The Institute for Public Policy Research also argues that tech companies must pay publishers for content they useAI-generated news should carry nutrition" labels and tech companies must pay publishers for the content they use, according to a left-of-centre thinktank, amid rising use of the technology as a source for current affairs.The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said AI firms were rapidly emerging as the new gatekeepers" of the internet and intervention was needed to create a healthy AI news environment. Continue reading...
Meta wowed Wall Street with improvements in ad targeting fueled by AI alongside huge investment. Microsoft had less to show for its billions spentBig tech earnings so far this week have sent a clear warning: investors are willing to overlook soaring spending on artificial intelligence if it fuels strong growth, but are quick to punish companies that fall short.The contrast was clear in Thursday's stock market reaction to earnings from Microsoft and Meta, highlighting how dramatically the stakes have changed since the launch of ChatGPT started the AI boom more than three years ago. Continue reading...
Analysis finds at least 150 channels on messaging app that have distributed AI-generated images and videoMillions of people around the world have created and shared deepfake nudes on the secure messaging app Telegram, a Guardian analysis has shown, as the spread of advanced AI tools industrialises the online abuse of women.The Guardian identified at least 150 Telegram channels - large encrypted group chats popular for their secure communication - that appeared to have users in many countries, from the UK to Brazil, China to Nigeria, Russia to India. Some of them offer nudified" photos or videos for a fee: users can upload a photo of any woman, and AI will produce a video of that woman performing sexual acts. Many more offer a feed of images - of celebrities, social media influencers and ordinary women - made nude or made to perform sexual acts by AI. Followers are also using the channels to share tips on available deepfake tools. Continue reading...
Lord Stockwood says people in government definitely' talking about idea as technology disrupts industries Business live - latest updatesThe UK could introduce a universal basic income (UBI) to protect workers in industries that are being disrupted by AI, the investment minister Jason Stockwood has said.Bumpy" changes to society caused by the introduction of the technology would mean there would have to be some sort of concessionary arrangement with jobs that go immediately", Lord Stockwood said. Continue reading...
Under Donald Trump, the White House has filled its social media with memes, wishcasting, nostalgia and deepfakes. Here's what you need to know to navigate the trollingIt started with an image of Trump as a king mocked up on a fake Time magazine cover. Since then it's developed into a full-blown phenomenon, one academics are calling slopaganda" - an unholy alliance of easily available AI tools and political messaging. Shitposting", the publishing of deliberately crude, offensive content online to provoke a reaction, has reached the level of institutional shitposting", according to Know Your Meme's editor Don Caldwell. This is trolling as official government communication. And nobody is more skilled at it than the Trump administration - a government that has not only allowed the AI industry all the regulative freedom it desires, but has embraced the technology for its own in-house purposes. Here are 10 of the most significant fake images the White House has put out so far. Continue reading...
Parents, teachers and young people share their views on whether social media restrictions would work in the UKPressure is mounting on the UK government to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s, after a decisive vote in House of Lords in favour of Australian-style restrictions.Peers backed a Tory-led amendment to the children's wellbeing and schools bill by 261 votes to 150, despite the government opposing the move. Ministers are already considering a ban as part of a consultation due to report by the summer and so the Lords amendment is unlikely to pass in the Commons. Starmer is also understood to want to wait until evidence from Australia's ban, which came into force in December, has been assessed, though the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has urged him to just get on with it". Continue reading...
The laws have been criticised by tech startups, which say they go too far, and civil society groups, which say they don't go far enoughSouth Korea has embarked on a foray into the regulation of AI, launching what has been billed as the most comprehensive set of laws anywhere in the world, that could prove a model for other countries, but the new legislation has already encountered pushback.The laws, which will force companies to label AI-generated content, have been criticised by local tech startups, which say they go too far, and civil society groups, which say they don't go far enough.Add invisible digital watermarks for clearly artificial outputs such as cartoons or artwork. For realistic deepfakes, visible labels are required.High-impact AI", including systems used for medical diagnosis, hiring and loan approvals, will require operators to conduct risk assessments and document how decisions are made. If a human makes the final decision the system may fall outside the category.Extremely powerful AI models will require safety reports, but the threshold is set so high that government officials acknowledge no models worldwide currently meet it. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#735QX)
Starmer's team is wary of spies but such fears are not new - with Theresa May once warned to get dressed under a duvetWhen prime ministers travel to China, heightened security arrangements are a given - as is the quiet game of cat and mouse that takes place behind the scenes as each country tests out each other's tradecraft and capabilities.Keir Starmer's team has been issued with burner phones and fresh sim cards, and is using temporary email addresses, to prevent devices being loaded with spyware or UK government servers being hacked into. Continue reading...
by Amy Hawkins Senior China correspondent on (#735JN)
Beijing's AI policy is focused on real-life applications but Chinese companies are beginning to articulate their own grand visionsStanding on stage in the eastern China tech hub of Hangzhou, Alibaba's normally media-shy CEO made an attention-grabbing announcement. The world today is witnessing the dawn of an AI-driven intelligent revolution," Eddie Wu told a developer conference in September. Artificial general intelligence (AGI) will not only amplify human intelligence but also unlock human potential, paving the way for the arrival of artificial superintelligence (ASI)."ASI, Wu said, could produce a generation of super scientists' and full-stack super engineers'", who would tackle unsolved scientific and engineering problems at unimaginable speeds". Continue reading...
Owner Google moves to block Barb data access months after allowing 200 channels to be monitoredYouTube has been criticised by the TV and advertising industry after suspending its participation in a key measurement system that compares viewership on the social media site with other streamers such as Netflix and TV broadcasters.YouTube's owner, Google, has sent cease and desist" letters to Barb, which publishes audience figures that are used as the UK industry standard, and Kantar Media, its research partner in the service. Continue reading...
In the fiercely competitive market of the online multiplayer game, Highguard's rocky start means it now has a lot to prove Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIn the fast-paced, almost psychotically unforgiving video game business, you really do have to stick the landing. Launching a new game is an artform in itself - do you go for months of slowly building hype or a sudden shock reveal, simultaneously announcing and releasing a new project in one fell swoop? The latter worked incredibly well for online shooter Apex Legends, which remains one of the genre's stalwarts six years after its surprise launch on 4 February 2019. What you don't do with a new release, is something that falls awkwardly between those two approaches. Enter Highguard.This new online multiplayer title from newcomer Wildlight Entertainment has an excellent pedigree. The studio was formed by ex-Respawn Entertainment staff, most of whom previously worked on Titanfall, Call of Duty and the aforementioned Apex Legends. They know what they're doing. But the launch has been ... troubled. Continue reading...
Workers informed after message erroneously said affected employees in US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been toldAmazon has told workers it is cutting 16,000 jobs around the world to streamline its operations, hours after sending out a message to staff about the layoffs apparently in error.It is the second big wave of job cuts at the US online retail company, and comes just three months after the company said it was slashing 14,000 roles. Amazon employs about 1.5 million workers worldwide. Continue reading...
We need an honest reckoning with other factors that threaten young people's wellbeing, from poverty to academic stressOur children's feelings are not for sale, and nor are they to be manipulated.So said Emmanuel Macron this week, after French lawmakers voted to ban under-15s from social media. Admittedly, he then repeated these sentiments in a post on X, in the time-honoured manner of parents solemnly lecturing children to do as we say, not as we do.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnistIn the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...
Popularity of EVs in country is part of global trend of emerging markets spurning fossil fuel cars at surprising speedsWhen Berke Astarcolu bought a BMW i3 in 2016, he was one of just 44 people in a country of 80 million to buy a battery electric vehicle (BEV) that year. By the time he bought a Tesla in 2023, BEVs were no longer a complete oddity in Turkey, making up 7% of new car sales.Fast-forward two years and electric cars are selling so fast that Turkey has caught up with the EU in its rate of adoption. Its market is now the fourth largest in Europe, behind Germany, the UK and France. Continue reading...
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, co-directed by Daniel Roher, delves into the world of AI through the lens of personal anxietyAre we barreling toward AI catastrophe? Is AI an existential threat, or an epochal opportunity? Those are the questions top of mind for a new documentary at Sundance, which features leading AI experts, critics and entrepreneurs, including Sam Altman, the OpenAI CEO, with views on the near-to-midterm future ranging from doom to utopia.The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, directed by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell and produced by Daniel Kwan (one half of The Daniels, the Oscar-winning duo behind Everything Everywhere All At Once), delves into the contentious topic of AI through Roher's own anxiety. The Canadian film-maker, who won an Oscar in 2023 for the documentary Navalny, first became interested in the topic while experimenting with tools released by OpenAI, the company behind the chatbot ChatGPT. The sophistication of the public tools - the ability to produce whole paragraphs in seconds, or produce illustrations - both thrilled and unnerved him. AI was already radically shaping the film-making industry, and proclamations on the promise and peril of AI were everywhere, with little way for people outside the tech industry to evaluate them. As an artist, he wondered, how was he to make sense of it all? Continue reading...
Advertising Standards Authority says firm advised by George Osborne trivialised risks of cryptocurrency'A cryptocurrency company advised by George Osborne has been banned from showing a set of adverts that suggested using its services could be a solution to the cost of living crisis.Coinbase, which appointed the former Conservative chancellor to chair its global advisory council last year, has been told by the UK's advertising watchdog that its adverts were irresponsible" and trivialised the risks of cryptocurrency". Continue reading...
From rhino-sized Rhyhorns to worm-like Diglett, visitors to PokePark Kanto will roam a forest populated by lifelike Pokemon statues when the attraction opens next weekIn Japan, February is normally a period of quiet reflection, a month defined by winter festivals in Sapporo's snowy mountains and staving off the cold in steaming hot springs. Traditionally, international tourists start to arrive with the blossoms in spring - but thanks to the opening of Pokemon's first ever amusement park on 5 February, this year, they are likely to come earlier.Unlike the rollercoaster-filled thrills of Tokyo Disney Sea or Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, PokePark Kanto is essentially a forest populated by models of the creatures from the perennially popular games. Nestled in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Inagi, half an hour from the city centre, the park is a walkable forest with more than 600 Pokemonin it. Where the Mario-themed Super Nintendo World slots neatly into the massive Universal Studios Japan, PokePark Kanto is hidden in the back of the less glitzy, funfair-esque Japanese theme park Yomiuri Land. Continue reading...
Mobile Fortify app being used to scan faces of citizens and immigrants - but its use has prompted a severe backlashImmigration enforcement agents across the US are increasingly relying on a new smartphone app with facial recognition technology.The app is named Mobile Fortify. Simply pointing a phone's camera at their intended target and scanning the person's face allows Mobile Fortify to pull data on an individual from multiple federal and state databases, some of which federal courts have deemed too inaccurate for arrest warrants. Continue reading...
Tech chiefs waxed poetic about AI to delegates at Davos. Plus, the human' drama of AI startups and why Tesla is thriving in TexasHello, and welcome to TechScape. This week's edition is a team effort: my colleague Heather Stewart reports on the plans for AI's world domination at Davos; I examine how huge investments have followed AI companies with little to their names but drama and dreams; and Nick Robins-Early spotlights how lax regulation of autonomous driving in Texas allowed Tesla to thrive. Continue reading...
Accused, isolated and constantly under scrutiny, The Traitors contestant drew on years of social deduction gaming to stay calm under pressureThe latest series of The Traitors, which ended last week on a nail-biting finale, featured some of the usual characters - from guileless extroverts to wannabe Columbos endlessly observing fellow contestants for the slightest flicker of treachery. But one faithful stood out for her quiet determination, despite a ceaseless onslaught of suspicion and accusation. That person was Jade Scott, and I wasn't at all surprised when, quite early on in the series, she revealed she was a keen gamer.Minecraft was my way in, when I was 15," she says. I made loads of friends at school playing that." From this innocent introduction, however, she moved on to darker titles: the first-person shooter Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and the multiplayer battle-arena game Dota. That's where my interest in strategy gaming really kicked in," she says. Continue reading...
Southern state becoming ground zero in fight against rapid growth of facilities using huge amounts of energy and waterLawmakers in several states are exploring passing laws that would put statewide bans in place on building new datacenters as the issue of the power-hungry facilities has moved to the center of economic and environmental concerns in the US.In Georgia a state lawmaker has introduced a bill proposing what could become the first statewide moratorium on new datacenters in America. The bill is one of at least three statewide moratoriums on datacenters introduced in state legislatures in the last week as Maryland and Oklahoma lawmakers are also considering similar measures. Continue reading...
Investigation comes after Elon Musk's firm sparked outrage by allowing users to strip' photos of women and childrenThe European Commission has launched an investigation into Elon Musk's X over the production of sexually explicit images and the spreading of possible child sexual abuse material by the platform's AI chatbot, Grok.The formal inquiry, launched on Monday, also extends an investigation into X's recommender systems, algorithms that help users discover new content. Continue reading...
I've been a games journalist since 2007, but still there isn't much video games coverage that feels like it's specifically for people like me. So I'm creating a home for it: MothershipWhether you're reading about the impending AI bubble bursting or about the video game industry's mass layoffs and cancelled projects, 2026 does not feel like a hopeful time for gaming. What's more, games journalists - as well as all other kinds of journalists - have been losing their jobs at alarming rates, making it difficult to adequately cover these crises. Donald Trump's White House, meanwhile, is using video game memes as ICE recruitment tools, and game studios are backing away from diversity and inclusion initiatives in response to the wider world's slide to the right.The manosphere is back, and we've lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of woke". Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who's been a games journalist and critic since 2007. Continue reading...
Synthesia makes digital presenters for clients to use in corporate videos and counts 70% of FTSE 100 as customersA British AI startup that makes realistic video avatars has almost doubled its valuation to $4bn (3bn), in a boost for the UK technology sector.Synthesia was valued at $2.1bn last year and moved into new offices in central London, marking the moment with a ceremony attended by the Sadiq Khan, the city's mayor, and Peter Kyle, then technology secretary. Continue reading...
Bridget Phillipson says pupils should not use mobiles at any point, as Ofsted prepares to inspect complianceSchools should be phone-free throughout the entire day, the education secretary has told headteachers in England, stressing that pupils should not use the devices even as calculators or for research.Bridget Phillipson wrote to schools to underline updated guidance issued by the government last week, according to the BBC. Schools should make sure those policies are applied consistently across classes, and at all times and we want parents to back these policies too," Phillipson said. Continue reading...
Molly Russell was just 14 when she took her own life in 2017, and an inquest later found negative online content was a significant factor. With many people now pushing for teenagers to be kept off tech platforms, her father explains why he backs a different approachIan Russell describes his life as being split into two parts: before and after 20 November 2017, the day his youngest daughter, Molly, took her own life as a result of depression and negative social media content. Our life before Molly's death was very ordinary. Unremarkable," he says. He was a television producer and director, married with three daughters. We lived in an ordinary London suburb, in an ordinary semi-detached house, the children went to ordinary schools." The weekend before Molly's death, they had a celebration for all three girls' birthdays, which are in November. One was turning 21, another 18 and Molly was soon to be 15. And I remember being in the kitchen of a house full of friends and family and thinking, This is so good. I've never been so happy,'" he says. That was on a Saturday night and the following Tuesday morning, everything was different."The second part of Russell's life has been not only grief and trauma, but also a commitment to discovering and exposing the truth about the online content that contributed to Molly's death, and campaigning to prevent others falling prey to the same harms. Both elements lasted far longer than he anticipated. It took nearly five years to get enough information out of social media companies for an inquest to conclude that Molly died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content". As for the campaigning, the Molly Rose Foundation provides support, conducts research and raises awareness of online harms, and Russell has been an omnipresent spokesperson on these issues. Continue reading...
The most popular posts on r/animalid are exotic lizards and rare birds - but it's the haziest trail cam screenshots that feel the most dangerous, the most spectacular
Altman's campaigning for his company coincides with its use of enormous present resources to serve an imagined futureSam Altman has claimed over the years that the advancement of AI could solve climate change, cure cancer, create a benevolent superintelligence beyond human comprehension, provide a tutor for every student, take over nearly half of the tasks in the economy and create what he calls universal extreme wealth".In order to bring about his utopian future, Altman is demanding enormous resources from the present. As CEO of OpenAI, the world's most valuable privately owned company, he has in recent months announced plans for $1tn of investment into datacenters and struck multibillion-dollar deals with several chipmakers. If completed, the datacenters are expected to use more power than entire European nations. OpenAI is pushing an aggressive expansion - encroaching on industries like e-commerce, healthcare and entertainment - while increasingly integrating its products into government, universities, and the US military and making a play to turn ChatGPT into the new default homepage for millions. Continue reading...
The avatar, created to deter young people from extremism, has been subverted and is breaking out of niche online silosIn certain corners of the internet, on niche news feeds and algorithms, an AI-generated British schoolgirl has emerged as something of a phenomenon.Her name is Amelia, a purple-haired goth girl" who proudly carries a mini union flag and appears to have a penchant for racism. Continue reading...
Exclusive: German research into responses to health queries raises fresh questions about summaries seen by 2bn people a month How the confident authority' of AI Overviews is putting public health at riskGoogle's search feature AI Overviews cites YouTube more than any medical website when answering queries about health conditions, according to research that raises fresh questions about a tool seen by 2 billion people each month.The company has said its AI summaries, which appear at the top of search results and use generative AI to answer questions from users, are reliable" and cite reputable medical sources such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Mayo Clinic. Continue reading...
Experts say tool can give completely wrong' medical advice which could put users at risk of serious harm AI Overviews cite YouTube more than any medical site, study suggestsDo I have the flu or Covid? Why do I wake up feeling tired? What is causing the pain in my chest? For more than two decades, typing medical questions into the world's most popular search engine has served up a list of links to websites with the answers. Google those health queries today and the response will likely be written by artificial intelligence.Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive, first set out the company's plans to enmesh AI into its search engine at its annual conference in Mountain View, California, in May 2024. Starting that month, he said, US users would see a new feature, AI Overviews, which would provide information summaries above traditional search results. The change marked the biggest shake-up of Google's core product in a quarter of a century. By July 2025, the technology had expanded to more than 200 countries in 40 languages, with 2 billion people served AI Overviews each month. Continue reading...
Guardian found OpenAI's platform cited Grokipedia on topics including Iran and Holocaust deniersThe latest model of ChatGPT has begun to cite Elon Musk's Grokipedia as a source on a wide range of queries, including on Iranian conglomerates and Holocaust deniers, raising concerns about misinformation on the platform.In tests done by the Guardian, GPT-5.2 cited Grokipedia nine times in response to more than a dozen different questions. These included queries on political structures in Iran, such as salaries of the Basij paramilitary force and the ownership of the Mostazafan Foundation, and questions on the biography of Sir Richard Evans, a British historian and expert witness against Holocaust denier David Irving in his libel trial. Continue reading...
Partnership with tech giant speaks to push to engage younger fans but also has wider strategic goals in mindIn this World Cup year, Fifa has come out of the blocks quickly. In the past few weeks any number of initiatives have been announced or activated, from a data partnership with Opta to facilitate more betting, to the Fifa Pass for speeding up visa applications for the US this summer, to the unveiling of the official Lego World Cup trophy. Among the ever-expanding list is an intriguing deal with TikTok, a partnership that will give digital creators front-row seats at the 104-match tournament.In Fifa language its partnership with the short-form video platform will make the most inclusive event in football history ... even more accessible". According to TikTok's global head of content, James Stafford, it will bring fans closer to the action in ways they can't get anywhere else". It plans to do so by granting an unspecified number of online personalities behind-the-scenes access, giving them archive and highlights footage to use in their content and, in return, requesting an avalanche of posts that will make the World Cup inescapable for TikTok users. Continue reading...
Politicians call for more infrastructure funding amid anger that county is seen as holiday playground'Accessed by a steep, winding lane, the tiny settlement of Cucurrian in the far-west of Cornwall feels remote at the best of times. But over the last two weeks, the people who live here have felt even more isolated after they were left without a way of communicating with the outside world as a result of Storm Goretti.I think people feel let down, angry, failed," said Mark Pugh, an audiobook producer, who has spent more hours than he would care to tot up carefully picking his way out of Cucurrian and sitting in his car in a layby to find a mobile signal good enough to work from. This storm has shown that Cornwall isn't resilient enough. A lot is promised, but not enough is delivered." Continue reading...
AI evangelist Peter Kyle wants to scale up businesses, attract overseas investors and look out for UK's poorer regionsThe UK business secretary, Peter Kyle, has said he is betting big" and picking winners" as the government takes direct stakes in growing businesses to boost economic growth.Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where he and the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been talking up Britain's prospects, Kyle said ministers were taking an activist" approach to industrial policy. Continue reading...
Misinformation technology could be deployed at scale to disrupt 2028 US presidential election, AI researchers sayPolitical leaders could soon launch swarms of human-imitating AI agents to reshape public opinion in a way that threatens to undermine democracy, a high profile group of experts in AI and online misinformation has warned.The Nobel peace prize-winning free-speech activist Maria Ressa, and leading AI and social science researchers from Berkeley, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and Yale are among a global consortium flagging the new disruptive threat" posed by hard-to-detect, malicious AI swarms" infesting social media and messaging channels. Continue reading...
Growing concerns about the impact of smartphones on the youngest children must be addressedThe first UK government guidance on young children's use of tablets, smartphones and other screens, expected in April, cannot come soon enough. The laissez-faire approach to the boom in social media, handheld devices and other digital technology was arguably nowhere less suitable than when such machines were placed in front of babies. The Department for Education's ongoing Children of the 2020s study has found that 98% of two-year-olds watch screens on a typical day for more than two hours. Those who spent the most time had smaller vocabularies, and were twice as likely as other children to show signs of emotional and behavioural difficulties.Correlation must not be mistaken for causation. This is still a relatively new area of research, and much remains uncertain. But the findings of a recent survey by the charity Kindred Squared, combined with observations by teachers, are highly concerning. Answers from 1,000 primary-school staff revealed that 37% of four-year-olds arrived without basic life skills such as dressing and eating in 2025 - up from 33% two years earlier.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Video game publisher to cancel Prince of Persia remake and close studios after several difficult yearsThe video game publisher behind the Assassin's Creed series has cancelled six projects including a remake of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as it fights to stay competitive in the global gaming market.Ubisoft announced a sweeping reorganisation and said it would cancel six games, sending its shares to their lowest level in more than a decade on Thursday. Continue reading...
Estimate made by Center for Countering Digital Hate after Elon Musk's AI image generation tool sparked outrageGrok AI generated about 3m sexualised images in less than two weeks, including 23,000 that appear to depict children, according to researchers who said it became an industrial-scale machine for the production of sexual abuse material".The estimate has been made by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) after Elon Musk's AI image generation tool sparked international outrage when it allowed users to upload photographs of strangers and celebrities, digitally strip them to their underwear or into bikinis, put them in provocative poses and post the images on X. Continue reading...
Hundreds of writers, musicians and performers urge licensing deals instead of scraping creative workScarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, REM and Jodi Picoult are among hundreds of Hollywood stars, musicians and authors backing a new campaign accusing AI companies of theft" of their work.The Stealing Isn't Innovation" drive launched on Thursday with the support of approximately 800 creative professionals and bands. The campaign includes a statement accusing tech firms of using American creators' work to build AI platforms without authorisation or regard for copyright law". Continue reading...
The president wants big tech to pay more for electricity, but he's curbing renewable projects that could boost supplyDonald Trump is worried about datacenters. Specifically, he is concerned about their effects on an already expensive electricity market in the United States. Will Americans' resentment of sharply rising energy costs scuttle his party's November election ambitions?The US president's anxiety is evident in two actions in recent weeks. On 13 January, Trump and Microsoft's president jointly announced that the tech giant would pay more for its datacenters, paying full property taxes and accepting neither tax reductions nor electricity rate discounts in towns where it operates datacenters. Continue reading...
Quake Brutalist Jam began as a celebration of old-fashioned shooter level design, but its latest version is one step away from being a game in its own rightA lone concrete spire stands in a shallow bowl of rock, sheltering a rusted trapdoor from the elements. Standing on the trapdoor causes it to yawn open like iron jaws, dropping you through a vertical shaft into a subterranean museum. Here, dozens of doors line the walls of three vaulted grey galleries, each leading to a pocket dimension of dizzying virtual architecture and fierce gladiatorial combat.Welcome to Quake Brutalist Jam, the hottest community event for lovers of id Software's classic first-person shooter from 1996. First run in 2022, the Jam started out as a celebration of old-school 3D level design, where veteran game developers, aspiring level designers and enthusiast modders gather to construct new maps and missions themed around the austere minimalism of brutalist architecture. Continue reading...
In the UK, 98% of two-year-olds watch screens on a typical day, on average for more than two hours - and almost 40% of three- to five-year-olds use social media. Could this lead to alarming outcomes?At Stoke primary school in Coventry, there are many four-year-olds among those starting in reception class who can't sit still, hold a pencil or speak more than a four-word sentence. Lucy Fox, the assistant headteacher and head of foundations, is in no doubt what is causing this: their early exposure to screens, and a lot of it. When the children experiment with materials and creativity, and make things in the classroom, she says, We notice a lot of children will cut pieces of cardboard out and make a mobile phone or tablet, or an Xbox controller. That's what they know."At another school in Hampshire, a longtime reception teacher says in the last few years she has noticed children getting frustrated if activities aren't instant and seamless - something she thinks comes from playing games on a phone or tablet. There is a lack of creativity and problem-solving skills, noticeable when the children are playing with Lego or doing jigsaw puzzles and turning the pieces to fit. I find their hand-eye coordination isn't very good, and they find puzzles difficult. Doing a puzzle on an iPad, you just need to hold and move it on the screen. They get really frustrated and I feel like there are certain connections the brain is not making any more." Continue reading...
It is the year 2029 and an LA cop finds himself accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to clear his name before robo-justice sends him downIrish writer Marco van Belle delivers an entertaining script for this real time futurist thriller-satire set in LA in 2029, in a world (as they say) where AI is wholly responsible for assessing criminal guilt or innocence. You've heard of RoboCop. This is RoboJustice. Veteran Russian-Kazakh film-maker Timur Bekmambetov directs, bringing his usual robust approach to the big action sequences, and Chris Pratt stars as the LAPD cop accused of murder. (Longtime Pratt fans will appreciate a cameo appearance here of Pratt's fellow cast-member from TV's Parks and Recreation, Jay Jackson, effectively reprising his performance as sonorous TV newsreader Perd Hapley.)The film's ostensible target is the insidious power of AI, though the movie partakes of today's liberal opinion doublethink, in which we all solemnly concur that AI is very worrying while not having the smallest intention of doing anything about it. Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, an officer with a drinking problem but nonetheless a poster boy for LA law enforcement in 2029 for having brought in the first conviction under the city's creepy new hi-tech justice system, ironically entitled Mercy (it doesn't appear to be an acronym). AI is now the sole arbiter of justice and defendants each have a 90-minute trial to make their case in front of Judge Maddox, an AI-hologram played by Rebecca Ferguson who icily insists on the facts but is capable of weird Max-Headroom-type glitches. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian