Technology | The Guardian

Amelia Tait talks to the people painstakingly scrubbing and restoring graves – and posting wildly popular footageThe gravestone in Helensburgh cemetery is in loving memory of someone, but it’s hard to tell exactly who. Exposure to 92 years of Scottish weather has rendered it grimy and grubby, but two small streaks of white at the bottom corner catch Ryan Nott’s attention on a rainy day in May. And so, the next day, the 31-year-old student accommodation manager comes back with a car boot full of equipment. He wears long sleeves to cover his arms and black rubber gloves. As the cemetery echoes to the cheers and chants of football fans watching a match on TV in the nearby flats, Nott starts to spray. The gravestone slowly begins to sizzle as the hydrochloric acid he’s splashed on the memorial stone creates a noisy, bubbling fizz. A grey smoke curls up towards the sky and as he scrubs the memorial with a steel brush, a light sweat beads his brow.The stone features four intricately carved roses and each one is speckled with green moss and white lichen splodges. Nott takes out another brush, not unlike a children’s paintbrush, and works the acid into the petals. Quickly – so quickly that it almost seems like a magic trick – it becomes apparent that the headstone is made of white marble. Gorgeous, glistening, gleaming white marble on which the names of three long-departed sisters appear. Continue reading...

Internet infrastructure company says it blocked Kiwi Farms because ‘the threats on the site escalated enough in the last 48 hours’

Research project aims to discover how age, size and shape of woodlands affect people’s happiness and wellbeingHow happy do you feel right now? The question is asked by an app on my phone, and I drag the slider to the space between “not much” and “somewhat”. I’m about to start a walk in the woods that is part of a nationwide research project to investigate how better to design the forests of the future.Volunteers are being sought to record their feelings before and after eight walks on a free app, Go Jauntly, which could reveal what kind of treescapes most benefit our wellbeing and mental health. Continue reading...

Highly profitable company paid out more than $500m to reclusive owner Leonid Radvinsky in last two yearsOnlyFans has paid out more than $500m (£433m) to its reclusive owner in the last two years, as the British-based subscriber platform synonymous with pornography reported record profits.Leonid Radvinsky, the site’s Ukrainian-American 40-year-old owner, is the sole shareholder in a business that has seen its profits boom, as users spent $4.8bn on the site last year. Continue reading...

Ban on Nvidia and AMD sales marks a major escalation of US efforts to restrict China’s military technology capabilities as tensions bubble over Taiwan

PC, Xbox, smartphones; Half Mermaid

Dramatic move shows Mark Zuckerberg ‘desperate to avoid being questioned over cover-up’, says Observer journalist who exposed scandalFacebook has dramatically agreed to settle a lawsuit seeking damages for allowing Cambridge Analytica access to the private data of tens of millions of users, four years after the Observer exposed the scandal that mired the tech giant in repeated controversy.A court filing reveals that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has in principle settled for an undisclosed sum a long-running lawsuit that claimed Facebook illegally shared user data with the UK analysis firm. Continue reading...

The Iranian photojournalist on a woman he spotted in northern AfghanistanIn 2015, Ako Salemi was on a photography trip to northern Afghanistan with fellow Iranian photojournalist Majid Saeedi. One day, the pair were exploring near the tomb of Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib, known locally as the Blue Mosque for its intricately detailed blue tiled domes and exterior. People feed the many doves – a symbol of peace – that gather around the tomb, and Salemi photographed this woman as she carved a path through the flock.“I didn’t notice it at the time, but afterwards I found the flash of red by her ankles amazing – almost reminiscent of defiance,” Salemi says. Unfortunately, he couldn’t interact with the passerby, or show her his photo. “A man can’t talk with a woman in the streets of Afghanistan. In the radical interpretation of Islam, women are believed to belong to their men, and nobody else should see or talk to them. If you speak with a woman who you don’t know, her father or brother or husband may get very angry.” Continue reading...

Ducky toast tongs, candle sharpeners and an apple tree … our writers name one gadget, gizmo or thing they didn’t know they couldn’t live without“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful,” William Morris said. I’m fussier. Have nothing in your wardrobe that you do not know to be useful and believe to be beautiful. Continue reading...

The four-year-old case alleged that the company had violated consumer privacy laws by sharing users’ personal data with third partiesMeta’s Facebook has in principle agreed to settle a lawsuit in the San Francisco federal court seeking damages for letting third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, access the private data of users, a court filing showed.The financial terms were not disclosed in the filing on Friday that asked the judge to put the class-action suit on hold for 60 days until the lawyers for both plaintiffs and Facebook finalize a written settlement. Continue reading...

New technology meant to detect cheating by students taking tests at home could invade privacy, raise anxiety and be discriminatoryIn 2020, a Canadian university employee named Ian Linkletter became increasingly alarmed by a new kind of technology that was exploding in use with the pandemic. It was meant to detect cheating by college and high-school students taking tests at home, and claimed to work by watching students’ movements and analyzing sounds around them through their webcams and microphones to automatically flag suspicious behavior.So Linkletter accessed a section of the website of one of the anti-cheating companies, named Proctorio, intended only for instructors and administrators. He shared what he found on social media. Continue reading...

When comedian Jennifer Wong learned that AI was writing viral LinkedIn posts, she couldn’t resist going on a journey of discoveryI’m so humbled that the Guardian asked me to write an article about the LinkedIn Viral Post Generator. Humbled, but not surprised, if I’m honest, after so many years of grinding! #worthitIt’s a HUGE MILESTONE in my career to cover a story about AI that generates cringy viral posts for LinkedIn so you don’t have to (#winning). It just goes to show that if you put in the effort, you’ll be rewarded 10 times over. Continue reading...

As Biden eases student loan debt for millions, a simple phrase is puncturing criticism from conservatives like Marjorie Taylor GreeneConservatives are frothing at the mouth over Joe Biden’s decision to forgive $10,000 in student debt for millions, railing against what they call “student loan socialism”. But their carefully crafted tweets have been undermined over and over again with two words: “This you?”Were there ever seven letters more powerful? On Twitter, the phrase is an instant marker of hypocrisy, cutting down the mighty from politicians to celebrities to brands. It typically comes as a reply to an opinionated tweet, accompanied by a screenshot of an earlier remark from the same person endorsing the opposite point of view. Continue reading...

The company had said the information did not exist, but it sampled 9,000 users in order to estimate the number of spam accountsElon Musk may get access to Twitter data used in a 2021 audit of active users but other information the billionaire seeks in a bid to end his $44bn deal to buy the company were rejected as “absurdly broad”, a judge said on Thursday.Twitter must turn over data from the 9,000 accounts sampled in the fourth quarter as part of its process to estimate the number of spam accounts. Continue reading...

Investors see ‘existential threats’ to fitness company that saw popularity during early months of Covid pandemicPeloton recorded losses of more than $1.2bn in the past three months, the company announced on Thursday, frustrating investors looking for progress in the company’s efforts to revive sagging sales of its fitness equipment.The news sparked another selloff for the company’s shares as one analyst foresaw mounting “existential” threats to the company’s survival. Shares tumbled more than 19% to $10.88 in morning trade, adding to an 88% drop over the year. Continue reading...

Tweak to search engine effectively halves the environmental impact stated for each tripGoogle has been accused of airbrushing aviation emissions, after the company changed its flight search engine to halve the CO emissions attributed to any given trip.The change, first noted by the BBC, affects a feature on Google Flights that shows the estimated carbon emissions of each route. The company flags routes with higher or lower than typical emissions, and also reports the total CO emitted per passenger on any given journey. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: How did a beloved ape end her life a sad “shell of herself”? Find out in Fine Gorilla Person. Plus: five of the best podcasts on the British Asian experience

From WhatsApp to Instagram to texts and email, I was spending my life frantically picking up my phone. It had to stopIt officially started during that strange and mystical stretch of time now known as the first lockdown, when negative news notifications were at an all-time high and the only way to have a drink with your mates was through the Houseparty app, which would be inexplicably gatecrashed by strangers.I was inundated with infection stats, digital book club invites, viral memes that no one would have found at all funny at any other time, and work emails postponing just about everything. I wanted an off switch for the world – but I settled instead for switching off my notifications.Georgina Lawton is the author of Raceless: In Search of Family, Identity, and the Truth About Where I Belong Continue reading...

Like Carrie’s laptop dying in Sex and the City, my collection of seemingly insignificant moments suddenly mattered like a magnum opusI opened the notes app on my phone to find a blank screen. I froze, agape, like you do when you just realise you’ve sent an email to the wrong person or left your favourite item of clothing in a hotel room miles away.I’d gone to find something I’d written about my home town after a recent visit, a scant thought at the time. The app was empty. Continue reading...

Criminals took an average of $300,000 worth of non-fungible tokens per scam, says cryptocurrency firmMore than $100m (£85m) worth of non-fungible tokens were stolen in the year to July, research shows, with criminals making off with an average of $300,000 per scam.Criminals have stolen valuable NFTs – crypto assets that confer ownership of a unique digital item, often a piece of virtual art – in a variety of ways, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analyst Elliptic. Continue reading...

Pokémon – the highest grossing media franchise of all time – is hitting new peaks of popularity, with thousands of fans thronging to the World Championships in LondonI was 13 when Pokémon cards exploded on to the UK scene in 1999. I tried to be too cool and mature for the instantly popular collectables, born from the blockbusting video game. I hid my starter pack from friends and played with my younger sister and cousins. I was just humouring my relatives – that was the line anyway. But I would watch the animated series or play Pokémon Blue on my Game Boy Color in our council flat, away from the critical eyes of teenage friends.Short for Pocket Monsters, Pokémon was first launched on the Nintendo Game Boy in 1996. Players became Pokémon trainers, tasked with travelling through a fictional world to collect, develop and evolve the 151 original Pokémon, battling them, and competing in eight gyms to earn badges that would give them the right to compete in the Pokémon League and bid to become a Pokémon Champion. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Ethereum turning off its mining rigs and slashing the currency’s carbon emissions should be good news. But not everyone agrees

Director Josh Sawyer explains why developer Obsidian decided to make a narrative adventure about a painter-detectiveYou are Andreas Moller, an artist working in an abbey in 16th-century Bavaria. Over the course of 25 years, you must investigate a murder in a local town convulsed by the social changes of the era. Pentiment doesn’t sound like a typical video game, and it doesn’t look like one either, inspired as it is by late medieval art: the whole thing looks like a cross between a tapestry and an early-modern illustrated manuscript. The word pentiment means an earlier painting covered up by a later one, and the plot sees Moller scraping away lies to uncover the truth.The game’s director Josh Sawyer at developer Obsidian has a degree in history, and studied the Holy Roman Empire in particular. “I’d always wanted to make a historical game,” he says. “And around the time that Microsoft acquired us [in 2018], I thought it would be cool to try to pitch a very small-scale game.” He chose the 16th century because it was an era of great social upheaval, not unlike the period we’re living through today.Pentiment is out on Xbox and PC in November. Continue reading...

The bestselling computer made home gaming accessible for millions as it launched the industry toward the mainstream with classic titles such as Dropzone and The SentinelFor a period between the winter of 1983 and the summer of 1986, my life was completely dominated by the Commodore 64. The seminal home computer, launched 40 years ago this month, featured an 8-bit microprocessor, a huge 64k of memory and a set of graphics and sound chips that were designed by the engineers at Commodore’s MOS Technology subsidiary to power state-of-the-art arcade games. That didn’t happen. Instead, Commodore president Jack Tramiel ordered the team to build a home computer designed to smash the Atari XL and Apple II. So that’s what they did.I didn’t know any of this when my dad brought home a C64 one afternoon a year after the launch of the machine. Ours came with a Dixons cassette featuring a number of little demo programs and a copy of Crazy Kong, a version of Nintendo’s Donkey Kong, written entirely in Basic, and fairly mediocre. I played it to death anyway. That Christmas, I asked for some actual good games, which would include the legendary multi-stage shooter, Beach Head, the inventive platformer, Lode Runner and the footie game International Soccer, one of the few titles to come on a cartridge rather than a cassette tape. Continue reading...

A Silicon Valley startup offers voice-altering tech to call center workers around the world: ‘Yes, this is wrong … but a lot of things exist in the world’“Hi, good morning. I’m calling in from Bangalore, India.” I’m talking on speakerphone to a man with an obvious Indian accent. He pauses. “Now I have enabled the accent translation,” he says. It’s the same person, but he sounds completely different: loud and slightly nasal, impossible to distinguish from the accents of my friends in Brooklyn.Only after he had spoken a few more sentences did I notice a hint of the software changing his voice: it rendered the word “technology” with an unnatural cadence and stress on the wrong syllable. Still, it was hard not to be impressed – and disturbed. Continue reading...

Peiter Zatko, former security chief, brought allegations of widespread security threats and spam concerns against the companyNew whistleblower allegations of widespread security threats and spam concerns at Twitter may give Elon Musk ammunition in his fight to back out of a deal to buy the company.On Tuesday, an 84-page complaint written by Twitter’s former security chief turned whistleblower, Peiter Zatko, alleged that Twitter prioritizes user growth over reducing spam, did not have a plan in place for major security issues, and that half the company’s servers were running out-of-date and vulnerable software. Continue reading...

Researcher says social media app can collect keystroke information but ‘there is no way for us to know’ if or how data is used

Some superfans are so determined to prove that Elon Musk’s ‘autonomous’ driving technology works that they are willing to put their kids in harm’s wayI’ve been a mum for a relatively short time; I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to this whole parenting thing. Still, there is one piece of advice I can confidently dole out: don’t instruct your child to run in front of a moving vehicle so that you can win an argument with strangers on the internet. Elon Musk obsessives, I’m looking at you.This month, a software CEO called Dan O’Dowd, who is hellbent on trying to ban Tesla’s “full self-driving” programme, launched an ad campaign claiming that if you put a Tesla in this mode it will mow down children. He based this assertion on a test he ran using a child-sized mannequin dressed in a safety vest, which came to a sticky end in the middle of a road in California.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

It doesn’t have the pizzazz of E3, but Gamescom in Cologne is a great place to check out the titles you’ll be reading about in future newsletters

New tech is promising to take rap artists to new lyrical heights. But will its algorithm be able to handle our novice writer’s rubbish rhymes?I may be many things, but I’m not a rapper. I discover this when I’m asked to freestyle a few verses on a visit to London’s Abbey Road recording studios. Immediately lines from famous rappers flood into my head – some classic Biggie, a few Young Thug yelps, the theme to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air – but I’ve got to think up something original.Out of desperation, I decide to rap about my morning routine. Adopting a slow pace and simple rhyme scheme that even the Sugarhill Gang would disdain, I begin: “I wake up at seven and I brush my teeth.” Already I am at a loss. What rhymes with “teeth”? Panicking, I look at the computer in front of me, which is running a demo of iRap, AI software built to assist lyric writing in real time. It has been transcribing my words and offers possible rhymes I might want to use: “heath, sheath, underneath”. Could that work? “Make a bacon sandwich, put some cheese underneath,” I sigh. I have fallen short of even my own low standards. Continue reading...

UK consumer champion files collective redress case alleging the company has been abusing its market dominanceSony has been overcharging PlayStation gamers for six years, a new legal claim alleges, and could be forced to pay almost £5bn in damages if the claim succeeds.According to Alex Neill, the consumer champion who has filed the case with the UK’s competition appeal tribunal, Sony has been abusing its dominance in the British market to impose unfair terms and conditions on the PlayStation Store, where it sells digital games, downloadable content and subscriptions. Continue reading...

Deep Silver; PC, PS4/5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X (version tested)

A film star faces financial and family ruin as sleazy Russian mobsters blackmail him after malware films him watching pornNigerian film-maker Obi Emelonye has written, produced and directed more than a dozen films, but his work is barely known beyond the Nollywood distribution circuit that serves viewers in west Africa and immigrant communities elsewhere. However, Black Mail, his London-set latest, is getting a reasonably wide release in the UK at least. The lowish-budget production values, gestural performances and blunt moralism of the scriptwriting puts this very much in the heightened dramatic tradition of mainstream Nigerian cinema, but Emelonye has an accessible style and has picked the topical subject of cybercrime, an approach which might broaden the film’s appeal.The plot weaves together the story of hapless London-based film actor Ray Chinda (OC Ukeje) and the Russian mobsters who are blackmailing him. Married with children to solicitor Nikki (Julia Holden) but having some connubial trouble, sweet but none-too-tech-savvy Ray discovers that a bit of software he downloaded was actually the most malevolent of malware, the kind that can be used to send a video feed back to spies. Having filmed Ray masturbating while watching porn, sleazy middle-management mafioso Igor (Nikolay Shulik) starts sending Ray blackmail demands. Deeply ashamed, convinced that Nikki will leave him and afraid his career will be ruined if it all comes out, Ray pays him some money, but then turns to his manager-friend Reuben (Alessandro Babalola from Top Boy) for support and advice. Meanwhile, we learn that Igor is also running a prostitution ring exploiting a number of trafficked Belorussian women. However, the film sort of asks us not to judge him too quickly because it transpires that he also has a sick child in desperate need of medical help and he’s being squeezed for results from mob managers further up the food chain. Continue reading...

A new wave of social media apps are taking advantage of the revolt against Instagram and TikTok. Will these ‘authentic’ networks change the way we connect?“Instagram, please stop trying to be TikTok.” App users including Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner shared this plea last month when Instagram trialled changes that flooded users’ feeds with short-form videos called “reels” and content uploaded by strangers. They were reacting to Instagram’s attempt to wrest Gen Z eyeballs away from TikTok by mimicking some of the app’s signature features.Early social media platforms such as MySpace and Facebook were built on the quaint notion of “friends”, mirroring your real-life social networks online. But the ruthless dynamics of the attention economy mean that the platforms most popular with young people today, Instagram and TikTok, double as global arenas to launch influencer careers. Content – not connection – is king, and algorithmically optimised virality is the metric that determines what you see. Continue reading...

The moral philosopher gives most of his earnings to charity, says we need more not less economic growth to tackle global heating, and in a striking new book argues that it’s our duty to ensure the wellbeing of our distant descendantsAlthough most cultures, particularly in the west, provide a great many commemorations of distant ancestors – statues, portraits, buildings – we are much less willing to consider our far-off descendants. We might invoke grandchildren, at a push great-grandchildren, but after that, it all becomes a bit vague and, well, unimaginable.And while we look with awe and fascination at the Egyptian pyramids, built 5,000 years ago, we seem incapable of thinking, or even contemplating, 5,000 years in the future. That lies in the realm of science fiction, which is tantamount to fantasy. But the chances are, barring a global catastrophe, humanity will still be very much around in 5,000 years, and going by the average existence of mammal species, should still be thriving in 500,000 years. If we play our cards right, we could even be here in 5m or 500m years, which means that there may be thousands or even millions times more human beings to come than have already existed. Continue reading...

The US-based photographer on finding a warm, quiet moment in West ChicagoThomas Jordan was faced with a problem. In the summer of 2021, the US-based photographer was actively focusing more on his own health, both physical and mental, and finding respite in nature. He was looking for what he describes as “warm, quiet moments” for his work, but found the pressure of the search was ruining the experience itself.“I had to stop trying to achieve ‘serious photography work’, and just let go,” he says. “How I live and work is very meditative. Starting out, I thought I had to go somewhere like New York or California to take good photographs. But you just have to be where you are, and be aware.” Continue reading...

Local council decides proposed bunker-like home would negatively impact surrounding landscapeThe billionaire Peter Thiel’s plans for an elaborate bunker-like lodge in a remote part of New Zealand’s South Island have been thwarted, after the local council decided the home would have too great a negative impact on the surrounding landscape.Second Star, a New Zealand company owned by the PayPal co-founder, had applied to build the sprawling lakeside complex in Wanaka, an alpine South Island region known for its natural beauty and isolation. The plans were fiercely opposed by conservationists, who claimed in submissions that the lodge would “destroy our beautiful lake environment”. Continue reading...

Embracer buys Middle-earth Enterprises which controls intellectual property rights to Tolkien’s most famous worksThe company that owns the rights to JRR Tolkien’s works, including The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, has been bought by the Swedish gaming firm Embracer Group, which has hinted it could make spin-off films based on popular characters such as Gandalf, Aragorn and Gollum.Embracer has acquired Middle-earth Enterprises, the holding company that controls the intellectual property rights to films, video games, board games, merchandise, theme parks and stage productions relating to Tolkien’s two most famous literary franchises. Continue reading...

Tanzanian minister hails move and says connectivity will also improve safety of porters and visitorsTanzania has installed high-speed internet services on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, allowing anyone with a smartphone to tweet, Instagram or WhatsApp their ascent up Africa’s highest mountain.The state-owned Tanzania Telecommunications Corporation set up the broadband network on Tuesday at an altitude of 3,720 metres (12,200ft), with the country’s information minister, Nape Nnauye, calling the event historic. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Join host Peter Frick-Wright as he gets to the bottom of a mysterious quest to find Forrest Fenn’s millions. Plus: five of the best fashion podcasts

LGBTQ+ people blazed a trail with swipe culture, which fulfils a genuine need for those who are less confident or conventionalDisco. Brunch. Iced coffee. All beloved by the gay community way before they went mainstream. Similarly, no celebration of a decade of dating apps would be complete without acknowledging that the LGBTQ+ community ran to a different calendar there, too.The daddy of our contributions to now-ubiquitous swipe culture is the infamous Grindr, launched in 2009 and originally designed to coordinate hookups between likeminded gentlemen tired of chatting on glitchy websites or over discounted cocktails in samey bars. Grindr’s runaway success wasn’t just down to cutting out various dating-world middlemen, it also fulfilled a genuine need for the LGBTQ+ community.Justin Myers, also known as The Guyliner, is a freelance writer, and author of three novels, including The Fake-UpDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 300 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at guardian.letters@theguardian.com Continue reading...

In addition to banning political, electoral and social issue adverts, Facebook will also remove organic content spreading falsehoodsFacebook’s owner, Meta, will devote “hundreds of people across more than 40 teams” to ensure the security and safety of the US midterm elections, Nick Clegg has said, despite criticism for dialing back its investment somewhat from 2020.The company’s investment “exceeds the measures we implemented during the last midterm election in 2018”, added Clegg, Meta’s president for global affairs – although it was in 2020 when the company built its largest-ever election safety team. Continue reading...

If you felt like your life was lacking a video of a gambling cat or a list of the ways people have misspelled ‘pregnant’ online, this comedian is here to help

Bookings to be judged by factors such as reviews and length of trips, after Australia pilotAirbnb says it will deploy “anti-party technology” in an effort to crack down on guests who trash houses they have booked with massive bashes.The technology, which has been trialled in Australia, will look at “factors like history of positive reviews (or lack of positive reviews), length of time the guest has been on Airbnb, length of the trip, distance to the listing, weekend vs weekday, among many others” to determine whether a particular booking was likely to be intended for hosting a party, the company said. It will initially be used in the US and Canada, and will continue to operate in Australia. Continue reading...

‘Provenance hashes’ and bug bounties are supposed to protect platforms. Why do so many flaws in crypto and open-source projects fester for years?

Billionaire’s claim was welcomed by fans unhappy about the team’s current American owners – but he quickly clarified he wasn’t seriousTesla billionaire Elon Musk briefly electrified the debate about the future of Manchester United by claiming on Twitter that he is buying the struggling Premier League club – before saying that the post was part of a “long-running joke”.He did not make clear his views on new coach Eric ten Hag’s controversial insistence on passing out from the back, or whether unhappy star striker Cristiano Ronaldo should be allowed to leave, but he did say that if he were to buy a sports team “it would be Man U. They were my fav team as a kid”. Continue reading...

Security flaw had meant hackers could bypass protection and convince installer of app to load and run malwareUsers of Zoom on Macs should update the app, after the company issued a patch to fix a security flaw that could allow an attacker to take over their computers.The fix will eventually roll out automatically, but users can and should install it immediately upon opening the application by clicking on Zoom.us in the menu bar at the top left of the screen and then selecting “check for updates”. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 4/5; Roll7/Private Division

Game adaptations don’t have to be terrible. But as Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan admits, bringing action from screen to console isn’t as easy as it sounds

Even if you’re not gadget-obsessed, the odds are you’ve got at least one smart device at home. So how do you limit the internet of things from listening in?