by Michael Sainato in Staten Island, New York on (#5Y08C)
A suburban two-bedroom apartment was the HQ from which Amazon’s multimillion-dollar anti-union effort was defeatedThe living room of the small two-bedroom apartment in Staten Island – sometimes called New York City’s “forgotten borough” – is overflowing with office supplies, mail, red union stickers, and flyers with information about unions.It seems almost unbelievable that amid this chaos, and armed with just $120,000 that they raised on GoFundMe, its occupants, Amazon workers Brett Daniels and Connor Spence, helped successfully unionize workers at the nearby gargantuan 855,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse – the first of the company’s warehouses in the US to vote for a union. Continue reading...
The Artful Escape is among the indie games to beat big-budget rivals on a night that recognised a tough period for the industryThe Bafta games awards took place at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London on Thursday night, honouring 2021’s creative achievements in video gaming. It was the first time the ceremony had been held in person since the pandemic and brought together the international video games industry to celebrate a range of titles – some with multimillion-dollar budgets, others made by teams of fewer than 10.The biggest winner of the night was the PlayStation 5 sci-fi shooter Returnal, which won accolades for audio achievement and music alongside the prestigious best game award. The lead actor in the game, Jane Perry, also won the award for performer in a leading role for her portrayal of steely space scout Selene. Performer in a supporting role was won by Kimberly Brooks, who played Hollis Forsythe in the psychedelic action game Psychonauts 2. Continue reading...
Peter Thiel, the libertarian tech investor, says figures such as Warren Buffett are hindering cryptocurrencyPeter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a Donald Trump ally, has accused a “finance gerontocracy” including Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon of hindering bitcoin’s progress.The outspoken libertarian tech investor described multibillionaire Buffett, the world’s richest investor, as the “sociopathic grandpa from Omaha” in a keynote address at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami on Thursday. Continue reading...
First came self-care. Now it’s all about relationship maintenance. But can texts, prompts and emojis really bring you and your partner closer?A few weeks ago, while scrolling Instagram and passing silent judgement on a stranger’s interior decoration choices, I was served an ad for Paired. The app promised “10 minutes a day to a better relationship” via quizzes designed by therapists and academics to spark more meaningful conversations. Had Alexa been eavesdropping on that row we had about the recycling? Either way, an algorithm had staged an intervention.At no other point in our history have we scrutinised our relationships so closely. Two years of semi-confinement in homes that doubled as co-working spaces or classrooms will do that. Across the cultural spectrum, via the BBC’s fly-on-the wall Couples Therapy, or Gwyneth and her wolverine claw in Netflix’s Sex, Love & Goop, we are hooked on psychoanalysing other people’s relationships. What Paired, Relish, Coupleness, Love Nudge (if you can look beyond the name) and a growing number of other couples’ apps are doing is turning that fascination inward. It’s relationship maintenance for the time-poor, self-care curious – and business is booming. Continue reading...
Facebook owner Meta removes network from social media in move which could damage President Jair BolsonaroFacebook owner Meta Platforms has removed a network of social media accounts with ties to the Brazilian military that posed as fake non-profits to play down the dangers of deforestation.The comments by Meta, published in a quarterly report, pose a reputational risk to Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. The far-right former army captain is a longtime sceptic of environmentalism. Continue reading...
Mark Zuckerberg hopes payment tokens will reduce platforms’ reliance on adverts as popularity wanesMark Zuckerberg is looking to develop virtual coins, nicknamed “Zuck bucks” by staff, for users of Facebook and Instagram as part of a suite of products designed to reduce his platforms’ dependence on advertising in the future metaverse.Facebook’s parent group, Meta, is looking to develop a range of virtual products – including digital tokens and “creator coins” – to diversify income and revitalise its user base, which is increasingly turning to newer rivals such as TikTok. Continue reading...
Magazine found sellers misusing ‘review merging’ to raise star rating of items from chargers to nose stripsAmazon sellers have been artificially boosting their products’ influential customer ratings by co-opting positive reviews of unrelated items, a leading consumer magazine has reported.Which? said nine of the 10 highest-rated headphones on Amazon were carrying glowing reviews that were actually for products such as cuddly toys, jigsaw puzzles and umbrellas. They included two that carried the “Amazon’s choice” mark of approval. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: the world’s richest man just bought 9.2% of the social media site promising “significant improvements” – here’s what that could mean
As food prices soar, Zimbabwe’s diaspora are opting for delivery services rather than money transfers to help hard-hit relativesWith the click of a button and a few phone calls from Wolverhampton, in England’s West Midlands, Sharonrose Manhiri ensures her grandmother in Zimbabwe’s Honde valley receives her groceries every month.Manhiri is one of an increasing number of Zimbabweans who have settled overseas taking advantage of a range of food-delivery apps and websites that have sprung up in Zimbabwe to help their families survive the country’s deep economic crisis. Continue reading...
Social media company says it has been working on edit button since 2021 and will be tested on people signed up for Twitter BlueTwitter has confirmed it has working on an edit button, but denied the idea came after the company’s new largest shareholder, Elon Musk, held a poll on it.For years, editing a tweet already published has been a sought after feature on the site, to correct typos or embarrassing mistakes. Currently people work around it by deleting and reposting the tweet. Continue reading...
Planned social media app would also prevent workers from using terms such as ‘fire’, ‘slave labor’, ‘diversity’ and ‘injustice’Amazon reportedly discussed plans to block the word “union” and other related keywords from an internal messaging app the company is developing for workers, according to company documents seen by the Intercept.The list of banned words includes “union”, “fire”, “compensation”, “plantation”, “slave labor”, “diversity”, “robots”, “grievance” and “injustice”, among others, the Intercept reported. The news came days after Amazon workers in New York made history by voting to form a union, the first successful US organizing effort in the company’s history. Continue reading...
Tech giant will launch 3,236 satellites over five years to compete with SpaceX and UK’s OneWebAmazon will compete directly with SpaceX and the UK government-owned OneWeb to set up a constellation of broadband-providing satellites, the company has announced.The plan, Project Kuiper, will involve Amazon buying the largest batch of commercial launches in history, securing space on 83 rockets over the next five years to launch 3,236 satellites. Continue reading...
The departures come after the troubled launch of the company’s iPhone app on 20 February, with many still stuck on a waiting listTwo senior executives at Donald Trump’s tech start-up Truth Social have resigned, adding to considerable problems faced by the former president’s attempted takeover of conservative social media.Josh Adams and Billy Boozer – Truth Social’s chiefs of technology and product development – joined the venture last year and quickly became central players in its effort to build a social media empire to counter what many conservatives deride as “cancel culture” censorship from the left. Continue reading...
Young locals live in tiny cabins while rich tourists flaunt their Range Rovers. Yet there’s more to the picture in a county at the vanguard of new technologiesIt’s the last day of free parking at Porthtowan beach on Cornwall’s wild Atlantic coast before the summer charging season begins. Plenty of people are making the most of the sunny but cold day. The steep hills surrounding the cove are bright yellow with gorse in full bloom, framing the brilliant turquoise sea against the cobalt sky.The wind is up, and white-peaked waves roar on to the sand and cliffs. There are some holidaymakers around, with children bundled up in hats and gloves along with buckets and spades – but most are locals enjoying this quieter time before the tourist season kicks off once again. Continue reading...
Europe’s new Digital Markets Act aims to make larger messaging platforms ‘interoperable’ with smaller ones. No wonder the tech titans are running scaredThe passage of GDPR (general data protection regulation) might seem like ancient history – as does everything before 2020 – but in legislative terms it was a mere blink of an eye ago and now the European Union has moved on to the next big thing. Prepare to start hearing a lot about the Digital Markets Act (DMA).It’s one of two bills currently going through the EU’s institutions, alongside the confusingly similar Digital Services Act (DSA). As a rough split, the DSA is about the things that platforms host: it covers issues such as child sexual abuse imagery, content moderation and algorithmic curation. Continue reading...
A surreal image taken in MoscowWhen Arthur Bondar came out of the metro station near Moscow’s Bolshoi theatre, he was heading to a book fair. Besides his work as a photographer, he collects second world war negatives, and there was a catalogue of work by the war photographer Olga Ignatovich he was excited to see. It was early afternoon in Moscow, a relatively mild December day of around -5 or -10C.“I was approaching Nikolskaya Street, which is usually packed with tourists, locals and street performers – that day there was a bunny and an angel. I was passing through a pedestrian crossroads. There had once been a monastery here, dedicated to Saint Nicholas, which closed in 1923 and was demolished in 1935. I’d never noticed the icon on the left before.” Continue reading...
Teamsters’ Sean O’Brien says the e-commerce company has ‘total disrespect’ for its workersThe Teamsters’ new president has pledged his powerful union will step up the pressure on Amazon and mount its own efforts to unionize the company after workers in New York voted to form the company’s first US union.In an interview with the Guardian Sean O’Brien said it was vital to organize Amazon, asserting that the e-commerce company has “total disrespect” for its workers and was putting downward pressure on standards for unionized warehouse workers and truck drivers across the US. Continue reading...
‘Historic victory’ as Staten Island workers vote 2,654 to 2,131 in favor, in first successful US organizing effort in Amazon’s historyAmazon workers in New York have voted to form a union in what labor leaders are calling a “historic victory” against the US’s second largest employer.In Staten Island, New York, 2,654 warehouse workers voted yes to forming a union, while 2,131 voted no, according to a tally by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). Continue reading...
From the Barbican in London to shopping centres around the country, audiences can become part of sophisticated new XR dance spectaculars – diving into Lewis Carroll’s imagination or an extravagant ballroomI’m in an abandoned-looking house, where a woman appears like a dancing apparition. Then I’m going down a rabbit hole into a tea party in a bright yellow field. I’m conducting avatars moving to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring; taking part in a dance class where the teacher is a hologram; arriving at a grand Parisian party dressed in Chanel.These are my recent forays into the world of extended reality (XR) in dance. It is technology that we are told is leading us towards a new metaverse, but in practice can often seem more like watching bad graphics in very uncomfortable headgear and wondering what the point is. Nevertheless, a number of choreographers are exploring what XR could bring to dance, whether in virtual reality (VR), where you are completely immersed in a different world via a large headset; or augmented reality (AR), where you wear glasses that add images into the space around you. Continue reading...
Elsewhere, a unionization vote by Alabama workers is pending as hundreds of votes were challengedAmazon workers in New York are close to voting to form a union – a major win for labor activists who have failed in previous efforts to organize at the tech giant that is now the second largest private employer in the US.Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island will find out on Friday whether or not they want to form a union, Amazon’s first in the US where it now employs over one million people. Continue reading...
Shows such as WeCrashed, Super Pumped and The Dropout all retell recent stories of millennial work-life balance going wrongThe third episode of WeCrashed, Apple TV+’s eight-part series on the precipitous rise and fall of the WeWork founders Adam and Rebekah Neumann, gives the viewer a small taste of being a startup employee. It’s 2012, and a nameless female employee arrives for her first day; she’s given a key card, an Apple laptop, a reminder that there’s a 7pm “Thank God It’s Monday” meeting, and a mimosa. In one of the most effective montages of the series – largely because it draws attention away from the two eccentric, delusional founders who take up the vast majority of screen time – we whirl through the nameless female employee’s hedonistic, exhausting life at WeWork. Coffee, shot, staff party, sex with a co-worker in a supply closet. Adam Neumann leading employees in a “we!” “work!” call and response. Another shot, another day, pass out, wake up, repeat. Is it night or is it noon? At a desk or at a party? Doesn’t matter – she’s at work, which is life.This ethos of so-called “hustle culture” – the idea that work is life and the self derives value through constant work – courses throughout a number of recent shows set across the 2010s. It’s most overt in WeCrashed, based on the Wondery podcast of the same name, in which Neumann literally urges workers to “hustle harder” (also the title of its fifth episode, which airs this Friday). The Theranos employees in The Dropout, Hulu’s eight-part series on Elizabeth Holmes’s fraudulent blood-testing company that was once the darling of Silicon Valley, work through the night, missing kids’ birthday parties and dinners in the name of changing the world. Same for the Uber staff in Super Pumped, Showtime’s series on Uber’s relentless, now disgraced founder Travis Kalanick, who berates employees to pursue growth at any cost (and change the world.) Anna Delvey, the scammer at the heart of Netflix’s Inventing Anna, is most chagrined that her notoriety as the “Soho grifter” overshadowed how hard she worked at the business plan that ultimately exposed her; the journalist who covers her is so obsessed with the story and its import for her career that she goes into labor in the office. Continue reading...
Nice says wearable tech reduces need for finger-prick testing by up to 50%Hundreds of thousands of people with type 1 diabetes in England are to be offered a hi-tech skin sensor to monitor their blood sugar levels in seconds.The device, the size of a £2 coin, sits on a patient’s arm and constantly checks their glucose levels. It comes with an app that tells them whethertheir blood sugar levels are at an appropriate level. Continue reading...
Gamers stocked up on hardware such as consoles and virtual reality gear, offsetting a fall in game salesThe UK video games market hit a new record of £7.16bn last year as the pandemic continued to fuel an unprecedented boom in home entertainment, with gamers rushing to stock up on new consoles and virtual reality kit even as overall sales of games fell.Lockdown conditions have made gaming one of the biggest pandemic winners with the value of the UK market now a third higher than in 2019 before the coronavirus crisis hit and worth more than the music and video streaming markets combined. Continue reading...
Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, solicited campaign accusing TikTok of being a danger to American childrenMeta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, is reportedly paying a notable GOP consulting firm to create public distrust around TikTok.The campaign, launched by Republican strategy firm Targeted Victory, placed op-eds and letters to the editor in various publications, accusing TikTok of being a danger to American children, along with other disparaging accusations. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: how a madeup backstory for a crisp mascot became accepted fact, and why it proves the internet doesn’t just reflect reality – it can alter it too
When you’re young, you believe in the possibility of anything – ghosts, goblins, the Resident Evil house – but by my age, the spell is brokenMy wife and kids have a tough time believing that I fear nothing supernatural. Because they do. They fear all of them. Ghosts, goblins, werewolves, wendigos, all that claptrap. I just don’t. When they tell me that this is strange, considering I’m the only one of us who goes to mass every Sunday and literally eats the body and blood of a man who came back from the dead, I distract them by showing them my latest Day-Glo Virgin Mary statue which plays Ave Maria.My youngest teen, Sharkie, gives me a list of her scariest games ever. Apparently one of them is bound to give me nightmares. I start with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard because everyone says it’s terrifying and the original Resident Evil game did genuinely scare me, back in the days when I experienced fear. I am sorry to disappoint the legions of people who have needed underwear changes exploring that house, but for me the most frightening thing about it is that they are still using tape recorders as save points. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5XN8E)
Company’s first wearable delivers personal pocket of filtered air and cancels unwanted noiseDyson has announced its first wearable product that builds the firm’s air purification expertise into a set of Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones aimed at city dwellers wanting to avoid polluted air.Quite unlike anything the company has made before, the Dyson Zone is sure to draw quizzical looks. It is a set of large, plush headphones with a plastic mask-type contraption that connects from ear-to-ear across the wearer’s mouth and looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. Continue reading...
ESA project aims to harness power of smartphones to match atmospheric conditions to weather on groundEven with supercomputers, accurate weather forecasting is still one of science’s most difficult challenges. We are all familiar with the feeling of being let down having planned a trip based on the forecast only to find it was wrong. In response to criticisms, a useful caveat, “these predictions may change”, seems to have crept into the three-day-ahead weather outlook.The power of smartphones equipped with GPS is now being harnessed to try to improve on this. The idea is that thousands of people holding their phones still and pointing at the sky can interact with satellites to match atmospheric conditions and the actual weather on the ground at that location. Artificial intelligence then mashes and processes all the data. This will be used to improve future weather forecasts on Earth and also monitor the weather in space. Understanding space weather is helpful for better satellite operations and communications. Continue reading...
‘I supposedly have it again (sigh), but almost no symptoms,’ Tesla and SpaceX billionaire tweetsElon Musk said on Monday he had “supposedly” tested positive for Covid-19, with no major symptoms.“I supposedly have it again (sigh), but almost no symptoms,” the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire said in a tweet. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5XJP0)
Great performance and battery life, held back by cost, camera and lack of software polishThe latest high-end smartphone from China’s Oppo aims to usurp Samsung as the best Android phone launched in 2022 with serious speed and a luxurious ceramic back that’s almost too smooth.The Find X5 Pro costs £1,049 and won’t be sold in the US. It replaces last year’s Find X3 Pro (there was no X4) and is packed with all the things you expect from a top-flight phone.Screen: 6.7in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (525ppi)Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1RAM: 12GB of RAMStorage: 256GBOperating system: ColorOS 12.1 (Android 12)Camera: 50MP main and ultrawide + 13MP 2x telephoto, 32MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)Dimensions: 163.7 x 73.9 x 8.5mmWeight: 218g Continue reading...
Partnership will boost number of rides available, and gives NYC cab drivers access to massive pool of commuters with Uber appUber, hit by driver shortages and a surge in food delivery requests during the pandemic, will list New York City taxi cabs on its app, a partnership that until recently would have been unthinkable with both camps fighting ferociously for the same customers.After a period in which waits for an Uber ride grew longer due to a driver shortage, the partnership will boost the number of rides available, and it gives NYC cab drivers access to a massive pool of commuters with an Uber app on their phones. Continue reading...
Rise of 35% on previous year may represent improvement on the part of platforms, says nonprofit centreA record 29.3m items of child abuse imagery were found and removed across the internet in 2021, according to data from the US nonprofit organisation in charge of coordinating reports on the matter.The figure released by the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a 35% increase from 2020. Continue reading...
Xbox One/Series S/X, PlayStation 4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch; Okomotive AG/Frontier FoundrySinglehandedly manage a steampunk sailboat in this ramshackle but glorious anti-open world gameFar: Changing Tides melds Mario with Cormac McCarthy and a touch of nautical engineering. Human civilisation lies in ruins, and you are a child journeying to the other end of it. You can’t do this on foot, however. As in Okomotive’s previous Far: Lone Sails, the star is actually your vehicle – a rattling origami hybrid of sailboat and first world war tank. Scurry inside, and the hull lifts away dollhouse-style to reveal a warren of buttons and boilers. This isn’t the fantasy of uninhibited traversal offered by car-based apocalypses such as Mad Max: you don’t so much drive the craft as maintain it while it plots its own course rightward through flooded cities and glacial seas.Changing Tides is a game of three moods. First, the satisfying rhythms of ship management – stowing fuel and pumping the bellows while hosing down the overheating engine, or angling pop-out sails to catch the wind. Second, the mild thrill of exploration outside, whether scouting for fuel or to clear the path by, say, operating a crane. And third, the reflective interludes when things are humming along nicely and you have a moment to watch the horizons pass.Far: Changing Tides is out now; £14.99 Continue reading...
The much-hyped adaptation of the phenomenally successful video game crash lands on TV with impressive visuals but not much elseQuite how Halo hasn’t made it to the screen, small or big, before this is an enigma almost as nebulous as the long-running first person shooter video game’s crowded mythos. Luminaries such as Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and District 9’s Neill Blomkamp have all been involved in trying to get a film based on the explosive exploits of Masterchief across the line for the best part of two decades, yet to no avail. Even this big-budget – it reputedly cost more than $200m and looks like gold – TV series starring Pablo Schreiber as the genetically engineered soldier-hero of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) has been held up for two years by Covid.Never mind, it’s here now, and fans of the games who just want to see their nightly battles with giant space monsters played out on the TV screen will no doubt be more than content with Kyle Killen and Steven Kane’s adventurous if somewhat insipid reimagining. Unfortunately, those of us who don’t recognise every re-enacted power-up bleep and helmet-cam vision of destruction will probably find ourselves wondering, much of the time, quite what is going on.
Appliances left on standby account for almost a quarter of Britain’s electricity use. Turns out your gran was right to go around switching things off at the wallName: Vampire appliances.Age: There are old ones, and less old ones.This article was amended on 24 March 2022 as we had used an incorrect format for measuring the power used by a Sky box. We used W/hour when W (for watts) would have sufficed. Continue reading...
Prosecutors portray ex-executive as accomplice in a health scam while defense paints picture of well-meaning businessmanThe specter of Elizabeth Holmes loomed over the opening day of a trial that will determine whether Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her former romantic and business partner at Theranos, was also her partner in crime.Tuesday marked the opening of a case slated to begin last week, which was delayed by a Covid-19 exposure. Continue reading...
Two high court cases brought by transparency campaigners are exploring whether use of self-destructing messages is unlawfulTransparency campaigners have accused ministers of conducting “government by WhatsApp” in the UK’s third-highest court, arguing that the use of self-destructing messages on insecure platforms is unlawful and undemocratic.Ministers and government officials could be stopped from sending “disappearing messages” after failing to keep public records of exchanges on personal phones, email and WhatsApp. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: there’s another instalment of CD Projekt Red’s fantasy behemoth on the way, and it’s sure to have some bite. Time to play catch up!
Technology | The Guardian