The pervasive metaphor likening information to crude obscures the reality of surveillance capitalismThe phrase “data is the new oil” is the cliche du jour of the tech industry. It was coined by Clive Humby, the genius behind Tesco’s loyalty card, who argued that data was “just like crude. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analysed for it to have value.”It turned out to be a viral idea: marketers, tech companies, governments, regulators and the mainstream media went for it like ostriches going after brass doorknobs (as PG Wodehouse might have put it) and it rapidly attained the status of holy writ. Continue reading...
The Mexican author won the Dublin literary award last week for Lost Children Archive. She reflects on how reading and writing have helped her through the pandemicI read an article the other day about a computer program that writes fiction. You feed it a few lines, tell it the genre – science fiction, horror – and it produces the rest. And it’s not bad at it. It writes in full grammatical sentences; comes up with metaphors and analogies; emulates a writer’s particular style and so on. The author of the article, who seemed a little too thrilled about the existence of this diabolical toy from the depths of Silicon Valley says, at some point, that this “tool” was going to be the “salvation” for writers who dislike writing, which, according to him, is nearly all writers. I want to say to this writer: you are wrong. And to this robot that writes fiction I want to say … well I don’t want to say anything to it because, you know, robots are robots.Fiction is one of the most pleasurable of human activities. It’s one of the most difficult, yes; but when it is driven by a deep desire, it is one of the most pleasurable. Fiction is also something quite like a bodily intuition, or an embodied knowledge, something we feel when our minds are able to pierce through the mesh of the present, and imagine someplace/something other. At times, when we try to peer into that other place what we see is too painful, shocking or simply abysmal. But we have to look at it anyway, and make something of it, make something with it. The word fiction, in fact, comes from the Latin fingere, which means “to shape, to form”, and originally, “to mould something out of clay”. Fingere implies the action of making, or rather, giving form. It is not inventing something that is not true, but giving shape to something that was already there. Fiction requires a combination of insight, hindsight and foresight. In other words, it requires experience. Continue reading...
An Australian engineer-turned climate activist hosts Coal Miners Driving Teslas, a YouTube and Twitter channel heavily spiced with unbridled swearingWhat happens when you take an electric car into a town full of petrolheads and coalminers, and film them planting their steel-capped boots on the accelerator?“Fuck me … it’s like a rocket ship,” says one miner, who usually spends his time driving V8s or manoeuvring a giant coal scoop. Continue reading...
Microsoft says group targeted more than 15o American and foreign organisations using USAid accountThe state-backed Russian cyber spies behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign launched a targeted phishing assault on US and foreign government agencies and thinktanks this week using an email marketing account of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), Microsoft has said.The effort targeted about 3,000 email accounts at more than 150 organisations, at least a quarter of them involved in international development, humanitarian and human rights work, the Microsoft vice-president Tom Burt wrote in a blogpost on Thursday. Continue reading...
Livestreams change the game for those who can’t access live theatre, writes Richard Lee, while John Warburton thinks all National Theatre productions should be broadcast by the BBCLarry Elliott’s optimistic article (Covid pandemic might unlock doors to golden age for the arts, 23 May) rightly points out the place of technology as the key driver for cultural change. Already in the vanguard by committing to stream every production is the Young Vic, tentatively supported by the Almeida, and hopefully underpinned by the National Theatre at Home service.These change the game for those who can’t access live theatre, with captioning, audio description and literally “being there” when you can’t make it. Beats me why every show isn’t getting a livestream, given that audiences for this year, and possibly for some time, will be reduced through social distancing. I love live events, but as bits of me fail, the words are never clearer than through subtitles and headphones, the moves and expressions never more detailed than in close-up, and what better way to break down the metropolitan stranglehold and give regional theatres an equal footing, as the Leicester Curve and its peers are promising? Continue reading...
Officers expected to discover a cannabis farm when they raided building on industrial estatePolice have discovered a cryptocurrency operation that used stolen electricity to mine bitcoin in the West Midlands.Officers from West Midlands police raided a building in an industrial estate on 18 May expecting to find a cannabis farm, but instead stumbled upon the cryptocurrency scheme. No arrests have been made. Continue reading...
Appearance in Apple and Android stores signals long-rumoured launch may be imminentTwitter has listed a new paid-for “Twitter Blue” service on app stores, suggesting the social media company may launch its long-rumoured subscription service soon.Mobile phone app stores showed the service, although its expected features did not yet appear to be available. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5JC6B)
Future-proofed Apple smart TV upgrade has widest selection of streaming apps but is super priceyThe second-generation Apple TV 4K gets a faster processor and future-proofed specs, but is really all about its new iPod-inspired Siri remote. And it all comes at a price.Costing £169, the Apple media-streaming box is very much at the top of the market despite being £10 cheaper than its predecessor, with direct competitors priced between £50 and £130. But the Apple TV 4K offers something most others cannot: full integration with all of the iPhone-maker’s services including Siri, iTunes, TV+, Music, Fitness+ and the AirPlay 2 streaming system. Continue reading...
by Hannah Verdier, Hannah J Davies and Noah Payne-Fra on (#5JC4T)
Growing Old Disgracefully sees the actor meet over-70s ripping up the rulebook. Plus: Moya Lothian-McLean investigates how slavery continues to intersect with British societyGrowing Old Disgracefully
Group publishing archival photos claims images showing traditional dress or ceremonies were deleted for allegedly containing nudityFacebook has been accused of “discriminatory and racist” behaviour after it deleted historical photos from a group that publishes archival photos of men and women from Papua New Guinea.The group, which boasts over 55,000 members, claims photos showing traditional dress or ceremonies were deleted for allegedly containing nudity – but photos showing nudity among white people were not. Continue reading...
The AI researcher and co-founder of Google’s DeepMind was one of many who pressed for an hard lockdown in March 2020At first glance, Demis Hassabis is an unusual figure for Dominic Cummings to have turned to for guidance in March 2020 about the threat of the novel coronavirus bearing down on the UK.The co-founder of Google subsidiary DeepMind, which is dedicated to high-level AI research, has a varied CV, but is no epidemiologist. A child chess prodigy, he hit the rank of master at 13 and was for a brief time the second-highest-rated player in the world in his age category. Continue reading...
Some methods have been ruled unlawful, but the government is still seeking to expand its powersNo matter our background or beliefs, we all want control over our personal information, our private views and our sensitive data. That control is key to our autonomy and our liberty. But in 2013 Edward Snowden pulled back the curtain on how governments had used the excuse of the “war on terror” to erode that liberty.Related: Amazon’s Ring is the largest civilian surveillance network the US has ever seen | Lauren Bridges Continue reading...
Agreement allows union access to drivers hubs for help and support but deal does not include riders with Uber Eats serviceUber is to recognise the GMB trade union in the UK for its private hire drivers, marking the first deal between a union and a gig economy ride-hailing service.Under the recognition deal, the GMB will have access to drivers’ meeting hubs to help and support them. It will also be able to represent drivers if they lose access to the Uber app, and it will meet quarterly with management to discuss driver issues and concerns. Continue reading...
Japanese carmaker reportedly wants millions in government support for new 6GWh plant at existing siteNissan is understood to be asking the UK government to provide tens of millions of pounds to build a new electric car battery “gigafactory” in Sunderland .
Users globally reported nearly 500 deleted posts in just over two weeks condemning the recent eviction of PalestiniansFacebook’s often inscrutable content moderation process has come under renewed fire during the 11-day bombardment of Gaza after hundreds of pro-Palestine posts were removed, many without explanation.Nearly 500 removals on Instagram and Facebook were documented by 7amleh, a Palestinian digital rights non-profit, between 6 and 19 May. Now, 7amleh and more than 30 other human rights organizations are calling for greater transparency into the social network’s decision making, especially as it relates to Palestine as part of a campaign titled Facebook, We Need to Talk. Continue reading...
Battle for streaming supremacy hots up after acquisition of studio behind James Bond franchiseAmazon has bought MGM, the Hollywood studio behind the James Bond and Rocky franchises, for nearly $8.5bn as the battle for global streaming supremacy reaches new heights.The scale of the deal far exceeds the $5bn (£3.5bn) price tag suggested when the studio put itself up for sale in December, as the fight to secure must-watch programming fuels fierce bidding wars for owners of increasingly scarce “crown jewel” content. Continue reading...
European Commission proposes more factchecking and algorithm changes to tackle disinformationA “massive anti-vaccination campaign” has been cited by the European Commission as a reason for social media platforms to intensify their factchecking and revise the internal algorithms that can amplify disinformation.Under a revised code of practice proposed by Brussels, companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter would need to show why particular material is disseminated and prove that false information is being blocked. Continue reading...
Sony’s Freeview TV staple has a new name, with an exclamation mark to show how exciting it is! What’s the thinking behind the rebrand? And who’s watching?As of this week, the Sony Movie Channel is no more. A staple of the Freeview era of television, the SMC and its spin-offs have allowed viewers to enjoy half-decent cinema, in their own home, free, for years. But now the channel has come to an end. Instead, the future is Great!Great! Movies is the name of the new channel that is to replace the old channel but will show the same films in the same place. There will be similarly rebranded siblings too – Great! Movies Action and Great! Movies Classic but not Great! Movies Asshole! Thanks to its agenda-setting break with syntax and the attendant suggestion of a complete critical lobotomy, Great! Movies has all the hallmarks of a swift right hook from modernity. Continue reading...
Lawsuit says controversial new laws are unconstitutional and violate the right to the preservation of privacyWhatsApp has sued the Indian government over new internet laws which the company says will “severely undermine” the privacy of their users.The new IT laws, which have been described as oppressive and draconian, give the Indian government greater power to monitor online activity, including on encrypted apps such as WhatsApp and Signal. They were passed in February but were due to come into effect on Wednesday. Continue reading...
Campaign failed to say investment was complex, volatile and could expose investors to losses, says ASAAn ad campaign telling the public that “it’s time to buy” bitcoin has been banned after the advertising watchdog ruled that it was irresponsible and misleading.The high-profile campaign, which has featured heavily across the London underground and the capital’s bus network since December, ran with the strapline “If you’re seeing bitcoin on the underground, it’s time to buy”. Continue reading...
Microsoft’s game subscription includes all the obvious Xbox hits, from Halo to Minecraft – but, if you’ve exhausted those, here are some deeper cuts from its libraryA 1930s mystery set on a sun-saturated yet eerie island full of mysteries and puzzles. This is a relatively short game that pulls you effortlessly through its story, about a curse-afflicted woman who follows her explorer husband on an expedition from which nobody has returned. It’s slower-paced, beautiful to look at and unexpectedly introspective. Read a full review. Continue reading...
by Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier and Mythili Rao on (#5J379)
Dr Death’s Laura Beil asks just how safe the smoking alternative is in The Vaping Fix. Plus: a winning tech parody, and another trip to West CorkThe Vaping Fix
The app offered a $30,000 reward to track him down and shared a photo of the man, which was seen by more than 861,000 peopleThe vigilante crime app Citizen falsely accused a California man of starting a wildfire, offering a $30,000 reward to track him down before retracting the post the next day, in a move that has been condemned by criminal justice experts.The app – which gives users local crime information via police scanners and other sources – shared an alert on Saturday about an alleged arsonist behind a large brush fire that broke out in Los Angeles over the weekend. Continue reading...
Covid lockdowns prove bad news for phone firm as less-mobile people translate into lower roaming chargesVodafone was the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 on Tuesday as investors reacted to lower than expected profits, a decline inrevenues due to the impact of pandemic travel bans and a drop in smartphone sales.While Vodafone swung back to the black last year, reporting profits of €536m (£461m) compared with a loss of €455m in 2019, the result was at the lowest end of the company’s guidance and disappointed City expectations. Shares fell 9% to 129p. Continue reading...
While many players in more traditional fine art circles feel ill-equipped to deal with the digital art trend, some contemporary art enthusiasts are going all inIn 1962, the French neo-avant-garde artist Yves Klein began dealing in what he declared to be Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility. In exchange for a sum of solid gold, Klein would imbue a patch of thin air with his artistic aura and provide a receipt. One such “zone” was bequeathed to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where it exists only as a photograph of the transaction, taken as the receipt was set ablaze and half the gold tossed into the Seine. In postwar Europe, such high-minded (Klein was an amphetamine addict, as well as a provocateur) artistic experiments both raised eyebrows and opened wallets.Sixty years later, the mind-bending US$69m sale of another intangible artwork, Everydays: the First 5,000 Days by digital artist Beeple, in the form of an NFT (non-fungible token) at Christie’s in March this year likewise has the art world paying attention. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5HZ03)
First big redesign since 2012 gives all-in-one Mac super-thin design, 4.5K display and top M1 chip performanceApple’s iMac has had its first big redesign since 2012 with a bigger screen, bold colours, remarkably thin body and the power of the M1 chip.The 24in iMac costs from £1,249 and replaces the outgoing 21.5in Intel iMac model, which remains on sale in the short term. Continue reading...
One in 10 US police departments can now access videos from millions of privately owned home security cameras without a warrantIn a 2020 letter to management, Max Eliaser, an Amazon software engineer, said Ring is “simply not compatible with a free society”. We should take his claim seriously.Ring video doorbells, Amazon’s signature home security product, pose a serious threat to a free and democratic society. Not only is Ring’s surveillance network spreading rapidly, it is extending the reach of law enforcement into private property and expanding the surveillance of everyday life. What’s more, once Ring users agree to release video content to law enforcement, there is no way to revoke access and few limitations on how that content can be used, stored, and with whom it can be shared. Continue reading...
The film company, which owns the James Bond franchise, had held talks with Netflix and AppleAmazon is in talks to acquire MGM, the Hollywood studio behind the James Bond and Rocky franchises, for $9bn (£6.3bn) in the latest deal to secure “crown jewel” content in the global battle for streaming supremacy.MGM, which put itself up for sale in December, is one of the few Hollywood studios with evergreen, must-watch franchises not to have been snapped up in the recent wave of huge mergers and acquisitions in the media industry. Continue reading...
One family said blue sparks were flying from their modem as electrical storms wreaked havoc on fibre-to-the-curb distribution boxesNBN Co has been forced to replace 10,000 faulty broadband devices in homes across the Blue Mountains west of Sydney after residents reported the technology was frequently struck by lightning and in one instance led to blue sparks flying out of a modem in a family’s home.About 20,000 of the more than 32,000 homes in the Blue Mountains and Emu Plains have been connected to the national broadband network via fibre-to-the-curb (FttC) technology, which was set up under the Coalition government’s multi-technology mixed model. Continue reading...
The most promising talent in the QPR academy would have been 30 this year and his life is commemorated in the video game to help provide inspiration to young peoplePromotional materials for the latest player to be added to Fifa 21 show Kiyan Prince scoring a goal. He takes a shot with his left foot, over the lunge of a despairing defender, and watches it fly into the roof of the net. Running off in celebration with his arms wide, he shouts in delight. Then he turns and shows his shirt to the crowd: Queens Park Rangers’ number 30.Prince, who was once the most promising talent in the QPR academy, would have been 30 this year, but in 2006 he died at the gates of his school in north London. In a notorious incident Prince was stabbed in the heart with a penknife as he tried to break up a fight. The killer, who called the knife a “little toy”, was 16. Continue reading...
Monthly $2.99 subscription includes ability to organise tweets into collections and ‘undo tweet’ buttonTwitter is considering launching a paid subscription service called Twitter Blue, according to unreleased features of the app discovered by an independent researcher.Jane Manchun Wong, who has made a name for herself through uncovering accidentally-public upcoming features of popular apps, shared screenshots of the service, which is pegged at $2.99 a month. Continue reading...
The Nobel-winning psychologist on applying his ideas to organisations, why we’re not equipped to grasp the spread of a virus, and the massive disruption that’s just round the cornerDaniel Kahneman, 87, was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 2002 for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making. His first book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, a worldwide bestseller, set out his revolutionary ideas about human error and bias and how those traits might be recognised and mitigated. A new book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R Sunstein, applies those ideas to organisations. This interview took place last week by Zoom with Kahneman at his home in New York.I guess the pandemic is quite a good place to start. In one way it has been the biggest ever hour-by-hour experiment in global political decision-making. Do you think it’s a watershed moment in the understanding that we need to “listen to science”?
The hacking of a US gas pipeline is proof that cybercrime is now a major industry – with its own trading markets and even CSROn Friday 7 May, Colonial, the quaintly named operator of the pipeline that brings 45% of the US east coast’s gasoline and jet fuel from Texas to New York, announced that it had been hacked. My initial assumption was that this was Russian retaliation for the Biden administration’s punitive cyber-attacks on Russia in response to the SolarWinds hack. After all, if a pipeline like this isn’t “critical infrastructure”, what is? If so, were we not witnessing a significant escalation in information warfare between two nuclear-armed powers?Fortunately, my overheated imagination turned out to be wrong, but the reality – in a way – is almost as interesting. On 10 May, the FBI announced that the attack on Colonial was caused by an outfit called DarkSide, which specialises in ransomware, and that the bureau had forced the company to halt its pipeline’s operations so that it could carry out a full investigation into the breach. Continue reading...
Demand and prices are soaring for minerals essential to the construction of low-carbon infrastructureThe commodities boom ignited by China’s post-Covid recovery, and stoked by the global move to green energy, broke price records last week even as fears about inflation stalked the markets. But it also risks triggering a rush on metals and minerals that could derail climate action.Iron ore reached the apex of a super-rally that drove prices to $237.57 a tonne in New York on Wednesday. The record followed a surge in demand from China’s steel-making regions, now recovering after the pandemic, which has pushed prices up from less than $94 this time last year. Continue reading...
The comments aren’t just transactional – they can reveal more about how we connect than the curated feeds of social mediaHuman connection can often be found where you least expect it. Google Maps, started as a straightforward navigation tool, has become in recent years an unlikely treasure trove of humour and intrigue. With many businesses in my area closed for much of the pandemic, I took to exploring them through the reviews that others had left online. I have traversed foreign cities from my sofa, idly dreaming of future holidays via a one-line description of the perfect snack bar.From reviews of a local bistro to the dry cleaner, I have stumbled on snatches of city life that seem as compelling as any sitcom. Entire sagas are played out in a few sentences, and I have read elaborate tales of love, fights, breakups and makeups. “The owners created a drama around them, and chose us to express all their violence,” begins one particularly ominous review of a bar, which ends with: “We spent the night in hospital and my friend had to get surgery to fix his nose.” Continue reading...
With comedy venues reopening in England and Scotland, Sarah Henley discusses the effect of the pandemic, online audiences and being a woman in male-dominated sectorsTelling jokes to live audiences over Zoom has offered an alternative for standup comics since comedy clubs shut last year.It has also presented them with a new set of occupational hazards, as the comedian Andrew Maxwell discovered during an online gig where he got momentarily upstaged by an audience member’s cat showing its bum to the webcam. Continue reading...
Ofcom and big tech will be told to do more, but do we want them to decide who’s allowed to say whatConsequences matter. If there was one clear message from football’s temporary boycott of social media earlier this month, in protest at the torrent of online hate experienced disproportionately by black players, that was it.The former England striker Ian Wright has said that he’d almost given up reporting the vile stuff he receives daily because nothing ever seemed to happen to the perpetrators. “It makes you feel very dehumanised. You feel like there’s nothing you can do, you’re helpless,” he said. So two cheers, at least, for the inclusion in this week’s Queen’s speech of a long-delayed online safety bill aimed at holding big tech more accountable. Who wouldn’t agree with the culture secretary Oliver Dowden’s desire to rid social media of what he called “the bile and the threats”? Continue reading...
by Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier and Hannah Moore on (#5HT24)
Here Comes the Break melds a fictional story with interviews and new music. Plus: illuminating fashion industry conversations, and witty fun with Mike WozniakHere Comes the Break
Demi Skipper wants to own her first home, but she’s not buying one. Instead she’s planning a strategy of individual trades. The 29-year-old is already the owner of one of only a few Chipotle celebrity cards in the world, and is hoping to reach a house by the end of summer. Here's a record of her progress so far
Analysis: Ofcom remains gatekeeper of big social networks, but moderators face multiple conundrums with the legislationModeration of online content is difficult. Social networks want to take down content that breaks their rules. They have to do it quickly enough that they do not get shouted at for leaving bad things up, but they have to do it accurately so that they do not get shouted at for taking the wrong things down.In 2019 the UK government announced a plan to fix things. The intention of the online harms white paper was to apply pressure to social networks, to shift that dilemma. If social networks had rules against content that they did not enforce, they would get into legal trouble. Continue reading...