A year after a ‘historic’ victory in Staten Island, New York, hope for a wave of union victories is looking less momentousA year ago, Amazon workers in Staten Island, New York won a “historic” victory – overcoming a multimillion-dollar campaign by the multibillion-dollar corporation to win the right to organize Amazon’s first-ever union.A year on from that victory – which labor leaders had hoped would trigger a wave of union victories – is looking less momentous and another union election win at Amazon has remained elusive. Continue reading...
Cameras affixed on cars sent videos of customers and their property to the EV maker’s offices and spread ‘like wildfire’Tesla assures its millions of electric car owners that their privacy “is and will always be enormously important to us”. The cameras it builds into vehicles to assist driving, it notes on its website, are “designed from the ground up to protect your privacy”.But between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared via an internal messaging system sometimes highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras, according to interviews by Reuters with nine former employees. Continue reading...
Sales fall at world’s biggest memory chip maker amid decline in global demand for semiconductorsSamsung Electronics will cut back on chip production, as it faces a sharp decline in global demand for semiconductors that has sent prices plunging.The world’s biggest memory chip maker said it would make a “meaningful” cut to chip output after sales dropped sharply and it flagged a 96% drop in first-quarter profits, worse than expected. The fellow South Korean firm SK Hynix and Micron Technology of the US have also reduced production. Continue reading...
Half a century after its debut, the end of the combustion engine Golf is nigh – but it will always have a place in drivers’ heartsAfter nearly 50 years in production, the Golf Mark 8 will be the last combustion engine version of the VW Golf. For many drivers, it spells the end of an era. Here, Guardian readers share their memories of driving the vehicles in decades past. Continue reading...
Mainstream adoption of generative AI and conversational bots has left few spaces untouched, even religious communities“Write a sermon in the voice of a rabbi of about 1,000 words that relates the Torah portion Vayigash to intimacy and vulnerability. Cite Brené Brown’s scholarship on vulnerability.” That was the prompt Rabbi Joshua Franklin put in ChatGPT, the results of which he used to deliver a sermon to congregants of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in December 2022.The sermon the chatbot came up with spoke of Joseph, the son of Jacob and a prophet in the Abrahamic faiths. It quoted from a book by Brown, a professor who specializes on topics of intimacy, to define vulnerability as “the willingness to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome”. Being vulnerable could mean “we are able to form deeper, more meaningful bonds with those around us”, the chatbot wrote. Continue reading...
Bryan Caplan was skeptical after AI struggled on his midterm exam. But within months, it had aced the testThe economist Bryan Caplan was sure the artificial intelligence baked into ChatGPT wasn’t as smart as it was cracked up to be. The question: could the AI ace his undergraduate class’s 2022 midterm exam?Caplan, of George Mason University in Virginia, seemed in a good position to judge. He has made a name for himself by placing bets on a range of newsworthy topics, from Donald Trump’s electoral chances in 2016 to future US college attendance rates. And he nearly always wins, often by betting against predictions he views as hyperbolic. Continue reading...
‘Finfluencers’ to be asked to consult checklist before accepting deals for ‘get-rich-quick’ schemesThe UK financial and advertising regulators have warned social media influencers of the risks of promoting “get-rich-quick schemes” such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens to their followers.The Financial Conduct Authority and Advertising Standards Authority have launched a campaign to prevent content creators from marketing investment scams and risky financial products. Continue reading...
Play a cat trying to please its human, uncover pickup artists’ dark arts or find out how being pregnant feels at Now Play This in London, designed to make us look at video games differentlyOutside Somerset House this week, you might notice that two lampposts are blinking at each other. Unless you are fluent in Morse code, however, you probably won’t clock that they are performing Act II, Scene II of Romeo and Juliet. The installation by Geraint Edwards welcomes you to Now Play This, an experimental games festival, where you could also play a game about getting over a breakup by wielding a sword while riding a motorbike through a neon city, or listen to artist Laurence Young give a talk about getting his mother into the fantasy video game Elden Ring. Inside, attendees lounge around a digital fire, browsing books of love poetry.Now Play This – now in its ninth year at Somerset House – can be relied upon to bring people together in unexpected ways. It has hosted everything from giant ball mazes to outdoor playground games and a game about chucking fascists out of your garden. But this year’s theme, love, has created an especially open, even intimate atmosphere. On a giant arcade cabinet in the largest exhibition room, you can play Breakup Squad, a game about keeping your friend away from their toxic ex at a party; outside, you can play Triangulate, a puzzle game where three players are given random instructions (“point at someone with one leg; rotate slowly; hold hands with a different person”) and have to negotiate how to use their bodies to find a solution that works for everyone.Now Play This is at Somerset House, London, until 9 April Continue reading...
by Presented by Chanté Joseph, with Rhianna Pratchet on (#6AJ4M)
You don’t need to look far to see that gaming is everywhere with film versions of Tetris, Super Mario Bros and Dungeons & Dragons in cinemas this week. Chanté talks to Rhianna Pratchett, video game writer on Tomb Raider, Timi and Joey from The Nerd Council podcast and the Guardian’s video games editor Keza MacDonald about why it is dominatingSign up to the Guardian’s Documentaries newsletter Continue reading...
The second film adaptation of the phenomenally successful video game is a disappointment to rival the firstFilms or TV shows based on games don’t have to be terrible – as proved in various ways by Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and The Last of Us. Even The Angry Birds Movie wasn’t too bad. The trick is usually to make it look as if the game was based on the movie, rather than the other way round. But this much-trailed, much-hyped new animated feature is tedious and flat in all senses, a disappointment to match the live-action version in 1993. It’s visually bland in ways that reminded me of European knockoff animations and utterly inert in narrative terms, with a baffling lack of properly funny lines.It is of course based on the global video game phenomenon, born in the 80s, from Kyoto-based gaming giant Nintendo, with its wackily eccentric idea of Italian-American plumbers Mario and Luigi. They are called the Super Mario Bros, even though “Mario” is not their surname – like Dostoevsky inventing a videogame called The Brothers Dimitri. This movie revives the ancient and surreal quest undertaken by Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day), Brooklyn plumbers who only do the silly and borderline-offensive cod Italian voice for their cheesy TV ad. Continue reading...
When I couldn’t turn on the lights she told me there was ‘no account associated with this device’In December I came home and, as usual, shouted to Alexa to turn on the lights but was surprised when she responded that there was “no Amazon account associated with this device”. Frustrated and in the dark, I tried to log in, only for the app to confirm there was no account associated with my email.I have a disability that means I cannot make phone calls, so my husband used his account to seek help. Eventually, someone called us back but confirmed there was no account and told me to set up a new one. Continue reading...
Today influencers sell ideas about science and medicine as well as products. But the integrity on which their status rests, says the US author, is as unknowable as the algorithms that push their contentIn the early 00s, Emily Hund dreamed of a career as a journalist at a glossy fashion magazine. But after internships with New York media companies and having witnessed falling circulations and redundancies, she switched to studying one of the catalysts for these changes: social media and the influencers whose YouTube, TikTok and Instagram posts sell ideas, lifestyles and products to their followers. The influencer industry ranges from global stars such as the Kardashians to micro-influencers who post on niche interests. What they have in common is that they work with brands to promote or sell to an audience. Hund is now a research affiliate at Pennsylvania University’s Centre on Digital Culture and Society and her first book on influencers is published in the UK this month.How did social media take hold in people’s lives?
Just months after the FTX collapse, a US watchdog is suing Changpeng Zhao’s firm, the world’s biggest digital-asset market, over a slew of allegations that make jaw-dropping readingBinance is the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and a cornerstone of the $1tn digital asset market. It has 128 million customers, handles $65bn in daily trades and its commercial partners include Cristiano Ronaldo, Italy’s Lazio football team and TikTok megastar Khaby Lame. So when a US regulator announced last week it was suing Binance for “wilful evasion of US law”, it was a significant moment for a sector still reeling from the collapse of FTX.The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed the civil enforcement action in a federal court in Chicago, seeking punishments including fines and permanent trading bans. It is suing Binance’s Canadian founder and chief executive, Changpeng Zhao, and three entities that operate the Binance global trading platform over numerous alleged violations of its regulations and of the Commodity Exchange Act. Binance’s former chief compliance officer, Samuel Lim, is also being sued. Continue reading...
Measure is in place ‘until ChatGPT respects privacy’, says Italian Data Protection AuthorityItaly’s privacy watchdog has banned ChatGPT, after raising concerns about a recent data breach and the legal basis for using personal data to train the popular chatbot.The Italian Data Protection Authority described the move as atemporary measure “until ChatGPT respects privacy”. The watchdog said it was imposing an “immediate temporary limitation on the processing of Italian users’ data” by ChatGPT’s owner, the San Francisco-based OpenAI. Continue reading...
