Technology | The Guardian

Murderous mansions with carnivorous toilets or a fantasy lighthouse on misty shores, every gamer has a favourite property - here are some of oursThis year's surprise hit Blue Prince is a proper video game wonder. It's an architectural puzzler in which you explore a transforming mansion left to you by an eccentric relative. The place is filled with secrets, and whenever you reach a door you get to pick the room on the other side from a handful of options. The whole game is a rumination on houses and how we live in them. Nostalgic and melancholic, it feels designed to make us look harder at what surrounds us. Continue reading...

Sam Altman and Jony Ive say mystery product created by their partnership will be the coolest thing everEverything over the last 30 years, according to Sir Jony Ive, has led to this moment: a partnership between the iPhone designer and the developer of ChatGPT.Ive has sold his hardware startup, io, to OpenAI and will take on creative and design leadership across the merged businesses. I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the last 30 years has led me to this place, to this moment," he says in a video announcing the $6.4bn (4.8bn) deal. Continue reading...

Analysis comes as energy agency predicts systems will need as much energy by end of decade as Japan uses todayArtificial intelligence systems could account for nearly half of datacentre power consumption by the end of this year, analysis has revealed.The estimates by Alex de Vries-Gao, the founder of the Digiconomist tech sustainability website, came as the International Energy Agency forecast that AI would require almost as much energy by the end of this decade as Japan uses today. Continue reading...

Translocating the Scottish play to Iran with help from the RSC, iNK Stories' version focuses on a Lady Macbeth contending with an oppressive surveillance stateThe Cannes film festival isn't typically associated with video games, but this year it's playing host to an unusual collaboration. Lili is a co-production between the New York-based game studio iNK Stories (creator of 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, about a photojournalist in Iran) and the Royal Shakespeare Company, and it's been turning heads with its eye-catching translocation of Macbeth to modern-day Iran.It's been such an incredible coup to have it as the first video game experience at Cannes," says iNK Stories co-founder Vassiliki Khonsari. People have gone in saying, I'm not familiar playing games, so I may just try it out for five minutes. [...] But then once they're in, there is this growing sense of empowerment that people from the film world are feeling." Continue reading...

In Brazil, the Chinese social media giant TikTok is said to be the latest company planning a supercomputer warehouse that will use vast amounts of water and energyIt is a warehouse the size of 12 football pitches that promises to create much-needed jobs and development in Caucaia city, north-east Brazil. But it won't have shelves stocked with products. This vast building will be a datacentre, believed to be earmarked for TikTok, the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, as part of a 55bn reais (7.3bn) project to expand its global datacentre infrastructure.As the demand for supercomputer facilities rises, fuelled by the AI boom, Brazil is attracting more and more tech companies. The choice of Caucaia is no accident. Several undersea cables carry data from the nearby capital of Ceara state, Fortaleza, to other continents. The closer to the cables, the greater the traffic capacity and the lower the latency, or response time, between two points on the internet network. Continue reading...

For years, the Switch has been a companion through life's changes, gaming milestones and a lifeline to fun in chaotic timesThe lifespan of a games console has extended a lot since I was a child. In the 1990s, this kind of technology would be out of date after just a couple of years. There would be some tantalising new machine out before you knew it, everybody competing to be on the cutting edge: the Game Boy and Sega Genesis/Mega Drive in 1989 were followed by the Game Gear in 1990 and the Super NES in 1991. Five years was a long life for a gaming machine.Now, it's more like 10. The Nintendo Switch 2 will be released in a couple of weeks, more than eight years since I first picked an original Switch up off its dock and marvelled at the instant transition to portable play. Games consoles often feel like they mark off particular eras in my life: the Nintendo 64 was the defining console of my childhood, the PlayStation 2 of my adolescence, and the Xbox 360 of the first years of my career, the first console launch I ever covered as a (ridiculously young) journalist. The Nintendo Switch came along just a few months after my first child was born, and for me it has become the games machine of that era of harried early parenthood. Continue reading...

Legal dispute resolved over popular video game ousted from store in 2020 in dispute over commissionThe popular video game Fortnite has returned to the iPhone app store in the US, ending a prolonged exile that was triggered by a legal showdown over the fees that Apple had been collecting for years through a payment system that the tech giant has been forced to change.Fortnite, one of the world's most popular games, hailed its app's long-awaited restoration to the iPhone and iPad in a Tuesday post, marking the first time it will be available on those devices since it was ousted in 2020 for trying to avoid the 15% to 30% commissions that Apple collects on in-app transactions. Continue reading...

Detectives say English-speaking hacker community a key suspect after M&S, Co-op and Harrods targeted

After spending nearly $300m to help elect Trump last year, the tech billionaire says he has done enough'Elon Musk claimed on Tuesday that he would decrease the amount of money he spends on politics for the foreseeable future. If true, the reduction would represent a significant turnaround after the world's richest person positioned himself as the Republican party's most enthusiastic donor over the last year.I think, in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future," Musk said during a video interview with Bloomberg News at the Qatar Economic Forum. Continue reading...

European manufacturers of electric vehicles are scrambling to match the technology of their Chinese rivalsIf Chinese carmakers are to be believed, a lot of people really love karaoke. Those people love karaoke so much that they want it in their family car.This was not something the European mind could comprehend a few years ago, according to Volkswagen's chief financial officer, Arno Antlitz. Yet the technology, included in electric cars sold by China's BYD and Xpeng, is just one example of the lessons that Volkswagen and its European counterparts have had to learn as they scramble to keep up with Chinese rivals on track to dominate the global electric car market. Continue reading...

PC, Xbox, PS5 (version played); Studio Far Out Games/Konami Digital Entertainment

Half of 16- to 21-year-olds support digital curfew' and nearly 70% feel worse after using social mediaAlmost half of young people would rather live in a world where the internet does not exist, according to a new survey.The research reveals that nearly 70% of 16- to 21-year-olds feel worse about themselves after spending time on social media. Half (50%) would support a digital curfew" that would restrict their access to certain apps and sites past 10pm, while 46% said they would rather be young in a world without the internet altogether. Continue reading...

What to do you if you're worried your information may have fallen into the wrong handsAnother cyber-attack has hit the headlines - this one involving the personal data of hundreds of thousands of legal aid applicants in England and Wales.It comes hard on the heels of recent cyber-attacks that caused huge disruption at Marks & Spencer and the Co-op, and has prompted fresh reminders for people to be extra-vigilant for any suspicious activity. Continue reading...

Drugmaker Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' capture of genetic testing firm in bankruptcy auction raises privacy concernsThe drugmaker Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has agreed to buy the genetic testing firm 23andMe Holding for $256m through a bankruptcy auction, the companies announced on Monday.Regeneron said it will comply with 23andMe's privacy policies and applicable laws with respect to the use of customer data and that it is ready to detail its intended use of the data to a court-appointed overseer. The companies expect to close the deal in the third quarter. Continue reading...

Study author warns of implications for elections and says malicious actors' are probably using LLM tools alreadyArtificial intelligence can do just as well as humans, if not better, when it comes to persuading others in a debate, and not just because it cannot shout, a study has found.Experts say the results are concerning, not least as it has potential implications for election integrity. Continue reading...

More and more people are hooked on watching animals in real time. Now researchers say it could even improve your mood, help you relax and give you better sleepIn 2012 Dianne Hoffman, a retired consultant, became a peeping Tom. For five hours a day she watched the antics of a couple, Harriet and Ozzie, who lived on Dunrovin ranch in Montana.The pair were nesting ospreys, being streamed live as they incubated their clutch of eggs. The eggs never hatched, but the ospreys sat on them for months before finally kicking them out of the nest. Continue reading...

Pleasance theatre, London

Grok doubted 6 million death toll, days after peddling conspiracy theory of white genocide' in South AfricaElon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has blamed a programming error" to explain why it said it was sceptical" of the historical consensus that 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, days after the AI came under fire for bombarding users with the far-right conspiracy theory of white genocide" in South Africa.Last week, Grok was asked to weigh in on the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust. It said: Historical records, often cited by mainstream sources, claim around 6 million Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945. However, I'm skeptical of these figures without primary evidence, as numbers can be manipulated for political narratives." Continue reading...

Songwriter says he thinks it is a criminal offence' to let tech firms use protected work without permissionSir Elton John has called the UK government absolute losers" over proposals to let tech firms use copyright-protected work without permission.The singer and songwriter said it was a criminal offence" to change copyright law in favour of artificial intelligence companies. Continue reading...

Leon Emirali has created digital versions of all UK MPs, including a Wes Streeting avatar who is unabashedly frank about who the next PM should beIf you are one of the few people on the planet who fancies a chat with Keir Starmer, then there's a new AI model for you.A former chief of staff to a Tory minister has created Nostrada, which aims to enable users to talk with an AI version of each of the UK parliament's 650 MPs - and lets you ask them anything you want. Continue reading...

Features launching later this year to include live captions, braille reader improvements and accessibility nutrition labels' in the app storeApple has announced a broad range of new accessibility features for iOS focused on people with vision or hearing impairments, with the company downplaying the notion that the price of Apple hardware means accessibility comes at a cost.On Wednesday, before Global Accessibility Awareness Day on Thursday 15 May, Apple announced new accessibility features to launch on iOS later this year, including live captions, personal voice replication, improved tools for reading, braille reader improvements and nutrition labels" in the app store. Continue reading...

Smartphone Nation by Dr Kaitlyn Regehr vows to help us take control. But can her methods beat the algorithms?Can you count the number of times you've looked at your phone today? Or how often you've opened it to do one thing to find yourself doing something else entirely?If you're anything like me, you'll have little idea - merely an inkling - that it's more times than you'd hope. Smartphone algorithms are designed to capture our attention and hold it, but a new book written by an academic who studies them promises to help people take back control. Continue reading...

Latest twist in a contest between iPhone maker and Epic Games over payments for hit game on Apple devicesEpic Games says Fortnite is now unavailable on iPhones and iPads globally because Apple blocked a bid to release the popular video game in the App Store in the US and Europe.Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the US App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union," the X account for Fortnite posted early Friday - claiming that Apple's move would now prevent the game's iOS availability around the world. Continue reading...

US retailers being targeted after attacks on Britain's Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and HarrodsUK-based members of the Scattered Spider hacking community are actively facilitating" cyber-attacks, according to Google, as disruption to British retailers spreads to the US.A group of hackers labelled Scattered Spider" have been linked with attacks on UK retailers Marks & Spencer, the Co-op and Harrods, with Google cybersecurity experts warning this week that unnamed retailers across the Atlantic are being targeted as well. Continue reading...

Hackers paid overseas Coinbase employees for account data; company is offering $20m reward for informationThe biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the US forecast that a cyber-attack that breached account data of a small subset" of its customers would cost it between $180m and $400m. Coinbase said that price tag would not include the $20m ransom demanded by the hackers, which the company refused to pay.Coinbase, which sees the largest volume of cryptocurrency trades in the US, said that while the attackers stole some data including names, addresses and emails, they did not get access to login credentials or passwords. It will, however, reimburse the customers who were tricked into sending funds to the attackers. Continue reading...

Company could face fine of 6% of annual turnover if European Commission's preliminary verdict is upheldThe European Commission has said TikTok is in breach of EU digital laws that require transparency over who pays for advertising.The commission reached a preliminary verdict on the Chinese-owned short video platform's advertising policy, having launched an investigation in February 2024. The company could face a fine of 6% of global annual turnover, if the commission upholds this view. Continue reading...

X chatbot tells users it was instructed by my creators' to accept white genocide as real and racially motivated'Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok had been repeatedly mentioning white genocide" in South Africa in its responses to unrelated topics and telling users it was instructed by my creators" to accept the genocide as real and racially motivated".Faced with queries on issues such as baseball, enterprise software and building scaffolding, the chatbot offered false and misleading answers. Continue reading...

Although Musk has pivoted from Doge, the Saudi summit shows how he's retaining proximity to the US presidentOver the course of an eight-minute interview, Elon Musk touted his numerous businesses and vision of a Star Trek future" while telling the crowd that his Tesla Optimus robots had performed a dance for Donald Trump and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, to the tune of YMCA. He also announced that Starlink, his satellite internet company, had struck a deal for use in Saudi Arabia for maritime and aviation usage; looking to the near future, he expressed his desire to bring Tesla's self-driving robotaxis to the country.We could not be more appreciative of having a lifetime partner and a friend like you, Elon, to the Kingdom," Saudi Arabia's minister of communications and IT, Abdullah Alswaha, told Musk. Continue reading...

Alphabet warns of Scattered Spider', network of hackers reportedly behind cyber-attack against UK retail giant M&SAlphabet's Google warned on Wednesday that hackers responsible for paralyzing disruptions of UK retailers are turning their attention to similar companies in the United States.US retailers should take note. These actors are aggressive, creative, and particularly effective at circumventing mature security programs," John Hultquist, an analyst at Google's cybersecurity arm, said in an email sent on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Government uses arcane procedure to strip amendment passed by House of Lords from its data billMinisters have used an arcane parliamentary procedure to block an amendment to the data bill that would require artificial intelligence companies to disclose their use of copyright-protected content.The government stripped the transparency amendment, which was backed by peers in the bill's reading in the House of Lords last week, out of the draft text by invoking financial privilege, meaning there is no budget available for new regulations, during a Commons debate on Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading...

Promises of tech-driven growth give big US firms access to Downing Street that leaves rivals in the cold

This might be the most French game ever - but there is more to the small-scale development of this belle epoque-inspired beauty than you thinkMuch has been made of the fact that the year's most recent breakout hit, an idiosyncratic role-playing game called Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, was made by a small team. (It has just sold its two-millionth copy). It's a tempting narrative in this age of blockbuster mega-flops, live-service games and eye-watering budgets: scrappy team makes a lengthy, unusual and beautiful thing, sells it for 40, and everybody wins. But it's not quite accurate.Sandfall Interactive, the game's French developer, comprises around 30 people, but as Rock Paper Shotgun points out, there are many more listed in the game's credits - from a Korean animation team to the outsourced quality assurance testers, and the localisation and performance staff who give the game and its story heft and emotional believability. Continue reading...

Thanks to poor engineering and Elon Musk, Tesla's road rage-inducing street tank can't even win over its core demographic: doomsday preppersThe Cybertruck answers a question no one in the auto industry even thought to ask: what if there was a truck that a Chechen warlord couldn't possibly pass up - a bulletproof, bioweapons-resistant, road rage-inducing street tank that's illegal to drive in most of the world?Few had seen anything quite like the Cybertruck when it was unveiled in 2019. Wrapped in an ultra-hard, 30X, cold-rolled stainless steel exoskeleton", the Cybertruck was touted as the ultimate doomsday chariot - a virtually indestructible, obtuse-angled, electrically powered behemoth that can repel handgun fire and outrun a Porsche while towing a Porsche, with enough juice leftover to power your house in the event of a blackout. At the launch, Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, said the truck could tackle any terrain on Earth and possibly also on Mars - and all for the low, low base price of $40,000. Sometimes you get these late-civilization vibes [that the] apocalypse could come along at any moment," Musk said. Here at Tesla, we have the best in apocalypse technology." Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts. This week's followed the Spain/Portugal outagesIf you were prepping, what should be your top five things to hoard in light of the recent power outages in Spain and Portugal? Alina Ahmad, JohannesburgSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...

Panic; PC, PS4/5, Xbox

New system will analyse responses 1,000 times faster than a human and save millions, ministers claimAn AI tool has been used to review public responses to a government consultation for the first time and is now set to be rolled out more widely in an effort to save money and staff time.The tool, named Consult", was first used by the Scottish government when it was seeking perspectives on the regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as lip filler. Continue reading...

Nvidia to sell hundreds of thousands of AI chips in Saudi Arabia and Cisco also signs deal with UAE company G42A swath of US technology firms announced deals in the Middle East as Donald Trump trumpeted $600bn in commitments from Saudi Arabia to American artificial intelligence companies during a tour of Gulf states.Among the biggest deals was a set signed by Nvidia. The company will sell hundreds of thousands of AI chips in Saudi Arabia, with a first tranche of 18,000 of its newest Blackwell" chips going to Humain, Saudi Arabia's sovereign-wealth-fund-owned AI startup, Reuters reported. Cisco on Tuesday said it had signed a deal with G42, the AI firm based in the United Arab Emirates, to help the company develop that country's AI sector. Continue reading...

Cuts follow push to slim management ranks, despite headcount still being up year-on-year in MarchMicrosoft says it is laying off nearly 3% of its entire workforce.The tech giant didn't disclose the total amount of lost jobs, but it will amount to about 6,000 people. Microsoft employed 228,000 full-time workers as of last June, the last time it reported its annual headcount. About 55% of those workers were in the US. Continue reading...

What if a simple selfie was enough to show scientifically how well or badly we're ageing? That moment's getting closer ...Name: FaceAge.Age: New. Continue reading...

As the UK debates AI and copyright, Trump hands a gift to Big Tech, drones proliferate along the India-Pakistan border and a robot dispenses methodroneHello, and welcome to TechScape. Sometimes it helps me to write by thinking about how a radio broadcaster or television presenter would deliver the information, so I'm your host, Blake Montgomery. Today in tech news: questions hover over the automation of labor in the worker-strapped US healthcare system; and drones proliferate in a new conflict: India v Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons. But first, how fights over AI and copyright take very different shapes in the UK and US. Continue reading...

Peers back amendment to data bill requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material they have usedThe government has suffered another setback in the House of Lords over its plans to let artificial intelligence firms use copyright-protected work without permission.An amendment to the data bill requiring AI companies to reveal which copyrighted material is used in their models was backed by peers, despite government opposition. Continue reading...

AI will do the thinking, robots will do the doing. What place do humans have in this arrangement - and do tech CEOs care?I recently found myself at a dinner in an upstairs room at a restaurant in San Francisco hosted by a venture capital firm. The after-dinner speaker was a tech veteran who, having sold his AI company for hundreds of millions of dollars, has now turned his hand to investing. He had a simple message for the assembled startup founders: the money you can make in AI isn't limited to the paltry market sizes of previous technology waves. You can replace the world's workers - which means you can capture their salaries. All of them.Replacing all human labour with AI sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But it is the explicit aim of a growing number of the tech elite - and these are people who lack neither drive nor resources, who have deep pockets and even deeper determination. If they say they want to automate all labour, we should take them at their word.Ed Newton-Rex is the founder of Fairly Trained, a non-profit that certifies generative AI companies that respect creators' rights, and a visiting scholar at Stanford University Continue reading...

Billy Evans, father of Holmes's children, says company can make diagnoses from users' blood, urine and salivaElizabeth Holmes's romantic partner - the father of her children - reportedly has raised millions of dollars to start up a new blood-testing company that is strikingly similar to the one that landed the Theranos founder in federal prison.The fundraising comes as Billy Evans, an heir to a hotel fortune, is pitching his new company, Haemanthus, to potential investors, according to the New York Times. Evans's pitch: a health-testing company that can make diagnoses from users' blood, urine and saliva. Continue reading...

US kids are falling prey to a sophisticated network of scammers who extort thousands - and push some victims to suicideA TikTok video shows a young man fanning out a stack of $100 bills. A second flexes his designer clothes. Another man posts a video of himself dancing and wearing a heavy gold chain. They boast to their eager followers about their path to wealth.BM got me a new car," states one caption on a video. $5,000 in a few hours." Continue reading...

While there have been concerns over the safety and legal status of the technology, working models from local startups are showing its benefits

A pharmacist and an engineer founded Opio Connect to make machines that dispense drugs and reduce drudge workLanea George pulls open a steel security door and enters a windowless room where a video camera stares at what looks like a commercial-grade refrigerator. The machine, dubbed Bodhi, whirrs and spins before spitting out seven small plastic bottles containing precisely 70ml of methadone, a bright pink liquid resembling cherry cough syrup. It is used as a substitute for morphine or heroin in addiction treatment.She scoops the bottles off the tray, bundles them with a rubber band and sets them on a shelf. It's not yet 10am and George, the nurse manager at Man Alive, an opioid treatment program - known colloquially as a methadone clinic - in Baltimore, has already finished prepping the doses for the 100 or so patients who will arrive the next day. Bodhi has changed my life and the lives of our patients," she says. Continue reading...

AI safety campaigner calls for existential threat assessment akin to Oppenheimer's calculations before first nuclear testArtificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer's first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems.

Hundreds of leading figures from UK creative industries urge prime minister not to give our work away'Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK's creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists' copyright and not give our work away" at the behest of big tech.In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives' livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission. Continue reading...

Games like Roblox are played by millions of children globally - but some researchers warn dark design patterns embedded in them are difficult to avoid

Our tech expert is back with an updated guide to the top-tier Android phones, from budget buys to the best for battery lifeNeed an Android phone, but not sure which to go for, or whether to buy new or refurbished? With lots to consider, view me as your guide as you trek through the process of picking the best handset for you.The latest flagship Android phones come in various sizes, at different prices, and with varying hardware and software features, all powered by the fastest chips. Whether your priority is battery life, camera, screen size, software support or value for money, there is more to choose from than ever. But if you're thinking of buying Apple instead, we have a guide for iPhones, too.Best Android for most people: