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...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#55BX0)
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...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#557BS)
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...
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...
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...
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