Exclusive: Defence ministry was told in recent days that staff details accessed but sources say SSCL knew in FebruaryThe IT company targeted in a Chinese hack that accessed the data of hundreds of thousands of Ministry of Defence staff failed to report the breach for months, the Guardian can reveal.The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, told MPs on Tuesday that Shared Services Connected Ltd (SSCL) had been breached by a malign actor and state involvement" could not be ruled out. Continue reading...
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#6MQ33)
Researchers find instances of systems double-crossing opponents, bluffing, pretending to be human and modifying behaviour in testsThey can outwit humans at board games, decode the structure of proteins and hold a passable conversation, but as AI systems have grown in sophistication so has their capacity for deception, scientists warn.The analysis, by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, identifies wide-ranging instances of AI systems double-crossing opponents, bluffing and pretending to be human. One system even altered its behaviour during mock safety tests, raising the prospect of auditors being lured into a false sense of security. Continue reading...
Fire chief says incorrect disposal of devices powered by lithium-ion batteries are disaster waiting to happen'Fires caused by batteries in waste have gone up by 71% in the UK since 2022, as the rise of disposable vapes and other portable battery-powered devices leads to more lithium-ion batteries ending up in the bin.An increase in the number of these devices being thrown in household rubbish bins has led to more than 1,200 fires in the waste system in the past 12 months, compared with 700 in 2022, according to research conducted by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) and the campaign group Recycle Your Electricals. Continue reading...
Part newspapers, part fanzines, these titles were a lifeline to information-starved gamers and generated a sense of community to rival any YouTube streamerIn the 21st century, video game news is available in endless streams, 24 hours a day. But if you grew up in the 1980s and 90s, you went to magazines for your gaming news, reviews and gossip. For 30 years, the UK games mag industry was a thriving sector, providing players, not only with information about games on every format, but also a sense of community. They were part newspapers, part fanzines and their writers were the YouTube streamers of their day.I've been lucky enough to write for dozens of them, but before that I was an avid reader, spending all my money on these glossy celebrations of game culture. Here are, arguably, the 15 (ish) best ... Continue reading...
Exclusive: fraudsters impersonated WPP's CEO using a fake WhatsApp account, a voice clone and YouTube footage used in a virtual meetThe head of the world's biggest advertising group was the target of an elaborate deepfake scam that involved an artificial intelligence voice clone. The CEO of WPP, Mark Read, detailed the attempted fraud in a recent email to leadership, warning others at the company to look out for calls claiming to be from top executives.Fraudsters created a WhatsApp account with a publicly available image of Read and used it to set up a Microsoft Teams meeting that appeared to be with him and another senior WPP executive, according to the email obtained by the Guardian. During the meeting, the impostors deployed a voice clone of the executive as well as YouTube footage of them. The scammers impersonated Read off-camera using the meeting's chat window. The scam, which was unsuccessful, targeted an agency leader", asking them to set up a new business in an attempt to solicit money and personal details. Continue reading...
Advert featuring huge hydraulic press crushing cultural objects struck wrong note with manyApple has apologised after an online backlash to an advert for its new iPad that features an industrial-sized hydraulic press crushing a collection of creative objects including musical instruments and books.The ad, launched by Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, on Tuesday, shows the machine squashing various items - ranging from a piano and a metronome to tins of paint and an arcade game - before a single iPad Pro then appears in their place. A voiceover then states: The most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest." Continue reading...
Critics say ChatGPT creator's proposal to allow erotica, slurs and other adult content undermines its mission statementOpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is exploring whether users should be allowed to create artificial intelligence-generated pornography and other explicit content with its products.While the company stressed that its ban on deepfakes would continue to apply to adult material, campaigners suggested the proposal undermined its mission statement to produce safe and beneficial" AI. Continue reading...
Industry's digital watermarking scheme will add to existing safeguards on TikTok's own toolsTikTok will flag users who upload artificial intelligence-generated content (AIGC) to the video-sharing site from other platforms, the company says, becoming the first big video site to automatically label such content for users to see.Content created using TikTok's own AI tools is already automatically marked as such to viewers, and the company has required creators to manually add the same labels to their own content, but until now they have been able to evade the rules and pass off generated material as authentic by uploading it from other platforms. Continue reading...
by Hollie Richardson, Hannah Verdier and Rachel Aroes on (#6MP10)
In this week's newsletter: Celebrity anthology show Everything I Know About Me returns with the Towie star as its focus. Plus: five shows hosted by master podcasters Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereHappily Never After: Dan & Nancy
Fears deadbots' could cause psychological harm to their creators and users or digitally haunt' themDigital recreations of dead people are on the cusp of reality and urgently need regulation, AI ethicists have argued, warning deadbots" could cause psychological harm to, and even haunt", their creators and users.Such services, which are already technically possible to create and legally permissible, could let users upload their conversations with dead relatives to bring grandma back to life" in the form of a chatbot, researchers from the University of Cambridge suggest. Continue reading...
New Mexico attorney general highlights real-world consequences of online dangers prevalent on firm's Instagram and Facebook appsThree men have been arrested and charged with sexually preying on children via Meta's social networks in New Mexico, the state's attorney general announced on Wednesday.The arrests stemmed from an investigation into the potential harm to children caused by Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, codenamed Operation MetaPhile". Undercover agents posed as children, whom the three men solicited for sex, according to the criminal complaint. The sting operation is part of an ongoing lawsuit launched by Raul Torrez's office in December that alleges Meta has allowed its social media platforms to become marketplaces for child predators. Continue reading...
Challenge cited California state law that allows plaintiffs and defendants to remove judge they believe can't grant impartial trialThe California judge presiding over Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, has removed himself from the case. Judge Ethan Schulman on Monday sustained a challenge from Musk's lawyers, which cited a California state law that allows plaintiffs and defendants to remove a judge they believe cannot grant an impartial trial.The law, known as California Code of Civil Procedure 170.6, does not require the person issuing the challenge to provide any factual basis for their claim that the judge is prejudiced against them. Each side in a case gets one such peremptory challenge, which is granted as long as it is filed with correct language and within a certain time frame. Continue reading...
CEO confirms once company has sold off remaining assets it will have more than amount requiredThe bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX has said it will be able to repay creditors the full $11bn (8.8bn) it owes, as the boom-bust cycle repeats itself with a sharp increase in bitcoin prices.John Ray III, who succeeded the disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried as the chief executive of FTX shortly after its collapse, said that once the exchange had sold off its remaining assets, it might have more than $16bn - well in excess of its debts. Continue reading...
This lushly detailed game with a chunkily retro polygonal protagonist is a gorgeous homage to landmark titles of the pastSFB Games; PC, PlayStation, XboxIt is fascinating to be playing games made by developers who have been raised on 3D games - and Crow Country's affectionate referencing of Silent Hill is a prime example of this. A survival horror game about the dark secrets lurking within and beneath an abandoned theme park, it is also a gorgeous homage to landmark games of the past.The look of the game is breathtaking: the thick, grainy patina over the screen gives the impression of playing on a CRT monitor in somebody's dimly lit bedroom in 1997. The chunky polygonal figure of the protagonist, the mysterious Mara Forest, serves a stark contrast against the set and landscape, which give the impression of the lush pre-rendered backgrounds of Final Fantasy VII. However, these environments are not static in the way of their predecessors, but fully and delightfully interactive - this is a game made with real attention to detail, and clear passion for the particular period of game design. It is a sublime treat to look at, and to listen to, the sound design perfectly in keeping with the aesthetic, adding even more tension to the already grungy, bleak world we must navigate. Continue reading...
You'll need to hand over your phone before you can grab a coffee at the Netherlands' Offline Club, or attend a music event from Off the Radar. Why are the Dutch so keen on digital detoxes - and are there lessons for the rest of the world?When I walk into Amsterdam's Cafe Brecht, I immediately want to take a picture. The old-fashioned bar - with its plush sofas, vintage art and warm lighting - is what the Dutch would call gezellig", a word with many meanings but perhaps best summed up as cosy" or pleasant". My instinct is to whip out my phone and take a photo. For friends? Future reference? Who knows? But I'll have to rely on my memory, as I've checked it at the door.I'm at the cafe for a Sunday morning digital detox hangout", organised by the burgeoning Offline Club. I've dropped my phone off in slot seven of a fancy-looking lockbox, committing to spend the next few hours unplugged. There's a set schedule: we have some time to chat at the beginning, then 45 minutes to ourselves, another 30 minutes to connect, followed by another 30 minutes of quiet time. During the quiet time, we are invited to do any sort of activity - I brought a book - provided we don't interrupt others. Continue reading...
A new docuseries, from Insecure showrunner Prentice Penny, explores how a section of Twitter became an inventive and impactful communityHow to explain Black Twitter? It's less of an actual place than a general practice, sometimes a secret society and then sometimes a prominent advocacy bloc, neither a standalone digital platform nor its own hashtag per se. Yet when cops kill, Kendrick Lamar drops or Harlem shakes, we know Black Twitter when we see it.In the almost 20 years that Twitter (or X now, if we must) has been a thing, Black Twitter has been the mystical life force that has kept it real, riveting and rich. But where does one even start, much less catalog a seemingly endless stream of killer punchlines? I remember when the Alabama brawl stuff came out and there were a lot of jokes about Terrence Howard and the way he says mayne' in Hustle and Flow," says the comedy guru Prentice Penny. And then somebody calls the [teen who dived off a riverboat to join the fight] Aquamayne. Just using the kid coming out of the water as a set-up to call back to mayne is hilarious. Like, I just wanna keep being this funny." Continue reading...
I phoned the police and the bike was seized, but eBay and my bank won't help over reimbursementI bought a used electric cargo bike on eBay for 3,300 but, when it arrived, I discovered a cut in the frame. I put the frame number into the national BikeRegister database, which confirmed it had been stolen.The seller did not reply when I contacted them, so I phoned the police and the bike was seized. I was given crime reference and property log numbers. Continue reading...
by Carmen Aguilar García, Sarah Marsh and Philip McM on (#6MN08)
Exclusive: Vast web of fake shops touting designer brands took money and personal details from 800,000 people in Europe and US, data suggestsMore than 800,000 people in Europe and the US appear to have been duped into sharing card details and other sensitive personal data with a vast network of fake online designer shops apparently operated from China.An international investigation by the Guardian, Die Zeit and Le Monde gives a rare inside look at the mechanics of what the UK's Chartered Trading Standards Institute has described as one of the largest scams of its kind, with 76,000 fake websites created. Continue reading...
Regulator calls on social media firms to use robust age checks to keep harmful content away from childrenSocial media firms have been told to tame aggressive algorithms" that recommend harmful content to children, as part of Ofcom's new safety codes of practice.The children's safety codes, introduced as part of the Online Safety Act, let Ofcom set new, tight rules for internet companies and how they can interact with children. It calls on services to make their platforms child-safe by default or implement robust age checks to identify children and give them safer versions of the experience. Continue reading...
Social networking company reported $575m in losses, but strong revenue and an increase in users buoyed investor confidenceReddit shares rose more than 15% in after-hours trading on Tuesday following its first quarterly earnings since going public in March. The company reported overall losses of $575m, citing expenses from its initial public offering for the decline. But strong revenue and user increases boosted confidence in the company after its long-awaited public offering.Reddit reported a revenue of $243m during the first quarter of 2024 - an increase of 48% from the previous quarter. It also posted record user traffic, with daily active users increasing 37% to 82.7 million from the previous three months. The report comes after its initial public offering saw a positive response, with shares up 48% on the first day of trading. Continue reading...
Joe Biden signed a bill giving ByteDance up to 19 January 2025 to sell TikTok to an approved buyer or risk being banned from the USTikTok and its parent company ByteDance have sued to block a law signed by Joe Biden just weeks ago that would force the sale of the short video app or ban it from the US.The companies filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the US government in the court of appeals for the District of Columbia, arguing the law is unconstitutional and violates free speech protections. Continue reading...
Twitter co-founder's decision to leave rival social network he helped start was apparently unexpectedThe Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has left the board of Bluesky, the decentralised social network he helped start, and encouraged users to remain on his first site, now owned by Elon Musk and called X.Dorsey confirmed he had cut ties with Bluesky on Sunday, telling a user on X that he was no longer on the social network's board. The announcement was apparently unexpected, since Bluesky still listed him as a board member until late on Sunday evening. Continue reading...
Netflix's hit show The Circle recently introduced an AI chatbot contestant, a potentially worrying sign of where we're headingAccording to his profile, Max, a contestant on season six of the Netflix reality show The Circle, is 26 years old, brunette and into his Australian shepherd, Pippa. He is a veterinary intern from Pismo Beach, California, and a bit cheeky - single, but my dog is taken". He enters into the Circle chat, the fake social media service contestants use to vie for $100,000, posting either as themselves, an embellished version of themselves or a fully fake identity, with ease. I like this guy! He seems so real," says Lauren, a fellow twentysomething hoping to build enough online alliances and secure enough positive peer reviews to win, upon seeing Max's profile.You just know the producers ate that up, because Max" is the front for an AI chatbot, a new gimmick to up the ante in this middleweight reality show. The Circle has nowhere near the following of Love Island, but hasn't sunk to the bottom of the streaming service slush pile - and is the latest example of artificial intelligence's seemingly inexorable creep into our entertainment. As we continue to determine the line for use of AI in film and TV, from the recent AI-generated promotional posters for A24's Civil War to, far more egregiously, suspected use of AI-manipulated old photos" in the Netflix documentary What Jennifer Did, The Circle seeks to wring some low-level fun out of all this existential anxiety. Max, we're told by the relentlessly cheery host Michelle Buteau, is open-source generative AI trained on previous seasons of the show. He's essentially a glorified ChatGPT, which already feels like old news in the warp-speed trajectory of widespread AI use, but with fake profile photos provided by the comedian Griffin James. Continue reading...
Developer Slavic Magic's feudal simulator is Steam's latest early access sensation, but there's a seven-year story behind its overnight successLaunched as if from a trebuchet at the end of April, Manor Lords is the latest in a string of explosively successful video games that have been released this year. Indeed, the rise of this unassuming-looking city-builder is arguably more impressive than the enormous launch of Helldivers 2, or the breakout Poker phenomenon Balatro. Developed largely by one person and releasing in an incomplete state, Manor Lords shifted a million copies in its first 24 hours on sale.The scale of Manor Lords' success is remarkable, but contrary to appearances, it hasn't emerged from nowhere. Momentum around the game has been building for years, part of a broader surge in popularity for city-building games in general. There's also more to Manor Lords than meets the eye, as its mundane medieval exterior hides a richly detailed, tangible simulation of feudal life. Continue reading...
The messaging service pegs itself as the happiest place' online, but Snap's Ronan Harris explain how its post-pandemic struggles has made it focus on being friendlier not just to users but to small businesses, too Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereWhy are some social networks a success, while others struggle to stay alive? How did Facebook and Twitter go from being peers in the 2000s to barely even rivals 15 years on? Everyone seems to use social media, so everyone seems to have an answer to this sort of question.But social networks are icebergs: most of what matters lies below the surface. Simply building a good user experience is table stakes for playing in the space. To actually succeed, though, you also need to master the parts most people don't see. Continue reading...
Defence secretary to address MPs after names and bank details of armed forces members targeted by unnamed attackerThe Ministry of Defence has suffered a significant data breach and the personal information of UK military personnel has been hacked.A third-party payroll system used by the MoD, which includes names and bank details of current and past members of the armed forces, was targeted in the attack. A very small number of addresses may also have been accessed. Continue reading...
Australian studio Aggro Crab has a hit on its hands - and behind all its jokes and excellent crustacean combat lies an uncomfortable truth about our worldThe Arcane Kids, a video game collective from Los Angeles, have a manifesto that I think about all the time, but particularly when I find art that surprises me, or approaches traditional formats in new and exciting ways. The second line simply states: The fastest way to the truth is a joke." Another Crab's Treasure, the second offering from indie Australian studio Aggro Crab, is full of truth and jokes - and something else, something rarer, too.Another Crab's Treasure is ostensibly a combat-oriented adventure game, in which you play a tiny hermit crab whose shell has been stolen. You must explore the depths of the ocean to find a way to retrieve it from the Loan Shark, so you can return the wee crab to his peaceful life in the tide pools on the shore. Unexpectedly for such a welcoming, colourful-looking game, it has intense, complex, Dark Souls-style battling - and the juxtaposition is really refreshing. Our hero, Krill, may only be armed with a tiny fork, but with a little concentration and practice he can face down the enormous, grotesque crustaceans he comes up against time and time again. Continue reading...
I used to be an avid user of TikTok, but the algorithm serves much less delight and serendipity than it used toTikTok is facing its most credible existential threat yet. Last week, the US Congress passed a bill that bans the short-form video app if it does not sell to an American company by this time next year. But as a former avid user whose time on the app has dropped sharply in recent months, I am left wondering - will I even be using the app a year from now?Like many Americans of my demographic (aging millennial), I first started using TikTok regularly when the Covid-19 pandemic began and lockdowns gave many of us more time than we knew how to fill. Continue reading...
by Shanti Das, Home affairs correspondent on (#6MJRS)
The UK regulator has been criticised by grieving families and internet abuse survivors for failing to engage with themBereaved parents and abuse survivors who have endured years of preventable, life-changing harm" linked to social media say they have been denied a voice in official discussions about holding tech firms to account.Mariano Janin, whose daughter Mia, 14, killed herself after online bullying, and the parents of Oliver Stephens, 13, who was murdered after a dispute on social media, are among those who have accused Ofcom of excluding them from a consultation process for tackling online harms. Continue reading...
The novelist on a comedic TikTok sensation, the importance of a good suit and his favourite educational appAndrew O'Hagan was born in Glasgow in 1968, grew up in a working-class Ayrshire family and studied English at Strathclyde University. His first book was The Missing (1995), which told the story of people who disappeared. In 2003 he was included on Granta's list of best young British novelists. He has written 10 books, including Our Fathers and Mayflies, with three of his novels being Booker nominated. His most recent, Caledonian Road, a state-of-the-nation tale, is published by Faber. He will be talking at Hay festival on 30 May. Continue reading...
The photographer on an ambiguous image inspired by Greek, Roman and Egyptian artA former mentor, Elinor Carucci, recommends taking pictures daily as a sort of gym for the photographic mind," Esteban Kuriel says.On this day, Kuriel was staying at St Ermin's hotel in London and had visited the Sir John Soane's Museum, which houses a collection of Greek, Roman and Egyptian figurative sculptures. The fragmented, contorted bodies inspired me, and I returned to my room to make this image. Photographing daily trains my eye, just as one trains their body at the gym, so I must play with what is available. In this case, it was this space and its furniture." Continue reading...
Intentions' badges also launched, as dating app sector sees drops in share prices and moves to diversifyIn the end it was the data that killed me," says Penny* about her decision to leave the dating app Bumble. If she opened the app she might receive 100 likes, 25% of which she might be interested in. She would look at their profiles and write individualised messages; a few would respond, perhaps one would result in a date.That's a lot of effort to get one date," she says. It's exhausting." Continue reading...
Victoria Shi is modelled on Rosalie Nombre, a singer and former contestant on Ukraine's version of the reality show The BachelorUkraine on Wednesday presented an AI-generated spokesperson called Victoria who will make official statements on behalf of its foreign ministry.The ministry said it would for the first time in history" use a digital spokesperson to read its statements, which will still be written by humans. Continue reading...
Investigation finds hacker group linked to Russian intelligence responsible for attacks targeting politicians and defence sectorGermany has summoned a top Russian envoy over a series of cyber-attacks targeting members of the governing Social Democrats and its defence and technology sector.The 2023 attacks, in which several websites were knocked offline in apparent response to Berlin's decision to send tanks to Ukraine, have been blamed on a hacker group linked to Russian military intelligence. Continue reading...
Researchers and Silicon Valley are using tools powered by AI to read what had long been thought unreadableMore than 2,000 years after Plato died, the towering figure of classical antiquity and founder of the Academy, regarded by many as the first university in the west, can still make front-page news.Researchers this week claimed to have found the final resting place of the Greek philosopher, a patch in the garden of his Athens Academy, after scanning an ancient papyrus scroll recovered from the library of a Herculaneum villa that was buried when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79. Continue reading...
His youth support declining, the president needs to be where the people are'. His account regularly mocks Trump - but remains silent on GazaIn Joe Biden's TikTok debut, timed to the Super Bowl in February, the president answered rapid-fire questions like Chiefs or Niners?" (neither, he picked the Eagles because his wife's a Philly girl") and flashed the Dark Brandon meme. He got more than 10m views, so by pure metrics, the video was no flop. But to use one of TikTok's favorite disses, for many gen Z viewers it felt cringe" - even pandering. Worse still, the TikTok, captioned lol hey guys", made the rounds after Israel struck Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza strip. Biden's jokes infuriated users who flooded the post with the comment WHAT ABOUT RAFAH?"I don't want my president to be a TikTok influencer," read the headline of one USA Today editorial. One (actual) influencer told CNN the president's attempt at meme-ing felt performative". A warm welcome to the app, it was not. But Biden's team kept posting. Continue reading...
iPhone sales fell 10% compared with the same time period last year, but the company still beat Wall Street's expectationsApple released its earnings report on Thursday, revealing a drop in overall revenue fueled by slackening iPhone sales.Earnings exceeded market expectations, however, and Apple's shares rose in after-hours trading. Tim Cook, Apple's chief executive, said in a statement released before the call that Apple is reporting revenue of $90.8bn for the March quarter, including an all-time revenue record in services". Continue reading...
Andy Jassy said employees in a union would find it harder to get things done quickly and would be better off' without oneA federal administrative law judge ruled that the the Amazon CEO, Andy Jassy, violated labor law by making certain anti-union comments during media interviews two years ago.Jassy said in 2022 that unions make workplaces much slower" and more bureaucratic". Continue reading...
Creative director and writer Dmitry Svetlov explains how his religious upbringing shaped this game about a nun with a rebellious streakA young woman stands amid the labyrinthine architecture of a Russian nunnery. At first glance, you'd be forgiven for mistaking the scene for one from Tomb Raider. Then the woman moves - slowly, and without the athletic gait of action hero Lara Croft. Her head is bowed, shrouded in black cloth, and her shoulders are hunched in such a way that you have to angle the camera just so to catch a glimpse of her bright, nervous eyes.Indika, the titular protagonist of this dreamy yet eerily photorealist adventure game, cuts a submissive" figure according to its creative director and writer, Dmitry Svetlov - and that is precisely the point. The Moscow-born developer set out to make a game about the ways, in his view, people have come to hate themselves" while growing too used to living in fear." Continue reading...
by Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson and Ammar Kalia on (#6MGRK)
Original cast members Olivia Colman, Tamsin Greig and more return for a revamp of the show, 17 years later, in audio form. Plus: five of the best home improvement podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereGreen Wing: Resuscitated
In this week's newsletter: Delta can be used to play games on vintage consoles from the Game Boy to the Snes ... but for how long? Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereA new app has been at the top of the charts on Apple's store for a couple of weeks now: Delta. Its app store page is illustrated with shots of very Nintendo-esque on-screen controls, framing screenshots from Game Boy, Snes and Mega Drive games. The reviews are glowing: I've been downloading tons of games I played when I was a kid, it's so nostalgic!" This has saved me so much money." And yet neither Sega nor Nintendo has anything to do with the app, and until recently, software of this type was banned from Apple's platforms. How can this be?Delta is an emulator: that is, a piece of software that can successfully mimic a games console, and can run code designed for that games console (ie, games). Delta can run ROMs (digital copies, basically) of games for all the different iterations of the Game Boy, the Nintendo DS, the Nes, Snes and the Sega Mega Drive. This is not illegal. However, downloading those copies of games themselves is illegal. This is an imperfect analogy, but imagine Delta like a Kindle: it imitates a book, and you can read books on it, but only if you have the PDFs. Continue reading...
CBP One app offers far too few appointments, meaning asylum seekers must wait or pay human trafficking groups, report revealsA US government smartphone app that tightly limits asylum appointments at the US-Mexico border is stranding vulnerable migrants in Mexico and enriching organised crime groups, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).The report, which draws on interviews with more than 100 migrants, as well as officials and activists, documents how the CBP One app - which is all but mandatory for asylum seekers - offers 1,450 appointments a day, when arrivals at the border averaged 7,240 a day between May 2023 and January 2024. Continue reading...
Bethesda has just released a huge next gen update' for 2015's Fallout 4. Now that the TV series is a hit, is it worth returning to the wasteland?Last month, developer Bethesda released a hefty update for 2015's Fallout 4, probably timed to welcome new fans eager to learn more about the inspiration behind Amazon's hit TV adaptation. The base game and its expansions offered hundreds of hours of gameplay already, and this update expands Fallout 4 even further with new quests, experiential upgrades and in-game goodies to collect. Fallout 4 is nearly a decade old, but there's never been a better time to jump into its nuclear wasteland.The biggest addition is the most visible: new performance and quality modes boost the ageing game up to 4K resolution, running at 60 frames-per-second. The patch also provides widescreen support and Steam Deck compatibility, so you can play it on the go. These are welcome additions that sharpen the visuals, adding new detail to everything from rust to radscorpions, but it also highlights an uglier reality: Fallout 4 looks dated. This was arguably true even in 2015, but it's undeniably so now. Continue reading...
Symptoms include paranoia, anxiety and a compulsion to snoop on your neighbours. I'm not judging - I've had a brush with it myselfOne of my many guilty pleasures is lurking on my former home's Facebook group. The New York apartment complex, which houses the population of a small town, is classified as a naturally occurring retirement community, which means there are a lot of people in the group with time and energy to devote to petty feuds. The gossip is unrivalled and often a little unhinged. At one point there was a heated debate about birth control for pigeons that resulted in at least one person getting banned.Recently, a mania of sorts has swept the group. An influential neighbour rather belatedly learned about video doorbells. When he bought one it set off a spate of other people buying the devices - and obsessively monitoring them to check for package thieves. Every other Facebook post now seems to be a photo of some hapless stranger taken by a video doorbell with a panicked caption along the lines of stranger danger". Continue reading...
Revenue at Amazon Web Services increases to $25bn as retail giant releases earnings report surpassing Wall Street expectationsAmazon profits soared once again in the first quarter of 2024, the company announced on Tuesday - the latest in a series of robust earnings reports for the retail giant. The company attributed the boost to artificial intelligence and advertising sales.Amazon reported overall revenue of $143.3bn in the first three months of the year - up 13% from the same period in 2023 and surpassing Wall Street expectations of $142.65bn. The e-commerce giant reported an increase of more than 200% to $15bn, with net income more than tripling to $10.4bn from $3.17bn at the same time in 2023. Continue reading...
Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty and stepped down as CEO of the crypto trading company last yearChangpeng Zhao, the former head of the world's largest cryptocurrency trading company, was sentenced to four months in jail on Tuesday in a Seattle courtroom. Zhao pleaded guilty late last year to money-laundering violations and stepped down as CEO of Binance. The company itself was fined $4.3bn. Zhao was fined $50m last year.Judge Richard Jones told Zhao that there were a number of mitigating factors in his sentencing, including that he had cooperated with law enforcement. Jones also cited numerous letters the court had received that testified to Zhao's character, and stated that he did not believe Zhao was likely to reoffend. Continue reading...
The Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and others file suit saying the tech companies purloin millions' of articles without permissionA group of eight US newspapers is suing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging that the technology companies have been purloining millions" of copyrighted news articles without permission or payment to train their artificial intelligence chatbots.The New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, Denver Post and other papers filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in a New York federal court. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian