Technology | The Guardian

The promise of neurotechnology to make lives better is growing. But do we need a new set of rights to protect the integrity of our minds?“The skull acts as a bastion of privacy; the brain is the last private part of ourselves,” Australian neurosurgeon Tom Oxley says from New York.Oxley is the CEO of Synchron, a neurotechnology company born in Melbourne that has successfully trialled hi-tech brain implants that allow people to send emails and texts purely by thought. Continue reading...

Facebook’s woes cast a long shadow at a European tech summit this week, and it will take more than rebranding to mend themIt has been a bruising time for Facebook. The company is still absurdly profitable – Meta, its renamed parent company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, generated $86bn (£63bn) in revenues last year, while Facebook’s own revenues grew by 56% in the second quarter. But away from the lucre, there is diminishing lustre. It stands condemned by critics and a widely feted whistleblower. And now it finds its standing diminishing among its peers.

Does your machine need an upgrade to get the most out of 2021’s games? Here’s what to considerWith the autumn video game release schedule now in full swing, the thoughts of many PC owners are turning to hardware upgrades. Blockbusters such as Halo Infinite, Battlefield 1942 and Forza Horizon 5 will all support demanding visual effects such as ray tracing, so it seems like the perfect time to invest in new kit.There’s just one problem: this is probably the worst, most expensive time in recent memory to boost your processing power. Manufacturing and distribution problems, together with skyrocketing demand, have seen prices soar, especially for high-end graphics cards. “There are GTX 1080Ti cards listed on eBay for over £500 – that’s a four-year-old GPU for half a grand,” says Chris Wilson, design director at Cardboard Sword. “The suggestion for most people would probably be to wait it out. Intel is rumoured to have a serious GPU out early next year and they are likely to price it aggressively to try and gain some market share. Eventually the bottom has to fall out of this current disaster.” Continue reading...

Company’s public policy director says crackdown would stifle speech for vulnerable people who need to remain unidentified

Company says cost of adding homes to new network has dropped 15%, and ‘we can fund it ourselves’BT has scrapped plans to find a joint venture partner to help fund the rollout of its next-generation broadband network to an extra 5 million homes, before a potential takeover move by the billionaire investor Patrick Drahi next month.The company said it had abandoned plans to find a partner for its subsidiary Openreach because the cost of rolling out the new network had dropped significantly, and takeup by homes and business had proved better than expected. Continue reading...

This wildly hagiographic documentary about the billionaires fiddling with their massive rockets will have you cringing all the way into suborbital spaceFor a documentary created with the Washington Post, a newspaper owned by a company controlled by Jeff Bezos, the new Discovery+ special Space Titans has an impressive amount of Elon Musk in it. Maybe the algorithm doesn’t dictate everything quite yet. Or maybe it’s an oversight that is even now causing heads to roll in the corridors of Nash Holdings LLC before they are boxed up and sent by Prime to the homes of their former loved ones. We will never know, I suppose, unless Bezos chooses to tell us.Space Titans tells the story of the three billionaires – Bezos, Musk and, uh, Richard Branson – competing to see who has the biggest penis (I’m sorry: competing to see who can be the first to make space travel for ordinary citizens and colonisation of other planets a reality). We are told – repeatedly – that we are at an inflection point in space exploration. Billionaires are going to boldly go where no one has gone before. Because they have all the money now. Continue reading...

Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook, also calls misuse of user data as unethical as child labourA former adviser to Mark Zuckerberg has said democracy “may never recover” if Facebook does not change and has called for misuse of users’ data to be labelled as unethical as child labour.Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook who has become a staunch critic of the business, said revelations from whistleblower Frances Haugen have created an opportunity for change at Zuckerberg’s social media empire. Continue reading...

Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: The Jack Ma saga sheds light on wealth, politics and fame in today’s China

Firm must speed up drivers’ take-up of zero-emissions vehicles to meet green targets, says thinktankElectric cars are used for fewer than one in every 20 miles driven by Uber drivers in major European cities, according to data that suggest the taxi app company must drastically accelerate its drivers’ take-up of zero-emissions vehicles to meet its environmental targets.Uber pledged last year that 50% of miles driven in seven European capitals by the end of 2025 will be in battery electric cars. The vehicles produce zero exhaust emissions, helping to address the impacts on health and the climate caused by urban transport. Continue reading...

Firm says decision is in response to growing concerns over software that identifies users in photos and videosFacebook will delete the “faceprints” of more than a billion people after announcing that it is shutting down its facial recognition system due to the “many concerns” about using the technology.The social media network has been under political, legal and regulatory pressure over its use of the software, which automatically identifies users in photos and videos – and let’s them know if a fellow user has posted a photo or video with them in it – if they have opted in to the feature. In a statement, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said it would shut down facial recognition on the platform over the coming weeks and delete 1 billion facial recognition templates. Continue reading...

Internet firm cites ‘increasingly challenging business and legal environment’ as reason for exitYahoo has announced its withdrawal from the Chinese market in the latest retreat by foreign technology firms responding to Beijing’s tightening control over the industry.“In recognition of the increasingly challenging business and legal environment in China, Yahoo’s suite of services will no longer be accessible from mainland China as of November 1,” the company said on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Communication error may cause a false forward-collision warning or unexpected activation of the emergency brakesTesla Inc is recalling nearly 12,000 US vehicles sold since 2017 because a communication error may cause a false forward-collision warning or unexpected activation of the emergency brakes, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Tuesday.The California automaker said the recall of 11,704 Model S, X, 3 and Y vehicles was prompted after a software update on 23 October to vehicles in its limited early access version 10.3 Full-Self Driving (FSD) (Beta) population. Continue reading...

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

Amazon's founder has told delegates at Cop26 that his trip to space made him realise how ‘finite and fragile’ the Earth is. Jeff Bezos said: 'I was told that seeing the Earth from space changes the lens from which you view the world. But I was not prepared for just how much that would be true.' It comes after Prince William, in the weeks leading up to the climate crisis summit, had criticised billionaires embroiled in a space tourism race, saying the world’s greatest minds needed to focus on fixing the Earth instead

Ten US-based and Russian state media outlets responsible for 69% of content on Facebook, finds Center for Countering Digital HateMisinformation about the climate crisis runs rampant on Facebook, a new study has found, and comes mostly from a handful of “super polluter” publishers.Ten publishers are responsible for 69% of digital climate change denial content on Facebook, a new study from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has found. The outlets, which the report labels the “toxic ten”, include several conservative websites in the US, as well as Russian state media.Breitbart, a far-right news site once run by former Trump strategist Steve BannonWestern Journal, a Conservative news siteNewsmax, which has previously been sued for promoting election fraud conspiraciesTownhall Media, founded by the Exxon-funded Heritage FoundationMedia Research Center, a “thinktank” that received funding from ExxonWashington Times, founded by self-proclaimed messiah Sun Myung MoonThe Federalist Papers, a site that has promoted Covid misinformationDaily Wire, a conservative news site that is of the most engaged-with publishers on FacebookRussian state media, pushing disinformation via RT.com and Sputnik NewsPatriot Post, a conservative site whose writers use pseudonyms Continue reading...

Top camera, Android 12 and Tensor chip but competitive pricing makes for a bargainThe Pixel 6 is Google’s affordable flagship phone for 2021 and proves to be a leader in the field with a top-class camera and a new advanced chip at its heart – while undercutting most of the competition on price.The phone costs £599 ($599/A$999), which is £250 less than the Pixel 6 Pro, while still offering 90% of what you get with Google’s top model.Screen: 6.4in 90Hz FHD+ OLED (411ppi)Processor: Google TensorRAM: 8GB of RAMStorage: 128 or 256GBOperating system: Android 12Camera: 50MP + 12MP ultrawide, 8MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6E, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)Dimensions: 158.6 x 74.8 x 8.9mmWeight: 207g Continue reading...

Some BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen-group vehicles will be able plug into Tesla charging stations in NetherlandsTesla is opening its charging network to other electric cars for the first time with a pilot programme in the Netherlands, as the world’s most valuable carmaker looks to bring electric vehicles into the mainstream.The programme will be tested at 10 locations in the Netherlands, the company said on Monday, adding that Dutch non-Tesla electric vehicle drivers can access the Tesla stations, or Superchargers, through the Tesla app. Continue reading...

Whistleblower says a new CEO should prioritise online safety over Meta restructureFacebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has delivered her strongest call yet for Mark Zuckerberg to step down as chief executive of his social media empire, saying the business will be better off with a leader who focuses on user safety.Frances Haugen said Facebook’s parent company, rebranded Meta last week, is unlikely to change if its founder remains in charge. Speaking at the Web Summit in Lisbon, the former Facebook employee, who has leaked tens of thousands of internal documents detailing the company’s struggles with user safety and misinformation, also criticised Zuckerberg’s “unconscionable” decision to invest in its metaverse concept instead of focusing on fixing its current problems. Continue reading...

Squid token’s website and social accounts disappear after price jumped more than 310,000% in value and then crashedThe value of a cryptocurrency inspired by the popular Netflix series Squid Game collapsed on Monday less than two weeks after investors could start buying tokens.After jumping more than 310,000% in value as of Sunday night, Squid lost all its value after Twitter flagged the cryptocurrency’s account and temporarily restricted it due to “suspicious activity”. Continue reading...

We document everything obsessively. And implicit in this compulsion is the suspicion that our lives are best understood at a distance – but what do we lose?This summer I bought two in-home security cameras. I told people I got them because my cat was sick, and I required on-demand proof he was still alive. But the truth is, I just wanted to spy on him. There’s something about a cat sitting by itself on a couch, staring into the middle distance in an empty room, that is inherently funny. What are they thinking? When they slink off camera, where are they going?The problem with getting a camera for your pets is that you also inadvertently get a camera for yourself. Years ago, when my ex and I got one for our cat, he once caught me eating Pringles on the couch and sent me a text: “Once you pop.” The camera, in those moments, was a comical imposition, fulfilling its duty of surveillance in precisely the ways we didn’t want. Continue reading...

A startup called Reef wants to un-clog city streets and deliver food to your door via robotA robot the size of a small cooler sits on the sun-soaked fake grass in a segment of parking lot close to Brickell, Miami – the city’s shiny-towered financial district overlooking ​​Biscayne Bay.Nicknamed “Reefy”, the electric-powered autonomous delivery robot wheels smoothly in front of a series of trailers set up to cook food for companies with names that sound as if they were created by algorithm to cater to stoners (MrBeast Burger and Man vs Fries) and another that serves as a storage unit for an online convenience store called Goodees – slogan: “Late Night Cravings Don’t Need Validation.” Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg has revealed a glimpse of Facebook’s plans to built the “metaverse” - a digital world built over our own, comprising virtual reality headsets and augmented reality. The product launch came as the social media giant announced it will change the name of its holding company to Meta, in a rebrand that comes as the company faces a series of public relations crises

The rebrand comes as the company faces a series of public relations crisesThe announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the social media giant will change the name of its holding company to Meta in a virtual-reality rebrand has prompted dismay and bemusement.On Thursday, Zuckerberg said Meta would encompass Facebook as well as apps such as Instagram, WhatsApp and the virtual reality brand Oculus. Continue reading...

Holding company will encompass Facebook as well as its apps, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, and the virtual reality brand OculusFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social media giant will change the name of its holding company to Meta, in a rebrand that comes as the company faces a series of public relations crises.Zuckerberg revealed the new name at Facebook’s annual AR/VR conference on Thursday, where he outlined the company’s virtual-reality vision for the future. Continue reading...

The company, now rebranded Meta, already has a foothold in the digital world. How far will it go to see it succeed?Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday outlined his vision for the future of the social media giant, formalising the company’s focus on the metaverse.In a presentation at the company’s annual Connect conference, Zuckerberg announced the company is rebranding as Meta and detailed how his company aims to build a new version of the internet. Continue reading...

‘Correct masculine response’ to newborn is for men to work harder, says venture capitalistA multimillionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist has refused to apologise for calling men in “important positions” who take six months paternity leave “losers”.Joe Lonsdale, a founder of software giant Palantir Technologies, made the comment on Twitter in response to Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, taking time off to care for his newborn twins. Continue reading...

Scam known as ‘brushing’ is deployed to increase ranking in Amazon search systemMore than 1m British households may have been targeted by a scam in which sellers on Amazon Marketplace send unsolicited packages to addresses in order to artificially increase their sales numbers, according to research.The technique, known as “brushing”, involves sending items that are usually cheap to ship to unsuspecting people and logging them as genuine sales to increase a seller’s sales statistics. The aim is to appear as highly ranked as possible in Amazon’s search system, which prioritises those with high volumes and good reviews. Continue reading...

Brilliant camera and experience puts Pixel on par with Samsung and Apple, while undercutting on priceThe Pixel 6 Pro is Google’s reinvigorated attempt to beat Apple and Samsung’s best smartphones, with powerful new cameras, custom chips and a standout design.The new model is Google’s top phone for 2021 and costs £849 ($899/A$1,299), sitting above the standard Pixel 6 costing £599.Screen: 6.7in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (512ppi)Processor: Google TensorRAM: 12GB of RAMStorage: 128 or 256GBOperating system: Android 12Camera: 50MP + 12MP ultrawide + 48MP 4x telephoto, 11.1MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6E, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 5.2 and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)Dimensions: 163.9 x 75.9 x 8.9mmWeight: 210g Continue reading...

Several agencies are investigating the company’s workings post former employee Frances Haugen’s extensive document leakOn Tuesday, Facebook told its employees to preserve internal documents and communications for legal reasons, as governments and regulators have opened inquiries into its operations amid an onslaught of revelations from whistleblower documents.A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the company sent a legal hold notice to all personnel for documents. “Document preservation requests are part of the process of responding to legal inquiries,” the spokesperson added. Continue reading...

Banning anonymous social media accounts could backfire, says Keith Flett. Plus letters from John Freeman and Paul KomierowskiOwen Jones (Banning anonymous social media accounts would only stifle free speech and democracy, 25 October) is right that the online safety bill requires serious consideration. There are real abuses that need to be tackled, but that must not mean a wider trawl to censor opinion critical of authority and the government.We have been here before, when letters were the means used to deliver threats in the early 19th century. EP Thompson reviewed some of the letters in his essay The Crime of Anonymity and discovered a wide range of issues, from personal threats to industrial grievances. In many cases, the authors were brought to trial and sentenced to transportation or death. Continue reading...

Analysis identifies 83 accounts behind 70% of tweets abusing Duchess and Duke of SussexThe Duchess of Sussex, who has said she avoids social media for “my own self-preservation”, has been the subject of a coordinated hate and misinformation campaign on Twitter, according to a new report.Both she and Prince Harry, who are advocates for healthier social media, have been targeted on the platform, with Meghan receiving about 80% of the abuse, according to the Twitter analytics provider Bot Sentinel. Continue reading...

US firm Amazon Web Services to host classified material for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6, raising sovereignty concernsPriti Patel is under pressure to disclose whether the UK’s most sensitive national security secrets could be at risk after the disclosure that its spy agencies signed a cloud contract with Amazon Web Services (AWS).Labour is demanding that the home secretary explain why GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 will use a high-security system provided by the US-based firm, and whether any risk assessment was undertaken before the deal was signed. Continue reading...

We’ve known that Facebook is lawless and reckless for years. But lawlessness pays – so don’t expect it to changeFacebook is having a rough go of it these days, so you might expect the company to be in trouble. For instance, at one Senate judiciary hearing, the Republican senator John Kennedy of Louisiana let Facebook’s Colin Stretch have it.Kennedy confronted Stretch, the company’s former general counsel, with a report that Facebook can micro-target emotionally vulnerable teens, asking: “Was that reporting wrong?” Stretch responded with a standard Facebook line: “That reporting relied on an internal document that was overstated.” It didn’t satisfy Kennedy. “Your power sometimes scares me,” he said. Another day, another PR black eye for Facebook. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X/S, Nintendo Switch; Eidos Montréal/Square Enix

Researchers use AI – and witchcraft folklore – to map the coronavirus conspiracy theories that have sprung upResearchers have mapped the web of connections underpinning coronavirus conspiracy theories, opening a new way of understanding and challenging them.

The use of our bodies to unlock access to services raises concerns about the trade-off between convenience and privacyIn a school canteen in Gateshead, cameras scan the faces of children, taking payment automatically after identifying them with facial recognition. More than 200 miles away in North London, staff at a care home recently took part in a trial that used facial data to verify their Covid-19 vaccine status. And in convenience stores around the country, staff are alerted to potential shoplifters by a smart CCTV system that taps into a database of individuals deemed suspect.In each case, biometric data has been harnessed to try to save time and money. But the growing use of our bodies to unlock areas of the public and private sphere has raised questions about everything from privacy to data security and racial bias. Continue reading...

Hi-tech Bluetooth glasses come with clear or tinted lenses and range of frames, but cannot be repairedTrue smart glasses may be a way off from being useful, or even wanted, but glasses that double as headphones are getting thinner, lighter and better looking. Now the Austrian firm Fauna wants to beat Bose at its own game.The Fauna audio glasses come in a range of designs with clear and tinted lenses costing from £199 (€199/$199) – shown here in Spiro transparent brown – and unlike some competitors they can be equipped with prescription lenses and fitted to your head by an optician. Continue reading...

Papers reveal struggle to tackle hate speech and reluctance to censor rightwing US news organisationsFacebook has admitted core parts of its platform appear hardwired for spreading misinformation and divisive content, according to a fresh wave of internal documents that showed the social media company struggled to contain hate speech in the developing world and was reluctant to censor rightwing US news organisations.An internal memo warned that Facebook’s “core product mechanics”, or the basics of how the product worked, had let hate speech and misinformation grow on the platform. The memo added that the basic functions of Facebook were “not neutral”. Continue reading...

Roundup of what we have learned after release of papers and whistleblower’s testimony to MPsFacebook has been at the centre of a wave of damaging revelations after a whistleblower released tens of thousands of internal documents and testified about the company’s inner workings to US senators.Frances Haugen left Facebook in May with a cache of memos and research that have exposed the inner workings of the company and the impact its platforms have on users. The first stories based on those documents were published by the Wall Street Journal in September. Continue reading...

My father, John Owen, who has died aged 90, was among the electrical engineers who developed the electron microscope and later became a British and international standards officer.John was born in Liverpool and grew up in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, the son of Ethel (nee Grain), a teacher, and John Owen, a tailor’s cutter and a Co-operative and Labour party councillor. Continue reading...

Ex-employee tells UK MPs Mark Zuckerberg ‘has unilateral control over 3bn people’ due to his positionMark Zuckerberg “has unilateral control over 3 billion people” due to his unassailable position at the top of Facebook, the whistleblower Frances Haugen told MPs as she called for urgent external regulation to rein in the tech company’s management and reduce the harm being done to society.Haugen, a former Facebook employee who released tens of thousands of damaging documents about its inner workings, travelled to London from the US for a parliamentary hearing and gave qualified backing to UK government proposals to regulate social media platforms and make them take some responsibility for content on their sites. Continue reading...

Jeremy Fleming says ransomware is proliferating as it is ‘largely uncontested’ and highly profitableThe head of the UK spy agency GCHQ has disclosed that the number of ransomware attacks on British institutions has doubled in the past year.Jeremy Fleming, the director of GCHQ, said locking files and data on a user’s computer and demanding payment for their release had become increasingly popular among criminals because it was “largely uncontested” and highly profitable. Continue reading...

The rental car company says 20% of its cars will be electric by 2023, with Tesla’s Model 3s available starting next monthHertz, the global rental car company, has ordered 100,000 Tesla vehicles in a deal worth $4.2bn to the leading electric vehicle manufacturer that represents the first effort by the rental giants to electrify their fleets.The Tesla Model 3 sedans will be delivered over the next 14 months, and will be available to rent from Hertz in the US and parts of Europe from next month, the rental company said in a statement. Continue reading...

Threatening online messages to politicians should be taken seriously – but this move is misguidedThe aftermath of the horrific killing of Conservative MP David Amess should have been a moment for politicians and the public to unite in an effort to protect democracy. Instead, the discussion has been derailed by a push to ban anonymous social media accounts, which would stifle free speech and democratic rights.Threatening online messages to politicians and other public figures should be taken seriously. As someone who has experienced online abuse, and a physical attack at the hands of the far right, I know all too well the danger. But, in this tragic event, there seems to be no known connection between the death of Amess and anonymous online posting.Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Envision’s Sunderland plant produces batteries for the Nissan Leaf and other electric vehiclesThe Chinese owner of the UK’s only large-scale battery factory has revealed plans for a big expansion that will put the plant in Sunderland among the biggest electric vehicle facilities in Europe.Envision said annual capacity at the plant would eventually rise to 38 gigawatt hours (GWh), an increase from a previous plan of 11GWh that was announced in July as part of a supply deal for the Japanese carmaker Nissan’s Sunderland plant. Continue reading...

Detective fiction tells a story pieced together by some clever person – and in a video game, that’s youIn one of her best books, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie puts these words into the mouth of her least favourite character, Hercule Poirot: “Understand this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.”All detective stories are an attempt to reflect this. Uncovering the truth through clever reasoning, observation and logic is wondrous. You are forced to look at the world anew: a misplaced chair is no longer just a chair, but indicative of a killer’s escape; a removed lightbulb tells us the killer did not want to be seen. In the eyes of a detective (or a great detective writer), everyday objects are imbued with alien significance. They no longer fit where we think they fit and when we find their proper place, a clear picture emerges. Poirot was a great detective because he obsessed over order and was more sensitive to misplacement. Sherlock Holmes could see tiny stains on a hat and understand the entire life of its wearer. Continue reading...

From Office Space to the Rakes’ 22 Grand Job, Guardian critics suggest culture to cope with the pressure, politics and crushing ennui of earning a livingFashions in workplace design have changed since Office Space. When Mike Judge released his cult comedy of unhappy software programmers in 1999 – two years before Ricky Gervais launched The Office – his characters were still penned up in cubicles. The film flopped, but it would be nice to think that on some subliminal level it hastened the end of that particular era. Of course, what followed – hot-desks and the open-plan – was just as dreadful. But that much was in keeping with what Judge told us all along. A wilful printer can be destroyed. The rest of it? The pass-agg line manager? The presenteeism and paranoia? The hatefully chipper co-worker diagnosing a “case of the Mondays”? All that is eternal. You can’t change the office, Office Space said. You can only leave it. Danny Leigh Continue reading...

Consumers were unable to book deliveries or amend existing orders in outage that started on SaturdayTesco’s website and app are up and running again after a hack, which left thousands of customers unable to shop online at the weekend.The outage, which meant customers were unable to unable to book deliveries or amend existing orders, began on Saturday morning and continued into Sunday. Continue reading...

We were left paying £500 a month to lease the car but couldn’t use it because a part had not arrivedIn May we accidentally backed our Tesla Model 3 into a wall. No other car was involved and it seemingly caused minimal damage. It was travelling at less than 5mph.I was advised to take it to Werren’s Bedford, a Tesla-approved bodyshop recommended by the manufacturer’s Milton Keynes service centre and approved by my car insurer, Admiral. Continue reading...