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Modern technology is supposed to make our world better. But my flat’s ‘lighting system’ is broken, and I long for a single, simple light switchI started shaving, tackling the wispiest of bumfluff, 40 years ago. I did so in an attempt to stimulate growth in order to make me look older, so I would have a better chance of getting served in pubs. Not one of these three things came to pass. The razor I used had two blades. I remember thinking how that felt excessive for my needs; one would have done. This was 1983 – 11 years after, according to its website, Gillette came up with the “Trac II®, the first twin-blade shaving system”. And it was a good 15 years before Gillette was “breaking the performance barrier with the MACH3®, the first three-blade technology, for an even smoother, closer shave”.The blade arms race was on, providing a rich source of comic material for, among others, Billy Connolly, I recall, and Mitchell and Webb. But on the razor makers ploughed regardless, breaking new ground with ever more blades. Gillette, with a fine flourish, skipped four blades and went straight to five in 2006. And at five it has stuck, instead coming up with other stuff to keep our excitement high, most recently a heated razor that “delivers instant warmth in less than one second at the push of a button and provides a noticeably more comfortable shave”. Reassuringly, though, the blade race continues apace with the Dorco Pace 7, “World’s First and Only Seven Blade Razor”. Seven!Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

It’s rare that games of the past hold up to today’s technology. New remasters of two landmark action titles bring back memories, but do they hold up?

OpenAI is calling on educators to give their feedback on how the tool is used, amid rising concerns around AI-assisted cheating at universitiesOpenAI, the research laboratory behind AI program ChatGPT, has released a tool designed to detect whether text has been written by artificial intelligence, but warns it’s not completely reliable – yet.In a blog post on Tuesday, OpenAI linked to a new classifier tool that has been trained to distinguish between text written by a human and that written by a variety of AI, not just ChatGPT. Continue reading...

Beijing reacts angrily to reports that Washington has moved to restrict American exports to hi-tech companyChina has reacted angrily to reports that the United States has stopped approving licences for American companies to export most items to China’s hi-tech company Huawei, accusing the US of deliberately targeting Chinese companies under the pretext of national security.US officials are creating a new formal policy of denial for shipping items to Huawei that would include items below the 5G level, including 4G items, wifi 6 and 7, artificial intelligence, and high-performance computing and cloud items, according to a Reuters report that quoted unnamed sources. Continue reading...

Dominik Diamond would once have sneered at smartphone games – but now he’s been totally drawn in by their quality, variety, imagination and downright weirdnessI am addicted to video games again. Addicted like I haven’t been in years. Addicted to the point where my left thumb and right forefinger are borderline arthritic from playing them as soon as I open my eyes in the morning and last thing before I close them at night.This is ridiculous behaviour in a man approaching his mid-50s. I should be waking up and performing pilates. My eyelids should droop while perusing Reader’s Digest at bedtime. I should be getting arthritis in my hands from planting peonies or unwrapping Werther’s Originals. But no. It’s games wot done it, and not even hardcore ones involving gods or war or elden rings. I am obsessed with what I once might have scornfully labelled casual gaming. I’m talking about Apple Arcade, which I am now convinced is the best value games delivery system on the planet in 2023. It has turned my phone into the most fun gaming console I’ve had since my Neo Geo in the 90s. Continue reading...

Jeff Bezos has denied rumours he wants to sell the Washington Post but hopes that Silicon Valley savvy could transform heritage media have wanedAmid intense speculation to the contrary, the tech billionaire Jeff Bezos last week sought to reassure a nervous newsroom at the Washington Post that he was not seeking to sell the august newspaper.The rumors, stoked by layoff anxiety at the newspaper and – again, speculation – that another multibillionaire, Mike Bloomberg, is in the market for the title, had been the subject of feverish debate in US media circles. Continue reading...

Legal and finance experts say the car company’s attorneys face an ‘uphill battle’ to prove the billionaire’s tweets had no impact on sharesAfter Elon Musk tapped the tweet button at 12.48 pm on 7 August 2018, a bunch of Tesla investors were about to be taken on a wild ride.“Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Financing secured,” read the tweet that has since stirred up more than four years of securities fraud litigation focused on the rampant tweeting habits of the electric automaker’s billionaire CEO. Continue reading...

Trump has never shown the slightest repentance for his role in what Facebook gingerly calls ‘civil unrest’It was left to Nick Clegg – once a great hope for liberal politics in Britain, nowadays cutting a sad figure as global lobbyist for a company with major PR problems – to announce that Facebook was open to Donald Trump’s nefarious business again. The decision was wrong, but it hardly spells the end of democracy, as alarmists equating Facebook with an inevitable triumph for fascism might think. What the decision does, though, is confirm the breathtaking hypocrisy of a corporation seemingly unable – or unwilling – to learn from its complicity in repeated political disasters.Hillary Clinton never stopped being pilloried for her “basket of deplorables” speech in 2016. However, the fact is that Trump and plenty of his supporters have said and done things which are deplorable. The really scandalous part was her casual remark that some Americans were “irredeemable”. But democracy is based on the notion that no one is irredeemable, that we should never give up on fellow citizens, hard as it may be. Those who have engaged in anti-democratic actions must have the chance to convince others that they have changed their ways. Continue reading...

Biz Stone, one of quartet who set up company, says positive changes he oversaw have been undone by Tesla chief executiveElon Musk “doesn’t seem like” the right person to own Twitter, the social media platform’s co-founder has said, adding that improvements to morale and content policies at the business have been reversed under its new proprietor.In an interview with the Guardian, Biz Stone said positive changes he had helped oversee in recent years had been unwound by the Tesla chief executive. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Janessa Brazil’s pictures were used to entrap victims, costing them millions – find out how in Love, Janessa. Plus: five of the best podcasts for film fans

A new wave of game makers are attempting to influence a generation of environmentally conscious players. Will it work, and is it enough?“It was scary. It made you realise how, despite all the sophistication of modern society, we’re still reliant on water falling from the sky.” Sam Alfred, the lead designer at Cape Town-based video game studio Free Lives, vividly remembers his city nearly running out of water. During 2018, the area surrounding South Africa’s second largest city suffered months of dwindling rainfall. Dams were unable to replenish themselves at the rate its inhabitants required. Water was rationed. Businesses shut. The situation even called for its own grim version of the Doomsday Clock: hour by hour, the city ticked ever closer to Day Zero, marking the end of its fresh water supply.Terra Nil, the video game that Alfred has been developing since 2019, is a response to these terrifying events. Dubbed a “city-builder in reverse”, it foregoes the consumption and expansion of genre classics such as Civilisation and SimCity to paint a picture of environmental restoration. Starting with arid desert, it’s up to the player to rewild a landscape using various technologies – a toxin scrubber, for example, or a beehive. At light-speed, and with eye-massaging flushes of emerald green and azure blue, the environment transforms into lush vegetation. Terra Nil’s simplicity is as beautiful as its visuals, offering the satisfaction of a colouring book while doling out a clear-eyed critique of environment-wrecking extraction. Continue reading...

The electric car company posted $24.3bn in fourth-quarter earnings, surpassing anticipated revenueTesla surpassed Wall Street expectations in highly anticipated fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday, bolstered by record delivery of electric vehicles during the last three months of 2022.The electric car company posted $24.3bn in revenue, slightly higher than the $24.07bn anticipated by analysts and 33% growth year-over-year, demonstrating that the automaker may be doing a better job than anticipated of weathering concerns about slipping demand for its cars, logistical holdups and ongoing legal drama surrounding its chief executive, Elon Musk. Continue reading...

Sophisticated campaigns against politicians and media aim to steal secrets or embarrass high-profile figures rather than to extort moneyRussian and Iranian state-linked hackers are increasingly targeting British politicians, journalists and researchers with sophisticated campaigns aimed at gaining access to a person’s email, Britain’s online security agency warned on Thursday.The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) issued an alert about two groups from Russia and Iran, warning those in government, defence, thinktanks and the media against clicking on malicious links from people posing as conference hosts, journalists or even colleagues. Continue reading...

Managers said to be covering for striking staff, though firm insists action has not disrupted activityWorkers at Amazon’s huge Coventry depot described the “stressful” conditions inside as they staged a historic strike to demand pay of £15 an hour – the first time the corporation has faced industrial action in the UK.The local GMB organiser Amanda Gearing said the action on Wednesday was “making an impact”, despite Amazon’s insistence that work was proceeding as usual inside the high-walled warehouse. Continue reading...

Use of emergency laws sheds light on fragile and fractious place social media now occupy in IndiaThe response by the Indian government was quick and draconian. Days after a BBC documentary examining the role that Narendra Modi, now prime minister, had played in 2002 communal riots in Gujarat was released, the information ministry announced that all links to the footage were to be banned on social media.Emergency laws brought in by the Modi government just two years ago were used to enforce the ban. Continue reading...

Free to roam through the post-apocalyptic game, one intrepid group has taken to performing the Bard. They have found an intent new audience, as well as the odd mutant scorpionOne crisp spring evening, the Wasteland Theatre Company gathered to rehearse Romeo and Juliet. Jonathan “Bram” Thomas was playing Romeo. A self-confessed Shakespeare geek, he’d graduated with a BA in theatre, and this wasn’t his first time playing one half of the star-crossed lovers. But it was the first time a mutant scorpion the size of a Jeep had rampaged on to his stage.Panicking, the show’s crew rained bullets down on its blackened shell, but not before Juliet fell to its sting. A poison death, certainly – just not one the Bard ever dreamed of writing. Continue reading...

Service status monitoring website Downdetector records thousands of people reporting problemsMicrosoft is investigating an outage that has hit users of its products worldwide including Teams and Outlook.The US tech firm said it was investigating “issues impacting multiple Microsoft 365 services”, referring to a suite of products that includes its Teams messaging and videoconference service, Outlook email and Word and Excel programmes. Continue reading...

National roundtable mulls safety strategies as communications minister says ‘no one law is going to fix this issue’

Some app users are sending out surveys to screen potential suitors. But can a pop quiz ever lead to love?One night this January, as Robert Stewart scrolled through old Hinge matches, he decided to revive a conversation he had begun months ago with a woman on the dating app. After picking up where they left off and exchanging a few pleasantries, Stewart asked if the woman wanted to get on a phone call. He hoped it would lead to an in-person date.“We could do that,” the woman answered, but with one caveat. “You mind filling out a questionnaire for me first?” Continue reading...

The DoJ and eight states have filed a complaint against the tech company for violating antitrust lawsThe US justice department and eight states filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google on Tuesday over allegations that the company abused its dominance of the digital advertising business, according to a court document.“Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the government said in its antitrust complaint. Continue reading...

Frant Gwo’s follow-up to his 2019 mega-hit favours special effects and set pieces over performances, as the human race battles for survivalA gargantuan success in 2019, Frant Gwo’s The Wandering Earth remains one of the highest grossing non-English films of all time. This hotly anticipated prequel, even more ambitious in scope, follows the catastrophic events leading up to the Earth leaving the solar system in the original hit.At nearly three hours long, The Wandering Earth II is packed with expository science talk, which gets more convoluted and tiring as the clock ticks on. The gist of the matter is, in the face of imminent ecological disasters, an internationally consolidated government body has hatched a solution to alter the orbit of our planet. It also involves blowing up the moon. As well as resistance from (mostly) western countries, the decades-spanning enterprise is also routinely sabotaged by the rival Digital Life Project, which looks to virtual reality as a new beginning for the human race. Continue reading...

Elon Musk testifies at trial accusing him of defrauding investors by driving up the price of Tesla stock with his tweetsElon Musk continued his testimony in a trial accusing him of defrauding investors by driving up the price of Tesla stock with his tweets on Monday, saying that he understood that Saudi financiers were “unequivocally” behind his plan to take the electric carmaker private in 2018.The Tesla CEO’s tweets suggesting he had “funding secured” to buy up Tesla stock at $420 a share are the center point of the trial now in its fifth day in San Francisco federal court. Continue reading...

Music streaming service becomes latest tech firm to announce cuts after pandemic overexpansionThe music streaming service Spotify has said it is cutting about 600 jobs, as it became the latest big tech company to admit it expanded too quickly during the coronavirus pandemic.Its co-founder and chief executive, Daniel Ek, told staff in a blogpost that the platform was reducing its workforce by 6% after he had been “too ambitious”. Continue reading...

The influential academic says renewables alone can halt climate crisis, with technologies such as carbon capture expensive wastes of time“Combustion is the problem – when you’re continuing to burn something, that’s not solving the problem,” says Prof Mark Jacobson.The Stanford University academic has a compelling pitch: the world can rapidly get 100% of its energy from renewable sources with, as the title of his new book says, “no miracles needed”. Continue reading...

Tesla boss hopes for rise in revenue after advertising downturn in wake of takeoverTwitter is planning an advertising-free version of its subscription product, as the company attempts to raise revenue and increase demand for its premium offering.Elon Musk has targeted an increase in subscription revenue as a key part of the social media platform’s business plan under his ownership. Continue reading...

Cutting-edge technology is helping food chains reach the holy grail of flawless, contactless, low-budget diningThe secret behind the hi-tech future of sushi lies in an unremarkable building in the backstreets of Osaka.Inside, empty plastic cups and plates adorned with scrunched-up wet paper – to replicate the weight and texture of scallops – make their way along a conveyer belt. Continue reading...

New court filing says ex-Theranos founder booked flight departing 26 January last year, shortly after fraud convictionThe disgraced founder of Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, made an “attempt to flee the country” by purchasing a one-way ticket to Mexico after she was found guilty on four counts of fraud last January, according to prosecutors.In the new filing on Thursday, prosecutors said that “contrary to defendant’s assertion that she has a ‘flawless record with US Pretrial Services’ and claim that no evidence suggests she will flee while she pursues her appeal … the incentive to flee has never been higher and defendant has the means to act on that incentive.” Continue reading...

World’s largest pest control group has developed technology to track individual rodents and assess how best to deal with themThe world’s largest pest control group is piloting the use of facial recognition software as a way to exterminate rats in people’s homes.Rentokil said it had been developing the technology alongside Vodafone for 18 months. Continue reading...

The new social network and its interconnected ‘fediverse’ is a welcome alternative to blustering rival Twitter and Elon MuskWhen Twitter first appeared in July 2006, I was enchanted by it. At one point, some geek created an app that logged tweets and geolocated them in real time on a map of the world, so you could watch little dots popping up all over the globe. (I even made a short video recording of my screen and set it to music, but didn’t put it online because I didn’t own the music rights, and now I can’t find it. Sigh – such is digital life.)What I loved about Twitter at the beginning was that it enabled you to plug into the thought streams of people you liked or admired. Like all good things, though, that came to an end when the platform embarked on the algorithmic curation of users’ feeds to increase “engagement” (and, it hoped, profits). And from then on, it became increasingly tiresome, though I kept my account. But when it became clear that Elon Musk was going to buy the platform – and wreak havoc – I decided to explore possible alternatives. Continue reading...

BT, EE, TalkTalk, Three and Vodafone among suppliers allowed to increase monthly chargesAs if household budgets were not already under enough pressure, millions of broadband and mobile phone customers look set to face rises of more than 14% in their monthly bills from April.BT, TalkTalk, Three and Vodafone are among the big telecoms suppliers that are contractually allowed to increase their bills in line with the previous year’s inflation rate, as measured by the consumer prices index (CPI) in December – plus a further 3%-3.9% on top. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from adults aged 18-30 about their messaging habits at workAn increasing number of younger workers do not check their emails and instead prefer to use social media such as Instagram – at least according to some tech bosses.We would like to hear from adults aged 18-30 about their messaging habits at work. Do you check your emails? Or do you prefer to use social media to stay in touch with colleagues? Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: American officials have for years been struck by a mystery illness on diplomatic visits. One journalist investigates why in The Sound. Plus: five of the best anthology podcasts

UK security minister Tom Tugendhat warns of ‘persistent threat’ of Russian attacks on country’s infrastructure

Former president’s lawyers petition company to allow access following ban from platform in wake of 2021 Capitol attackDonald Trump has petitioned Meta to restore his access to Facebook, as he reportedly looks to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear.The former president was banned from Facebook more than two years ago, after his followers attacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. Continue reading...

More than 500 advertising clients have reportedly paused spending since Elon Musk’s takeover in OctoberTwitter remains in the grip of an advertising squeeze, with the social media platform hit by a 40% drop in revenue after more than 500 clients paused their spending, according to reports.The company’s daily revenue was down 40% year-over-year, the tech newsletter the Platformer reported, while the news site the Information said staff were told more than 500 of Twitter’s top advertisers had halted spending since Elon Musk bought it in October. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, PC; ILCA/Bandai Namco

Despite Musk’s claim he can’t get a fair trial in Twitter’s home town, judge sits San Francisco jury for Tesla suitThe shareholder case against the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, got off to a slow start on Tuesday, as potential jurors who variously described the controversial tech billionaire as “narcissistic”, “unpredictable”, “a little off his rocker”, “a genius” and “another arrogant rich guy” were questioned about their impartiality by the judge.But, by the end of the day, nine jurors had been selected to sit on the jury for the San Francisco trial, which hinges on whether Musk cheated investors of “billions” by asserting in 2018 tweets that he had “secured” financing to take the electric automaker private. Continue reading...

It’s early days, but this video-game adaptation about the world being overrun by fungal zombies is expertly done. Newcomers and original gamers will be amazed• The Last of Us review – one of the finest TV shows you will see this yearSpoiler alert: this recap is for people watching The Last of Us, which airs on Sky Atlantic and Now in the UK, HBO in the US and Binge and Foxtel in Australia. Do not read on unless you have watched episode one.Hello and welcome to The Last of Us episode recaps. We’ll spare you the enthusing about why the 2013 video game adapted for this series is the greatest of all time, and get right to it. Continue reading...

PC; Lemaitre Bros

The tech billionaire has reportedly lost $182bn (£150bn) since November 2021, largely due to the drop in Tesla’s share priceElon Musk has broken the world record for the largest loss of personal fortune in history, according to a Guinness World Records report.The tech billionaire has lost approximately $182bn (£150bn) since November 2021, although other sources suggest that it could actually be closer to $200bn, the report said. Continue reading...

The right to voluntary termination allows the buyer to escape the agreement provided they have repaid 50% of the total amount dueIf you are one of the thousands of people across the UK struggling to meet their car finance repayments, are you aware you can give the vehicle back and walk away debt-free once you have repaid half the amount owed?Car finance payments are typically the second-largest household expense after mortgage costs, and the car industry is nervously waiting to see how many people struggling with the cost of living default on loans, or use a little-known clause to voluntarily terminate their agreement. Continue reading...

Musk says negative local media coverage of shareholder lawsuit over 2018 Tesla tweet has prejudiced jurorsElon Musk has urged a federal judge to shift a trial in a shareholder lawsuit out of San Francisco because he says negative local media coverage has biased potential jurors against him.Instead, in a filing submitted late on Friday – less than two weeks before the trial was set to begin on 17 January – Musk’s lawyers argue it should be moved to the federal court in the western district of Texas. That district includes the state capital of Austin, which is where Musk relocated his electric car company, Tesla, in late 2021. Continue reading...

A dozen people based in Dublin and Singapore who moderate content and monitor hate speech believed to have been let goTwitter has made more cuts to its trust and safety team in charge of international content moderation, as well as a unit overseeing hate speech and harassment, Bloomberg reported on Friday.The move adds to longstanding concerns that new owner Elon Musk is dismantling the company’s regulation of hateful content and misinformation. Continue reading...

