Technology | The Guardian

The photographer and Instagrammer looks back at the day under Manhattan Bridge when a hobby became a callingIt was a moody January morning in Brooklyn, New York, when Monaris, whose real name is Paola Franqui, headed to a local pier to meet a group of strangers. The 100 or so she found there were fellow Instagram aficionados, armed with iPhones and a sense of camaraderie and possibility. It was 2014 and the social media platform was booming. “I was working nine to five for a Taiwanese logistics company at the time,” she says, “but photography was my passion. After that day, I started taking it more seriously; three years later, I was saying no to so many opportunities that I quit my job and went full-time.”Looking back, Monaris feels lucky to have started out when she did. “It’s harder to build your brand now, because there are so many of us.” Continue reading...

Billionaire says report is ‘utterly untrue’ after allegation he paid $250k in 2018 to settle claimElon Musk has denied claims in a news report that he sexually harassed a flight attendant on a private jet in 2016, calling the accusations “utterly untrue”.SpaceX, the rocket company founded by Musk, paid the female attendant $250,000 (£200,000) in a severance settlement after a sexual misconduct claim against the world’s richest person, according to the news website Business Insider. Continue reading...

‘Hashing’ would allow copies of videos to be removed from social media – but tech companies can’t be bothered to make it workIn the aftermath of yet another racially motivated shooting that was live-streamed on social media, tech companies are facing fresh questions about their ability to effectively moderate their platforms.Payton Gendron, the 18-year-old gunman who killed 10 people in a largely Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, broadcasted his violent rampage on the video-game streaming service Twitch. Twitch says it took down the video stream in mere minutes, but it was still enough time for people to create edited copies of the video and share it on other platforms including Streamable, Facebook and Twitter. Continue reading...

PC, Nintendo Switch (version tested), iPhone/iPad; Broken Rules

In this week’s newsletter: The Gossip Girl and You heartthrob explores adolescent angst through listener-submitted stories in Podcrushed. Plus: five essential celebrity podcast interviews

Enormous energy consumption has barely reduced despite $1tn being wiped off the sectorThe crypto crash will not reduce the sector’s climate impact any time soon, an economist has warned, even though the environmental footprint of digital currencies is in theory set by their market value.“Unless bitcoin collapses further, there’s no reason to expect a decrease in environmental impact,” said Alex de Vries, a data scientist at the Dutch central bank and the founder of Digiconomist, which tracks the sustainability of cryptocurrency projects. Continue reading...

The company’s stab at the biometrics market has raised debate about data storage and trackingMastercard is rolling out a controversial programme that will allow shoppers to pay at the till with a mere smile or wave of the hand, as it tries to secure a slice of the $18bn (£14.4bn) biometrics market.While face recognition technology has long raised eyebrows among civil rights groups, the payments giant said it was pushing ahead with a biometric checkout programme it claimed would speed up payments, cut queues and provide more security than a standard credit or debit card. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Predictably, this breakup of a thirty-year deal isn’t about fans at all - it’s just about money

Tesla CEO speaks at Miami summit while his relationship with Twitter management sinks to new lowElon Musk has suggested that he could seek to pay a lower price for Twitter, as the social media company’s would-be owner expressed further concerns about the presence of fake accounts on the platform.The Tesla CEO said reducing his agreed $54.20 per share offer wouldn’t be “out of the question”, days after putting the $44bn ($36bn) deal “on hold” after he queried the number of spam accounts on Twitter. Continue reading...

After the crash of the ‘stablecoin’ sparked panic, could the fall of the wider crypto market lead to a more permanent economic crunch?

Figures suggest company has paid out more than total cash on hand, as terra backers prepare relaunchDigital investors have withdrawn savings in the “stablecoin” tether worth $7.6bn (£6.2bn) since the cryptocurrency crisis began last week, suggesting the company has paid out a sum almost twice its total cash holdings to spooked depositors.Stablecoins are supposed to have a fixed value matched to a real-world asset, in most cases $1 a token. However, faith in the concept was rocked last Tuesday when another big player, terra, broke its peg to the dollar. That has fuelled a wider sell-off across the crypto sector, which relies on stablecoins for much of its financial engineering. Continue reading...

In the increasingly lifelike worlds of VR, users are experiencing hate speech and sexual harassment. How should these lawless spaces be governed?Psychotherapist Nina Jane Patel had been on Facebook’s Horizon Venues for less than a minute when her avatar was mobbed by a group of males. The attackers proceeded to “virtually gang-rape” her character, snapping in-game pictures as mementos. Patel froze in shock before desperately trying to free her virtual self – whom she had styled to resemble her real-life blond hair, freckles and business casual attire.“Don’t pretend you didn’t love it,” the human voices of the attackers jeered through her headset as she ran away, “go rub yourself off to the photo.” Continue reading...

In Twitter Data Dash, players take control of a blue puppy who eats bones that inform him of site regulationsOn Friday, Elon Musk announced he was pausing his $45bn purchase of Twitter because he had only just discovered some of the accounts on the site were fake.But that’s not the strangest thing that has happened to the beleaguered social media platform this week. Because on Tuesday the current top brass, perhaps trying to demonstrate their vision for the site, released a Super Nintendo-style browser game that recaps Twitter’s private policy. Continue reading...

The artist on creating a tableau with a toy and some cheap plastic plantsArtist John Adams worked with assemblage boxes for years – eccentric cabinets of curios in the tradition of Joseph Cornell – before moving on to larger dioramas. An ex-teacher, Adams wanted to think bigger. In his studio, he sets up a group of objects on a table, like a still life.“I have a board at the back, which I can paint or drape material over,” he says. “For this piece, I added a box with a hole punched through, and put this doll in. He’s only 12 inches tall. I think I found him at a car boot sale, or a toy shop. After that, I decided to make a garden: they’re mostly cheap plastic plants from Aldi.” Continue reading...

Tesla owner says $44bn deal has been paused until he gets more information about fake accountsElon Musk has said his $44bn (£36bn) takeover of Twitter is “temporarily on hold” in a tweet that rocked the company’s share price and cast doubt on whether the deal will happen.The Tesla chief tweeted on Friday morning that the deal was being frozen while he awaited details supporting Twitter’s assertion that fewer than 5% of its users were spam or fake accounts. In a subsequent tweet, Musk said he was “still committed to acquisition”, amid speculation that the world’s richest man was about to walk away from the deal or seek a lower price. Continue reading...

The self-styled expert was quick to criticize Black women in the relationship sphere – and sympathy over his death was in short supplyAs a source of dating advice, Kevin Samuels would seem a last resort for America’s Black women. On his YouTube show and podcasts, Samuels criticized Black women for being old and out of shape, and for having children out of wedlock. He sneered at “modern women” who flaunted their multiple college degrees and boasted of their independence. He dropped these bombs in the softest voice, in a tailored suit, and bathed in mood lighting with a funky kinetic energy sculpture on his desk.Yet many women not only tuned in to Samuels in droves, they cued up to Zoom into his show – some in hopes of putting the self-made image consultant turned relationship expert in his place. When Samuels suddenly died last Thursday in Atlanta at 57, as his star was still rising (the Fulton county medical examiners office has not yet revealed a cause of death), his many detractors reacted like Munchkins at the feet of the Wicked Witch of the East. The overwhelming lack of sympathy for Samuels – whose mother reportedly found out about his death as speculation raged online – comes down to his profiting from dismissing single Black women over 35 as “leftovers” whose unrealistic desire for “high-value men” would doom them to a lonely death. Continue reading...

News comes as Elon Musk, world’s richest man, is working to close a $44bn deal to acquire social media companyTwitter announced the departure of two top leaders in a major shakeup that comes as billionaire Elon Musk is working to close a $44bn deal to acquire the company.In an email to employees on Thursday, chief executive Parag Agrawal said Twitter’s leaders for consumer product and revenue will leave the company. Agrawal said the company was temporarily pausing hiring, and would review all existing job offers to determine whether any “should be pulled back”. Continue reading...

Tesla’s massive Shanghai ‘Giga-factory’ pushes its workers to the limit to meet production targets amid an ongoing pandemic lockdownHow do you become the richest man in the world? In Elon Musk’s case, part of it involves making workers in China put in hours that would be unacceptable according to labor norms elsewhere.On Tuesday, the Tesla boss praised Chinese factory workers for pulling extreme hours while taking a shot at American workers. “There is just a lot of super talented hardworking people in China who strongly believe in manufacturing,” the billionaire said. “They won’t just be burning the midnight oil, they will be burning the 3am oil, they won’t even leave the factory type of thing, whereas in America people are trying to avoid going to work at all.” Continue reading...

The near-total crash of terra has fuelled real panic that the crypto sector may face existential problemsShockwaves swept through cryptocurrency markets on Thursday as tether, the largest “stablecoin” and a foundational part of the digital asset ecosystem, broke its peg to the dollar in the latest blow to the struggling sector.Bitcoin and ethereum, the two biggest cryptocurrencies, shed 5% and 12% respectively, extending losses that have seen both fall more than 20% over the past week. Losses have been even bigger for the smaller players, with dogecoin falling 10% on Thursday and 35% over the week. Continue reading...

Own-brand voice recognition update can replace Google or Alexa for faster, more private music commandsSonos, the wireless home-audio specialist, is launching a lower-cost model of its popular TV soundbars alongside its own new voice control system for its smart speakers after its public bust-up with Google.The new Ray soundbar is a more compact version of Sonos’s popular Arc and Beam models, designed to fit neatly in TV stands without affecting sound quality. It connects to a TV through an optical cable, has wifi for streaming music and can be controlled with the Sonos app or a TV remote. Continue reading...

Tesla’s CEO had tweeted that the company had secured financing from Saudi Arabia and would be taken privateA US judge has determined that Elon Musk’s 2018 tweets that funding had been secured to take electric car maker Tesla private was inaccurate and reckless, saying “there was nothing concrete” about financing from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund at that time.San Francisco-based US district judge Edward Chen’s pre-trial decision represented a major victory for investors in a lawsuit accusing the world’s richest person of inflating stock prices by making false and misleading statements, causing billions of dollars in damages. Continue reading...

Rights groups fear Twitter buyer could open door to conspiracy theorists and contravene UK online safety billElon Musk’s promise to reverse a Twitter ban on Donald Trump if he completes his takeover of the social media platform has prompted warnings that it will provoke a backlash among users and could clash with new internet safety laws.The Tesla CEO and world’s richest man is in the process of buying Twitter for $44bn (£35.6bn) and has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” with doubts about imposing permanent bans on Twitter accounts such as Trump’s, which was suspended after the Capitol riot last January. Experts also warned that Trump’s return could lead to breaches of proposed rules governing digital content in the UK and EU. Continue reading...

Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 4/5, PC; Flying Wild Hog/ Devolver Digital

In this week’s newsletter: safer than two-factor authentication and easier than remembering dozens of codes, the ‘Fido’ system will make our digital lives smoother

Apple is discontinuing its MP3 player, bringing an end to device that transformed how we listen to musicApple has discontinued the iPod more than 20 years after it was launched.The most recent iteration of the music player, the iPod Touch, has not been updated since 2019, and many of its features are now available on other products. Continue reading...

Spain’s Pegasus spyware revelations have come to a head with the sacking of the country’s spy chiefTwo years after a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed the apparent use of Pegasus spyware to target senior pro-independence Catalan politicians, the Spanish government finds itself beset by internal and external cyber-espionage scandals that have led to the sacking of the country’s intelligence chief. Continue reading...

Quick delivery became a pandemic lifeline for many – but is the endless cycle of cardboard putting an undue strain on the planet, our infrastructure and workers?The pandemic turned the US into a next-day delivery nation. Amazon, in particular, saw sales surge during the dark days of Covid. In the first three months of 2021, the company watched its total sales tick up by 44%, constituting $8.1bn in profit. Those sales were led by the 200 million subscribers to Amazon’s super-fast delivery service Prime as people demanded everything from desk chairs to bananas delivered the next day.Amazon sold 44% more items during the pandemic, but the cost of fulfilling those orders increased by only 31%. This saving was one of scale – high-order volume allowed Amazon to operate even more efficiently. “It has run its warehouses closer to full capacity, and delivery drivers have made more stops on their routes, with less time driving between customers,” reported the New York Times. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: When the New York Times removed the word ‘fetus’ from the game out of fear of making a political statement, they did just that

Petition alleges local workers subjected to irregular pay and inadequate mental health supportA former Facebook moderator has filed a lawsuit against its owner, Meta Platforms, alleging poor working conditions for contracted content moderators violate the Kenyan constitution.The petition, also filed against Meta’s local outsourcing company Sama, alleges that workers moderating Facebook posts in Kenya have been subjected to unreasonable working conditions including irregular pay, inadequate mental health support, union-busting, and violations of their privacy and dignity. Continue reading...

Russian operatives trying to escalate online conflict and seeking targets in countries opposing war, says Jeremy Fleming

‘Significant chance’ of lowered offer owing to slump in tech stocks and social media firm’s weak performanceA US firm known for betting against companies’ share prices has said Elon Musk could submit a lower bid for Twitter, owing to a slump in tech stocks and a weak financial performance at the social media platform.Hindenburg Research said there was a “significant chance” that the Tesla chief executive will seek to pay less than the agreed bid price of $54.20 (£43.90) a share, which values Twitter at $44bn and has been accepted by the company’s board. Continue reading...

I know it’s the height of toxic capitalism, but you get free stuff and money – so what’s not to like? Maybe the fact it’s really difficultFor the past two years, I have been trying really hard to become an #influencer. I just wanted to #influence people to live their best lives, to find their inner strength and – OK, I wanted free stuff. If you can’t beat it, join it. Capitalism, that is.Since I have 100,000 followers on Instagram who listen to what I say, to whom I often recommend my favourite products and services, why not double-check if the brands want to pay me to do so? I would rather they pay me than someone who isn’t me. What I am saying is: I wanted to do the very easy job of #influencing and get lots of money for it. Continue reading...

Republicans are mulling retaliation against firms providing benefits such as travel assistance for employees seeking abortionAfter a supreme court decision that overturns Roe v Wade was leaked and signaled the impending end of federal constitutional protection for abortions, a trickle of companies have slowly started to announce policies that provide abortion access for their employees. But while the protections may keep employees and consumers happy, the threat of retaliation from conservative lawmakers looms.Citigroup, one of the biggest banks in the US, quietly started covering the travel expenses of employees who want to get an abortion but are banned from getting one in their home state. Continue reading...

Unlike in 2010 and 2013 when the NBN rollout was a hot topic, it is yet to hit the headlines this election, but it remains front of mind for some

Don’t dismiss soil: its unknowable wonders could ensure the survival of our speciesBeneath our feet is an ecosystem so astonishing that it tests the limits of our imagination. It’s as diverse as a rainforest or a coral reef. We depend on it for 99% of our food, yet we scarcely know it. Soil.Under one square metre of undisturbed ground in the Earth’s mid-latitudes (which include the UK) there might live several hundred thousand small animals. Roughly 90% of the species to which they belong have yet to be named. One gram of this soil – less than a teaspoonful – contains around a kilometre of fungal filaments. Continue reading...

According to the New York Times, the dismissals are regarded as the company’s response to the recent unionization victoryAmazon has reportedly fired over half a dozen senior managers who were involved in a New York warehouse union.The firings, which took place outside the company’s employee review cycle, was regarded as the company’s response to the Amazon Labor Union which formed in Staten Island last month in a “historic victory” against the country’s second largest employer, the New York Times reported, citing former and current employees who spoke on the condition anonymity. Continue reading...

Jack Dorsey’s first tweet sold for $2.9m in 2021 then could not get past $14,000 at auction last month. But some projects have thrivedIt was described as the Mona Lisa of the digital world and it came with a connoisseur’s price tag: $2.9m (£2.4m) for the first tweet by Twitter’s co-founder. This was March 2021 and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, were bursting into the mainstream.One year on, an attempt to sell on Jack Dorsey’s Twitter debut for $25m was pulled after auction bids topped out at just $14,000 (£11,350). Explosive growth of NFTs over the past 12 months has levelled off, and may even be in decline, according to analysis of the sector, as attention consolidates around a few of the largest players. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Guardian video games editor and writer of Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald picks her favourite games of the year

In this week’s newsletter: Colonia LeBaron was meant to be a Mormon utopia – then a family fallout saw organised crime reign. Find out more in Deliver Us From Ervil. Plus: five must-listen music podcasts

In this week’s newsletter: Dall-E 2 can conjure vivid pictures of dogs in berets to astronauts playing basketball. It also represents every major ethical concern there is about AI.

PC, Mac, Xbox, Nintendo Switch; Fellow Traveller

British MPs invite tycoon to discuss plans for platform in more depth before parliamentary committeeElon Musk has said Twitter may charge a “slight” fee for commercial and government users, in the latest hint of the changes the world’s richest person could introduce after he completes his takeover of the social media platform.“Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,” Musk said in a tweet. In another tweet, he added: “Some revenue is better than none!” Continue reading...

Data leak reveals scale of potential surveillance by NSO Group client believed to be MoroccoMore than 200 Spanish mobile numbers were selected as possible targets for surveillance by an NSO Group client believed to be Morocco, according to the data leak at the heart of the Pegasus project.Details of the scale of the apparent targeting came as Spain’s highest criminal court opened an investigation into how the mobile phones of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the defence minister, Margarita Robles, came to be infected with Pegasus spyware last year. Continue reading...

Rocket Lab test successfully hooks booster in midair before having to drop it into South PacificA space company has briefly managed to catch a falling rocket using a helicopter and a hook in a test described by its chief executive as “something of a supersonic ballet”.The test was part of Rocket Lab’s attempts to find relatively low-cost ways of recovering rockets for multiple missions to space. Continue reading...

Government fears damage of losing out to New York in battle to attract tech floatationsBoris Johnson has joined the lobbying effort to convince the British-based chip designer Arm to float in London, as the government fears the damage of losing out to New York in the battle to attract high-profile tech companies looking to list.After the collapse of the $66bn sale of the Cambridge-based business to US-based Nvidia earlier this year, Masayoshi Son, the chief executive of Arm’s Japanese parent company Softbank, immediately snubbed the UK for a flotation. Continue reading...

Japanese gaming company behind Final Fantasy series secures deal with Sweden-based EmbracerThe Japanese gaming company behind Final Fantasy is selling off three studios, including the rights to hit franchises including Tomb Raider, in a $300m (£240m) deal.Tokyo-based Square Enix has sold US-headquartered Crystal Dynamics and Canada-based Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal to the Nasdaq-listed Swedish gaming group Embracer. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency smothered by congestion due to high demand for plots of land in multiplayer game OthersideA multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency company has apologised to users after its sale of “metaverse land” sparked a frenzy that temporarily overwhelmed the Ethereum cryptocurrency.Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape NFTs beloved of Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton, announced the sale of its latest tokens – representing plots of land in a forthcoming multiplayer game called Otherside – on Sunday. A total of 55,000 plots were sold, at a flat price of 305 ApeCoin (a currency created by Yuga), which is worth about £4,500 at current exchange rates. Continue reading...

Company accused of abusing market position to limit rivals’ access to technology required for tap-and-go transactionsEU regulators have charged Apple with breaking competition law by limiting rivals’ access to technology that is key to making contactless payments, unfairly benefiting its own Apple Pay service.The European Commission said on Monday that Apple “sets the rules” on its closed platform and expressed concern that it has been limiting access to technology called near field communication (NFC), which rivals need for tap-and-go payments to be made in stores using mobile wallets. Continue reading...

Be bold and get close, try wide-angle lenses, and see if you can operate your camera on manualThe award-winning Guardian photographer David Levene offers tips on how to get a good picture. Continue reading...

Solar charging GPS watch has excellent health and fitness tracking and rugged designGarmin’s latest rugged solar-powered smartwatch, the Instinct 2, promises unlimited battery life. You just have to stay in the sun.Looking more like a rugged digital watch such as Casio’s legendary G-Shock than an Apple or Samsung smartwatch, the Garmin feels made to take a beating with its monochrome screen, physical buttons and sturdy body. Continue reading...