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...
The X owner has no time for a democratic experiment dedicated to knowledge. He would rather yell puerile jokes' into the etherJust before the 2017 UK general election, I was introduced to the distinction between the good internet and the bad internet, democratically speaking. First, I had to learn what civic tech" meant. In the broadest possible terms, it's using online platforms to do socially useful things, rather than sell things, buy things or whip each other into an unspeakable fury about stuff that we didn't care about five minutes ago.The civic tech expert Ed Saperia used as his parable the difference between Wikipedia and Facebook. Jimmy Wales's big experiment, which started life in 1999 as Nupedia, has created an open-source collection of human knowledge in hundreds of languages that is essentially trustworthy. If a mistake creeps in through the gates of human generosity, it gets corrected in the same way. If malicious actors try to slander their foes, the punishment is not cancellation, but more like lifelong ridicule, which is proportionate, given how long a slanderous person is likely to carry on doing ridiculous things. In other words, it is the best of humanity, all natural desire to help each other with cross-pollinated knowledge concentrated in one place. Continue reading...
by Jon Ungoed-Thomas and Nonyelum Anigbo on (#6FRZJ)
Meeting in Manchester is part of worldwide action - including Black Friday protests - over tax, market abuse and workers' rightsIt was about 3am on a night shift in May last year when Amazon worker Christine Manno tried to retrieve a box stacked high in the warehouse in St Peters, Missouri. She was 30ft in the air, strapped to a harness and standing on the edge of the raised platform of a truck.She was recovering from operations on her injured hands for carpal tunnel syndrome, a neurological disorder, and the weight of the box shot pains through her neck and back. It was like an electric shock," she said. Continue reading...
It was the photographer's birthday, and this image was a giftFrederic Murarotto remembers the day he took this shot because it was his birthday. He was headed to a meeting via the Paris Metro and just ahead of him stood this man, waiting for the next train. I was drawn to the way his bright case contrasted with the old, dim environment. It adds an almost anachronistic side, as if we are just outside reality, or perhaps he is from another era."Murarotto took the man's photograph on his iPhone 13 Pro without making his presence felt. What photographer wouldn't dream of a camera that could be so discreet," he asks, almost invisible, so as not to disturb the scene? Sometimes I like to imagine that, in the future, we will be able to take photos with our eyes, or with the blink of an eye. But I wonder: what would that mean for photographers, those who know how to capture a moment, a look?" he asks. Continue reading...
Young app seems to have few viral falsehoods, perhaps because it's still small and used differently from competitorsWhen Meta launched Threads, its Instagram-linked Twitter clone, in July, the company promised a kinder and friendlier experience than the divisive content and extremism that often dominate other social networks. Now, as social media users seek out information on the Israel-Hamas war, the young app is facing its first test amid the rampant misinformation emerging from the conflict.On Telegram and X, previously known as Twitter, repurposed videos, doctored photos and manipulated media falsely claiming to document the war have circulated widely. The quantity of these posts, and scale of their reach, have alarmed fact-checkers, disinformation monitors and extremism experts, who have criticized these social networks for allowing misinformation to flourish. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Lauren O'Neill on (#6FGJ8)
In this week's newsletter: The actor stars in Koreaboo, an escapist drama for fans of romance, K-pop and new beginnings. Plus: five of the best podcasts about untold life stories Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereShaun Keaveny's Daily Grind
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6FFHK)
Lighter, brighter, with titanium sides, USB-C and new action button keep Apple top of the pileApple's iPhone 15 Pro might be overshadowed by its larger maxed-out sibling this year, but the cheaper of the pro" iPhones still has one big advantage: a more pocketable size.The 15 Pro has had a 100 price cut over last year's model starting at 999 (1,199/$999/A$1,849), widening the gulf between it and the 1,199 Pro Max. It still isn't cheap, but is roughly in line with competing high-end phones in 2023.Screen: 6.1in Super Retina XDR (OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A17 ProRAM: 8GBStorage: 128, 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: iOS 17Camera: 48MP main, 12MP UW and 12MP 3x zoom, 12MP front-facing cameraConnectivity: 5G, wifi 6E, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 146.6 x 70.6 x 8.25mmWeight: 187g Continue reading...
Failing to moderate content such as fake news could incur fine of 6% of X revenues or EU blackout under new lawsThe EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk over the alleged disinformation about the Hamas attack on Israel, including fake news and repurposed old images", on X, which was formerly known as Twitter.The letter arrives less than two months after sweeping new laws regulating content on social media seen in the EU came into force under the Digital Services Act. Continue reading...
GMB union says online retailer's planned wage rise is little comfort to staff facing poverty pay'More than 1,000 Amazon workers at the online retailer's Coventry warehouse are to go on strike for four days next month, including on the busy Black Friday sales day.The action was announced as the GMB union said the company must urgently reconsider its priorities", denouncing a planned pay rise for UK workers announced this week as little comfort to the thousands of Amazon workers facing poverty pay, unsafe working conditions and workplace surveillance". Continue reading...
The music, screen and tech worlds will converge for the festival's first staging outside the US - but tickets are pricey for an event that's hard to get a handle on
Critics say decision by Elon Musk-owned company is extremely concerning' ahead of Australia's Indigenous voice to parliament referendumX, the company formerly known as Twitter, has removed the ability for people to report a tweet for containing misleading information just weeks before a referendum on an Indigenous voice to parliament in Australia.Since 2021, users on X in countries including the US, Australia and South Korea had been able to flag tweets that they believed contained misleading information for review by staff at the company - separate to other processes the company has in place to report abuse or hate speech. Continue reading...
Musk is told his platform, now known as X, must comply with new laws designed to combat fake news and Russian propagandaThe EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk to comply with sweeping new laws on fake news and Russian propaganda, after X - formerly known as Twitter - was found to have the highest ratio of disinformation posts of all large social media platforms.The report analysed the ratio of disinformation for a new report laying bare for the first time the scale of fake news on social media across the EU, with millions of fake accounts removed by TikTok and LinkedIn. Continue reading...
Legal firm had said Real World Portal encouraged misogyny and there was evidence to suggest it is an illegal pyramid schemeApple has withdrawn an app created by Andrew Tate after accusations that it encouraged misogyny and could be an illegal pyramid scheme.Tate created the app, Real World Portal, after the closure of his Hustler's University", which was an online academy for his fans, promising to assist them in making thousands of pounds while helping Tate's videos on social media, which have been described as misogynistic, to go viral. Continue reading...
by Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent on (#6EWP9)
Charles Randell says some of the exchanges the FCA was pressed to allow to trade in the UK are now being investigated in the USThe UK's financial watchdog came under political pressure" to welcome crypto firms into the British market, its former chairman has said.Charles Randell, who stepped down as chairman of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the spring, said it was an example of the kind of influence that elected politicians have tried to exert on independent regulators. Continue reading...
The photographer had given up on his quest to capture a poetic moment of city life when he came across a solitary figureBudapest has three train stations that, between them, can take you to Vienna, Warsaw, Zurich, Berlin and Bucharest (to name but a few). Nyugati Palyaudvar is Hungary's busiest station, with its peaked glass facade bookended by ornate domed buildings. Inside, cafes and commuters jostle for space, but nearby lies a closed-up line, almost derelict.Tamas Andok had been searching on foot with his camera for an entire day for peculiar, intimate, poetic moments of city life", and was on his way home. In fact, he'd put his camera away when he came across this man. It was an early October evening, and Andok remembers it being rather chilly. Continue reading...
Tech giant continued to collect and store a user's location data' even if users turned off their location history, according to suitGoogle will pay $93m to settle accusations of misleading consumers on how and when their location information was being tracked and stored, a considerable payout for the tech giant that following a years-long investigation into its data practices.The settlement stems from a lawsuit brought by the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, that concluded the company misled consumers into believing they had more control over their location information than they actually did. Continue reading...
Live shows should allow for self-expression, catharsis and abandon. It's the boorishness and selfishness that need to stopEarlier this week, Lucy May Walker, a singer-songwriter from Redditch, posted a series of modest proposals for behaviour at concerts under the title Gig Etiquette. The four subheadings for her guidelines were: 1. Don't Talk During the Show; 2. Be in the Moment; 3. The Audience Have Not Paid to See You; and 4. Have An Amazing Time. The former busker, who had hitherto received a relatively low level of attention despite being championed by Radio 2's Jeremy Vine, suddenly found herself at the centre of what would, until recently, have been called a Twitterstorm.Walker's post went viral, with more than 1.6m views. For some, the fault was the singer's own. You should just concentrate on your act," she was told. Her attitude, it was suggested, was condescending". Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Hollie Richardso on (#6ER64)
In this week's newsletter: The Guardian's own pop culture podcast is back again every Thursday to break down the latest in entertainment. Plus: five of the best surprise hit podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Happiness Lab x Sesame Street
The government is about to award a 480m contract to build a vast new database of patient data. But if people don't trust it, they'll opt out - I know, because I felt I had toLast December, I had an abortion. Most unwanted pregnancies set a panic-timer ticking, but I was almost counting down the seconds until I had to catch a flight from London, where I live, to Texas, where I grew up, and where the provision of abortion care was recently made a felony. You bleed for a while after most abortions, and I was still bleeding when I boarded the plane home for Christmas.Going to Texas so soon after the procedure made me consider where the record of my abortion - my health data - would end up. When I phoned an abortion clinic in late November to book an appointment, one of the first questions staff asked was: May we share a record of your treatment with your GP?" Continue reading...
Bill Gates, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman and others gathered for one of the most important conversations of the year'A delegation of top tech leaders including Sundar Pichai, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman convened in Washington on Wednesday for a closed-door meeting with US senators to discuss the rise of artificial intelligence and how it should be regulated.The discussion, billed as an AI safety forum", is one of several meetings between Silicon Valley, researchers, labor leaders and government and is taking on fresh urgency with the US elections looming and the rapid pace of AI advancement already affecting people's lives and work. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Andrew Roth on (#6EQDB)
Galina Timchenko, head of media outlet declared undesirable' by Moscow, targeted in February while living in BerlinAn award-winning Russian journalist living in exile in Europe was hacked using Israeli spyware made by NSO Group, according to a joint investigation by the Citizen Lab and Access Now.Galina Timchenko was hacked on or around 10 February, at a time when she was based in Berlin, Germany, marking the first time that an independent Russian journalist - whose media outlet has been targeted by Moscow and declared an undesirable organisation" - is known to have been hacked with spyware. Continue reading...
Walter Isaacson's insight-free doorstop makes at least one thing clear: the richest man in the world has a lot of growing up to doWho or what is to blame for Elon Musk? Famed biographer of intellectually muscular men Walter Isaacson's dull, insight-free doorstop of a book casts a wide but porous net in search of an answer. Throughout the tome, Musk's confidantes, co-workers, ex-wives and girlfriends present a DSM-5's worth of psychiatric and other theories for the demon moods" that darken the lives of his subordinates, and increasingly the rest of us, among them bipolar disorder, OCD, and the form of autism formerly known as Asperger's. But the idea that any of these conditions are what makes Musk an asshole" (another frequently used descriptor of him in the book), while also making him successful in his many pursuits, is an insult to all those affected by them who manage to change the world without leaving a trail of wounded people, failing social networks and general despair behind them. The answer, then, must lie elsewhere.There's a lot to work with here, but it doesn't make reading this book any easier. Isaacson comes from the his eyes lit up" school of cliched writing, the rest of his prose workmanlike bordering on AI. I drove my espresso machine hard into the night to survive both craft and subject matter. It feels as though, for instance, there are hundreds of pages from start to finish relaying the same scene: Musk trying to reduce the cost of various mundane objects so that he can make more money and fulfil his dream of moving himself (and possibly the lot of us) to Mars, where one or two examples would have been enough. To his credit, Isaacson is a master at chapter breaks, pausing the narrative when one of Musk's rockets explodes or he gets someone pregnant, and then rewarding the reader with a series of photographs that assuages the boredom until the next descent into his protagonist's wild but oddly predictable life. Again, it's not all the author's fault. To go from Einstein to Musk in only five volumes is surely an indication that humanity isn't sending Isaacson its best. Continue reading...
US Department of Justice questions compliance with FTC order on data security and privacy practicesElon Musk's takeover of Twitter created a chaotic environment" at the social media platform that may have violated a government order requiring an overhaul of its data security and privacy practices, according to a court filing.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) alleged in a legal filing on Tuesday that depositions from former employees at Twitter, now rebranded X, raised serious questions" about whether the company was complying with an order imposed by the consumer and competition watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Continue reading...
Characters' messages are often so tiny you're left squinting at the screen, or shown so fast it's like peering over a stranger's shoulder on the bus. Television has a major texting problemIt was when I was crouched on all fours in front of my television, squinting at the screen with my head tilted, that I realised TV might have a texting problem.My partner and I were bingeing the new season of Rose Matafeo's BBC romcom Starstruck - a solid four stars from us - but on-off lovers Jessie and Tom would insist on playing out their situationship via text. We kept having to rewind, freeze-frame and approach the screen to read them. OK, we are of a certain age", but I shudder to imagine how the properly elderly or vision-impaired coped. Continue reading...
US makes case Google leveraged power and wealth to strangle competition, spending billions on deals with Apple and SamsungThe watershed antitrust trial pitting the US government against Google began on Tuesday in a Washington district court, as the government started to argue its case that the tech giant illegally abused its power to monopolize internet search. The case is the biggest test of antitrust law in decades and the first such case against Google to go to trial in the US.Big tech companies and regulators are closely watching the trial, which could force a shift in how the industry is allowed to operate. Its outcome could reshape how the public accesses and interacts with the internet, or embolden Google to pursue an even tighter grip on the market. Continue reading...
Unity announces a Runtime Fee', which will charge developers each time a game using the engine is downloadedThe company behind the Unity Engine, one of the major game development tools used by independent studios, has announced a controversial new fee. Starting from 1 January, Unity will charge developers each time a game using the engine is downloaded.The charge will begin when sales reach a threshold of $200,000 in revenue over 12 months and 200,000 total installs. Charges will vary depending on the license the developer has with Unity, but will be as high as $0.20 per install. Continue reading...
Widespread access to world's richest man allowed biographer Walter Isaacson to detail a number of illuminating anecdotesA new biography of Elon Musk was published on Tuesday and contains colourful details of the life of the world's richest man.Musk afforded widespread access to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, the author of the bestselling biography of the Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and the book contains a series of illuminating anecdotes about Musk. Here are eight things we learned from the book. Continue reading...
In their attempts to mimic the video-sharing site's success, Facebook, YouTube and others might have signed their own death warrants Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the free newsletter hereIn the mid-2010s, social media was simple. Instagram was for your pictures, Twitter for your feelings and Facebook to see who from your past was getting engaged, married, pregnant, or divorced. This period was also one of relative bliss for tech companies: Facebook's active users were drastically increasing quarter over quarter, and Instagram had doubled its active users in just two years. Even Twitter, which had gone through a rough patch, was regaining its footing. Like all good things, it couldn't last.A Pew Research Center study found that, by 2022, teenagers had all but abandoned Facebook, significantly denting its cultural cachet. Instagram had similarly disillusioned its users, and Twitter, recently bought by Elon Musk and rebranded as X, doesn't seem to even know what its name is any more. Many apps that comfortably dominated the 2010s are meeting their reputational downfalls because they tried to compete with a new social media app - and failed. Turns out, no one - not even the US Congress - is a match for TikTok. After almost four years of tech companies vying for dominance over the app, it's time to call it: TikTok has won. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian