It may seem like a lot for a digital-only artwork. But in some ways, NFTs are a continuation of collecting as usualOn 11 March, one of the art world’s signature can-you-believe-it moments made global headlines: a digital-only artwork sold for more than $69m, the third highest price ever paid for an artwork at auction. It was a digital collage by the artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, who until October had never sold a print for more than $100.This sensational auction came on the heels of simmering interest in “non-fungible tokens”, or NFTs, which finally boiled over into the annals of art auction houses. NFTs are unique assets verified by blockchain technology; as with cryptocurrency, a record of who owns what is stored on a decentralised public ledger of sorts. Thus NFTs function like a digital certificate of authenticity that can be attached to all manner of things, virtual or physical. Mostly now, they are being used to monetise digital assets such as audio files, videos, Gifs, tweets and even virtual versions of sneakers; 621 of them recently sold for a combined $3.1m. Continue reading...

This online experiment uses live motion capture to bring the fairies and sprites of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to vivid lifeThe opening moments of Dream contain all the enticements of an augmented Imax experience, beamed to our laptops. The camera hovers over a forest drenched in mist, then swoops in as if entering a 3D DreamWorks movie. Our host, Puck (EM Williams), is in a real-life studio and transforms into an avatar on our screens.Despite the futuristic feel, we are entering a Shakespearean forest and following Puck into an experiment that splices A Midsummer Night’s Dream with cutting-edge immersive and gaming technology. Continue reading...

The regulatory body sounds like a positive step. But it’s designed to give political cover while Facebook continues to allow dangerous content

We would like to hear from Uber drivers about their thoughts on a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay and pensionsFrom Wednesday, Uber said its UK drivers will be guaranteed a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay and pensions.After a long-running dispute between drivers and Uber operating companies, the Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers should be classed as workers rather than independent third-party contractors. Continue reading...

Great screen, flagship chips and good camera with a few corners cut for significantly cheaper priceWith the Mi 11 Xiaomi, one of China’s largest electronics firms, is attempting to undercut Samsung with a premium, top-spec phone costing significantly less.The £750 Mi 11 is the first of Xiaomi’s new top-spec phones for the year, replacing the Mi 10 series from 2020. Continue reading...

Brothers Patrick and John Collison’s online payments empire is now valued at $95bnThe latest fundraising round by the digital payments firm Stripe has boosted the net worth of its co-founders, Patrick and John Collison, to about $11.5bn (£8.3bn) each, catapulting them into the top bracket of the world’s millennial billionaires. Not bad for two brothers from the tiny Tipperary village of Dromineer, population: barely 100.Related: Silicon Valley's Stripe valued at $95bn after fundraising Continue reading...

Former high-flying Finnish phone firm to use estimated €600m in savings to fund R&D to catch up with rivalsThe Finnish telecommunications company Nokia has unveiled plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs worldwide in the next two years, and wants to use the savings to catch up with rivals on 5G technologies.The company said it would reduce its global workforce to between 80,000 and 85,000 over the next 18 to 24 months, from 90,000 now. The exact number will depend on market developments. Nokia will invest the estimated €600m (£515m) annual cost savings in research & development, particularly in 5G, cloud and digital infrastructure. Continue reading...

Holmes is on trial for allegedly defrauding investors, doctors and patients while at the helm of blood-testing startupThe alleged Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes is pregnant, according to a new court filing, potentially delaying her trial by several weeks. Continue reading...

Sadly, it has nothing to do with fungusWhen is an album not an album? Why, when it’s a “non-fungible token”, a new form of digital swag, related to cryptocurrency, being sold by artists and musicians such as Kings of Leon and Grimes. They’re called NFTs for short, but why?Perhaps disappointingly, “fungible” does not mean “capable of being turned into fungi”. Rather, the Latin verb fungi means to discharge some office or perform some task, and so fungibilis means “useful”, and English “fungible” specifically describes useful things that are interchangeable. If I order five spoons of a certain design, it doesn’t matter exactly which five of those spoons you send me. Continue reading...

Streaming service tests feature that asks viewers if they share household with subscriberNetflix has begun testing a feature that asks viewers whether they share a household with a subscriber, in a move that could lead to crackdown on the widespread practice of sharing passwords among friends and family.Some Netflix users are reported to have received a message asking them to confirm they live with the account owner by entering a code included in a text message or email sent to the subscriber. Continue reading...

Wombo AI can animate any face to sing songs in a way that is unbelievable enough to help the fight against deepfakes, say some expertsIf you’ve ever wanted to know what it might be like to see Kim Jong-un let loose at karaoke, your wish has been granted, thanks to an app that lets users turn photographs of anyone – or anything remotely resembling a face – into uncanny AI-powered videos of them lip syncing famous songs.The app is called Wombo AI, and while the future of artificial intelligence and the ability to make fake videos of real people strikes fear into the hearts of many experts, some say that Wombo could help by raising awareness of “deepfakes”. Continue reading...

In a letter to mark 32 years of the web, its founder says getting 2.2 billion fully online must be a priorityToo many young people around the world are excluded from accessing the web, and getting them online should be a priority for the post-Covid era, Tim Berners-Lee has said.In a letter published to mark the 32nd birthday of the web, its founder says the opportunity “to reimagine our world and create something better” in the aftermath of Covid-19 must be channelled to getting internet access to the third of people aged between 15 and 24 who are offline. Continue reading...

Subhakar Khadka says video of San Francisco incident reveals abuse that often goes unacknowledgedAn Uber driver in San Francisco who was assaulted by an unmasked passenger has spoken out about the incident, saying that he was attacked after asking the woman to get out of the vehicle and taunted because of his race and job.Video of the incident went viral, prompting a police investigation an an outpouring of support for the driver, Subhakar Khadka. In an interview with the Guardian, Khadka, who is from Nepal, said that between constant feelings of anxiety, fielding calls from media outlets and talking to family and friends back home, he has only gotten about three hours of sleep each night since the footage came out. Continue reading...

My friend Mike Carey, who has died aged 71, was a pioneer in the development of speech recognition and digital audio, including digital audio broadcasting (DAB). After a formative period at the Post Office research labs, Keele University and Mitel Telecom, he left in 1985 with Adrian Anderson and me to establish Ensigma, a company that quickly established itself as a leader in the research and development of digital speech and audio applications, with uses in mobile telephony, broadcasting and automated speech recognition systems.Mike was born in Preston, to Ethel (nee Glover), a weaver and housewife, and Stephen, a miner-cum-decorator. At Preston Catholic college, a local grammar, he met Elizabeth Mercer at a school dance, for once beating the cross-country champion across the floor. They married in 1969, by which time Mike was on a Post Office scholarship to study electrical engineering at Imperial College, London, supported throughout by extra work taken on by his parents. Continue reading...

Florian Kaps – Vienna’s answer to Steve Jobs – enthuses over analogue hardware and makes a persuasive case for moving beyond an online existenceHere is a documentary about the resurgent interest in retro culture that comes across like a warm fuzzy blanket of nostalgia for pre-Covid days. The central figure is “Doc” Florian Kaps, who the film presents as Vienna’s answer to Steve Jobs, a social visionary untroubled by such details as earning a living or indeed running a functioning business. Kaps’ speciality is what he calls “analogue”: physical hardware such as manual switchboards, jukeboxes, printing presses, and the like, made obsolete by the rise of laptops and smartphones.At the start of the film, Kaps’ attention is caught by the failing Polaroid camera, and – seemingly on a whim – he agrees to take over the company’s last factory, in the Netherlands. (We are not told much about his finances, other than the occasional arrival of tech investor types who pop up whenever needed.) It soon becomes clear that Kaps’ visionary utterances (“What does Facebook smell like?”) are no match for a solid business plan, and after a few years of trying fruitlessly to replicate Polaroid’s instant film, Kaps is ejected from his own company when a former intern becomes CEO after bringing in his own investor father. Continue reading...

Drivers report being underpaid and having to urinate in bottles in their vehicles to keep up with delivery ratesJames Meyers worked as a driver for several Amazon delivery service providers in Austin, Texas, for about one year until he quit in October 2020 citing the immense workloads and poor working conditions. Continue reading...

Everything from online news to social media and streaming platforms are captured by the regulations, branded ‘palpably illegal’ by opponentsNot long before he was elected as India’s prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi spoke of his dreams of a “digital India”, where “access to information knows no barriers”.But this week, unprecedented barriers on every form of digital content, from online news to social media and films and television on streaming platforms, came into force, making India’s digital realm one of the most heavily regulated of any major democracy. Continue reading...

Epic’s court battle with Google over being banned from the Play Store, mirrors one it has launched against Apple over its App Store removalEpic Games has launched new legal action against Google in Australia over alleged anti-competitive behaviour after Fortnite was kicked off the Google Play store last year.It is the second such court action Epic has taken in Australia following similar court action against Apple, launched in November last year. Continue reading...

Trading debut in New York prompts huge demand for game system with 200m monthly usersShares in Roblox, the virtual gaming world that has proved to be a lockdown winner with hundreds of millions of mostly young players, have surged 60% valuing it at $47bn after an investor frenzy on its first day of trading on the New York stock exchange.Roblox may not have the profile of a Fortnite or Minecraft, but its formula – allowing players to develop simple multiplayer games, socialise with friends and buy its digital currency to pay for virtual items – has made it a global phenomenon. Continue reading...

Users could effectively ‘teleport’ to connect with friends in more planet-friendly way, says ZuckerbergFacebook has unveiled the first of a wave of virtual reality innovations that its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, hopes will allow for effective “teleportation” by the end of the decade.One experimental project aims to track hand movements using nervous signals read by a wristwatch, with the hope of one day using that data to allow the wearer to manipulate virtual space. Continue reading...

Research estimates cryptocurrency will consume as much energy as all datacentres globallyThe surge in bitcoin’s price since the start of 2021 could result in the cryptocurrency having a carbon footprint the same as that of London, according to research.Alex de Vries, a Dutch economist, created the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index, one of the first systematic attempts to estimate the energy use of the bitcoin network. By late 2017 he estimated the network used 30 terawatt hours (TWh) a year, the same as the whole of the Republic of Ireland. Continue reading...

Smaller, lighter and water-resistant device has Bluetooth and wifi, aimed at home and outdoor use

The ‘unusually aggressive’ attack allowed hackers to access email accounts of at least 30,000 organizations in the USThe Biden administration is launching an emergency taskforce to address an aggressive cyber-attack that has affected hundreds of thousands of Microsoft customers around the world – the second major hacking campaign to hit the US since the election.The attack, first reported by security researcher Brian Krebs on 5 March, allowed hackers to access the email accounts of at least 30,000 organizations in the US. Continue reading...

OpenAI’s Clip system fails to correctly decipher images when words are pasted on pictureAs artificial intelligence systems go, it is pretty smart: show Clip a picture of an apple and it can recognise that it is looking at a fruit. It can even tell you which one, and sometimes go as far as differentiating between varieties.But even cleverest AI can be fooled with the simplest of hacks. If you write out the word “iPod” on a sticky label and paste it over the apple, Clip does something odd: it decides, with near certainty, that it is looking at a mid-00s piece of consumer electronics. In another test, pasting dollar signs over a picture of a dog caused it to be recognised as a piggy bank. Continue reading...

Measure would allow developers to use own payment systems as tide turns against industry that has been largely unregulatedA controversial Arizona bill that addresses the fees technology companies like Apple and Google charge app developers is raising new antitrust challenges for embattled US tech giants.The bill – which passed the Arizona state house last week and now will move to the state’s senate – would require Apple and Google to allow app developers to use their own payment systems, rather than Google’s or Apple’s, to process user purchases within the app. Continue reading...

Sales of slumber-related products have soared during lockdownThere are breathing robots versed in “thousands of years of Buddhist breathing techniques” that claim to soothe you to sleep. Then there are weighted blankets that press around 10% of your body weight down as you snooze.And there are apps, such as supermodel Natalia Vodianova’s Loóna, designed to create a “sleepscape” by combining visual and aural storytelling with relaxation-based activities such as colouring in. These are just some of the products at the heart of the “sleep aid revolution”. Continue reading...

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission indicates it suspects company policies may fuel broad discriminationA US agency investigating Facebook for racial bias in hiring and promotions has designated its inquiry as “systemic”, meaning it suspects company policies may be contributing to widespread discrimination.

Foreign Office tells those involved in pitching tenders their personal data has been compromisedHackers have obtained sensitive documents relating to British aid projects, including details related to projects funded by a secretive national security fund.The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and experts from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), an arm of GCHQ, are investigating how a “third party” came to obtain the data, the Guardian has learned. Continue reading...

Visual effects artist Christopher Ume reveals he made TikTok fakes with help from Cruise impersonator

I surfed first-wave Pokémania. Today, the video games are as much a part of kids’ fiction as DisneyLast weekend marked the 25th anniversary of Pokémon Red and Blue (or Red and Green in their native Japan), the first video games in a series that truly would take over the world. Continue reading...

Our updated list of the best pay-TV and streaming services in the UKThe choice of how you get your TV and movies in the UK has exploded in recent years, with a growing number of premium pay-TV providers and streaming services available at a wide range of prices.Many of them have long contracts, exclusive content and complicated bundle pricing. And that’s before you work out how to actually get it to your television, whether it is live broadcast TV via the traditional routes of aerial, satellite or cable, new offerings of streaming live TV over the internet, on-demand download or streaming services, or a mix of all three. All of which makes choosing the right one for you a bit of a minefield of information overload. Continue reading...

Queenpod offers a track-by-track, album-by-album look at the rock legends. Plus: women DJs from around the world, and a different spin on falling head over heelsQueenpod

UK watchdog opens inquiry over claims US firm is imposing ‘anti-competitive’ terms on app developersBritain’s competition regulator has opened an investigation into Apple over claims the company is using its control over the App Store to impose “unfair and anti-competitive” terms on app developers.The Competition and Markets Authority announced the investigation on Thursday morning. It says it decided to investigate based on its own work in the digital sector, “as well as several developers reporting that Apple’s terms and conditions are unfair and could break competition law”. Continue reading...

Tori Dunlap, a self-proclaimed personal finance expert, and Shaunna Burns, a former debt collector, tell people how to gain control of debt in 15-60 seconds

Is smartphone tracking a less intrusive reward for good behaviour or just a way to enrich the incarceration industry?

Store in Ealing, west London, is available to app users who must scan in phone code to enterAmazon has opened its first “just walk out” grocery store in the UK where shoppers can pick up their goods and leave without having to visit a till.The Amazon Fresh store in Ealing, west London, is a “contactless” shop available to anyone signed up to Amazon and with the app on their phone. Customers must scan in a code on their phone to gain entry. Continue reading...

Companies such as Google and Facebook appear to be aiding and abetting a vicious government campaign against Indian environmental campaigners

Xi Jinping wants ‘positive energy’ but critics say the surveillance tools’ racial bias and monitoring for anger or sadness should be banned“Ordinary people here in China aren’t happy about this technology but they have no choice. If the police say there have to be cameras in a community, people will just have to live with it. There’s always that demand and we’re here to fulfil it.”So says Chen Wei at Taigusys, a company specialising in emotion recognition technology, the latest evolution in the broader world of surveillance systems that play a part in nearly every aspect of Chinese society. Continue reading...

Former Guardian editor, who is on board, says it intends to broaden its remit and examine network’s AIFacebook’s Oversight Board is trying to gain access to the social network’s curation algorithm to understand how it works, according to Alan Rusbridger, the former editor of the Guardian and a member of the quasi-independent body.Rusbridger, who is one of 20 founding members of the Oversight Board, said the body intended to broaden its remit beyond simply assessing Facebook’s decisions to remove or retain content. Continue reading...

Clerk who hosted explosive parish council meeting makes point about diversity in music trackJackie Weaver might have no authority, but she’s got the grooves.The 62-year-old parish council clerk who became an internet sensation after a car crash Zoom meeting has now cut her first dance track, to help raise awareness of the lack of diversity and representation at local government level. Continue reading...

Mughal palaces, Egyptian tombs and modernist masterpieces can be experienced in VR tours that depart from your sofaWhile our lives have mostly shrunk to our own four walls – besides the sneak peek of others’ homes glimpsed via Zoom – we can still step into other worlds virtually. Stately homes and fortresses, from Blenheim Palace to Bran Castle (of Dracula fame) have opened digital portals allowing anyone with a laptop the chance to snoop around, without getting off the sofa. Here are 10 of my favourite colourful buildings from the vast eclectic trove online. Continue reading...

Research finds students who showed signs of addiction were also highly likely to suffer from poor sleepAlmost four in 10 university students are addicted to their smartphones, and their habit plays havoc with their sleep, research has found.A study of 1,043 students aged 18-30 at King’s College London found that 406 (38.9%) displayed symptoms of smartphone addiction, as defined by a clinical tool devised to diagnose the problem. Continue reading...

Company expands efforts against coronavirus falsehoods amid fears over spread of anti-vax material onlineTwitter is expanding its use of warning labels on tweets that contain misleading details about coronavirus vaccines.Related: CDC chief warns of 'potential fourth surge' and urges US to keep Covid rules Continue reading...

Company announces revenues of $2.6bn with little sign of slowing, but vaccines could change pictureA year of working from home may have driven many of us to the brink but it’s been great news for Zoom, the video conferencing business.On Monday, the company announced its revenues had soared 326% year-over-year to $2.6bn and there was little sign of slowing at the end of the year. Sales soared 369% in the last quarter to $882.5m. Continue reading...

Teenagers on TikTok are giving themselves makeovers based on their Republican or Democratic alter egosIf you’re on TikTok, you’ll know Gen Z can tell if you’re a millennial from a side part and skinny jeans. Now, a new TikTok trend suggests teenagers on the app know someone’s political standing from the way they use eyeliner.Dubbed the “Republican-sona” makeover, Gen Z is creating their “conservative alter egos” to the ironic soundtrack of “God Made Girls” by RaeLynn. Continue reading...

President does not mention retail giant by name but sends backing to ‘workers in Alabama’ currently voting on unionizationJoe Biden has offered tentative support to Amazon warehouse workers in the middle of a closely fought vote to unionize. If successful, the union would be the first for US warehouse workers of the online shopping behemoth.While Biden did not reference Amazon by name, in a video message released late Sunday he sent his support to “workers in Alabama”, where 5,800 employees at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer have until 29 March to vote on whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). Continue reading...

In a drama written by artificial intelligence, the computer’s imagination touches on themes of love and loneliness – but is mostly obsessed with sexKazuo Ishiguro, whose new novel Klara and the Sun is about artificial intelligence, has said he is worried about a time when an AI programme is able to write fiction “that can make me cry, that can show human emotions … that can have the capacity for empathy”.The first drama to be written by artificial intelligence shows we are a long way from that future. Ninety per cent of its “autobiographical” material has been generated from its depths while the remaining – human – touches are administered by a team of computer scientists, theatre-makers and academics. A partnership between the Czech Centre in London and Prague’s Švanda theatre, it is performed in Czech with English subtitles. Continue reading...

Service from MyHeritage uses deep learning technique to automatically animate faces

Michael Slaby calls Facebook and Google ‘two gorillas’ crushing the creativity needed to combat online conspiracy theoriesA former digital strategist for Barack Obama has demanded an end to big tech’s profit-driven optimization of outrage and called for regulators to curb online disinformation and division. Continue reading...

Tablet PC screen that folds like book or as dual-screen laptop is incredible piece of technology but not ready for mass marketLenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Fold is an entirely new form – a tablet PC that closes like a book with a foldable screen. It may just be the future of the computer.The £2,500-plus X1 Fold joins a rarefied group of cutting edge folding-screen devices that include the reinvention of the flip phone and a mobile tablet that folds in half to fit in your pocket. Continue reading...