Technology | The Guardian

AI uses huge amounts of electricity and water to work, and the problem is only going to get worse - what can be done? Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereTechnology never exists in a vacuum, and the rise of cryptocurrency in the last two or three years shows that. While plenty of people were making extraordinary amounts of money from investing in bitcoin and its competitors, there was consternation about the impact those get-rich-quick speculators had on the environment.Mining cryptocurrency was environmentally taxing. The core principle behind it was that you had to expend effort to get rich. To mint a bitcoin or another cryptocurrency, you had to first mine" it. Your computer would be tasked with completing complicated equations that, if successfully done, could create a new entry on to the blockchain.Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is using AI to publish 3,000 local news stories a week in Australia.It's not just journalists at risk: AI is replacing comedians at the Edinburgh fringe.Elon Musk's X (formerly known as Twitter) is threatening to sue a media monitoring organisation that tracks hate speech on the social network.Meanwhile, the giant glowing X sign on the company's San Francisco HQ has been removed after neighbours complained. This came after Musk reportedly blocked building inspectors from accessing the office to look at the sign.The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has opened up an avenue to backtrack () on its block of a massive $75bn merger of Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.A 1970s programming language called Prolog, which helped the early development of AI, has been put to another use: deciphering how to game the UK's national lottery for the maximum chance of success.Should you take your phone to the bathroom? Scroll during a film? Paula Cocozza runs through the 10 rules of smartphone etiquette. Continue reading...

Co-creative directors Mathieu Beaudelin and Kevin Poupard are tight-lipped about the story but their meditative take on mountaineering gives players a taste of being an elite climberFor those whose feel the call of the mountains, video games have proved abundant recently: Death Stranding, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Sable all feature enticing summits, enveloped in clouds, with makeshift rock-paths towards them. Now there is Jusant, the latest title to turn vertiginous traversal into a puzzle, inspiring wanderlust from the comfort of the sofa.It is the new game from Don't Nod, the French studio behind the hit adventure series Life Is Strange. However, unlike that famously chatty franchise, there isn't a single word of dialogue in Jusant. Rather, all its talking is done through dizzying, gravity-defying action. Co-creative director Mathieu Beaudelin wants to give players a taste of being an elite climber, he says, to become one with the massif. He describes the pursuit poetically: A dance with the mountain." Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don'ts of photographing the moon

Researchers at UCLA found GPT-3 solved 80% of reasoning problems correctly compared with 60% of humansChatGPT can solve problems at a level that matches or surpasses an undergraduate student, according to a new study.Researchers found that the GPT-3 large language model that underpins the chatbot performed about as well as US college undergraduates when asked to solve reasoning problems that appear on intelligence tests or exams such as the American college admission test, the SAT. Continue reading...

Parents and teachers are realising the damage social media can do to young children, so now we have a strict new code

A startup making replicas is giving Indigenous people in India an alternative to using wild animal parts in traditional headgearIn the lowland rainforests of Arunachal Pradesh in north-east India, tigers, clouded leopards, eagles and hornbills dot the landscape. The area is also home to the Nyishi community, the largest Indigenous tribe in the state, where the men traditionally don a byopa, an elaborate handwoven cane cap with the upper beak and casque of a great hornbill attached to the top edge, and an eagle's claw at the back. They also wield a machete fitted either with the short, squat jaw of the clouded leopard or the much larger one of a tiger.The tiger rules the jungle. The eagle rules the sky. Wearing their parts implies inhabiting their mighty spirit, protecting the people. It's a status symbol," says Nabam Bapu, an entrepreneur from the Nyishi tribe based in the state's Papum Pare district. Continue reading...

While online shopping explodes in the world's biggest country, traditional companies are struggling to adaptThe apps are there for whatever you need: an extra mango, a carton of milk, a pint of ice-cream or a replacement phone cable for the one your dog chewed in half. For those living in the urban centres of India - and increasingly in the smaller cities and towns beyond - almost anything can be delivered at the touch of a button - sometimes within less than 10 minutes.Online shopping, otherwise known as e-commerce, is rapidly changing the way India shops and nowhere is that clearer than through quick commerce: the apps that can deliver groceries and other essentials to your door in the time it takes to hard boil an egg and at a cost of 30p - or less - for the service. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy is the US the only country where nearly everyone drives an automatic? It's de rigueur over here, whereas driving stick" seems to be the default in other countries. Benton Oliver, San DiegoSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...

