Technology | The Guardian

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...

Tim Ayres says the Albanese government will focus on legislation and regulation but country would benefit from moving quickly

The standup shares his favourite Australian comedians - as well as a man transforming into a cat

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...

Many posts spread the idea that mayhem overtook LA while police confrontations were limited to a small part of the city

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...

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...

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:

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...

Nintendo Switch 2; Nintendo

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...

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...

WPP and others roll out AI-generated campaigns as Facebook owner Meta plans to let firms create their own ads

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...

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...

When political spam landed in Priya Dev's inbox during the last election campaign, she decided to track down the source

Influential researcher claims disruption in jobs market from generative AI has already begun and warns of possibility of gradual disempowerment to AI'

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...

Experts, Guardian readers and writers share ingenious solutions to life's everyday irritations, from wobbly tables to persistent hiccupsStuffed-up sieves

Law expected to include safety and copyright issues but delay likely to raise concerns about ongoing lack of regulationProposals to regulate artificial intelligence have been delayed by at least a year as UK ministers plan a bumper bill to regulate the technology and its use of copyrighted material.Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, intends to introduce a comprehensive" AI bill in the next parliamentary session to address concerns about issues including safety and copyright. Continue reading...

A billionaire's vendetta has threatened to cut off the US from the ISS and complicate national defenseAfter a year of effusive praise and expressions of love for each other, Elon Musk and Donald Trump exploded their political partnership in dramatic fashion this week. The highly public split included, among other highlights, the world's richest person accusing the president of the United States of associating with a notorious sex offender. Trump said Musk had lost his mind".As Musk and Trump traded insults, each on his own social network, they also issued threats with tangible consequences. Trump suggested that he could cancel all of Musk's government contracts and subsidies - the best way to save money", he posted - a move that would have devastating consequences not only on the tech billionaire's companies but also on the federal agencies that have come to depend on them. Musk responded by announcing that he would begin decommissioning the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that Nasa relies on for transport missions, although he later reversed the decision. Continue reading...

One year on, Jonathan Haidt talks about the way his book changed the global conversation around children and digital devices - and explains how he handles his own teenagersJonathan Haidt is a man with a mission. You'll have to forgive the cliche, because it's literally true. The author of The Anxious Generation, an urgent warning about the effect of digital tech on young minds, is based at New York University's business school: I'm around all these corporate types and we're always talking about companies and their mission statements," he tells me. So, he decided to make one for himself. It was very simple: My mission is to use my research in moral psychology and that of others to help people better understand each other, and to help important social institutions work well.'"This is characteristic of Haidt: there's the risk that writing your own brand manifesto might seem a bit, well, pompous. What comes across instead is the nerd's desire to be as effective as possible, combined with the positive psychologist's love of self-improvement (one of his signature undergraduate courses is called Flourishing, which sets students homework such as catch and analyse 10 automatic thoughts"). Continue reading...

Tech company warns government not to follow EU in forcing platform to allow third-party payments and app downloads

Electric carmaker sold 36% fewer cars year on year in May as it loses ground to China's BYD and other rivalsSales of new Tesla cars slumped by more than a third in the UK last month as the electric carmaker lost ground to China's BYD and other rivals, amid a political backlash against its billionaire boss, Elon Musk.Tesla sold 2,016 vehicles in the UK in May, down from 3,152 in May 2024 - a 36% drop, according to the monthly snapshot from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). Continue reading...

Fortunate timing and government hesitation allowed the Switch 2 to come out on time, but the headache isn't overNintendo fans across the US are breathing a sigh of relief as they tear apart the boxes housing their new Nintendo Switch 2 video game consoles. On-again, off-again trade tariffs implemented by Donald Trump, which precipitated pre-order delays from Nintendo, made the 5 June release date of the highly coveted hardware feel more like a hope than a certainty. A potential price hike up from $450 loomed over launch day, but would-be buyers' fears did not come to fruition.Nintendo's maneuvering around Trump's tariffs isn't over, though - far from it. The Japanese console maker managed to luckily launch its device squarely within a 90-day tariff pause issued by the president. If tariffs on countries such as India and Japan return to the levels proposed during Trump's liberation day" speech at the start of April, however, experts say Nintendo will have to limber up for yet another delicate trade policy dance. Continue reading...

Tech firm is building humanoid park' in US to try out robots, which could spring out' of its vansAmazon is reportedly developing software for humanoid robots that could perform the role of delivery workers and spring out" of its vans.The $2tn (1.47tn) technology company is building a humanoid park" in the US to test the robots, said the tech news site the Information, citing a person who had been involved in the project. Continue reading...

It's the first major console launch in five years, so is it worth forking out for? From new tech to add-ons, our guide will help you decideSince its announcement in January, anticipation has been building for the Nintendo Switch 2 - the followup to the gaming titan's most successful home console, the 150m-selling Nintendo Switch. Major console launches are rarer than they used to be; this is the first since 2020, when Sony's PlayStation 5 hit shelves. Whether you're weighing up a purchase or just wondering what all the fuss is about, here's everything you need to know. Continue reading...

Latest spat appears to stem from fight between president's sons and Bill Zanker, longtime Trump business partnerA splashy website featuring an illustration of Donald Trump, looking buff and pumping his fist in the air, appeared online on Tuesday. The image is the logo of one of Trump's digital currencies, and the website claims to be the Official $Trump Wallet", hawking a product that would allow customers to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, primarily the president's own.The website prominently features the name of Trump's coin, $Trump, and invites people to join the waitlist to use the digital wallet. It was first noticed by the crypto newsletter Citation Needed. Magic Eden, an established cryptocurrency marketplace, said on the website that it had partnered with Trump's official digital coin team to create the wallet. The Twitter/X account for one of Trump's cryptocurrencies promoted the wallet product as well. Continue reading...

Government suffers fifth defeat in House of Lords over plans to allow AI companies to use copyrighted materialDefiant peers have delivered an ultimatum to the government - calling on it to offer artists copyright protection against artificial intelligence companies or risk losing a key piece of legislation.The government suffered a fifth defeat in the House of Lords over controversial plans to allow the AI companies to train their models using copyrighted material. Continue reading...