YouTube robotics tutorials helped 17-year turn his concern for his grandmother into a device that alerts carers if Alzheimer's patients fall or wander offIn the blissful summer that Hemesh Chadalavada spent with his grandmother in 2018, the pair watched endless movies and ate her chicken biryani. Late one evening, as Chadalavada, then 12, sat on his own in front of the television, Jayasree got up in her nightdress and went to make tea at her home in Guntur, southern India.After she had returned to her bedroom, Chadalavada went into the kitchen to find that his grandmother, then 63, had left the gas on. Continue reading...
Import ban applies to Apple's Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches and stems from patent infringement dispute with MasimoUS Customs and Border Protection has determined that Apple's redesigned Apple Watch is not subject to an import ban, according to a Monday court filing.The import ban, issued by the US International Trade Commission (ITC), applies to Apple's current Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches and stems from a patent infringement dispute with the medical-monitoring technology company Masimo. Continue reading...
UK's national library apologises to researchers, saying full recovery could take until end of the yearThe British Library is restoring online its main catalogue, containing 36m records of printed and rare books, maps, journals and music scores, 11 weeks after a catastrophic cyber-attack.However, access is limited to a read-only" format, and full restoration of services provided by the UK's national library could take until the end of the year. Continue reading...
The world needs people willing to stand up for freedom of expression - which makes Musk's trajectory all the sadderIs there anyone in the world who is a bigger hypocrite on free speech than Elon Musk?I say this as someone who wishes Elon Musk actually cared about free speech. In my opinion, social media companies censor their users too much. The myriad restrictive rules often end up backfiring on those who push for them. The suspension process is often opaque and arbitrary. Ultimately, a public square filled with frank and free exchange of competing views - one that explicitly tilts in favor of allowing more speech on the edges than it bans - is a good thing. Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsWhy are cars designed to be capable of going much faster than the speed limit? (Don't tell me they're made with the Autobahn in mind.) Andy Crosby, north WalesPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...
Once confined to weightlifting, workout hype tracks have become a hugely popular (and profitable) genre online. Jenny Valentish goes in search of the daddy of them allPerhaps my father walked out on me, the speaker hypothesises, his voice thundering over crashing drums (the kind that accompany tense moments on reality TV shows).Absent fathers are a common theme of motivational workout speeches, and so the narrator in my earbuds takes the form of Dad; sometimes Encouraging Dad, but more often Shouting Angrily from the Sidelines Dad.Give up!Don't give up!The more valuable you are, the more a team will pay for you. Same with YouTube. The more value you give, the more people watch.Stop with the YouTube binge sessions! Continue reading...
Image library CEO speaks out amid anger over harvesting of material for training data' for AI companiesRishi Sunak needs to decide whether he wants to back the UK's creative industries or gamble everything on an artificial intelligence boom, the chief executive of Getty Images has said.Craig Peters, who has led the image library since 2019, spoke out amid growing anger from the creative and media sector at the harvesting of their material for training data" for AI companies. His company is suing an AI image generator in the UK and US for copyright infringement. Continue reading...
Glasgow University has set up virtual trips showing stories behind the poems and exploring the poet's lifeGuests attending Burns Night suppers this month can get unexpected help in appreciating Scotland's national bard - thanks to virtual reality. The Art of the Burns Supper has been created by Glasgow University researchers and takes participants on virtual trips that reveal the stories behind his poems and songs and his love of whisky - and haggis.The VR experiences have been created by scanning items from Burns collections across Scotland as well as key sites and places in his life. The result is an eclectic vision of the poet whose birthday is celebrated by Scots across the world on 25 January. Continue reading...
by Michael Savage, Shanti Das, James Tapper on (#6HV7H)
A 1999 note highlighted concerns of subpostmasters about the Horizon system and heralded decades of ministerial failingsIn any big scandal with the power to dominate the nation's attention, there are inevitably key moments when events could have been stopped in their tracks. Yet few early warnings could have been as prescient as a seven-page memo handed to a Post Office official 25 years ago.During a fractious meeting at Newcastle rugby club in 1999, the note set out a litany of concerns from subpostmasters in the north-east of England who had been piloting the now infamous Horizon accounting system. The issues, including with balancing their accounts, were causing stress and forcing some to work well into the night. Continue reading...
Study warns that lack of reporting may mask the dangers of still-mostly-illegal scooters on roads and pavementsThe majority of e-scooter accidents that involve someone needing hospital treatment are not being recorded in official road accident figures, a new study reveals, sparking fears that their dangers have been underplayed.The analysis found that just 9% of injuries involving e-scooters and recorded by 20 emergency departments over a two-month period were found in official figures. And just over a quarter of the most serious injuries were recorded in road casualty data. Continue reading...
As the Post Office debacle has amply demonstrated, putting blind faith into a new form of technology can be perilousIt doesn't take much imagination to describe what happens when a large corporation, over 16 long years, is allowed vindictively to prosecute 900 subpostmasters for theft, false accounting and fraud, when shortfalls at their branches were in fact due to bugs in the accounting software imposed on them by that corporation, as one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation's history".But then Rishi Sunak is not the most imaginative of men. The US Marines, on the other hand, have an economical term that fits the Horizon fiasco like a glove: it was a clusterfuck" - primly defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as a very rude word for a complete failure or very serious problem in which many mistakes or problems happen at the same time". Continue reading...
If there's one area in which artificial intelligence could actually be useful, it's in the writing of computer codeAs you have doubtless noticed, we are in the middle of a feeding frenzy about something called generative AI. Legions of hitherto normal people - and economists - are surfing a wave of irrational exuberance about its transformative potential. It's the newest new thing.For anyone suffering from the fever, two antidotes are recommended. The first is the hype cycle monitor produced by consultants Gartner, which shows the technology currently perched on the peak of inflated expectations", before a steep decline into the trough of disillusionment". The other is Hofstadter's law, about the difficulty of estimating how long difficult tasks will take, which says that It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law". Just because a powerful industry and its media boosters are losing their marbles about something doesn't mean that it will sweep like a tsunami through society at large. Reality moves at a more leisurely pace. Continue reading...
Creators of these chatbots often tout them as a way to combat loneliness, but they can create unhealthy attachments and affect gender rolesIt is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a computer must be in want of an AI girlfriend. Certainly a lot of enterprising individuals seem to think there's a lucrative market for digital romance. OpenAI recently launched its GPT Store, where paid ChatGPT users can buy and sell customized chatbots (think Apple's app store, but for chatbots) - and the offerings include a large selection of digital girlfriends. Continue reading...
Walking the dog led the photographer to a magical, misty moment with an elephantHimanshu Roy was walking his dog, Rio, through his home area of Vesu, part of the Indian city of Surat, when he saw the man and the elephant.We don't often see elephants here; Vesu is a very developed and residential area," Roy says. She and her owner had just arrived for a diksha ceremony, when a person renounces their wealthy life and donates everything they have to follow a spiritual path." Continue reading...
With market capitalizations neck-and-neck at $2.887tn and $2.875tn, Microsoft pulls ahead due to worries about iPhone salesMicrosoft's stock market value ended a trading session higher than that of Apple's for the first time since 2021 on Friday, making it the world's most valuable company as worries about demand hit the iPhone maker's shares.Apple crept up 0.2% on Friday, while Microsoft added 1%. With that, Microsoft's market capitalization stood at $2.887tn, its highest ever, according to LSEG data. Apple's market capitalization was $2.875tn, calculated with data from a Thursday filing. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6HSZD)
AI companions, hidden speakers, bird-spotting binoculars and sideways-driving cars shine at annual tech show in Las VegasThe next year in technology is to be dominated by upgrades for everything from catflaps to binoculars to cars, devices that disappear in your home including transparent televisions, plus a new era of spatial computing brought in by some very expensive goggles.Those are the predictions from the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas that drew to a close this week. Unlike previous years, the event was not dominated by the big technology and car firms but rather a record-breaking 1,400 startups displaying their prototypes in hopes of catching the eyes of consumers and investors alike. Continue reading...
For many, the game became the sound of the 90s - but Josh Mancell tells us how the music for PlayStation's first mascot game originated in Kraft cheese and KraftwerkWhen people are playing video games, they want to have fun," Josh Mancell, composer for Naughty Dog's early Crash Bandicoot games, tells me. It's a simple statement, but one that laid the foundations for everything the PlayStation's most famous mascot would come to represent. Even when players were banging their heads against their CRT TVs in frustration as the paranoid, eerie music of Slippery Climb began playing again for the hundredth time, Crash Bandicoot was fun. And Mancell's soundtrack was there, from beginning to end, to remind you of that.The characteristically eccentric, manic energy that fuelled Crash's madcap platforming adventures didn't come out of nowhere, though. As I was working on the game, I was definitely throwing stuff against the wall to see what would stick," Mancell says. Continue reading...
From the 80s driving experience of Outrun and After Burner's dogfighting F-14 to Golden Axe's high fantasy hack-'em-up - here's what you wished was in your local arcadeAt the close of 2023, Sega announced its plans to reimagine several of its greatest arcade games, including Crazy Taxi and Golden Axe, for current home consoles. It's a welcome endeavour as modern gamers reared on Sonic the Hedgehog may overlook the company's incredible heritage. While we've been trained to think of Sega as a perennial also-ran in the console wars, it dominated the arcade scene for years, some of its biggest hits occurring during the Sega Saturn era. So here's a gentle reminder of the greatest coin-op games in the manufacturer's long history. Continue reading...
Critics say assumption in English and Welsh law that computers are reliable' reverses usual burden of proof in criminal casesMinisters need to immediately" update the law to acknowledge that computers are fallible or risk a repeat of the Horizon scandal, legal experts say.In English and Welsh law, computers are assumed to be reliable" unless proven otherwise. But critics of this approach say this reverses the burden of proof normally applied in criminal cases. Continue reading...
Tech giant among others - including Amazon and Meta - to cut workforce as business predictions slowed down in the past yearGoogle has laid off a thousand workers in its hardware, voice-assistance and engineering teams as part of cost-cutting measures, according to the Alphabet Workers Union.The cuts come as Google looks towards responsibly investing in our company's biggest priorities and the significant opportunities ahead", the company said in a statement. Continue reading...
US justice department accuses company of absolutely horrific, criminal conduct' over targeted campaign waged by employeesThe online retailer eBay will pay a $3m fine to resolve criminal charges over a harassment campaign waged by employees who sent live spiders, cockroaches and other disturbing items to the home of a Massachusetts couple, according to court papers filed on Thursday.The justice department charged eBay with stalking, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. The employees already were prosecuted in the extensive scheme to intimidate David and Ina Steiner more than three years ago. The couple produced an online newsletter called EcommerceBytes that upset eBay executives with its coverage. Continue reading...
Kelly Carlin decries comedy special on YouTube that generated a fake Carlin, saying no machine will ever replace his genius'Kelly Carlin, the American radio host and daughter of the late comedian George Carlin, has criticized the release of a new comedy special featuring an AI-generated version of her father, who died in 2008 due to heart failure.My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life, brain and imagination. No machine will ever replace his genius. These AI-generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again," Kelly Carlin wrote in a series of tweets on X. Continue reading...
by Hollie Richardson and Rachel Aroesti on (#6HRXE)
In this week's newsletter: Mobeen Azhar explores jawdropping' cases from the criminal underworld in Catching the Kingpins. Plus: five of the best podcasts about real-life stories Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereFootball's Greatest
by Lanre Bakare Arts and culture correspondent on (#6HRVE)
Chinese artist responds to debate about data-scraping as he prepares for new collaboration with AIArt that can be easily replicated by artificial intelligence is meaningless", according to the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who believes even Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse would have had to rethink their approach if AI had existed in their era.Ai Weiwei's comments feed into the current charged debate about the rise of AIs that use data scraped from artists' websites to create original" images in their style.Ai vs AI is part of CIRCA 20:24 and launches on 11 January Continue reading...
Through the new product models, chatbot agents could be developed with their own personalities or themesOpenAI on Wednesday launched its GPT Store, a marketplace where paid ChatGPT users can buy and sell specialized chatbot agents based on the company's language models.The company, whose wildly popular product ChatGPT helped kickstart the boom in AI, already offers customized bots through its paid ChatGPT Plus service. The new store will allow users to offer and monetize a broader range of tools. Continue reading...
Hackers posted false news about a widely anticipated announcement that the SEC was expected to make about bitcoinThe US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Wednesday that it is working with the FBI to investigate a fake message posted on its X social media account.On Tuesday hackers posted false news about a widely anticipated announcement that the SEC was expected to make about bitcoin, leading the cryptocurrency's price to spike and alarming observers. An SEC spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian in a statement that the unauthorized post on the @SECGov account was not drafted or created by the SEC". Continue reading...
Internal note says company has identified opportunities to reduce or discontinue investments in certain areas' amid wave of layoffsAmazon will lay off several hundred employees in its streaming and studio operations, according to an internal note sent on Wednesday. The announcement came the same day as the live-streaming company Twitch, a subsidiary of the e-commerce giant, disclosed that it would lay off about 35% of its workforce, or 500 employees.Amazon last year cut more than 27,000 jobs as part of a wave of US tech layoffs, drawing a sharp line under the industry's recruitment spree during the pandemic. It was far from alone. Facebook and Microsoft each laid off 10,000 workers last year; Google cut 12,000. Continue reading...
Filing claims Meta did not adequately respond to Walmart and Match Group's complaints of deeply disturbing' images and videosFacebook and Instagram have been profiting from placing corporate adverts from companies such as Walmart and Match Group next to content potentially promoting child sexual exploitation, a legal filing alleges.The accusation is the latest in an explosive lawsuit initiated in December by Raul Torrez, the New Mexico attorney general, against Meta claiming the company enabled adults to find, message and groom minors" for sexual exploitation. The suit follows a Guardian investigation in April, which revealed that the tech giant is struggling to prevent people from using its platforms to buy and sell children for sex. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Stephen Harrison says he was paid to play role of chief executive of the crypto investment scheme but denies having pocketed' any of the money lostThe man who posed as the chief executive of the collapsed crypto scheme HyperVerse has confirmed he was paid to act the part, receiving 180,000 Thai baht (about A$7,500 or 4,000) over nine months and a free suit as payment.Stephen Harrison, an Englishman living in Thailand who posed as chief executive Steven Reece Lewis for the launch of HyperVerse in late 2021 and early 2022, has told Guardian Australia he was shocked" to learn the company had presented him as having fake credentials to promote the scheme. Continue reading...
How do smartphones really affect us - and our kids? We spoke to five experts with different viewpoints to capture the current state of discussion Sign up to our free coaching newsletter to help you spend less time on your phoneIn 2007, Steve Jobs presented the iPhone to the public. Several months later, the day the phones went on sale, the Guardian published an article headlined iPhone set to struggle".Apple's iPhone combines a phone, music and video player with web and email capabilities, but researchers found demand for these converged devices was lowest in affluent countries," the article said. Continue reading...
Price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000, as ETF would have given way to invest without buying outright on a crypto exchangeThe Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said Tuesday that a post sent from the agency's account on the social platform X/Twitter announcing the approval of a long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded fund was unauthorized", and that the agency's account had been compromised".The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post on X claimed: The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges." Cryptocurrency investors had already driven bitcoin's price above $46,000 in anticipation of the approval. Continue reading...
Booksmart actor cast in apocalyptic drama as vengeful soldier Abby, as TV series creators eschew close physical likenesses to the video game characterShe's one of the most controversial video game characters of the last five years, and now her role has been cast for season two of HBO's The Last of Us adaptation. Booksmart and Justified actor Kaitlyn Dever will play vengeful soldier Abby who comes into deadly conflict with the main protagonist, Ellie, throughout video game sequel The Last of Us Part II.It's another intriguing casting choice by the makers of the TV series, who have eschewed close physical likenesses to the original game characters. Indeed, 27-year-old Dever was a fan favourite to play Ellie when the show was announced, due to her resemblance to the lead character and her short role in Uncharted 4, also developed by The Last of Us creator Naughty Dog. However, the showrunners opted for the younger actor, Bella Ramsey, who more closely matched Ellie in age. Continue reading...
Move comes as regulators around the world press Meta to protect children from sensitive posts on its appsMeta said on Tuesday it would hide more sensitive content from teenagers on Instagram and Facebook amid global pressure from regulators for the social media giant to protect children from harmful content on its apps.The move will make it more difficult for teenagers to come across sensitive content such as suicide, self-harm and eating disorders when they use features such as search and explore on Instagram, according to Meta. All teenagers' accounts will by default be under the most restrictive content control settings on Instagram and Facebook, and additional search terms will be limited on Instagram, Meta said in a blog post. Continue reading...
From bugs to unqualified staff, the Post Office's point-of-sale system was inadequate on many levelsThe Horizon IT scandal, frequently called the largest miscarriage of justice in British history, is back in the headlines thanks to a prime-time ITV dramatisation. The resulting surge of interest has led to Paula Vennells, who ran the Post Office from 2012 to 2019, agreeing to return her CBE. But there's also a technical underside to the very human story of power run rampant. Continue reading...
European Commission says it is checking whether multibillion-dollar stake is reviewable under merger regulationMicrosoft's multibillion-dollar investment in the ChatGPT developer OpenAI could face a merger investigation in the European Union, officials have said.Microsoft is the largest minority investor in OpenAI Global LLC, a capped profit" subsidiary company that is controlled by OpenAI Inc, the non-profit majority owner of the organisation. Its investment, given in the form of cloud-computing credits as well as cash, officially gives it no control of the company itself, but the possibility of a maximum of a 100-times return on its capital. Continue reading...
GMB union says up to 100 staff at fulfilment centre will take part in stoppage to boost profile of disputeAmazon faces fresh industrial action in the UK, after members of the GMB union at a new fulfilment centre in Birmingham voted to strike over pay and conditions later this month.The GMB says up to 100" workers will take part in the strike at the warehouse, which opened in October - a small fraction of the total workforce - but it hopes to use the action to boost the profile of the dispute and recruit more supporters. Continue reading...
Pioneering vandalism-reporting scheme will launch in January involving police, youth workers and housing officialsA groundbreaking scheme designed to help clear streets of hate graffiti and pinpoint flare-ups of racism and homophobia is being pioneered in Wales.At the centre of the project is an app called StreetSnap, developed by Swansea University, that will be formally launched in January in Bridgend county borough and is being looked at by local authorities across the UK including a central London council. Continue reading...
The world's largest tech event has cutting-edge TVs and even a VW with ChatGPT - but cheap gadgets and big tech have dented its influence. Plus, HMRC comes for side hustlers Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereThe Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which starts today in Las Vegas, is an odd beast. It is the biggest technology event of the year, a sprawling conference that spills over multiple casinos and convention centres to dominate a city that is hard to overshadow.But for the better part of a decade it has been an afterthought for some of the world's biggest businesses, led by Apple realising that if you can get the press to come to you, you don't need to risk burying your product launches under hundreds of competing newslines. The result is that CES is no longer where you see the future, but where you learn how that future will get copied into a thousand cheap plastic knockoffs. Continue reading...
Focusing on power and politics, this Macula Interactive docu-game draws on muralists, an assassination and newspaper reporting in painstakingly historically accurate detailHow many stories are hidden in the murals of Diego Rivera? What was it like to witness the creation of a modern Latin American nation, to sit in the classrooms of stridentism and surrealism? To travel in a tram through a capital city illuminated by the embers of a recent revolution yet disrupted by periodic presidential assassinations?These are just some of the questions that brought a young team of video game developers back 100 years to Mexico, 1921. Continue reading...
In 2008, Milda Mitkute and a friend set up a website to clear out her closet. It soon grew exponentially. Now Vinted has 16 million UK users and is the first Lithuanian unicorn'. Can it make secondhand our first choice?When is a jumble sale also a billion-euro tech startup? When it has 500m items for sale and 105 million users.I am in Vilnius, Lithuania, at the headquarters of Vinted, the slick, easy-to-use app where users can buy and sell secondhand clothes, shoes and gadgets. If you haven't used Vinted yet, you certainly know someone who has. In the UK, it has an astonishing 16 million users - nearly one-quarter of the population - and is taking on more established rivals, including Depop and eBay. Continue reading...
Beijing set the goal of being the global AI leader by 2030, but that was before the emergence of ChatGPTOf the many events that stand out as noteworthy in online discussions across Chinese social media in 2023, it's perhaps the rise of ChatGPT that will prove to be the most significant.Although the chatbot made by the US-based OpenAI was officially launched in late 2022, it took until 2023 for its unprecedented growth to raise eyebrows in China, where the government has set the goal of becoming the global AI leader by 2030. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Internal Revenue Service alleges Rodney Burton was part of a network that made fraudulent' presentations claiming high returns for investors based on crypto-mining operations that did not existA promoter of the HyperVerse crypto investment scheme has been arrested and charged in the US for his alleged role in the scheme, with court documents claiming he was part of a network that made fraudulent promotional presentations" to investors and potential investors.Rodney Burton, who goes by the name Bitcoin Rodney", was arrested in Florida on Friday and remains in custody pending transfer to Maryland, where the charges were laid. He has been charged with operating and conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. Continue reading...
It gave me friends, fun and new horizons - but the dark side of social media was a threat to democracy long before Elon MuskLast year was the year when Twitter, now known as X, broke irreparably. In 2023 engagement fell off a cliff, advertisers withdrew and long-term influencers stopped - or greatly reduced - posting. What was a busy global public forum now resembles an aggressive wasteland filled with hate and rumour. On 18 December, the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against X for allegedly breaking EU law on disinformation. It is high time there was a broader discussion about the challenges social media poses to liberal democracy. But to do that, we need to understand why it can be so appealing. The battle for balance and truth may be lost on X, but it continues elsewhere.I used Twitter very heavily for several years, and know that social media is not necessarily trivial. Long before I started to comment myself, I enjoyed it as a treasure trove of information. By following authors, experts, journalists, lawyers, politicians, officials and institutions around the world whose work was relevant to mine, or about whom I was simply curious, I could curate my own, transnational newspaper. As a researcher, Twitter saved me vast amounts of time, as long as I made sure to triple-check my sources and never rely solely on the information provided on the platform itself. As a writer it forced me to be concise and persuasive. When you have only 140, and later, 280 characters, every syllable counts.Helene von Bismarck is a Hamburg-based historian specialising in UK-German relations Continue reading...
Academics decry algorithmic monitoring of workers and call for stronger standards - but US unions have been slow to actFrom algorithms firing staff without human intervention to software keeping tabs on bathroom breaks, technologies including artificial intelligence are already upsetting workers and unsettling workplaces.At call centers, AI systems record and grade how workers handle calls, often giving failing grades for not sticking to the script. Some corporate software spies on workers to see whether they ever write the word union" in their emails. Continue reading...
The online publishing service has been criticised for the way it has allowed extremist propaganda to flourish on the siteIt's funny how naive smart people can be sometimes. Take the founders of Substack, a US-based online platform that enables writers to send digital newsletters directly to subscribers. It also enables them to earn money from their writing if they wish to, though as far as I can see, most don't.I can personally testify to its merits. I've been a blogger for ever, but when Covid-19 arrived, I decided to also publish my blog as a free daily newsletter and started to look around for a way of doing that. Substack fitted the bill and it's delivered the goods; I've found it reliable, stable and easy to use. The experience has also been illuminating because the engagement one gets with newsletter readers is significantly more rewarding than is the case with a conventional online blog.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian