Hollywood's old guard have been finding a new audience through frank opinions, unlikely videos and fan interactionWhen the time comes to remember him, Martin Scorsese's legacy will be that of a pioneer. In his lifetime, Scorsese managed to harness the untapped power of an art form that had long since fallen into a bloated state of rote disrepair. Scorsese grabbed that art form with both hands, and became a superstar by refining and revitalising it.That art form is, of course, TikTok. Continue reading...
Machine apparently identified man inspecting it as one of the boxes it was stackingA robot crushed a man to death in South Korea after the machine apparently failed to differentiate him from the boxes of produce it was handling, the Yonhap news agency reported on Wednesday.The man, a robotics company worker in his 40s, was inspecting the robot's sensor operations at a distribution centre for agricultural produce in South Gyeongsang province. Continue reading...
All 950 of the General Motors subsidiary's autonomous cars will be taken off roads for a software updateGeneral Motors' Cruise autonomous vehicle unit is recalling all 950 of its cars to update software after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October and a subsequent ban by California regulators.The company said in documents posted by US safety regulators on Wednesday that with the updated software, Cruise vehicles will remain stationary should a similar incident occur in the future. Continue reading...
Huge numbers for films based on Super Mario and Five Nights at Freddy's have led to news of a Zelda adaptation, suggesting a new lease of life for a once-loathed genreWhen Nintendo announced via Twitter/X that Shigeru Miyamoto had been working for years on a live-action The Legend of Zelda movie with the producer Avi Arad, I immediately felt a little queasy. Not because I'd just browsed Arad's production credits, which really do run the gamut, but because like most adults who love video games, I grew up in the era of game movies so unbelievably dreadful that I still sometimes think angry thoughts about them when I'm trying to get to sleep.It was the era of Jean-Claude Van Damme in Street Fighter, of the fascinatingly terrible 1993 Super Mario cyberpunk nightmare starring Bob Hoskins, of Uwe Boll. Like a kicked dog, I am instinctively fearful. The Zelda series has produced several of the most important, acclaimed games of all time, centred on their mute protagonist, Link, and the various eternally retold and remixed myths of the Kingdom of Hyrule and its royal family (that's Zelda). They are narratively ambiguous, often quite dreamlike, and that works for them. How do you turn that into a gripping movie? Are they going to give Link a voice? A 90s cartoon series turned him into a wisecracking smart-arse and has been relentlessly mocked for it ever since. Continue reading...
Billionaires say they are desperate to give away their money - but their interests are misaligned with society's. Just tax them!Almost exactly a year ago, Vox journalist Kelsey Piper was having a heart-to-heart with Sam Bankman-Fried. The Crypto King" (people used to call him a lot of stupid things) had just declared bankruptcy, setting off a chain of events that last week ended in his conviction for multiple types of fraud. He has yet to be sentenced, but he faces a maximum term of 115 years, which is quite some override of the principle avoid sending rich people to prison" laid down, I believe, by the founding fathers.Against a backdrop in which Bankman-Fried has already been put bang to rights, and on the understanding that further critique of the young gentleman won't give anyone their money back, I still can't help circling one part of the Piper/Bankman-Fried exchange. You don't believe anyone is doing anything for good reasons," Piper told him in a message. You don't believe the good guys' are good, so why not make it big and then be the one who gets to decide what good' is?" Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6G61R)
Big chip and graphics upgrades come at great cost to wallet and battery life for difficult second actMicrosoft's latest top-end laptop sticks with its novel screen-flipping form, with upgrades on the inside aimed at keeping up with the powerhouse competition - but these improvements come with a very steep price increase.The Surface Laptop Studio 2 starts at 2,069 (2,239/$1999.99/A$3,343) - a 620 increase over the outgoing model. That takes it far away from the normal premium consumer range on which Microsoft has built its Surface reputation, and places it firmly in the creative workstation class of machine typically used by programmers and video and photo editors.Screen: 14.4in LCD 2,400x1,600 (201 PPI; 120Hz)Processor: Intel Core i7-13700H (13th generation)Ram: 16, 32 or 64GBStorage: 512GB or 1TBGraphics: Intel Iris Xe, Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050 6GB, RTX 4060 8GB or RTX 2000 8GBOperating system: Windows 11Camera: 1080P front-facing, Windows HelloConnectivity: wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 2x Thunderbolt 4/USB 4, USB-A, microSD, headphones, Surface ConnectDimensions: 323 x 230 x 22mmWeight: 1,890 or 1,980g Continue reading...
UN announces plan to tackle phenomenon as survey finds people worry particularly about impact on electionsMore than 85% of people are worried about the impact of online disinformation and 87% believe it has already harmed their country's politics, according to a global survey, as the United Nations announced a plan to tackle the phenomenon.Audrey Azoulay, director general of the UN's culture body, Unesco, told reporters on Monday that false information and hate speech online - accelerated and amplified by social media platforms - posed major risks to social cohesion, peace and stability". Continue reading...
More than a dozen attenders of NFT group's festival, which used ultraviolet light, complained of eye burn' on social mediaThe company behind the Bored Ape crypto art craze is looking into reports that people have been suffering from eye burn, extreme pain and impaired vision after attending one of its events, which was lit by UV lights.The ApeFest festival is held every year for members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, AKA Bored Apes, who have invested in a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) featuring computer-generated profile pictures of cartoon apes. Continue reading...
At its first showcase, the ChatGPT creator unveiled an app store, a new AI model, and a legal strategy for copyright infringement suitsRather than remove copyrighted material from ChatGPT's training dataset, the chatbot's creator is offering to cover its clients' legal costs for copyright infringement suits.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Monday: We can defend our customers and pay the costs incurred if you face legal claims around copyright infringement and this applies both to ChatGPT Enterprise and the API." The compensation offer, which OpenAI is calling Copyright Shield, applies to users of the business tier, ChatGPT Enterprise, and to developers using ChatGPT's application programming interface. Users of the free version of ChatGPT or ChatGPT+ were not included. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6G530)
Commuter favourite gets premium upgrade with immersive sound and better Bluetooth - but huge price tagBose's latest top of the range headphones break new ground with a more premium look, advanced connectivity, immersive spatial audio and a supremely comfortable design. And a hefty price tag.The QuietComfort Ultra headphones cost an eye-watering 450 (500/$429/A$649) making them the most expensive Bose models to date, replacing the previous top-of-the-line 350 NCH700 from 2019. They join the ranks of ultra premium headphones alongside Apple's 500 AirPods Max and B&W's 599 Px8. Continue reading...
Questions over honesty and legality as livestreamers, particularly in online shopping, use avatars to boost their earningsIn September, Chen Yiru, a Taiwanese influencer with nearly nine million fans on Weibo, livestreamed footage of himself eating chicken feet for a jaw-grinding 15 hours.His followers were suitably wowed - until some started to question if such a feat was humanly possible. The small print on the video stream confirmed their suspicions: For display purposes only, not a real person." Continue reading...
The Stanford professor and godmother' of artificial intelligence on why existential worries are not her priority, and her work to ensure the technology improves the human conditionFei-Fei Li is a pioneer of modern artificial intelligence (AI). Her work provided a crucial ingredient - big data - for the deep learning breakthroughs that occurred in the early 2010s. Li's new memoir, The Worlds I See, tells her story of finding her calling at the vanguard of the AI revolution and charts the development of the field from the inside. Li, 47, is a professor of computer science at Stanford University, where she specialises in computer vision. She is also a founding co-director of Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), which focuses on AI research, education and policy to improve the human condition, and a founder of the nonprofit AI4ALL, which aims to increase the diversity of people building AI systems.AI is promising to transform the world in ways that don't necessarily seem for the better: killing jobs, supercharging disinformation and surveillance, and causing harm through biased algorithms. Do you take any responsibility for how AI is being used?
It's a company's dream business model - the services are too difficult to switch, and small price hikes are often overlookedNetflix recently announced another price increase. It was just a couple of bucks. No big deal, right? Wrong.This price increase comes after another announced increase back in 2022 and this time actually ranges from 16% to 20% depending on the service. Why is Netflix doing this? Because it can. Netflix is no dummy. It knows that almost all of its customers will stick with the service even though it's costing a little more. And they're right. I love Netflix, so I'm going to pay. Continue reading...
Boss of X said tech being tested is inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyElon Musk has unveiled Grok, an artificial intelligence chatbot with a rebellious streak" inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.The Tesla CEO, who warned last week that AI was one of the biggest threats to humanity", said the competitor to ChatGPT would be made available to premium subscribers on his X platform after testing. Continue reading...
They have higher emissions, hog roadspace and are more dangerous for other road users. Yet SUVs are selling better than ever. As calls for curbs increase, some people are taking matters into their own handsIt's midnight on the edge of Clapham Common in early September. The streets are eerily quiet as a shadowy figure in black shirt, shorts and baseball cap emerges from the common. He is wearing a red face mask, his features, except for some blond locks, hidden from view.A university-educated professional, Will", as I'll call him, is making one of his monthly late night rounds of various well-heeled London neighbourhoods. He is looking for cars, specifically big, high-end sports utility vehicles (SUVs) - not to steal or vandalise but to bring down in the world just a little. Continue reading...
Despite Rishi Sunak's summit and Joe Biden's executive order on the safety of AI, it's the tech giants that really need reining inEarlier last week, just around the time when the driver of Rishi Sunak's armoured Jaguar might have been thinking about typing Bletchley Park" into the limousine's satnav, Joe Biden was in the White House putting his signature on a new executive order on the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence". In a mere 20,000 words, or thereabouts, the order directs an innumerable number of federal agencies and government departments that oversee everything from housing to health to national security to create standards and regulations for the use or oversight of AI". These bodies are required to develop guidance on the responsible use of AI in areas such as criminal justice, education, healthcare, housing and labour, with a focus on protecting Americans' civil rights and liberties".Stirring stuff, eh? Within No 10, though, there might have been some infuriated spin doctors. After all, the main purpose of the Bletchley Park AI safety summit was to hype the prime minister's claim to global leadership" in this matter, and here was bloody Biden announcing tangible plans actually to do something about the technology rather than just fostering lofty declarations". Talk about shooting the PM's fox before he had even mounted his horse! Continue reading...
The photographer was staring out of the window at work when something exciting, visually intriguing yet entirely everyday caught his eyeBefore he became a professional photographer and videographer, Anthony Edralin worked as an analyst for Sky TV. On the day this shot was taken, they had recently moved to new offices, and Edralin found himself staring out of the window waiting for something to happen. Then it did, in the form of a gaggle of window cleaners on cherry pickers.It was a bit of a spectacle because we were so high up and it was odd to see someone standing in a 30ft-high window. An office environment can be a little monotonous, but the atmosphere changed slightly; there was a bit of a buzz." Continue reading...
Jury did not believe T-shirt, cargo shorts and messy hair could prevent someone defrauding people out of billions of dollarsFor several years, Sam Bankman-Fried cut the figure of an unstoppable tech founder. With his trademark uniform of a T-shirt and shorts, and a mop of dark curls, Bankman-Fried courted investors big and small with promises that FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he founded, was safer than all its competitors. He vowed there was an insurance fund to protect investors. He claimed there was a safeguard preventing accounts from margin trading if they lacked sufficient liquidity.All the while, Bankman-Fried curried favor with politicians and celebrities. He called for greater regulation of crypto currency, telling the Economic Club of New York, America should provide oversight rather than sitting on the sideline." Bankman-Fried, according to Insider, also said US authorities should be able to strike a balance between fostering economic growth and providing consumer protection and protecting against systemic risk and financial crimes". The bravado paid financial and social dividends: Bankman-Fried became a billionaire by 30 and rubbed elbows with dignitaries such as Bill Clinton. FTX was valued at $32bn. Continue reading...
Using AI to create less and better work would benefit society but getting rid of it altogether would be unproductive, experts sayOscar Wilde thought hard work the refuge" of those with nothing better to do while he envisaged a society of cultivated leisure" as machines performed the necessary and unpleasant tasks.Karl Marx's dream was of a society regulated general production that allowed liberated workers to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner" without the drudgery of being tied to one job. Continue reading...
Billionaire makes emotional decision' to return to childhood home to be near parents and Blue Origin space businessThe Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said on Thursday he was moving to his childhood home of Miami from Seattle to be near his parents and his space firm Blue Origin's Cape Canaveral operations.As exciting as the move is, it's an emotional decision for me. Seattle, you will always have a piece of my heart," the billionaire said in an Instagram post on Thursday. Continue reading...
Not everyone sees AI as a threat to humanity - caveated hope was a common mood after the artificial intelligence safety conferenceBletchley Park, a milestone in Alan Turing's journey to technological immortality, heard warnings this week that the coming wave of artificial intelligence systems could threaten humanity.But for one of the world's leading tech investors, holding back AI development will be just as damaging in terms of deaths in car crashes, pandemics and poorly targeted munitions that could have been prevented by the technology. Continue reading...
The prime minister flattered the entrepreneur who in turn put aside his abrasive persona for their talk on AIEarlier this week, Elon Musk was interviewed by the American podcast host Joe Rogan. On Wednesday he was grilled by reporters outside the AI safety summit in Bletchley Park. On Thursday, it was the turn of the British prime minister.British officials have crowed for days about their success in getting the world's richest man to attend the summit, which was a pet project for Sunak. So delighted were they at the UK's pulling power they decided to give the X owner a 40-minute in-person conversation with the prime minister in the glamorous surrounds of Lancaster House, previously used as a set for The Crown. Continue reading...
Company posts its fourth consecutive quarter of revenue loss but has shares up about 32.5% so far this yearApple posted its fourth consecutive revenue loss for the quarter ending in September, with $89.5bn in revenue - a 1% decrease from the previous quarter. The decline was not unexpected, though the total quarterly revenue beat Wall Street predictions of $89.28bn. Apple did enjoy $43.81bn in iPhone revenue and $22.3bn in services revenue for the quarter ending in September - quarterly revenue records, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook.Despite the expected drop in sales, Apple's stock rose more than 2% ahead of the scheduled earnings call and shares have been up about 32.5% so far this year. The earnings report comes as the company is in the middle of what is typically the busiest quarter, with the holiday season coming up. Investors will likely be looking for details on how the current quarter is faring and the status of demand for the iPhone 15 - released just days before the end of the quarter. Revenue from Macs fell 34% year-over-year to $7.6bn, and iPad revenue fell 10%. Continue reading...
Drivers celebrate historic victory' as companies agree to settlement after being accused of withholding wages and benefitsThe ride-share companies Uber and Lyft have agreed to a historic settlement totaling $328m after being accused of withholding wages and benefits, such as mandatory paid sick leave, from drivers.The news, announced by the New York state attorney general's office, comes after a multi-year investigation following a complaint filed by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) union, alleging the companies were committing wage theft and passing on taxes and fees to drivers rather than passengers. The attorney general's office said it was the largest wage-theft settlement it has ever won. Continue reading...
Rishi Sunak hails conference as diplomatic coup after it produces international declaration to address AI risks UK politics live - latest updatesRishi Sunak has hailed this week's artificial intelligence summit as a diplomatic breakthrough after it produced an international declaration to address risks with the technology, as well as a multilateral agreement to test advanced AI Models.Here are five things we have learned from the summit. Continue reading...
by Tonje Schei Lindsay Poulton Jess Gormley Noah Payn on (#6G2CC)
Ilya Sutskever, one of the leading AI scientists behind ChatGPT, reflects on his founding vision and values. In conversations with the film-maker Tonje Hessen Schei as he was developing the chat language modelbetween 2016 and 2019, he describes his personal philosophy and makes startling predictions for a technology already shaping our world. Reflecting on his ideas today, amid a global debate over safety and regulation,we consider the opportunities as well as the consequences of AI technology. Ilya discusses hisultimate goal of artificial general intelligence (AGI),a computer system that can do any job or task that a human does, but better',andquestions whether the AGI arms race will be good or bad for humanity.These filmed interviews with Ilya Sutskever are part of a feature-length documentary on artificial intelligence, callediHuman Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson a on (#6G2A8)
In this week's newsletter: From Greenham Common protestors to Spitfire pilots, the author celebrates history's unsung female heroes in Normal Women. Plus: five podcasts that actually solved crimes Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up herePhilippa Gregory's Normal Women
Bletchley summit communique does not agree to set up testing hub in UK, as some in government had hopedThe UK, US, EU, Australia and China have all agreed that artificial intelligence poses a potentially catastrophic risk to humanity, in the first international declaration to deal with the fast-emerging technology.Twenty-eight governments signed up to the so-called Bletchley declaration on the first day of the AI safety summit, hosted by the British government. The countries agreed to work together on AI safety research, even amid signs that the US and UK are competing to take the lead over developing new regulations. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: Too often games are a source of stress for parents and kids. But working through Mario Wonder's madcap worlds with my son has shown me they can be shared adventures Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereI am delighted to report that with the release of Super Mario Wonder, almost seven years into my parenting career, I have finally played a video game all the way through with one of my children. And he enjoyed it.It was a journey that began with me hopefully playing Let's Go Pikachu! in 2018 (which my then-toddler hated so much that he would memorably shout No, no, Pikachu!" at the screen), and now it has finally yielded genuine moments of joy as we worked our way through Wonder's madcap worlds. Continue reading...
Creatures Inc pulls back the curtain on the specially commissioned artists and dedicated team of testers behind their trading card game phenomenonThis year in the Japanese city of Yokohama the streets were paved with gold - in the form of giant Pokemon cards. From rare holographics on glass palisades to a Pikachu card the size of a small garden to tiled floors covered with common creatures, the city's interconnected malls paid tribute to the Pokemon trading card game, while the world's best players went head to head at the Pacifico convention centre at the annual world championships.Nine billion of these cards have been produced to date, 21% of those since 2021, sold in 76 countries and 13 different languages. They were so popular in 00s playgrounds that they were often banned from schools - a phenomenon that's repeating itself now, after the cards enjoyed a pandemic boost courtesy of bored kids and nostalgic millennials. YouTuber Logan Paul made headlines when he spent $5 million on a single card in July 2021. Continue reading...
Publisher says poll speculating on cause of woman's death that appeared next to Guardian article caused significant reputational damage'The Guardian has accused Microsoft of damaging its journalistic reputation by publishing an AI-generated poll speculating on the cause of a woman's death next to an article by the news publisher.Microsoft's news aggregation service published the automated poll next to a Guardian story about the death of Lilie James, a 21-year-old water polo coach who was found dead with serious head injuries at a school in Sydney last week. Continue reading...
Jane Rosenberg's viral illustrations paint a changing picture of the crypto mogul as his trial continuesA courtroom sketch supposedly drawn of Sam Bankman-Fried made rounds on Twitter this week, giving the alleged cryptocurrency fraudster and self-professed math nerd" the Hollywood treatment.With his razor-sharp jawline, high cheekbones and artfully messy hair, SBF could have been plucked straight out of a high-end perfume campaign. There was just one problem: the sketch is a phony. Similar to Donald Trump's very fake - and incredibly bizarre - courtroom sketch featuring the former president next to Jesus, it didn't come from inside the courtroom and appears to be fan art. But for many people following the trial, the real portraits are engrossing enough - just not nearly as flattering. Continue reading...
Experts say focus of the UK's global AI summit on frontier AI' distracts from regulation of existing ills of technologyIn the spring of 2023, the UK government set out its plans to address the rapidly evolving AI landscape. In a white paper titled A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation" the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology described the many benefits and opportunities she believed the technology to hold and explained the government's decision to take a principles-based approach" to regulating it. In short: the UK didn't plan to create new legislation, instead opting to clarify existing laws that could apply to AI.New rigid and onerous legislative requirements on businesses could hold back AI innovation and reduce our ability to respond quickly and in a proportionate way to future technological advances," the white paper reads. Continue reading...
by Kiran Stacey Political correspondent on (#6FZQK)
Attendance of X owner is a boost for the event, which has been snubbed by Joe Biden and Emmanuel MacronElon Musk will attend Rishi Sunak's AI safety summit this week in Bletchley Park, government sources have confirmed, with the two men to host a live conversation on the billionaire's social media site X on Thursday.The technology multibillionaire will be one of the highest-profile attendees at the two-day summit hosted by the prime minister to discuss the dangers of advanced artificial intelligence. Continue reading...
PM hopes Bletchley Park summit will be the first of many, as No 10 denies some world leaders have snubbed' eventGlobal leaders, tech executives and experts - including Elon Musk - are gathering on Wednesday and Thursday at Bletchley Park, the home of second world war codebreakers, for a landmark summit on safety in artificial intelligence.In a speech last week Rishi Sunak said AI - the term for computer systems that can perform tasks typically associated with intelligent beings - brought opportunities but also significant risks, such as making it easier for rogue actors to make chemical or biological weapons. Continue reading...
Executive order also covers safety test results, privacy, civil rights, consumer protections and workers' rightsJoe Biden signed an executive order on Monday that he called the most significant" action that any government has taken on the safe deployment of AI.We're going to see more technological change in the next 10, maybe next five years than we've seen in the last 50 years," the US president said at a press conference. AI is all around us. Much of it is making our lives better ... but in some case AI is making life worse." Continue reading...
A leading researcher, who will attend this week's AI safety summit in London, warns of real threat to the public conversation'Focusing on doomsday scenarios in artificial intelligence is a distraction that plays down immediate risks such as the large-scale generation of misinformation, according to a senior industry figure attending this week's AI safety summit.Aidan Gomez, co-author of a research paper that helped create the technology behind chatbots, said long-term risks such as existential threats to humanity from AI should be studied and pursued", but that they could divert politicians from dealing with immediate potential harms. Continue reading...
Computer-generated art seemed magical at first, but it works by scraping' the creations of real people. Now they're angry, and have the tools to fight backThose whom the gods wish to destroy they first give access to Midjourney, a text-to-graphics generative AI" that is all the rage. It's engagingly simple to use: type in a text prompt describing a kind of image you'd like it to generate, and up comes a set of images that you couldn't ever have produced yourself. For example: An image of cat looking at it and on top of the world', in the style of cyberpunk futurism, bright red background, light cyan, edgy street art, bold, colourful portraits, use of screen tones, dark proportions, modular" and it will happily oblige with endless facility.Welcome to a good way to waste most of a working day. Many people think it's magical, which in a sense it is, at least as the magician Robert Neale portrayed it: a unique art form in which the magician creates elaborate mysteries during a performance, leaving the spectator baffled about how it was done. But if the spectator somehow manages to discover how the trick was done, then the magic disappears. Continue reading...
Today's poem-writing AI has ancestry in punch-card machines, trundling robots and godlike gaming enginesIn the winter of 1958, a 30-year-old psychologist named Frank Rosenblatt was en route from Cornell University to the Office of Naval Research in Washington DC when he stopped for coffee with a journalist.Rosenblatt had unveiled a remarkable invention that, in the nascent days of computing, created quite a stir. It was, he declared, the first machine which is capable of having an original idea". Continue reading...
The French photographer on an inspired, instinctive moment on a street in PortugalThat fraction of a second in which everything happens at once? That's what this photo is all about," Stephane Arnaud says. The global photo editor-in-chief for Agence France-Presse was in the Portuguese city of Coimbra for work, walking up a whitewashed street, when his eye was drawn to the red central caps on this car's wheels.They were the only brightly coloured element on the whole street," he says. But just as I reached the car, this woman appeared, in her red coat." Continue reading...
I hadn't ever had cause to think about how manipulated online content could impact my life. Then, one winter morning, someone knocked at my door ... Helen Mort's experiences form the subject of a new Guardian documentary, My Blonde GF. Watch it hereThere was an insistent knock at the door. This in itself was startling - it was the winter of 2020 and we hadn't yet returned to socialising indoors after lockdown. I wasn't expecting visitors. When I answered, I was surprised to see a male acquaintance of mine. He said he needed to speak to me. I knew it was something unprecedented because he asked to come in. He told me to sit down. That's when the adrenaline started coursing through me - people only suggest that when they're about to deliver bad news. My two-year-old son was at nursery and my first instinct was that something terrible must have happened to him. I could feel my heart thundering in my ribcage.I don't remember the exact words my friend used. But I can recall the gist of it and his obvious discomfort. What he told me was stranger than I could ever have imagined. He said that he had encountered images of me on a porn site: manipulated, faked images, my face on other bodies, galleries of pictures uploaded by someone who claimed to be my boyfriend. I didn't know how to react. I had my arms very close to my sides and I was gripping the edge of the sofa. I was utterly confused - I'd never shared any intimate photo of myself with anyone. How had I ended up in DIY porn? Continue reading...
Longtime Sonic caretaker Takashi Iizuka talks about new game Sonic Superstars, perfecting the platformer, and the blue blur's longstanding rivalry with MarioFor the first time since 1992, this month we have seen the release of a new Sonic the Hedgehog game and a new Mario game. The sass-spouting hedgehog has also enjoyed a new lease of life on the big screen, thanks to Hollywood blockbusters starring Idris Elba and Jim Carrey. But on the games front, even as Mario leaped and sprinted his way gracefully across decades of brilliant adventures, Sonic's appearances since his 1990s heyday have been ... mixed. From a misjudged sword-wielding Sonic on the Wii to the baffling adventures of Sonic the Werehog in 2008's Sonic Unleashed, the poor old hedgehog stumbled and fell into something of a midlife crisis.Like all struggling artists trying to recapture their former glory, Sonic's caretakers have taken their hero back to his roots. With their new release, Sonic Superstars, Sega has rejected the sprawling open-world freedom of last year's Sonic Frontiers and returned to the side-scrolling of old. And who better to help rediscover the unbridled joy of the blue blur than designer Takashi Iizuka, one of the creative leads on such beloved entries as Sonic 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure 1 and 2. Continue reading...
Fans of the video game and TV show can scare themselves silly in a live-action haunted house' spin-off at Universal Studios Florida theme park. Co-creator Neil Druckmann takes us on a tourThe Last of Us, we can confidently claim, is the most successful video game adaptation ever. Not only is the game accepted as one of the greatest ever made, but this year's big-budget HBO TV adaptation, starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, has been decorated with awards. It was HBO's second-biggest premiere since 2010, going on to average 32 million viewers an episode.Its latest adaptation achievement? A live-action haunted house for Universal Studios' annual Halloween Horror Nights. Now in the event's 32nd year of scares, and arguably the world's premier event for horror fans, spooky season sees Universal theme parks transform into horror shows after dark - with experiences based on recognisable franchises, such as Stranger Things and The Exorcist: Believer, as well as original concepts. Continue reading...
Alphabet, Google's parent company, reports stronger than expected overall revenue but stock falls in after-hours tradingGoogle is doing well, but not well enough for investors. On Tuesday, parent company Alphabet reported stronger-than-expected overall revenue for the quarter but missed analyst expectations in its closely watched Google Cloud business.Alphabet stock fell in after-hours trading despite strong third-quarter earnings announced on Tuesday following months of modest growth. It reported third-quarter revenue of $76.69bn, up 11% year over year and above analyst predictions of $75.9bn. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian