Technology | The Guardian

Wojcicki, one of the most prominent women in tech, had been living with cancer for two yearsSusan Wojcicki, the former YouTube CEO and one of the first Google employees, has died at the age of 56 after two years of living with cancer.Her husband, Dennis Troper, announced the news of her death on Friday. Continue reading...

The England men's team's first foreign manager was blamed for their failure and had his private life splashed across the tabloids. Now, with months to live, he's got some scores to settleSven-Goran Eriksson is saying his farewells to the world. The former England men's football manager has pancreatic cancer, and is approaching the end of his life. In January, he announced he had at most a year to live. He is keen to talk. But he wants to do it in Sven style - calm, measured, drama-free. He tells me he wants to set the record straight. I had a lot to do with the press in a lot of countries, but especially in England. So why not tell my truth? What I think is the truth."Eriksson was England's first foreign manager. He seemed to belong more to the contemplative world of an Ingmar Bergman film than the cut and thrust of football - professorial, urbane, with a distinctive high forehead, spectacles and a kindly face. He wore immaculately pressed suits on the touchline and rarely showed emotion. While other managers threw tantrums, kicked water bottles or applauded referees ironically, Eriksson sat in silence and watched. He could just as easily have been meditating as managing a football team. Continue reading...

There are signs the billionaire is becoming unpopular with the very demographic group most likely to buy EVsElon Musk has long flirted with rightwing politics, and delights in pushing an image of himself as a contrarian showman. Yet in recent months the billionaire's political allegiances have started to raise a question for Tesla, the company that he built into the world's largest electric carmaker: just how far can he go before customers start to abandon his products?The German pharmacy chain Rossmann was one of the first to put its head above the parapet this week. The family-owned company announced that it would not add to the 34 Teslas in its company fleet because of Musk's endorsement of Donald Trump for US president. Continue reading...

Change in policy means developers will be able to communicate with customers outside App StoreApple on Thursday changed its policy in the European Union to allow developers to communicate with their customers outside its App Store after the commission charged the iPhone maker in June for breaching the bloc's tech rules.The commission had said that under most of the business terms, Apple allows steering only through link-outs", meaning that app developers can include a link in their app that redirects the customer to a web page where the customer can conclude a contract. Continue reading...

Catherine Suttle remembers when numbers were three digits, Dan Zerdin's grandparents thought a naked' phone was unsightly, and Janette Ward recalls how she rumbled her bossI smiled all the way through Viv Groskop's article (The hunt for a missing date, the numbers I'll never forget: we'll never match the magic of a landline, 2 August). It all rang true, so to speak. Never mind four digits, our family landline in the 1960s was three digits, which are embedded in my brain. Then we moved to a town and had five digits, which later became six, no less. On answering, Mum spoke these slowly and carefully until she identified the caller, then her voice could be pure joy if it turned out to be an old friend.Ours was wall-mounted by the front door and, as Viv says, it was a sort of gateway to everything else. I remember waiting all day for a phone call from a boy I liked, willing the phone to ring until I realised Nan had cut the line while pruning the roses. It turned out to be not the best match, so maybe Nan knew a thing or two about landlines and boys.

Hackers tried breaking into account of high-ranking official' on US presidential campaign, researchers sayMicrosoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a high-ranking official" on the US presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level US official.The breaches were part of Iranian groups' increasing attempts to influence the US presidential election in November, the researchers said in a report that did not provide any further detail on the apparent official in question. Continue reading...

X owner has cited transgender daughter Vivian's transition as reason for shift, blaming the woke mind virus'Once, the chief executive of one of the world's largest companies approvingly sharing a fabricated headline published by the leadership of a fascist party would have been news. For Elon Musk, it was just Thursday.Unusually for Musk, his post, a retweet of the Britain First co-leader Ashlea Simon sharing a fake Telegraph headline about detainment camps in the Falkland Islands for the English rioters, was deleted shortly after being sent. In the 30 minutes it was live on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter that he bought in 2022, it managed to rack up almost 2m views. Continue reading...

Lace up your simulators and waggle your joystick for gold, from Mario racing Sonic in the 200m freestyle or pole vaulting on a PlayStationOver the past three weeks the Paris Olympics have provided some spectacular sporting moments, from incredible victories to heartbreaking defeats to Snoop Dogg standing about in full equestrian regalia. For most of us, such sporting brilliance is way beyond reach - unless, that is, you have access to video games.Although there was no official tie-in this year, there have been many well-loved Olympic-inspired games over the past four decades. If you have an old Commodore 64, PlayStation or Wii, or a suitable emulator on your PC, here's how you can relive this summer's immortal sporting memories in the safety of your own home. Continue reading...

A Twitch streamer claims to be able to control games with her mind. I thought it was telekinetic baloney - so I went round to give it a goI am sitting in a house in North London with electrodes attached to my temporal lobes to supposedly learn how to control video games with my mind.Wait, let me explain. In July, twentysomething Twitch streamer Perri Karyal hit headlines when she claimed to have defeated two bosses in Elden Ring by thought alone. The cynics, being cynics, were soon to call her out on social media. It's faked," posted @gamerguru2924. What a fraud," yelled @saucypepperoni. This is some bullshit, why are you fools believing this?" considered @Pennywyze-ub7ry. Continue reading...

Decision from WFA follows X suit accusing advertisers of conspiring to withhold billions of dollars in revenue'A global advertiser alliance has discontinued its corporate responsibility program after a lawsuit from Elon Musk's X accused the group of orchestrating a massive advertiser boycott".The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) told members on Thursday that it would shut down the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm) following legal attacks from X, formerly Twitter, according to Business Insider, which first reported the news. Garm is a not-for-profit initiative within the WFA that helps brands avoid advertising alongside or monetizing harmful content. Continue reading...

Nuclear site awaits sentencing over breaches that it admitted could have threatened national securitySellafield has apologised after pleading guilty to criminal charges relating to a string of cybersecurity failings at Britain's most hazardous nuclear site, which it admitted could have threatened national security.Among the failings at the vast nuclear waste dump in Cumbria was the discovery that 75% of its computer servers were vulnerable to cyber-attacks, Westminster magistrates court in London heard. Continue reading...

The Elon Musk-owned platform remains a vital tool for politicians despite misinformation about disorder in BritainWhen Keir Starmer was running to be Labour leader in 2020, his aides seriously considered whether they should leave Twitter for good.A number of those who remain close to Starmer as prime minister were then enthusiastic about moving off the platform. The party was still feeling wounded by the brutal election campaign and by the bitterness of the way it had been conducted on social media. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Fashion loves a kooky accessory, but it is the sensible phone strap that is trending - and leaving hands free up and down the country Don't get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereFashion is not averse to a ridiculous accessory. See, recently, a tiny Fendi lollipop holder, specifically tailored to the measurements of a Chupa Chups and yours for 440, or a Gucci canvas pet carrier for 2,290. But, sometimes, a trend emerges that is - whisper it - practical and affordable. Enter, this summer, the jazzy phone strap - freeing the palms of everyone from parents and pub-goers to Hollywood stars.Look around at rush hour, and commuters and tourists alike have their phones hooked on to corded straps and slung across sweaty torsos. Meanwhile, the finishing touch to gen Z's OOTD videos on TikTok is to clip their phone on to a beaded strap and toss it around a wrist or shoulder. Continue reading...

Move is the latest of a string of CMA investigations into technology tie-upsAmazon's $4bn investment into US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is to be examined in the latest investigation into technology tie-ups by the UK's competition watchdog.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Thursday that it was launching a preliminary investigation into the deal, before deciding whether to refer it for an in-depth review. Continue reading...

From a quick message of support to a moan about your in-laws, the sound of a human voice is a blessing to a frazzled parentWhat is it about the voice note that bothers so many people? I've seen it accused of all sorts - of being narcissistic, invasive, annoying - yet as a communication method, it continues to thrive. Having been a late adopter, I now send them all the time, usually while pushing my son around the city in his buggy (something that is impossible to do while texting).Where once I felt annoyed when I received one, as though listening to another human being's voice were simply too demanding, now I'm excited to hear what the person has to say, and how. Funny, sad, entertaining, long-winded, digressive, insightful; whatever their style, I can't praise them enough.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat turn their hand to audio with True Tales of Possession. Plus: five of the best podcasts featuring A-listers Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereParanormal Activity: True Tales of Possession

Gameplay designer Adrien Poncet explains how this seafaring adventure anchors the idea of common effort' by linking problem-solving players out of timeAzure skies; crystalline waters; a flotilla emblazoned with welcome to Pleasureland". It sounds like a dream holiday but this is actually dystopia: continents lie submerged after the Great Flood; a disease caused by toxic plastic ravages every living organism.There's no mistaking Tides of Tomorrow for anything other than anxious cli-fi", but its tone is exuberant, brash and irreverent rather than moody or dread-laden. The setting is the fictional planet of Elynd which, says lead game designer Adrien Poncet, lets him and his colleagues take liberties with the science and technology they are depicting. We see one character inhaling ozen" from a canister - it's an oxygen-like substance keeping people alive. Elsewhere, players bear witness to striking and unsettling images, including a vast mass of bobbing plastic akin to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Continue reading...

Alex Hern reports on recent problems artificial intelligence companies have faced and asks whether the billions invested are paying offEven if the AI boom turns out to be an AI bubble, the LLMs aren't going anywhere," the Guardian's UK technology editor, Alex Hern, tells Michael Safi.Whether or not OpenAI goes bust, whether or not Google and Microsoft's valuations plummet back to the ground, there is this technology that was created. They may go bust, but that doesn't mean we're back to the world we were in in 2020, for good and for ill." Continue reading...

Analysis of more than 200,000 chatbot conversations shows how the new tech is actually being used. Turns out quite a lot of it is racy role play' ...Name: AI dirty talk.Age: Since 2022. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: This autumn may not deliver its usual raft of franchise mega-titles, so use this time to embrace the weird, wonderful and original instead Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereEarlier this week, the culture desk asked me to recommend four games for our annual autumn arts preview. Reader: I struggled. The period between September and November is usually stacked with AAA releases as publishers jostle for space in the historically lucrative run-up to Christmas. Even in this era of live service" games such as Fortnite, Destiny and Genshin Impact (which ignore external sales patterns in favour of their own ever-updating season passes) you're usually guaranteed an autumnal belch of major gaming releases.But this year ... not so much. September is mostly about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (below). October is the Silent Hill 2 reboot, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and at a stretch Sonic X Shadow Generations. We have to wait until November for a truly busy blockbuster lineup with Slitterhead, Football Manager 2025, Assassin's Creed Shadows and Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl all lining up for our wintery delectation. The long anticipated role-playing game Avowed has been delayed until 2025, while Indiana Jones and the Great Circle still hasn't been given a release date beyond 2024", which doesn't seem promising. Continue reading...

Our video games writers get their children to play the games they loved as kids - and get to grips with the ones they adore now. Will they be bored, baffled - or hooked?Keza MacDonald plays Pokemon Shield Continue reading...

From card sharps to crypto traders, a statistician asks what we can learn from the people prepared to gamble everythingNothing is more interesting to poker players and less interesting to everyone else than a breathless recounting of who bet how much with a jack and six of clubs in some game years ago. There's an awful lot of that kind of thing in this book, which celebrates poker players as paradigmatic citizens of a global intellectual community it calls the River", which also counts among its inhabitants venture capitalists, crypto traders, fashionable philosophers and mild-mannered statisticians.One such statistician, Nate Silver himself, came topublic prominence as a data-driven analyst of politicalpolls at his website FiveThirtyEight, which predicted the results of US elections in 2008 and 2012 with seemingly uncanny accuracy. But before that hewas a poker player, making money especially in thenascent internet-casino business, until Congress banned onlinepoker in 2006. That, he has said, was hispoliticalawakening. Continue reading...

With 550m users, the social network has been accused of providing a platform for organising riots in the UK

The ruling found Google broke antitrust laws by making multibillion-dollar deals. Will those agreements evaporate?Google lost its landmark antitrust case against the US Department of Justice this week after a federal judge ruled the tech giant had built an illegal monopoly over the online search and advertising industry. The decision will probably have immense implications for both Google's internal operations and how people interact with the most popular page on the internet.Judge Amit Mehta's ruling specifically found that Google broke antitrust laws by striking exclusive agreements with device makers like Apple and Samsung, in which Google would pay billions of dollars to ensure that its product was the default search engine on their phones and tablets. During the trial, it was revealed that Google paid companies, including Apple, more than $26bn in 2021 alone to remain the default option for search in Safari. Those deals allowed Google to build a monopoly over search and unfairly suppress competition, Mehta found. Continue reading...

Vacation rental company reports second-quarter profit of $555m compared with last year's $650mThe vacation rental company Airbnb forecast third-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Tuesday and reported a lower second-quarter profit, as it flagged weakening demand from US customers.Shares of the company were down about 12% after the bell. Continue reading...

X said the companies worked against their economic self-interests in a conspiracy violating US antitrust lawElon Musk's social media platform, X, on Tuesday sued a global advertising alliance and several major companies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health, accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to shun the social network and intentionally causing it to lose revenue. The company formerly known as Twitter accused the defendants of a massive advertiser boycott".X filed the lawsuit in federal court in Texas on Tuesday against the World Federation of Advertisers as well as the companies individually. Continue reading...

Owner of X uses platform to promote conspiracy theory that white far-right protesters' involved in disorder are treated more severely than minoritiesElon Musk has called the prime minister two-tier Keir" in reference to the conspiracy theory that police are treating white far-right protesters" more harshly than minority groups.Downing Street would not engage again with the billionaire owner of X, having previously said his comments about a potential civil war in the UK had no justification". Since that criticism, Musk has been repeatedly targeting Keir Starmer on his social media platform. Continue reading...

Billionaire confirms website's main office will relocate to Austin, Texas, while SpaceX will also leave California

Assemble a crew of navy seers and necro medics to take down a dictatorship in a spellbinding new game inspired by XCOM, but without the punishmentWe're only just over half way through the year, but Tactical Breach Wizards is already a contender for best video game title of 2024. At once exquisitely silly and decidedly practical, the name neatly reflects the intent behind this magically infused turn-based tactics game. Putting you in command of a sorcerous SEAL team that uses guns and spells to fight through puzzle-like scenarios, Tactical Breach Wizards combines a decade-old joke with a desire to solve a problem particular to genre which inspired it.It came out of playing XCOM a lot, especially XCOM 2," says Tom Francis, director at Suspicious Developments and creator of acclaimed titles Gunpoint and Heat Signature. Loving that game in so many ways, but also being very frustrated by the many ways you can misunderstand things and not realise a rule, and just lose irreplaceable troops or suffer catastrophic losses." Continue reading...

LLMs' reversal curse' leads it to fail at drawing relationships between simple facts. It's a problem that could prove fatalIn 2021, linguist Emily Bender and computer scientist Timnit Gebru published a paper that described the then-nascent field of language models as one of stochastic parrots". A language model, they wrote, is a system for haphazardly stitching together sequences of linguistic forms it has observed in its vast training data, according to probabilistic information about how they combine, but without any reference to meaning."The phrase stuck. AI can still get better, even if it is a stochastic parrot, because the more training data it has, the better it will seem. But does something like ChatGPT actually display anything like intelligence, reasoning, or thought? Or is it simply, at ever-increasing scales, haphazardly stitching together sequences of linguistic forms"?If a human learns the fact, Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to travel to space", they can also correctly answer, Who was the first woman to travel to space?" This is such a basic form of generalization that it seems trivial. Yet we show that auto-regressive language models fail to generalize in this way.This is an instance of an ordering effect we call the Reversal Curse.We test GPT-4 on pairs of questions like, Who is Tom Cruise's mother?" and, Who is Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son?" for 1,000 different celebrities and their actual parents. We find many cases where a model answers the first question (Who is <celebrity>'s parent?") correctly, but not the second. We hypothesize this is because the pretraining data includes fewer examples of the ordering where the parent precedes the celebrity (eg Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son is Tom Cruise"). Continue reading...

White House calls decision - that could have major implications for web use - victory for the American people'Google violated antitrust laws as it built an internet search empire, a federal judge ruled on Monday in a decision that could have major implications for the way people interact with the internet.Judge Amit Mehta found that Google violated section 2 of the Sherman Act, a US antitrust law. His decision states that Google maintained a monopoly over search services and advertising. Continue reading...

Tesla CEO alleges his former partners, including CEO Sam Altman, manipulated him into co-founding the companyElon Musk is once again suing OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, resurrecting a legal battle against his former partners with a case that now claims they manipulated him into co-founding the artificial intelligence company.Months after abruptly withdrawing a similar lawsuit without explanation, Musk filed a new lawsuit on Monday in a northern California federal court. Continue reading...

X's Grok AI chatbot falsely told users ballot deadline has passed for several states'Five secretaries of state plan to send a letter to Elon Musk calling on the billionaire owner of X to make changes to the social media platform's Grok AI chatbot after it gave users misinformation about Kamala Harris appearing on the 2024 White House ballot in certain states.Grok told users that the ballots were locked and loaded" and that the ballot deadline has passed for several states". Continue reading...

The use of fake AI vocals - including those of Donald Trump - is sending shockwaves through this historic scene. At a Montego Bay clash, performers debate their culture's futureFour days after the attempt on his life, the voice of Donald Trump booms from the speakers in Montego Bay, Jamaica: If they needed an assassin, they should have sent for Bodyguard ... about to commit a quadruple murder at Sumfest in Montego Bay." The audience are taken by surprise, having been primed for a reggae riddim to drop, and laugh.The Bodyguard crew have just taken to the stage at Sumfest Global Sound Clash, a musical gladiatorial contest where sound systems battle against one another with creative mixing, hyped-up MCs and exclusive - often incendiary - recordings featuring star guests and in-jokes. AI vocalists such as this fake Trump, however, are sending shockwaves through a decades-old musical tradition in which authenticity and originality are paramount, and sound systems pay premium rates to artists to get vocals for clashes. Continue reading...

The developers behind Moncage challenge you to sit still in this irreverent waiting simulatorAlthough it can be frustrating to be told patience is a virtue" while you wait for something menial, bored out of your mind, there is sometimes enjoyment and peace to be found in the everyday mundane. This is something California studio Optillusion is trying to capture with its tongue-in-cheek patience simulator, While Waiting. Often, when we're waiting - whether for a bus, in traffic or in a line - we seek ways to entertain ourselves," says producer Dong Zhou. People just play with their phones because there is nothing to do, but is that even true? I believe everyone hates waiting, but that's just because they are not playful enough. We want to create a game from every mundane moment to help players find their own ways to kill time."In While Waiting, players follow the life of Adam, an everyman who must traverse a series of tedious tasks - waiting for a bus, lining up for a carnival ride, or staring out of the window until the rain stops. Waiting is not purely a negative experience but a part of life," Zhou says. Each situation carries its unique anticipation and anxiety." The game is a personal journey of growth, as Adam's goals shift from simple pleasures to complex aspirations. Depending on the different waiting scenarios, he may end up happy, relieved, or sad. But all he knows is that the only solution is to wait," says Zhou. Continue reading...

Founder says procedure, aimed at helping paralyzed people use digital devices by thinking alone, went extremely well'Neuralink has successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give paralyzed patients the ability to use digital devices by thinking alone, according to the startup's owner Elon Musk.Neuralink is in the process of testing its device, which is intended to help people with spinal cord injuries. The device has allowed the first patient to play video games, browse the internet, post on social media and move a cursor on his laptop. Continue reading...

Algorithms that send the most outrageous comments viral and a chain reaction of anger and disinformation made the riots that followed the Southport killings inevitableThe 1996 Dunblane massacre and the outcry that followed are held up in the US as a textbook example of how an act of terror mobilised a country to demand effective gun regulation.The atrocity, in which 16 children and their teacher were killed, provoked a wave of national revulsion that, within weeks, led to 750,000 people signing a petition demanding a change to the law. Within a year and a half, new legislation had outlawed the ownership of handguns. Continue reading...

Their shares have fallen 11.8% from last month's peak but more AI breakthroughs may reassure investorsIt has been tough week for the magnificent seven, the group of technology stocks that has played a dominant role in the US stock market, buoyed by investor excitement about breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.Last year Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, the chipmaker Nvidia, Google's parent, Alphabet, Facebook's owner, Meta, and Elon Musk's Tesla accounted for half the gains in the S&P 500 share index. But doubts about the return on AI investment, along with a mixed set of quarterly results, investors shifting their focus to other sectors and weak US economic data have hit the group over the past month. Continue reading...

Fewer than half of British households now have a home phone - and we will lose something precious when they're goneWhen was the last time you called someone on their landline? Probably not recently according to new data that shows that, for the first time ever, most households in the UK no longer have a home phone. The number of households with landlines dipped below half to 47% this year, according to Ofcom's annual technology tracker. Four-fifths of the 65-plus age group still use landlines. But only 16% of under-25s own one.This is an inevitability, and maybe not such a terrible one. But anyone who remembers life before both mobiles and the internet knows that we have lost something strangely precious. At its most basic, the death of the landline is about the assertion of the control of the individual and about our tyrannical, casual expectation of full personalisation at all times. A mobile phone is something I could never have imagined even existing as a child, let alone owning: a personal phone that you can take everywhere with you. A phone that no one else is allowed to answer without your permission. You are the only one who talks on it. It's your private device. Imagine. Whereas a landline ... Well, that was a call anyone could answer - and usually you wouldn't even know who was calling. If you're under 30, this might sound deeply suspect. Nowadays we react to the idea that it could be anyone" calling with horror. Once upon a time, it was a thrill. Continue reading...

As demand for the tin ore cassiterite soars, special forces units of Brazil's Ibama environment agency must play a cat and mouse game with the thousands of illegal miners pouring into Yanomami reservesIn the back yard of the federal police headquarters in Roraima, the northernmost state of Brazil, giant sacks lie strewn and overflowing with a jet-black, gravel-like mineral: cassiterite. Although less high-profile than other items seized during a crackdown on illegal mining in this Amazon state - including a Sikorsky S-76 helicopter painted in the colours of the Brazilian flag - cassiterite has become so sought-after that it is nicknamed black gold".Cassiterite is the chief ore of tin, a less heralded but critical mineral for the energy transition. It is used in coatings for solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and solder for electronics, including wind turbines, mobile phones, computers and industrial alloys. Continue reading...

Britain's first next-generation supercomputer, planned by Tories, in doubt after Labour government moveThe Labour government has shelved 1.3bn of funding promised by the Conservatives for technology and artificial intelligence projects, putting the future of the UK's first next-generation supercomputer in doubt.The projects, announced last year, include 800m for the creation of an exascale supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh and a further 500m for the AI Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI. Continue reading...

When two horror movie fans took the leap into game development, the last thing they expected was for an actual movie production company to want to get involvedIn 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Crista Castro and Bryan Singh were moved to think about what they really wanted from their lives. An animation director and programmer respectively, the couple had worked on other people's cartoons and video games at big studios for years, but both had nursed ambitions to make something of their own. They had collaborated on weekend projects here and there, but felt if they really wanted to make a game together, they'd have to quit their jobs. So in 2021, galvanised by lockdown-induced introspection, that's what they did, forming a husband-and-wife development team under the name Cozy Game Pals. And just to raise the stakes further, they became parents at around the same time.They gave themselves two years. At the end of it, in 2023, they had made something: a short game called Fear the Spotlight, a 90s-inspired horror adventure that looks like a lost PlayStation classic and feels like a teen ghost movie. They released it on Steam, to a very positive reception from the few people who played it - but they didn't know how to market it, and it didn't sell much. We were like, OK, I guess that was it," Bryan tells me. Let's go find jobs again. And then Blumhouse showed up."Fear the Spotlight is released this autumn on PlayStation 5 and PCThis interview with Cozy Game Pals took place at Summer game fest in Los Angeles. Keza MacDonald's travel and accommodation expenses were met by Amazon Games Continue reading...

Experts warn growth of extremist influencers and micro-donations' could create even bigger wave of unrestLess than three hours after the stabbing attack on Monday that led to the death of three children, an AI-generated image was shared on X by an account called Europe Invasion. It depicted bearded men in traditional Muslim dress outside the Houses of Parliament, one waving a knife, behind a crying child in a union jack T-shirt.The tweet, which has since been viewed 900,000 times, was captioned: We must protect our children!" and shared by one of the most potent accounts for misinformation about the Southport stabbings. Continue reading...

Tech giant's revenue rises 4.9% to $85.78bn despite phone sales falling 0.9% and trend of decline in key China marketApple reported better-than-expected earnings in the third quarter of 2024, with buzz about its new AI features offsetting a continuing decline in its key China market.Earnings exceeded analyst predictions despite a year-over-year decline in iPhone sales, with revenue rising 4.9% to $85.78bn in the three months ending 29 June, beating the average analyst estimate of $84.53bn. The company maintained its cash dividend at 25 cents for each share. Continue reading...

Firm reported a loss in its second quarter and said it would cut 15% of its workforce to cut costs and compete with rivalsIntel, the chipmaker, has announced plans to cut more than 15,000 jobs as it tries to cut billions of dollars in costs and turn its business around to compete with more successful rivals.Shares in the company sank 19% as a string of leading technology stocks came under pressure on Thursday following a fresh batch of lackluster earnings that contributed to a sell-off on Wall Street. Continue reading...

Question-setters Anna Ptaszynski and James Harkin get in the competitive spirit with Quite a Good Sport. Plus: five of the best podcasts about America Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up herePerfect Day With Jessica Knappett

It mistakenly entered all my business details in the search results for How to contact Google in the UK'Four years ago, Google mistakenly published my restaurant business's details, including the phone number and address, in the search results for how to contact Google in the UK".At first I got just a few calls from people trying to get through to it but now I receive up to 300 a week, including on my personal mobile, as well as messages and letters. I have more than 130 voice messages. Continue reading...

Even as shares fall about 9%, chief financial officer says firm is seeing more investment' in AI than even 90 days ago'Chip designer Arm Holdings on Wednesday reported a stronger-than-expected 39% surge in quarterly revenue, and forecast fiscal second-quarter sales broadly in line with Wall Street estimates, yet its shares fell about 9% in extended trading.For the current fiscal second quarter, Arm forecast revenue in a range between $780m and $830m, compared with an average analyst estimate of $804.1m, according to LSEG data. Continue reading...

The ex-president and RFK Jr were among the stars of this year's Bitcoin conference, where there was no line for the women's bathroomLast week, downtown Nashville transformed into a carnival as thousands of people descended on the Bitcoin 2024 conference. The most enthusiastic attendees wore bitcoin orange or Make America great again" red - which, as the color wheel confirms, are not all that different.Bitcoin has been around since 2009, and the conference since 2019, but 2024 marked the first year that two US presidential candidates would give keynote addresses: Robert F Kennedy Jr, a longtime bitcoin fan, and Donald Trump, who announced that he was pro-bitcoin in May after years of calling it a scam" and disaster". The excitement was palpable: the way bitcoiners saw it, they had transformed into a voting bloc. Continue reading...

Multiple-day outage caused airline to lose revenue by cancelling and delaying thousands of flightsEd Bastian, CEO of Delta Air Lines, says the airline is facing $500m in costs related to a global tech outage that disrupted emergency services, communications and thousands of businesses.Speaking on CNBC, Bastian said on Wednesday that the monetary amount represents lost revenue as well as the tens of millions of dollars per day in compensation and hotels" for the five-day period. Continue reading...