Technology | The Guardian

Incident prompts fears for latest Silicon Valley craze’s ability to guarantee users’ security and privacyClubhouse, the audio-chatroom app that has emerged as the latest craze to consume Silicon Valley, has shut down a site that was rebroadcasting the platform’s content, renewing concerns over the service’s ability to provide security and privacy for its users.The app, currently available only on iPhones, allows users to quickly and easily set up and discover panel-style discussions, with a small group of speakers and potentially thousands of listeners in each room. It has been strictly limited since its launch in April, with users requiring an invitation before they can create an account. It initially gained popularity in the tech and venture capitalist community of the San Francisco Bay area. Continue reading...

Campaign groups say blocking access to reliable news sources leaves a void to be filled by misinformation and hate speechMembers of Facebook’s oversight board, which some have likened to an internal “supreme court”, have been called on to speak out or step down after the platform shut down swathes of media and key public information sites during a battle with the Australian government.The social media giant suspended pages – including those of government bodies and state health departments before the national coronavirus vaccine rollout – as part of a showdown with officials over a new law that would force it and other platforms to pay for links to news content. Continue reading...

The startup’s invitation-only model gives it a sheen of exclusivity, but privacy horrors lurk behind the buzzSo, are you on Clubhouse, the social-media sensation du jour? No? Me neither. But – I hasten to add, lest there should be any doubt about my social status – that’s not because I wasn’t invited to join. A generous friend had a few invitations to extend, and she offered me one. After that, she had an attack of what one can only describe as donor’s remorse, because in order to be able to extend the invitation to me she had to grant Clubhouse access to all her contacts!When I opened the app it asked me if I would like to grant it access to my contacts, an invitation I declined – as I always do. At which point it was made clear to me that I would not be able to invite anyone else to join. As Vox’s Sara Morrison succinctly put it: I had been invited to join Clubhouse, but my privacy wasn’t welcome. At which point I deleted the app – on the Groucho Marx principle that I wouldn’t join a club that would have such a schmuck as a member. (There was also the thought that Clubhouse’s behaviour, rules and operation seem to make it illegal under the GDPR – not that a small matter like that will trouble a US-based data-hoovering startup.) Continue reading...

Companies splash out on new tech and office design to cut commuting and usher in the new dawn of post-lockdown hybrid workingStaff at accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers have been holding meetings in odd places: the top of skyscrapers, inside swanky penthouse apartments and even luxury ski chalets. All without leaving the comfort of their own homes.That is the new normal for a growing number of workers at PwC, which is buying thousands of virtual reality headsets to help battle Zoom fatigue and level the playing field for employees barred from entering the same room during the Covid outbreak. Continue reading...

The dismissal comes after prominent Black researcher Timnit Gebru was fired in December; both had called for more diversity among research staffGoogle has fired one of its top artificial intelligence researchers, Margaret Mitchell, escalating internal turmoil at the company following the departure of Timnit Gebru, another leading figure on Google’s AI ethics team.

Whether you’re after news, community engagement or both, there are workaroundsBy now you will know that Facebook has responded to the Australian government’s proposed news media bargaining code by removing the ability for any Australian or international news content to be published or shared in Australia.Mark Zuckerburg’s social network has been a vital platform to community and subculture groups for news sharing and discussion. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency heading for a weekly gain of 14% and up by 60% in FebruaryBitcoin hit a new high on Friday, giving it a market value of more than $1tn for the first time.Bitcoin rose 6.4% during trading on Friday to reach an all-time high above $55,000, and was on track for a weekly gain of about 14%. Continue reading...

Decision means drivers should receive minimum wage and paid holidays, say lawyersThe UK supreme court has dismissed Uber’s appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers with access to the minimum wage and paid holidays.Six justices handed down a unanimous decision backing the October 2016 employment tribunal ruling that could land Uber with a big compensation pay out and lead to better terms for millions of workers in the gig economy. Continue reading...

