Technology | The Guardian

Senior Tories say ministers not holding China to account after Beijing targeted elections watchdog and politiciansTory MPs have urged ministers to take a tougher approach towards China after the security services confirmed Beijing-backed hackers were responsible for a cyber-attack targeting the UK elections watchdog and a surveillance operation on British politicians.The Chinese ambassador will be summoned to explain his country's actions, which resulted in Beijing allegedly accessing the personal details of about 40 million voters, held by the Electoral Commission. Continue reading...

Deputy PM says international partners, including the US, will also be making statements today about similar Chinese cyber-attacks. This live blog is closed

Exclusive: Warning came at party's first public meeting with Chinese government since Keir Starmer became Labour leaderLabour has warned China that it will respond to any interference in UK democracy after the government announced fresh sanctions against hackers linked to Beijing.The warning came at the party's first public meeting with the Chinese government since Keir Starmer became Labour leader. Continue reading...

Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has said Chinese state-affiliated actors have been involved in two cyber-attacks on the UK, including the hacking of the Electoral Commission, and attacks aimed at parliamentarians. Dowden said the Foreign Office would summon China's ambassador to account for its actions

Center for Countering Digital Hate has chronicled rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X since Musk's acquisitionA judge in California on Monday dismissed the tech billionaire Elon Musk's lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit that has published reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X, formerly Twitter, since Musk's acquisition.The case was dismissed in accordance with the state's anti-Slapp law, which forbids nuisance lawsuits intended to punish the exercise of free speech. Continue reading...

Former Tory leader says China should be labelled a threat to UK security after alleged cyber-attackIain Duncan Smith has said he was impersonated by a pro-China wolf warrior" and has called for the country to be labelled a threat to UK security.The former Tory leader said on Monday that the wolf warrior", a term used for combative proponents of the Chinese government, had impersonated him and sent emails to politicians around the world suggesting he had changed his views about Beijing. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak has restated the government's view that China represents an 'epoch-defining challenge', and said the UK has 'very strong' abilities to resist cyber-attacks. On a visit to Barrow-in-Furness, the prime minister said: 'When it comes to cyber, we have the National Cyber Security Centre, which is world leading. Indeed, when I'm out and about across the world, other leaders want to learn and talk to us because they believe that our capabilities in this country are very strong'

San Jose invited tech companies to mount cameras on a vehicle in what appears to be first-of-its-kind experimentFor the last several months, a city at the heart of Silicon Valley has been training artificial intelligence to recognize tents and cars with people living inside in what experts believe is the first experiment of its kind in the United States.Last July, San Jose issued an open invitation to technology companies to mount cameras on a municipal vehicle that began periodically driving through the city's district 10 in December, collecting footage of the streets and public spaces. The images are fed into computer vision software and used to train the companies' algorithms to detect the unwanted objects, according to interviews and documents the Guardian obtained through public records requests. Continue reading...

As deputy PM expected to impose sanctions, head of international alliance says ministers have taken years to respondThe UK government has been too slow to respond to cyber-attacks by China, the head of an international group of parliamentarians focusing on the issue has said, ahead of expected new British sanctions against Beijing.Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, is expected to announce the sanctions in the Commons on Monday, after what the UK says have been cyber-attacks against MPs and peers, as well as one targeting the Electoral Commission in which Beijing allegedly accessed the personal details of about 40 million voters. Continue reading...

In part eight of our series exploring myths surrounding EVs, we examine whether they will break our infrastructure

Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden to update MPs on cyber-attacks by Beijing, some of whom may also have been targetsThe personal details of millions of voters are believed to have been accessed in an attack by China on Britain's democratic process, ministers will say.MPs and peers are thought to be among 43 people who the government looks set to confirm have been targeted by cyber-attacks backed by the Chinese state. The UK could impose sanctions on individuals believed to be involved in these acts of state-backed interference, one of which was a separate attack on the Electoral Commission in which Beijing accessed the personal details of about 40 million voters. Continue reading...

Claiming to have created the concept of online dating, Grindr has been described as a lifeline for users in some countries but also a crash course' in objectification

Many businesses restrict the forms of payment they will accept - that's shortsighted and foolishSplitting the bill with Venmo, paying with your Starbucks app, tap-and-go with your phones - how we pay for things has changed forever. But while our options have changed, and are still changing, some small business owners seem determined to either keep us counting bills or jump feet first into their idea of the future.Case in point from my home town: the owner of the restaurant in South Philadelphia who doesn't accept credit cards" and instead forces their customers to use an ATM machine which - conveniently - charges a $4.50 fee to withdraw cash. Everyone has to do this because no one carries cash these days. Continue reading...

Those born after 1995, argues Jonathan Haidt in his new book, were the first people in history to go through puberty with a portal to an alternative universe in their pockets - and the toll this has taken on their wellbeing has been devastatingSuppose that when your first child turned nine, a visionary billionaire whom you'd never met chose her to join the first permanent human settlement on Mars. Unbeknown to you, she had signed herself up for the mission because she loves outer space, and, besides, all of her friends have signed up. She begs you to let her go.You hear her desire, so before saying no, you agree at least to learn more. You learn that the reason they're recruiting children is because they will better adapt to the unusual conditions of Mars than adults. If children go through puberty and its associated growth spurt on Mars, their bodies will be permanently tailored to it, unlike settlers who come over as adults. Continue reading...

Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden is expected to inform parliament on Monday of the attacksChina has targeted a group of MPs and peers at Westminster in a string of cyber-attacks, it has been reported.On Monday, the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, is expected to inform parliament of the attacks. Continue reading...

Young people have been made to fear an outside world that is actually safer than the one they're exposed to onlineNo, the kids are NOT alright. And as our future depends on them, we have to do something about it.This week the US surgeon general, Dr Vivek Murthy, did democracy a great favour by stating what surely must have been obvious to literally everyone for some time: social media is negatively affecting the mental health of teens. Continue reading...

Tax revenues from Silicon Valley giants have made the republic wealthy on paper, but housing and healthcare crises persistIn 1956, a chap named TK Ken" Whitaker, an Irish civil servant who had trained as an economist, was appointed permanent secretary of the finance department in Dublin at the relatively young age of 39. From his vantage point at the top of his country's treasury, the view was bleak. The Irish republic was, economically and socially, in deep trouble. It had no natural resources, very little industry and was mired in a deep depression. Inflation and unemployment were high. Ireland's main export was its young people, who were fleeing in thousands every year, seeking work and better lives elsewhere. The proud dream of Irish independence had produced a poor, priest-ridden statelet on the brink of failure.Whitaker immediately put together a team of younger officials who did a critical analysis of the country's economic failings and came up with a set of policies for rescuing it. The resulting report, entitled First Programme for Economic Expansion, was published in November 1958, and after Sean Lemass was elected taoiseach (prime minister) in 1959, it became Ireland's strategy for survival. Continue reading...

GDC 2024 catered to the frustrated and those out of work, with cheaper tickets and a group screaming sessionDespite the sunny spring skies in San Francisco this week, the mood among nearly 30,000 video game industry professionals was gloomy as they descended upon the city for the yearly Game Developers Conference (GDC). Some were so frustrated with the state of affairs in their business that they organized a group screaming session in a park.Those of us who have a job and can afford to be here are going through the motions and trying to have a good time," said Maxi Molina, a game developer attending the event from Spain. But the vibe is rancid in the industry right now." Continue reading...

The former CEO of FTX, once a king of cryptocurrency, saw a swift reversal of his fortunes starting in November 2022In a downtown Manhattan courtroom on the morning of 28 March, tech wunderkind turned fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, unrepentant even after trial and conviction, will finally learn his fate.Bankman-Fried, who founded the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was found guilty on 2 November 2023 of seven counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. Continue reading...

The pride and innocence' of the photographer's young son and niece are captured in this wedding day imageIt's surprising to Craig Atkinson that a decade has passed since he took this photograph. His eldest son Oscar stands to the left of the frame, his niece Emily to the right. Back then, they were five and four, excited young children preparing for the day'sfestivities.We were at a Chinese wedding at Tatton Hall in Cheshire; it was early autumn and Oscar and my other son, Hugo, two, who is in the centre, looking at his iPad, were pageboys. Hugo isstanding with my sister-in-law, Jade. It makes me feel nostalgic and sentimental." Continue reading...

The criminal trial over the $11bn sale of Autonomy to HP saw prosecutors calling him Dr Lynch' - and defense using Mike'At the height of his career, Mike Lynch - once the UK's leading tech entrepreneur, hailed as Britain's Bill Gates" - sold his software firm to a Silicon Valley giant in an $11bn (8.6bn) deal. Last Monday, more than a dozen years later, that deal became the centrepiece of a trial in San Francisco.Lynch has been charged with 16 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy by the US authorities, who claim that Hewlett-Packard's troubled acquisition of Lynch's Autonomy was built on lies. If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in jail. He has pleaded not guilty. Continue reading...

Court documents and interviews detail the products' role in alleged exploitation - and how some payments go undetectedWhen police in Pennsylvania arrested 29-year-old Jennifer Louise Whelan in November 2022, they charged her with dozens of counts of serious crimes, including sex trafficking and indecent assault of three young children.One month earlier, police said they had discovered Whelan was using three children as young as six, all in her care, to produce child sex abuse material. She was allegedly selling and sending videos and photos to a customer over Facebook Messenger. She pleaded not guilty. Continue reading...

Real-world rollercoaster designers and the game's creator, Chris Sawyer, reflect on the impact of the primitive-looking theme park sim that became a late 90s iconI remember I would rush home from school just to play RollerCoaster Tycoon," recalls John Burton, a senior creative lead at Merlin Entertainments (the owner of UK-based theme parks including Alton Towers, Chessington World of Adventures, and Legoland Windsor) and the man designing the forthcoming 236ft (72-metre) drop Hyperia rollercoaster at Thorpe Park. I would then go to sleep dreaming I could become the next Walt Disney."When he reflects on the game, the adult Burton speaks with the excitement of a teenager on a sugar high. I learned so much about how rollercoaster systems work with their block zones, or even the little tricks of the trade at theme parks like adding side queues and strategically placed toilets," he continues, confirming my suspicion that the Jumanji-themed jungle world he helped to design for Chessington has what he calls subconscious similarities" to the classic PC game's Jolly Jungle scenario. If I have to travel to a theme park abroad for work, I still load up the original game on the plane and sketch out ideas. I never really stopped playing." Continue reading...

Coffee chain appears willing to come to the table, which could mean good news for Trader Joe's, Amazon and REI workersFor more than two years Starbucks has fought fiercely against unionization. Now the company appears willing to come to the bargaining table.Starbucks and its union made a surprise joint announcement in late February: they had agreed to seek a constructive path forward" on the future of organizing and collective bargaining". Continue reading...

Company stock price climbed nearly 70% from its IPO, with Conde Nast's parent company standing to make nearly $1.4bnSocial media platform Reddit's (RDDT.N) shares ended their first day of trading in New York up 48%, signaling that investor appetite for initial public offerings of promising yet loss-making companies could be returning.Reddit shares closed 48% above initial offer prices in the company's trading debut on Thursday, valuing the social media platform at more than $9bn in a closely watched opening. The stock peaked at $57.80 a share, up 70%, before dropping to $50.44 to close the day. Continue reading...

The US government filed a sprawling antitrust case against Apple, alleging that the tech giant has illegally prevented competition by restricting access to its software and hardware. 'Apple has maintained its power not because of its superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior,' said US attorney general Merrick Garland

Justice department lawsuit alleges tech giant illegally prevented competition by restricting access to its software and hardwareThe US government on Thursday filed a sprawling antitrust case against Apple, alleging that the tech giant has illegally prevented competition by restricting access to its software and hardware. The case is a direct challenge to the company's core products and practices, including its iMessage service and how devices such as the iPhone and Apple Watch connect with one another.The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its control over the iPhone to engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct". The complaint states that the case is about freeing smartphone markets" from Apple's anticompetitive practices, arguing that the company has thwarted innovation to maintain market dominance. Continue reading...

Channel 4 News finds 255 British people including its presenter Cathy Newman to have been doctored into explicit imagesMore than 250 British celebrities are among the thousands of famous people who are victims of deepfake pornography, an investigation has found.A Channel 4 News analysis of the five most visited deepfake websites found almost 4,000 famous individuals were listed, of whom 255 were British. Continue reading...

It was the biggest online game in lockdown. Now the National Videogame Museum has collected players' experiences to find out what it meant to themToday is the first day of your new life on this pristine, lovely island. So, congratulations!" says Tom Nook, the benevolent tanuki landlord, a few minutes into Animal Crossing: New Horizons. (Nook is often besmirched online, but you can't argue that he's extremely welcoming.) Many players read this comforting message at a destabilising and frightening time in the real world: Animal Crossing: New Horizons came out on Nintendo Switch on 20 March 2020, a few days before the UK entered its first Covid lockdown.This was fortuitous timing. When we were all stuck at home, the game let us plant our native fruits, tend to our flowers and see what the town shop had on offer, repaying our extensive loans (interest-free, thankfully) to Tom Nook as a way of escaping the chaos and daily death tolls. We opened the gates to our islands and welcomed friends and strangers into our pristine little worlds. As real life crumbled, we started anew with bespectacled cats, sheep in clown's coats and rhinos who looked like cakes. Continue reading...

The Seinfeld star hears from female friends like Sally Field and Billie Jean King in the return of Wiser Than Me. Plus: five of the best paranormal podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDial F for Football

For decades, Eliezer Yudkowsky has been trying to warn the world about the dangers of AI. And now people are finally listening to him. But is it too late?You can read more from Alex Hern, the Guardian's UK tech editor, by signing up to his newsletter TechScape.The AI Does Not Hate You and The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy by Tom Chivers are available right now. Continue reading...

Noland Arbaugh, paralyzed after diving accident, received implant in January but experts caution that procedure is in early daysElon Musk's brain-chip startup Neuralink livestreamed its first patient implanted with a chip playing online chess.Noland Arbaugh, the 29-year-old patient who was paralyzed below the shoulders after a diving accident, was playing chess on his laptop and moving the cursor using the Neuralink device. Continue reading...

Platform to make its debut on New York stock exchange on Thursday with a market value of $6.4bnReddit will enter a new era as a publicly traded company with a market value of $6.4bn after the social media platform's initial public offering was priced at $34 per share.The price, announced late on Wednesday, came in at the top of the target range set by Reddit's investment bankers as they spent the past few weeks gauging investor demand for the stock. It sets the stage for Reddit's shares to begin trading Thursday on the New York stock exchange under the ticker symbol RDDT in the largest initial public offering by a social media company in years. Continue reading...

This wacky Japanese game leaves a lifelong impression on everyone who plays it, if only because they can't get its theme music out of their head Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereMy parents were somewhat sceptical of video games when I was growing up. I did have a SNES and then an N64 as a child, but I was allowed to play them only at weekends, so on Fridays I would come home from school and binge on Mario 64 with a huge pack of Haribo Tangfastics. My gaming horizons didn't broaden until I was a teenager, when I started earning enough of my own money to buy myself a PlayStation 2 and I started hanging out on forums with other nerds whose gaming worlds were significantly broader than mine.And the PlayStation 2 had some weird games. The N64 did to an extent - I nurture an enduring fondness for Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon - but not like Sony's console. There was Dark Cloud and Monster Hunter, Yakuza and Mojib-Ribbon, God Hand and kami and Ribbit King, which is still, as far as I know, the only game about frolf (frog golf). Continue reading...

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox One, PC; Capcom

Reddit's IPO is worrying for users - big money has a nasty habit of ruining our favourite sitesLike many people who were laid off and house-bound during the Covid lockdowns, I spent an unfathomable amount of time learning an arcane skill that in no way would bolster my CV. Bookbinding was a hobby many of my friends and family were surprised I'd taken up - I wasn't particularly skilled with my hands, and until then my life had largely revolved around technology and the internet.I spent hours learning complicated stitching techniques, the chemical composition of adhesives, and how to determine by touch where paper was made. All of my learning took place on a subreddit - a kind of bulletin board or forum on the website Reddit - called r/bookbinding, where a small online community of bookbinders would offer tips and advice on projects I was working on, completely free of charge. In my mind, it was as good as a pricey art school, providing a supportive, enthusiastic community that allowed me to learn the skill at my own pace - and without going bankrupt in the process.

Watchdog accuses US tech firm of not negotiating in good faith' with publishers over use of their contentGoogle has been fined 250m (213m) by French regulators for breaching an agreement over paying media companies for reproducing their content online.France's competition watchdog said on Wednesday that it was fining the US tech company for breaches linked to intellectual property rules related to news media publishers. The regulator also cited concerns about Google's AI service.Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report Continue reading...

Groups of drivers backed a bill setting minimum pay, but the two tech companies say it'd make riders' fees unsustainableUber and Lyft claim they will cease operating in the Minneapolis area in protest of a minimum pay ordinance that the city council voted to approve last week.The bill, to go into effect on 1 May, would establish a minimum pay of $1.40 per mile and $0.51 cents per minute for rideshare drivers, with a $5 per ride minimum. The city council voted to override the mayor's veto of the ordinance, prompting Uber and Lyft to threaten to leave the region in response. Continue reading...

British tech pioneer Mustafa Suleyman will be chief executive of organisation focusing on consumer products and research

US firm hopes to lead in artificial intelligence and other sectors - and has built a model that could control humanoid robotsThe chipmaker Nvidia has extended its lead in artificial intelligence with the unveiling of a new superchip", a quantum computing service, and a new suite of tools to help develop the ultimate sci-fi dream: general purpose humanoid robotics. Here we look at what the company is doing and what it might mean. Continue reading...

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC; Pieces Interactive

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A new proposal aims to bring greater oversight to AI development, from deepfakes and cheapfakes' to electoral misinformation, but it could highlight a divide between parties Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereThe politics of AI regulation became a little clearer this weekend, after an influential Labour thinktank laid out its framework for how the party should approach the topic in its manifesto.From our story:The policy paper, produced by the centre-left Labour Together thinktank, proposes a legal ban on dedicated nudification tools that allow users to generate explicit content by uploading images of real people.It would also create an obligation for developers of general-purpose AI tools and web hosting companies to take reasonable steps to ensure they are not involved in the production of such images, or other harmful deepfakes. Continue reading...

Autonomy co-founder accused of intimidating people who raised concerns before 2011 HP takeover and inflating software firm salesThe British entrepreneur Mike Lynch will return to court in San Francisco on Tuesday after prosecutors used the opening day of his criminal trial to paint him as a dominating, controlling, intimidating boss" who orchestrated a huge fraud.Lynch, co-founder of the UK software company Autonomy, stands accused of artificially inflating the software firm's sales; misleading auditors, analysts and regulators; and intimidating people who raised concerns before its blockbuster takeover by Hewlett-Packard (HP) in 2011. Continue reading...

Founder of Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner, preaches superiority of European ethnic groups and was banned from Twitter in 2020A far-right Austrian who received donations from and communicated with the Christchurch terrorist before the 2019 attack has had his X account restored, with X owner Elon Musk replying to one of his tweets.The founder of the so-called Identitarian Movement, Martin Sellner, who preaches the superiority of European ethnic groups, was banned from Twitter in 2020 under the former management along with dozens of other accounts linked to the movement amid criticism over the platform's handling of extremist content.Sign up for Guardian Australia's free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation violate first amendmentThe supreme court heard oral arguments on Monday in a case that could upend the federal government's relationship with social media companies and with lies online. Plaintiffs in Murthy v Missouri argue that White House requests to take down coronavirus misinformation on Twitter and Facebook constitute illegal censorship in violation the first amendment.The arguments began with Brian Fletcher, the principal deputy solicitor general of the justice department, making an argument that none of the government's communications crossed the line from persuasion into coercion. He also pushed back against descriptions of events in lower court rulings, stating that they were misleading or included quotations taken out of context. Continue reading...

Shigeichi Negishi's invention invites us to cast off humility and take a shot at singing stardom. His legacy will be credited - and blamed - for us living out our popstar fantasiesReceived wisdom holds that haughty music critics, grinding our axes on fans' beloved pop stars, are nothing more than failed musicians. This has always struck me as slander - not of critics, who certainly can be bitter and mean, but of supposedly failed musicians. How, after all, does one fail at music? To suggest success rides on certain technicalities, like talent or a career, gravely underestimates music's draw, and nowhere is the lie more spectacularly exposed than in karaoke.Here is an arena of musical greatness in which incompetence is the house style. Delusions of grandeur, haywire pitch, weird stage presence? Join the party. On that valorising little stage, failed musician" becomes the most entertaining role in the business. Continue reading...

Every ransom paid gives criminals the message that cyber-attacks work and that it's worth doing again, says Felicity Oswald of the National Cyber Security CentreThe British Library should be applauded for its refusal to pay the cybercriminals who targeted it last year (Ransomware groups warned there is no money in attacking British state, 12 March). At the National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ, we have long shared the view of our law enforcement partners that paying ransoms should not be condoned, encouraged or endorsed. Doing so does not guarantee a return of access to data or computers, and in fact makes it more likely that the victim will be targeted in future.Every ransom that is paid gives criminals the message that attacks work and that it's worth doing again. We are committed to working with our partners - including internationally through the Counter Ransomware Initiative - to make the UK the hardestpossible target for ransomware attacks. But we cannot do this in isolation. By responding to its attack in the transparent way that it has, the library has set a great example. Weencourage all organisations toread its instructive review.

Exclusive: Lack of online skills and access creates digital divide that amplifies other exclusions, says reportAlmost half of UK families with children lack the online skills or access to devices, data and broadband required to participate in today's digital society, research shows, with an expert saying this divide is an amplifier of other exclusions".Research shared exclusively with the Guardian found that 45% of households with children did not meet the threshold. Families from low socioeconomic backgrounds in deprived areas and households outside London were among those who were less likely to meet it. Households from minority ethnic backgrounds and those with disabled parents were twice as likely to fall below it. Continue reading...

Owen Diaz sued the carmarker in 2017, and though no details are available earlier settlement numbers ranged from $3.2m to $137mTesla has settled with a former employee in a long-running discrimination case that drew attention to the electric vehicle maker's treatment of people of color.Owen Diaz, who was awarded nearly $3.2m by a federal jury last April, reached a final, binding settlement agreement that fully resolves all claims", according to a document filed Friday with the US district court in San Francisco. Continue reading...