A new AI-assisted chatbot that can generate eerily fluent prose is only the latest in a long series of useful tech accessoriesSo the ChatGPT language processing model burst upon an astonished world and the air was rent by squeals of delight and cries of outrage or lamentation. The delighted ones were those transfixed by discovering that a machine could apparently carry out a written commission competently. The outrage was triggered by fears of redundancy on the part of people whose employment requires the ability to write workmanlike prose. And the lamentations came from earnest folks (many of them teachers at various levels) whose day jobs involve grading essays hitherto written by students.So far, so predictable. If we know anything from history, it is that we generally overestimate the short-term impact of new communication technologies, while grossly underestimating their long-term implications. So it was with print, movies, broadcast radio and television and the internet. And I suspect we have just jumped on to the same cognitive merry-go-round. Continue reading...

Cold River team launched attack on three facilities last summer as it escalates hacking campaign against Ukraine’s alliesA Russian hacking team known as Cold River targeted three nuclear research laboratories in the United States this past summer, according to internet records reviewed by Reuters and five cybersecurity experts.Between August and September, as Vladimir Putin indicated Russia would be willing to use nuclear weapons to defend its territory, Cold River targeted the Brookhaven (BNL), Argonne (ANL) and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories (LLNL), according to internet records that showed the hackers creating fake login pages for each institution and emailing nuclear scientists in an effort to make them reveal their passwords. Continue reading...

Three people became stranded on steep scree slope while following route set by AllTrails app on Barf fellOne of the world’s most popular hiking apps has changed one of its routes after three walkers had to be rescued while following its directions in the Lake District.The walkers became stranded on a steep scree slope while following a route set by the AllTrails app on Barf fell, near Bassenthwaite Lake. They dialled 999 when they realised there was no safe route down the 469-metre fell as darkness loomed at 3.30pm on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Fancy monitors, wipe warmers, even a tube to help them pass wind … the baby-gadget market is booming. But how much of it is actually useful? Plus: how to have a baby on a budgetMost nights, around 3am, first-time mum Courtney Sanders is on her phone in the dark as she tries to rock her baby to sleep. Her three-month-old son is struggling with colic-like symptoms and the more Sanders searches for how to help, the more products are suggested to her. “My Facebook is currently full of ads for bedside cribs that come with an incline to help reduce colic – but I already have one of those and it doesn’t do anything.”She’s tried different feeding bottles, teats and milk formulas. The last thing she bought was a Windi. “It’s a tube you put into the baby’s bottom to help them pass wind,” she says. It didn’t work. Right now, she’s searching for a new baby monitor, as the one she bought is too complicated to use. Tomorrow she’s expecting a delivery of Munchy Mitts – a babygrow with silicone mitts for teething babies to chew on. Continue reading...

If only Musk would sacrifice his fortune and reputation and close down the site, people like me could get back to doing something useful with our timeWhere are we all going when Twitter dies? Mastodon? Hive? Back to sitting in saggy armchairs reading chunky books? Personally, I’m hoping it’s the latter, but I’m not optimistic. Twitter, of course, has been designed by a lot of very clever people to be extremely addictive, and if everyone switches to something else, it will probably be because it’s more addictive again, prodding all our dopamine-spiking buttons in some as-yet-undiscovered sequence with which battered airport paperbacks will be even less able to compete. Which, come to think of it, means it definitely won’t be Mastodon.Obviously, I’m hopelessly addicted to Twitter, like so many journalists who pretend we are using it for our jobs. I’ve tried to tie myself to the mast like Odysseus, installing apps that block it at certain hours or force me to take a cooling off period before I refresh the page, but I always find a way around them. Even if you delete your account entirely, there’s a 30-day cooling-off period, during which I inevitably re-up, like Odysseus with a pocketknife inside his tunic.Joel Snape is a writer and fitness expertDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...