Technology | The Guardian

The social media platform was once a favourite of artists and photographers, but a shift towards TikTok-type videos and shopping could leave them looking for a new home onlineIn late July, hobbyist photographer and self-proclaimed “sunrise hunter” Sam Binding conducted an experiment. After visiting Somerset Lavender Farm to catch the sun peeking over the purple blossoms, the 40-year-old from Bristol uploaded the results to both Instagram and Twitter. Two days later, he used the apps’ built-in analytics tools to assess the impact of his shots. On Instagram, a total of 5,595 people saw his post – just over half of his 11,000 followers. On Twitter, his post was seen by 5,611 people, despite the fact he has just 333 followers on the site.This confirmed Binding’s hunch that although most people believe that Instagram is a place to share photos and Twitter is a place to share words, that may no longer be the case. When it launched in 2010, Instagram courted the artistic community, inviting respected designers to be among its initial users and naming its very first filter X-Pro II, after an analogue photo-developing technique. In her 2020 book No Filter: The Inside Story of Instagram, technology reporter Sarah Frier documents how Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wanted Instagram to be an outlet for artists (in a high-school essay, Systrom wrote that he liked how photography could “inspire others to look at the world in a new way”). Continue reading...

California’s legal action could mark step towards fixing culture of harassment, experts sayFor women at Activision Blizzard, one of the world’s most famous video game companies, showing up to work meant navigating near daily episodes of humiliation, sexual harassment, and even physical abuse, according to a bombshell lawsuit that has prompted a reckoning within the gaming industry.The claims paint a disturbing picture of life for female employees: rampant sexual harassment, gender discrimination, retaliation, and a “frat boy” workplace culture where men objectified women’s bodies and openly joked about rape. Continue reading...

Seek help for a mental health issue today and you may find yourself referred to an online app or talking to a robot therapist. Is this welcome democratisation of an expensive resource – or the ‘Uberisation of therapy’?She’s sitting on a purple armchair, nodding slowly as she talks. “When was the last time you felt really happy?” Her voice is low and measured, with the gently broken glottal quality that one might expect of a computer simulation, her ethnicity undefined, her cardigan beige. Ellie, an artificial intelligence therapist created with funding from the US government agency responsible for the development of military technologies, is capable of reading 60 non-verbal cues a second. She wears a watch and a look of blank empathy. On the split screen, her patient repeats her question. “Hmm, when was the last time I felt really happy?” He’s a young white man who appears to find the interaction unremarkable, which I find remarkable. She detects his “low gaze attention” as he answers, and nods, and prods, and mirrors his facial expressions. And I realise I am nodding, too.The future of therapy arrived faster than planned. Over the past decade the appearance of mental health care has radically changed, evolving from soft conversations held in small rooms, to encompass teletherapy (at a distance), text-based therapy (through messaging apps), chatbots that perform cognitive behavioural therapy, online platforms that match you to a therapist and, soon, AI therapy with a “non-human” therapist like Ellie. In 2020 the pandemic brought about a mental health crisis and these online services were pushed blinking into the light. As Covid gnawed its way through communities, record numbers of children and adults sought NHS help for problems such as anxiety and depression, and private online therapy platforms, such as BetterHelp, saw a spike in users. The future was here, for around £60 a week. Continue reading...

The social media magnate has evidently decided that the ‘metaverse’ is the way forward. But should we be worried?Brace yourselves: Mark Zuckerberg has a new pivot for Facebook. The visionary genius who brought us the pivot to video, the pivot to privacy, the pivot to trusted news and the pivot away from trusted news is now preparing for the latest turn: the pivot to the “metaverse”. Continue reading...

Silicon Valley makes billions by stealing your attention. No wonder it’s so hard to focus…One Friday in April 2016, as that year’s polarising US presidential race intensified, and more than 30 armed conflicts raged around the globe, approximately 3 million people spent part of their day watching two reporters from BuzzFeed wrap rubber bands around a watermelon. Gradually, over the course of 43 agonising minutes, the pressure ramped up – the psychological kind and the physical force on the watermelon – until, at minute 44, the 686th rubber band was applied.What happened next won’t amaze you: the watermelon exploded, messily. The reporters high-fived, wiped the splatters from their reflective goggles, then ate some of the fruit. The broadcast ended. Earth continued its orbit around the sun. Continue reading...

The messaging app does not comply with laws protecting children, say prosecutors, in fresh crackdown on tech firmsProsecutors in Beijing have initiated a civil lawsuit against a subsidiary of Tencent, saying the “youth mode” on the company’s popular social messaging app WeChat does not comply with laws protecting minors.Related: No cults, no politics, no ghouls: how China censors the video game world Continue reading...

For £1m a week you can rent 126-metre ship built for Paul Allen, with two helicopters, two subs and a recording studioA vast “explorer class” superyacht built for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has been sold for almost £200m, and is now available to rent for anyone with about a £1m to drop for a week.Octopus was the world’s largest yacht when she was built for Allen in 2003 and the 126-metre vessel marked a turning point in superyacht design, capable of being used for deep sea exploration as well as living a life of luxury on the high seas. Continue reading...

Security researchers fear neuralMatch system could be misused to spy on citizensApple will scan photo libraries stored on iPhones in the US for known images of child sexual abuse, the company says, drawing praise from child protection groups but crossing a line that privacy campaigners warn could have dangerous ramifications. The company will also examine the contents of end-to-end encrypted messages for the first time. Continue reading...

Amy Westervelt’s Drilled considers the terrifying practices of the natural gas industry. Plus: an epic podcast about a reclusive writer, and the rise and fall of a prominent megachurchDrilled

App does not distinguish between trips inside and outside restricted areas, forcing drivers to either give up work or break rulesUber drivers who live in the most heavily locked-down areas of western and south-western Sydney are still being offered work outside of their local government areas, with drivers asking for more clarity from the app about what they can and can’t do.Under the current Sydney lockdown restrictions, rideshare drivers are still allowed to work in certain conditions, such as driving essential workers to their workplaces. But a driver who lives in a locked-down LGA generally cannot leave their LGA to work. Continue reading...

A non-player character evolves into a sentient AI in a cheerfully silly riff on The Truman Show, with Taika Waititi and Jodie ComerThe great big handsome-goofy face of Ryan Reynolds looms out of the screen in this fantasy comedy from screenwriter Matt Lieberman and director Shawn Levy (of the Night at the Museum franchise). It’s an undemanding and cheerfully silly riff on the themes of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, and what the heck we’re all doing in this big old universe of ours: as if someone took The Truman Show or Inception – or even The Lego Movie – and stripped out every serious satirical ambition, replacing it with M&M-coloured spectacle. The result is not something that’s in any way challenging, but Reynolds is so puppyishly eager to please.Reynolds plays a normal, boring guy whose name is Guy (amusingly, it is never clear if this is his actual given name, as in Guy Crouchback, or the more generic “guy”). He smiles incessantly, wears a bland, short-sleeved blue shirt and goes to work every day as a bank teller in a serenely marvellous-looking modern city, resembling Vancouver. There, he hangs out with his best friend, Buddy – again: generic or given name? – played by Lil Rel Howery, but his bank is always being hit by heists, which he greets with the same imperturbable smileyness. Gradually, Guy realises that he is an NPC, or non-player character, in a video game: a quirk or flaw in the algorithm means that he has hyperevolved into an AI state of free will and agency, able to question what is going on. This astonishes the game’s evil corporate owner Antwan (Taika Waititi), and also the designers Millie (Jodie Comer) and Keys (Joe Keery) whose concept Antwan ripped off. And Millie realises that she will have to enter the game as a player, befriend Guy and enlist his help in getting back their intellectual property – before, of course, falling in love with this clueless pixelated lunk. Continue reading...

President outlines plan to tackle the climate crisis by cutting emissions and tightening pollution standards for cars and trucksJoe Biden is setting a goal for half of all new US vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 while also tightening pollution standards for cars and trucks, in a barrage of action aimed at reducing the largest source of planet-heating gases in America.Related: Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse Continue reading...

Revenues double as demand for rides increases, but ride-hailing company has to spend moreHeavy spending to encourage drivers back to the road has pushed ride-hailing firm Uber into a larger-than-expected loss, despite the company than doubling its revenues as demand for its services increased.Uber’s “take rate”, or its share of the fare, dropped in the last quarter as it faced elevated costs of getting willing drivers behind the wheel. Continue reading...

Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: DEF CON hit by Covid concerns … Zuckerberg enters the Metaverse … and the impact of Final Fantasy VIIIn a normal year, I would be getting on a plane today and travelling to Las Vegas for the loose conglomeration of events informally known as “Hacker Summer Camp”. Centred around DEF CON and its stuffy younger sibling Black Hat, the event sees Las Vegas taken over by hackers, information security specialists, spooks and criminals, all there to discuss the best ways to defend computers against hostile adversaries – and to break into those same computers as quickly as possible. Continue reading...

Semiconductor shortage means production volumes of PlayStation 5 fall short of demand

Social media brought me better jobs, close friends and love. But I was ignoring the ways in which the constant criticism and approval were shaping my lifeIn March 2009, I type in “twitter.com” and sign up for the next 12 years of my life. I am 20, in my first year of uni. I have three friends and hate it here. But, on Twitter, I can talk to real music journalists, my longed-for future people. Two years later, I move to London to work at NME. My social awkwardness makes life in a new city feel like dredging the Thames with baggy tights. On Twitter, however, I have blossomed into a magnificent little chaos magnet. Even on sad, drunk Friday nights in, my phone-sized kingdom glitters.Real life improved, often thanks to Twitter. It led me to John, still my boyfriend 10 years on, and many of my closest friends. Thanks to being a woman in a male-dominated field, the odd viral review and little talent for discretion, I ended up with 60,000 followers. I didn’t take it that seriously, but acing my first popularity contest felt like winning Miss World, if she had bad posture and trigger-happy thumbs. Visibility brought better jobs and gave me a platform to retaliate against music’s many dirtbags. The mute button silenced reply guys and trolls, and I hadn’t searched my name in years, ever since John likened that always-upsetting habit to self-harm – an overstatement that nevertheless rang true. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of taking pictures of the moonWhen a full moon rises, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try and get an Instagram-worthy photograph, but unfortunately it is really challenging to get a great picture of the moon.Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Continue reading...

Gary Gensler seeks more authority from Congress to oversee a market ‘rife with fraud, scams and abuse’The chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has called on Congress to give the agency more authority to police cryptocurrency trading, lending and platforms, a “wild west” he said was riddled with fraud and investor risk.Gary Gensler said on Tuesday that the crypto market involved many tokens that may be unregistered securities and left prices open to manipulation and millions of investors vulnerable to risks. Continue reading...

Article called online gaming ‘spiritual opium’ in what many fear is latest target of regulatory interference

Reclusive US novelist’s agent confirms he did not share his opinions about kombucha and SoundCloudCormac McCarthy is known for his sparse punctuation and distinctive writing style, the violent and pessimistic themes of his work, and his reclusive public persona. So it was surprising to see the novelist on Twitter, sharing bons mots about kombucha and SoundCloud for an audience of thousands.But it was the real Cormac McCarthy – at least, according to Twitter, which gave the account, registered in 2018 under the misspelled name “CormacMcCrthy”, a blue tick marking it as a “verified user”. Continue reading...

PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X; Neon Giant/Curve Digital

After Havana shut down online access for 72 hours, the battle is on to keep the country connectedCubans used to joke about Napoleon Bonaparte chatting to Mikhail Gorbachev, George W Bush and Fidel Castro in the afterlife. “If I’d have had your prudence, I’d never have fought Waterloo,” the French emperor tells the last Soviet leader. “If I’d have had your military might, I’d have won Waterloo,” he tells the Texan. Turning last to Castro, the emperor says: “If I’d have had Granma [the Cuban Communist party daily], I’d have lost Waterloo but nobody would have known.”The joke no longer does the rounds. With millions of Cubans now online, the state’s monopoly on mass communication has been deeply eroded. But after social media helped catalyse historic protests on the island last month, the government temporarily shut the internet down. Continue reading...

The company had told me I could leave penalty-free, but it is threatening me with debt collectorsCan you please help me as BT is chasing me for £348 in early termination fees despite previously telling me that it would forgo these charges. The broadband service provided to my house had always been poor but after I had open-heart surgery four years ago, I needed a service that worked. After repeated attempts by BT to improve matters, I eventually switched to Sky, which improved matters somewhat.At the time, BT said I could leave penalty-free, and staff told me to ignore any bills that were sent. However, the company’s most recent letter said it will pass the matter to debt collectors if the bill is not paid with seven days.

To every age dogged with pollution, accidents and congestion, the transport solution for the next generation seems obvious – but the same problems keep coming backIn the 1890s, the biggest cities of the western world faced a mounting problem. Horse-drawn vehicles had been in use for thousands of years, and it was hard to imagine life without them. But as the number of such vehicles increased during the 19th century, the drawbacks of using horses in densely populated cities were becoming ever more apparent.In particular, the accumulation of horse manure on the streets, and the associated stench, were impossible to miss. By the 1890s, about 300,000 horses were working on the streets of London, and more than 150,000 in New York City. Each of these horses produced an average of 10kg of manure a day, plus about a litre of urine. Collecting and removing thousands of tonnes of waste from stables and streets proved increasingly difficult. Continue reading...

Last month, billionaire after billionaire hopped into spacecraft to reach the final frontier. Shivani Dave speaks to Robert Massey, the deputy executive director at the Royal Astronomical Society, to understand what, if any, positives might come from what has been called ‘the billionaire space race’, or if the money and resources spent on space exploration should be redistributed to focus on the challenges being faced on Earth Continue reading...

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok failing to act on most reported anti-Jewish posts, says studyThere has been a serious and systemic failure to tackle antisemitism across the five biggest social media platforms, resulting in a “safe space for racists”, according to a report.Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok failed to act on 84% of posts spreading anti-Jewish hatred and propaganda reported via the platforms’ official complaints system. Continue reading...

Announcement is first time an independent and official authority has corroborated Pegasus project findingsFrench intelligence investigators have confirmed that Pegasus spyware has been found on the phones of three journalists, including a senior member of staff at the country’s international television station France 24.It is the first time an independent and official authority has corroborated the findings of an international investigation by the Pegasus project – a consortium of 17 media outlets, including the Guardian. Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organisation, and Amnesty International initially had access to a leaked list of 50,000 numbers that, it is believed, have been identified as those of people of interest by clients of Israeli firm NSO Group since 2016, and shared access with their media partners. Continue reading...

Biden’s recent executive order makes taking action on the strict rules imposed by manufacturers a priority, affecting workers across several industriesA tractor. A refrigerator. A smartphone. A ventilator. They may not seem to have much in common, but in fact they all share increasingly high tech features. And when they break, they need fixing.Yet, thanks to strict rules imposed by manufacturers, our ability to do so remains extremely limited. Companies frequently withhold the information and tools needed to repair devices from consumers, with some warranties outright banning third parties from tinkering with products. Continue reading...

LA-based Arc Boat company announces $4.25m seed fund to start work on 475-horsepower craftA team of former SpaceX rocket engineers have joined the race to build the first commercial electric speedboat.The Arc Boat company announced it had raised $4.25m (£3m) in seed funding to start work on a 24ft 475-horsepower craft that will cost about $300,000. Continue reading...

Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft all reported record-breaking profits amid a pandemic bonanza but recent Biden administration moves suggest US tech’s easy ride is overBig tech provided the world with some startling numbers this week. In the last three months Amazon’s sales have averaged over $1.2bn a day. It took the company less than four seconds to earn the $52,000 the average American makes in a year. Apple is now sitting on nearly $200bn in cash, more than this year’s expected sales of Covid 19 vaccines.The coronavirus shook the world economy to its core but for the US tech giants it has proven a bonanza of historic proportions. Continue reading...

Now the reach of the Israeli firm’s smartphone-hacking software has been revealed, the US and Apple may take action

(Nifflas Games; Triple Topping; PC, Mac)

Wade can tell you the best pram for a tall parent; Matthew knows which cleaner has superior suction power. But how do you become a respected reviewer on the wild west of the internet?

Federal court judge says allowing artificial intelligence systems, as well as humans, to be inventors is ‘consistent with promoting innovation’An artificial intelligence system is capable of being an “inventor” under Australian patent law, the federal court has ruled, in a decision that could have wider intellectual property implications.University of Surrey professor Ryan Abbott has launched more than a dozen patent applications across the globe, including in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia, on behalf of US-based Dr Stephen Thaler. They seek to have Thaler’s artificial intelligence device known as Dabus (a device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience) listed as the inventor. Continue reading...

Latest thin, light and adaptable Windows 10 machine looks great, is fast and has a nine-hour batterySamsung’s latest Galaxy Book Pro is a fast and versatile Windows 10 laptop that has a gorgeous-looking OLED screen.Available as a standard laptop costing from £1,099 ($999) or one with a screen that folds back on itself called the Galaxy Book Pro 360 for an extra £100 ($200). It is the successor to 2020’s Galaxy Book Flex and follows a similar theme: good 13.3in screen, 360-degree folding hinge and thin metal body available in a distinctive royal blue colour. Continue reading...

Firebug investigates whether a work of fiction was in fact a criminal confession. Plus: Gen Z influencers vent in Pressed, and a high-profile witness speaks outFirebug

• Tech and retail giant continues to ride pandemic boom• Share price falls 5% in after-hours tradingAmazon’s sales topped $100bn for the third quarter in a row as its profits for the three months surged to $7.8bn.The Seattle-based tech and online retail giant reported sales of $113bn for the three months between April and June – over $1.4bn a day. The figure was up from $88.9bn in the second quarter of 2020 but slightly lower than Wall Street had expected, and triggered a 5% slide in its share price in after-hours trading. Continue reading...

With data showing downloads dropping, four people talk about the pressures they face

Boss’s Twitter rant against Uber Eats risks backfiring, as experts warn online outbursts can damage companies’ reputationChief executives are being warned to “think twice before they tweet” after the boss of takeaway company Just Eat Takeaway was told his Twitter spat with Uber threatened to undermine the firm’s reputation.Jitse Groen this week became the latest in a growing list of chief executives to be rebuked by customers, investors and even regulators over ill-judged tweets. Continue reading...

Switch/PS4/PC; Capcom

Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: Scandalous revelations in An Ugly Truth … the relentless march of the silicon transistor … and the dangers of link smutWhat makes Facebook Facebook? I’m not talking about the technology here, or the app, but the company itself: why is Facebook so scandal-prone, so controversial, and so aggressive? That was the question I had going in to An Ugly Truth, a new book from the New York Times reporters Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang. Continue reading...

Anschutz Corporation, which made billions drilling oil, is building a 732 power line to carry renewable energy to cities including Los Angeles and PhoenixSome days, the wind rips across Wyoming’s southern plains at 70mph. Cottonwood trees bend, tall grass lies flat and 18-wheel trucks tip over along Interstate 80. It only takes a breeze of about 6mph to get the long white arms of an electricity-generating wind turbine turning, at full speed they can power thousands of homes.As one of the US’s windiest states, Wyoming has enormous potential to help power the country’s green revolution, but renewable energy in the west has long been dogged by a fundamental problem of transmission. Wind and solar farms tend to be located in remote areas separated from populated cities by hundreds of miles of rugged terrain, a tangle of government regulations and resistance from landowners who don’t want power lines buzzing over their yards. Continue reading...

Orbán’s likely challenger demands action over claims journalists and politicians were potential targetsHungary’s opposition has called for ministerial resignations from Viktor Orbán’s far-right government over allegations it selected journalists, media owners and opposition political figures as potential targets for invasive Pegasus spyware.The allegations, published last week by the Guardian and other members of the Pegasus project consortium, were backed up in a number of cases with forensic analysis of mobile devices carried out by Amnesty International, which showed phones had been infected with Pegasus, sold by the Israeli company NSO Group. Continue reading...

New petrol and diesel cars will be banned in the UK from 2030, and sales of electric vehicles are rising fast. But with drivers reliant on charging points how practical is the greener option? One writer finds outRange anxiety hits hard on the A9 in the Highlands of Scotland. For the uninitiated, this is the fear that an electric vehicle (EV) won’t reach its destination before running out of power. I’m driving through some of Britain’s loveliest landscape – mountains, rivers, lochs and firths – but I hardly notice. I’m focused hard – on the road in front, but mainly on two numbers on the dashboard. One is how far it is in miles to where I’m going; the other is the range in miles remaining in the battery. Sometimes, especially on downhill stretches when what is known as “regenerative braking” means the battery is getting charged, I tell myself it’s going to be OK, I’ll make it. But going uphill the range plummets. Squeaky bum time.Plus, I’ve read Michel Faber’s Under the Skin. I know what happens to men stranded on the A9. To range anxiety add the fear of being processed and eaten by aliens. Continue reading...

Advertisers on Instagram, Facebook and Messenger will no longer be able to market to under 18s based on their interestsFacebook will impose more control on the types of ads that children as young as 13 are exposed to on Instagram and other platforms, as new research finds Australian alcohol companies are not restricting their social media content from reaching younger users.Facebook announced on Wednesday that, starting in a few weeks, Instagram will stop advertisers marketing to teens under 18 based on their interests. Only their age, gender and location will be able to be used to target ads to them. Continue reading...

‘Perfect positive storm’ for big tech as pandemic fuels huge quarterly sales and stock market gainsGoogle, Apple and Microsoft reported record-breaking quarterly sales and profits on Tuesday night as the firms continue to benefit from a pandemic that has created a “perfect positive storm” for big tech. Continue reading...

In new column Internet wormhole, Guardian Australia writers take you to their favourite corner of the web. First up: an inviting – and voyeuristic – YouTube seriesLooking back to early pandemic times, it was probably Architectural Digest’s video tour of Dakota Johnson’s Hollywood home that nudged me down the YouTube hole of celebrity house tours.Like many millennials my Instagram feed is at any given moment peppered with aspirational content from sites like The Design Files and a stream of homogenous pastel-hued influencers. But sitting housebound with my partner and cat in our rented, single bedroom flat, the Fifty Shades of Grey star’s whimsical tour of her tastefully decorated mid century Hollywood home and kitchen stocked with unreasonable quantities of limes (“I love limes, they’re great and I like to present them like this in my house,” she explained) offered a welcome hit of late night escapism from the more foreboding stuff unfolding across the internet in March 2020. Continue reading...

Researchers are looking for volunteers for a study into whether search results really are influenced by previous browsing history