Artificial constraint highlights struggle to keep up with demand from cryptocurrency miners

Viral video app has been a popular source of quick, no-nonsense recipes for teenagers in lockdownAnna Spearing started baking when she was about eight or nine, making ginger biscuits in the family kitchen in Southampton and watching endless YouTube videos full of “really yummy ingredients”, in a period she refers to as “the simpler times”.Now 15, she is still baking, though the recipes have become more diverse, and the videos snappier and much shorter. Having discovered TikTok, the social video-sharing platform used by all her friends, she now frequently cooks dishes based on its 60-second viral videos, soundtracked by earworm songs and edited at rat-a-tat speed. Continue reading...

Complaint in US says children being manipulated into paying $100 a year for Prodigy membership perksA mobile game used by schools to teach maths through a fantasy role-playing world has been accused of unfairly manipulating children into paying more than $100 a year for premium items.Prodigy, which offers versions for in-school and at-home play, is the centre of a complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission submitted by a coalition of children’s rights groups led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC). Continue reading...

From a treadmill and a puppy to 19th-century curtains, here are the purchases that have helped cheer people up in the past year

As Nintendo’s classic video game series comes up on its 35th anniversary, it’s time to put all the main entries in their place Continue reading...

Stopping Trump, reforming Facebook and risking his life to make a Borat sequel. In an exclusive interview, the actor unveils his plans for a revolution – and reveals how it feels to come out as himselfSeven months ago, Sacha Baron Cohen was in the back of a speeding ambulance. It was an escape car, and he was fleeing a gun rally. The Borat producers had chosen the ambulance as it could blend in, accommodate a small film crew and, if necessary, hasten a trip to hospital.Baron Cohen – dressed as Borat, himself disguised as a country singer – had just led the crowd of far-right conspiracy theorists in a singalong. At first, they happily joined in: “Obama, what we gonna do? / Inject him with the Wuhan flu.” Then one or two smelled a rat. Then they all stormed the stage. Continue reading...

The Bias Diagnosis examines the disparity in outcomes between white and minority ethic patients. Plus: Ian Wright meets ordinary people with extraordinary storiesThe Bias Diagnosis

‘I am manifesting abundance on all platforms,’ I find scrawled in my notebook when my week on Clubhouse is overWhat to make of Clubhouse – the invitation-only, social media, audio app that’s hit the zeitgeist this month?It’s like a LinkedIn that talks to you. It’s like attending a conference that never ends. Its spirit animal is the old-style chatrooms of the early internet where you could swap ideas and soak up expertise. It will chew up hours and hours and hours of your day that are not already chewed up by the other apps. Continue reading...

Writers and artists including Róisín Murphy, Tiffany Calver and Sigala on the art that transports them to the dancefloor during lockdownThere have been many notable nightclubs in film history. The Blue Angel in the Marlene Dietrich movie; the Copacabana in Goodfellas, accessible to privileged wiseguys via the kitchen; the Slow Club in Blue Velvet, with the emotionally damaged star turn Isabella Rossellini singing the song of the same name. Continue reading...

Trade group chairman says robust regulation is needed to rein in monopolistic tech firmsFacebook’s move to block all media content in Australia shows why countries need robust regulation to stop tech firms behaving like a “schoolyard bully”, the head of the UK’s news media trade group has said.Henry Faure Walker, the chair of the News Media Association, said Facebook’s ban during a pandemic was “a classic example of a monopoly power being the schoolyard bully, trying to protect its dominant position with scant regard for the citizens and customers it supposedly serves”. Continue reading...

Labels to be attached to posts directing users to Facebook’s Climate Science Information CenterFacebook has said it will start labelling misinformation about the climate crisis in a small trial limited to the UK.Labels will be attached to certain posts directing users to Facebook’s Climate Science Information Center, a repository of fact-checked claims about the environment. Continue reading...

By turning off news sharing, Facebook has turned attention away from flawed government legislation and on to its own reckless opaque power

Facebook users flocked to Twitter to complain about the ban, which also struck community pages, health departments, charities and politicians

Social media company’s ban on sharing news has also affected dozens of government, not-for-profit and community pagesThe Bureau of Meteorology, state health departments, the Western Australian opposition leader, charities and Facebook itself are among those to have been hit by Facebook’s ban on news in Australia.On Thursday morning Facebook began preventing Australian news sites from posting, while also stopping Australian users from sharing or viewing content from any news outlets, both Australian and international. Continue reading...

The announcement is in response to Australia’s proposed Media Bargaining law, which would force the company to pay publishers for contentFacebook announced on Wednesday that it would restrict publishers and users in Australia from sharing or viewing Australian and international news content.The move comes in response to Australia’s proposed Media Bargaining law, which would force Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to pay publishers for content, Facebook said in a blog post on Wednesday. Continue reading...

News Corp will receive ‘significant payments’ to feature news outlets in Google’s News ShowcaseGoogle and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp have signed a multi-year partnership that will lead to the search engine paying for journalism from news sites around the world, including the Wall Street Journal, the Times and the Australian.The deal, which involves News Corp receiving “significant payments” to feature the company’s news outlets in Google’s News Showcase product, will last for three years, and comes with a number of other investments from Google, including “meaningful investments in video journalism” and the development of a subscription platform. Continue reading...

Two of the three creators of Why Are You Like This chose the links for this column (they told Mark Samual Bonanno he had to sit out)The last time two women did this list, they split it into two halves and said while they are both girls, they are not the same. Well, Naomi Higgins and Humyara Mahbub are both girls and we’re exactly the same. We refuse to be separated from the comforting monolith of girlhood. If you like these videos, you’re a girl too. Welcome. Mark Samual Bonanno, pictured above, is a boy and has been silenced for this article.The three of us recently created and wrote a sitcom called Why Are You Like This and the whole thing is up on ABC iView right now (and coming to Netflix for the rest of the world soon). Continue reading...

The growth and spread of misinformation poses a fundamental threat to Australian society, experts say. The government’s cautious approach to countering it won’t workAustralia: fertile ground for misinformation and QAnonWhen Michael Marom steers his Telstra-branded company car past the site of a planned 5G tower on the streets of Mullumbimby, it draws a now predictable response.Someone is watching, always, and news of his presence quickly ripples through the faithful. Continue reading...

Labor says the payments are ‘offensive’ given the cost of the NBN has blown out by $6bn and there’s been a nationwide recessionThe government-owned company responsible for building and operating the National Broadband Network paid its staff and executives $77m in bonuses between July and December last year, new documents reveal.New data released to the Senate in response to questions on notice from a Senate estimates committee reveal NBN Co paid $4.3m in bonuses to executives including the CEO, and paid employees $73.2m in bonuses between July and December 2020. Continue reading...

Need your hair cut? Cake served? No problem! Lockdown has led millions to discover the work of Joseph Herscher and friends, whose absurdly complicated ‘labour-saving’ machines reveal the potential for magic in the everyday“It’s one thing to maim myself,” says Joseph Herscher. “But maiming someone else? I’m not sure I could live with that. At least I’d have it on tape, but it’d still suck to be killed by one of my machines.”Herscher, 36, is a chain reaction artist who works out of his bedroom in a Brooklyn flatshare. He builds elaborate contraptions using everyday items in the style of Rube Goldberg, the madcap American cartoonist and inventor. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency value up 75% since start of year spurred by prominent business peopleBitcoin soared through the key $50,000 level on Tuesday for the first time as the growing acceptance of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency among large banks and investment funds continued to draw in mainstream investors.After a meteoric rise in which its value increased by 75% since the start of the year, the currency hit $50,547.70 (£36,320) per coin in European trading at around 12.35 GMT. Continue reading...

The exclusive invitation-only social networking app is a hybrid of conference calls, talkback radio and Houseparty

Purchase by Shpock owner Adevinta could lead to less choice for consumers, says watchdogA $9.2bn (£6.5bn) deal to create the world’s largest classified ads business could reduce consumer choice and increase the fees people are charged for advertising goods online, Britain’s competition watchdog has warned.Shpock operator Adevinta’s proposed purchase of Gumtree from eBay would combine websites that allow people to buy and sell used or new items such as clothes, electronics and furniture. The eBay marketplace is the largest such platform in the UK. Continue reading...

Exclusive: officials say the employees tested negatively but were sent notifications telling them to self-isolate

Controversy over former president’s ban has prompted letters from activists and record 9,000 commentsFacebook is expected to announce imminently whether it will allow Donald Trump to return to the platform after banning him more than a month ago.The decision will be the most consequential yet made by Facebook’s Oversight Board, a group of 20 members who range from humanitarian activists and religious experts to lawyers and a former prime minister. The board, which launched in late 2020, is meant to function as an independent arm of the social platform, making binding decisions on a selection of its thorniest content moderation issues. Continue reading...

Despite protestations from both companies, the Australian parliament is set to pass legislation it says is needed to boost public interest journalismThe Australian parliament is poised to pass a landmark media law that would make Google and Facebook pay news publishers for displaying their content.The Australian law is separate to a deal Facebook made to pay mainstream UK news outlets millions of pounds a year to license their articles, but has a similar motivation. Continue reading...

App was cut off by major service providers amid accusations that it failed to police violent content related to the deadly attackParler, a social media service popular with American rightwing users that virtually vanished after the US Capitol riot, re-launched on Monday and said its new platform was built on “sustainable, independent technology”.In a statement announcing the relaunch, Parler also said it had appointed Mark Meckler as its interim chief executive, replacing John Matze, who was fired by the board this month. Continue reading...

From old-school publishing models to a collective of indie game makers, funding has never been more important for an industry in perpetual fluxBrenda Romero, the designer behind Prohibition-era strategy game Empire of Sin, remembers the meeting as if it were yesterday. Facing publisher bigwigs in a Cologne conference room, the veteran game maker presented what she had been writing for the past five years, and dreaming of for 20. “It was the most nerve-racking pitch of my life,” she says. “I’m comfortable with public speaking but to be on a stage with an audience of two, where you’re trying to get somebody to fund an idea for two-and-a-half to three years, that’s a big ask.”For all the shifting dynamics of the video game industry over the past decade – most notably the proliferation of indie games, sometimes made without any funding at all – this is still the most likely way a video game will get made. In a world before Covid-19, hopeful game makers and executives would jet off to conferences such as Gamescom, E3, or the Game Developers Conference to thrash out deals in backroom meetings while the public enjoyed the show. Continue reading...

Anker’s true wireless earbuds sound good and fit well for about half the price of AirPods ProThe Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro by the longstanding charging brand Anker look to offer good sound, long battery life and noise-cancelling at almost half the price of Apple’s AirPods Pro – and largely achieves the goal.The new true wireless earbuds cost £130, undercutting big-name competitors from Apple, Samsung, Sony, Jabra and Bose, with a design that doesn’t reinvent the wheel: a stalk, fairly small earbud and a silicone tip. Continue reading...

After putting $100m into Covid research, the billionaire is taking on the climate crisis. And first he has some bones to pick with his fellow campaigners...

The exclusive invitation-only social networking app is a hybrid of conference calls, talkback radio and HousepartyPart talkback radio, part conference call, part Houseparty, Clubhouse is a social networking app based on audio-chat. Users can listen in to conversations, interviews and discussions between interesting people on various topics – it is just like tuning in to a podcast but live and with an added layer of exclusivity. Continue reading...

My brother-in-law Don Hunter, who has died aged 93, was a physicist who worked on some of the first electronic computers in the Rutherford Laboratory at Cambridge University and later helped set up one of the first major computer software companies in the UK.Don worked as a research assistant in the maths department of the Rutherford Laboratory from 1949 until 1952. There he was involved in pioneering work on the electronic delay storage automatic calculator (Edsac 1) computer. In 1955 he took up a research post at the Standard Telecommunication Laboratories (STL) in Harlow, Essex, where he was part of the design team for a computer called Step 1. Continue reading...

Booking sites urged to step in after Observer research reveals many doors are open for half-term breaks

Facebook says collecting user data across the internet makes for ‘better experiences’. Apple – and privacy groups – are pushing backFacebook is taking lessons from its debacle over WhatsApp privacy changes in a bid to prevent millions of its users opting out of allowing the company to track their interests across the internet.WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, was forced to delay an update to its privacy policy last month when an in-app notification informed users that some data from the communications app would be shared with Facebook. It raised concerns about the privacy of chat messages and profile data, and led users to shift in droves to other encrypted messaging apps such as Signal. Continue reading...

The pandemic has shown that other ways of teaching and learning are possibleThe thing about pandemics, observed the historian Yuval Noah Harari, is that they tend to accelerate history. A couple of years ago, appalled by the environmental, financial and working-time costs of running research conferences, I wondered aloud how long it would take for many of these events to be conducted online – and gloomily predicted that it would take another decade. And then in early 2020 along comes the coronavirus and – bang! – suddenly everything is on Zoom. Even, as every sentient being on the planet must know by now, meetings of the planning and environment committee of Handforth parish council. What’s come to mind a lot in watching these transformations is Ernest Hemingway’s celebrated explanation of how people go bankrupt: “Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”Way back in 1995, the Columbia University scholar Eli Noam published a remarkable article in the prestigious journal Science. Its title – Electronics and the Dim Future of the University – should have given the game away. Noam was writing about the likely impact of the internet on higher education. The new communications technology, he said, would indeed link the information resources of the globe. But while new technologies were likely to strengthen research, “they will also weaken the traditional major institutions of learning, the universities. Instead of prospering with the new tools, many of the traditional functions of universities will be superseded, their financial base eroded, their technology replaced and their role in intellectual inquiry reduced. This is not a cheerful scenario for higher education.” Continue reading...

Bo Harris says he was not only looking for an organ donation, he wanted to put a face to his largely invisible kidney diseaseBo Harris was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease in 2015. In the five years since, he has gone to countless doctor appointments, spent weeks in bed with symptoms of the illness such as severe fatigue and body aches, and even battled and beat lung cancer. But the most difficult part of the journey by far, he says, was pushing the publish button on his first Instagram post searching for a life-saving kidney donation.“It’s very out of my nature to have to ask people for anything, and for this, you have to essentially ask, ‘Can you donate an organ so I can continue living?’” he said. “It’s unimaginably difficult.” Continue reading...

My father-in-law, Wolfgang Marc Schatzberger, who has died aged 94, was evacuated as a child from Austria to the UK through the Kindertransport programme, which rescued thousands of children from across Europe as the second world war approached.He was born in Vienna into an assimilated middle-class Polish/Jewish family. Following the Anschluss in March 1938 and Kristallnacht that October, his parents hurriedly secured for him a place on a train to London Liverpool Street: by May 1939 they were waving him goodbye with a white handkerchief (an old family tradition), as he departed the Westbahnhof in Vienna. Continue reading...

Younger generation mock the style popular since 2000s, saying it has had its day and is not flatteringA generation war has been playing out on TikTok for some time, though anyone older than 24 might be oblivious to the millions of “millennial v Gen Z” videos that have appeared on the social media site in the past year. But now the kids have turned their sights on something that millennials apparently hold close to their hearts: skinny jeans.In scenes reminiscent of the “OK boomer” meme that divided the generations in 2019, the videos have shone a light on how Generation Z – broadly defined as anyone born between the mid-90s and 2010 – identify themselves in contrast with the generation that came before them. Continue reading...

The exclusive invitation-only social networking app is a hybrid of conference calls, talkback radio and HousepartyPart talkback radio, part conference call, part Houseparty, Clubhouse is a social networking app based on audio-chat. Users can listen in to conversations, interviews and discussions between interesting people on various topics – it is just like tuning in to a podcast but live and with an added layer of exclusivity. Continue reading...

Jim Moir and Jools Holland talk memorable trips with celebrity guests on their Joyride podcast. Plus: seeing the world differently in SidewaysJools and Jim’s Joyride

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The exclusive invitation-only social networking app is a hybrid of conference calls, talkback radio and HousepartyPart talkback radio, part conference call, part Houseparty, Clubhouse is a social networking app based on audio-chat. Users can listen in to conversations, interviews and discussions between interesting people on various topics – it is just like tuning in to a podcast but live and with an added layer of exclusivity. Continue reading...