We've got used to dumping old devices. But a new breed of firms is making products that they hope you will hang on toIt is a habit that has become ingrained in so many consumers that you could be forgiven for thinking there was no other way: dumping your old and tired tech for a shinier model every year or two, shelling out hundreds of pounds in the process.But a new generation of technology is creeping into the mainstream that is designed to upend this consumerist churn - devices that can be taken apart, repaired and upgraded by the user, and not via an over-priced service. Continue reading...

Twitter's owner has given his toy a new name, but any ambition he has to turn it into a WeChat-like financial service is fancifulSo Elon Musk, the world's richest manchild, has changed the name of his favourite toy. Henceforth, Twitter is to be known as X. Strangely, though, you can still log on to twitter.com and be invited to tweet. This is a missed comic opportunity. Instead of the chancellor being able to say, for example, that he had tweeted his concern about the public sector borrowing requirement to the prime minister, he could be saying that he had X'd Rishi" on the matter. Sigh.So what is it about Musk and X? Well, it goes back quite a way - to 1999, when Musk set up X.com as an early online bank. For early", read weird". Customers were not charged fees or overdraft penalties. New users got $20 for free just by opening an account and a $10 bonus for every one of their contacts who signed up. As for the venerable banking convention that you should know your customer, Musk demurred. According to Max Chafkin, the biographer of PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Musk bragged to CBS News that it was easier to get a line of credit at X.com than it was to sign up for an email account. You can fill out the whole thing, be done in two minutes, be in your account and have it funded already." Not surprisingly, within two months, X.com had more than 200,000 users, some of whom who had given fake addresses and immediately set to writing cheques that bounced. Continue reading...

Understanding how to interact with ChatGPT and its rivals so that their output matches your expectations will soon be a key office skill. Here's what you need to knowAfter all the initial excitement over ChatGPT, the language-processing tool driven by artificial intelligence (AI), the use of chatbots is becoming more commonplace. So how do you train your AI for work and home? We answer a few simple questions.What is prompt engineering?

He was after big architectural ideas, when three men and three pigeons caught this photographer's eye ...Britain looks most like itself on an overcast day," Sheffield-born photographer Johny Pitts says. He shot these three men - and three pigeons - outside partly renovated flats on London's Jamaica Road in Bermondsey. At the time, he was constantly on the lookout for big architectural ideas from the postwar period".I was using my phone as a sketchbook to record what I found," says Pitts, whose work can be seen at the Photographers' Gallery in London until 24 September. You'd be surprised how quickly things disappear. Many photographers think capturing a decisive moment is about people, but a lot of the time it's the street furniture and buildings that can suddenly change and alter the atmosphere that attracted you in the first place." Continue reading...

Elon Musk's latest bid to save the social media platform by a changing its name is part of a desperate attempt at world dominationElon Musk's latest change to Twitter, the social media platform he has appeared intent on sabotaging ever since he was strong-armed into honouring his commitment to buy it, appears to be the most baffling yet. In place of a chirruping blue bird, he has substituted a minimalist art deco" X, which was beamed across the facade of the firm's San Francisco headquarters this week.Mr Musk, one analyst told the Guardian, had singlehandedly wiped out over 15 years of a brand name that has secured its place in our cultural lexicon". It's hard to disagree. The blue bird had a charm that the ominous X does not. One graphic designer thought the new logo unwelcoming and threatening". In replacing the gentle invitation of a tweet with something more darkly anonymous, the world's richest person might be expressing more than he intended. Continue reading...

These devices should be regarded as potentially as destabilising as cars or alcohol, writes Siobhan O'Tierney. And Sushila Dhall laments parents who phub'As a teacher, I am thrilled that the UN has called for a ban on mobile phones in schools (Report, 26 July). This is long overdue. Since the ubiquity of phones has been normalised, I've seen a parallel fall in pupils' concentration and retention, and a rise in demotivation. From my observations, the advance of smartphones has advanced the dumbing down of pupils.School heads seem reluctant to challenge parents' sense of their right to contact a child at any time of day. I am frequently told by pupils - after asking them to turn off their phone and put it away- Oh Miss, I can't - it's my mum [or dad]. I have to answer them!" Continue reading...

For critics, the ID process from Worldcoin is a privacy risk; for others it is financial security in the age of AI. We try it outWorldcoin wants to prove I am actually human". At least that is the explanation a staff member gives for a cryptocurrency venture scanning my eyeball in a London office building.Without the optical scan, Worldcoin will not verify your humanness" - you could be a robot and you won't get any crypto. Welcome to financial security in the age of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Generative AI can involve citizens directly in decision-making, but not while developers' incentives are only financialThe YouTube clip I return to most often is David Bowie being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight in 1999. Bowie is talking about what the internet might do: I don't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg. I think that the potential of what the internet is going to do to society, both good and bad, is unimaginable. I think we're on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying."It's just a tool, isn't it?" condescends Paxman. It's an alien life form," insists Bowie. Is there life on Mars? Yes, and it's just landed here." Continue reading...

Old-school practical effects date back to the silent era and are created with artistry and care. Is the novelty of CGI green-screen action wearing off in favour of craft models?For the past 12 months, Hollywood has been facing a serious case of CGI fatigue, with critics tearing into would-be blockbusters for their over-reliance on it. In the New Yorker, Richard Brody wrote that heavy effects work in Ant-Man 3 instead of endowing the inanimate with life, subtract it", while Ellen E Jones wrote in the Guardian that Little Mermaid was rendered lifeless" by CGI. The Netflix rom-com You People, starring Jonah Hill, made headlines when it was revealed that the final kiss in the film was done with CGI and the actor Christian Bale didn't mince words when he said working exclusively in front of green screens on Thor: Love & Thunder was the definition of monotony".As if in response, 2023 has delivered a buffet of practical-effects-driven films to the multiplex. Greta Gerwig used techniques dating back to silent film and soundstage musicals to bring her fantastical, hot-pink vision of Barbieland to life, Christopher Nolan reconstructed Oppenheimer's Trinity test using miniatures, and Christopher McQuarrie hoisted a train carriage 80ft into the air in order to film Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One's stomach-churning final stunt. Indie films have been getting in on the fun, too: Wes Anderson turned a piece of Spanish farmland into a real town, complete with plumbing and electricity, for Asteroid City; the penis monster" in Ari Aster's Beau Is Afraid was made entirely with prosthetics; and the buzzy horror film Talk to Me has been praised for its gory and disturbingly real" prosthetics. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: How did the most talked-up teenager of a generation become maybe the greatest of all time? Find out in A King's Reign

Artificial intelligence protections should include ensuring that clinicians make final decisions, Australian Medical Association says

Bluetooth noise cancellers are best-sounding Beats yet and packed with cross-platform featuresHot on the heels of some great new earbuds, Apple's Beats brand is back with an update to the headphones that made it a hit all the way back in 2008, the Studio Pro.The new Beats headphones cost 349.99 ($349.99) and are the fourth generation of the Studio line launched by Dr Dre 15 years ago, replacing 2017's Studio 3 Wireless. They are Apple's second most expensive Bluetooth headphones after the 549 AirPods Max but, as with other recent Beats kit, they court Android users as much as those with an iPhone.Weight: 260gDimensions: 181 x 178 x 78mmDrivers: 40mmConnectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, 3.5mm, USB-C (charging and audio)Bluetooth codecs: SBC, AACBattery life: 24 hours (ANC on) Continue reading...

How do you use your phone without snubbing everyone around you? Experts explain when to pick it up and when to switch on do not disturb'Paying too much attention to your phone is bad for your relationships. This may seem obvious, but it has taken a team of scientists to make us take notice. Phubbing - snubbing someone in your company in order to engage with your phone - has been in the news because researchers in Turkey have found that couples who reported more phubbing also reported less satisfaction in their marriages.There has been a flurry of research into the impact of phubbing on relationships. Is this because, feeling the effects of myriad micro-ostracisms, we are finally ready to listen? As our phone usage threatens to tip from irksome to destructive, where should the lines of acceptable behaviour be drawn? Continue reading...

Within a week of launch of Mark Zuckerberg's answer to Twitter 100 million people signed up, but weeks later there's been a dropDespite a dizzying number of initial sign-ups, usage of Threads, Mark Zuckerberg's answer to Twitter, has declined significantly in recent weeks, according to a new report of by Similarweb, a digital intelligence platform.Within the first few hours of its launch on 5 July, Threads garnered 5m user registrations and within less than a week at least 100 million people had signed up for the app. But, three weeks later, active daily use or the number of users who engage with the site on a daily basis has dropped, from a peak of 49 million on 7 July to 12 million on 22 July, according to Similarweb. Continue reading...

The artist and author shares what makes him laugh online. It is extremely gay - and includes two sketches about serial killers

The makers of Hohokum let you befriend anything from colourful birds to winged sea creatures in a game with no pressure to strategiseFrom the first time you look at it, the idea behind Flock is easy enough to understand. You're a small person sitting on the back of a large bird, while a whole gaggle of colourful creatures follows your every move. Over the course of the game, you will find more such creatures to add to your flock and zoom around a beautiful island with them, an idea partially inspired by development duo Ricky Haggett and Richard Hogg's previous work on 2014's Hohokum - in which you play a giant snake who can pick up friends to ride around on your back.Hohokum and Flock evoke a pleasant sensation of flight, and designer Haggett of studio Hollow Ponds readily admits to a love of Microsoft Flight Simulator and the wingsuit flying game Superflight. There was a lot of effort put into the movement in Hohokum, and while these are two different types of flying, the same is true here," Haggett says. We're always aiming for that pleasant lack of friction." Continue reading...

The Safe Street Rebel group has waged a war against robotaxis in an effort to end vehicle dominance in the city and promote public transportIt's a typical Wednesday night in San Francisco, a wet fog coating the street-lit sidewalks of the Lower Haight neighborhood.In the shadows of Duboce park, eight activists have gathered, bikes in hand. Their mission: to disable as many self-driving cars on the streets of the city as possible over the course of the next few hours. Their weapon of choice? A simple traffic cone, nicked from sidewalks and construction sites as they bike along. Continue reading...

New high-tech devices announced alongside water-resistant Tab S9 Android tablets and Galaxy WatchesSamsung has unveiled its next-generation devices with folding screens, including the popular Z Flip phone, alongside new water-resistant premium tablets and Galaxy Watch smartwatches.The Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Z Fold 5 were unveiled on Wednesday at an event in the company's home country of South Korea, alongside a new series of Tab S9 Android tablets and the Galaxy Watch 6 running Google's Wear OS software. Continue reading...

Company's $56.2bn revenue beat Wall Street expectations but slowing growth for cloud service Azure proved to be a dampenerMicrosoft shares fell on Tuesday as the company reported a slowdown in growth of parts of its business, despite the company's various investments in AI including its partnerships with OpenAI and Meta.The tech firm beat Wall Street expectations with $56.2bn in revenue, but its latest earnings report showed slowing revenue growth for its cloud service Azure. Revenue from Azure only grew 26% in the fourth quarter of the year, compared with 27% in the previous quarter. Continue reading...

The Jaguar Land Rover owner's new plant should encourage more similar investments in the UK by othersFrance has four. Germany has nine. The US has 34. China has a staggering 283. Around the world, countries are racing to announce plans for huge gigafactories to supply the batteries to power the electric car era.By contrast, the presence of only one large UK gigafactory project with big financial backers - supplying Nissan in Sunderland - was growing increasingly alarming. That changed last week as Jaguar Land Rover's owner, Tata Group, chose the UK for a new 4bn battery factory. It had considered a rival site in Spain for the plant. Continue reading...

Financial Conduct Authority chief to highlight risks of deepfake' fraud as well as benefits of Artificial IntelligenceThe head of the UK's financial regulator is to warn that banks, investors and insurers will have to ramp up their spending to combat scammers using artificial intelligence to commit fraud.Nikhil Rathi, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), will say that there are risks of cyber fraud, cyber-attacks and identity fraud increasing in scale and sophistication and effectiveness" as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more widespread, in a speech in London on Wednesday. Continue reading...

It is not yet clear how the power and possibilities of AI will play out. Here are the best-case scenarios for how it might help us develop new drugs, give up dull jobs and live long, healthy lives

Five passengers discuss the impact of proposals to remove ticketing staff from almost all stationsRail firms have announced plans to shut down almost all of England's remaining ticket offices in an attempt to modernise" the railway.The move has angered unions and disability and passenger groups, who say it would affect the ability of some customers to travel independently. Continue reading...

The first new non-3D instalment for a decade, due for release on Switch in October, will introduce the Wonder Flower, a four-player co-op feature - and Mario will be able to turn into an elephantThere have been rumours circulating for a while that a new 2D instalment in the Super Mario series was afoot - but perhaps no one expected a game in which the titular plumber could transform into an elephant and bounce on spherical hippos. That's exactly what we're getting, however, courtesy of Super Mario Bros Wonder, the first new non-3D Super Mario instalment for a decade, and the highlight of Nintendo's latest Direct showcase streamed live on Wednesday evening.Due for release on Switch on 20 October, Wonder is being billed as the next evolution of 2D side-scrolling". Ostensibly, it looks like a modernised take on the classic Super Nintendo-era games, with its bright, brash landscape, familiar Koopa enemies, and green pipes, but the game is introducing a new Wonder Flower, which, when touched, causes changes in the game world, including pipes coming alive and wriggling around and enemies bombarding the screen or mutating into new forms. Players will also be able to control Princess Peach, Princess Daisy and Yoshi as well as Mario who is now able to turn into an elephant. Local four-player co-op is another welcome feature. Continue reading...

Data ‘compromised’ when hackers thought to be Russia-linked criminal gang gained access through security flaw – departmentThe US Department of Energy and several other government agencies were hit in a global hacking campaign that exploited a vulnerability in widely used file-transfer software, officials said this week.Data was “compromised” at two entities within the energy department when hackers – attributed to a Russia-linked criminal gang – gained access through a security flaw in MoveIt Transfer, the department said in a statement on Thursday. Continue reading...

Guardian investigation reveals the human stories behind the scams on Meta’s social media platforms

Guardian investigation reveals the human stories behind the scams on Meta’s social media platforms

The company’s 2023 Showcase drove home the changes facing the industry, and its need to adapt after after the pandemic. Its CEO is positive the way forward is togetherPhil Spencer is sitting alone on the stage at the Novo Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. The building is across the street from the empty LA convention centre which, in Junes gone by, would have been the thronging heart of the games industry universe. But that universe has changed irrevocably over the past two years. Things have to be done differently now – the future is uncertain.Nobody knows that better than Spencer. Earlier today, he’d hosted a live showing of the Xbox 2023 Showcase in this auditorium, the seats packed with members of the Xbox fanbase. It was a raucous two hours of whooping and cheering, but Xbox has ground to make up. “2022 was a light year,” Spencer says, before instantly checking himself. “That’s kind of a positive way to put it.” Continue reading...

Digital Storytelling, its new exhibition, shows how interactive technology has changed – and expanded – the way we tell storiesWhen you walk into the British Library, the first thing you’ll see – apart from people sitting in every available free space, writing on laptops or in notebooks – is a glass tower encasing rows upon rows of books, stretching up to the ceiling. It’s fair to say that this place has a lot of experience when it comes to displaying stories. For digital, interactive stories, though, the classic glass case doesn’t really work. These tales often invite the reader to play a part in the narrative and shape their own experience, but this can be difficult when you’re standing in an exhibition room with people looking over your shoulder, waiting for their turn. Allowing for interactivity in the finite and often restrictive setting of an exhibition is not an easy task. But in its latest exhibition, Digital Storytelling, the British Library has tasked itself with just that.It is not the first time the British Library has featured digital works: however, it is the first time that an entire exhibition has revolved around “the ways in which digital technologies have shaped how we communicate and tell stories”, as the curators put it. It features highly regarded commercial classics of interactive digital storytelling, such as the Inkle’s 2014 steampunk narrative fiction game 80 Days, and Nyamnyam’s 2019 Elizabethan comedy narrative adventure Astrologaster, sitting beside intimate personal narratives such as c ya laterrrr, an autobiographical hypertext account of the loss of author Dan Hett’s brother in the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack. Despite the modest size of the exhibition room, the curators (Giulia Carla Rossi, Ian Cooke, and Stella Wisdom) have selected a wide range of pieces spanning genres, topics and emotions, made with a variety of digital tools. Continue reading...

Meta, where I used to work, is developing powerful tools. I’m worried about what could happen if they’re picked up by malicious actorsA researcher was granted access earlier this year by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to incredibly potent artificial intelligence software – and leaked it to the world. As a former researcher on Meta’s civic integrity and responsible AI teams, I am terrified by what could happen next.Though Meta was violated by the leak, it came out as the winner: researchers and independent coders are now racing to improve on or build on the back of LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI – Meta’s branded version of a large language model or LLM, the type of software underlying ChatGPT), with many sharing their work openly with the world. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: With guests such as author Riaz Phillips, Museumand looks back at 75 years of British-Caribbean culture in Objeks & TingsDon’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereMy Mrs Maisel Pod

Nearly two decades after New Labour revolutionised the gambling industry, millions of lives are being harmed for industry profits

Canon events, which are central to the film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, reframe unfortunate experiences as central to each person’s storyThe universal human experience of regretfully pondering the things that could have been different in your life has had a TikTok makeover. Meet “canon events” –unfortunate periods that make you, you.The idea of canon events is central to the newly released animated movie, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, in which all the incarnations of Spiderman from parallel dimensions are bound together by several key (canon) events that must occur in each. Continue reading...

Study finds the search giant has profited since Roe was overturned from anti-abortion groups buying misleading search termsGoogle has made millions of dollars in the last two years from advertisements misdirecting users who were seeking abortion services to “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.The tech giant has taken in an estimated $10m in two years from anti-choice organizations that pay to advertise such centers alongside legitimate results on the Google search page, according to a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a non-profit group that conducts misinformation research. Its study, published on Thursday, estimates that the search results have reached and potentially misled hundreds of thousands of users. Continue reading...

Social network says it will not back down from plan to levy data charges against third-party tool developersReddit’s battle with its own users over new access fees will continue beyond the planned two-day protest, as hundreds of volunteer moderators declared their intention to maintain a blackout indefinitely.The social network, which intends to begin levying swingeing data charges against developers of third-party tools used to browse the site, says it has no intention of backing down from its plans in the wake of the campaign. Continue reading...

Bloc hopes to set global standard for technology – including ban on police use of live facial recognition technology in public placesThe EU has taken a major step towards passing one of the world’s first laws governing artificial intelligence after its main legislative branch approved the text of draft legislation that includes a blanket ban on police use of live facial recognition technology in public places.The European parliament approved rules aimed at setting a global standard for the technology, which encompasses everything from automated medical diagnoses to some types of drone, AI-generated videos known as deepfakes, and bots such as ChatGPT. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, PC; Codemasters/Electronic Arts

Competition commission accuses firm of favouring its own services to detriment of rivalsThe EU has ordered Google to sell part of its advertising business, as the bloc’s competition regulator steps up its enforcement of big tech’s monopolies.The competition commission said it had taken issue “with Google favouring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competing providers of advertising technology services, advertisers and online publishers”. Continue reading...

For years, Microsoft’s lineup of games has been sorely lacking – but their new slate should have Sony envious

Commissioner says existential threat unlikely, but ‘guardrails’ needed for decisions affecting livelihoodsDiscrimination is a bigger threat posed by artificial intelligence than possible extinction of the human race, according to the EU’s competition commissioner.Margrethe Vestager said although the existential risk from advances in AI may be a concern, it was unlikely, whereas discrimination from the technology was a real problem. Continue reading...

Some delivery and storage costs for European vendors more than doubled in 2017-23, analysis showsAmazon has been accused of being “no friend of the small business” after a report discovered evidence that the online marketplace has ramped up fees and advertising costs for sellers.It found that between 2017 and 2022 Amazon had tripled the amount it earned from fees for independent sellers in Europe, including for listings, deliveries and digital support. That growth far outstripped the rise in sales, which doubled over the same period. Continue reading...

Federal Trade Commission secures delay of $69bn deal which it argues would be anti-competitiveA US district judge has granted the Federal Trade Commission’s request to temporarily block Microsoft’s $69bn buyout of video game maker Activision Blizzard and set a hearing next week.Microsoft’s bid to acquire the Call of Duty video game maker has been approved by the EU but blocked by British competition authorities, while the FTC, a US authority, has argued the transaction would give Microsoft’s video game console Xbox exclusive access to Activision games, leaving Nintendo consoles and Sony’s PlayStation out in the cold. Continue reading...