The statement has been revealed to have false signatures and researchers have condemned its use of their workA letter co-signed by Elon Musk and thousands of others demanding a pause in artificial intelligence research has created a firestorm, after the researchers cited in the letter condemned its use of their work, some signatories were revealed to be fake, and others backed out on their support.On 22 March more than 1,800 signatories – including Musk, the cognitive scientist Gary Marcus and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak – called for a six-month pause on the development of systems “more powerful” than that of GPT-4. Engineers from Amazon, DeepMind, Google, Meta and Microsoft also lent their support.Reuters contributed to this report Continue reading...
Our roundup of drama to watch at home includes a Big Night of Musicals, You Bury Me and James Earl Jones in King LearGame of Thrones stars Emilia Clarke and Indira Varma reunited for Jamie Lloyd’s typically bold and radical Chekhov production in the West End last year. It now joins the National Theatre at Home archive alongside the Donmar Warehouse’s Henry V, starring another GoT alumnus, Kit Harington. Continue reading...
Appeal judges uphold previous ruling, citing ‘implied threat’ in CEO’s tweet directed at Fremont employees who wanted to join unionA US appeals court has ruled that Elon Musk violated federal labour law by tweeting that employees of Tesla would lose stock options if they joined a union.The New Orleans-based 5th US circuit court of appeals upheld a decision by the US National Labor Relations Board that said the 2018 tweet amounted to an unlawful threat that could discourage unionising and ordered Musk to delete it. Continue reading...
Experts have sounded a warning on artificial intelligence as it becomes increasingly sophisticated and harder to detectGenerative AI – including large language models such as GPT-4, and image generators such as DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion – is advancing in a “storm of hype and fright”, as some commentators have observed.Recent advances in artificial intelligence have yielded warnings that the rapidly developing technology may result in “ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control”. Continue reading...
Chinese-owned firm caught in geopolitical standoff, with US lawmakers leading charge against itSitting at the heart of youth culture, TikTok is beloved of its more than 1 billion users worldwide.With a range of compelling content that extends from viral dances to comedy skits, cleaning hacks, BookTok, music and the Gen Z melancholy of the corecore trend, it is the app of the 21st century. Continue reading...
April dates come as GMB union prepares to test support for stoppages at five other sitesWorkers at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse have announced six fresh strike dates, as the GMB union prepares to test support for stoppages among staff at another five of the delivery company’s sites.Strikes at the vast Coventry centre, known as BHX4, began in January – the first industrial action ever taken against Amazon in the UK. Staff are demanding pay of £15 an hour. Continue reading...
Social media highlights remarkable timing of verdicts in unusual cases that gripped a nationAn ex-president indicted for alleged hush money payments to a porn star. A wealthy actor and wellness guru vindicated in a nail-biting fight for justice against a retired optometrist. And all in the space of a few hours.The reaction on Twitter was clear: God bless America. Continue reading...
The annual event, which faced years of Covid disruption, will not return in 2023E3, the video game industry’s biggest annual expo, has been cancelled.The show had been due to make a return after years of Covid-19 disruption this June in Los Angeles, but in a joint statement, the US’s Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and events company Reedpop announced it would no longer be going ahead. Continue reading...
The were gasps in the crowd as a cult indie shooter beat the blockbusters to the key award of the nightIt must be one of the biggest shock wins in the history of the Bafta Games Awards. Up against huge blockbuster titles such as Elden Ring and God of War Ragnarök, the best game winner at this year’s ceremony, which took place on Thursday evening, was Vampire Survivors, a shoot-’em-up largely developed by lone coder Luca Galante.There were gasps in the crowd at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London when the title was read out, with Galante’s small team accepting the award on his behalf and looking shaken. The game, in which players attempt to survive as long as possible in an ever-changing landscape swarming with monsters, had earlier won the game design award. Continue reading...
Sad clips from films, TV shows and TikTok are being spliced together over melancholy music – and they’re raising a smile among hopeless young peopleJimmy Nguyen, an 18-year-old student, saw his first “corecore” video on TikTok in January. He can’t remember which one it was – there are so many of them now. But he says it was typical of this new trend of video: other TikTok videos, celebrity or podcaster interviews, TV show and film clips spliced together over some sad or ambient music. They’re depressing, full of existential dread and usually on the theme of disconnection and alienation. Nguyen initially thought, like other users, that these videos were a joke. They’re crudely edited and the name in itself is a sarcastic reference to the proliferation of micro-trends emerging from TikTok since 2020. But he was soon staying up late at night in his bedroom making corecore of his own.“As I was making my first video I started to really see myself expressing how I was feeling and it felt relieving because I didn’t have anyone to talk to and explaining my emotions is hard,” he tells me. “But that video felt like an exit or gateway to those feelings.” In it, clips of Lee Jung-jae, the lead in Squid Game smiling broadly and falsely at the camera, someone recounting how in school kids would ask which super power you’d want out of invisibility and flying but he says “I’m already invisible” and Jake Gyllenhall in Stronger (2017) screaming “Why do you even want me? I’m such a fuck up!” run into each other over a morose Arcade Fire track. Now Nguyen makes these videos in an attempt to help people, he says, to let them know that they’re not alone. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson a on (#6AARP)
In this week’s newsletter: The Anti-Trans Hate Machine returns with a second series looking back at America’s record of violence toward transgender people. Plus: five of the best pop culture podcasts
Bakery is first restaurant chain to use Amazon One biometric technology, which faces scrutiny from lawmakers and activistsThe US bakery and cafe chain Panera will soon allow customers to pay with the swipe of a palm, marking the first restaurant chain to implement the new technology and raising alarm among privacy advocates.The company announced last week it would roll out biometric readers in coming months that will allow customers to access credit card and loyalty account information by scanning their palms. Called Amazon One, the system was developed by Amazon and is in use at some airports, stadiums and Whole Foods grocery stores. Continue reading...
Animal-friendly cosmetics brand Lush is releasing a range of Mario-themed products – so our reporter tried them, for scienceThe announcement that cosmetics chain Lush would be running a collaboration with the Super Mario Bros Movie was met with some incredulity in the video game press last week. The animal-friendly brand is not exactly associated with either movie licences or tech tie-ins, so the idea of Mario shower gel or Princess Peach body spray came as a shock.So, driven by an insatiable desire for journalistic investigation, I acquired some. And, look, it’s good stuff: the gloopy red Mario shower gel has a lovely subtle cola tang, while the Luigi has sweet notes of apple and rose and the vibrant green colour and consistency of fluorescent play slime. The gold coin soap uses the brand’s popular and giddily candied Honey I Washed the Kids scent, while Bowser’s version has a spicy, dare I say it, masculine aroma. Most of those are based on established Lush ingredients, but the Princess Peach body spray is a brand new fragrance, a sugar bomb of peach and pineapple, which I probably shouldn’t be wearing but totally am. I smell like a walking sweet shop. Continue reading...
Tech chief says the development of chatbots is a more worthwhile use of processing power than crypto miningThe US chip-maker Nvidia has said cryptocurrencies do not “bring anything useful for society” despite the company’s powerful processors selling in huge quantities to the sector.Michael Kagan, its chief technology officer, said other uses of processing power such as the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT were more worthwhile than mining crypto. Continue reading...
Move by Greater London authority comes after Chinese-owned app was blocked on UK parliamentary devicesLondon City Hall staff will no longer have TikTok on their devices in the latest ban imposed on the Chinese-owned social media app over security concerns.The Greater London authority (GLA) said the rule was implemented as it takes information security “extremely seriously”. Continue reading...
Engineer, whose microchip forecast became known as ‘Moore’s Law’, foresaw mobile phones and home computers decades before they existedIntel Corp co-founder Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the semiconductor industry whose “Moore’s Law” predicted a steady rise in computing power for decades, has died at the age of 94, the company announced.Intel and Moore’s family philanthropic foundation said he died on Friday surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii. Continue reading...
The increasing sophistication of programs like ChatGPT has led to unease over the future of film-making. What happened when we gave it a chance?The rise of AI programs like ChatGPT has triggered a tidal wave of ethical handwringing, most prominently from within the industries that it threatens to destroy. After all, just because you can get a robot to instantly write code or write contracts or provide customer support for free, should you?Well, the answer from the Writers Guild of America is a qualified yes. This week, the Writers Guild of America proposed that ChatGPT would absolutely be allowed to write scripts in the future, provided that the credit (and the money) goes to the human writer who came up with the prompts in the first place. Continue reading...
by Kari Paul in San Francisco and Johana Bhuiyan in N on (#6A39K)
Shou Zi Chew attempts to play down concerns over data and privacy as lawmakers call for ban on Chinese-owned appThe chief executive of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, was forced to defend his company’s relationship with China, as well as the protections for its youngest users, at a testy congressional hearing on Thursday that came amid a bipartisan push to ban the app entirely in the US over national security concerns.The hearing marked the first ever appearance before US lawmakers by a TikTok chief executive, and a rare public outing for the 4o-year-old Chew, who has remained largely out of the limelight as the social network’s popularity soars. TikTok now boasts tens of millions of US users, but lawmakers have long held concerns over China’s control over the app, which Chew repeatedly tried to assuage throughout the hearing. “Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country,” Chew said in Thursday’s testimony. Continue reading...
by Kari Paul in San Francisco and Johana Bhuiyan in N on (#6A48Y)
Lawmakers grilled the social media app’s CEO over its relationship with China and protections for young usersThe first appearance in Congress for TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew stretched more than five hours, with contentious questioning targeting the app’s relationship with China and protections for its youngest users.Chew’s appearance comes at a pivotal time for TikTok, which is facing bipartisan fire after experiencing a meteoric rise in popularity in recent years. The company is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, raising concerns about China’s influence over the app – criticisms Chew repeatedly tried to resist throughout the hearing. Continue reading...
TikTok's CEO, Shou Zi Chew, testified before US Congress on Thursday amid growing security concerns, with the Biden administration threatening to remove the app from the US entirely. During the hearing, Republican Kat Cammack showed Congress a TikTok video inciting violence towards the house energy and commerce committee, which named the chair of the committee in the captions. The video was uploaded to the platform 41 days ago and was still circulating despite company guidelines assuring users it would take down threatening content. Shou Zi Chew was denied a chance to respond to Cammack's claims by the chair. The video was removed from TikTok during the hearing
A new collaboration between 2K Games and Lego takes the form of an open-world racing game with buildable, breakable carsClassic video games never really die. While they’re still remembered by designers and producers, their influence lives on and they can crop up in the most unexpected places. 2K Games has announced a new agreement with Lego, which will begin with Lego 2K Drive, an open-world racing game created by veteran studio Visual Concepts. It combines the explorable world and discoverable challenges of Forza Horizon with the fun handling, weapons and power-ups of Mario Kart – but its origins lie in a completely different set of car games.Executive producer Mark Pierce started his games career at Atari in the late 1980s, working on the company’s classic racers RoadBlasters, Road Riot and San Francisco Rush, and was around while another team was crafting the legendary 3D racing sim Hard Drivin’. “I was so fortunate because a lot of the original Atari guys were still there,” he recalls. “David Sheppard, who was the second software engineer hired and Peter Takaichi’s group who did all the mechanical design. I knew Jed Margolin, one of the guys who invented force feedback steering. It was incredible, the culture was just so strong, so creative … A lot of us at Visual Concepts South have a heritage in making arcade racing games. We really wanted to make an arcade-style game that would be easy to learn, but hard to master.” Continue reading...
A Chinese startup has invented a long-distance kissing machine that transmits users’ kiss data collected through motion sensors hidden in silicon lips, which simultaneously move when replaying kisses received.The device, MUA, also captures and replays sound and warms up slightly during kissing, and users can download kissing data submitted via an accompanying app by other usersOnline reviews were mixed. One person described it as feeling like 'a warm pacifier', while many complained about its 'lack of tongue'
The newest instalment of the action-RPG is an enticing blend of old and new ideas offering a bleak, brutal and potentially brilliant return to formWith a click of the right-mouse button, my musclebound barbarian sinks his axe into the ground behind him, sweeps it forward and creates a shock wave that obliterates everything in its path. Ahead, a horde of undead creatures is repulsed by the blast, zombies flayed by the force of the air, skeletons scattered across the ground, wraiths dissipating into spectral dust. The room’s furnishing fly with them, chairs, candlesticks and barrels smashing into the far wall. The ground itself is scarred by the attack, a conical depression left in the floor as if struck by a meteorite airburst.I’ve performed this attack countless times over the last weekend, and it never fails to light up my brain like Blackpool in September. The Diablo series represents video gaming in its purest and perhaps most reductive form and has exploited these feedback loops to enormous success in the last 25 years, reworking the complex rulesets of role-playing games into something less cerebral and more sensory. While there’s an argument to be had about how intellectually nourishing these games may be, Diablo 4 has a lot of seductive power. Clicking monsters to death in this game feels dangerously good. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh, Dan Milmo and Safi Bugel on (#69TYG)
Ban on Chinese owned video-sharing app marks U-turn from previous relaxed positionBritain is expected to announce a ban on the Chinese owned video-sharing app TikTok on government mobile phones imminently, bringing the UK inline with the US and European Commission and reflecting deteriorating relations with Beijing.The decision marks a sharp reverse from the UK’s previously relaxed position, but some critics and experts said Britain should also extend the ban to cover personal phones used by ministers and officials – and even consider a complete ban. Continue reading...
The right is claiming that political correctness – not capitalism – caused this financial catastrophe. Really?You’d think that witnessing the second-biggest bank failure in US history would be a sobering moment. Since Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday amid a bank run, however, Republicans have instead been twisting themselves into inelegant pretzels to blame “wokeness” for the financial disaster.For context, SVB – which before it collapsed was the 16th largest bank in the US and worth more than $200bn in assets – proudly reported that aside from 45% of its board being women, it also had “1 Black”, “1 LGBTQ+” and “2 Veterans”. According to Republicans, the bank’s focus on “woke” ideals is what led to its ultimate demise.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US contributing writer Continue reading...
by Kari Paul in San Francisco and Johana Bhuiyan in N on (#69TM7)
Demise of Silicon Valley Bank has rattled not just businesses and investors but the ecosystem that grew up around itStartup founders, venture capitalists and aspirational entrepreneurs descended on Austin on Friday for the annual South by Southwest conference as they do every year. But as the day wore on, a sense of fear and confusion began to take hold amid the usual energy and buzz in the Texas capital.Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), a financial institution that had become the go-to bank for nearly half of all venture-backed tech startups and many in the healthcare sector, was collapsing. Major venture capital firms and startup incubators including Y Combinator and Founders Fund had advised their founders to reduce exposure to SVB. The industry began to panic. Continue reading...
Two in five Venmo users reveal ‘sensitive information’ on the app – we hear from those who discovered something bigOfficially, Venmo is an app for transferring money from one person to another. In the US, where most banks do not offer instant free money transfers, it was revolutionary for simple things like splitting the bill on dinner, or sending their roommates half of the rent. But because the Venmo app has a “home feed”, an endless scroll that shows payments between users, it’s also a sneaky form of social media. You can see how your friends spend their money – and who they spend it with.After looking through my account, I now know that my high school soccer coach gave his wife money to spend at Petco last night. A friend of a friend went out for pizza. An old co-worker paid her dad for HBO Max. A man I met once exclusively sends people payments for the horse emoji – I assume this is code for ketamine, the horse tranquilizer/party drug, but maybe he has a secret gambling habit. Continue reading...
Boys in particular need to look at behaviour inspired by likes of Andrew Tate, says lead on violence against women and girlsA senior police officer has recommended teaching schoolchildren from primary level about the risks of online image-sharing and misogynistic social media figures such as Andrew Tate.Maggie Blyth, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for violence against women and girls, said pupils should also be taught how to deal with the likes of Tate, who has become an emblem of a culture of online misogyny. Continue reading...
From a ball point pen to a skyscraper, everything we make needs one or more of these design wondersWhen I was about five years old, I was living with my parents and sister in snowy upstate New York. It was the 1980s and one day I sat in front of my favourite large rectangular lunchbox, adorned with a picture of the Muppets on the front. This one held my huge collection of crayons – long, short, thick, thin, in every shade available. Like most children, I was continuously curious and I wanted to “discover” what was inside my crayons. So I peeled off the paper that enveloped them, then held them one at a time against the sharp edge of the open box and snapped them in two. My great anticipation was rather dampened to find, well, just more crayon inside. Nevertheless I persisted.When I was a little older and started writing words on paper with pencils, I would twist them inside a sharpener to see if the grey rod that marked my sheets went all the way through its body. It did. From there, I graduated to pens – far from the disappointing crayons of my early childhood, the insides of fountain pens and ballpoints contained slender cartridges and helical springs, held together with a top that threaded, screw-like, on to the rest of the pen. Continue reading...
End-to-end encryption does not prevent wall-to-wall media coverage, as many prominent users have discovered to their costIn modern communications, emails can be the digital equivalents of scribbled notes – all lower case and poor punctuation – or pedantic official documents, depending on context and recipients. But the key thing is that the prose is always deathless.That’s a rule that Tucker Carlson, a major Donald Trump supporter, is probably reckoning with at the moment. Disclosures of his emails in Dominion Voting Systems’s $1.6bn (£1.33bn) suit against Fox show the TV presenter admitting “I hate him [Trump] passionately”. Other emails show that Fox executives knew that Trump’s claims about a stolen election were false but still aired them as if they were legitimate. Awkward.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
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