Information Commissioner's Office takes action as people report feeling powerless over data gathering at homeMakers of air fryers, smart speakers, fertility trackers and smart TVs have been told to respect people's rights to privacy by the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).People have reported feeling powerless to control how data is gathered, used and shared in their own homes and on their bodies. Continue reading...
Research reveals 13% of residents regularly invest in cryptocurrency and check stocks, more than all other citiesThe city's most famous sons may have sung that money can't buy you love, but that was before bitcoin existed.Liverpool has emerged as the crypto capital of the UK, according to a study looking at the online habits of people across the country. Continue reading...
Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper message?In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times - even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study's authors concluded that people prefer doing to thinking", even if the only thing available to do is painful - perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.Since the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around with the psychological equivalent of a shock button in their pocket: a device that can neutralise boredom in an instant, even if it's not all that good for us. We often reach for our phones for something to do during moments of quiet or solitude, or to distract us late at night when anxious thoughts creep in. This isn't always a bad thing - too much rumination is unhealthy - but it's worth reflecting on the fact that avoiding unwanted mind-wandering is easier than it's ever been, and that most people distract themselves in very similar, screen-based ways. Continue reading...
by Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent on (#6Y05W)
Devastating attacks at M&S, the Co-op and Harrods highlight risks as lenders say cybersecurity is biggest expenseIt is every bank boss's worst nightmare: a panicked phone call informs them a cyber-attack has crippled the IT system, rapidly unleashing chaos across the entire UK financial industry.As household names in other industries, including Marks & Spencer, grapple with the fallout from such hacks, banking executives will be acutely aware that, for them, the stakes are even higher. Continue reading...
Guardian investigation finds almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating - and experts says these are tip of the icebergThousands of university students in the UK have been caught misusing ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools in recent years, while traditional forms of plagiarism show a marked decline, a Guardian investigation can reveal.A survey of academic integrity violations found almost 7,000 proven cases of cheating using AI tools in 2023-24, equivalent to 5.1 for every 1,000 students. That was up from 1.6 cases per 1,000 in 2022-23. Continue reading...
Fraudsters offer great pay for liking and sharing TikTok content - but then demand a fee to unlock higher earningsOut of the blue you receive a call or a text offering you a job. It sounds great - it's remote working and you could earn up to 800 a day. If you're interested, you just need to contact the sender via the WhatsApp number provided.The job is pretty easy: you are asked to like and share content - usually on TikTok. Continue reading...
We asked a chatbot some common finance questions - and then ran its responses past human expertsArtificial intelligence seems to have touched every part of our lives. But can it help us manage our money? We put some common personal finance questions to the free version of ChatGPT, one of the most well-known AI chatbots, and asked forits help.Then we gave the answers to some - human - experts and asked them what they thought. Continue reading...
Peter Kyle calls on employees and businesses to act now to get to grips with technology amid forecasts of job lossesWorkers in the UK should turn their trepidation over AI into exhilaration" by giving it a try or they risk being left behind by those who have, the technology secretary has said.Peter Kyle called on employees and businesses to act now" on getting to grips with the tech, with the generational gap in usage needing only two and a half hours of training to bridge. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: Happy 20th birthday to the forum that reshaped fandom and is one of the internet's most eccentric collaborative spacesIt only ended a few years ago, but Westworld already feels a bit of a TV footnote. A pricey mid-2010s remake of a 70s Yul Brynner movie few people remembered, HBO's robot cowboy drama lumbered on for four lukewarm seasons before getting cancelled - with few people really noticing.Still, when it premiered, Westworld was big news. Here was a show well-placed to do a Game of Thrones, only for sci-fi. Its high production values were married to an eye-catching cast (Evan Rachel Wood, Ed Harris, Thandiwe Newton, Jeffrey Wright) and it was run by the crack team of Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, who promised they had a playbook for how the whole show would shake out. This, of course, was an important promise in that immediate post-Lost period, where everyone was terrified that they would be strung along by a show that was making it up as they went along" (as a Lost defender, I have to say at this point that they weren't making it up as they went along", but that's an argument for another newsletter). Continue reading...
The sloppy sartorial style of political insiders, from Musk to Dominic Cummings, reveals who has the privilege to be scruffy - but it may also signal their undoingIn case you missed it, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have fallen out.For some - and in particular anyone looking at the tech billionaire's White House wardrobe - this will come as little surprise. Long before anyone hit send on those inflammatory tweets, or tensions spilled out over Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB), Musk's political downfall was written in the stitching. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington and Angela G on (#6XY8Y)
Citizen Lab says it found digital fingerprints' of military-grade spyware that Italy has admitted using against activistsThe hacking mystery roiling the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni's rightwing government is deepening after researchers said they had found new evidence that two more journalists were targeted using the same military-grade spyware that Italy has admitted to using against activists.A parliamentary committee overseeing intelligence confirmed earlier this month that Italy had used mercenary spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions against two Italian activists. Continue reading...
We would like to hear about the best new game you have played this year so far and whyThe Guardian's writers have compiled their favourite new games of the year so far - and we'd like to hear about yours, too.Have you come across a new release that you can't stop playing? Or one you'd recommend? Tell us your nomination and why you like it below. Continue reading...
Studios accuse AI firm of piracy' and seek injunction over alleged use of copyrighted charactersDisney and Universal sued an artificial intelligence company on Wednesday, alleging copyright infringement. In their lawsuit, the entertainment giants called Midjourney's popular AI-powered image generator a bottomless pit of plagiarism" for its alleged reproductions of the studios' best-known characters.The suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims Midjourney pirated the libraries of the two Hollywood studios, making and distributing without permission innumerable" copies of their marquee characters such as Darth Vader from Star Wars, Elsa from Frozen, and the Minions from Despicable Me. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading...
Tesla share price rises as former Doge head seems to retreat from feud and president welcomes apparent apologyElon Musk has expressed contrition for some of his tweets about Donald Trump last week, in an apparent effort to retreat from an explosive falling out that has threatened to damage the Tesla boss's business interests.Musk was by far the biggest donor to Trump's presidential campaign, but tensions between the two erupted into public view last week and rapidly escalated, as the world's richest man called for the president's impeachment and mocked his connections to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in a series of posts. Continue reading...
A gruesome monster munching through a luckless body was just one of the horrors I shuddered at in a brief snippet of the forthcoming Resident Evil 9. Be afraid - and excitedA surprise announcement at the end of the 6 June Summer Game Fest presentation revealed the ninth entry in the iconic Capcom survival horror series: Resident Evil Requiem, coming early next year.Diehard fans of the series (which has spawned films, television shows and more) immediately began picking apart the trailer, which highlights protagonist Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, featured in 2003's Resident Evil Outbreak. Requiem appears to be set in Racoon City, the fictional location in the franchise that was famously nuked to try and stop the spread of the zombifying T-Virus.Resident Evil Requiem is out on 27 February 2026 on Xbox, PlayStation 5, and PC. Continue reading...
Mark Zuckerberg expected to announce Meta will buy 49% stake in Scale AI as race to dominate AI market speeds upMeta is to announce a $15bn (11bn) bid to achieve computerised superintelligence", according to multiple reports.The Silicon Valley race to dominate artificial intelligence is speeding up despite the patchy performance of many existing AI systems. Continue reading...
This year's event showcased gaming's evolving landscape, from blockbuster titles to standout indie projects Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAs protests exploded in Los Angeles last weekend, elsewhere in the city, a coterie of games journalists and developers were gathered together to play new games at the industry's annual summer showcase. This week's issue is a dispatch from our correspondent Alyssa Mercante.Summer Game Fest (SGF), the annual Los Angeles-based gaming festival/marketing marathon, was set up to compete with the once-massive E3. It's taken a few years, but now it has replaced it. 2025's event felt like a cogent reminder that the games industry has dramatically changed since the pandemic. Whereas E3 used to commandeer the city's convention centre smack in the middle of downtown LA, SGF is off the beaten path, nestled among the reams of fabric in the Fashion District, adjacent to Skid Row. There are fewer game companies present, it's not open to the public and there's no cosplay, unless it's for marketing purposes. Continue reading...
There's a lot to take in at the yearly live video event: from Paralives to Felt That: Boxing, Dosa Divas to Resident Evil Requiem, here are our favouritesThe ninth mainstream instalment in the survival horror series returns us to the wreckage of Racoon City and promises a blend of cinematic action and psychological horror. FBI agent Grace Ashcroft appears to be the main character, but is anything in this series ever what it seems? Continue reading...
Davina Schonle prevented from entering event with eight-month-old and had to cancel meetings for tech startupAn entrepreneur has told how she was left feeling humiliated" after being turned away from London Tech Week, an annual corporate event, because she was with her baby daughter.Davina Schonle was prevented from entering the event on Monday after travelling for three hours with her eight-month-old and had to cancel meetings with potential suppliers to her tech startup. Continue reading...
Women's personal information at risk of being harvested by private firms running their own versions, report warnsPublic health bodies should launch alternatives to commercial period tracker apps, experts have said, as a report warns women's personal data is at risk of being harvested by private companies.Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a goldmine" for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, according to the research by the University of Cambridge. Continue reading...
Ofcom looks into whether 4chan and file-sharing services failed to put measures to protect users from illegal contentBritain's media regulator, Ofcom, on Tuesday launched nine investigations into the internet message board 4chan as well as several file-sharing services over possible breaches of online safety laws.Britain's Online Safety Act, passed in 2023, sets tougher standards for platforms to tackle criminal activity, with an emphasis on child protection and illegal content. Continue reading...
Peter Kyle, who is dyslexic and uses AI in his work, says government should look at how it can transform education'Artificial intelligence should be deployed to level up" opportunities for dyslexic children, according to the UK science and technology secretary, Peter Kyle, who warned there was currently not enough human capacity to help people with the learning difficulty.Kyle, who is dyslexic and uses AI to support his work, said the government should carefully look at how AI can transform education and help us assess and understand a young person's abilities into the future". Continue reading...
by Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent on (#6XWMG)
Partnership with Wayve will use cars without a human safety driver onboard for the first time in EuropeTech firms have transformed how the public takes taxis, but echoes remain from the minicab controllers of old: not least the promise that a long-awaited vehicle is - really, this time - just around the corner.Now Uber has announced that self-driving taxis will appear on roads in London next year, after the UK government confirmed that trials of fully autonomous vehicles would be brought forward to spring 2026. Continue reading...
Four days into a public feud between the world's most powerful person and the world's richest person, I declare Musk the loserElon Musk and Donald Trump are no longer friends. Tension between the two exploded into public view in the middle of last week, with each leveling sharp barbs at the other. Four days into the public feud between the world's most powerful person and the world's richest person, though, I declare Musk the loser. An unstoppable force has lost its battle with an immovable object.From my colleagues Hugo Lowell and Andrew Roth: On Thursday, Elon Musk called for Donald Trump's impeachment and mocked his connections to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as the US president threatened to cancel federal contracts and tax subsidies for Musk's companies, in an extraordinary social media feud that erupted between the former allies. The direct shots at Trump were the latest twist in the public showdown over a Republican spending bill that Musk had criticized. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6XWEW)
There's no need to buy new - unless your model's ready for retirement. Our technology expert compares the top Apple smartwatches available right nowThe best Apple Watch may be the one already on your wrist.Each generation of Apple's smartwatch is fairly iterative, with most of the best features added via software updates, which means there's no need to buy a new device each year. That said, if your watch has seen better days, or it's stopped receiving updates, then your best options are set out below.Best Apple Watch for most people:
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6XW9S)
Special featherweight, titanium edition of top Android has large screen but sacrifices battery and camera for designHaving been instrumental in the reduction of smartphones to metal and glass slabs devoid of distinguishing features, Samsung hopes that going thinner and lighter with a special Edge edition of its high-end Galaxy S25 Android will prove design innovation isn't dead.The S25 Edge is very thin at just 5.8mm thick - if you ignore the camera bump on the back - making it a full 1.5mm thinner than its similarly sized S25+ sibling and about the same thickness as a stack of seven credit cards. Its light 168g weight makes it feel even thinner than the numbers suggest and photos don't do it justice. Continue reading...
As big companies become victims, here's what you can do, from changing passwords to using two-step authenticationAlmost every week seems to bring news of a cyber-attack on a company, or organisation, and fears over what personal data the hackers have managed to get hold of. Continue reading...
It's not the new generation of handheld gaming some might have been hoping for, but this is a highly refined version of the original consoleThere was a time when the designers of the Switch 2 were considering calling their new machine the Super Nintendo Switch. They decided against it, however, because it would be able to play original Switch games - and 1990's Super NES had no backwards compatibility with 1983's NES. After playing with it for the weekend, I'd say a more accurate name would be the Switch Pro: effectively a modernised and highly refined version of the original console, rather than a whole new generation.The larger screen and more powerful processor are the most obvious upgrades, but every facet of the console is higher spec. The larger Joy-Cons feel more robust and are easier to use - the way they magnetically clip on to the console is very pleasing. The user interface is a graceful if slightly boring iteration of the Switch's, enhanced with subtle haptic feedback and delightfully subtle bleeps and blips. Continue reading...
Graphic sexual content, bullying, abuse and threats of violence are rife in the metaverse - and the NSPCC says a huge proportion of online grooming offences take place on Meta-owned products. Is it too late to change course?Everybody knows that young women are not safe. They are not safe in the street, where 86% of those aged 18 to 24 have experienced sexual harassment. They are not safe at school, where 79% of young people told Ofsted that sexual assault was common in their friendship groupsand almost a third of 16- to 18-year-old girls report experiencing unwanted sexual touching". Theyare not safe in swimming poolsor parks, or at the beach. They arenot even safe online, with the children's safety charity the NSPCC reporting that social media sites arefailing to protect girls from harm at every stage".This will come as no surprise to any woman who has ever used social media. But it is particularly relevantas Meta, the operator of some of the biggest social platformson the internet, is busily engaged in constructing a whole new world. The company is pumping billions of dollars a year into building its metaverse, a virtual world that it hopes will become the future not just of socialising, but of education, business, shopping and live events. This raises a simple question: if Meta has utterly failed to keep women and girls safe in its existing online spaces, why should we trust it with the future? Continue reading...
AI announcements at WWDC limited to incremental features and upgrades despite pressure to competeApple's artificial intelligence features took a backseat on Monday at its latest annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The company announced a revamped software design called Liquid Glass, new phone and camera apps as well as new features on Apple Watch and Vision Pro. But in spite of pressure to compete with firms that have gone all-in on AI, Apple's AI announcements were limited to incremental features and upgrades.Users will have a few new Apple Intelligence-powered features to look forward to including live translation, a real-time language translation feature that will be integrated into messages, FaceTime and the Phone app. The Android operating system has offered a similar feature for several years. Apple also introduced a new fitness app called Workout Buddy, which uses an AI-generated voice to speak to you during your workouts. Continue reading...
Foxes have begun to dig burrows' in soil of rooftop garden at the as yet unopened King's Cross headquartersIt is intended to be an ultra-modern central London office that will serve Google for decades, but the new 1bn headquarters is beset by one of humanity's oldest-known menaces: foxes.The vulpines have taken over the rooftop garden of the new landscraper" in King's Cross and had an impact on construction - although the company stressed it was minimal". Continue reading...
Pretty devastating' Apple paper raises doubts about race to reach stage of AI at which it matches human intelligenceApple researchers have found fundamental limitations" in cutting-edge artificial intelligence models, in a paper raising doubts about the technology industry's race to develop ever more powerful systems.Apple said in a paper published at the weekend that large reasoning models (LRMs) - an advanced form of AI - faced a complete accuracy collapse" when presented with highly complex problems. Continue reading...
by Robert Booth UK technology correspondent on (#6XVNY)
Photography agency alleges Stability AI trained its image generation model on archive of copyrighted picturesA London-based artificial intelligence company, Stability AI, has claimed that a copyright case brought by the global photography agency Getty Images represents an overt threat" to the generative AI industry.Getty's case against Stability AI for copyright and trademark infringement relating to its vast photography archives reached the high court in London on Monday. Continue reading...
Parents who lost children to online harms helped draft the bill - then watched it collapse under political pressureBereaved parents saw their hopes for change dashed after a bill meant to protect children from sexual predators and drug dealers online died in the Colorado state legislature last month.Several of those parents had helped shape the bill, including Lori Schott, whose 18-year-old daughter Annalee died by suicide in 2020 after consuming content on TikTok and Instagram about depression, anxiety and suicide. Continue reading...
Officials are piloting package of AI tools called Humphrey - named after character in TV sitcom Yes, MinisterAll civil servants in England and Wales will get practical training in how to use artificial intelligence to speed up their work from this autumn, the Guardian has learned.More than 400,000 civil servants will be informed of the training on Monday afternoon, which is part of a drive by the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, to overhaul the civil service and improve its productivity. Continue reading...
The new ROG Xbox Ally handheld games machines will be available at the end of the year - here's what it's like to play on oneJust a few days after Nintendo finally released its follow-up to the Switch, Microsoft has announced its own long-rumoured handheld console: the Xbox Ally. This is a very big deal, not just because it marks the first time Xbox has co-branded a console (with high-end PC specialists Republic of Gamers), but because it's packing top-of-the-line hardware under its hood. I played the Xbox Ally X, one of two models coming before Christmas, a few hours after they were revealed during 8 June's Xbox Showcase, and can easily see it becoming a serious competitor for both the Switch 2 and Valve's Steam Deck.The Xbox Ally springs from the coupling of four different tech firms: Windows, Xbox, AMD and Asus, and it's definitely their golden child. Both the Xbox Ally and Ally X models have 7-inch 1080p touchscreens, with 16GB of RAM in the Ally and 24GB of RAM in the Ally X, and 512GB SSD storage and 1TB, respectively. Each has Ryzen Z2 chips, though Xbox Ally X has the AI Z2 chip, which integrates an AI processor directly into the silicon. As for what that actually means for players, Microsoft's head of gaming devices, Roanne Sones, said during a presentation that players will be able to take advantage of AI experiences without having to compromise anything on the GPU". The devices both run Windows, but the team has modified it for optimal gaming. Continue reading...
Ofcom considering the concerns' raised after claim that up to 90% of risk assessments will be carried out by AIInternet safety campaigners have urged the UK's communications watchdog to limit the use of artificial intelligence in crucial risk assessments after a report that Mark Zuckerberg's Meta was planning to automate checks.Ofcom said it was considering the concerns" raised by the campaigners' letter, after a report last month that up to 90% of all risk assessments at the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp would soon be carried out by AI. Continue reading...
Suspension comes as 13m students take four-day gaokao tests for limited spots at country's universitiesBig Chinese tech companies appear to have turned off some AI functions to prevent cheating during the country's highly competitive university entrance exams.More than 13.3 million students are sitting the four-day gaokao exams, which began on Saturday and determine if and where students can secure a limited place at university. Continue reading...
With number of young girls sharing videos rising, study says following instructions can irritate skin and lead to allergiesSkincare regimes demonstrated by young influencers on TikTok offer little to no benefit, researchers have found, adding that on the contrary they raise the risk of skin irritations and lifelong allergies in children.The team behind the study say there has been a rise in young girls sharing videos of complex skincare routines with moisturisers, toners, acne treatments and anti-ageing products. Continue reading...
by Mark Sweney Media business correspondent on (#6XVF4)
Film institute's report raises fears AI will eliminate junior roles in film, TV, video game and special effects industriesArtificial intelligence companies are plundering 130,000 film and TV scripts to train their models in a raid on copyrighted material that poses a direct threat" to the future of the UK screen sector, according to the British Film Institute.In a wide-ranging report analysing the benefits and threats posed by AI to the UK's film, TV, video game and visual special effects industries, the BFI also raises fears that automation will eliminate the entry-level jobs that bring in the next generation of workers. Continue reading...
We're obsessed with narratives about powerful men and how they got that way. But our mania for founder myths obscures an ideology of inequalityOne Saturday in the spring of 2021, a little achy after receiving our first doses of the Covid-19 vaccine, my husband and I decided to stay in bed and click on the first thing suggested to us by our TV. It was WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn, a documentary produced by Hulu about the New York startup WeWork's spectacular fall from grace. The film mostly chronicles the misdeeds of founder Adam Neumann, the surfer-dude dolt who turned a good idea - co-working spaces that lease small offices to tech startups - into a surreally overvalued conglomerate, before he made a mortifying attempt to take the company public that eventually ended in his forced resignation. As a consolation prize, Neumann infamously received a $1.7bn golden parachute.The WeWork cautionary tale is partly about slick marketing, which is what seems to have convinced its investors that it was a tech startup. Neumann tried to position WeWork as something much more than a real estate company: he borrowed the tech industry's idealistic language about changing the world but upped the ante, insisting that the company's sole mission was elevat[ing] the world's consciousness". Continue reading...
Musk isn't the first - or last - billionaire to pour big money into US electionsElon Musk said, very loudly and very publicly, what is usually the quiet part of the role of money in US politics.Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude," he wrote on his X social media platform amid an ongoing feud with Donald Trump. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian