Intrigue surrounds what may have been exposed, from nuclear secrets to Covid vaccine data to next-generation weapons systems

Texas-based firm, which has become an industry dominant player, provides monitoring services to corporations and federal agenciesThe revelation that elite cyber spies in past months conducted the largest hack against US officials in years has put the spotlight on SolarWinds, the Texas-based company whose software was compromised while servicing some of the biggest agencies and companies in the United States.SolarWinds provides computer networking monitoring services to corporations and government agencies around the world, and has become a dominant player since it was founded in 1999. Continue reading...

Public prosecutor states Victor Gevers did access US president’s site but as ethical hacker faces no chargesDutch prosecutors have confirmed that Donald Trump’s Twitter account was hacked in October despite denials from Washington and the company, but said the “ethical hacker” would not face charges.The hacker, named as Victor Gevers, broke into Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump on 16 October by guessing the US president’s password, Dutch media reports said. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency rose by more than 6% against the dollar amid growing interest from big investment companiesThe value of bitcoin, the world’s best known cryptocurrency, has reached an all-time high of more than $20,000.The cryptocurrency rose by more than 6% on Wednesday to reach $20,632 (£15,283) against the US dollar, extending a winning streak this year amid growing interest among big investment companies attracted to its potential for quick gains. Continue reading...

These inventions could help our coronavirus crisis now. But delays mean they may not be adopted until the worst of the pandemic is behind usThe world wasn’t prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic – and it still isn’t. Critical shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators continue to put medical professionals and patients at unnecessary risk. Meanwhile, long wait times for test results contribute to viral spread.Yet throughout this year, promising scientific innovations have been developed that could help reduce deaths until everyone can get the vaccine. So why aren’t they available? Continue reading...

PC (version tested), Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PS5, PS4; CD Projekt

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of working with neighbourhoods as social work rediscovered traditional methods

Company is reportedly making the change partly because the EU privacy regime is among the world’s strictestFacebook will shift all its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters in California, moving them out of their current relationship with Facebook’s Irish unit and out of reach of Europe’s privacy laws. Continue reading...

Company said it removed almost 500 accounts and pages tied to France and Russia for ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior’Rival French and Russian disinformation campaigns have sought to deceive and influence internet users in the Central African Republic ahead of an election later this month, Facebook said on Tuesday.Facebook said it was the first time it had seen foreign influence operations directly engage on its platforms, with fake accounts denouncing each other as “fake news”. Continue reading...

I was trying to buy Apple Watch SE on Black Friday and lost out on the chance to get oneI purchased Currys gift cards for £200 and £50 via the Perks at Work scheme to buy an Apple Watch SE. But after attempting to check out online, the website crashed.When I tried again, the £200 was showing as £0. Currys confirmed there was an issue and that the gift card balance would be restored in between two and 48 hours. This was more than 72 hours ago and the balance is still £0. Continue reading...

Purge removed content from unverified users and, by Monday, had reduced the content on the popular adult site from 13m videos to just 4mPornhub has removed millions of videos – the majority of its content – after an investigation revealed a large number of them featured underaged and sex-trafficked subjects.The popular adult content site had prohibited unverified users from posting new content after a New York Times report revealed a number of inappropriate and illegal videos, including some involving minors, causing the credit companies Visa and Mastercard to cut ties with the company and all related websites. Continue reading...

CD Projekt Red, developers of science-fiction epic, have apologised for the state of the gameDisappointed gamers have been offered refunds and an apology after the year’s biggest game was released in a barely-finished state for owners of current-generation consoles including the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.CD Projekt Red, the developers of science-fiction epic Cyberpunk 2077, apologised for the state of the game in an open letter to players on Monday morning, and addressed accusations that they had misled customers by limiting pre-launch coverage to the version of the game built for powerful (and expensive) gaming PCs. Continue reading...

Personal trainer’s frontroom-friendly workouts make him nation’s favourite during coronavirusIn a year of seismic change, Britain turned to a new national figurehead for answers.He has curly hair, six-pack abs, and 2.6 million subscribers on YouTube. And according to year-end data released on Monday, one of Joe Wicks’ livestreamed PE classes was the single most popular UK video in the time of coronavirus. Continue reading...

US games company behind Fifa franchise scuppers deal with rival Take-Two InteractiveBritish video games maker Codemasters has become the focus of a £1bn bidding war after accepting an offer from California-based Electronic Arts, scuppering a previously planned deal with US rival Take-Two Interactive, maker of franchises including Grand Theft Auto.EA, the maker of titles including Battlefield and The Sims, has tabled a £945m offer for Codemasters, which is best known for its racing simulators including the Formula One series. Continue reading...

Concern that hackers who breached treasury and commerce departments used similar tool to break into other agenciesHackers backed by a foreign government have been monitoring internal email traffic at the US treasury department and an agency that decides internet and telecommunications policy, according to people familiar with the matter.“The United States government is aware of these reports and we are taking all necessary steps to identify and remedy any possible issues related to this situation,” said national security council spokesman John Ullyot. Continue reading...

The pandemic has made clear that corporations need more – not fewer – incentives to protect workersAs a former secretary of labor, I often receive mail from workers with job complaints, who apparently believe I still have some authority. But the email I received a few days ago from a worker at Amazon’s Whole Foods delivery warehouse in Industry City, Brooklyn, New York, was particularly distressing.She said that six of her co-workers had tested positive for Covid-19 since 22 October, because “safe social distancing is not only being ignored but discouraged,” adding that “when we express our discomfort to management, we are yelled at about filling orders faster, or told that we can take a leave of absence without pay.” Continue reading...

About a Girl tells the stories of the women behind David Bowie, Bob Marley and more. Plus: two strippers debunk the myths around their professionAbout a Girl

EU science funding is being spent on developing new tools for policing and security. But who decides how far we need to submit to artificial intelligence?Patrick Breyer didn’t expect to have to take the European commission to court. The softly spoken German MEP was startled when in July 2019 he read about a new technology to detect from facial “micro-expressions” when somebody is lying while answering questions.Even more startling was that the EU was funding research into this virtual mindreader through a project called iBorderCtrl, for potential use in policing Europe’s borders. In the article that Breyer read, a reporter described taking a test on the border between Serbia and Hungary. She told the truth, but the AI border guard said she had lied. Continue reading...

Sundar Pichai apologizes for how Timnit Gebru’s departure ‘seeded doubts’ at GoogleThe CEO of Google has apologized for how a prominent artificial intelligence researcher’s abrupt departure last week has “seeded doubts” in the company.Sundar Pichai told Google employees in a Wednesday memo, obtained by Axios, that the tech company was beginning a review of the circumstances leading up to Timnit Gebru’s exit last week, and how Google could have “led a more respectful process”. Continue reading...

Minutes of a 2018 meeting show Facebook chief complaining UK was anti-tech and saying he might look elsewhere in Europe to investFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg threatened to pull investment out of the UK if the government did not look to soften its stance on the regulation of Silicon Valley companies, according to a document published on Tuesday.In response Matt Hancock, who held the meeting with Zuckerberg in 2018 when he was culture secretary, said that the UK could “shift from threatening regulation to encouraging collaborative working to ensure legislation is proportionate and innovation-friendly”. Continue reading...

Surprise at high price as company looks to beat Bose and Sony with super luxury audioApple has announced its long anticipated first over-ear, noise-cancelling wireless headphones, AirPods Max, retailing at £549.The new headphones look to take the good bits of Apple’s wireless earbuds, AirPods, and put them in larger Bluetooth headphones with high quality speakers and a very high price tag. Continue reading...

Electric carmaker to join blue-chip S&P 500 index as its stock price continues to soarTesla is to raise up to $5bn selling new shares, as the electric carmaker takes advantage of an almost 900% surge in its share price over the last 12 months.The move comes three months after Tesla last moved to raise $5bn, at the time its biggest issue of new stock in a decade, and just weeks before the company is due to enter the blue-chip S&P 500 index. Entry to the benchmark index is likely to further fuel Tesla’s stock market run as passive investors that track the S&P 500 will be compelled to buy shares in the business. Continue reading...

The crowdfunding platform has boomed in the year of coronavirus, with indie mavericks joined by Hollywood royalty

Children’s commissioner for England says tech giants are failing to keep children safeThe children’s commissioner for England has warned that end-to-end encryption is putting children at risk of abuse, as a survey finds that most eight-year-olds are using messaging apps supposedly restricted to those aged 13 or older.In a report published on Tuesday, Anne Longfield said plans by social media firms to widen the use of encrypted messaging would make it impossible for platforms to monitor content. Continue reading...

Timnit Gebru’s colleagues challenge claims she resigned while more than 1,800 sign petition of solidarityOutcry is growing within Google over the treatment of the AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru, with Gebru’s colleagues challenging the company’s account of her exit in an open letter.In a letter posted on Monday on Medium, Gebru’s colleagues disputed an executive’s claim that she had resigned and called internal research policies into question. Continue reading...

New figure follows surprise third-quarter profit and values the company at up to $42bnAirbnb has raised the price of its shares before its initial public offering this week and could float with a valuation of as much as $42bn (£31.5bn).In a government filing in the US on Monday, Airbnb said it expects to price its shares between $56 and $60 each, up from a range of $44 to $50 earlier this month. Continue reading...

Writers including Salman Rushdie express anger after journalist Salil Tripathi has account suspended

Guardian found potentially harmful pro-weight-loss accounts were still available in search resultsTikTok has launched an investigation and banned some search terms after the Guardian found harmful pro-anorexia content was still easily searchable despite measures taken by the social media company to prohibit the advertising of weight-loss products.The video app – one of the most popular in the world with more than 800 million users, almost half of whom are between the ages of 16 and 24 – has imposed new restrictions on weight-loss ads after criticism for promoting dangerous diets. Continue reading...

You can’t taste it or smell it, but food and drink play a big role in video games, providing everything from sustenance to secret weaponryFood has always played a vital role in video games. From Pac-Man’s bonus fruits to Mario’s magical mushrooms, it has provided everything from sustenance to supernatural abilities – and in games such as Cooking Mama and Overcooked, food preparation became a genre in its own right. Game developers, like the creators of cooking programmes and recipe books, have discovered that well-presented food is irresistible – even when we can’t eat it.In the modern games industry, where detail and authenticity are paramount, the depiction of food has become an art form. Kaname Fujioka, executive director on Capcom’s fantasy adventure, Monster Hunter: World, says: “We design the ingredients and recipes based around the grade of the food, as well as any seasonal events it may be tied to. Since we’re unable to showcase the most important elements of food (taste and smell), we have to alter, exaggerate or potentially deform the visuals in a way that conveys that as best as possible. In order for players to believe that the visuals look ‘delicious’, a lot of fine-tuning is done on details like the colour, lighting and softness.” Continue reading...

The price tag of £248,000 might make your eyes water but Moley Robotics claims to have more than 1,000 potential buyersFinally, the ultimate kitchen gadget you never knew you wanted is here – but it will cost you about the same as the average UK house.For those stumped as to what to buy the super-rich person in their lives this Christmas, how about a fully robotic kitchen that promises to whip up a choice of up to 5,000 recipes at the press of a button? Continue reading...

The consumer group Which? chooses its top 50 gadets of the year, from cheap and cheerful to high endA robot vacuum that deals with the unpleasant job of emptying the dust bag, a swivelling selfie camera for the YouTube generation and a £12 kettle are among an eclectic list of items dubbed the best products of the year.Experts from the consumer group Which? have picked out 50 items for special praise from the 3,500 reviewed or released over the last year, focusing on their innovation, sustainability or value for money. Continue reading...

A recent study suggests lengthy, complex corporate filings are increasingly read by, and written for, machinesMy eye was caught by the title of a working paper published by the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER): How to Talk When a Machine Is Listening: Corporate Disclosure in the Age of AI. So I clicked and downloaded, as one does. And then started to read.The paper is an analysis of the 10-K and 10-Q filings that American public companies are obliged to file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The 10-K is a version of a company’s annual report, but without the glossy photos and PR hype: a corporate nerd’s delight. It has, says one guide, “the-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink data you can spend hours going through – everything from the geographic source of revenue to the maturity schedule of bonds the company has issued”. Some investors and commentators (yours truly included) find the 10-K impenetrable, but for those who possess the requisite stamina (big companies can have 10-Ks that run to several hundred pages), that’s the kind of thing they like. The 10-Q filing is the 10-K’s quarterly little brother. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Xbox One

There is something powerful about seeing a squat, or a bicep curl, performed by someone whose musculature is beyond perfectI’ve never much used Instagram except for looking at pictures of pitbulls, so when I met my first influencer (an interiors one rather than fitness) I, of course, had no idea of the deadly seriousness of the medium. Existing not just on likes, but on likes as a proportion of followers, he expressly forbade me from following him, on the grounds that I seemed like the kind of person who, though approving of a post, would forget to actually click “like”. He had me bang to rights; I didn’t follow him, and all I can remember now is that his name was Richard and Instagram influencing is huge, huge business.The top 10 fitness influencers worldwide can earn between £10,000 and £37,000 per post – astronomical figures that work on a straightforward metric: your follower count multiplied by 0.003, turned into quids.( I don’t know who decided it, I just worked it out in my head). Only two of the global top 10 (Ulisses World and Simeon Panda) are men, and the women are similar only in the sense that they all have incredible muscle definition. Continue reading...

More than 1,500 researchers also sign letter after Black expert on ethics says Google tried to suppress her research on biasMore than 1,200 Google employees and more than 1,500 academic researchers are speaking out in protest after a prominent Black scientist studying the ethics of artificial intelligence said she was fired by Google after the company attempted to suppress her research and she criticized its diversity efforts.Timnit Gebru, who was the technical co-lead of Google’s Ethical AI team, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that she had been fired after sending an email to an internal group for women and allies working in the company’s AI unit. Continue reading...

The 15-year-old scientist has used technology to address contaminated drinking water, opioid addiction and cyberbullyingA 15-year-old scientist and inventor has been named as Time magazine’s first “kid of the year”.Gitanjali Rao, from Denver, Colorado, has invented new technologies across a range of fields, including a device that can identify lead in drinking water, and an app and Chrome extension that uses artificial intelligence to detect cyberbullying. Continue reading...

Sites such as Facebook will have to publicly disclose identity of people and entities funding such advertisingThe “dirty methods” of the Brexit referendum have been cited as a reason for new EU laws aimed at tackling disinformation and forcing online platforms including Facebook to publicly disclose the identity of people and entities funding political adverts.Věra Jourová, a vice president of the European commission, said the EU rule-book needed to be updated to deal with on-line political campaigning, as she unveiled draft legislation at a press conference in Brussels. Continue reading...

Move marks strongest push yet to prevent platform being used for anti-vaccination rhetoric

PC, PS4/5, Xbox One/Series X/S; Dontnod

The Internet Watch Foundation is seeing a growing number of tipoffs about child abuse. We talk to one analyst about her work

National Labor Relations Board files complaint over surveillance and termination after year-long inquiryGoogle violated US labor laws when it surveilled and terminated workers who organized employee protests, according to a complaint filed by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).The complaint was filed on Wednesday following a year-long investigation launched by terminated employees who filed a petition with the board in 2019, after hundreds of Google employees carried out internal protests and public demonstrations against Google’s work with US Customs and Border Protection. This came after a huge walkout in 2018 over the company’s handling of sexual harassment allegations. The Communications Workers of America union helped author the workers’ charges. Continue reading...

Sixteen years after its launch, World of Warcraft is finally introducing diverse skin tones, facial features and hairstyles. Game director Ion Hazzikostas explains why nowRecently, I’ve spent quite a lot of time pondering what an orc would look like with an afro. This, naturally, led to contemplation of an axe-afro-comb combo, and whether such a contraption would fall under blacksmithing or engineering.That’s because I’ve been playing Shadowlands, the eighth expansion to World of Warcraft. For Warcraft fans, there’s a lot to be excited about: the new game allows players to explore the afterlife – reviving classic characters such as Kael’thas Sunstrider – and introduces a new style of play in Torghast, a deliciously punishing dungeon that changes each time you visit. Continue reading...

You’ve got your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X – but what else do you need to experience the future of gaming? Here are the TVs and headsets we recommendThis month we welcomed a new video game generation with the thrilling (if rather limited) arrival of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 machines. Whether you’ve already received your shiny new console (and not a bag of cat food), or you’re hoping a plucky relative has managed to secure you one for Christmas, you might be wondering: what extra gadgets will I need to get the most out of this coming era?The good news is, your current flatscreen TV and gaming headset will almost certainly work fine with the new machines – you don’t have to rush out and buy anything else. But if you’re seeing this as an opportunity to update your whole gaming set-up, here are a few accessories we’ve tested and recommend. Continue reading...

It’s 130 years since Father Christmas first appeared in a department store. But this year is the strangest one yet – with virtual calls taking the place of shopping centre visits. Is it enough to keep the ho ho hos flowing?Five bearded men, dressed head to toe as Santa, wearing fur-trimmed face masks, file into an office building in London and sit behind wooden desks – laptops and webcams in front of them. The room has been made magical with the addition of a red and gold curtain, a snow-flecked Christmas tree and a stuffed penguin perched on top of some lockers. In years gone by these off-duty actors and former children’s TV presenters would have sat in department store grottos and worn out their knees taking the weight of Britain’s children. But they are here today to brush up their tech skills and learn how the in-store Santa can adapt and survive in the middle of a pandemic.The seminar is led by James Lovell, a honey-voiced compere who straddles the line between practical teaching and keeping up the illusion of snow and elves. He leads the five Santas through exercises and practical advice on how to handle the intricacies of online video calls. The Santas pepper Lovell and a tech expert with questions about how they will see the children in their virtual grottos. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, Nintendo Switch, PC; Ubisoft

Program solves scientific problem in ‘stunning advance’ for understanding machinery of lifeHaving risen to fame on its superhuman performance at playing games, the artificial intelligence group DeepMind has cracked a serious scientific problem that has stumped researchers for half a century.With its latest AI program, AlphaFold, the company and research laboratory showed it can predict how proteins fold into 3D shapes, a fiendishly complex process that is fundamental to understanding the biological machinery of life. Continue reading...

Digital secretary says he is setting ‘clear path for complete removal of high risk vendors’ from 5G networksTelecoms providers must stop installing Huawei equipment in the UK’s 5G networks from next September, the government has said.The digital secretary, Oliver Dowden, set out a roadmap to remove high-risk vendors ahead of the telecommunications (security) bill coming before parliament. Continue reading...

A new hunger for social contact during lockdown has boosted participation in online multiplayer gamesIf “sus” and “vent” mean nothing to you, then you’ve somehow missed out on the smash-hit multiplayer game Among Us. But with numbers playing the online game heading towards 100 million, maybe you’ll find out before Christmas how good you are at being an “impostor” .For the uninitiated, Among Us is the sleeper game hit of 2020. The premise is simple: it’s Cluedo or Wink Murder on a spaceship with four to 10 players of crewmates and impostors. The crewmates perform simple tasks for take-off, while impostors sabotage operations and kill other players. Impostors are the only players who can travel through vents – hence the significance of vent in Among Us. Gamers hold meetings to pick a suspect – which is where the word sus comes in – to jettison. The aim is to catch the impostors. Continue reading...