Technology | The Guardian

More refined flip phone gets better screen on the outside, gapless hinge and faster chipsSamsung's popular folding-screen flip phone gains a bigger, more useful screen on the outside for its fifth generation, while keeping its stylish looks with a sleeker gapless design when shut.The new Z Flip 5 costs 1,049 ($999/A$1,649) - 50 more than last year's model - and comes with twice the starting storage and a collection of small but meaningful upgrades. There is no doubt that folding tech still commands a premium, with prices similar to high-end Androids and iPhones. Continue reading...

Ben Joseph Andrews' chronic vestibular condition leaves him with migraines and dizziness - which he has transformed into a VR experience. Luke Buckmaster gives it a go

Early stage talks are expected to include a potential tool fans could use to make AI-generated songsGoogle and Universal Music are negotiating a deal on how to license the voices and melodies of artists for artificial intelligence-generated songs.The talks are expected to include the potential development of a tool for fans where individuals could make AI-generated songs but the relevant copyright owners would be paid. The artists would have a choice to opt in to the process. Continue reading...

Creative director Hannah Nicklin explains how the narrative adventure game offers a far-reaching new take on storytellingWhat does it mean to play a video game as an ensemble rather than a single character? How would it change your experience of people and plot? What if there was no single hero, or perhaps no heroes at all? As Hannah Nicklin, a creative director at independent studio Die Gute Fabrik explains, these are questions that narrative adventure Saltsea Chronicles is attempting to answer, all while telling its own charming story of misfit sailors voyaging across a flooded archipelago to uncover a conspiracy.It's a lofty pitch, and one Nicklin brings back down to earth with a comparison: Star Trek: The Next Generation without the manifest destiny" - a description that hints at the game's politics and its structure. We take that ensemble cast, and we put you in the centre of a mystery that you are trying to uncover," she says. You're on the ship and often get to choose which islands to visit. You choose who forms the expedition party and what they say when they get there." All this plays out across gorgeously rendered environments, like a classic LucasArts adventure game of the 1990s with the visual the flair of a European arthouse cartoon. Logic puzzles make way for an emphasis on character, world-building, and exploration - the simple pleasures of getting to know a people and place. Continue reading...

The culture, media and sport select committee has warned of risks not just to workers' jobs but also their autonomyRishi Sunak will gather world leaders in London this autumn for a summit on safety in artificial intelligence, after expressing concern about the existential risks" of the rapidly evolving technology.Apparently, even our wannabe tech bro prime minister - currently holidaying in California - is willing to acknowledge the potential need for state intervention to prevent AI going rogue. Continue reading...

The tech company's latest proposal about generative AI turns copyright law on its head, and could especially hurt smaller content creators, say experts

Names and addresses of 40 million registered voters were accessible as far back as 2021 after cyber-attackConfidence in the UK's electoral regulator has been thrown into question after it emerged a hostile cyber-attack accessing the data of 40 million voters went undetected for a year and the public was not told for another 10 months.The Electoral Commission apologised for the security breach in which the names and addresses of all voters registered between 2014 and 2022 were open to hostile actors" as far back as August 2021. Continue reading...

Electoral Commission hack is reminder of importance of protecting democratic system where it countsIt turns out that while Conservative ministers were spending hours of parliamentary time in 2021-22 introducing requirements for voters to produce ID at polling stations - to protect elections against a threat most experts believed was negligible - the Electoral Commission was being hacked by hostile actors".These hackers, who have not been identified and whose motivations are unclear, were able to access the data, such as home addresses, of millions of voters, many of whom choose not to make that information publicly available. Continue reading...

From a sweetshop in Stevenage to good old Marks & Spencer, British businesses are using live events to spice up their online businesses. And the money is pouring in ...Zainab Hakim finds it tiring to go to the shops but thinks she might be addicted to shopping. She's a 23-year-old receptionist from Birmingham, and doesn't visit the high street to buy clothes - she watches sellers livestream on the social media site TikTok, peddling their wares in real time. With a couple of clicks, she can buy things via the app. I probably have an addiction at this point," she says. I just get sucked in."At any time of day, you can scroll through TikTok Live and see someone selling all sorts of things - from clothes to fitness equipment to toys to sweets, cakes, crystals and coffee mugs. One afternoon in 2022, Hakim bought eight items from eight sellers. It's things you don't even need," she says. Recently, she bought a kitchen gadget that spiralises potatoes, simply because it looked cool". She especially likes buying clothes because, You can ask them to show you the material and they'll bring it up close to the camera so you get an idea of what you're buying." Continue reading...

Inspired by folding up a piece of paper, Henry and Fred Hoffman explain their new game's spatial manipulation mechanic - even the British Origami Society likes itMany ideas start on paper, few go on to be made of it. Yet, when brothers Henry and Fred Hoffman, the duo behind Norwich-based Newfangled Games, sketched their level ideas for a new platformer and then began manipulating the A4 sheet in their hands, Paper Trail was born.The top-down puzzle adventure employs a spatial manipulation mechanic, allowing you to fold its planes and merge its sides to solve puzzles. You play as Paige (get it?), a budding academic leaving home for the first time to pursue her studies, spurred on by this unique ability. Continue reading...

In social media quibble, Musk causes confusion by saying he will livestream fight - and one day later saying he has back problemsMark Zuckerberg has said he is not holding his breath" over a proposed cage fight with Elon Musk, as he revealed that he had suggested a date of 26 August for the contest.The Facebook co-founder posted on the Threads app that he was ready today" for a bout but that he had not received confirmation from the Tesla chief executive and world's richest man. Continue reading...

Elaine Bennett believes the increasing use of technology is only serving to further isolate some people in a neurotypical worldI disagree with your correspondent (Letters, 3 August) that a ban on mobile phones in schools will impact pupils with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) negatively. People with ASD are already at risk of being pushed away from contact with other people and offered technology as an answer to every need.I have ASD and I'm increasingly finding that the answers to any difficulties I have are all technological ones, often involving a smartphone that I don't have. Having ASD does not equate to preferring to not speak to other humans. I feel that technology is being used as another way to silo people out of a neurotypical world. Continue reading...

People scoffed at the idea of electric vehicles for the masses. But now a Tesla hatchback has outsold the Toyota CorollaAn intriguing news item dropped into my inbox this week. It said that in the first quarter of this year, an electric vehicle (EV) had become the biggest-selling car in the world, outselling the Toyota Corolla. I know, I know, dear reader: you think this is non-news of the Small earthquake in Chile, not many dead" variety. But to those of us condemned to follow the tech industry, three things are significant about it: the vanquished car was a Corolla, the EV was a Tesla (the Model Y hatchback), and the runner-up is made by Toyota.The poor Corolla gets a lot of disdainful looks from petrolheads, who tell rude jokes about it and view the vehicle as bland, unimaginative and boring. Normal people, however, have consistently regarded it as one of the best compact cars available, with good fuel economy, impressive reliability and excellent luggage capacity. And they have backed that judgment with their wallets for many years. So on the sales front, the Corolla was no pushover. Continue reading...

From travel planners and money management to outdoor adventure and nature-spotting, here's how to get your smartphone ready for actionWhile July may have been a little grey, we're still in for some warm days this summer. There are trips to take and barbecues to attend, and no matter who's joining us on these outings, our smartphones surely will. So here are some apps to help you make the best of the season.Whether you're trying to find your tent in a sea of identical blue and green at a festival (as I did at Glastonbury) or trying to figure out the best time to run to the loo during a Barbenheimer marathon, these apps might be lifesavers. Continue reading...

The Reuters cameraman embraced the opportunity to capture life with his family in Sicily, where he grew upWith two decades' experience as a Reuters cameraman and visual journalist, Antonio Denti says he found the transition to using his phone as a camera jarring. I was brought up in the analogue days and was quite hostile to the idea. I've been in St Peter's Square twice when the white smoke announced the election of a new pope. I covered the 2004 tsunami, conflict in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Gaza. It was my job to report to those back home who could not see for themselves. Now phones can do that, and often they are held by people in the right place, at a more powerful time, long before I get there."Over time, however, he embraced this new opportunity to capture life, particularly with his family. He took this photo when visiting his parents, who live in Sicily. It is a very special stretch of coast because Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, hovers over it like a spirit. The coast is stark and black, made of sharp rocks in tormented shapes. In the second world war, Germans used this area as a military outpost, but for me it's where I grew up, where I learned to both love and fear the sea." Continue reading...

Retaliatory move against Online News Act is epic miscalculation' that will promote spread of misinformation, analysts saySocial media giant Meta's ban on news access on its platforms in Canada is an epic miscalculation" that could damage journalism and promote the spread of misinformation and fake news, experts are warning.The company announced the move on Tuesday, saying they had begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada. Continue reading...

Action by regulator follows 12.7m fine by UK for illegally processing data of 1.4m children under 13TikTok is to be fined potentially millions of pounds for breaching children's privacy after a ruling by EU data protection regulator.The European Data Protection Board said it had reached a binding decision on the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform over its processing of children's data. Continue reading...

CEO Tim Cook says increased R&D spending is in part driven by work on generative artificial intelligenceApple boss Tim Cook announced the company was investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) on Thursday as the company announced its third consecutive quarter of declining revenues, the company's most prolonged sales slump since 2016.Apple's sales for the fiscal third quarter ending 1 July fell 1.4% to $81.8bn. Over the quarter the company made a profit of $19.9bn, higher than analysts had expected.Reuters contributed to this story Continue reading...

Anything seems possible in this massive RPG, but the trick isn't magic technology, say developers at Larian StudiosA scripter was convinced that it would make the scene complete if you could be turned into a wheel of cheese," Larian Studios' lead systems designer Nick Pechenin tells me. The main story of Baldur's Gate 3 is about an invasion of tentacle-mouthed creatures that wouldn't look out of place in one of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu horror stories, so a sidequest where a disgruntled wizard transforms you into cheese may seem out of place. But moments like this encapsulate why Larian is the game developer that comes closest to capturing the anarchic freedom of real-world sessions of Dungeons & Dragons.More than 20 years ago, before Mass Effect and Dragon Age, before even Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, much-loved developer BioWare made its name with Baldur's Gate and its sequel. When the original games came out, they were the bleeding edge of what was possible technologically, visually, and story-wise," says Pechenin. BioWare was trying to release a game that was as beautiful and as technologically powerful as could be humanly achieved at that stage; that's what we are trying to do." Continue reading...

Pandawara formed in 2022 after flooding caused by rivers clogged with rubbish damaged their homes - now they are national celebritiesThey started as flood victims, now they are touted as local heroes for cleaning up the rivers and beaches of Indonesia's third largest city Bandung in West Java, amassing over 9 million followers on TikTok and Instagram in the process and influencing others across the country to join the fight against pollution.The Pandawara group is five men in their early twenties and was formed in 2022 after flooding caused by rivers clogged with rubbish damaged their homes. They take their name from the five Pandava princes of Indian folklore and the word wara, which translates to the five bearers of good news. Continue reading...

YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson claims his reputation irreparably harmed' as customers complain of revolting' MrBeast burgersThe YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, more widely known as MrBeast, is suing the company behind his fast food chain MrBeast Burger for making inedible" food.The lawsuit, filed on Monday, claims the company has irreparably harmed" his reputation. He has asked a judge to give him the right to terminate the arrangement, claiming the company is serving low-quality products. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: the D&D-inspired RPG is an almost bottomless sandbox, and represents a new frontier for the genre Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThis week brings a preposterously generous gift for lovers of timesink role-playing games: Larian Studios's Baldur's Gate 3. Depending on your level of engagement with Dungeon and Dragons-inspired RPGs, you will know it either as the unlikely and long-awaited follow-up to 2000's Baldur's Gate 2 - one of the great computer RPGs of its era - or as the game where you can have sex with a bear.Look, technically it's not a bear - it's a shapeshifting druid in bear form. But still, the scene inevitably went viral when Larian showed it off during a livestream last month. It is the tip of the iceberg: you can romance pretty much any available character in this role-playing game, or several of them at once. You can try to steal almost anything, or throw it at an enemy as a makeshift weapon. You can be good, or creatively, grotesquely evil. It is indicative of Larian's approach to the genre, which is that if the player can imagine it and it can be determined by a dice roll, you should be able to do it. The studio wants to capture some of the unpredictable, anarchic spirit that players of real-life D&D adore about their hobby. Continue reading...

From the Gutenberg press to the word processor, a detailed trawl through the history of print offers lessons for the digital ageThe Gutenberg Parenthesis is a term coined by Danish scholar Lars Ole Sauerberg, who proposed that the history of literary culture as we had hitherto known it - the 500-plus years from the invention of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press in the mid-15th century until around the turn of the millennium - would come to be regarded as a mere blip. Digital technology would transform our cultural institutions by undermining their core foundation: the intellectual property and moral authority bound up in individual authorship. The future of knowledge production would be collective and collaborative - entailing, in essence, a return to the oral tradition of the world before print.In The Gutenberg Parenthesis, US journalist Jeff Jarvis considers this thesis and its possible implications. He is anxious that we should retain what was good and useful about analog-era gatekeeping structures, which played an important role in recommending quality, certifying fact, supporting creativity. What must we create to replace these functions?" Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don'ts of photographing the moon

Move comes in response to Canadian legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishersMeta has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada, the company said on Tuesday.The move comes in response to legislation in the country requiring internet giants to pay news publishers. Continue reading...

Rafaela Vasquez pleads guilty to endangerment in the first deadly crash involving a fully autonomous carThe backup Uber driver for a self-driving vehicle that killed a pedestrian in suburban Phoenix in 2018 pleaded guilty on Friday to endangerment in the first deadly crash involving a fully autonomous car.Arizona state judge David Garbarino, who accepted the plea agreement, sentenced Rafaela Vasquez to three years of supervised probation for the crash that killed 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg. Vasquez, 49, told police that Herzberg came out of nowhere" and that she didn't see Herzberg before hitting her on a darkened Tempe street on 18 March 2018. Continue reading...

GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 propose weakening safeguards that limit training of AI models with bulk personal datasetsThe UK intelligence agencies are lobbying the government to weaken surveillance laws they argue place a burdensome" limit on their ability to train artificial intelligence models with large amounts of personal data.The proposals would make it easier for GCHQ, MI6 and MI5 to use certain types of data, by relaxing safeguards designed to protect people's privacy and prevent the misuse of sensitive information. Continue reading...

Service between Stromness and the islands of Hoy and Graemsay is Royal Mail's first permanent drone delivery serviceRoyal Mail has begun using drones to deliver post in Orkney, helping pave the way for drone deliveries to islands around the UK and on the mainland during emergencies.The service between the village of Stromness on Orkney's main island and the nearby islands of Hoy and Graemsay, using aircraft able to carry up to 6kg, is Royal Mail's first permanent drone delivery service. Continue reading...

Senate committee examining foreign interference on social media says it is concerned' with unique national security risks' the companies pose

The city building department had logged 24 complaints after the new logo went up, with neighbors upset over its intrusive lightsIt is gone. A giant, glowing X no longer marks the spot on the San Francisco high-rise that is headquarters to Elon Musk's company X, formerly known as Twitter.The city building department logged 24 complaints after a weekend of the big X, which on Friday was erected on the roof of the company's downtown San Francisco headquarters, on Market Street, to the chagrin of neighbors who complained about intrusive lights. Continue reading...

Jon Lewis, the chief executive, is to step down as troubled outsourcing firm reels from March cyber-attack

Competition and Markets Authority gives tech giant hope after it blocked acquisition of Call of Duty makerThe UK competition watchdog has said it will decide whether to clear or block Microsoft's $69bn (54bn) takeover of the video game developer Activision Blizzard by 29 August, as it gave fresh hope for the transaction by opening a new consultation on it.The Competition and Markets Authority, which had originally said in April it would block the deal to take over the owner of hit titles such as Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush, is seeking public contributions on whether it should clear it after a new submission from Microsoft. Continue reading...

Design director Marten Bruggemann explains why he set out to make a sci-fi game that's as much about cultivation as combatVideo game action-platformers might have had their golden age in the 1980s and 90s with Metroid and Contra, but the genre's modern resurgence has given us exceptional games such as Dead Cells and Hollow Knight, showing that bone-crunching combat and pin-point platforming still work beautifully together. But how do you breathe new life into this familiar video game form? In the case of Ultros, you complement the usual thrills and spills, with a spot of gardening - an opportunity to slow down and smell the roses.Game design director Marten Bruggemann says the gardening isn't just about growing resources (although that's a useful outcome of getting your hands dirty), but deepening your relationship with the game's teeming, nature-filled world. You can plant as much as you want, evolving the plants and shaping them in different ways to make hybrids," he says. We want to give life to an ecosystem."Ultros is out in 2024 on PlayStation 4 and 5. Continue reading...

From dealing with flight delays and preventing the children fighting, to claiming 15 minutes for yourself, we have recommendations for every summer holiday scenarioThe summer holidays are upon us, as are the immense tasks of navigating long trips, airports and keeping children amused for what feels like 400 days with no school. Video games can be a godsend for parents at this time, but there is a delicate balance to be struck: for kids, you want something entertaining enough to keep them out of your hair for a while, but not so addictive that you lose them completely for weeks on end. For adults, you need something you can play in the brief snatches of time when you're not making someone a snack.We're here to help. These are the best video games to keep everyone happy during the summer holidays, for every kind of scenario and gamer. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don'ts of photographing the moon

New logo for Elon Musk's social network strobes over San Francisco neighbourhood, prompting complaints and mobilising building inspectorsA giant glowing X marks the San Francisco spot where Elon Musk says he plans to keep his company, the messaging platform formerly known as Twitter. But city officials and some residents are unhappy with the display.On Friday, the company erected an X logo on the roof of its Market Street headquarters, to the chagrin of neighbours who complained about intrusive lights, and San Francisco's building inspection department, which said it would start an investigation. Continue reading...

We live in worrying times. From the climate crisis to the culture wars, there is always something to keep us fretting. But sometimes the facts tell a different story - a more hopeful one. Here, we speak to experts in search of some optimism and find 13 reasons to be a little more cheerfulKriti Sharma is a chief product officer for legal technology at Thomson Reuters and the founder of AI for Good Continue reading...

Ruxley Manor in south-east London is among the increasing numbers of retailers installing biometric security technologyAt 11.12am last Tuesday, a woman in her 70s sauntered through the main entrance of the Ruxley Manor garden centre in Sidcup, south-east London. Upstairs in its offices, the phone of director James Evans pinged.Facial recognition cameras had identified the pensioner as a potential criminal. Two weeks earlier, she had been caught stealing 15 worth of toys for her granddaughter and her image uploaded on to a private watchlist of known shoplifters. Continue reading...

The country's manufacturers are starting to dominate not just sales charts, but also supply chains for crucial materialsIf you bought an electric vehicle in the UK this year, there's a good chance it was an MG4. The fully electric hatchback, which launched in 2022, sold 5,200 units in the first three months of this year, the second-best selling EV behind Tesla's Model Y.With prices starting at about 27,000, it is also substantially cheaper than the Tesla at 45,000. And while MG is one of Britain's most famous car brands - with a century of carmaking in Birmingham until MG Rover's 2005 collapse - the secret to its newfound success comes from China. Since 2007, the company has been owned, and the cars made, by SAIC, China's largest carmaker. Continue reading...

When staff in Coventry downed tools, they kickstarted a David v Goliath battle against one of the most powerful companies on Earth. This is what happened nextIt takes a lot to frighten Zee. The 35-year-old father of two rarely gets flustered: not when he first set out on the 4,000-mile journey from his family home in Pakistan to the UK more than a decade ago; not during the years he spent struggling for survival on the fringes of Britain's formal economy; not when the Home Office threatened to deport him, plunging his young family into uncertainty. But the cold, foggy, final hours of 24 January this year - they felt different. My heart was pounding," Zee remembers. My mind was scared."That was the night Zee and his colleagues at Amazon's BHX4 warehouse in Coventry decided to make history, abandoning their workstations and launching an unprecedented stoppage to demand higher wages. They had walked out before, in a spontaneous, ad hoc protest. But this was different: a carefully planned and legal effort, the likes of which Amazon UK had never faced. Standing in their way at the exit gates was a line of senior managers who had the power to make or break each worker's future, staring down anyone who might dare to pass. As midnight struck, I kept catching other people's eyes: do we go, or do we stay?" Zee recalls. We didn't know what would happen if we crossed that threshold. But we did know that somebody, somewhere had to be the first to try." Continue reading...

Study of Facebook and Instagram data from 2020 election shows chronological lists had no measurable impact on polarizationThe powerful algorithms used by Facebook and Instagram have increasingly been blamed for amplifying misinformation and political polarization. But a series of groundbreaking studies published on Thursday suggest addressing these challenges will require more than just tweaking the platforms' software.The four research papers, published in Science and Nature also reveal the extent of political echo chambers on Facebook, where conservatives and liberals rely on divergent sources of information, interact with opposing groups and consume distinctly different amounts of misinformation. Continue reading...

European Commission says bundling of app with other products may be anticompetitiveIt became one of the hits of remote working during the pandemic, but now the EU has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's bundling of its Teams video and chat app with some of its other products.The European Commission said the decision to bundle Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 packages may constitute anticompetitive behaviour. It is the EU's first antitrust investigation into Microsoft in more than a decade. Continue reading...

Creative director Alex Dracott explains why he decided to make a driving game with a supernatural twistThe rain was pouring as game director Alex Dracott drove through the wilderness of the Pacific north-west. There wasn't anyone in the car with him, but nonetheless, Dracott didn't feel alone in his trusty station wagon - a dependable, durable vehicle he'd been driving ever since he was a teenager. As the game maker was bludgeoned by the elements, he describes feeling a camaraderie with the car", sheltered by its windshield and the metal of its body.This experience inspired Pacific Drive, the game Dracott has been making for the past three years with his team at Ironwood Studios in Seattle, capital of the famously verdant region. He describes it as a run-based driving survival game," played in first-person. You must make it out of an exclusion zone using nothing but your smarts and your beat-up vehicle. There are conspiracies to untangle, anomalies to avoid, supplies to gather and repairs to be made - if you make it back to your garage after each hair-raising excursion.Pacific Drive will be out on PC and PlayStation 5 in late 2023. Continue reading...

She's tasked with saving the company now called X, but Musk might be loth to hand over the reins of his $44bn vanity appThe rebrand of Twitter to X.com this week has been widely considered as among the most consequential steps in Elon Musk's endeavor to reshape the social media company. It is also being seen as a deciding moment for the company's recently appointed chief executive officer, Linda Yaccarino.Yaccarino, a longtime advertising executive, took the helm of Twitter in May. Her appointment came after months of controversial decisions from Musk, who bought Twitter for $44bn in October 2022 and proceeded quickly to lay off the majority of its staff and alienate advertisers with new policies. Faced with growing criticism over his erratic decision-making, Musk promised to bring in a new CEO - a position he himself described as a painful" job that anyone would be foolish" to take on. Continue reading...

In 2009, two bookshops a week were closing in the UK and the days of physical books seemed numbered. Now, indie stores are booming. What explains the turnaround - and can it be sustained?When Sarah Mullen was asked to set up a children's book festival in a leafy suburb of Birmingham in 2012, she couldn't find an independent bookseller to run the bookstall. So we all rolled up our sleeves and did it ourselves," she says. Pregnant with her third child, she had recently given up her job as a solicitor to work for the Bournville Village Trust. Mullen's task was to set up the Bournville BookFest, which ran for 10 years before being brought to a halt by the Covid pandemic. But far from accepting defeat, she rolled up her sleeves once again and pivoted the whole thing into a bookshop". Two years on, the Bookshop on the Green is thriving - a living rebuttal to the once widely held idea that the digital era meant certain death for the neighbourhood bookstore.When I visit early on a Friday morning, a turquoise vintage Smith Corona typewriter holds centre stage in the Bookshop on the Green. Beside it stands Bradley Taylor, a poet whose job is to write poems on demand for anyone who asks. He has composed a lot of Batman and football poems for the children who pile in on Saturdays, he says, before sitting down to tap one out for me about the joy of bookshops. In the multitasking tradition of small retailers, Taylor also works in the shop. He made his cosplay debut last month as the Gruffalo, in a sold-out storytelling session on the village green, as part of a week celebrating Birmingham's independent bookshops. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch; Dlala Studios/Disney Interactive

Revenue grew to $32bn, marking company's most profitable quarter since 2021, as news sends stocks surging by 7%Meta stock rallied as the company reported an 11% rise in revenue on Wednesday, beating Wall Street expectations.Revenue grew to $32bn in the quarter ending in June, compared with analysts' average estimate of $31.12bn, marking Meta's most profitable quarter since 2021 due in part to a massive growth in revenue from the company's short-form video product, Reels. The news sent stocks surging by 7% in after-market trading. Continue reading...

Tech companies say Frontier Model Forum will focus on safe and responsible' creation of new modelsFour of the most influential companies in artificial intelligence have announced the formation of an industry body to oversee safe development of the most advanced models.The Frontier Model Forum has been formed by the ChatGPT developer OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft and Google, the owner of the UK-based DeepMind. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: It's an act of subversion to design a game that tries to get you to think about death, but titles that embrace it can be wonderfully freeing Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThere's a line in Gabrielle Zevin's brilliant novel Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, a multilayered love story about game designers, that shows remarkable understanding of video games and what they do for us. What, after all, is a video game's subtextual preoccupation if not the erasure of mortality?"It's a connection that Zevin draws several times in her fabulous book, the contrast between the endlessly replayable, replaceable lives of video games and our own real, distressingly fragile mortal lives. Continue reading...

Major UN report issues warning over excessive use, with one in six countries already banning the devices