David Cameron, told the House of Commons that the Russian federal security service was using cyber interference" to target politically connected people. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson a on (#6GZ2N)
In this week's newsletter: Rob Delaney and Alice Levine investigate the end of the cabinet minister's career in the latest series of British Scandal Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereGooned
Under the changes, Meta will no longer have access to the contents of what users send or receive, unless a user reports a messageFacebook's parent company has begun rolling out end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Facebook, Meta announced on Thursday.The company's vice-president for Messenger, Loredana Crisan, said the encryption was built on the Signal protocol and Meta's own Labyrinth protocol. Continue reading...
Check written to Radio Shack joins a hot market for Jobs' signature and memorabiliaA $4 check that the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs wrote to Radio Shack in 1976 was auctioned off at Boston-based RR Auction for more than $36,000 on Wednesday. .The signed check, drawn against an Apple Computer Company" account at a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Los Altos, California, joins a hot market for Jobs's signature and memorabilia. Continue reading...
Alan Rosa says he objected to budget cuts that would have put Twitter, now X, at risk of violating a security practices settlementA former executive at Twitter, now called X, has filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired for objecting to budget cuts after Elon Musk acquired the company. The executive said Musk's proposed slashing would prevent the company from complying with a US government settlement over its security practices.Alan Rosa, who was Twitter's global head of information security, filed the lawsuit late on Tuesday in New Jersey federal court, alleging breach of contract, wrongful termination and retaliation, among other claims. X Corp did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading...
Gemini is being released in form of upgrade to Google's chatbot Bard, but not yet in UK or EUGoogle has unveiled a new artificial intelligence model that it claims outperforms ChatGPT in most tests and displays advanced reasoning" across multiple formats, including an ability to view and mark a student's physics homework.The model, called Gemini, is the first to be announced since last month's global AI safety summit, at which tech firms agreed to collaborate with governments on testing advanced systems before and after their release. Google said it was in discussions with the UK's newly formed AI Safety Institute over testing Gemini's most powerful version, which will be released next year. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: We know we'll return to Vice City for Rockstar's next epic - but what else did we learn? Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIt's 16 September 2013. I've just arrived in Japan to cover the Tokyo Game Show. Before I boarded the plane, my life had been consumed for weeks by Grand Theft Auto V. I'd spent six days playing it for every waking second, written a review, and scripted and recorded a video review for IGN, where I was working at the time. The pressure was immense. I had not thought about anything else for so long that the lines between my real life and my virtual life in San Andreas had started to blur; I remember, on a short snack trip to the Co-op across the road from my old flat, vividly envisioning putting my elbow through the window of the Prius parked outside and driving away in it.That review was published a few hours after I disembarked on the other side of the world. It's the most popular thing I will ever write, read by more than 10 million people by the end of that year. In the decade since, no game has come close to capturing that level of fervour. From the second Grand Theft Auto V was announced in 2011 until its release, people ate up every scrap of information that Rockstar flung their way. Continue reading...
The witty singer's superb comeback is a delight to behold in this entertaining fly-on-the-wall documentaryChris Atkins' highly entertaining documentary about the soldier turned million-selling singer-songwriter effectively marks the apotheosis of James Blunt's superb comeback - his rearguard action, in fact, against all the tabloid journalists, trolls and panel-show comics who were using him as a punchline, nettled at his overwhelming success and poshness.Using skills honed at boarding school, and the possibilities of social media, Blunt neutralised the bullies by laughing at himself first, while also (with a dash of ruthless cunning) picking on civilians, quote-tweeting some member of the general public making a nasty remark and adding a very good gag notionally at his own expense but also embarrassing his tormentor. His Twitter game turned it around - though his sales never appear to have been really affected by the mockery. And throughout this fly-on-the-wall account of Blunt's international tour, much delayed by Covid, the star retains a very droll and unashamedly well-bred irony, wit and down-to-earth attitude. Continue reading...
For all the billions spent, the dream of these vehicles ruling the roads remains just that. It would be much smarter to focus on public transportDeveloping driverless cars has been AI's greatest test. Today we can say it has failed miserably, despite the expenditure of tens of billions of dollars in attempts to produce a viable commercial vehicle. Moreover, the recent withdrawal from the market of a leading provider of robotaxis in the US, coupled with the introduction of strict legislation in the UK, suggests that the developers' hopes of monetising the concept are even more remote than before. The very future of the idea hangs in the balance.The attempt to produce a driverless car started in the mid-00s with a challenge by a US defence research agency, offering a $1m prize for whoever could create one capable of making a very limited journey in the desert. This quickly turned into a race between various tech and car companies (OEMs, as they are now known - original equipment manufacturers) to produce what they thought would be the ultimate cash cow: a car that could operate in all conditions without a driver. Continue reading...
by Dani Anguiano in Los Angeles and agencies on (#6GX68)
Trevor Daniel Jacob, 30, sentenced for obstructing investigation after deliberately crashing his plane in CaliforniaA California YouTuber who authorities say deliberately crashed his plane and posted a video of it online was sentenced to six months in federal prison for obstructing the investigation by destroying the wreckage.Trevor Daniel Jacob, 30, an experienced pilot and skydiver, pleaded guilty in June to one count of destruction and concealment with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation. Jacob destroyed wreckage from the small single-engine plane that he crashed in Los Padres national forest in 2021, authorities say. Continue reading...
Group does not include Microsoft, OpenAI or Google, setting up potential clash over regulation and responsible practiceFacebook's parent company, Meta, and IBM on Tuesday launched a new group called the AI Alliance advocating for an open-science" approach to AI development that puts them at odds with rivals Google, Microsoft and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.These two diverging camps - the open and the closed - disagree about whether to build AI in a way that makes the underlying technology widely accessible. Safety is at the heart of the debate, but so is who gets to profit from AI's advances. Continue reading...
Is artificial intelligence going to put artists out of a job? Alan Warburton decided to make a film posing that very question - using AI. The result was disturbingly watchableA toilet bubbles over with sticky yellow goo. Bedazzled executives are treated to a speech by a cartoon ghost. Someone's dog walks across a wall before reconfiguring its own body parts. Alan Warburton has created some truly mind-blowing images for his new documentary The Wizard of AI. But what's most impressive - or maybe most alarming - is the fact that he didn't actually create any of them at all.I would say 99% of it was made using generative artificial intelligence tools," says the 43-year-old artist film-maker. So could his 20-minute film really be, as he has claimed, the world's first ever AI documentary? Continue reading...
Rockstar Games finally gives players their first glimpse at Grand Theft Auto VI, set in a fictional version of Miami, after trailer leaked onlineRockstar Games has released the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto 6, the next game in its generation-defining, open-world crime series, after it leaked early online.The previous GTA game, Grand Theft Auto V, has sold more than 190m copies since its release in 2013. Combined with its online iteration GTA Online, it is the single-most profitable entertainment product of all time, having generated more than $7.7bn (6.3bn) for publisher Take-Two. Continue reading...
US company says threat actor' responsible for security breach that affected nearly half of its 14m reported usersThe genetic testing company 23andMe has said that nearly 7 million people have been affected by a security breach that put DNA ancestry information into the hands of hackers who broke into the site in early October.On Friday, the California-based company said in a regulatory filing that the personal data of 0.1% of customers - or about 14,000 individuals - had been accessed by threat actors". But the filing warned that hackers were also able to access a significant number of files containing profile information about other users' ancestry". Continue reading...
The owner of Instagram and Facebook thought an ad-free subscription service would satisfy European data cops - some advocacy groups aren't so sure Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereLate last week, Europe's largest consumer rights group filed a complaint against Meta over paid versions of Instagram and Facebook that give users ad-free versions of the social media sites. The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) says the subscriptions - 9.99 per month for the web versions and 12.99 for the apps - are too expensive.The tech giant's pay-or-consent approach is unfair and must be stopped," the BEUC said. The organisation, which filed its complaint with the EU's network of consumer protection authorities, called the prices very high" and said Meta is using unfair, deceptive and aggressive practices" while giving consumers misleading and incomplete information", according to a report by Ars Technica. Continue reading...
Experts say skills can teach critical thinking and even combat the youth mental health crisisCalifornia next year will become one of the few US states to teach students media literacy, a move experts say is imperative at a time when distrust in the media is at an all-time high and new technologies pose unprecedented challenges to identifying false information.A state bill signed into law this fall mandates public schools to instruct media literacy, a set of skills that includes recognizing falsified data, identifying fake news and generating responsible internet content. Continue reading...
Its GoElectric Overnight tariff promised drivers big savings - only problem, it couldn't deliverEDF is inviting customers to sign up to its GoElectric Overnight tariff which promises super cheap off-peak rates of just 8p a kWh to power your electric car and home appliances for less".If you sign up, you receive an automated email saying the switch will take place within five working days. And then nothing happens. Continue reading...
Ed Miliband asks for urgent assurances about government and regulators' actions after vulnerabilities at nuclear site are revealedMinisters are under pressure to explain the actions of the government and regulators over cybersecurity at Europe's most hazardous nuclear site after a Guardian investigation revealed disturbing vulnerabilities in its networks.The shadow energy secretary, Ed Miliband, called on the government to urgently provide assurances" about Sellafield, after the Guardian revealed it had been hacked by groups linked to Russia and China. Continue reading...
Foxconn and Pegatron temporarily shut factories near Chennai because of torrential rains that have claimed at least four livesTaiwan's Foxconn and Pegatron have halted production of Apple iPhones at their factories near Chennai in southern India because of heavy rains, sources close to the matter said on Monday.In Tamil Nadu's capital Chennai, the state's largest city and a major electronics and manufacturing hub, at least two people died and the runway of one of the country's busiest airports was submerged after torrential rain as the city braced for a severe cyclone expected to hit in the next 24 hours. Two others had died elsewhere. Cyclone Michaung was expected to make landfall on the coast of the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh around noon on Tuesday, the country's weather office said, with sustained winds of 90kph to 100kph (56mph to 62mph), gusting to 110kph. Continue reading...
Computer and AI giant rolls out machine using Heron' chips using subatomic particles instead of ones and zerosThe computer and artifical intelligence technology giant IBM on Monday unveiled a new quantum computing chip and machine that the company says could serve as the building blocks of much larger and faster systems than traditional silicon-based computers.IBM's rollout of what it calls Quantum System Two, which uses three Heron" cryogenically cooled chips, comes as tech rivals including Microsoft, Alphabet's Google, China's Baidu and others are racing to develop machines that use quantum bits - subatomic particles that unlike the ones or zeros of traditional computing can be in superposition" of both one and zero at the same time. Continue reading...
Joan Donovan says funding was cut off for criticizing Meta when university was receiving $500m from Mark Zuckerberg's charityOne of the world's leading experts on misinformation says she was fired by Harvard University for criticising Meta at a time that the school was being pledged $500m from Mark Zuckerberg's charity.Joan Donovan says her funding was cut off, she could not hire assistants and she was made the target of a smear campaign by Harvard employees. In a legal filing with the US education department and the Massachusetts attorney general first published by the Washington Post, she said her right to free speech had been abrogated. Continue reading...
Music streaming service axes 17% of workforce in latest round of redundancies at big tech companiesSpotify is cutting more than 1,500 jobs as the music streaming service blamed a slowing economy and higher borrowing costs in the latest round of redundancies at big tech companies.Daniel Ek, Spotify's billionaire founder and chief executive, said it had decided to cut 17% of its workforce, the third and steepest round of redundancies of 2023, as the company faces pressure from an activist investor. Continue reading...
Everyone from Samsung to Victoria's Secret is getting in on Roblox. We hunted down the very worst branded experiences in the all-ages game platform (and an unofficial Ryanair world)Gone are the days where a billboard at the side of the road and an expensive TV advert during the X Factor were enough to get your product noticed. Now you've got to advertise in online video games, such as Roblox. If you haven't heard of Roblox, it's basically a more rubbish version of Minecraft. Instead of creating worlds, people - mostly children - create complete games. Then, they can upload and potentially monetise them.Roblox now houses more than 50m games that can be played on your phone, computer or games console, and 19% of all children in the UK are said to play it. It has had its success stories, turning the occasional teenager into a millionaire from their bedroom, but it also has a dark side, with children running up bills in the thousands buying pixelated meta-tat and, worse, receiving allegations of games being used for grooming. But none of that has stopped corporations getting involved with their own branded Roblox worlds. Who wouldn't want to virtually recreate the thrills and spills of checking in to a budget airline flight, or learn how frozen chips are made? We trawled our way through the worst Roblox corporate tie-ins and an unofficial Ryanair world, so you don't have to. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian