Technology | The Guardian

Revenue from Azure cloud business increased by 22% as company focuses attention on artificial intelligenceMicrosoft reported better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday fueled by growth in its Azure cloud business, as five of the Magnificent Seven" tech megacaps roll out quarterly earnings this week.AI-driven transformation is changing work, work artifacts, and workflow across every role, function, and business process," the company's CEO, Satya Nadella, said in a press release. On an earnings call, Nadella said Microsoft's AI business was on track to surpass an annual run-rate of $10bn next quarter, which will make it the fastest growing business in our history to reach this milestone". Continue reading...

Company beats financial predictions but does not increase daily users as much as Wall Street thought it mightMeta's blowout year continues after the company reported another stellar financial quarter on Wednesday. But shares fell in after-hours trading after the company missed Wall Street expectations for daily active users.Wall Street analysts had high expectations for the Instagram and WhatsApp parent company, projecting an 18% jump in sales year over year. The company reported $40.6bn in sales, a 19% increase year over year that outpaced investor expectations of $40.19bn. Meta, which saw a 25% jump in its share price over the past two months, reported $6.03 in earnings per share (EPS), surpassing Wall Street's expectations of an EPS of $5.29. Continue reading...

Monthly users rose by nearly half thanks to AI translation feature, and deals for AI training with Google and OpenAI boosted revenueReddit on Tuesday reported a quarterly profit for the first time in its 20-year history. Shares of the company, popular for its user-led communities known as subreddits, rose more than 35% as markets opened the next day.The company reported nearly 100 million monthly users, an increase of 47% from the year prior, and a profit of $29.9m. Its revenue reached $348.4m, a year-over-year increase of 68%, handily beating analysts' expectations. Continue reading...

An expert in digital forensics and family violence says surveillance by spyware is rare - more often it happens via everyday features such as location sharing

Sony is shutting down Firewalk, the studio behind its live-service flop, Concord. It's the biggest, most expensive casualty of an increasingly crowded hero shooter market - and it won't be the last Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIt's official: after Sony pulled its struggling hero shooter Concord from sale shortly after it launched, the studio that made it will now be closing. Firewalk Studios was bought by Sony less than two years ago, as part of a strategy to improve PlayStation's live-service portfolio. The closure of Firewalk cements Concord's place as one of the biggest and most consequential flops in gaming history: the cost to Sony will have been in the hundreds of millions, with estimates of Concord's development cost ranging from $200m to $400m in total.Sony also closed Neon Koi, a developer with offices in Helsinki and Berlin, which focused on mobile action games with epic stories" but had yet to release a game. Continue reading...

Halloween is coming, and our minds are turning to scary games. But which titles are genuine fright fests? Our writers decided to find out in the most ill-advised way possibleShepton Mallet prison in Somerset is the world's oldest correctional facility. It is also reportedly one of the most haunted. Between its opening in 1625 and its closure in 2013, it saw hundreds of inmates, from Victorian street urchins to wayward American GIs to the Kray twins. Now a tourist attraction, it occasionally opens to paying guests who want to spend a night behind bars. Some are paranormal investigators, some are brave tourists, and others are video game journalists with a silly idea: how scary would it be to play five recent horror games all night, locked in a haunted prison?Carrying just a torch, an electromagnetic field (EMF) detector, and a laptop, we wandered the prison finding spine-chilling locations in which to play these immersive supernatural masterpieces. Here is what happened ... Continue reading...

As the Long Read turns 10 we are raiding the archives to bring you a favourite piece from each year since 2014, with new introductions from the authors.This week from 2018: How an extreme libertarian tract predicting the collapse of liberal democracies - written by Jacob Rees-Mogg's father - inspired the likes of Peter Thiel to buy up property across the Pacific. By Mark O'Connell Continue reading...

Analysts expected 12% year-on-year revenue gains, but company reports 15%, buoyed by performance in ads and cloud servicesAlphabet, parent of Google and YouTube, saw a third straight quarter of better-than-anticipated gains as it reported earnings on Tuesday. The tech giant had largely exceeded analyst expectations for the previous two quarters, and Tuesday's results showed growth in both digital advertising and demand for Google Cloud. Shares rose in after-hours training.The momentum across the company is extraordinary. Our commitment to innovation, as well as our long-term focus and investment in AI, are paying off with consumers and partners benefiting from our AI tools," said the CEO, Sundar Pichai. Continue reading...

A French newspaper has revealed the whereabouts of world leaders with the use of the hugely popular running app. So is it time to stop it tracking your location?

Campaigners say 21% of people at workshops did not disclose on their applications relationships with firms being discussedMore than one in five attenders at EU events on regulating big tech companies did not disclose links to the industry when applying to take part, according to transparency campaigners who say hidden networks are distorting public debate.Researchers at three NGOs analysed nearly 4,000 registrations at European Commission workshops organised earlier this year to test companies' compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law to curb anti-competitive behaviour. Continue reading...

As a new show co-created by an AI performer opens in France, industry leaders including Wayne McGregor, Tamara Rojo and Jonzi D contemplate the technology's possibilities and perilsI think AI's going to change everything," Tamara Rojo, artistic director of San Francisco Ballet, told me earlier this year. We just don't know quite how." The impact of artificial intelligence on the creative industries can already be seen across film, television and music, but to some extent dance seems insulated, as a form that so much relies on live bodies performing in front of an audience. But this week choreographers Aoi Nakamura and Esteban Lecoq, collectively known as AE, are launching what is billed as the world's first AI-driven dance production, Lilith.Aeon. Lilith, the performer, is an AI entity, who has co-created the work, with Nakamura and Lecoq. She" will appear on an LED cube that the audience move around, their motion triggering Lilith's dance.Nakamura and Lecoq insist they're interested not in chasing the latest technology for its own sake but in enhancing their storytelling. Working as dancers with theatre company Punchdrunk turned them on to the idea of immersive experiences, which led to virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and now AI. Their question is always: How can we make this tech come alive?" But not in a robots-taking-over-the-world way. Continue reading...

The tech titans have picked up the phone and called the ex-president. Plus: AI chatbots and sharing your baby's photos Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWelcome back. Today in the newsletter: tech executives play phone tag with Donald Trump, the liability of AI chatbots, and talking through sharing your baby's photos online with your family. Thank you for joining me.The CEOs of the biggest tech companies in the world are looking at the neck-and-neck polls, picking up their phones, and putting their ducks in a row for a potential Donald Trump presidency. The former US president has never shied away from threatening revenge against his perceived enemies, and tech's leaders are heading off retributive regulatory scrutiny. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox; Treyarch/Raven/Activision

After resignations and loss of subscribers, billionaire owner pens piece saying endorsements create perception of bias'Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, has penned a column in his own newspaper defending the decision not to endorse a candidate in the US presidential election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, widely seen as a crucial stress test for American democracy.The decision not to endorse has rocked the Post, one of the most storied names in US journalism since breaking the Watergate scandal that brought down Richard Nixon, and seen newsroom unrest, resignations from its editorial board and the loss of 200,000 subscribers who have cancelled their accounts with the newspaper. Continue reading...

Marketing and sale of model prohibited after tech giant fails to meet rule 40% of phones be made from local partsIndonesia has prohibited the marketing and sale of the iPhone 16 model over Apple's failure to meet local investment regulations, according to its industry ministry.South-east Asia's biggest economy has a young, tech-savvy population with more than 100 million people under the age of 30, but Apple still does not have an official store in the country, forcing those who want its products to buy from resale platforms. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; Bioware/Electronic Arts

As the software used by millions around the world celebrates its birthday, here are some of the low pointsFor millions of people, from accountants to the person in charge of the work rota, Microsoft Excel has been been a godsend.But as the spreadsheet software celebrates its 40th birthday, spare a thought for those who misplaced a decimal, left out a row or got their cut and paste wrong. Here are some of the most memorable examples. Continue reading...

Advertising executive, 58, shares old-school tricks of the marketing trade, enjoyed by millions of viewersRory Sutherland is reaching for an analogy to describe his newfound status as one of the UK's most viral TikTokers. It's a bit like Lord Byron, I woke up and found myself famous."That he conjures up the name of a 19th-century romantic poet tells you a lot: Sutherland is not your average social media influencer. Continue reading...

From baby names to wedding planning, fans of the 40-year-old spreadsheet program reveal how it has transformed their livesI'm a boring man," says Mike Elwin, an energy management consultant from Warrington. My friends think it's ridiculous how much I use Microsoft Excel. But it's a dead handy tool."Elwin, 56, has long used Excel to organise his life - from mapping finances, to plotting medical test results, to monitoring his household energy use. When his son was born in 2007, he made a spreadsheet for the feeding schedule. Continue reading...

Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, jailed after transforming normal pictures of children into sexual abuse imageryA man who used AI to create child abuse images using photographs of real children has been sentenced to 18 years in prison.In the first prosecution of its kind in the UK, Hugh Nelson, 27, from Bolton, was convicted of 16 child sexual abuse offences in August, after an investigation by Greater Manchester police (GMP). Continue reading...

The Washington Post reports Chinese state-affiliated hackers intercepted audio and texts from unnamed adviserChinese state-affiliated hackers intercepted audio from the phone calls of US political figures, including an unnamed campaign adviser of Donald Trump, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.Various media outlets reported on Friday that the Trump campaign was made aware last week that the Republican presidential candidate and his running mate, JD Vance, were among a number of people inside and outside of government whose phone numbers were targeted through the infiltration of Verizon phone systems. Continue reading...

Pair stream themselves playing Madden in effort to secure votes just nine days before electionVice-presidential candidate Tim Walz and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez streamed themselves playing an American football video game against each other on Sunday as the two Democrats continued their party's efforts to secure votes from young men just nine days before the White House election.During the stream of their showdown on the latest edition of the Madden game series, Ocasio-Cortez and Walz exalted the importance of regaining Democratic control of the US House, maintaining a majority in the Senate and ensuring Kamala Harris wins the 5 November presidential election against Donald Trump. Continue reading...

The platform's billionaire owner has seen its value plunge as advertisers run shy, revenues drop and user numbers fallTwo years ago, there was some trepidation among advertisers, anti-hate-speech groups and staff about Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.Those concerns have been borne out: advertisers have sharply reduced spending on the platform, Musk has sued nonprofits over their coverage of a rise in controversial content and about eight out of 10 employees have been sacked. Continue reading...

The Harvard ethicist and author on the similarities between digital technology and religion, the value of scepticism, and how to develop a positive relationship with our devicesGreg Epstein is the humanist chaplain at Harvard and MIT. He was also TechCrunch's first ethicist in residence". In his new book, Tech Agnostic, he explores the idea that tech", by which he means modern digital technology, is a new global religion, with messianic leaders, dutiful followers, daily rituals of worship, and an inescapable influence on all facets of life.Why did you decide on religion as the analogy with which to understand the modern role of tech?

Washington Post contrasts the episode with the South African multibillionaire's anti-immigration viewsElon Musk briefly worked illegally in the US after abandoning a graduate studies program in California, according to a Washington Post report that contrasted the episode with the South African multibillionaire's anti-immigration views.The boss of Tesla and SpaceX, who has in recent weeks supported Donald Trump's campaign for a second presidency while promoting the Republican White House nominee's opposition to open borders" on his X social media site, has previously maintained that his transition from student to entrepreneur was a legal grey area". Continue reading...

New research reveals how app usage affects grades, adding to parents' worries about mental healthFirst, the good news. We middle-aged Brits are no longer condemned to the conversation- and soul-destroying monomania of debating house prices.Less good is what has displacedit - an epidemic of angst about when to allow teenagers a mobile, and what kind. I'm in the very late and a brick" camp, but parents end up discussing the options for a smartphone-free childhood, inevitably, on WhatsApp. Continue reading...

Child actor Kaylin Hayman fought back after she learned that a man had used AI to make child sex abuse materials from images on her Instagram pageLast year, Kaylin Hayman walked into a Pittsburgh court to testify against a man she'd never met who had used her face to make pornographic pictures with artificial intelligence technology.Kaylin, 16, is a child actress who starred in the Disney show Just Roll With It from 2019 to 2021. The perpetrator, a 57-year-old man named James Smelko, had targeted her because of her public profile. She is one of about 40 of his victims, all of them child actors. In one of the images of Kaylin submitted into evidence at the trial, Smelko used her face from a photo posted on Instagram when she was 12, working on set, and superimposed it onto the naked body of someone else. Continue reading...

The megalomaniacs who control X and Facebook are only able to pollute the public sphere and undermine democracy because of our deference to moneyThere are two kinds of aphrodisiac. The first is power. A good example was provided by the late Henry Kissinger, who could hardly be described as toothsome yet was doted upon by a host of glamorous women.The other powerful aphrodisiac is immense wealth. This has all kinds of effects. It makes people (even journalists who should know better) deferential, presumably because they subscribe to the delusion that if someone is rich then they must be clever. But its effects on the rich person are more profound: it cuts them off from reality. When they travel, writes Jack Self in an absorbing essay: The car takes them to the aerodrome, where the plane takes them to another aerodrome, where a car takes them to the destination (with perhaps a helicopter inserted somewhere). Every journey is bookended by identical Mercedes Vito Tourers (gloss black, tinted windows). Every flight is within the cosy confines of a Cessna Citation (or a King Air or Embraer)... The ultra-rich never wait in line at a carousel or a customs table or a passport control. There are no accidental encounters. No unwelcome, unapproved or unsanitary humans enter their sight - no souls that could espouse a foreign view. The ultra-rich do not see anything they do not want to see." Continue reading...

Get ready for a silk shirt undone to the navel, necklaces and big T-shirts, all aimed at humanising Meta's founderFor more than 20 years Mark Zuckerberg has made a Macbook grey T-shirt and equally drab-coloured hoodie his trademark. But now the Facebook founder has ditched his signature look in favour of something with a bit more oomph.His new wardrobe features jazzy embroidered floral shirts, boxy black T-shirts emblazoned with Latin phrases, chain necklaces and a shearling coat that would not look out of place on the set of the western drama Yellowstone. He has even grown out his tightly cropped Caesar cut for looser curls. Continue reading...

Trump campaign immediately blamed Biden White House and Kamala Harris for Chinese government-linked hackChinese government-linked hackers are believed to have targeted phones used by Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, as part of a larger breach of US telecommunications networks, according to a New York Times report.The Trump campaign was informed this week that the phone numbers of the Republican presidential and vice-presidential nominee were among those targeted during a breach of the Verizon network, the paper said, citing sources. Continue reading...

Media mogul and leading artists join fight to stop tech firms using creative works for free as training dataIt is an unlikely alliance: the billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch and a panoply of leading artists including the Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, the actors Kevin Bacon and Julianne Moore, and the author Kazuo Ishiguro.This week, they began two very public fights with artificial intelligence companies, accusing them of using their intellectual property without permission to build the increasingly powerful and lucrative new technology. Continue reading...

X owner renews hostilities with Center for Countering Digital Hate after it is linked to US election interference rowA UK-founded anti-hate speech campaign group dragged into the Labour US election interference row has vowed to carry on its work after Elon Musk's latest declaration of war" against the organisation.The Center for Countering Digital Hate returned to the crosshairs of the world's richest person this week after Musk alleged that it was violating laws against foreign interference in US elections. Continue reading...

Collaboration between leading garden designer and Microsoft to go on display at Chelsea flower show 2025Hardcore gardeners sometimes, when no one else is listening, talk quietly to their prize blooms. But at next year's Chelsea flower show, visitors will be encouraged to have a chat with its first ever AI-powered garden.The garden designer Tom Massey has partnered with Microsoft to create the Avanade intelligent" garden. Sensors in the soil are partnered with an AI trained on Royal Horticultural Society plant data and gardening advice, meaning visitors can ask the garden: How are you?" Continue reading...

State attorney general alleges without providing evidence that Google is manipulating search results, as tech firm says claim totally false'Missouri's Republican attorney general has said he is launching an investigation into Google over allegations it was censoring conservative speech, as the tech corporation dismissed the claims as totally false".I am launching an investigation into Google for censoring conservative speech during the most consequential election in our nation's history," Andrew Bailey said in a post on X, without citing any example or evidence for his censorship claim. Continue reading...

The invitation to EXplore, EXpand, EXploit and EXterminate that comes with the game's unfortunately spelled sixth iteration is hard to resist, harder still to playI am feeling anxious about the world. We have had mayoral elections in my part of Canada in which one candidate was backed with more gold than Croesus, so it wasn't even a contest. In the UK people have not got the Labour government they hoped they were voting for. And as someone who lives a few hours' drive from the US border, I can only pray that Orange Hitler doesn't get in again. Or maybe I pray that he does, lest our neighbours to the south end up in an election-denial-driven repeat of the civil war. So I thought I'd play a game where I get to direct the rise and fall of civilisation myself instead. As a treat.Civilization 6 is what's known as a 4X game. 4X stands for EXplore, EXpand, EXploit and EXterminate", a phrase that offends my pedantic spelling sensibilities. Unfortunately the four exes" I spent a lot of time doing here was Exert, Expire, Exclaim and then Exit due to this game's Execrable gamepad controls, which are as intuitive as a Heston Blumenthal recipe. I lost count of the times I moved the wrong unit, or had brain freeze trying to remember what button did what. I would have preferred a more common sense control system, mouse and keyboard support, or an interface that uses the power of thought, like that one Elon Musk pretends he has. Continue reading...

Car company sees biggest single-day stock gain since 2013 as CEO Elon Musk forecasts up to 30% in sales growthTesla shares closed up nearly 22% on Thursday - their biggest single-day gain in over a decade - as Elon Musk's bold forecast of surging sales reassured investors he was still looking to grow its core business of selling electric cars. At close, nearly $150bn was added to the company's market value.Musk forecast 20-30% in sales growth next year, promising to launch an affordable vehicle in the first half of 2025, and said efforts to slash production costs boosted margins in the third quarter. Continue reading...

You've decided you don't want to post pictures of your baby online. What about all the requests for cute photos from grandparents?Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered how to protect your baby's photos on the internet.You're a parent, and you've decided publicly posting your baby's face on the internet is just not for you. You've got a handle on how to actually protect your baby's photos on the internet (perhaps because you've read our guide!). Now it's just a matter of doing it. Continue reading...

Our tech expert is back with an updated guide to the top-tier Android phonesNeed an Android phone, but not sure which to go for, or whether to buy new or refurbished? There is much to consider, so view me as your guide as you trek through the process of picking the best handset for you.The latest Android smartphones come in various sizes, at different prices, and with assorted capabilities and software features, all powered by the fastest chips. Whether your priority is battery life, camera, screen size, software support or the best balance of top-tier features and price, there is more to choose from than ever. But if you're thinking of buying Apple instead, we have a guide for iPhones too. Continue reading...

Chipmaker disputed 2009 decision that it abused its market position in case dating back two decadesThe US chipmaker Intel has won a long-running battle to quash a fine of more than 1bn imposed by the European Commission for allegedly abusing its market dominance in the sale of computer chips.In a final ruling on Thursday, theEuropean court of justice upheld an earlier judgment that had quashed the 1.06bn (880m) fine and partly dismissed the charges of anticompetitive behaviour. Continue reading...

In Lewis Packwood's book Curious Video Game Machines, Voja Antoni explains how he built a home computer and published instructions for anyone to make their ownVery few Yugoslavians had access to computers in the early 1980s: they were mostly the preserve of large institutions or companies. Importing home computers like the Commodore 64 was not only expensive, but also legally impossible, thanks to a law that restricted regular citizens from importing individual goods that were worth more than 50 Deutsche Marks (the Commodore 64 cost over 1,000 Deutsche Marks at launch). Even if someone in Yugoslavia could afford the latest home computers, they would have to resort to smuggling.In 1983, engineer Vojislav Voja" Antoni was becoming more and more frustrated with the senseless Yugoslavian import laws. We had a public debate with politicians," he says. We tried to convince them that they should allow [more expensive items], because it's progress." The efforts of Antoni and others were fruitless, however, and the 50 Deutsche Mark limit remained. But perhaps there was a way around it. Continue reading...

The comedian bridges the gap between truth and fiction in Up in Smoke. Plus: five of the best podcasts with shocking twists Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereUp in Smoke

Megan Garcia said Sewell, 14, used Character.ai obsessively before his death and alleges negligence and wrongful deathThe mother of a teenager who killed himself after becoming obsessed with an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot now accuses its maker of complicity in his death.Megan Garcia filed a civil suit against Character.ai, which makes a customizable chatbot for role-playing, in Florida federal court on Wednesday, alleging negligence, wrongful death and deceptive trade practices. Her son Sewell Setzer III, 14, died in Orlando, Florida, in February. In the months leading up to his death, Setzer used the chatbot day and night, according to Garcia.In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: With players caring less about advanced graphics and high-spec systems, the industry battleground is shifting away from hardware Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereLast week, my favoured gaming news site, VGC, asked former US PlayStation boss Shawn Layden whether he thought the pursuit of more powerful consoles was still the way to go for the video games industry. His answer was not what I expected.We've done these things this way for 30 years, every generation those costs went up and we realigned with it. We've reached the precipice now, where the centre can't hold, we cannot continue to do things that we have done before ... It's time for a real hard reset on the business model, on what it is to be a video game," he said. We're at the stage of hardware development that I call only dogs can hear the difference'. We're fighting over teraflops and that's no place to be. We need to compete on content. Jacking up the specs of the box, I think we've reached the ceiling." Continue reading...

The billionaire is pledging to give away $1m a day and campaigning hard - is deregulation the driving motivation?Over the weekend, Elon Musk pledged to give away $1m a day to registered voters in battleground states in the US who sign a petition by his America Pac in support of the first and second amendments. He awarded the first prize, a novelty check the size of a kitchen island, at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday and the second on Sunday in Pittsburgh. He says he'll keep doing it until the election on 5 November. The stunt is potentially illegal, experts say.After endorsing Donald Trump in July, Musk quickly founded America Pac and funded it with $75m. For the past several weeks, he's been making multiple in-person campaign appearances per day, focusing especially on Pennsylvania, a swing state.These constant fights with the full alphabet of regulatory agencies has coincided with Musk making numerous public statements in favor of deregulation, as well as calling for a full-scale audit of the federal government. That idea has found purchase with Trump, who announced in September that he would launch a Musk-led government efficiency commission that would audit federal agencies for places to cut. Musk wants to call it the Department of Government Efficiency, or Doge, invoking one of his favorite memes, an expressive shiba inu.Although the plan is vague on details and fails to address the obvious conflict of interest in Musk auditing the regulators that oversee his companies, both Trump and Musk have repeatedly brought up the idea of Musk holding some role in a potential Trump administration. During an appearance on Fox News earlier this week, Trump said that he would create a new position called secretary of cost-cutting' and appoint Musk.He's dying to do this,' Trump said. Continue reading...

Plus: World of Warcraft, polling and cats Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereHello, and welcome to TechScape. I'm Blake Montgomery, technology news editor at the Guardian US. Today in TechScape I'm deciphering Elon Musk's global political goals, a remarkable documentary filmed within World of Warcraft, polling on support for school phone bans, and cats on TikTok. Thank you for joining me. First, let's talk about Musk's global politics.Over the weekend, Musk pledged to give away $1m a day to registered voters in battleground states in the US who sign his Pac's petition in support of the first and second amendments. He awarded the first prize, a novelty check the size of a kitchen island, at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday and the second on Sunday in Pittsburgh. He says he'll keep doing it until the election on 5 November. The stunt is potentially illegal, experts say. Continue reading...

Enlarged iPhone gains two new buttons, faster chip and better camera, while lasting a long time on a chargeApple's iPhone 16 Plus takes the regular iPhone and adds two things: a much bigger screen and even longer battery life.The new plus-sized model has the exact same specs, camera and multiple additional buttons as the vanilla 16, offering the big screen Apple phone experience without blowing the budget on the most expensive 16 Pro Max with its massive 6.9in display.Screen: 6.7in Super Retina XDR (OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A18RAM: 8GBStorage: 128, 256 or 512GBOperating system: iOS 18Camera: 48MP main + 12MP UW; 12MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 160.9 x 77.8 x 7.8mmWeight: 199g Continue reading...

US company gives customers the ability to build own virtual agents as well as releasing 10 off-the-shelf botsMicrosoft is introducing autonomous artificial intelligence agents, or virtual employees, that can perform tasks such as handling client queries and identifying sales leads, as the tech sector strives to show investors that the AI boom can produce indispensable products.The US tech company is giving customers the ability to build their own AI agents as well as releasing 10 off-the-shelf bots that can carry out a range of roles including supply chain management and customer service. Continue reading...

ByteDance dismissed person in August it says maliciously interfered' with training of artificial intelligence modelsThe owner of TikTok has sacked an intern for allegedly sabotaging an internal artificial intelligence project.ByteDance said it had dismissed the person in August after they maliciously interfered" with the training of artificial intelligence (AI) models used in a research project. Continue reading...

Tesla owner says his America Pac will give money to people who sign petition to support first and second amendmentsElon Musk said on Saturday that America Pac, the Donald Trump-allied political action committee he founded, will give $1m every day until the presidential election to someone who signs his petition that appears to be a way to incentivize Republicans in battleground states to register to vote.We are going to be awarding $1m randomly to people who have signed the petition," Musk said at a town hall event in Pennsylvania. One of the challenges we're having is how do we get the public to know about this petition because the legacy media won't report on it." Continue reading...

The owner of X is just one of many who may prefer Donald Trump to greater regulation under the DemocratsWay back in the 1960s the personal is political" was a powerful slogan capturing the reality of power dynamics within marriages. Today, an equally meaningful slogan might be that the technological is political", to reflect the way that a small number of global corporations have acquired political clout within liberal democracies. If anyone doubted that, then the recent appearance of Elon Musk alongside Donald Trumpat a rally in Pennsylvania provided useful confirmation of how technology has moved centre-stage in American politics. Musk may be a manchild with a bad tweeting habit, but he also owns the company that is providing internet connectivity to Ukrainian troops on the battlefield; and his rocket has been chosen by Nasa to be the vehicle to land the next Americans on the moon.There was a time when the tech industry wasn't much interested in politics. It didn't need to be because politics at the time wasn't interested in it. Accordingly, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple grew to their gargantuan proportions in a remarkably permissive political environment. When democratic governments were not being dazzled by the technology, they were asleep at the wheel; and antitrust regulators had been captured by the legalistic doctrine peddled by Robert Bork and his enablers in the University of Chicago Law School - the doctrine that there was little wrong with corporate dominance unless it was harming consumers. The test for harm was price-gouging, and since Google's and Facebook's services were free", where was the harm, exactly? And though Amazon's products weren't free, the company was ruthlessly undercutting competitors' prices and pandering to customers' need for next-day delivery. Again: where was the harm in that? Continue reading...