Technology | The Guardian

The Indian leader’s autocratic tendencies do not seem to have posed great ethical difficulties for Facebook and TwitterFor decades, India was a poster child for democratic development: a poor, sprawling, ethnically diverse country that nevertheless had regular elections and peaceful transfers of power – the hallmarks of a functioning democracy – albeit with the flaws inherent in such a system, including a single dominant party – the Congress party. And then, in May 2014, Narendra Modi, leader of the BJP, was elected, swept to power on a standard-issue neoliberal platform of modernisation, privatisation and liberalisation of the economy, slashing welfare budgets, lowering corporate taxes, abolishing wealth taxes, etc.Modi’s election, wrote the august journal Foreign Policy, marked a critical milestone in his country’s development. He was “the first leader since independence to command a lower-house parliamentary majority that did not belong to the Congress party of India’s founders Mohandas Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. After 65 years, a dynastic founding party was subsumed by new blood.” But in the six years since his first election (he was re-elected in 2019), the journal continued, “it has become clear that his style of leadership poses an existential threat to the world’s largest democracy. Through his wildly successful promotion of Hindutva ideology, Modi is poised to remake India into a Russian-style ‘managed democracy’ – one retaining all the trappings of democracy while operating as a de facto autocracy.” Continue reading...

Tesla could be in for a shock as far-eastern rivals use cheap money to gain traction among affluent western car buyersTesla boss Elon Musk is not known for admiring his competition, but when Chinese manufacturer Nio made its 100,000th electric car last week, he offered his congratulations.It was a mark of respect from a chief executive who had been through “manufacturing hell” with his own company. Yet it is also a sign of the growing influence of China’s electric carmakers. They are hoping to stake out a spot among the heavyweights of the new industry and bring a significant new challenge to Tesla – and to the rest of the automotive industry as it scrambles to catch up. Continue reading...

Gustafsson’s firm, founded when she was 30, is marketed as a digital parallel of a human body fighting illnessPoppy Gustafsson runs a cutting-edge and gender-diverse cybersecurity firm on the brink of a £3bn stock market debut, but she is happy to reference pop culture classic the Terminator to help describe what Darktrace actually does.Launched in Cambridge eight years ago by an unlikely alliance of mathematicians, former spies from GCHQ and the US and artificial intelligence (AI) experts, Darktrace provides protection, enabling businesses to stay one step ahead of increasingly smarter and dangerous hackers and viruses. Continue reading...

For an enthusiastic computer nerd, it should have been a fun, fulfilling, money-saving distraction during lockdown. Then the error messages startedIt’s just like building Lego, they said. Enjoy the process, they said. You’ll have such a feeling of accomplishment when it’s finished. This is what friends and colleagues told me when I set out to build a PC. It did not quite go that way.It seems more and more people are choosing to construct their own gaming machines rather than buying them already made. It’s cheaper (in theory), you get to choose the exact specifications, and it’s something to do while you’re stuck at home in lockdown. Even Superman actor Henry Cavill has been getting in on the act, making a video of himself constructing his new machine while wearing a really tight vest. I thought it would be a fun thing to do with my 13-year-old son as a sort of Easter holiday treat. We’re both nerds – what could go wrong? Continue reading...

Ruling in Amsterdam overturns company’s decision to exclude operators for alleged sharing of account detailsUber has been ordered to reinstate five British drivers who were struck off from its ride-hailing app by robot technology.The five drivers, backed by the App Drivers & Couriers Union (ADCU) and the campaign group Worker Info Exchange, argued that they had been wrongly accused of fraudulent activity based on mistaken information from Uber’s technology, and that the company had failed to provide the drivers with proper evidence to support the allegations. Continue reading...

Analysts expect company to be valued $65bn to $100bn, making CEO and co-founder Brian Armstrong’s net worth up to $20bnThe soaring value of cryptocurrencies added another name to the list of the world’s wealthiest billionaires on Wednesday with the introduction of Coinbase, the US’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, on to the Nasdaq stock exchange.Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s CEO and co-founder, has a 20% stake in the company which analysts expected to be valued at between $65bn and $100bn. Shares surged 58% when the sale started valuing the company at about $100bn and making his net worth $20bn. Continue reading...

While many smartphones are advertised as ‘water resistant’, this doesn’t mean they’re immune from water damageIf you’ve ever gotten your phone wet in the rain, dropped it in water or spilt liquid over it, you’re not alone. One study suggests 25% of smartphone users have damaged their smartphone with water or some other kind of liquid.Liquid penetrating a smartphone can affect the device in several ways. It could lead to: Continue reading...

Notebooks offer choice of Intel and AMD chips for first time, plus better webcams and mics for video callsMicrosoft has announced the latest in its Windows 10 PC notebook series, the Surface Laptop 4, with a choice of AMD and Intel processors across all sizes for the first time.The Surface Laptop 4 comes with either a 13.5in or 15in touchscreen display and, like its predecessors, is a mainstream premium laptop offering a smoother experience with hardware and software made by the same firm, similar to the scheme employed by Apple with its Mac computers. Continue reading...

State-backed harassment campaign targets journalists and dissidents in authoritarian countryFacebook has allowed a state-backed harassment campaign targeting independent news outlets and opposition politicians in Azerbaijan to return to its platform, less than six months after it banned the troll network.A Guardian investigation has revealed how Facebook allowed an arm of Azerbaijan’s ruling party, the YAP, to carry out the harassment campaign for 14 months after an employee, Sophie Zhang, first alerted managers and executives to its existence in August 2019. Continue reading...

Critics argue the new integration could mimic notoriously faulty background checks without necessarily making dating apps saferWhen Jerrel Gantt was released from prison after three years, he was handed a pamphlet about healthcare and nothing else. He began searching for employment, a deep source of anxiety for him, and secured housing through a ministry in New York City. He later enrolled in school part-time.As he settled into life outside of prison and developed a support system, Gantt began going on dates with people he met on apps like Tinder. Continue reading...

Deal comes as Microsoft builds up its cloud-computing operation for healthcare and business customersMicrosoft is to buy the artificial intelligence and speech technology firm Nuance Communications for about $16bn (£12bn), as it builds up its cloud-computing operation for healthcare and business customers.Nuance, known for pioneering speech technology and helping to launch Apple’s virtual assistant, Siri, operates in 28 countries and reported revenues of $1.5bn in its last full financial year. Continue reading...

App was to have been updated before English lockdown easing, but firms objected to data-sharing changes

Gesture backfires as customers highlight accessibility issues, with one saying UK has ‘completely lost the plot’A leading sight charity has stressed the need for inclusive web design after rail websites switched to black and white to mark Prince Philip’s death, leaving partially sighted people struggling.

A Guardian investigation exposes the breadth of state-backed manipulation of the platformFacebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders and politicians to use its platform to deceive the public or harass opponents despite being alerted to evidence of the wrongdoing.The Guardian has seen extensive internal documentation showing how Facebook handled more than 30 cases across 25 countries of politically manipulative behavior that was proactively detected by company staff. Continue reading...

The social media giant is still a law unto itself. Can anybody hold it to account?Half a billion Facebook users’ accounts stolen. Personal information compromised. Telephone numbers and birth dates drifting across the internet being used for God knows what. And for four days, from Facebook’s corporate headquarters, nothing but silence.If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. This week saw reports of a massive new Facebook breach and everything about it, from Facebook’s denials of the words “data” and “breach” to its repeated refusal to answer journalists’ questions, has been uncannily reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Continue reading...

There have been many reports but little action: UK university science departments need to do more to fix their serious diversity problem

Neuralink video appears to show monkey controlling game paddle simply by thinkingThe billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup released footage on Friday appearing to show a monkey playing a simple video game after getting implants of the new technology.The three-minute video by Neuralink shows Pager, a male macaque with chips embedded on each side of its brain, playing Mind Pong. Although he was trained to move a joystick, it is now unplugged. He appears to control the paddle simply by thinking about moving his hand up or down. Continue reading...

Over the past year, I’ve reconnected with my laziest self. Now I need a jump startBefore I met my wife, my capacity to do nothing was infinite. After I met my wife, my capacity to do nothing remained infinite, but I was retrained to believe that staring into space doesn’t count as a hobby.Over the past year, though, I’ve reconnected with my laziest self. Lockdown has meant we have been encouraged to kick back, and I have taken the slogan “Stay home, save lives” to mean that as I sit on the sofa and rewatch every Marvel movie, I am actually a hero. Continue reading...

Pseudocide looks at infamous, grisly cases of death fraud. Plus: deliciously devellish scares in At Your Peril, and a rich true crime investigation in West CorkPseudocide

Results have not yet been finalized, but workers so far have voted 1,100-463 against forming a union at the Bessemer facilityVote counting kicked off on Thursday in a consequential unionization drive at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, an effort seen as one of the most important labor fights in recent American history.While results have not yet been finalised, it appeared on Thursday evening that warehouse workers were on track to reject unionization by a 2-1 margin, with almost half the votes counted. Vote counting will resume on Friday morning. Continue reading...

Twitter said that because of the former president’s ban content from his account will not appear on the social networkThe National Archives will not be allowed to resurrect Donald Trump’s tweets on the social network, Twitter said on Wednesday, even in its official capacity as a record-keeping organization. However, the archive is working to create a separate record of the former president’s tweets on his official library website.The former president has been permanently banned from Twitter since January, when the company became the first major social media platform to eject Trump after his behavior during the Capitol insurrection. Continue reading...

Company spokesperson said Facebook was not confident it had full visibility on which users would need to be alertedFacebook has not notified the more-than 530m users whose details were exposed on a hacker forum in 2019 and has no plans to do so, according to company representatives. Continue reading...

New American proposals offer the prospect of a global deal against corporate tax avoidance. Britain has a vital role to play in making it workThe terrible global cloud that is the Covid-19 pandemic offered the world the glimpse of a silver lining this week. New tax proposals by Joe Biden mean that the economic emergency caused by coronavirus could result in big multinational corporations having to pay the fair amounts of tax they have avoided for so long. A breakthrough this week at the 135-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development talks in Paris may produce an agreement. Giants like Facebook and Google would then have to pay up – and not before time. This is definitely a step in the right direction.Until Covid, the OECD corporate tax negotiations that began nearly a decade ago had been deadlocked, especially after the Trump administration refused to agree to anything that might raise taxes on US tech giants. Individual nations, notably in Europe, had started to impose or threaten stiffer local taxes, leading to retaliatory threats from Washington, but without inhibiting the big multinationals’ lucrative tax-avoidance strategies. Under Donald Trump, the US had even made clear that it reserved the right to allow American corporations to remain outside any new OECD-brokered regime. Mr Biden abandoned that demand in January. Continue reading...

As the pandemic forced us inside and online, Room Rater was one Twitter account giving doomscrollers a well-needed levity break. A year on, co-founder Claude Taylor explains how he plans to keep goingWith its stately lamp and verdant window view, Hillary Clinton’s “Zoom room” is nicer than most.So when Room Rater – a Twitter account which scores the video conference backgrounds of high-profile figures – gave it nine out of 10 last spring, Clinton took her disappointment to social media: “I’ll keep striving for that highest, hardest glass ceiling, the elusive 10/10,” she tweeted at the account. Continue reading...

Radar-based gesture and sleep tracking turns top smart assistant into a great alarm clock tooGoogle’s second-generation Nest Hub smart display now comes with radar-based sleep tracking as it attempts to keep Amazon’s Alexa at bay.The new Nest Hub costs £89.99 on launch, which makes it cheaper than its predecessor and slightly undercuts competitors of a similar size. Continue reading...

The FBI has relied on a variety of technologies to track down rioters – and watchdogs are concerned those technologies could impede protesters exercising their first amendment rightsOver the past months, federal law enforcement has used a wide variety of surveillance technologies to track down rioters who participated in the 6 January attack on the US Capitol building – demonstrating rising surveillance across the nation. Continue reading...

We are raiding the Audio Long Reads archives and bringing you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors.This week, from 2018: How an extreme libertarian tract predicting the collapse of liberal democracies – written by Jacob Rees-Mogg’s father – inspired the likes of Peter Thiel to buy up property across the Pacific. By Mark O’Connell Continue reading...

China powers nearly 80% of the global cryptocurrencies trade, but the energy required could jeopardise its pledge to peak carbon emissions by 2030China’s electricity-hungry bitcoin mines that power nearly 80% of the global trade in cryptocurrencies risk undercutting the country’s climate goals, a study in the journal Nature has said.Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rely on “blockchain” technology, which is a shared database of transactions, with entries that must be confirmed and encrypted. The network is secured by individuals called “miners” who use high-powered computers to verify transactions, with bitcoins offered as a reward. Those computers consume enormous amounts of electricity. Continue reading...

Maggie Kelly went looking for secondhand clothes and a crib and found the mother tribeIt was that special brand of 2020 pessimism and a hefty dose of first-mum nerves that turned me in the pregnancy Grinch. Everything was new, overwhelming and expensive. List upon list grew with every 3am bolt from the blue. Cribs, bassinets, prams, nursing chairs, eco-nappies, cotton nappies, bamboo nappies. I was trapped in a cutesy-wootsy duckling-print plastic hell.“We’re going to kill the planet with every dollar we spend,” I grumbled to my partner as I waddled the aisles of Baby Bunting. Shopping secondhand seemed like the better option – I could save the planet while avoiding anything printed with baby animals. Continue reading...

Experts urge users to secure accounts and passwords after breach exposes personal details of more than 500 million peopleAustralians are being urged to secure their social media accounts after the details of more than 500 million global Facebook users were found online in a massive data breach.The details published freely online included names, phone numbers, email addresses, account IDs and bios. Continue reading...

Digital art can be easily and endlessly duplicated, but non-fungible tokens allow buyers to confirm ownershipThe artist Kevin Abosch has sold a picture of a potato for $1.5m, made a neon sculpture inspired by cryptocurrency, and even sold his own blood on the blockchain.So in many ways, entering the world of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) was the next logical step for the 51-year-old Irish artist, whose work explores themes of digital currency and value. Continue reading...

Vote in Bessemer, Alabama, is chance to inform younger generations about the role unions play, labor leaders sayCounting is currently under way for the historic union election at Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, and union organizers and leaders throughout the labor movement are hoping the effort will help galvanize support for workers and unions in the south and across the US.Tevita Uhatafe, 35, a member of Transport Workers Union of America Local 513 in the Dallas area, was one of several union members and leaders who visited Bessemer to lend their support for the union organizing drive. Continue reading...

Covid has given Peter Thiel’s secretive US tech company new opportunities to operate in Europe in ways some campaigners find worryingThe 24 March, 2020 will be remembered by some for the news that Prince Charles tested positive for Covid and was isolating in Scotland. In Athens it was memorable as the day the traffic went silent. Twenty-four hours into a hard lockdown, Greeks were acclimatising to a new reality in which they had to send an SMS to the government in order to leave the house. As well as millions of text messages, the Greek government faced extraordinary dilemmas. The European Union’s most vulnerable economy, its oldest population along with Italy, and one of its weakest health systems faced the first wave of a pandemic that overwhelmed richer countries with fewer pensioners and stronger health provision. The carnage in Italy loomed large across the Adriatic.One Greek who did go into the office that day was Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the minister for digital transformation, whose signature was inked in blue on an agreement with the US technology company, Palantir. The deal, which would not be revealed to the public for another nine months, gave one of the world’s most controversial tech companies access to vast amounts of personal data while offering its software to help Greece weather the Covid storm. The zero-cost agreement was not registered on the public procurement system, neither did the Greek government carry out a data impact assessment – the mandated check to see whether an agreement might violate privacy laws. Continue reading...

Spy Affair delves in to the tale of a gun campaigner arrested for espionage. Plus: true crime with a purpose in The Doodler, and Current Affairs looks at unionisation efforts at AmazonSpy Affair

The pandemic has driven chilliheads online, where some have built impressive followings for their hot sauce reviews and daring feats of strengthBehind his calm, methodical approach to every hot chilli eating and super spicy food challenge, Dustin “Atomik Menace” Johnson is enduring a kind of physical pain and mental anguish beyond what most will ever experience in a lifetime.In one of his most-watched YouTube livestreams, the 31-year-old Las Vegas resident downs 122 super-spicy Carolina Reapers, the Guinness World Record holder for hottest pepper, while fans watch and cheer him on. While there are clues that he’s struggling – his face turns a deep red color and shines with perspiration, and in the latter half in particular, he takes breaks – his low-key demeanor has made the growing chillihead community question whether he’s built like an average human, or if he’s human at all. Continue reading...

Former US president has been banned from the platform since early January after the violent insurrection of the CapitolFacebook on Wednesday removed a clip of an interview with Donald Trump from its platform, according to the former president’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.In a post shared to her Instagram account, Lara Trump, who is a Fox News commentator, shared a message from Facebook officials alerting her they had removed a video teaser of an upcoming interview with her father-in-law on Fox News. Continue reading...

Fashion world will watch with interest after brand replaces social media posts with magazine IssueBottega Veneta has been the hottest fashion house on social media since the British designer Daniel Lee arrived at the Milanese label less than three years ago.The model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley posted no fewer than 39 selfies featuring her “Pouch” handbag in the space of three months. When four British Vogue staffers realised they were all wearing clothes or accessories from the label one day in September 2019, they posted a photo captioned: “We have a new desk dress code @bottegaveneta”.

Similar accounts have been used before during periods when the company was facing increased scrutiny and criticismA surge of “fake” Twitter accounts have emerged to defend Amazon and push back against criticism of working conditions at the company amid a fiercely fought union election for the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. Continue reading...

Campaign viewed as one of the biggest and most consequential unionization drives in recent America historyVote counting is set to begin in an election to determine whether Amazon warehouse workers in Bessemer, Alabama, will form a union in what is viewed as one of the biggest and most consequential unionization drives in recent America history.The contest has pitted America’s labor movement – backed by a slew of Democrat politicians and some Republicans – against one of the most powerful companies in the world. Continue reading...

Scheme expanded to 38 more countries as tech giant faces heat on the right to repair iPhones and MacsApple will allow independent repairers in Australia and New Zealand to sign up to a new program this week which will provide access to its tools and spare parts, as the company faces heat on the right to repair.The countries are two of 38 included in the expansion of Apple’s independent repair provider program from later this week. The program is already available in the US, Canada and parts of Europe, with more than 1,500 independent repairers now onboard. Continue reading...

With the ex-president gone, the site is launching a flurry of new features – yet its reputation for abuse may endureIn January, Twitter committed what was at first glance a massive act of self-sabotage: it gave its star attraction, Donald Trump, a lifetime ban. This brought to an end a five-year faustian relationship between the two; some observers wondered if the platform would wither without him, yet, to many, Trump was Twitter’s problem writ large.If YouTube has creators and Instagram has influencers, then what does Twitter have? Few of the words that might jump to mind for regular users are especially positive: there is frequent talk of Twitter storms, Twitter mobs and Twitter pile-ons. Continue reading...

Early in the pandemic, we spoke to four bosses about how their businesses were faring. A year on, we ask them to about an extraordinary 12 months and what the future might holdEarly in the pandemic Philip Jansen gave investors a financial fright by scrapping BT’s multibillion-pound dividend. Now, nearly a year on, he is handing out Covid bonuses to tens of thousands of frontline staff before a vote on a potential national strike. Continue reading...

Has a year of video calls made you self-conscious? Don’t turn your camera off: just relax and deploy a few of these beauty tipsThought we were a nation of narcissists pre-Covid? Well, a global pandemic has taken things to a whole new level. It’s safe to say nobody planned to spend quite so much of the past year staring at their own grainy reflection, but with everything from weddings to work meetings forced online, our bid to stay connected with others has meant being constantly confronted with our own faces.And not all of us like what we see. There’s a big difference between sharing a carefully filtered selfie on Instagram, and catching yourself slumped in front of the screen during your fourth video chat of the day, the cat cleaning its paws in the background as you stare in horror at your dark circles. What with the unflattering lighting, unforgiving camera angles and the fact that none of us has been inside a salon in months, it’s no wonder we’re sick of the sight of ourselves. But what effect does it have on our self-esteem? And can we do anything to boost it? Continue reading...

The Instagram cleaning guru teams up with her husband for a fan-friendly new show. Plus: where is home, if home doesn’t exist any more, and a slow-burn serial on IsisAll the Best (and Worst) With Mr and Mrs Hinch

Protesters outside the Capitol denounced the platforms as Facebook, Twitter and Google heads questioned by CongressThe CEOs of America’s biggest technology companies faced a grilling on Thursday from Congress about the 6 January insurrection at the Capitol, as protesters outside the hearing denounced the platforms for playing a role in fueling the violence.The marathon, six-hour hearing saw the three most powerful men in tech – Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter – testify before two committees of the House of Representatives on social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation. Continue reading...

Former Australian prime minister interviewed by Abbey Hansen, known as minorfauna on TikTok, who turned misogyny speech into viral hitA year ago, former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech was given new life after it became a viral dancing meme on TikTok during the first wave of Covid-19 lockdowns.Now the woman who created the trend, Abbey Hansen, has interviewed her political muse on TikTok live to celebrate women’s history month. Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai called to answer for the role of tech and social media in fueling Capitol violence and extremism9.51pm GMTThat wraps up the last statements of the Congressional hearing called Disinformation nation: social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation. In some ways it felt a lot of ground was covered during the six-hour questioning marathon of the three most powerful men in tech, but in others it is not clear what concrete action will be seen from the latest in a long line of panels on misinformation and hate speech.As has happened in past hearings on the matter, Republicans repeatedly claimed conservative viewpoints are maligned on social platforms while Democrats argued that something must be done about misinformation and hate speech. Special attention was paid to how hate speech impacts minority communities including the LGBTQ+ community, the Black community, Asian Americans, and Spanish-speakers.9.22pm GMTCongress member Kim Schrier, who is a medical doctor, talked about the concerns surrounding vaccine hesitancy caused by medical misinformation on social media.She said a lot of doctors spend their days vaccinating on the front lines of the pandemic, only to come home to combat misinformation on social media in their free time. Continue reading...

Millions bought new consoles in 2020. But with the pandemic ruining big releases, there’s a shortage of games to play on themSince the pandemic began, the video games industry has been booming. Last year was a bumper year, with most of the world’s population forced inside by lockdowns and looking for safe ways to have fun and socialise, and new games consoles such as PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launching in November. UK consumers spent more on games last year than ever before; Roblox, a gaming platform popular with children and teens, saw an 85% uptick in players and shares in the company recently rose 60%, increasing its value to $47bn. Last year’s games were great, too, from lockdown saviour Animal Crossing: New Horizons to the provocative horror game The Last of Us II and the knockabout multiplayer caper Fall Guys.But 2021, so far, is depressingly devoid of exciting gaming experiences. Since new PlayStation and Xbox consoles were launched last November, there has been almost nothing new to play on them – and due to supply issues, many thousands of people still haven’t been able to even buy one. Usually March is when the first big games of the year start to appear, but this time there’s been very little. Continue reading...

Ben Kirby’s PreachersNSneakers took off when he posted the enormous price tags of the fashion worn by prominent clergyBen Kirby never intended to gain a social media following or obtain a book deal based on his knowledge of religion and sneakers, but that’s exactly what happened when he launched the PreachersNSneakers account on Instagram in 2019.The 31-year-old Dallas, Texas, resident was working towards obtaining his MBA and DJ-ing as a side job in 2019, when he overslept and missed church. “I had never done this before but I decided to sit on my couch and look up YouTube worship videos,” he told the Guardian. Continue reading...