On straight line missions, YouTubers jump fences, wade through rivers, and almost die in peat bogs. It's completely pointless - and weirdly beautifulSpending too much time on YouTube can be a dangerous game for men my age. Algorithmic gyres can pull you rightwards - towards misogynistic extremes and away from the parts of the internet that build connections and foster consensus.Thankfully the rabbit hole I fell down led me - in a perfectly straight line - towards a renewed sense of childlike adventure. Continue reading...
New CPS guidance aims to boost use of deletion orders after Observer revealed systemic failingsThe Crown Prosecution Service is to update its guidance on so-called revenge porn" crimes to stop perpetrators being allowed to keep explicit photos of their victims.The Observer revealed last month that magistrates courts were routinely failing to make orders for the deletion of content linked to intimate-image abuse cases - and that prosecutors were failing to request them. Continue reading...
When a Netflix drama highlights how online influencers can turn a teenager into a killer, it's time to rethink social mediaEvery so often, a television drama comes along that has the power to change things. Last year, it was ITV's Mr Bates vs The Post Office, in which the plight of subpostmasters was rendered with such success that it actually hastened in real-world legislation to compensate them.And now we have Netflix's Adolescence, which looks at the online radicalisation of young boys by men's rights activists (MRAs) such as Andrew Tate. Last week, Keir Starmer told the Commons he had been watching the series with his family and that it portrayed an emerging and growing problem" that needed to be tackled. Now MPs are examining ideas to address the issue with greater urgency.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...
The co-founder of LinkedIn and Democrat donor remains confident that AI can be good for all of us - if its introduction is handled in the right wayReid Hoffman is a prominent Silicon Valley billionaire entrepreneur and investor known for co-founding the professional social networking site LinkedIn, now owned by Microsoft. He's also staunchly anti-Trump. The longtime Democrat donor threw his support behind Kamala Harris in the race for the White House. Hoffman spoke to the Observer about technology in the new political milieu and his new book about our future with artificial intelligence, Superagency. The book, while not ignoring the problems that AI might cause, argues that the technology is poised to give us cognitive superpowers that will increase our individual and collective human agency, creating a state of widespread empowerment for society.You have a vested interest in being positive about AI, including a company focused on conversational AI for business, Inflection AI. Why should we listen to you?
The company that prides itself on announcing products only when they're ready grossly underestimated the demands of personalising its virtual assistantAfter ChatGPT broke cover in late 2022 and the tech industry embarked on its contemporary rendering of tulip mania, people started to wonder why the biggest tech giant of all - Apple - was keeping its distance from the madness. Eventually, the tech commentariat decided that there could be only two possible interpretations of this corporate standoffishness: either Apple was way behind the game being played by OpenAI et al; or it had cunning plans to unleash upon the world its own world-beating take on the technology.Finally, at its annual World Wide Developers' Conference (WWDC) on 10 June last year Apple came clean. Or appeared to. For Apple, AI" would not mean what those vulgar louts at OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Meta raved about, but something altogether more refined and sophisticated - something called Apple Intelligence". It was not, as the veteran Apple-watcher John Gruber put it, a single thing or product but a marketing term for a collection of features, apps, and services". Putting it all under a single, memorable label made it easier for users to understand that Apple was launching something really novel. And, of course, it also made it easier for Apple to say that users who wanted to have all of these fancy features would have to buy an iPhone 15 Pro, because older devices wouldn't be up to the task. Continue reading...
Amid angst over the technology, a consensus is emerging about its capabilities - but there is an elephant in the roomIn early March, a job advert was doing the rounds among sports journalists. It was for an AI-assisted sports reporter" at USA Today's publisher, Gannett. It was billed as a role at the forefront of a new era in journalism", but came with a caveat: This is not a beat-reporting position and does not require travel or face-to-face interviews." The dark humour was summed up by football commentator, Gary Taphouse: It was fun while it lasted."As the relentless march of artificial intelligence continues, newsrooms are wrestling with the threats and opportunities the technology creates. Just in the past few weeks, one media outlet's AI project was accused of softening the image of the Ku Klux Klan. AI is also playing a part in some British journalists recording more than 100 bylines in a day. Amid the angst over the technology, however, a broad consensus is beginning to emerge about what the technology is currently capable of doing accurately. Continue reading...
Facebook and Instagram owner reaches legal agreement with human rights campaigner in case that could set precedent for millionsThe owner of Facebook and Instagram has agreed to stop targeting a UK citizen with personalised adverts after agreeing a settlement in a landmark privacy case that could set a precedent for millions of social media users.Mark Zuckerberg's Meta also said it was considering charging UK users for an advert-free version of its platforms after the legal agreement that avoided a trial in the high court in London. Continue reading...
Cafes are cracking down on remote workers - but we can save ourselves by following a few simple rulesOnce upon a time, it was socially acceptable to smoke inside, wear those mad, wide ties and pat your secretary on the bottom. Norms change, and that's often for the best. But when it comes to laptops in cafes, falling from favour as owners lose patience with remote workers, I am begging society to reconsider. Don't take my cafe nook - it's the only thing keeping the WFH brigade and lonely freelancers like me sane.My kitchen table, where I do most of my work, is fine. It's got a window next to it. There's a kettle I can use whenever I like. I can play my own music, make loud phone calls and migrate to the sofa when being upright gets a bit much. But variety is the spice of life, and truly I would lose my mind if those were my only options. Yes, I'm aware of co-working spaces, but they are a) full of awful people and b) I can't afford one. Luckily, the buzz of the outside world, the soothing white noise of life beyond my keyboard's tip-tapping, is only as far away as the nearest cafe - for now.Emily Watkins is a freelance writer based in LondonDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
Musk lambastes judges as leftwing activists in more than 20 posts as Trump administration's judiciary clash intensifiesIn the days after a federal judge ruled Elon Musk's dismantling of USAID likely violated the constitution, the world's richest person issued a series of online attacks against the American judiciary, offered money to voters to sign a petition opposing activist judges", and called on Congress to remove his newfound legal opponents from office.This is a judicial coup," Musk wrote on Wednesday, asking lawmakers to impeach the judges". Continue reading...
It is impossible to ignore video game music now,' says Tommy Pearson, founder and artistic director of the inaugural London Soundtrack festivalDid you know that soundtrack concerts are among the most popular for touring orchestras? A full third of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's first-time audience members are coming to the concert hall via their favourite series and movies - and video games. It is a huge cultural growth area, and one that may have gone unrecognised by the general public.It is impossible to ignore video game music now," says Tommy Pearson, founder and artistic director of the inaugural London Soundtrack festival. The sheer creativity and artistry in games is incredible, and it's been fascinating to see so many composers blossom in the genre." Continue reading...
Arve Hjalmar Holmen, who has never been accused of or convicted of a crime, says chatbot's response to prompt was defamatoryA Norwegian man has filed a complaint against the company behind ChatGPT after the chatbot falsely claimed he had murdered two of his children.Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a self-described regular person" with no public profile in Norway, asked ChatGPT for information about himself and received a reply claiming he had killed his own sons. Continue reading...
by Jessica Elgot, Rachel Keenan and Rachel Hall on (#6W25K)
Exclusive: TV drama Adolescence adds to pressure from MPs for action to help schools tackle impact of social mediaBridget Phillipson is to begin in-depth scrutiny of smartphone bans in schools in England as pressure grows from MPs to act on the effect of social media on teenagers.The education secretary is to start monitoring a group of schools to understand the effectiveness of the guidance. The education department will also, for the first time, do an in-depth analysis of the national behaviour survey in schools to look at the most successful ways of policing the bans, and the challenges schools are facing. Continue reading...
Elon Musk's company is arguing against the government's expanded powers to allow easier removal of online contentIndia's IT ministry has unlawfully expanded censorship powers to allow the easier removal of online content and empowered countless" government officials to execute such orders, Elon Musk's X has alleged in a new lawsuit against New Delhi.The lawsuit and the allegations mark an escalation in an ongoing legal dispute between X and the government of India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, over how New Delhi orders content to be taken down. It also comes as Musk is getting closer to launching his other key ventures, Starlink and Tesla, in India. Continue reading...
Ellen Hollander calls Trump aide's hunt for supposed fraud a fishing expedition' in temporary restraining orderA federal judge on Thursday blocked Elon Musk's so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge) from accessing social security records as part of its hunt under Donald Trump for fraud and waste, calling the effort a fishing expedition".Judge Ellen Hollander granted a temporary restraining order that prevents Social Security Administration (SSA) workers from allowing Doge to have access to records that contain personally identifiable information. Continue reading...
While it is unknown if any Australians have been targeted, the military-grade program from Paragon Solutions provides full access to encrypted messaging apps
Organisations including energy and transport firms told to guard systems against powerful new computersThe UK's cybersecurity agency is urging organisations to guard their systems against quantum hackers by 2035, as the prospect of breakthroughs in powerful computing threaten digital encryption.The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has issued new guidance recommending large entities including energy and transport providers introduce post-quantum cryptography" in order to prevent quantum technology being deployed to break into their systems. Continue reading...
Sir Gareth Southgate is right to warn that social media is trapping boys in toxic ideals. It's a crisis demanding real-world solutionsBoys used to be raised by their parents. Now, as they grow up, an increasing number are coming under the influence of toxic online figures who push a hollow, misogynistic version of masculinity. This isn'thelpingtheir character or their relationships. But it does work for a digital world where worth is measured in money, status and appearance. Girls havelong seen their mental health suffer from social media comparisons and phone addiction. But that doesn't make it any less troubling now that boys are being similarly affected.In his Richard Dimbleby lecture for the BBC, SirGareth Southgate made a cogent case that young men are being failed by modern society - not just by absent role models, but by a culture that doesn't acknowledge failure and vulnerability while exposingthem to damaging digital influences. Withoutreal-life guidance, they can withdraw, becoming reluctant to talk or unable to express their emotions. Boys can fall into an unhealthy world of gaming, gambling and pornography.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...
This thrilling trip through Japan is the best the series has given us in yearsI have played many Assassin's Creed games over the years, but I've rarely loved them. Ubisoft's historical fiction is perennially almost-great. A lot of players would say it reached its peak in the late 2000s, with the trio of renaissance Italy games beginning with Assassin's Creed 2, and their charismatic hero, Ezio Auditore. Since then, the series has become bloated, offering hundreds of hours of repetitive open-world exploration and assassination in ancient Greece, Egypt and even Viking Britain. Odyssey (the Greek one) was the last I played seriously; I found the setting exquisite, the gameplay somewhat irritating and the scale completely overwhelming.The Assassin's Creed games are extraordinary works of historical fiction, fastidiously recreating lost periods of history and letting you walk around in them. They're the closest thing to time travel. I play them for the virtual tourism, and find myself vaguely disappointed that 80% of what you do in these painstakingly realised worlds boils down to parkouring around killing people. Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner and Angela Giuffrida on (#6W1CF)
David Yambio, founder of Refugees in Libya, urges international criminal court members to have phones checkedA prominent activist in Italy has warned the international criminal court that his mobile phone was under surveillance when he was providing the ICC with confidential information about victims of torture in Libya.A report released on Wednesday by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, which tracks digital surveillance of members of civil society, has confirmed that David Yambio, the founder of an organisation called Refugees in Libya, was targeted by mercenary spyware. The attack occurred at a time when he was in communication with The Hague, he said. At least one attack took place around June 2024, researchers said. Continue reading...
Director Greg Kohs uses every tool in the editing palette to explain how Artificial General Intelligence (as differentiated from Artificial Intelligence) worksIf you don't follow science news much, you may only be aware of Artificial Intelligence as a new-fangled thingy that somehow makes TikToks of kittens singing versions of Don't You Want Me Like I Want You Baby in an ickle kid voice. If that's your level of engagement with AI, then this competent, fluent documentary offers a very approachable entry into the subject. It's not, however, a wide-lens overview of the subject but a character-driven study of one specific, key-player company in the industry: DeepMind, whose intercapped name betrays its origins in the 2010 tech-boom era.As it happens, DeepMind is now officially called Google DeepMind and is part of a suite of divisions developing robotics and solving problems using AI - sorry, AGI because it's not just Artificial Intelligence we're talking about here, but Artificial General Intelligence (it gets explained). The fact that Google and its tech overlords are involved, however amiable they seem when seen in their office casual dress (former CEO Eric Schmidt at least), means this has more than a little flavour of corporate video, investor-fluffing, and self-congratulatory smugness about it. But DeepMind's British founder and CEO Demis Hassabis manages to come across as a pretty nice guy with a genuinely interesting backstory. The son of a Greek father and a Singaporean mother raised in London, he was a child chess prodigy who became a video game designer; instead, he opted to go into a purer form of research on how thinking itself works, and that became his business. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6V8PT)
Looking for the latest iPhone, or a good deal on a refurbished handset? Samuel Gibbs has assessed and rated the current crop of Apple smartphones, including the new 16eThe best iPhone may be the one you already own. There is generally no need to buy a fresh phone just because new models have been released, as hardware updates are broadly iterative, adding small bits to an already accomplished package. But if you do want a replacement handset, whether new or refurbished, here are the best devices of the current crop of Apple smartphones.Many other smartphones are available besides the iPhone, but if you're an Apple user and don't fancy switching to Android, you still have a few choices. Whether your priority is the longest battery life, the best camera, the biggest screen or simply the optimal balance of features and price, there's more to choose from in the Apple ecosystem than you may expect, especially after the recent release of the iPhone 16e.Best iPhone for most people:
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6W16Z)
With launch problems fixed, first colour Kindle improves reading experience - but it is pricey and too small for comicsAmazon's first Kindle with a colour screen had been a very long time coming and then suffered a rough landing last year, plagued with yellowing screen issues and shipping delays. But with those problems fixed, is a splash of colour the revolution the Kindle needs?Amazon isn't the first to use a colour e-ink screen in an e-reader, but it thinks its upgrades meaningfully improve on the tech used by others such as Boox and Kobo over the past four years by offering greater contrast and speed. Continue reading...
Jack Thorne, whose Netflix series has shone a light on incel culture, calls for restrictions on teens' social media accessSmartphones should be treated like cigarettes and banned until the age of 16 in the UK, according to the writer of Adolescence, which explores the insidious influence of incel-culture".Jack Thorne, whose Netflix show has started a national conversation about the danger of online spaces for teenagers, argued that algorithms used on social media platforms could quickly lead to dark spaces". Continue reading...
Corporations started wooing my friends as soon as college began. It's time for the left to reimagine its relationship with techWhen my friends and I graduated with our math degrees this past May, we felt like we could do anything.After long nights spent on problem sets, the most aimless and ambitious of us will forgo grad school and become interns and employees at the shiniest, slimiest corporations in America - big banks, the military industrial complex, big tech, big pharma - where we will solve interesting, difficult problems on cushy salaries. Continue reading...
From cordless designs to budget buys, we've tested the top hair straighteners for every hair type Everything I've learned as a beauty columnist about the products that actually workStraighteners are here to stay - but thankfully, heat styling has come a long way since GHD's first ceramic straighteners ushered in an era of poker-straight hair in 2001. Today's models feature adjustable heat settings and protective technology for hairstyling with minimal damage.The looks you can achieve with a straightener have become more versatile as well: one twist of a modern, curved-edge straightener can create styles from ultra-smooth strands to structured ringlets and soft, beachy waves. There's a wide range of styling possibilities with just one tool.Best overall hair straighteners:
Il Foglio says artificial intelligence used for everything - the writing, the headlines, the quotes ... even the irony'An Italian newspaper has said it is the first in the world to publish an edition entirely produced by artificial intelligence.The initiative by Il Foglio, a conservative liberal daily, is part of a month-long journalistic experiment aimed at showing the impact AI technology has on our way of working and our days", the newspaper's editor, Claudio Cerasa, said. Continue reading...
The tech billionaire and his EV company suffer, Apple castigates itself over Siri failures and a Meta tell-all book evokes a strong reactionHello, and welcome to TechScape. In this week's edition: Elon Musk suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Apple beats itself up over Siri, and Meta goes after one of its own over a tell-all book.The past 10 days have marked several of the most significant setbacks for Musk in months. Tesla, arguably his marquee company, continued to fall in value as investors worried about the threat of trade war and possible recession - as well as declining profits. Escalating protests against the company over the billionaire's role in the government also grew in number and intensity across the US, coupled with rising cases of vandalism and social stigma against his cars. SpaceX has also struggled, with one of its rockets dramatically exploding in midflight last week and then an announcement that it was delaying a rescue mission to retrieve stranded" astronauts. The company tried again two days later.Adding to Musk's headaches, his social media platform, X, experienced widespread outages throughout the day on Monday. During a Fox Business interview, he claimed that it was the result of a massive cyberattack" that the company had traced to the area of Ukraine.How an obscure US government office has become a target of Elon MuskDeeply uncomfortable': UK Starlink users switch off over Musk's political machinationsElon Musk targeted me over Tesla protests. That proves our movement is working | Valerie Costa Continue reading...
As the 30-year-old studio behind many innovative and beloved video games shuts down, its founders, fans and designers discuss what made it so specialLate last month, Warner Bros announced it was closing three of its game development studios in a strategic change of direction": WB Games San Diego, Player First Studios, and Monolith Productions. At a time when the games industry is racked with layoffs and studio closures, the barrage of dispiriting headlines can be numbing. But the shutdown of Monolith cut through the noise, sparking fresh shock and outrage at the industry's slash and burn approach to cost cutting. There are numerous reasons for this, but among them was a pervading belief that Monolith would be around forever. I don't think I ever really considered the possibility that it would shut down one day," says Garrett Price, one of Monolith's seven founding members.True to its name, Monolith was a singular presence. Founded in 1994, it was a prolific developer whose games displayed visual flair, mechanical inventiveness and a knack for synthesising pop-cultural themes. Most excitingly, you could never really predict what the studio would do next. While it primarily produced first-person shooters, there were forays into platformers, dungeon crawlers and open-world games. And even the core FPS titles differed wildly in theme and style, inspired by everything from 60s spy films to Japanese horror. Continue reading...
From watching classic samurai movies to rendering the unique way light falls on Japan's mountainsides and modelling individual characters' socks, Ubisoft has spared no effort recreating a fascinatingly violent period of historyMore than four years after its announcement and after two last-minute delays, the latest title in Ubisoft's historical fiction series Assassin's Creed will finally be released on Thursday. Set in Japan in 1579, a time of intense civil war dominated by the feudal lord Oda Nobunaga, it follows two characters navigating their way through the bloody chaos: a female shinobi named Fujibayashi Naoe, and Yasuke, an African slave turned samurai. Japan has been the series' most-requested setting for years, Ubisoft says."I've been on [this] franchise for 16 years and I think every time we start a new game, Japan comes up and we ask, is this the time?" says executive producer Marc-Alexis Cote. We've never pushed beyond the conception phase with Japan until this one." Continue reading...
Cafe owners seeking convivial atmosphere as well as better turnover are starting to deter remote workersTo the Coffee-house, and there all the house full of the discourse of the great fire," wrote Samuel Pepys of his trip to a 17th-century cafe - then the social nerve centre of London's gossiping elite.Fast forward to the 21st century and the chattering classes have been replaced with the clattering classes - remote workers busily hammering away on their laptop keyboards and shouting on video calls to be heard over the mechanical grinding of coffee beans. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6VZG2)
Transparent back, flashing LEDs, novel design, long battery life and huge triple camera help this Android stand outLondon-based Nothing has brought one of the last things setting top-level phones apart from cheaper mid-range models down to a more affordable price: high-quality camera zoom.Cameras have long been the battleground of the most expensive phones, each vying for better quality, longer reach and multiple lenses. While much of this costly progress has trickled down to cheaper models, optical zoom cameras are few and far between below the 600 mark.Screen: 6.77in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (387ppi)Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 3RAM: 12GBStorage: 256GBOperating system: Nothing OS 3.1 (Android 15)Camera: 50MP main, 50MP 3x tele and 8MP ultrawide, 50MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.4 and GNSSWater resistance: IP64 (spray resistant)Dimensions: 163.5 x 77.5 x 8.4mmWeight: 211g Continue reading...
Leaders on left bet on Musk's bravado to pull party out of political weeds as CEO eyes social security and health cutsFor most of the 17-minute interview, Elon Musk stuck to a script. He was just a tech guy on a mission to eliminate waste and fraud" from government.His slash-and-burn cost-cutting crusade was making good progress actually", he told the Fox Business commentator Larry Kudlow on Monday, despite sparking a backlash that has reverberated far beyond Washington. Continue reading...
This bed-in-a-box' mattress gave our tester her best sleep in years and it's hundreds of pounds cheaper than some of its rivals The best mattresses: sleep better with our six rigorously tested picksI've been reviewing mattresses for about four years and suffering from broken sleep for three times as long. The right mattress can markedly improve sleep quality, but switching between them so regularly seemed to feed my insomnia. Then I met the Otty Original Hybrid and I was blissfully dead to the world.The Original Hybrid is the flagship bed-in-a-box" mattress from UK company Otty Sleep. It combines thousands of pocket springs with multiple layers of memory foam - some soft, some thumpingly firm - to offer robust ergonomic support without sacrificing comfort. At less than 680 for a double, it's among the cheapest bed-in-a-box hybrids (meaning a combination of memory foam and springs) you can buy, and after testing several I'm confident that it's the best buy. Continue reading...
From hacking screen time settings to bypassing website restrictions, young people make responsible parenting in the age of tech feel like a game of whack-a-mole. Here's how to do it successfullyI know I'm not alone as a parent when I admit I have often felt like an exasperated failure in trying to restrict what my children see online. There were the times they hacked their devices' screen time settings, or managed to stumble into inappropriate content in spite of the controls, not to mention the ever inventive workarounds to access restricted sites. Worst of all is the ill will the rigmarole creates between us all. So when in the first minute of my conversation with digital parenting coach Elizabeth Milovidov, she says, I think parents need to just kind of give themselves a hug, breathe and start over," I feel so heard and comforted I could cry.Parents are incredibly busy. They're overwhelmed," says Milovidov. And then this whole idea of trying to lock things down is not easy. I remember trying to learn how to programme a VCR, and it was just like: oh my God." And yet she herself, a parent of teens, seems so chill. She admits having watched far too much TV in the 70s, and she has turned out OK; she has a PhD and is an international consultant on tech and parenting. Continue reading...
Numbers using satellite broadband system has been growing but users are having second thoughts due to Musk's role in Donald Trump's administrationTesla sales have tumbled, X has had an exodus of users, and now it seems cracks are appearing among those who have turned to Elon Musk's Starlink satellite system as a means of staying connected in remote areas.While the number of Starlink users has been growing, some subscribers have been venting their frustrations over Musk's political machinations, saying they will no longer use the high-speed satellite internet system. Continue reading...
An unexpected bit of tech opened up a whole new world of possibilities for a frustrated, injured writerIf you had asked me a month or two ago if I had ever had a spatial immersive experience, or what the chances were that at the age of 60, I would become an early adopter of virtual reality goggles, I would have said it was about as likely as a tech giant from Silicon Valley being appointed to disrupt" the US federal government.Let me explain the unlikely series of events that led me to the latest in technology. Continue reading...
This account of working life at Mark Zuckerberg's tech giant organisation describes a diabolical cult' able to swing elections and profit at the expense of the world's vulnerableShortly after her waters broke, Sarah Wynn-Williams was lying in hospital with her feet in stirrups, typing a work memo on her laptop between contractions. Facebook's director of global public policy needed to send talking points from her recent trip to oversee the tech giant's bid to launch operations in Myanmar to her boss Sheryl Sandberg. Then she would give birth to her first child.Wynn-Williams's husband, a journalist called Tom, was livid but, as men tend to be in labour rooms, impotent. The doctor gently closed her laptop. Please let me push send," whimpered Sarah. You should be pushing," retorted the doctor with improbable timing. But not send'." Continue reading...
Nordic countries were early adopters of digital payments. Now, electronic banking is seen as a potential threat to national securityIn 2018 a former deputy governor of Sweden's central bank predicted that by 2025 the country would probably be cashless.Seven years on, that prediction has turned out to be pretty much true. Just one in 10 purchases are made with cash, and card is the most common form of payment, followed by the Swedish mobile payment system Swish, launched by six banks in 2012 and now ubiquitous. Other mobile phone payment services are also growing quickly. Continue reading...
AI is so good at writing software that one father asked it to organise his kids' school lunches. But that doesn't mean it's taking overWay back in 2023, Andrej Karpathy, an eminent AI guru, made waves with a striking claim that the hottest new programming language is English". This was because the advent of large language models (LLMs) meant that from now on humans would not have to learn arcane programming languages in order to tell computers what to do. Henceforth, they could speak to machines like the Duke of Devonshire spoke to his gardener, and the machines would do their bidding.Ever since LLMs emerged, programmers have been early adopters, using them as unpaid assistants (or co-pilots") and finding them useful up to a point - but always with the proviso that, like interns, they make mistakes, and you need to have real programming expertise to spot those. Continue reading...
After a SpaceX rocket exploded, investors offloaded Tesla shares and Doge hit legal roadblocks, the world's richest man saw his fortune sink by $100bnElon Musk began the week of 10 March with a friendly sit-down interview on Fox Business to talk about his work with the so-called department of government efficiency" (Doge) and the state of his businesses. Already, it had been a trying few days for the world's richest man, who was facing a Tesla stock selloff and fierce backlash over his attempts to radically overhaul the federal government. His net worth declined over $22bn on Monday alone.After Musk jokingly brushed off initial questions about the mounting pressure, host Larry Kudlow asked the Tesla and SpaceX CEO how he was managing to run his numerous companies amid the chaos. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian