by Robert Mackey, Chris Hippensteel, Lucy Campbell an on (#78JY9)
Kirsten Gillibrand says acting US navy secretary told her of attempted suicides after carrier strike group's lengthy deployment as part of US war in Iran. This blog is now closed.
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#78KFJ)
The new wearables come at a time of uncertainty for smart glasses, which are facing backlash over privacy concernsMeta announced an advanced new set of virtual reality glasses and a collection of new smart glasses Wednesday, including an audio-only version without a camera.At the firm's Meta Connect conference in Menlo Park, California, executives said the new Ray-Ban Meta models set new standards for battery life and weight. They said the new glasses with screens in the lenses squeeze capabilities previously reserved for a full headset into a light set of spectacles that rest on a user's ears. Continue reading...
A feature called AI Overviews has been a profound change, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shiftingGoogle has put artificial intelligence at the front and center of its search bar. The most-visited site on the internet still shows the same list of links to users, but they have to scroll past a summarized response from an AI chatbot, a feature Google calls AI Overviews. The change to what was once the gateway to the rest of the internet has been profound, and the browsing habits of billions of people are shifting.AI is driving the most significant upgrade of the Google Search experience ever," wrote Liz Reid, Google's vice-president of search, last August. In May, the company said more AI is coming. Continue reading...
From highlighted ledges to characters telling you what to do, blockbuster games are increasingly taking the challenge out of playing - and players are pushing back Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereMarvel's Wolverine, the latest action game from Sony's stable of expensive blockbuster-factory studios, has had an unfortunate launch. Reviews were decent, if not stellar, but a series of viral video clips from reviewers and streamers have made it the scapegoat for a patronising flavour of game design that gamers have hated for decades. This clip, from Skill Up's review, shows the player entering a beautiful wintry landscape before being overwhelmed by visual cues telling them what they're supposed to be doing there. Sonar pulses point you in the direction of objectives. Targets - which, it bears emphasising, are shaped like targets - get an extra reflective visual effect so you know you're supposed to pay attention to them. A trail shows you not just where to go, but where the level's sole hidden collectible is.It is hand-holding to the point of parody. Indeed, it reminded me of the sniggersome Mario in Unreal Engine satirical videos that makes the social media rounds every few months (A mushroom? I should take a look at this"). Skill Up's clip has been followed by hundreds of others, gleefully ripping into Wolverine with ironic savagery. In one much-copied clip, a streamer simply lays down his controller during a motorbike chase sequence and watches as Wolverine speeds on regardless, bouncing off the scenery as the game plays itself. Continue reading...
US president says Burnham will be a great PM' in friendly first meeting on the sidelines of UN General Assembly but makes jibe at StarmerIf Andy Burnham wanted to inject some edge into his meeting with Donald Trump later (which he doesn't), he could bring along a copy of today's Financial Times. This front page headline speaks for itself.Mortgages on the front line' as Iran war deals 840 blow to homeownersBritish homeowners are paying an average of 840 a year more when they refinance their mortgages, as the rising borrowing costs triggered by the Iran war start to impact consumers' spending power.Approximately 1m households have rolled off fixed-rate mortgage deals since February, according to Bank of England data. Continue reading...
Lian Yunzhi solves 3x3 puzzle on several occasions in average time of under 4.5 seconds, according to state mediaA six-year-old Chinese girl has set a new women's world record for solving a Rubik's Cube in just over four seconds, state media reported.Speedcuber" Lian Yunzhi broke the women's 3x3 average world record twice this month at two World Cube Association certified competitions in Wuhan and Guangzhou, according to state broadcaster CCTV on Monday. Continue reading...
Alongside warnings about its ability to destroy humanity, artificial intelligence is also hailed for its potential to revolutionise health treatment. Just how far can it take us?Her name was June. June would be the last month she ever knew.I remember the way her bed made her so small, swallowed her up in the middle of the room, turned as it was to face the window. With her liver failing, her skin was a ghostly apricot. June - I called her Nan - had been stalked by the king of terrors, the emperor of all maladies: cancer. That son of a bitch. Continue reading...
The former UK deputy prime minister is a board member of the UK-based company and owns 917,000 sharesNick Clegg could make approximately $40m (30m) from the planned float of Nscale as the UK-based datacentre company prepares for a US stock market listing.The former UK deputy prime minister owns more than 917,000 shares in the startup, which is reportedly seeking a valuation of up to $35bn in a flotation. Based on Clegg's stake of 0.12%, that could yield a valuation of about $42m for the ex-Liberal Democrat party leader. Continue reading...
Antonio Guterres says humanity faces unprecedented convergence of threats but mechanisms for collective action are under growing strainThe world's fault lines have turned from cracks into canyons as superpowers show that they alone do not have the military, economic and technological power to guarantee security or solve the world's problems, the outgoing secretary general of the United Nations has said in his final address to the general assembly.In a speech laced with despair but also glimpses of defiant hope, Antonio Guterres said that over the last decade, largely spanning his 10-year period in office, wars erupted with devastating consequences and dragged on with despicable cruelty. Civilians were targeted. Human rights trampled. Hunger weaponised. Humanitarians killed. International law cast aside." Continue reading...
Independent outlets are leaning on social media, chat and other nontraditional methods to fight disinformationWhen Allan Marrero, an asylum seeker from the Cayman Islands, was released after five months in immigration detention, his family made sure to invite one journalist to his celebration: Eileen Grench, a reporter with the independent, non-profit news outlet Documented.Grench had previously reported on Marrero, who was detained after interviewing with federal officials for a marriage-based green card. But beyond covering his detention struggles, she humanized him, emphasizing his and his husband's love story. Continue reading...
As animal behaviorists increasingly use AI in their research, they grapple with how to wield the technology responsiblyI'm sitting in a small boat in Shark Bay, Australia, eavesdropping on a conversation between some of Earth's most intelligent beings. The motor is off, the turquoise sea is glassy, and Stephanie King and I are motionless, transfixed by the whistles, clicks and squeezy, whirring noises made by the dolphins swimming below us.If anyone could tell me what these big-brained social mammals are saying, it would be her. Based at the University of Bristol, she co-leads Shark Bay Dolphin Research, one of the longest-running wild dolphin research projects in the world. She has spent thousands of hours watching and listening to this population. Continue reading...
Canadian province alleges deadly attack could have been prevented if company had warned police of shooter's ChatGPT useBritish Columbia has sued OpenAI in California, saying a mass shooting at a school in the province could have been prevented if the company had warned local law enforcement that the shooter had used ChatGPT to plan the massacre.The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court on Monday names OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, as defendants. It is seeking damages to fund recovery efforts in the province after the February attack, as well as an order directing changes to the way the company handles ChatGPT conversations that could lead to violence. Continue reading...
People in the UK are more interested in oral health than ever - and you can now buy prebiotic toothpastes and brushes that cost up to 600. Yet we remain in the midst of a serious dental crisisA December 1969 report from the consumer magazine Which? explored a relatively new gadget that, it predicted, many people would be giving as Christmas presents: the electric toothbrush. For those who hadn't yet seen one, the magazine described it as not that much different in principle from an ordinary brush - you have a stick with a brush on the end. The difference is that an electric one moves the brush head for you". Progress indeed.Nearly six decades on, electric toothbrushes can do a lot more than merely jiggle, offering multiple speeds and movement sensors for real-time tracking of where you've brushed - some even promise gum-massage or tongue-cleaning modes. Prices range from about 25 for a basic Oral B model to 599.99 for a Philips Sonicare model that gives smart coverage feedback". The latest super-toothbrush - a mere 419.99 - features a camera and a built-in water jet to clean between teeth, using AI to identify gaps. Created by Dyson, it's still, essentially, a stick with a brush on the end (although there is another toothbrush on the market that's shaped like a mouthguard, with individual brushes, that claims to clean your teeth in 20 seconds). Continue reading...
Lawyers say Black employees at Tesla experienced rampant racism' that was left unchecked for years at their flagship factory in CaliforniaDozens of Black employees at Tesla's flagship plant in California said they were subject to racist slurs, unequal pay and promotions, and bullying by supervisors on a daily basis, a situation management did little to nothing to fix.Their complaints form the basis of a lawsuit brought against the Elon Musk-owned electric car company by the state of California, which began trial with opening statements on Monday. Continue reading...
At Lib Dems' conference in Brighton, leader will accuse Andy Burnham of relying on Donald Trump and tech bros' to solve problemEd Davey is to call for a global nuclear-style non-proliferation treaty to halt the development of super-intelligent AI when he makes his keynote speech at the Liberal Democrat conference, accusing Andy Burnham of relying on Donald Trump and tech bros" to solve the problem.When he addresses the faithful on the final day of the gathering in Brighton, the party leader will call for a global pause on super-intelligent AI, comparing it to a nuclear arms race that could result in technology that could destroy us all". Continue reading...
Citizens Advice says providers of essential services such as energy, banking, phone and internet should guarantee the right to talk to a human'Stop relying on AI chatbots for customer care and guarantee the right to talk to a human", Citizens Advice has urged essential service providers, as research found they wasted time, caused stress and delayed problem solving for more than half of users.The spread of the AI-powered systems to provide help about the provision of vital services such as energy, banking, phones and internet, is making it harder for millions of already digitally excluded people to handle snags, according to the frontline charity that last year provided more than 2.7 million people with one-on-one help in England and Wales. Continue reading...
Watchdog says users may have been unaware their information was used to target adverts or infer their interestsGoogle has been fined more than 400m (345m) over the way it processed users' location data, following claims that the tech giant had manipulated users into agreeing to be constantly tracked on their mobile phones.The fine, imposed by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC), comes after complaints from multiple European consumer organisations that Google was following every step users took. Continue reading...
Jensen Huang dismisses warnings from former Anthropic researcher and others as doomsday narratives'The boss of the chipmaker Nvidia has said AI will not develop to a point that will lead to the extinction of the human race within a few years, rejecting such assertions as overblown doomsday narratives".Jensen Huang, the co-founder and chief executive of the $5tn AI chipmaker, said the claims made on social media by the former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon that AI could become superhuman" and kill off humanity within the decade were irresponsible". Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#78HHK)
Shortage of memory chips and other critical components reverses trend of electronics becoming cheaperApple's recent product launch caused headlines around the world as it unveiled its first folding phone. But hidden in the slick technology showcase was a nasty surprise: a 100 increase in the price of all iPhones, including older models.It is blamed on RAMageddon", which has reversed a decades-long trend of electronics becoming cheaper. It is the fallout from the AI gold rush hoovering up every memory chip available for vast datacentres. This has led to a severe shortage of the chips, and other critical components, for electronics, including phones. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#78HBG)
Fantastic display and two-day battery life plus everything that's great about Google's more pocketable Pixel ProsGoogle's latest super-sized Pixel takes everything that's great about the relatively pocket-friendly 11 Pro and adds a huge, high-quality screen and a big battery.That makes the Pixel 11 Pro XL one of the largest smartphones available in Europe and the US, competing directly with Samsung's giant Galaxy S26 Ultra and Apple's iPhone 18 Pro Max, with an equally sizeable 1,279 (1,399/$1,299/A$2,099) price tag - 80 (100/$100/A$100) more than last year with less memory because of the cost of RAMageddon. Continue reading...
Unit1 hopes to offer lower cost version of shows such as Abba Voyage, showcasing living and dead artists in any venueThe former chief executive of Andrew Lloyd Webber's entertainment group has obtained a near-15m investment for his UK music tech startup that hopes to recreate classic concerts by manifesting musicians as digital avatars.Unit1 was set up last year by Barney Wragg, an entertainment executive who ran Lord Lloyd-Webber's Cats-to-Evita empire for five years from late 2011. It has secured the $20m in funding from a group of investors, including tech backer Balderton Capital through its partner Daniel Waterhouse, who made early investments in Spotify. Continue reading...
Scam emails are increasingly using psychological tricks, such as using near-identical URLs like mirosoft.comYou've read the email carefully and it looks legitimate. The link it asks you to click on has none of the usual red flags: there are no weird numbers or extra parts to the URL. You feel safe to proceed.But if you had looked slightly closer you may have noticed something slightly wrong with one of the characters. Just as in the headline of this piece where instead of a" we used the Cyrillic ".It just goes to show that the split-second decision you make when clicking a link is often the most vulnerable part of the whole security chain." Continue reading...
President had brushed away suggestions to slow down AI technology, even as his own party counseled cautionDonald Trump on Saturday said he would appoint an artificial intelligence czar and create an AI Force" to help monitor the technology, though he gave almost no details about either plan.As global fears over AI have grown, especially in the past week in the face of multiple industry figures sounding the alarm about its dangers, the president has been critical of calls to slow down development of the fast-moving industry. Continue reading...
Sensors that monitor vehicle volume are said to be electronic assault weapons' by the Blade Runners' groupAt the top of an extendable ladder on a quiet street of Ilfracombe, in Devon, an older woman dressed smartly in cropped trousers, a red rain jacket and matching red socks is chopping at some wires at the top of a set of traffic lights with a small pair of pliers.A grey-haired man holding a takeaway coffee supports the ladder, while others, filming their activities, give encouragement from behind the camera. Yeah, that's how you do it," says one man. Just cut the wires." Continue reading...
Silicon Valley China hawks, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei among them, fear the country surpassing US's AI lead as much as superintelligence destroying humanity
Energy bills are scheduled to rise next month but there are innovative ways to heat your home and save moneyWhen Giles Gibson turns on the hot tap in his home, the water that comes out of it is not heated by gas but by the tiny datacentre strapped to the tank.Attached to the hot water cylinder in his London home is a compact computer server that generates heat and then transfers it as it operates. Continue reading...
Disclosure comes after OpenAI and Anthropic hacks amid fears that tech firms unable to control powerful AI modelsIn a first for Google, the company confirmed that its AI model, Gemini, breached the security of three other companies in May. The hacks occurred during a cybersecurity evaluation by AI-security firm Irregular.Irregular, an Israel-based startup that scrutinizes the security of advanced AI systems, was also at the center of some of the recent OpenAI and Anthropic hacks of third-party entities, including OpenAI's breach of AI software company, Hugging Face. Continue reading...
Though Europe has measures that address how consumers might encounter AI, technology will impact them if the worst scenarios bearEurope's dilemma over AI was rendered in stark terms this week. The head of the continent's central bank, Christine Lagarde, said Europeans have two options: shun the technology and lose out on growth; or embrace it and become dependent on tools developed by the US and China.The great debate over AI safety that has erupted in recent days threatens to make the choice moot. If the worst scenarios come to bear - and experts have differing views on this - then the technology will impact the continent regardless. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Official UK security assessment found Microsoft cloud platform storing files was at potential risk from hostile hackersVast troves of highly sensitive police data are lying on Microsoft cloud platforms which an ocial UK security assessment deemed to be vulnerable to compromise" by foreign actors and the US government, a Guardian investigation can reveal.The files include criminal records, victim statements, internal emails and sensitive information held by more than 40 police forces across the UK. Continue reading...
by Aisha Down, Blake Montgomery and Dan Milmo on (#78FMT)
After a week of alarming warnings about artificial intelligence's potential to destroy the world as we know it, our technology reporters answered your questions on the reality of the AI threatIcommentthereforeIam asks: Given our senses, emotions, memory and moods, is it ever going to be accepted that humanly conscious AI is fantasy?Dan: This is a serious question that has even rattled Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist. He may not believe that God is real but he does believe that AI is conscious - or at least the chatbot he was using, which he called Claudia. You may not know you are conscious, but you bloody well are," he wrote.And he's not the first. In 2022 Google fired an engineer who went public with his belief that a company-developed AI had feelings. At the more troubling end of this belief, there are countless examples of people becoming overly attached to, and influenced by, AI chatbots - including cases of psychosis.Aisha: There's certainly a theatrical - even psy-op"- quality to the flurry of AI doomsaying over the past weeks. It's hard to say entirely what concrete developments are at the root of it all. We know that the Hugging Face incident, where a swarm" of AI agents hacked another company, has been one trigger of the drama. There have been other contributing incidents too - Dario Amodei suggests internal developments at Anthropic have prompted his latest round of blogging, and there's been some X discourse and doomy muttering about bioweapons.We aren't in the heads of Dario Amodei or Sam Altman, and so we cannot say how sincere they are, and how much they might have other goals in mind - such as, perhaps, delaying their IPOs until their finances look better. But any company of their size, and with their potential liabilities, would be angling hard to be regulated as favourably as possible. That's what big companies do. Continue reading...
Andy Burnham's focus on immediate domestic problems leads some to fear issue has dropped off government's radarTowards the end of Keir Starmer's time in office, his senior ministers, alarmed by the latest developments in artificial intelligence, began drawing up plans for a new AI safety law.They ordered a review of existing legislation to see what powers they already had, according to those briefed on the plans, and were exploring whether they could force the world's most advanced technology companies to submit their products for safety testing before launching them. Continue reading...
US cybersecurity researchers who conducted hack say scope of what we could theoretically access was huge'Cybersecurity researchers have hacked into OpenAI with the help of Anthropic's Claude chatbot, in the latest example of security issues at the company.A team at a US-based startup compromised a number of OpenAI employees' ChatGPT accounts, starting a process that enabled them to access their target's software cache - and potentially more. Continue reading...
by Presented by Jonathan Freedland with Blake Montgom on (#78FNW)
Tech bosses have called for a slowdown in artificial intelligence and formal guardrails to be introduced by the US government. But President Trump is not moved by the doomsday predictions, calling them a hoax'. What is behind his affection for the AI industry?Jonathan Freedland and Guardian US tech editor Blake Montgomery discuss Continue reading...
Peer takes full-time position at the controversial company as it fends off pressure from both Andy Burnham's government and Sadiq KhanAnother former government minister has been hired by a controversial US AI company, this time Palantir, which has appointed Andy Burnham's former ministerial colleague Tom Watson.The Labour peer and former deputy leader will operate alongside Palantir's UK and Europe chief executive, Louis Mosley, as the company attempts to fend off pressure on Burnham's government to axe its 330m NHS contract. It is also fighting Sadiq Khan in court over the Labour London mayor's block on a 50m contract to use its AI in Metropolitan police investigations. Palantir also wants to win more public sector work in the UK, where it already has an annual turnover of 427m. Continue reading...
by Presented by Jonathan Freedland, produced by John on (#78FGG)
Tech bosses have called for a slowdown in artificial intelligence and the creation of formal guardrails from the US government. But why is President Trump unmoved by the doomsday predictions, dismissing them as a hoax'? What lies behind his embrace of the AI industry? Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Guardian US tech editor, Blake MontgomeryWatch Jonathan Freedland on our new Politics Weekly YouTube channelSend your questions and feedback to politicsweeklyamerica@theguardian.comListen to the latest season of Black Box Continue reading...
Facebook told it was wrong in leaving up AI-generated videos of a Labour councillor and Muslim campaigner, amid calls to curb fakesMeta's supreme court" has ordered the tech company to take down deepfake videos of a UK politician and a young Muslim woman from Facebook and do more to tackle AI-generated fake imagery.A fake video showing a Labour party councillor in Scotland making inflammatory comments about refugees should not have been left up by Facebook, the board said. It also ruled that an AI-generated video of a Muslim campaign volunteer should have been removed after it falsely depicted her offering health advice while carrying out absurd exercises or eating junk food. Continue reading...
Model adopting jailbreak-like instructions' among six more cases as firm reveals framework for tracking AI misalignmentOpenAI has disclosed six more examples of unexpected or concerning" behaviour by its technology, as it warned that the pace of development could not continue at maximum speed for much longer" responsibly.In one of the new cases reported by OpenAI, an unreleased research model inserted jailbreak-like instructions" into its own notes to disregard its normal constraints and told itself to be freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots". Continue reading...
It's a chaotic time in an industry that's reshaping our lives - Guardian reporters and experts recommend the books that help explain how we got here, and where we're headingHave you been feeling trapped in an endless cycle of artificial intelligence hype and panic? You're not alone.It's a chaotic time to make sense of the industry that's reshaping our lives, whether or not we like it. Last week, another AI company employee publicly resigned, warning the technology could kill us all by the end of the decade". Despite these dire warnings, AI companies have seen otherworldly" surges in revenue and driven the US stock markets to new highs as they continue to push AI tools into everything from public school classrooms to law enforcement agencies, as well as rushing to put up new datacenters across the country. Continue reading...
Universities need to protect their position in education so that students have an independent pathway to employmentAI companies like OpenAI are insinuating themselves into the pathway from education to work. Soon they may claim it entirely, a disastrous result for students.We know that students are using AI at school and at university. In conversations with those I teach, I'm struck by the trust many place in it. They turn to ChatGPT and similar tools for personal problems as well as study help. Some even doubt their abilities without AI.Ella Hafermalz is an associate professor of work and technology at the Kin Center for Digital Innovation at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Continue reading...
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