Revolutionaries who claim to bring down corrupt systems have proved that orthodoxy exists for a reasonFor a man on a moral crusade, Sam Bankman-Fried lived a life of surprising luxury. The $40m penthouse in the Bahamas, the supermodels and celebrities roped in to back his business ventures, and the fawning glossy magazine profiles would all be perfectly standard trappings for a Wall Street tycoon or hedge fund playboy. But they seem strangely reminiscent of the tired old capitalism Bankman-Fried got rich rejecting, not the one he was supposedly building in its place.Once one of the world’s youngest billionaires, Bankman-Fried made his fortune in cryptocurrencies – forms of digital money originally invented to circumvent the supposedly corrupt financial elite and empower the little guy – and had grand plans for giving it all away to life-changing progressive causes. But instead of bringing the rotten old order crashing down, he was this week arrested on fraud charges (which he has denied) relating to the implosion of his currency exchange FTX in what bankruptcy lawyers describe as “one of the most abrupt and difficult collapses in the history of corporate America”. Continue reading...
by Hosted by Katharine Murphy. Produced by Allison Ch on (#66XEF)
In the final episode of Australian Politics for 2022, political editor Katharine Murphy speaks to the minister for home affairs and cyber security Clare O’Neil about the strategic challenges for Australia and the region. These include the increased likelihood of cyber-attacks, decreasing trust in democracy and growing risks of foreign interferenceRead more:
Former Superman star Henry Cavill linked to project, and agreement includes film and merchandise plansAmazon has struck a deal with the high street games chain Games Workshop to create a series based on its hit franchise Warhammer, the science-fiction fantasy miniature war game, potentially featuring the former Superman star Henry Cavill.The London-listed Games Workshop, which has a £2.7bn market value and runs about 530 stores, has struck a deal with Amazon to develop the company’s intellectual property into film and TV productions as well as sell merchandise. Continue reading...
by Kari Paul, Lois Beckett and Josh Taylor on (#66WXT)
Many at CNN, Washington Post and the New York Times who had written critically of the new owner found their handles suspendedA number of prominent journalists who have reported on Twitter and its new chief executive, Elon Musk, appear to have been suspended or banned from the platform.In a series of evening tweets, Musk wrote that sharing his real-time location on Twitter was forbidden, and accused journalists who he alleged had been sharing information about his location of posting “assassination coordinates”. Continue reading...
The collapse of the feted company should provide a wake-up call to Rishi Sunak, who has been singing the praises of cryptocurrenciesOn 11 November 2022 FTX declared bankruptcy. The firm was once heralded as the Goldman Sachs of crypto, and its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, was deemed by some the next Warren Buffett. And now, just after proclaiming in an interview that he would not be arrested, he is in custody in the Bahamas awaiting extradition to the US. He is charged with a litany of fraud and campaign finance law violations, in what US prosecutors are calling “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history”.Casual investors, along with funders ranging from the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan to BlackRock, who invested millions into FTX, are now uncertain where their money went and if they will ever get it back. Amid a long series of scandals and collapses, this seems to be the one that has undermined trust of and within the cryptocurrency sector. This is far from over and if you want to keep up on it, researcher Molly White has made an excellent chart where you can watch the contagion spread.David A Banks is the director of globalisation studies at the University at Albany, SUNY and is the author of The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America Continue reading...
Facebook owner says companies are adapting and changing tactics in face of efforts to shut down activitiesMeta has warned that the use of spyware to indiscriminately target people – including journalists and activists – is a persistent threat because surveillance-for-hire companies continue to adapt and change tactics in the face of efforts to shut down their capabilities.A report by Facebook’s parent company described efforts by the social media group to remove a number of firms, including two linked to Russia, one based in Israel, and an entity in China, all of which were alleged by Meta to have been used to “scrape” Facebook and Instagram for users’ private information in an attempt to compromise users’ accounts. Continue reading...
Thirteen years in the making, James Cameron’s insipid, overlong followup to his sci-fi record-breaker is a very expensive beached whaleDrenching us with a disappointment that can hardly be admitted out loud, James Cameron’s soggy new digitised film has beached like a massive, pointless whale. The story, which might fill a 30-minute cartoon, is stretched as if by some AI program into a three-hour movie of epic tweeness.The first Avatar was a pioneering 3D sci-fi spectacular which Cameron delivered in 2009. Now, after 13 years of unimaginably expensive pixel-crunching, the aquatic followup has arrived, with a third and a fourth on the way. This one is available in 3D and 2D, and so at any rate keeping loyal to that three-dimensional vision that Cameron almost single-handedly revived but which the rest of the industry has quietly forgotten about. Yet the whole idea of the “avatar” from the first movie – the artificially created body that can be remotely piloted into an unknown world and which crucially formed a dramatic part of the audience’s 3D experience – has been left behind. Continue reading...
Latest selloff takes total sale this year to $23bn and follows loss of world’s richest man titleElon Musk has sold a further $3.6bn(£2.9bn) worth of shares in Tesla, in the same week that he lost the title of world’s richest man to France’s Bernard Arnault.The disposal, revealed in a regulatory filing, takes the total amount raised by Musk from sales of his stock in the electric carmaker this year to more than $20bn. Continue reading...
Research suggests algorithm promotes self-harm and eating disorder content within minutes of interest being shownTikTok’s recommendation algorithm pushes self-harm and eating disorder content to teenagers within minutes of them expressing interest in the topics, research suggests.The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that the video-sharing site will promote content including dangerously restrictive diets, pro-self-harm content and content romanticising suicide to users who show a preference for the material, even if they are registered as under-18s. Continue reading...
Musk had vowed to allow @ElonJet to post but then declared accounts that listed real-time location data would be suspendedTwitter on Wednesday suspended an account that monitors the flight paths of a private jet owned by the social media giant’s new boss, Elon Musk.Later that evening, the account, @ElonJet, confirmed via tweet it was back online after being suspended for “violat[ing ] Twitter rules”. An hour later, Musk again suspended the jet-tracking account after imposing new conditions on all of Twitter’s users that the sharing of anyone’s current location was not allowed. Continue reading...
Legal action backed by Amnesty alleges hateful posts inflaming war in northern Ethiopia were allowed to flourish on platformMeta has been accused in a lawsuit of letting posts that inflamed the war in Tigray flourish on Facebook, after an Observer investigation in February revealed repeated inaction on posts that incited violence.The lawsuit, filed in the high court of Kenya, where Meta’s sub-Saharan African operations are based, alleges that Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified hateful and violent posts in the context of the war in northern Ethiopia, which raged for two years until a ceasefire was agreed in early November. The lawsuit seeks the creation of a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) fund for victims of hate speech. Continue reading...
Changpeng Zhao calls withdrawals a ‘stress test’ as investors continue to react to FTX collapseMore than a billion dollars were pulled out of Binance in a single day, according to the largest cryptocurrency exchange’s founder Changpeng Zhao, as investors across the sector continue to react to the collapse of its rival FTX.Zhao, better known as CZ, insisted that the withdrawals were simply proof of the firm footing that Binance has, calling them a “stress test” and reassuring depositors that the exchange’s reserves were sound. Continue reading...
Loss of top spot to LVMH chief executive comes after Tesla shares more than halve in valueElon Musk has lost his crown as the world’s richest person, after further falls in the value of shares in his electric car company Tesla.Forbes and Bloomberg, which track the wealth of billionaires, reported that Musk had lost the top spot to France’s Bernard Arnault, the chief executive of the luxury group LVMH. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#66TJJ)
Smaller, lighter and more comfortable – these earbuds pack good sound and solid battery lifeBose is back with its most-effective noise cancelling earbuds yet – a massive upgrade that are smaller, sound better and could knock Sony off the top spot.The QuietComfort Earbuds II cost £280 ($279/A$430) and are at the top end of the market, competing directly with the likes of Apple’s AirPods Pro and Sony’s WF-1000XM4.Water resistance: sweat resistant (IPX4)Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, SBC, AACBattery life: 6 hours (up to 24 hours with case)Earbud dimensions: 17.2 x 30.5 x 22.4mmEarbud weight: 6.24g eachCharging case dimensions: 59.4 x 66.3 x 26.7mmCharging case weight: 59.8gCase charging: USB-C Continue reading...
Research by Ofcom also found the devices give disabled people a stronger sense of independenceSmart speakers help people who live on their own feel less lonely and give some disabled people a stronger sense of independence, according to new Ofcom research.During an in-depth survey of 100 owners and 15 non-owners who tested a smart speaker, some described their device as being like a companion and said they liked being able to talk to it. Continue reading...
For one weird year, I was the human who stepped in to make sure a property chatbot didn’t blow its cover – I was a person pretending to be a computer pretending to be a personThe recruiter was a chipper woman with a master’s degree in English. Previously she had worked as an independent bookseller. “Your experience as an English grad student is ideal for this role,” she told me. The position was at a company that made artificial intelligence for real estate. They had developed a product called Brenda, a conversational AI that could answer questions about apartment listings. Brenda had been acquired by a larger company that made software for property managers, and now thousands of properties across the country had put her to work.Brenda, the recruiter told me, was a sophisticated conversationalist, so fluent that most people who encountered her took her to be human.> Hi! This is Brenda with Parc Mosaic. What unit are you interested in?> We have 1BR starting at $1,484. Do you want to come in for an appointment at 1PM on Tuesday, Jun 11?> I’m sorry to hear that! Will you be able to visit the property ahead of your move? If not, I will check with our agents to see if they can accommodate video tours.> We have 1BR and 2BR starting at $1,484.> Hi! This is Brenda with Springwoods at Lake Ridge. Which unit were you interested in?> I’m interested in the one-bed with the turret> My name is Candy> Is that OK for you?> Heavens no. My fiance has a murder charge and I’ve been evicted once … Sorry!> Well I am a police officer yet I do have a misdemeanour on my record for something stupid yet I still am a police officer is that OK?> Is that OK for you?> Yes, but I want to disclose that I’m involved in a case against another apartment complex in the area. There is a bogus $5,000 judgment that I’m seeking to have nullified on the basis of filthy, uninhabitable living conditions. I have close to 100 pictures to submit as evidence. I’d be happy to show them to you tomorrow. That’s the only thing you will find for a negative rental history. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not the complaining type; very passive. I just don’t like to be lied to, tricked, and bullied.> PS My car was also lit on fire.> How old are the appliances?> Why don’t you visit the property to see if it meets your needs?> Is this unit on the ground floor? I’m disabled and can’t use stairs.> Why don’t you visit the property to see if it meets your needs?> Hi, My Name is Charmaine Banks. . . I’m Not Looking For An Apartment, I’m Actually Looking For My Biological Father Named Ernest Lockhart Shaw & I Think He May Be Living In One Of Your Residences Possibly Apartment #1421 ?? I Was Wondering Maybe You Could Help ?> My name is Brenda, I’m a leasing agent at Springs at Kenosha. I’m responding to a call you made to this number. What unit were you interested in?> are you available to meet> we can meet at my beach house> I’m interested in you Brenda I’m married so we have to be discreet Continue reading...
by Maanvi Singh in Ontario, California, with photogra on (#63JCP)
Ontario was once at the center of the dairy industry. Now it’s home to Amazon’s largest warehouse and hundreds of others – with dangerous consequencesEdgar Jaime didn’t realize that the largest Amazon warehouse in the world was being constructed across the street from his vegetable farm in Ontario, California, until the walls went up.Then again, Jaime can’t say he was too surprised. Continue reading...
At a stage appearance Sunday with comedian Dave Chappelle, the audience made their disapproval of the new Twitter owner knownThe polite version is that it didn’t go quite according to plan when Elon Musk made his most recent stage appearance.“Ladies and gentlemen, make some noise for the richest man in the world,” the comedian Dave Chappelle roared on stage at the Chase Center in San Francisco as he invited the Twitter owner out to join him on Sunday night. Continue reading...
It has been hailed as the AI program that could spell the end of search engines, but we should beware putting our trust in a machineAs the capabilities of natural language processing technology continue to advance, there is a growing hype around the potential of chatbots and conversational AI systems. One such system, ChatGPT, claims to be able to engage in natural, human-like conversation and even provide useful information and advice. However, there are valid concerns about the limitations of ChatGPT and other conversational AI systems, and their ability to truly replicate human intelligence and interaction.No, I didn’t write that. It was actually written by ChatGPT itself, a conversational AI software program, after I asked it to create “an opening paragraph to an article sceptical about the abilities of ChatGPT in the style of Kenan Malik”. I might quibble about the stolid prose but it’s an impressive attempt. And it is not difficult to see why there has been such excitement, indeed hype, about the latest version of the chatbot since it was released a week ago. Continue reading...
Scientists are hoping ‘historical biomolecules’ on a 15th-century missive written by Vlad Dracula, the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s vampire count, will reveal more about himOn a dark and stormy night in May this year, exactly 125 years to the day that Bram Stoker published the definitive vampire novel, two people pored over a document more than 500 years old in a room in Transylvania – signed by Dracula himself.Gleb and Svetlana Zilberstein’s mission? To extract genetic material from the letters written by Vlad Dracula – the historical inspiration for Stoker’s vampiric count – left there by his sweat, fingerprints and saliva. Continue reading...
Founder and former CEO says he could talk about what he thinks led to crash and ‘my own failings’Sam Bankman-Fried is set to testify before Congress next week about the collapse of FTX, as regulators investigate the cryptocurrency exchange he led until its recent demise.The US House committee on financial services said in a statement on Friday that the panel would hear from FTX’s newly appointed CEO, John Ray, and from Bankman-Fried on 13 December. Continue reading...
The hugely popular Lensa AI app creates portraits based on image prompts, but users say it sexualizes them unnecessarilyOfficially, the Lensa AI app creates “magic avatars” that turn a user’s selfies into lushly stylized works of art. It’s been touted by celebrities such as Chance the Rapper, Tommy Dorfman, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Britney Spears’ husband, Sam Asghari. But for many women the app does more than just spit out a pretty picture: the final results are highly sexualized, padding women’s breasts and turning their bodies into hourglass physiques.“Is it just me or are these AI selfie generator apps perpetuating misogyny?” tweeted Brandee Barker, a feminist and advocate who has worked in the tech industry. “Here are a few I got just based off of photos of my face.” One of Barker’s results showed her wearing supermodel-length hair extensions and a low-cut catsuit. Another featured her in a white bra with cleavage spilling out from the top. Continue reading...
The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that after the takeover, 57% of women were laid off compared with 47% of menTwo women who lost their jobs at Twitter during mass layoffs after Elon Musk took over the company are suing, claiming that the company disproportionately targeted female employees for cuts.The discrimination lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges to hit the company after Musk, the world’s richest person, bought the company for $44bn and set about making swift, drastic changes including laying off around half its workforce, or roughly 3,700 employees. Hundreds more subsequently resigned. Continue reading...
Encryption of iCloud storage means the information will be safeguarded from hackers as well as government agenciesApple announced a suite of security and privacy improvements on Wednesday that the company is pitching as a way to help people protect their data from hackers, including one that civil liberty and privacy advocates have long pushed for.The tech giant will soon allow users to choose to secure more of the data backed up to their iCloud using end-to-end encryption, which means no one but the user will be able to access that information. Continue reading...
San Francisco investigating Twitter after complaint says it converted rooms in its HQ into sleeping quartersTwitter is under investigation by city officials in San Francisco following a complaint that the company allegedly converted rooms in its headquarters to sleeping quarters, an inquiry that has drawn scorn from Elon Musk.As of Monday, the office has “modest bedrooms featuring unmade mattresses, drab curtains and giant conference-room telepresence monitors” with four to eight beds a floor, employees told Forbes. The changes appear to be part of Musk’s plan for “hardcore Twitter” in which he’s demanded workers dedicate “long hours at high intensity” after he fired nearly half the company’s workforce. Continue reading...
South Dakota, Maryland and Wisconsin have also issued similar directives citing security concernsGovernor Greg Abbott of Texas on Wednesday ordered state agencies to ban TikTok on government-issued devices, citing security concerns of the app’s data-sharing practices with the Chinese government.“TikTok harvests vast amounts of data from its users’ devices – including when, where and how they conduct Internet activity – and offers this trove of potentially sensitive information to the Chinese government,” according to one of the letters the governor sent to state agency leaders. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#66HTC)
Online service will offer tools and sell screens, batteries and camera parts for some models released since 2020Those brave enough to attempt to fix their own iPhone or Mac with Apple’s tools can now do so in the UK and parts of Europe.The tech company is expanding its self-repair programme to Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK, allowing the public to buy genuine parts and repair kits for certain iPhones and Macs launched from 2020 onwards. Continue reading...
I pulled out before giving any bank or card numbers, but how can I protect myself now?Today I was subjected to an attempted fraud. The fraudsters made contact using Facebook Messenger and the identity of one of my friends, a former colleague.They persuaded me to believe that I had been a winner in a Facebook lottery. I pulled out before giving any bank or card details, but did reveal more information than I would have liked – my name, home address, date of birth, email, mobile and occupation.
Cryptocurrency exchange founder pledges to testify ‘once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened’The disgraced billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has said he wants to testify before Congress about what caused the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange he founded – but first he wants to fully understand the chain of events and isn’t sure how long that might take.Bankman-Fried’s pledge, made Sunday on Twitter, came after the US House financial services committee scheduled a 13 December hearing about the failure of FTX and invited him to participate. Continue reading...
Relatives of Molly Russell and other children support changes proposed as part of online safety billBereaved families are calling for easier access to the social media histories of deceased children, supporting amendments to the online safety bill.The changes have been proposed by Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer, as the bill returns to parliament on Monday. It is being supported by the family of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old who took her own life in 2017 after months of viewing harmful online content related to suicide, depression, self-harm and anxiety.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org. Continue reading...
Watchdog must stop misleading ads locking consumers into deals up to £240 more than thought, says opposition partyLabour has called on the advertising watchdog to fast-track new rules to protect consumers from misleading marketing that could encourage them sign up to mobile and broadband deals this Christmas that will cost them hundreds of pounds more than they expected.The call follows the closure of a consultation by the Committees of Advertising Practice (Cap) – which writes the codes that all UK advertisers have to follow when running ads in any media – investigating whether telecoms companies are clearly telling consumers about looming price rises in their campaigns. Continue reading...
The French president had flagged concerns over the platform’s content moderation just a day beforeEmmanuel Macron said he had a “clear and honest” discussion with Elon Musk about Twitter’s content moderation policies, just a day after the French president had flagged his concerns on the issue.“Transparent user policies, significant reinforcement of content moderation and protection of freedom of speech: efforts have to be made by Twitter to comply with European regulations,” Macron said in a tweet after his meeting with Musk on Friday afternoon. Continue reading...
Artificial intelligence is creating increasingly sophisticated images. But what does it mean for the art world? Gilbert and George, Gillian Wearing, Mat Collishaw, Elizabeth Price, Polly Morgan and Lindsey Mendick found outFor more than 30,000 years we have been the only art-making species on Earth, give or take the odd paint-throwing Neanderthal or chimpanzee. Art is the oldest and most spectacular triumph of human consciousness, from Lascaux to the Sistine Chapel. But a new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) art software may be about to end that. It will whip you up a Picasso or a Turner in an instant, or apply their styles to any theme you picture, from Liz Truss dancing in a supermarket to a brawl in a 1970s disco.Stable Diffusion and competitors such as DALL-E 2 go far beyond previous claims for AI art. Easily accessible online, and in that sense open to full public scrutiny, they create precise, rich, convincing images in response to a typed-in text – for example “a sad cat in a mountainous landscape in the style of Turner”, or whatever combination of styles, keywords and subjects takes your fancy. Or you can ask more sidelong and existential questions, such as my request for “a photograph of a human”, which produced a bare-chested man who could be a museum exhibit of early homo sapiens – except for his mysterious earphone-like cables. For the expert there are others: “I’ve been experimenting in Wombo Dream, Midjourney and Google Colab/Disco Diffusion,” says the artist Mat Collishaw. Continue reading...
by Dan Milmo and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels on (#66C1A)
Elon Musk has been warned he has ‘huge work ahead’ to comply with the EU’s Digital Services ActThe EU has raised the prospect of a substantial fine or ban for Twitter after warning that it must “significantly increase” efforts to comply with new online legislation.Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, was told he had “huge work ahead” to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires tech firms to tackle problems including abusive posts and disinformation. Continue reading...
The crypto entrepreneur was thought to be a big donor to Democrats but now acknowledges he gave equally to GOPThe fall of crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has been painted as a big blow to the Democratic party, whose candidates were major beneficiaries of his largesse. But in a new interview, Bankman-Fried has claimed he gave equally large amounts of money to Republicans.“I donated to both parties. I donated about the same amount to both parties,” Bankman-Fried told the crypto commentator and citizen journalist Tiffany Fong. Continue reading...
by Jim Waterson, Arwa Mahdawi, Owen Jones and Emma Gr on (#66BAB)
Guardian writers look back at the platform’s triumphs and pitfalls as the service faces an uncertain futureWith Twitter in turmoil under its new owner, Elon Musk, many users are taking a moment to assess the legacy of the social media platform. Launched in 2006, the service has become an integral part of journalism, revolutionizing the spread of information, expanding access to sources, and elevating voices that previously went unheard. It has also, of course, become known for toxic discourse, misinformation and online abuse.As questions mount over Twitter’s future, four Guardian writers reflect on their experiences – personal and professional – with the platform. Continue reading...
Unannounced change in rules was made last week as health experts stress importance of combating disinformationTwitter will no longer enforce its policy against Covid-19 misinformation, raising concerns among public health experts that the change could have serious consequences if it discourages vaccination and other efforts to combat the still-spreading virus.Eagle-eyed users spotted the change on Monday night, noting that a one-sentence update had been made to Twitter’s online rules: “Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.” Continue reading...
An exciting multiplayer Discord game asks you to find things in the multiverse through an AI image generator. The hallucinatory results could mark a new frontier for AI art
Exclusive: a study shows the company has a long way to go in upholding its pledge to protect usersIn the wake of the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade, Google pledged fresh policies to protect people’s abortion-related data. But new research has shown the way our location and other personal data is stored remains largely unchanged, raising fears that intimate details of a person’s abortion search could be used to penalize them.Google responds to tens of thousands of requests each year from law enforcement agencies seeking access to the vast troves of data collected on its users. In one six-month period in 2021, the most recent data publicly available, Google received nearly 47,000 law enforcement requests, affecting more than 100,000 accounts, and responded with some amount of data to 80% of them. The Dobbs decision sparked concerns that such data could be used to prosecute people seeking abortions in states where it is banned – for instance, if they searched for or traveled to an abortion clinic. Continue reading...
Lastminute.com co-founder, now a peer, says little progress has been made in recent decadesThe businesswoman and peer Martha Lane Fox has criticised the lack of gender diversity in the UK technology industry, saying it has not progressed in 25 years.Lady Lane-Fox of Soho shot to prominence in the late 1990s as the co-founder of Lastminute.com, a travel booking website that became one of the symbols of the UK’s 1990s internet boom. However, she said many of the same issues she had experienced then are still prevalent in the tech industry. Continue reading...
Company must read out public notice to employees at Staten Island warehouse, which won vote to unionize in AprilAmazon will be forced to read out a public notice this week to all employees at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, where workers won the first Amazon union election, stating it will “cease and desist” from retaliating against people involved in union organizing.US district judge Diane Gujarati ruled on 18 November that Amazon cease and desist from retaliating against workers for organizing in the workplace, in response to Amazon employee Gerald Bryson’s termination in April 2020. She included in her ruling that Amazon read out publicly her 30-page decision to employees, which is set to be conducted on Thursday 1 December. Continue reading...
BlockFi announces Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in US as fall of FTX continues to reverberate across industryThe crypto lender BlockFi has become the sector’s latest big operator to declare bankruptcy, as the fallout of the collapse of offshore cryptocurrency exchange FTX continues to spread.BlockFi, which operates in a similar fashion to a conventional bank, paying interest on savings and using customer deposits to fund lending, says it has $256.9m cash in hand. According to court documents, its creditors include FTX itself, to which it owes $275m, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to which it owes $30m. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington and Sam Jone on (#668YF)
European parliament is investigating powerful surveillance tool used by governments around the worldVictims of spyware and a group of security experts have privately warned that a European parliament investigatory committee risks being thrown off course by an alleged “disinformation campaign”.The warning, contained in a letter to MEPs signed by the victims, academics and some of the world’s most renowned surveillance experts, followed news last week that two individuals accused of trying to discredit widely accepted evidence in spyware cases in Spain had been invited to appear before the committee investigating abuse of hacking software. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#668QH)
Rapid smart TV upgrade with every streaming service available and a quality ad-free home screenApple’s latest TV streaming box is faster, smaller, more efficient and cheaper than its predecessors, making it one of the best and most reliable smart TV experiences you can get.The third-generation Apple TV 4K costs from £149 ($129/A$219). While £20 cheaper than last year’s model, it is still a premium over rivals from Google, Amazon and others, which are priced at between £50 and £140. Continue reading...
Bitcoin and ethereum prices have plummeted, but it is unlikely the US will ban cryptocurrencies soonThe epic collapse of wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried’s $32bn (£27bn) crypto empire, FTX, looks set to go down as one of the great financial debacles of all time. With a storyline full of celebrities, politicians, sex and drugs, the future looks bright for producers of feature films and documentaries. But, to paraphrase Mark Twain, rumours of the death of crypto itself have been much exaggerated.True, the loss of confidence in “exchanges” such as FTX – essentially crypto financial intermediaries – almost surely means a sustained steep drop in prices for the underlying assets. The vast majority of bitcoin transactions are done “off-chain” in exchanges, not in the bitcoin blockchain itself. These financial intermediaries are vastly more convenient, require much less sophistication to use and do not waste nearly as much energy. Continue reading...
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