Lawmakers are about to undertake their first major antitrust hearing in 50 years. They should make tech companies squirm

Hundreds of thousands of people followed pregnancy of Miss Thea, 24, on social mediaThe mother of an Instagram and YouTube influencer who died when she was eight months pregnant, along with her unborn son, has said she would miss her “for the rest of my life”.Hundreds of thousands of people had followed Nicole Thea’s pregnancy and she had named her child Reign before the birth. Continue reading...

Experts say small towns and rural areas will be hardest hit by UK ditching Chinese firmSmall towns and rural areas across the UK will be hardest hit by delays of up to three years in the rollout of 5G mobile technology, experts have said after ministers announced that Huawei will be stripped from networks by 2027.The total cost to the economy could exceed £7bn, according to research analysing the potential cost of eliminating the Chinese equipment supplier in response to US sanctions and pressure from about 60 rebel Tory MPs. Continue reading...

PS4; Sucker Punch/Sony

Huawei equipment is to be stripped out of Britain's 5G phone networks by 2027, the culture secretary has confirmed. Oliver Dowden said firms should not buy Huawei 5G kit after 31 December this year and it would eventually be illegal to do so. Huawei denies it has ever been asked to engage in spying on behalf of China

Social media company insists it is ‘not aligned with any government’ after MPs calls for app to be bannedSocial media company TikTok has written to Australian MPs claiming to be “caught in the middle” of rising tensions between countries, and saying it is being used as a “political football”.The letter, sent to members of parliament on Monday, said it was correcting the record on “false claims” made about TikTok and the company’s ties to the Chinese government. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guardian and El País find regional speaker was targeted in ‘possible domestic political espionage’

Roger Torrent tells Guardian suspected targeting of his phone using spyware is proof of ‘dirty war’

Call to release review of Moscow’s influence now that security committee is finally being set upThe long-delayed report into Russian infiltration in the UK could be published next week now that parliament’s intelligence and security committee is being set up, its most senior Labour member told MPs on Monday night.Kevan Jones said “there was no reason why” the document could not be published “before parliament goes into recess” – nine months after its release was blocked by Boris Johnson ahead of the general election. The report was sent to Downing Street in October. Continue reading...

Up to 60 MPs say phasing out of Chinese telecoms firm’s 5G role will not go far enough

HBO is developing a series of The Last of Us, EA has a Sims reality show, but which other video games could work on the small screenThis is a wonderful time to be a person who prefers watching video games to playing them. The Sonic the Hedgehog movie is officially the second-biggest film of the year worldwide (because it’s good, but also possibly because of the lockdown) and, even better, two new TV shows based on video games are on the horizon.The first is HBO’s The Last of Us, which – since it’s being written and directed by the creative team behind Chernobyl – has the potential to be terrific. The gameplay of the video game was arguably secondary to its characters and story anyway, so, if the series can translate even a modicum of the game’s mournful dread to screen, it’ll be something worth watching. Continue reading...

Philip Jansen says it would be impossible to strip Huawei out of UK telecoms within 10 years

Platforms from Facebook to Reddit have responded to the national uprising. Here’s what they’ve done so farMajor technology platforms are re-examining how they interact with police forces and regulate hate speech online following the death of George Floyd and the weeks of protests that ensued.From avatars and hashtags to policy changes and donations, here is what technology companies are saying about #BlackLivesMatter – and what they are actually doing to back up those statements of support. Continue reading...

Chief executive slams ‘toxic behaviours’ as unacceptable after employees denounce predatory conduct, leading to resignationsThe second most powerful executive at French gaming company Ubisoft is among more senior staff to have left the firm as it pursues an internal investigation into sexual harassment allegations.Last month the company, one of the world’s largest video game publishers with a portfolio including Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, launched a probe after allegations of sexual misconduct were shared online. Continue reading...

The company has survived previous seemingly existential crises with little damage to its monarchical structureOn the evening of 13 July 2013, a few hours after George Zimmerman was acquitted over the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Alicia Garza logged on to her Facebook account and typed a phrase that would change the world: “#blacklivesmatter”. A few minutes later, she posted again: “Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.”That Facebook played a small role in the inception of a movement that may have become the largest in US history is the kind of story that the embattled company likes to point to when it makes its case that it does more good than harm. CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted of the hashtag’s origin on Facebook in October 2019, when he delivered a speech about his view of free expression at Georgetown University. Continue reading...

Chinese telecom firm stockpiles 500,000 pieces of equipment but fears wider banHuawei believes it can supply 5G hardware unaffected by White House sanctions to the UK for the next five years, sidestepping the expected conclusion of an emergency review on Tuesday next week.The company has stockpiled 500,000 pieces of kit but fears a wider ban on its equipment will be unveiled to placate Conservative rebel MPs, who say the Chinese supplier represents a national security risk. Continue reading...

Email to some workers calling for removal of app due to ‘security risks’ was sent in error, spokesperson saysAmazon made waves on Friday when it emailed some employees instructing them to delete TikTok from their phones over security concerns tied to the China-owned app.But hours later an Amazon spokesperson said the request had been sent out in error and that there was no change to the company’s policies at the moment. Continue reading...

BT executive says UK customers on 5G, 4G and 2G would all face problems if equipment removedThe UK would face mobile phone “blackouts” if networks were required to remove all Huawei equipment by 2023, a BT executive has told MPs.Speaking to the Commons science and technology committee, Howard Watson, BT’s chief technology and information officer, said the proposed three-year timeframe for the removal of the Chinese firm from Britain’s mobile phone infrastructure was borderline unachievable. Continue reading...

Job cuts were put on hold during worst of coronavirus crisis due to demand from people working from home

Latest top-of-the-line Dell is a brilliant machine with a great screen in a tiny body, but is let down badly by software problemsDell’s XPS 13 squeezes more screen, more power and even Windows Hello face recognition into a tiny frame, but trips up over software issues.The XPS 13 is Dell’s top-of-the-line compact laptop and starts at £1,349. Various models with different processors, storage and screen resolutions are available. Continue reading...

Company says fake accounts promoted Trump ally’s books while material tied to Bolsonaro spread divisive messagesFacebook has suspended numerous pages linked to the longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone as well as a network of accounts associated with the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, in separate moves to tackle disinformation and fake accounts on the platform.The company on Tuesday took down 50 personal and professional pages connected to Stone and his associates, including a prominent supporter of the rightwing Proud Boys group in Stone’s home state of Florida, saying they had used fake accounts and followers to promote Stone’s books and posts. Continue reading...

Civil rights groups say company did not commit to concrete plan to address hate speech and misinformationThe organizers behind a major advertiser boycott of Facebook have called a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and other executives “disappointing”, saying the company failed to commit to concrete solutions for addressing hate speech and misinformation on the platform.Officials at Facebook, including Zuckerberg, the CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, met with members of the coalition of civil rights groups over video chat for an hour on Tuesday to discuss the largest boycott in Facebook history, which has gained the support of more than 1,000 of its advertisers, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks. Continue reading...

Social media firms react to sweeping new national security legislation imposed by ChinaTikTok is to withdraw from Hong Kong app stores and Zoom will stop complying with city authorities’ data requests as technology companies react to the sweeping new national security laws imposed on the city by Beijing.Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Google and Telegram have already said they are “pausing” cooperation with requests for user information, putting pressure on Apple, which says it is “assessing” the new law, to do the same. Continue reading...

Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, lays out the movement’s goals as he prepares to meet with ZuckerbergFacebook is facing the biggest corporate boycott in the company’s history.Following a call from advocacy groups working under the umbrella Stop Hate for Profit, more than 300 advertisers have pledged not to spend money on the platform for the month of July. Continue reading...

Alleged campaign involved inviting UK figures to staged radio interviews and emailing them fake newsA peer has said he was not “putty in the hands of manipulators” in response to extraordinary claims he was among several public figures targeted by a fake PR campaign aimed at favourably boosting perceptions of the Chinese technology company Huawei.The alleged covert campaign involved inviting British politicians and industrialists to participate in staged radio interviews and emailing them fake news, according to a dossier partly produced by the firm co-founded by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele. Continue reading...

Liu Xiaoming also defends Beijing’s stance on Hong Kong, warning UK not to interfere in China’s affairsChina’s ambassador to the UK has said a ban on the Chinese tech company Huawei from playing a role in developing the UK’s 5G network would damage Chinese trust in the UK and its belief that the UK can run a foreign policy independent of the US.Speaking at a virtual press briefing in London, Liu Xiaoming warned Boris Johnson “you cannot have a golden era if you treat China as an enemy”. Continue reading...

Calls follow Mark Zuckerberg’s dismissal of anti-hate-speech campaign in meeting with staff

Producer Yoshinori Kitase and co-director Naoki Hamaguchi describe the responsibilities and opportunities of recreating a stone-cold classicSquare Enix’s modern transformation of the 1997 classic Final Fantasy VII had players marvelling earlier this year. In addition to the graphical glow-up and modern-feeling changes to the game’s systems, Final Fantasy VII Remake added substance and emotional depth to much-loved characters such as Cloud, Tifa and Aerith, and left fans puzzling over the meanings of protagonist Cloud’s cryptic visions and the game’s thoroughly baffling ending.Related: Final Fantasy VII Remake review – a classic game reaches new heights Continue reading...

Jim Molan’s warning to Australian users comes after Nationals MP said app ‘used and abused’ by China’s Communist partyPopular video messaging app TikTok may be “a data collection service disguised as social media” that requires greater scrutiny by Australian users, the deputy chair of the Foreign Interference through Social Media inquiry has said.Liberal senator Jim Molan made the comments to Guardian Australia after Nationals MP George Christensen accused TikTok of being “used and abused” by the Chinese Communist party and called for it to be banned. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has also urged caution on people handing over their data to the app. Continue reading...

Political advertising is banned from being broadcast on television or radio. Unless Facebook changes, it may be time to extend this prohibition to social media

Former MI6 chief said US sanctions on Huawei meant Chinese telecoms firm now posed security risks to UKBoris Johnson now has “sound technical reasons” to reverse his decision to allow the Chinese firm Huawei to play a role in building the UK’s 5G infrastructure, a former head of MI6 said on Sunday.Sir John Sawers said new US sanctions imposed on the company meant that allowing Huawei to expand its grip on the UK telecoms market posed security risks that did not apply when the government announced a compromise solution in January giving it up to 35% of the market. Continue reading...

With 800 firms now joining the Facebook advertising boycott, the man whose idea it was explains how the company could easily clean up its act

GCHQ believed to be advising Boris Johnson that Chinese firm poses higher security riskThe UK is poised to end the use of Huawei technology in its 5G network as soon as this year because of security concerns, according to reports.The prime minister, Boris Johnson, is set to make a major policy change after GCHQ is believed to have reassessed the risks posed by the Chinese technology company, newspapers have said. Continue reading...

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The lowdown on free apps, sensors you wear and a mat you slip under your mattressMonths in covd-19-induced lockdown have for many of us taken a toll on our sleep. From the late-night scrolling through news to the bizarre dreams and midnight wake-ups worrying, the stress of the coronavirus pandemic has been wreaking havoc on our collective sleeping habits.A recent survey found two in five people in the UK have experienced sleep disturbance. And with a good night’s rest considered an important part of overall health and wellbeing, you may have decided to start tracking yours. But where do you start? Here, with a quick list of good sleepmonitors from free apps to dedicated sleep sensors. Continue reading...

I found laptops and cameras in a lockdown clearout and am wondering if they can be put to good useEvery week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.During my lockdown clearout, I found lots of old electronics such as laptops and cameras. Is the tip the best option for them or can they be put to good use somehow? Continue reading...

A string of online services provide products similar to banks, but they may not be regulated in the same wayWhen the Financial Conduct Authority ordered the UK arm of payments firm Wirecard to freeze customer funds, hundreds of thousands of people who had probably never even heard of the company suddenly found they could not access their cash.Customers of several UK banking and payment services, including FairFX, Pockit, U Account and Anna Money, were told that their money was caught up in the regulator’s action against the firm, leaving some unable to buy food or pay bills. Continue reading...

Playwriting Australia’s three-night monologue marathon is an exploration of identity and brutal history in a time of concurrent apocalypsesPlaywriting Australia promoted its new suite of 50 monologues, livestreamed over three nights this July, as “a striking moment of national celebration and reflection”. But the stories are also suffused with grief and desperation, with anxiety and impatience. Addressed as “postcards” to the nation, the monologues serve as dispatches from the pandemic, reflecting on this peculiar moment while also evincing the digitised intimacy that has become one of its signatures.Thursday night’s program of 18 works includes some monologues that take the brief quite literally and others with a more oblique approach. Many monologues refer directly to lockdowns, and there are two in which the actor personifies the virus itself. Each playwright comes at their chosen topic in very different ways, but colonisation, racism and solidarity are recurring themes, along with a more general sense that the world is overdue for a reckoning. Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s company outstrips Toyota on stock market as demand for electric cars soarsTesla has overhauled Japanese rival Toyota to become the world’s most valuable automotive company.Despite never having made a profit, the billionaire Elon Musk’s electric car manufacturer has been tipped by some pundits to achieve a valuation of more than $1tn (£800bn) as demand for electric vehicles soars. Continue reading...

The social network bills itself as a ‘no censorship’ bastion – but it’s already had to remind users what is and isn’t allowedIn recent weeks, Donald Trump has started having his tweets factchecked and published with disclaimers when they contain misleading information. Katie Hopkins, the woman who once compared migrants to cockroaches and called for a “final solution” in relation to Muslims, has been banned from Twitter. And a subreddit called r/The_Donald has been banned after Reddit updated its hate speech guidelines – Reddit said in a statement that “mocking people with physical disabilities” and “describing a racial minority as sub-human and inferior to the racial majority” will not be allowed.Related: Twitter closes Graham Linehan account after trans comment Continue reading...

A pleasingly sceptical investigation into the innovations that could change the way we eat, have sex and dieIn a plain factory building in the San Marcos hills, north of San Diego in California, a technological revolution is under way. There, a team of AI experts are developing a new brand of woman that can smile, flutter her eyelids, make small-talk and remember the names of your siblings. Harmony – for that is her name – is a cut above your average sex doll. More than merely a masturbatory aid, she is a friend, lover and potential life partner.In Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, Jenny Kleeman examines the innovations that promise to change the way we love, eat, reproduce and die in the future. “What you are about to read is not science fiction,” she warns in her preface. “We are on the brink of an age when technology will redefine … the fundamental elements of our existence.” First on her list of apocalyptic developments is the production of AI-enabled, animatronic sexbots, which, depending on your viewpoint, provide warmth and comfort to socially isolated men or allow misogynist incels to live out their rape fantasies. Her research takes her to Abyss Creations, the throbbing heart of the industry where hyperrealistic dolls are created complete with custom-made hair, nipples and vaginal inserts. Continue reading...

Culture secretary tells defence committee US sanctions likely to affect Chinese firm’s viabilityThe government may be close to announcing a U-turn on its controversial decision to allow Huawei to supply 5G technology, the culture secretary has hinted by saying US sanctions appear likely to affect the Chinese company.Oliver Dowden told members of a special defence select committee scrutinising Huawei that an emergency review ordered last month was close to running its course and that a change in policy would probably be necessary. Continue reading...

Six channels with supremacist content ‘repeatedly violated’ the site’s policy on hate speechYouTube has banned some of the video site’s most notorious far-right users, including former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, “alt-right” figurehead Richard Spencer and libertarian “race realist” Stefan Molyneux, joining a wave of social media sites taking action against hate speech.The company says the bans were handed down due to the creators’ repeated violation of YouTube’s policies against claiming that protected groups are “inferior”. Continue reading...

Immersive theatre company and augmented-reality game developer Niantic team up to explore ideas that fuse ‘physical and digital worlds’Immersive theatre company Punchdrunk, best known for its Macbeth production Sleep No More, and augmented-reality game developer Niantic, creator of augmented-reality smartphone games Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, are teaming up to create “interactive experiences”, the companies announced today.They are not working on extensions to existing games and productions – so don’t expect an interactive stage production of Pokémon Go, or a new video game adaptation of The Drowned Man. Instead the companies will be working on new projects, with aims to “reinvent storytelling for a 21st-century audience and further expand the horizon of interactive entertainment”. Continue reading...

Chancellor extends Future Fund to include firms that have moved their HQs abroadThe chancellor is expanding a £500m fund for UK startups hit by the coronavirus crisis, to ensure firms that shifted their headquarters abroad can still access the scheme.The Future Fund will now benefit companies that are seen as British in all but name, having moved their parent company to tap US investors or take advantage of so-called accelerator programmes. Accelerators like US-based Y Combinator often ask firms to set up a US entity in order to access financing, mentorships and expert networks overseas. Continue reading...

My standup career stalled when the pandemic arrived. But I get my kicks as a football manager on Twitch – and giving each player a storylineI began 2020 full of optimism, excited about returning to the Edinburgh fringe in August with a new show and feeling quite good about my standup. Then the pandemic arrived. As well as worrying about the health of family and friends, all my work disappeared overnight. The majority of my income is from performing standup in clubs around the country. On 1 April, it was announced that the Edinburgh fringe was cancelled. (Yes, they did it on April Fools’ Day.) Everything I had been carefully planning and working towards vanished.Lots of comedians perform live on social media. I’ve live-streamed on Facebook, which only reached my cousins and a bunch of strangers, and I tried Instagram Live, where people would join by accident and immediately leave. Since lockdown began, I’ve been asked to do a few online gigs. They’re quite nice but doing my standup material to complete silence is what happens in my anxiety dreams. Continue reading...

Twitch suspends president’s channel, leaving Facebook increasingly alone in its hands-off approachReddit and Twitch became the latest social media companies to ban or suspend pro-Donald Trump accounts over hate speech on Monday, further isolating Facebook in its reluctance to enforce content rules against the US president’s hateful and violent rhetoric.Reddit banned its largest pro-Trump message board (known as a subreddit), r/The_Donald, saying that it had “consistently hosted and upvoted more rule-breaking content than average” while refusing to cooperate with the company’s efforts to bring it into compliance. Continue reading...

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Jeffrey Katzenberg’s short-form content platform has struggled to make an impact with bad reviews, lack of interest and legal issues swirlingNearly three months ago, in early April, the $1.75bn content experiment known as Quibi lurched from its rocky, much-maligned promotional campaign into full-scale launch. The service offered a tsunami of celebrity-fronted shows segmented into “quick bites” (hence, “qui-bi”) of 10 minutes or less – a Joe Jonas talkshow, a documentary on LeBron James’s I Promise school, a movie with Game of Thrones’s Sophie Turner surviving a plane crash, all straight to your phone. At the time, many of us wondered if Quibi could deliver on its central promise – to refashion the style of streaming into “snackable” bites – or if, teetering under the weight of its massive funding and true who’s who of talent as the world shut down, it would become shorthand for an expensive mistake.The service, the brainchild of the DreamWorks Animation co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and the former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman – two billionaires deeply entrenched in the Hollywood and Silicon Valley establishment – was “either going to be a huge home run or a massive swing and a miss”, Michael Goodman, a media analyst with Strategy Analytics, told the Guardian. Given a string of bad news since its 6 April launch – missed targets, executive departures, Katzenberg singularly blaming the pandemic – and the sunset of its 90-day free trial with millions fewer subscribers than anticipated, the scales seemed decidedly tipped toward swing and miss. But while it’s too soon to declare the end of Quibi, it’s still worth asking: is the promise of the quick bite already over? And what went so wrong? Continue reading...