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Amazon's hugely successful extreme competition series is the latest attempt to lure younger online viewers to TVBeast Games, Amazon Prime Video's reality competition series hosted by the YouTuber known as MrBeast, is not a well-made show. It is certainly an expensive show, something Mr Beast, the alter ego for 26-year-old Jimmy Donaldson of Greenville, North Carolina, likes to frequently remind viewers. The series is a feat of scale shocking to audiences outside the realm of YouTube, and especially Donaldson's fiefdom: 1,000 contestants, filmed by a system of 1,107 cameras, battling each other for a $5m cash prize - the largest in entertainment history, according to Donaldson. For the competition, Donaldson and his posse designed a warehouse war zone modeled on the Netflix dystopian series Squid Game, constructed a bespoke city and purchased a private island (also to be given away, along with a Lamborghini and other lavish prizes). Contestants eliminated in the first episode are dropped through trap doors to unseen depths; there is a pirate ship with cannons.Yet for all the ostentatious displays of wealth, the show still looks terrible - garishly lit, frenetically edited, poorly structured, annoyingly loud and tackily designed. Many have pointed out that the show's central conceit - broke Americans duking it out and playing psychological warfare for luxury prizes, many in the name of paying their bills - is as dystopian as the Netflix series it's based on, a depressing spectacle of aggro-capitalism for our neo-Gilded Age times, with Donaldson as a self-styled Willy Wonka figure. Continue reading...

Project Waterworth, which involves cable longer than Earth's circumference, to also reach South Africa and BrazilMeta has announced plans to build the world's longest underwater cable project, which aims to connect the US, India, South Africa, Brazil and other regions.The tech company said Project Waterworth involved a 50,000km (31,000-mile) subsea cable, which is longer than the Earth's circumference. Continue reading...

This week: mornings made better, affordable jewellery and the ultimate wild swimming kit list Don't get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereI've always disliked getting up in winter. As a kid, I'd hurkle-durkle while blearily watching my school uniform warming on the radiator. These days, I set smartphone alarms for several consecutive minutes, just to make sure I'm roused. It's too dark, and I'm too groggy.I'd heard of sunrise alarm clocks before the Filter asked me to review them, but little did I suspect they could resolve my waking woes. Essentially, they're a combination of alarm clock and light-therapy device that glows with increasing brightness as your wake-up time approaches. The light interacts with our circadian rhythms, much as the sun does when it rises, so we wake up biologically prepared for the day.12 affordable jewellery brands, worn and rated for style and qualityThe best iPhones in 2025: which Apple smartphone is right for you, according to our expertThe best bike lights to see and be seen when cycling in the dark, tried and testedThe best online flower delivery services: seven favourites, freshly picked Continue reading...

Huge glass and metal slab packs super-fast chip, long battery life and unrivalled camera zoom, but its AI features are overhypedThe Ultra is Samsung's largest and greatest phone and is packed to the gills with the very latest technology, which means more artificial intelligence than ever before.The Galaxy S25 Ultra is at the front of the line of a new wave of Android phones that promise to basically do everything for you. It combines Google's advanced AI assistance with numerous Samsung tools for writing, drawing, photography and chatting.Main screen: 6.9in QHD+ Dynamic Amoled 2X (500ppi) 120HzProcessor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for GalaxyRAM: 12GBStorage: 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: One UI 7 (Android 15)Camera: 200MP + 50MP 0.6x + 10MP 3x + 50MP 5x; 12MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, USB-C, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 mins)Dimensions: 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2mmWeight: 218g Continue reading...

Software engineer and developer Nadia Odunayo created the social media readers' platform StoryGraph and its popularity has rocketedNadia Odunayo never planned to take on the mighty global juggernaut that is Amazon, but for many book lovers, she has become the hero they didn'tknow they needed.For 18 years, bibliophiles have been able to catalogue their reading, leave reviews and star ratings, and get recommendations for their next read on Goodreads, which was set up by two Stanford University alumni from California. Continue reading...

The Kids Online Safety act passed the Senate 91-to-3 but died in the House. Advocates on both sides say they won't give upWhen Congress adjourned for the holidays in December, a landmark bill meant to overhaul how tech companies protect their youngest users had officially failed to pass. Introduced in 2022, the Kids Online Safety act (Kosa) was meant to be a huge reckoning for big tech. Instead, despite sailing through the Senate with a 91-to-3 vote in July, the bill languished and died in the House.Kosa had been passionately championed by families who said their children had fallen victim to the harmful policies of social media platforms and advocates who said a bill reining in the unchecked power of big tech was long overdue. They are bitterly disappointed that a strong chance to check big tech failed because of congressional apathy. But human rights organizations had argued that the legislation could have led to unintended consequences affecting freedom of speech online. Continue reading...

Demonstrations across the US against tycoon's ties to Trump highlight potential risks to firm's reputation and salesProtesters gathered outside Tesla dealerships across the US on Saturday in response to Elon Musk's efforts to shred government spending under the president, Donald Trump.Groups of demonstrators up to 100-strong gathered outside the electric carmaker's showrooms in cities including New York, Seattle, Kansas City and across California. Organisers said the protests took place in dozens of locations. Continue reading...

GMB says 60 workers have been targeted, with disciplinary action increasing significantly, but company denies claimsAmazon has been accused of targeting 60 trade union members with disciplinary action after narrowly defeating a recognition vote at its Coventry warehouse last summer.The GMB trade union said all 60 workers were involved in action at the warehouse - where it has about 700 members out of a workforce of at least 1,500 - that culminated in a ballot on formal recognition in July last year that failed by only a handful of votes. Continue reading...

Defense and tech firms - including Musk's own - await potential contracts as Doge decimates US agenciesThe world's richest man, Elon Musk, has vowed to oversee a radical hollowing out of government agencies, asserting this week that some should be deleted entirely" as he defunds public programs and lays off federal workers. While the immense cuts are framed as a means of removing waste, they may also become a boon to private companies - including Musk's own businesses - that the government increasingly relies on for many of its key initiatives.Musk and his allies in the department of government efficiency" (Doge), the unofficial committee acting as the operations arm of his cost-cutting efforts, have targeted a range of major government departments. They have moved to close the United States Agency for International Development, slashed the Department of Education and taken over the General Services Administration that controls federal IT structures. Doge staffers have also gained access to the treasury department, as well as set their sights on the Department of Defense, energy department, Environmental Protection Agency and at least a dozen others. Continue reading...

Silicon Valley wants to spend a fortune on the fantasy of human-level intelligence. But there are more practical and valuable things to achieveThere's a moment in the 1967 film The Graduate that has become renowned. At a party thrown by his parents to celebrate his graduation, Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) is approached by Mr McGuire, an elderly bore who wants to say just one word" to him: plastics". Exactly how do you mean?", asks the hapless Ben. There's a great future in plastics," says McGuire. Think about it."Listening last week to the spending plans of the techlords who run Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta leads one to wonder if something analogous might have happened to them on their graduation nights. Except that in their cases, the magic word would have been AI". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Barristers at Doughty Street Chambers say they have been subject to surveillance, hacking and rape threatsUK-based lawyers have spoken out about being targeted by the Chinese state and its supporters in a campaign of intimidation including surveillance, hacking of bank accounts and rape threats.The barristers, from Doughty Street Chambers in London, say there has been a coordinated and concerted campaign against them since they began acting for the jailed Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and media mogul, Jimmy Lai, three years ago. Continue reading...

It's been called the sound of purgatory' but Opus 1 has enjoyed a new life in performance art, in a beer commercial and now on TikTok

Maker of ChatGPT rebuffs consortium led by Tesla owner and rejects latest attempt to disrupt his competition'OpenAI on Friday rejected a $97.4bn bid from a consortium led by billionaire Elon Musk for the ChatGPT maker, saying the startup is not for sale.The unsolicited approach is Musk's latest attempt to block the startup he co-founded with CEO Sam Altman - but later left - from becoming a for-profit firm, as it looks to secure more capital and stay ahead in the AI race. Continue reading...

Julius Smit likes that analogue demands time, patience and thought, while David R Freke loves his refurbished 1970s SLR. Plus, letters from Roger Foster and David BaughIt is good to read of Sundus Abdi's renunciation of digital photography as a means to capture the personal and ephemeral aspects of her photographic life (The one change that worked: I began a quiet, satisfying rebellion against the digital age, 10 February). Photography with a smartphone has much to answer for the disposable image, often captured inan instant with little attention.In contrast, analogue photography, as she states, demands time, patience and thought. It also requires an investment in film and processing, knowing there are only 36 exposures on a roll of 35mm film. It has been hugely encouraging to discover a rise in the number of film-processing laboratories around Britain, which are clearly answering a need. Also, there are now many more new exciting film emulsions on the market. Continue reading...

Fair Election Fund has yet to reveal evidence of voter fraud despite deep-pocketed backers - and has now gone silentIn May 2024, a flashy ad went viral on social media warning that across the country, there are real cases of fraud and abuses of the [election] system that have eroded our trust". The ad pledged that whistleblowers" who shared evidence of election fraud will be rewarded with payment from our $5m fund".This reward was courtesy of a just-announced group, the Fair Election Fund, which has deep connections to Elon Musk's political network, according to materials obtained by Documented.This article was produced in partnership with Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project. Brendan Fischer is deputy executive director and Emma Steiner is a researcher with Documented Continue reading...

Plan represents move away from SoftBank-owned group licensing its chip blueprints to firms such as Apple and NvidiaThe British semiconductor designer Arm is reportedly planning to launch its own chip this year, after landing Meta as one of its first customers.The move represents a major overhaul of the SoftBank-owned group's business model of licensing its chip blueprints to the likes of Apple and Nvidia. Continue reading...

A blind audition, a fruitful collaboration, a tense creative fallout: composer Jack Wall's journey through the Mass Effect universe was as epic as the player'sMass Effect is some of the best science fiction ever made. That may sound like a grandiose comment, but it's true. As a trilogy, the original games from 2007-2013 effortlessly plucked the most cerebral ideas from the sci-fi genre and slotted them into a memorable military role-playing game that had players invested from beginning to controversial end.Whether you prefer the hopeful, optimistic outlook of Asimov, the dark and reflective commentary of Shelley, the accessible thought experiments of Star Trek, or the arch melodrama of Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect has it all. The trilogy is as happy grazing on the western-inspired tropes of Star Wars as the hard" sci-fi of Iain M Banks, blending all its moods and micro-stories into a compelling, believable galaxy that somehow walks a line between breathless optimism and suffocating bleakness. Continue reading...

Chinese social media platform again available for download in US as Donald Trump continues to mull its future there amid security concernsTikTok returned to the US app stores of Apple and Google on Thursday as President Donald Trump delayed a ban on the Chinese-owned social media app and assured the tech giants they would not be fined for distributing or maintaining it.The popular short video app used by nearly half of all Americans went dark briefly last month, before a law took effect on 19 January that requires its Chinese owner ByteDance either to sell it on national security grounds or face a ban. Continue reading...

About 200 drivers got in touch with the Guardian to share their views on the industrial actionWhen Simon Waite began working as a private hire driver in 2017, it gave him the flexibility and income to spend time with his children, then aged five, 12 and 18. One of the reasons I loved Uber was because I could now go to the school plays, my son's football, I could earn my money around life," he says.But over the past few years, Waite, a 41-year-old in Hertfordshire, says he has to spend dramatically more time on the road to earn a living. To make 1,000 a week a couple of years ago it took about 50 hours, he says, whereas now it's about 70 hours - with most drivers needing to pay insurance, tax, vehicle fees and upkeep, fuel, licenses, rent, bills and living costs. Continue reading...

AI Action Summit ends with US vice-president criticising European regulation and warning against cooperation with ChinaPolitical and business leaders descended on Paris this week for the third annual artificial intelligence summit with the technology causing tensions across the globe.Emmanuel Macron, who opened the summit with a montage of deepfakes of himself, acknowledged AI's potential to disrupt". A day later, the schism threatened by the rapidly developing technology was apparent. Continue reading...

Billionaire's lawyers say offer will be withdrawn if firm he helped found a decade ago preserves the charity's mission'Elon Musk says he will abandon his $97.4bn offer to buy the non-profit behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.If OpenAI, Inc's Board is prepared to preserve the charity's mission and stipulate to take the for sale' sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid," lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday. Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets." Continue reading...

Short film falsely depicts actor and other Jewish celebrities opposing recent antisemitic remarks from pop starScarlett Johansson has warned of the imminent dangers of AI" after a deepfake video of her and other prominent Jewish celebrities opposing recent antisemitic remarks from Kanye West went viral this week.The video contained AI-generated versions of more than a dozen celebrities, including Johansson, David Schwimmer, Jerry Seinfeld, Drake, Adam Sandler, Stephen Spielberg, and Mila Kunis. Continue reading...

Earlier procurement forecast had suggested Elon Musk's company would be a beneficiary of planned purchasesThe US Department of State has removed the name Tesla" from a list of planned purchases, after an earlier version of the list said it would spend $400m buying new electric armoured vehicles, even as the carmaker's boss, Elon Musk, leads efforts to slash government spending under Donald Trump.A procurement forecast produced by the department showed the $400m (320m) proposed spending on armoured Tesla (production units)" in December. The most likely Tesla model was the Cybertruck, the company's electric pickup, given Musk's claims that the vehicle is bulletproof. Continue reading...

Xbox, PC; Obsidian Entertainment/Microsoft

Eric Schmidt fears terrorist groups or countries such as North Korea, Iran or Russia may use AI to develop weaponsGoogle's former chief executive has warned that artificial intelligence could be used by rogue states such as North Korea, Iran and Russia to harm innocent people".Eric Schmidt, who held senior posts at Google from 2001 to 2017, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that those countries and terrorists could adopt and misuse the technology to develop weapons to create a bad biological attack from some evil person". Continue reading...

RPG Maker was launched in 1992 and has become increasingly complex, but it's still a remarkably accessible way to make adventure games with no development experienceIt is said that every 100 years, a small fishing village on the southern coast of an unknown fantasy realm holds a magical artisanal cheese festival. As an adventurer and fan of ethically produced dairy products, you are determined to attend the fabled event, arriving at the dock on a small boat with only a few gold coins and a dream. This is the backdrop to the worst role-playing adventure I have ever experienced - and, entirely coincidentally, the only one I have ever designed.The game creation package RPG Maker has been around since 1992, the first version launching on the Japanese PC-98 computer. Since then, development has been passed from veteran software publisher ASCII to Enterbrain and then Chiyoda-based Gotcha Gotcha Games, and dozens of instalments have appeared. Although it has become increasingly complex over the years, RPG Maker remains a remarkably intuitive way to make adventure games with no development experience at all. Continue reading...

Match Group has known since 2016 about abusive users on its dozen dating apps, but leaves millions of people in the darkThe Dating Apps Reporting Project is an 18-month investigation. It was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network and the Markup, now a part of CalMatters, and co-published with the Guardian and the 19th.When a young woman in Denver met up with a smiling cardiologist she matched with on the dating app Hinge, she had no way of knowing that the company behind the app had already received reports from two other women who had accused him of rape. Continue reading...

President brought suit under X's previous leadership after he was banned from platform following January 6 eventsElon Musk's social media platform X will pay Donald Trump $10m to settle a lawsuit the president filed after he was banned from the platform following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a report.The lawsuit was filed against X under the leadership of its previous CEO, Jack Dorsey. After Musk purchased X, reinstated Trump's account, began developing a relationship with the president and spent $250m on his re-election campaign, Trump's legal team considered abandoning the lawsuit, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the case. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Google executives gave employees details on dropping the company's promise against weaponized AI and nixing diversity goalsGoogle's executives gave details on Wednesday on how the tech giant will sunset its diversity initiatives and defended dropping its pledge against building artificial intelligence for weaponry and surveillance in an all-staff meeting.Melonie Parker, Google's former head of diversity, said the company was doing away with its diversity and inclusion employee training programs and updating" broader training programs that have DEI content". It was the first time company executives have addressed the whole staff since Google announced it would no longer follow hiring goals for diversity and took down its pledge not to build militarized AI. The chief legal officer, Kent Walker, said a lot had changed since Google first introduced its AI principles in 2018, which explicitly stated Google would not build AI for harmful purposes. He said it would be good for society" for the company to be part of evolving geopolitical discussions in response to a question about why the company removed prohibitions against building AI for weapons and surveillance. Continue reading...

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has reached 1.5 million gamers around the world - yet its developers have labelled it a disappointment. With unfair expectations, it's the niche and left-field titles that will sufferBack in 2013, having bought the series from Eidos, Square Enix released a reboot of the hit 1990s action game Tomb Raider starring a significantly less objectified Lara Croft. I loved that game, despite a quasi-assault scene near the beginning that I would later come to view as a bit icky, and I wasn't the only one - it was extremely well received, selling 3.4m copies in its first month alone. Then Square Enix came out and called it a disappointment.Sales did not meet the publisher's expectations, apparently, which raises the question: what were the expectations? Was it supposed to sell 5m in one month? If a book sells 10,000 copies in a week it's considered a bestseller. Even at the height of its popularity in the 90s, no Tomb Raider game ever sold more than a few million. Square Enix's expectations were clearly unrealistic. It wouldn't be the last time; in a 2016 interview with Hajime Tabata, Final Fantasy XV's director, he told me that game needed to sell 10m to succeed. Continue reading...

Voice actors demanding compensation when AI generates performances from their work have taken industrial action since JulyWhen Harrison Ford spoke to the Wall Street Journal last week, praising the performance of voice actor Troy Baker in the recent video game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, he was doing much more than recognising a great impression of himself. You don't need artificial intelligence to steal my soul," he told the paper. You can already do it for nickels and dimes with good ideas and talent. [Baker] did a brilliant job, and it didn't take AI to do it."Video game performers in the SAG-AFTRA union have been on strike since July, the major issue being the use of generative AI in the games industry. The union wants members to be compensated when AI performances are generated from their work, and demands consent and transparency around Gen AI technology. Major video game publishers such as Activision Blizzard, Disney, Warner Bros and Electronic Arts are involved in the dispute, and several recent titles including Destiny 2: Heresy and Genshin Impact have been affected, with English-language voice performances missing. AI voice synthesis is being touted as a means of cutting costs in an industry where game budgets are spiralling, but such technologies imperil actors' livelihoods while relying on their work to seed virtual performances. Plus, the budgetary benefits of the tech are still in question. Continue reading...

Tech firms must invest in and respect the people who filter social media and label the data that AI relies on

My heart says he is settling scores and making mischief. My head fears Trump might like an ally controlling the key AI companyElon Musk and Sam Altman aren't exactly the best of friends. The two had a blowout argument over the future direction of OpenAI - the company they came together to found in 2015 - with Altman seemingly content to pursue a for-profit approach and Musk feeling that was forswearing the founding principles of the firm as well as its name. OpenAI couldn't be open, he reckoned, if it was closed off and trying to make money rather than better humanity.So it's no surprise that Musk, who lodged an audacious bid to take over Twitter a little more than two years ago, which ended up with his ownership of the platform now called X, has sought to put a spoiler in two years of near-untrammelled growth for OpenAI. Continue reading...

Better fit, great sound, noise cancelling, longer battery life and heart rate sensors upgrade just about everythingAfter five years, Apple is back with a full revamp of the earbuds that put its Beats headphones brand on the map for athletes and sports people: the Powerbeats Pro 2.Designed to hook on to the ear and stay put without wires, the original Powerbeats Pro were the best earbuds for working out and were worn by sports superstars including LeBron James and Anthony Joshua. Continue reading...

Collaboration and opportunity were at the centre of the talks, as JD Vance urged his European friends' to view the technology with optimism rather than trepidation'. The US and the UK refused to sign a declaration on inclusive and sustainable' artificial intelligence at the summit. Campaign groups criticised the UK's decision and said it risked damaging its reputation in this area

Company says listed holidays were not sustainable' for its model as tech firms roll back diversity effortsGoogle's online and mobile calendars are no longer including references to Black History Month, Women's History Month and LGBTQ+ holidays, among other events.The world's biggest search engine previously marked the beginning of Black History Month in February and Pride Month in June, but the events do not appear for 2025. Continue reading...

Confirmation of snub comes after JD Vance criticises Europe's excessive regulation' of technologyThe US and the UK have refused to sign a declaration on inclusive and sustainable" artificial intelligence at a landmark Paris summit, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology.The communique states that priorities include ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all" and making AI sustainable for people and the planet". Continue reading...

Musk raids a dizzying swath of agencies with the goal of slashing waste and fraud' as the two deploy brinkmanshipHello, and welcome back to TechScape. This week in tech: Elon Musk and Donald Trump flood the zone and deploy brinkmanship as a negotiating tactic; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement learns search engine optimization amid arrests and deportations; and Spotify tries to soften its algorithmic image with human-centric public relations. Thank you for reading. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Beeban Kidron says plans will lead to wholesale' transfer of wealth from creative industries to tech sector

Meta once invested millions and attracted top talent as tech's leader in corporate diversity. After those aspirations peaked in 2019, the company scuttled them altogetherIn 2019, Facebook set a goal for itself: ensure half of its workforce was from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds by 2024.The lofty ambition made the company stand out among its Silicon Valley peers. Maxine Williams, a longtime employee and chief diversity officer at the time, wrote in a 2021 blogpost that Facebook was up to the challenge. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Italy-based David Yambio, a critic of Meloni government, was told of attempt to compromise his phoneAn Italy-based human rights activist whose work supports the international criminal court in providing evidence about cases of abuse suffered by migrants and refugees held in Libyan detention camps and prisons has revealed that Apple informed him his phone was targeted in a spyware attackDavid Yambio, the president and co-founder of Refugees in Libya, has been a critic of the Italian government's migrant pact with the north African country and its recent controversial decision to release Osama Najim, a Libyan police chief wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for suspected war crimes, including torture, murder, enslavement and rape. Yambio, 27, was an alleged victim of Najim's abuses during his detention at the notorious Mitiga prison near Tripoli. Continue reading...

Most answers had significant issues' when researchers asked services to use broadcaster's news articles as sourceLeading artificial intelligence assistants create distortions, factual inaccuracies and misleading content in response to questions about news and current affairs, research has found.More than half of the AI-generated answers provided by ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity were judged to have significant issues", according to the study by the BBC.Microsoft's Copilot falsely stating that the French rape victim Gisele Pelicot uncovered crimes against her when she began having blackouts and memory loss, when in fact she found out about the crimes when police showed her videos they had confiscated from her husband's devices.ChatGPT said Ismail Haniyeh was part of Hamas's leadership months after he was assassinated in Iran. It also falsely said Sunak and Sturgeon were still in office.Gemini incorrectly stated: The NHS advises people not to start vaping, and recommends that smokers who want to quit use other methods."Perplexity falsely stated the date of the TV presenter Michael Mosley's death and misquoted a statement from the family of the One Direction singer Liam Payne after his death. Continue reading...

Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO and co-founder, responded that he would not accept and offered to buy X insteadElon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for all assets" of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI's board of directors.The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk's unsolicited offer could complicate the company's plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid. Continue reading...

After WhatsApp claimed 90 users were targeted last year, experts concerned over how US could use cyberweaponsEven as WhatsApp celebrated a major legal victory in December against NSO Group, the Israeli maker of one of the world's most powerful cyberweapons, a new threat was detected, this time involving another Israel-based company that has previously agreed contracts with democratic governments around the world - including the US.Late in January, WhatsApp claimed that 90 of its users, including some journalists and members of civil society, were targeted last year by spyware made by a company called Paragon Solutions. The allegation is raising urgent questions about how Paragon's government clients are using the powerful hacking tool. Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron's tech envoy warns attenders current trajectory of artificial intelligence is unsustainableThe impact of artificial intelligence on the environment and inequality have featured in the opening exchanges of a global summit in Paris attended by political leaders, tech executives and experts.Emmanuel Macron's AI envoy, Anne Bouverot, opened the two-day gathering at the Grand Palais in the heart of the French capital with a speech referring to the environmental impact of AI, which requires vast amounts of energy and resource to develop and operate. Continue reading...

When EA surprise-dropped a rerelease of The Sims 1 and 2, I was delighted to return to a defining video game of millennial childhoods - but it feels different 25 years laterWhen I was growing up, the genre-defining dollhouse sim The Sims was the ultimate escape. I'd build dream homes, cultivate a neighbourhood of weird and wonderful friends and live out a fantasy adult life.So when EA surprise-dropped a rerelease of The Sims 1 and 2 last weekend to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary, with all expansions included (my nine-year-old self's dream) naturally I was compelled to return to my happy place, revisiting my 10-hour pyjama-clad marathon sessions micromanaging the lives of the Newbies, Roomies, and the Goths, and occasionally removing their pool ladders when they were taking a little swim, and only taking a necessary pause for mum's roast dinner. Continue reading...

Every year of human history has a dedicated entry. But surf far enough into the future, and you'll find evaporating oceans, planetary collisions, and the ultimate apocalypse: the Big Slurp

Letter says many of works being sold by Christie's are made by AI models trained on pieces by human artists, without a licenceThousands of artists are urging the auction house Christie's to cancel a sale of art created with artificial intelligence, claiming the technology behind the works is committing mass theft".The Augmented Intelligence auction has been described by Christie's as the first AI-dedicated sale by a major auctioneer and features 20 lots with prices ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 for works by artists including Refik Anadol and the late AI art pioneer Harold Cohen. Continue reading...

Technology secretary delivers veiled warning over China's role ahead of Paris summitThe artificial intelligence race must be led by western, liberal, democratic" countries, said the UK technology secretary in a veiled warning over China's role in the contest, before a global AI summit in Paris.Peter Kyle spoke as political leaders and tech company bosses gather in France, and after the emergence of a new Chinese force in AI, DeepSeek, rattled US investors and upended assumptions about Silicon Valley's leadership in the technology. Continue reading...