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The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no ...This week's question: what if Shakespeare were dropped in modern-day London?After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I'm starting to worry that computer - or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini - are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I've noticed that, well, it's as if they're trying to please, with statements such as, You're absolutely right, Jeff," and That's pretty much right." Often, when I ask, Would you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?", I then get another response saying: Jeff, you're absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply ..."If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh Continue reading...

The record sum paid at auction for a rare example is part of a boom in trading cards - and the prices can be staggeringFor 12m, you could buy a seven-bedroom mansion in Hampstead, north London, or a Bugatti La Voiture Noire, one of the world's most coveted sports cars, with a few hundred thousand quid to spare. Alternatively, you could blow it all on a Pokemon card.This is what AJ Scaramucci, son of financier and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, did earlier this month when he bought the world's only Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) 10-graded Pikachu Illustrator card, one of the rarest and most coveted Pokemon cards ever, at auction. The seller, YouTuber, wrestler and occasional boxer Logan Paul, made a mighty profit after flipping the card for about 8m more than the 3.9m he originally paid for it in 2021. Continue reading...

CEO Sam Altman claims military will not use AI product for autonomous killing systems or mass surveillanceOpenAI said it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to supply AI to classified US military networks, hours after Donald Trump ordered the government to stop using the services of one of the company's main competitors.Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, announced the move on Friday night. It came after an agreement between Anthropic, a rival AI company that runs the Claude system, and the Trump administration broke down after Anthropic sought assurances its technology would not be used for mass surveillance - nor for autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input. Continue reading...

Kate Fox says Joe Ceccanti was the most hopeful person' before he started spending 12 hours a day with a chatbotOn 7 August, Kate Fox received a phone call that upended her life. A medical examiner said that her husband, Joe Ceccanti - who had been missing for several hours - had jumped from a railway overpass and died. He was 48.Fox couldn't believe it. Ceccanti had no history of depression, she said, nor was he suicidal - he was the most hopeful person" she had ever known. In fact, according to the witness accounts shared with Fox later, just before Ceccanti jumped, he smiled and yelled: I'm great!" to the rail yard attendants below when they asked him if he was OK. Continue reading...

Feature for supervised accounts rolls out as Meta platform faces US trials over alleged harms to childrenInstagram will start alerting parents if their kids repeatedly search for terms clearly associated with suicide or self-harm.The announcement on Thursday comes as Instagram's parent company, Meta, is in the midst of two trials over harms to children. Continue reading...

As Pokemon turns 30, we would like to hear what the franchise means to youIt is 30 years since the game Pocket Monsters was released for the Nintendo Game Boy in Japan. Many more video games, trading cards, toys, an animated series and films followed as the franchise became a worldwide hit. With this in mind, we would like to hear what Pokemon means to you after three decades.If you're having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here. Continue reading...

With original dialogue in Turkish, this shuffling of potential partners in a sequence of meaningless encounters ranks with the finest auteur moviesI spent Valentine's Day not with my wife but with 18 Turkish women. No, wait, I can explain. It's a new game called Speed Dates - Winter Edition, which I only chanced upon when I searched Winter Games" on Xbox Live hoping for some Olympics fare. And boy, did I find it!The game is in Turkish, with English subtitles. It already feels arthouse; like those films Channel 4 used to show with a red triangle in the corner of the screen. Continue reading...

OpenAI-powered assistant will help to understand overall service patterns', company says, as move sparks backlashFrom hospitality workers to retail employees, the exaggerated customer service voice", often mocked in internet memes as wildly different from someone's real voice, has long been a cultural trope. Fast-food giant Burger King is now taking that voice one step further, saying it will detect whether employees are using words like please" and thank you" through the assistance of artificial intelligence.On Thursday, Burger King announced it is rolling out a new AI chatbot connected to employee headsets at hundreds of locations in the US as part of a platform called BK Assistant, powered by OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT. Continue reading...

The UK will phase out traditional home phones by 2027, but the switchover has been stressful for some. How do you feel about the change?UK telecoms companies are retiring traditional landline services and replacing them with internet-based home phone connections.The industry has set a deadline of January 2027 to complete this switch with roughly 3.2 million homes still to move over. While the digital switchover has been straightforward for most households, for some vulnerable customers, such as those with telecare devices, it has been very stressful. Continue reading...

Study finds ChatGPT Health did not recommend a hospital visit when medically necessary in more than half of cases

Resembling cigarette packet warnings, the ads highlight dangers and urge people to email MPsMumsnet has launched a campaign to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s featuring health warnings in the style of those on cigarette packets.The deliberately provocative national advertising campaign calls for all social media to be banned for children under the age of 16. The images on billboards and social media make a number of stark statements related to health. Continue reading...

Chipmaker's quarterly earnings surpassed Wall Street's expectations every quarter for multiple yearsNvidia released its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with the chipmaker revealing higher than expected revenues and extending its years-long streak of surpassing Wall Street's sky-high expectations.The company receives the vast majority of its revenue from its datacenter business, which has been buoyed by the tech industry's immense investment into AI infrastructure. On Wednesday, Nvidia reported 75% year-over-year growth of this vertical to $62.3bn. The world's most valuable publicly traded company, Nvidia has dominated the chip market as its processing units have become the backbone of the artificial intelligence boom. The company also posted an enormous total profit for the fiscal year: $120bn. Continue reading...

Officers say flood of low-quality reports is draining resources and slowing cases amid New Mexico lawsuitMeta's use of artificial intelligence software to moderate its social media platforms is generating large volumes of useless reports about cases of child sexual abuse, which are draining resources and hindering investigations, said officers from the US Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce.We get a lot of tips from Meta that are just kind of junk," Benjamin Zwiebel, a special agent with the ICAC taskforce in New Mexico, said last week during his testimony in the state's trial against Meta. The state's attorney general alleges the company's platforms are putting profits over child safety. Meta disputes these allegations, citing changes it has introduced on its platforms, such as teen accounts with default protections. The ICAC taskforce is a nationwide network of law enforcement agencies coordinated with the US Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute online child exploitation and abuse cases. Continue reading...

Unimpressed tech equity campaigners compare move to inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse'Ministers have called in Tony Blair's thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across the UK government in a move campaigners compared to inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse".James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chair of IBM and senior executives at AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk's SpaceX. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Alvi Choudhury claiming damages against Thames Valley police after biased technology confused him with man looking 10 years younger'Police arrested a man for a burglary in a city he had never visited after face scanning software deployed across the UK confused him with another person of south Asian heritage.Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in Southampton in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am. Continue reading...

With its longtime figureheads stepping aside, Microsoft's gaming division faces a pivotal moment, raising questions about whether it can still balance creative ambition with corporate strategy in the age of AI Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAnd so it's all change at Xbox. Last Friday it was announced that the CEO of Microsoft's gaming division, Phil Spencer, is to retire, while its president Sarah Bond is resigning. In their place, a new partnership: Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty is promoted to chief content officer, while the new CEO is Asha Sharma, who moves from her post as president of Microsoft's CoreAI product.In a company-wide email, Spencer stated that he would stay on until the summer in an advisory role before, starting the next chapter of my life". For her part, Bond issued a statement on her LinkedIn account: I've decided this is the right time for me to take my next step, both personally and professionally." It was all extremely good natured, but its doubtful these airy missives tell the full tale. Continue reading...

He was at the heart of 1960s counterculture, then paved the way for the libertarian mindset of Silicon Valley. At 87, Brand is still keen to ensure the world is maintained properly - not just today, but for the next 10,000 yearsStewart Brand thinks big and long. He thinks on a planetary scale - as suggested by the title of his celebrated Whole Earth Catalog - and on the longest of timeframes, as with his Long Now Foundation, which looks forward to the next 10,000 years of human civilisation. He has had a lifelong fascination with the future, and anything that could get us there faster, from space travel to psychedelic drugs to computing. In fact, he was arguably the bridge between the San Francisco counterculture of the 60s and present-day Silicon Valley: in his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005, Steve Jobs eulogised the Whole Earth Catalog and Brand's philosophy, and echoed its farewell mantra: Stay hungry. Stay foolish."You could say that Brand has also lived big and long. He is now 87 years old, in the final chapters of an eventful and adventurous life that has crossed paths with some of the most consequential events and figures of his era. He has been a writer, an editor, a publisher, a soldier, a photojournalist, an LSD evangelist, an events organiser, a future-planning consultant, even a government adviser (to the California governor Jerry Brown in the late 70s). There was a time when people asked me, What do you do?' I said, I find things and I found things,'" says Brand, as in he is a founder. He is speaking from a library where he likes to work in Petaluma, California, not far from his houseboat in Sausalito. I'm always searching for good stuff to recommend, and good people." Continue reading...

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Information Commissioner's Office imposes largest fine yet for a breach of children's privacyThe UK information regulator has fined the social news service Reddit 14.5m for using the data of children under the age of 13 unlawfully and potentially exposing them to inappropriate and harmful content.The hefty punishment from the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) is the largest fine yet for a breach of children's privacy and comes after the US-based company introduced age checks in July, including age verification to access mature content. Prior to this, the ICO said, there were a large number of children under 13 on the platform and Reddit did not have a lawful basis for processing their personal information". Continue reading...

Shares in Uber, Mastercard and American Express fall on back of apocalypse scenario posted on SubstackUS stock markets have been hit by a further wave of AI jitters, this time from yet another viral - and completely speculative - warning about the impact of the technology on the world's largest economy.The latest foreboding is from Citrini Research, a little-known US firm that provides insights on transformative megatrends'". Its post on Substack, which it called a scenario, not a prediction", rattled investors by portraying a near future in which autonomous AI systems - or agents - upend the entire US economy, from jobs to markets and mortgages. Continue reading...

We report from California's Silicon Valley, where billionaires pour money into midterms, and the AI Impact summit, where India pushes back on AI monopoly' held by US and ChinaHello, and welcome to TechScape. This week, we're examining the tech industry's push for influence in two places separated by a time difference of 13 hours and 30 minutes. The first is where tech sees its next big market, the second its home turf. My colleague Robert Booth reports from last week's India AI Impact summit, where tech companies pledged to spend tens of billions in the coming year to build customer bases and datacenters in the subcontinent. Dara Kerr and Lauren Gambino reported from Silicon Valley, where billionaires are marshalling their wealth to influence California's politics at greater levels than they ever have before.Nascent tech, real fear: how AI anxiety is upending career ambitionsHow the anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers' movementThe bogus four-day workweek that AI supposedly frees up' Continue reading...

Facebook owner's investment described by semiconductor company as big bet' on artificial intelligenceThe owner of Facebook has agreed to buy $60bn (44.5bn) of artificial intelligence chips from the US semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices - despite fears about the vast sums committed to AI infrastructure projects.It is one more massive deal in a year in which US tech companies are expected to spend $660bn on AI assets, and may represent part of a broader pivot in Meta's AI strategy, said Alvin Nguyen, an analyst at Forrester. Continue reading...

Before she took her own life at 14, Molly Russell accessed thousands of harmful posts on Instagram and Pinterest. A new documentary recreates the inquest where her father was told the images were safeMolly Russell was 14 when she took her own life in 2017 after months of viewing content relating to self-harm and suicide on social media. Nearly a decade later, her best friends from school, interviewed for this documentary, have grown into articulate, impressive women in their early 20s. Watching them, you can't help but be struck all over again by the terrible tragedy of Molly's death and the loss to her family, who will never see the young woman Molly would be now. Her father, Ian Russell, says life before Molly's death was absolutely normal; in the years since, he has become a leading campaigner for better online protection for children.On the night Molly died, Russell says, they sat down together as a family, in front of the TV. Molly's last message to her friend Nieve was two laughing emojis. She had been feeling depressed, but no one suspected how bad it was. Nor were they aware of the content being fed to Molly by Instagram and Pinterest's algorithms. In the months before her death she accessed thousands of harmful social media posts. One reads: Dear me, I hate you. You're weak. You deserve the pain. You'll never be good enough. I hope you die." At the inquest into Molly's death, Meta's head of health and wellbeing policy, Elizabeth Lagone, told the court the majority of posts Molly saw were safe" for children. Nothing to see here. Continue reading...

Add percussive therapy to your post-workout routine with our expert picks, including mini and deep-tissue models. Plus, a brand new frontrunner now in top spot The best running shoes, testedMassage guns are often pitched at the highly active. They can help you warm up for workouts, accelerate recovery and generally keep things loose and injury-free. However, you don't have to be training for an Ironman triathlon to benefit from a percussive pummelling. A good session can also alleviate the general soreness, stiffness and pain that comes from desk-bound days and the daily grind - all without having to cough up for a spell on a masseuse's table or be handled by a stranger.These personal-care power tools use rapid, repetitive pressure and vibrations to penetrate tired muscles, with a selection of heads, variable speeds and even automated routines to tailor treatments towards tight trouble spots. Dozens of massage guns are available from various brands, and you can spend anything from 50 to 500. But not all muscle massage guns are made equal.Best massage gun overall:

We explore the strange food-obsessed world of a new game whose tech was once called an insult to life itself' by Hayao Miyazaki, the film-maker behind Spirited AwayA strange piece of software has recently landed on the PC gaming store Steam. And software" feels like the cleanest way to describe it. Existing somewhere between a full-blown life sim, a science project and a kind of haunted fish tank, Anlife: Motion-learning Life Evolution probably would have disappeared without making much impact if it wasn't for one unusual factor. Several years ago some of its creators were absolutely roasted on camera by one of the genuine legends of Japanese animation.Back in 2016, Hayao Miyazaki, the director of movies such as Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, was shown new technology that used AI in order to animate models. Faced with a zombie that utilised its head to move by knocking its skull against the ground and wriggling its body like a fish, Miyazaki declared what he had seen was an insult to life itself". It's hard not to watch the clip without feeling slightly seared - but now, a decade later, the ashen-faced developers from that room have sufficiently recovered to make their work widely available. Continue reading...

Detectives say tools supplied by Palantir were integral to convictions of a criminal gang that stole 800,000It was fraud on a grand scale. The Fuck the Police" criminal gang based in Luton and Romania stole 800,000 in more than 3,000 withdrawals from cash machines in dozens of locations throughout 2024.The police investigation matched the crime in its complexity. When detectives in Bedfordshire seized the suspects' two dozen smartphones, they were faced with a mountain of potential digital evidence - 1.4 terabytes of information, according to the authorities, connecting co-conspirators across eastern England and the Bacau region of Romania. Continue reading...

Exclusive: NCA's Alex Murray says he hopes new 115m police AI centre can limit unfairness found in tools

Anthropic says three Chinese firms used distillation' technique to extract information from its Claude chatbotUS artificial intelligence company Anthropic said on Monday it had uncovered campaigns by three Chinese AI firms to illicitly extract capabilities from its Claude chatbot, in what it described as industrial-scale intellectual property theft. OpenAI leveled similar charges last month.Anthropic said DeepSeek, Moonshot AI and MiniMax used a technique known as distillation" - using outputs from a more powerful AI system to rapidly boost the performance of a less capable one. Continue reading...

Ofgem says about 140 proposed projects, driven by AI use, could require more power than current peak demandThe amount of power being sought by new datacentre projects in Great Britain would exceed the national current peak electricity consumption, according to an industry watchdog.Ofgem said about 140 proposed datacentre schemes, driven by use of artificial intelligence, could require 50 gigawatts of electricity - 5GW more than the country's current peak demand. Continue reading...

Last Week Tonight host delved into the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in relation to the Epstein files and Musk's poisonous ownership of XOn his new episode of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver wasted no time digging into the files related to late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, which have once again ensnared former prince Andrew.Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known after being stripped of his royal titles for his connection to Epstein, was arrested last week - the first arrest of a senior member of the royal family in modern history - on allegations that that he had shared confidential material with Epstein while serving as a UK trade envoy. Continue reading...

Amid talk of artificial intelligence taking our jobs, the big unasked question is: how will we be fed?How will we be fed? That's the biggest question not seriously being addressed amid all this talk about whether or not artificial intelligence will end up taking over all of our jobs.Formidable though the technology appears, similar fears have popped up repeatedly since the Industrial Revolution, and most working-age adults remain employed. Still, what is sorely missing is a serious debate about what to do if this future in fact materializes. Continue reading...

Your $1,000 laptop deserves a protective home on the road. A tech journalist and frequent traveler recommends his nine favorites

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions asks whether we could cope with a world where computer gave up saying no ...Readers reply: what would be the most socially useful way to spend a billion dollars?After years of computer saying no, and giving us all migraines and premature grey hair, I'm starting to worry that computer - or rather AI large language models like ChatGPT and Gemini - are taking too much of a fancy to playing nice and saying yes. I confess to using both of these programs, but I've noticed that, well, it's as if they're trying to please, with statements like You're absolutely right, Jeff," and That's pretty much right." Often, when I ask, Would you mind thinking for a bit longer on that?", I then get another response saying: Jeff, you're absolutely right, again, to query that result. It turns out I was a bit hasty in my reply ..."If the world runs even more on information filleted out from the sump of the internet by LLMs, what are the consequences? Can we look forward to a future in which AI is more concerned with appearing sympathetic (getting good reviews?) than being factual? Er, a bit too human? Jeff Collett, Edinburgh Continue reading...

With sensors that cool the air as it nears your head, this high-end tool promises gentler styling for sensitive scalps The best hair dryers for smooth, speedy styling at homeTell most hair-care enthusiasts you want to upgrade your hair dryer, and I'd bet good money you'll be asked, Will you buy a Dyson?" That would have been a ludicrous question more than a decade ago when the brand specialised in vacuum cleaners, but not since it took the luxury hair-care market by storm in 2016 with its Supersonic hair dryer.The Supersonic ripped up the hair-dryer rulebook, with its distinctive design, lightweight feel and quiet operation. Eight years after the original, Dyson launched the Supersonic Nural: an upgraded version with new tricks up its sleeve. Continue reading...

Overdependence on chatbots is a growing problem, and though your boyfriend's ADHD may be a factor, he needs to find the root of his anxietyMy boyfriend of eight years, who is 44, has ADHD and runs his own business. He's always struggled with admin and mundane tasks, but AI has revolutionised how he works. Now I'm worried he can't seem to do anything without AI. He is a heavy ChatGPT user and uses it even when there's a better non-AI alternative (eg he'll ask it for train times rather than using Trainline, even though it's less accurate). He just got his ChatGPT Wrapped and he's in the top 0.3% of users worldwide.I worry about his ability to think independently, as well as the environmental impact. I know it's auseful tool for him at work, but he uses it for everything in life. Continue reading...

Families are navigating the tough choice between unimaginable riches and the identity that comes with landWhen two men knocked on Ida Huddleston's door last May, they carried a contract worth more than $33m in exchange for the Kentucky farm that had fed her family for centuries.According to Huddleston, the men's client, an unnamed Fortune 100 company", sought her 650 acres (260 hectares) in Mason county for an unspecified industrial development. Finding out any more would require signing a non-disclosure agreement. Continue reading...

Creators say they're offering Africans a hopeful, utopian feeling' of retrieving objects looted by colonial armiesA new South African video game lets players take back African artefacts held in western museums in a series of heists, amid a growing campaign to repatriate treasures looted by colonial armies.Players of Relooted become South African sports scientist and parkour expert Nomali, as she leaps and dives through museums to retrieve 70 real objects. They include an Asante gold mask that was taken by the British army when it destroyed the Asante empire's capital, Kumasi, and is now in the Wallace Collection in London. Another object is the skull of the Tanzanian king Mangi Meli, which was taken to Germany after its colonial regime executed him in 1900. Continue reading...

Iran has shown how plausible blackouts now are, with far-reaching consequences for the internet as we know itDuring the height of Iran's blackout in January, people could still access a platform that, in some senses, was like the internet.Iranians could message family members on a government-monitored app and watch clips of Manchester United on a Farsi-language video-sharing site. They could read state news and use a local navigation service. Continue reading...

After meeting with unspecified tech leaders, senator calls for urgent policy action as companies race to build ever more powerful systemsBernie Sanders has warned that Congress and the American public have not a clue" about the scale and speed of the coming AI revolution, pressing for urgent policy action to slow this thing down" as tech companies race to build ever-more powerful systems.Speaking at Stanford University on Friday alongside congressman Ro Khanna after a series of meetings with industry leaders in California, Sanders was blunt about what he called the most dangerous moment in the modern history of this country". Continue reading...

Company behind ChatGPT last year flagged Jesse Van Rootselaar's account for furtherance of violent activities'ChatGPT-maker OpenAI has said it considered alerting Canadian police last year about the activities of a person who months later committed one of the worst school shootings in the country's history.OpenAI said last June the company identified the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar via abuse detection efforts for furtherance of violent activities". Continue reading...

Narendra Modi's thirst to supercharge economic growth is matched by US desire to inject AI into world's biggest democracyIndia celebrates 80 years of independence from the UK in August 2027. At about that same moment, early versions of true super intelligence" could emerge, Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, said this week.It's a looming coincidence that raised a charged question at the AI Impact summit in Delhi, hosted by India's prime minister, Narendra Modi: can India avoid returning to the status of a vassal state when it imports AI to raise the prospects of its 1.4 billion people? Continue reading...

Reported issues at Amazon Web Services raise questions about firm's use of artificial intelligence as it cuts staffAmazon's huge cloud computing arm reportedly experienced at least two outages caused by its own artificial intelligence tools, raising questions about the company's embrace of AI as it lays off human employees.A 13-hour interruption to Amazon Web Services' (AWS) operations in December was caused by an AI agent, Kiro, autonomously choosing to delete and then recreate" a part of its environment, the Financial Times reported. Continue reading...

German Doner Kebab aims to open at 25 new sites this year with self-service screens and healthy options aimed at gen ZThey are already packing our groceries and delivering shopping. Now robots are coming to the kebab shop, alongside self-service screens and loyalty apps, as takeaways look for ways to tackle rising costs.German Doner Kebab (GDK), a perhaps surprisingly British-owned chain that has been springing up across the country, has turned to technology to keep its fast food business buzzing in the face of rising costs and tough times on the high street. Continue reading...

If you're aiming to heat the human, not the home - or just love snuggling under something cosy - these are our best buys from our test of 24 The best heated clothes airers to save time and money when drying your laundryAside from hugging a fluffy hot-water bottle, sipping whisky and ramping up the thermostat, an electric blanket or heated throw is the best way to ward off the winter chill.When you consider that more than half of a typical household's fuel bills goes on heating and hot water, finding alternative ways to keep warm - and heating the person, rather than the whole home - seems like a good idea. Many of the best electric blankets and heated throws cost about 2p to 4p an hour to run, so it's hard to ignore their potential energy- and money-saving benefits.Best electric blanket overall:

AI has convinced computer science students to shift majors and white-collar workers to change careers, while some are embracing itMatthew Ramirez started at Western Governors University as a computer science major in 2025, drawn by the promise of a high-paying, flexible career as a programmer. But as headlines mounted about tech layoffs and AI's potential to replace entry-level coders, he began to question whether that path would actually lead to a job.When the 20-year-old interviewed for a datacenter technician role that June and never heard back, his doubts deepened. In December, Ramirez decided on what he thought was a safer bet: turning away from computer science entirely. He dropped his planned major to instead apply to nursing school. He comes from a family of nurses, and sees the field as more stable and harder to automate than coding. Continue reading...

There was a backlash when No 10 invited online content creators inside its doors. But in a fast-changing media landscape, this solves two problems at onceLast year, No 10 took an unprecedented step: it invited content creators to cross the threshold of Downing Street.Naturally, the creators all filmed themselves outside the famous door. Once inside, their most treasured possessions, their phones, were taken from them and exchanged for government-approved devices, so they could continue to take photos and record video without breaching security guidelines. At the reception, creators from areas as wide as science, education and travel took part in a networking session at the heart of government.Kirsty Major is a deputy Opinion editor for the Guardian Continue reading...

The updated QuickShot II brings retro gameplay into the modern era while preserving the no-frills button smashing and endearing flaws that fans lovedNostalgia is big in the modern games industry. It's ironic that the most technologically obsessed art form on the planet is just as watery-eyed about the past as cinema and music. And to prove it here is the new version of the legendary QuickShot II, a plasticky joystick from the early 1980s that wasn't even that good the first time round. It was, however, cheap and it resembled an actual fighter plane control stick with its multiple fire buttons and ergonomic shaft. If you wanted a rugged and precise controller you'd go for the Competition Pro, but that one didn't let you pretend to be in Star Wars or Airwolf. Plus, the QuickShot II had suckers on its base so you could stick it to your cockpit control panel - sorry, I mean MDF computer table.The new QuickShot II from Retro Games and Plaion Replai is almost an exact replica in terms of its dimensions. You can grasp it in your fist and wrap your thumb and forefinger around its large red buttons. Yes, you can stick it to your table; the designers have even included the original auto-fire switch at the rear for players who weren't prepared to hit the fire button repeatedly while playing Green Beret. Continue reading...

LA County says the gaming company does not carry out adequate moderation and its age-verification systems are not fit for purpose, which Roblox deniesOfficials in Los Angeles have said they are suing Roblox, alleging the popular online platform exposes children to sexual content, exploitation and online predators.In a lawsuit, Los Angeles County said the company does not carry out adequate moderation and its age-verification systems are not fit for purpose. Continue reading...

Freedom.gov appears to be administered by a branch of the Department of Homeland SecurityThe US has built a portal that will allow Europeans to view blocked content including alleged hate speech and terrorism, according to Reuters.The portal, freedom.gov", will allow worldwide users to circumvent government controls on their content. The site features a graphic of a ghostly horse galloping above the Earth, and the motto: Information is power. Reclaim your human right to free expression. Get ready." Continue reading...

From TikTok deepfakes to smears put out by the White House, fake videos modeled on Black archetypes are running rampant - putting Black users at riskLate last year, as a US government shutdown cut off the Snap benefits that low-income families rely on for groceries, videos on social media cast the fallout in frantic scenes. Imma keep it real with you," a Black woman said in a viral TikTok post, I get over $2,500 a month in stamps. I sell 'em, $2,000 worth, for about $1,200-$1,500 cash." Another Black woman ranted about taxpayers' responsibility to her seven children with seven men, and yet another melted down after her food stamps were rejected at a corn-dog counter.Visible watermarks stamped some videos as AI-generated - apparently, too faintly for the racist commentators and hustlers more than happy to believe the frenzy was real. You got people treating it like a side hustle, selling the stamps, abusing the system," the conservative commentator Amir Odom whinged. Fox News reported on the Snap deepfakes as if they were authentic, before issuing a correction. Newsmax anchor Rob Schmitt claimed people were using Snap to get their nails done, to get their weaves and hair". (Lost in the outrage was a basic fact: white Americans make up 37% of Snap's 42 million beneficiaries.) Continue reading...