The bestselling sequel features a gay central character, challenging the last taboo for representation in gamingA withdrawn-looking 19-year-old leans against the bar in a rustic barn decorated with fairy lights, watching other people dance, taking nervous sips. She is looking at another young woman who is spinning around the room with a couple of different guys. “I hate these things,” says a friend standing next to her. “Tell me about it,” she replies.Related: The Guide: Staying In – sign up for our home entertainment tips Continue reading...
Company follows Unilever’s lead after platform announces shift in how it handles hate speechFacebook has announced changes to its policies around hate speech and voter suppression, but the measures have done little to quell the wave of companies pulling advertising from the platform amid backlash over how the company handles hate speech online.The CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, on Friday announced tweaks to a number of policies, hours after the multinational Unilever said it would pull its advertisements from the platform for the next six months. Continue reading...
Company is the biggest yet to join growing movement to boycott the social networkVerizon is pulling its advertising from Instagram and Facebook, the biggest name so far in a growing movement to boycott the social network for not doing enough to stop hate speech on its platforms.Related: Facebook faces advertiser revolt over failure to address hate speech Continue reading...
Beloved by Silicon Valley tycoons and tyranny-fearing libertarians, are cities atop the waves Earth’s next frontier?A white steel pole rises out of the sea off the Caribbean coast of Panama, poking above the waves like the funnel of a sunken steamship. Launched into the water last month, this is no shipwreck, but the base of what will soon become a floating home and, in the eyes of its makers, the first step towards building a brave new post-Covid-19 society, out on the open ocean.
With Sony and Microsoft about to embark on the first out-and-out console war for years, we break down how they weigh upLast week, in a livestream watched by millions, Sony revealed the first games coming to its PlayStation 5 console. Due out this winter, the machine will be competing with Microsoft’s Xbox Series X in the first major console war since 2013. But what will these new devices offer that Xbox One and PlayStation 4 do not – and will this finally get the kids off Fortnite? Continue reading...
Labeling of video made to look like a CNN report marks Twitter’s latest effort to label misinformation amplified by the US presidentTwitter has flagged a video tweeted by Donald Trump, which contained a fake CNN news segment about a “racist baby”, adding a warning label that the post contained manipulated media.The video, which had been doctored to make it appear as if it were a CNN broadcast, features two toddlers running and includes a fake graphic that reads “Terrified todler [sic] runs from racist baby”. The clip later accuses “fake news” of spreading misinformation. Continue reading...
Justice department says ‘recent actions’ by China towards its territory indicate landing station could expose US communications to spyingThe US government wants a high-capacity undersea data cable system proposed by Google and Facebook to bypass Hong Kong, citing potential national security concerns following China’s moves to exert greater control in the territory.The Pacific Light Cable Network, pending approval by the federal communications commission (FCC), should connect the US, Taiwan and the Philippines but not go through Hong Kong as planned, a US Justice Department committee has recommended. Continue reading...
Civil rights groups decried plan to exclude free calls from video calling app’s encryption servicesThe video conferencing platform Zoom announced on Wednesday it has reversed course and decided to provide end-to-end encryption to all customers, not just those who pay for a subscription.Related: Zoom admits cutting off activists' accounts in obedience to China Continue reading...
Automated moderation can be a blunt instrument – as users trying to post an image of Aboriginal men in chains discovered“It’s much easier to build an AI system that can detect a nipple than it is to determine what is linguistically hate speech.”The Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made that comment in 2018 when he was discussing how the company tackles content that is deemed inappropriate or, in Facebook terms, judged to be violating community standards. Continue reading...
Developer says releases including Horizon: Forbidden West and Marvel’s Spider-Man will be key to demonstrating the system’s capabilitiesHappily for anyone who struggles to summon much interest in raw tech specs, last week’s PlayStation 5 broadcast was heavy on games. Having seeded details about the console’s hardware and performance throughout the year, Sony opted to show what developers have been doing with that speed and power.Of the 28 games shown, nine were from Sony’s own studios, meaning they will be playable only on PS5. A further 14 were what’s known as timed exclusives, meaning that they’ll be available on PS5 first and may also launch on PC. Continue reading...
Six former senior employees set out to terrorize a couple for publishing an online newsletter unfavorable to the companySix former senior eBay employees have been charged with waging an extensive campaign to terrorize and intimidate the editor and publisher of an online newsletter with threats and disturbing deliveries to their home, including live spiders and cockroaches, federal authorities said on Monday.Executives were upset about the newsletter’s coverage, so their employees set out to ruin the lives of the couple who ran the website, sending a funeral wreath, bloody pig face Halloween mask and other alarming items to their home, authorities said. The employees also sent pornographic magazines with the husband’s name on it to their neighbor’s house and planned to break into the couple’s garage to install a GPS device on their car, officials said. Continue reading...
Snap says augmented reality will be foundation for next major shift in technologySnap, the company behind Snapchat, has revealed plans for a fully fledged digital platform taking on not only Facebook but also Google and Apple.The company is launching an app store, expanding its games platform and offering the facility for external developers to upload machine-learning models to build augmented reality experiences. It is allowing other apps to integrate its camera software for the first time, and incorporating businesses into its maps alongside users’ friends. Continue reading...
Automated section of app took a third of its content from two sources: CNN and Fox NewsWhen algorithms replace humans in charge of editing news, they tend to select more stories about celebrities from a less diverse selection of publications, according to research.Jack Bandy and Nicholas Diakopoulos of Northwestern University in the US analysed Apple News over a two-month period from mid-March, collecting every headline published in two sections of the popular and influential news app: Top Stories, which contains content selected by a team of human editors employed by Apple; and Trending, which contains stories selected by the company’s proprietary algorithm. Continue reading...
As other video games companies move towards Netflix-style streaming and subscription services, Sony has doubled down on a new console. The company’s Simon Rutter explains what the PS5 brings to the tableLast night in a livestreamed broadcast, Sony showed its new video game console, the PlayStation 5, for the first time, along with 28 new games that will be out this year or next. It is a futuristic-looking thing, all white curves and black and blue-LED accents and a touch of mid-00s service robot about it. One version is digital-only, the other comes with a drive for people who prefer to buy games on disc.As cloud-based and Netflix-like subscription services have gained traction in the video game world, the “end of the console” has become a popular conversation point. Two years ago at E3, the yearly video games conference, Microsoft’s Phil Spencer told the Guardian that “we pivoted about three or four years ago to thinking about the gamer first, not the device first … Our focus is on bringing console quality games that you see on TV or PC to any device.” But Sony is doubling down not only on the idea of the games console, of generational technology shifts that make new kinds of games possible, and on the idea of selling a new box by funding games that can only be played on PlayStation 5. Continue reading...
Pocket Casts says it refuses to restrict its content at request of Chinese authoritiesApple has removed two podcast apps from its Chinese app store, following government pressure to censor content.Pocket Casts and Castro were both pulled from distribution in China after the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) demanded that the apps stop allowing content that breached the country’s restrictive speech laws. Continue reading...
Content focused on Covid-19 and the protests in Hong Kong and over George Floyd in the USTwitter has removed more than 170,000 accounts the social media site says are state-linked influence campaigns from China focusing on Hong Kong protests, Covid-19 and the US protests in relation to George Floyd.The company announced on Thursday that 23,750 core accounts – and 150,000 “amplifier” accounts that boosted the content posted by those core accounts – had been removed from the platform after being linked to an influence campaign from the People’s Republic. Continue reading...
Join us as we cover the PlayStation 5 announcement live from 9pm BST/1pm PDT10.42pm BSTWell, that’s it for the PlayStation 5 event this evening. Clearly, the focus was on games rather than hardware – at least until the end – and fans got what they wanted, beginning with an enhanced GTA V and moving on through new Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Hitman and Ratchet & Clank titles. The finale was the reveal of the PlayStation 5 console itself, a radical re-think of the machine’s lineage, abandoning the all black colouring we’ve seen in the last three machines in favour of a futuristic white and black monolith.Compared to the recent Xbox Series X games stream, which focused on original indie titles, this was something of a fan-pleasing big brand onslaught from Sony [Update: there were also plenty of interesting independent titles too, including Stray and Little Devil Inside, making this a more rounded presentation]. But we’re yet to discover how many of these titles are exclusives, or even timed exclusives, beyond the first party games.10.22pm BSTThey saved it right til the end, but Sony has finally revealed the form factor of the PlayStation 5, an ultra futuristic robot white machine, with gliding lines and a black central stratum. This is a really radical look, like something out of an Alex Garland script. The console will come in two versions: a standard model and a digital machine. It’ll be accompanied by a 3D camera. Continue reading...
Three campaigners accuse US firm of disrupting their access to platform to placate ChinaThree prominent human rights activists have accused Zoom of disrupting or shutting down their accounts because they were linked to events to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre or were to discuss China’s measures to exert control over Hong Kong.Lee Cheuk Yan, a veteran activist with the Hong Kong Alliance, which organises the city’s annual Tiananmen Square vigil, said his account was shut down in May before he was to host a Zoom event on an extradition bill that caused mass anti-government protests in Hong Kong last year. Lee said he purchased a subscription to the platform in an effort to get access, but his account remained blocked. Continue reading...
Privacy advocates are concerned, saying basic security shouldn’t be a paid feature left open for the possibility of working with law enforcementZoom, the popular video conferencing platform, has announced it will provide end-to-end encryption after facing a litany of privacy and security concerns – but only to users who pay for it.Eric Yuan, the company’s CEO, raised alarm among privacy advocates on Wednesday by saying Zoom planned to exclude free calls from end-to-end encryption so as to leave open the possibility of working with law enforcement. Continue reading...
CEO says decision was ‘tough’ but ‘thorough’ as company faces harsh criticism and public dissent from employeesMark Zuckerberg is standing by his decision to allow Donald Trump to threaten violence against George Floyd protesters on the platform despite harsh criticism from civil rights leaders and public dissent from his own employees, including a public resignation.In a video conference with staff on Tuesday, Zuckerberg said that his decision to not remove Trump’s warning on social media on Friday that “when the looting starts the shooting start” was “tough” but “pretty thorough”, the New York Times reported. The company usually holds an all-staff meeting on Thursdays, but the session was moved up to address growing discontent among employees, hundreds of whom staged a “walkout” on Monday by requesting time off. Continue reading...
Activists say Facebook boss’s decision to leave ‘shooting threat’ up sets dangerous precedentCivil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. Continue reading...
Over the past two decades, scientists have laid bare our need to know more about women’s physiology. Can tech designed by and for women help?If you’re asked to imagine a person who has a heart attack, who do you see? Most of us think of an old man. It’s what we tend to see in movies. And while 3.9 million men live with cardiovascular disease in the UK, according to the British Heart Foundation, 3.5 million women also have a heart condition. However, we know much less about how to spot cardiovascular health issues in women. This means women wait longer to seek medical help, and are only half as likely as men to receive recommended heart-attack treatments.It was only in 1993 that women and people of colour were officially included in US clinical trials, yet much of our current medical knowledge has been shaped by earlier research. But over the past two decades, scientists have laid bare our need to know more about a wider range of bodies. As data is slowly catching up with reality, could technology help to plug the gap? Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#545AT)
Apple perfects its current laptop design, with great power, battery life and now an excellent keyboardThe 2020 13in MacBook Pro is the last of Apple’s laptops to get its new and improved keyboard, banishing various issues to the rear view mirror and essentially perfecting this current design.Despite both sharing the same name, the 2020 13in MacBook Pro is split into two lines: a cheaper version starting at £1,299 with two USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and older eighth-generation Intel chips; and a more powerful version starting at £1,799 with four USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports and the latest 10th-generation Intel chips. Continue reading...
Parents of locked-down kids might be advised to steer clear of this compulsive look at the smartphone and its ruinous effectsWith this enthusiastic, info-taining documentary Jon Hyatt runs the risk of stating the bleeding obvious by elaborating on facts everyone is already aware of: staring at your phone for too long is bad for your mental health, evidence is growing of the harmful impact of screens on children’s brains, tech companies design apps to exploit our cravings (and get hold of our data). Hyatt pushes his folksy voiceover too far – “Gee, do I love my phone” – as he goes cold turkey from social media (and cuts his kids’ screen time), but he’s an affable presence. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#53TT7)
With a full return to work and social life still some way off, you may need a new computerWith a full return to work, school and spending time with family in real life rather than on a video call still not in sight, you may have finally decided that it is worth buying a new laptop. If you want an affordable computer there are lots to choose from, including Chromebooks and Windows 10 PCs.Really cheap Chromebooks are often better than the equivalent Windows machines because Chrome OS is a lighter, low-maintenance operating system built around Google’s Chrome browser, web and Android apps. Just check how long the machine will receive updates from Google before you buy. Continue reading...
Video calls have become part of daily life since the pandemic hit, helping the locked-down, especially elderly and disabled people, keep in touch. But there are downsidesJust before lockdown, 29-year-old Ala Uddin became ill with coronavirus-related symptoms and had to self-isolate in his London flat. “For 23 days I was relying on video calls,” he says. “I hardly used them before, but now it was the only way I could see anyone and communicate with my housemate, even though we were living in rooms next to each other.” Uddin was also regularly video-calling his parents and siblings in York, as well as family members in Bangladesh, all of whom were checking in to make sure he was coping. “Without video calls I don’t know how I could have got through that time,” he says.Since the pandemic hit, Zoom, FaceTime, Houseparty, Microsoft Teams and all manner of other video-calling apps have become so engrained in our lives. As one of the only safe ways to communicate, it’s hard to imagine living without them. None of these have taken off quite like Zoom. At the end of December, the app reported a maximum of 10 million daily users. By March, 200 million people were on it each day to work, socialise, view lessons and lectures, sing in choirs, attend church, birthday parties and weddings, meet new babies, say final words to dying family members and observe Ramadan and Easter. So embedded are these apps in all parts of life now that when Zoom went down last weekend, it made headlines around the world and even halted the Downing Street press conference. Continue reading...
Tech giant’s tax turnaround follows a government campaign to force multinationals to pay more taxGoogle’s Australian arm paid $133m to the Taxation Office last year as it caught up with back taxes.The company, one of the ATO’s most high-profile targets in a campaign to get tech giants to pay tax in Australia, declared a profit before tax of $134m in 2019, down from $156m the previous year. Continue reading...
New charges for reCaptcha spur web security firm Cloudflare to seek out an alternativeThe days of clicking on traffic lights to prove you are not a robot could be ending after Google’s decision to charge for the tool prompted one of the web’s biggest infrastructure firms to ditch it for a competitor.“Captcha†– an awkward acronym for “completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart†– is used by sites to fight automated abuses of their services. For years, Google’s version of the test, branded reCaptcha, has dominated, after it acquired the company that developed it in 2009 and offered the technology for free worldwide. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#51RVQ)
In lawsuit, Michael Sanchez has accused AMI of plot to ‘scapegoat’ him, and has cast doubt on claim that he was the ‘sole source’A top executive at the tabloid publisher behind the National Enquirer said in a private email that he was “saving for my tombstone†the untold story of how the tabloid uncovered a 2019 exclusive about Jeff Bezos’s extramarital relationship, according to a lawsuit against the publisher.The claim raises new questions about how American Media Inc (AMI) discovered the Amazon CEO’s relationship, and how it obtained knowledge of explicit sexual photographs that Bezos, one of the world’s richest men, has alleged were used against him by the publisher for “extortion and blackmailâ€. Continue reading...
The professional platform is the latest social media site to offer a service where posts expire after 24 hours. But do we really need this kind of fleeting work-based chat?There will soon be yet another way to connect on LinkedIn, as the professionals’ platform trials a version of “Stories†– posts that expire after 24 hours – pioneered by Snapchat and popularised by Instagram.Pete Davies of LinkedIn says that the feature is intended to replicate the “similarly ephemeral and light … cubicle and coffee-shop banter†that characterises interactions in the business world. “Sometimes, we want a way to just make a connection, have a laugh with our colleagues and move on.†Continue reading...
As hacking gangs use more and more young fixers for their internet scams, one 18-year-old reveals how he and his friends made a fortuneLike most 18-year-olds, “Carlos†is never far from his phone, using it to catch up on his social media feeds and scroll through friends’ pictures. Unlike most teenagers though, he posted photographs depicting a level of affluence unlikely for someone who left school after GCSEs and is now a junior employee at a central London restaurant.The pictures showed a life of excess – Carlos and his friends holding wads of cash, clad in designer clothes, Rolex watches on their wrists, and driving around London in a Mercedes. Continue reading...
Issue raised by Trumps chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in meeting with Dominic CummingsThe White House campaign against Britain’s decision to allow Huawei to supply 5G network technology is expected to continue after a critical UK-US meeting at Downing Street broke up without reaching agreement on the issue.Sources said that the American delegation, led by acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, were unimpressed with attempts made by the prime minister’s chief aide Dominic Cummings to persuade them to work together on developing alternatives to the Chinese supplier. Continue reading...