The man behind Amy and Senna has turned his attention to techno-authoritarianism' in the genre-defying 2073. He talks to our journalist - one of the movie's unlikely stars - about the events that fed his dystopian visionIt was some time in the early 2000s and Asif Kapadia, already a successful film director, a wunderkind whose first feature in 2001, The Warrior, won the Bafta for outstanding British film, was travelling back from New York.There's a beautiful, gorgeous sunset over Manhattan. I'm in a limo being taken to the airport. And I was taking photos of Manhattan because I was driving over Brooklyn Bridge and it's just all so cinematic and I became subconsciously aware of the driver watching me in the rear view mirror. Continue reading...
More than half of students are now using generative AI, casting a shadow over campuses as tutors and students turn on each other and hardworking learners are caught in the flak. Will Coldwell reports on a broken systemThe email arrived out of the blue: it was the university code of conduct team. Albert, a 19-year-old undergraduate English student, scanned the content, stunned. He had been accused of using artificial intelligence to complete a piece of assessed work. If he did not attend a hearing to address the claims made by his professor, or respond to the email, he would receive an automatic fail on the module. The problem was, he hadn't cheated.Albert, who asked to remain anonymous, was distraught. It might not have been his best effort, but he'd worked hard on the essay. He certainly didn't use AI to write it: And to be accused of it because of signpost phrases', such as in addition to' and in contrast', felt very demeaning." The consequences of the accusation rattled around his mind - if he failed this module, he might have to retake the entire year - but having to defend himself cut deep. It felt like a slap in the face of my hard work for the entire module over one poorly written essay," he says. I had studied hard and was generally a straight-A student - one bad essay suddenly meant I used AI?" Continue reading...
Despite a stellar reference from a landlord of 17 years, Mary Louis was rejected after being screened by firm SafeRentThree hundred twenty-four. That was the score Mary Louis was given by an AI-powered tenant screening tool. The software, SafeRent, didn't explain in its 11-page report how the score was calculated or how it weighed various factors. It didn't say what the score actually signified. It just displayed Louis's number and determined it was too low. In a box next to the result, the report read: Score recommendation: DECLINE".Louis, who works as a security guard, had applied for an apartment in an eastern Massachusetts suburb. At the time she toured the unit, the management company said she shouldn't have a problem having her application accepted. Though she had a low credit score and some credit card debt, she had a stellar reference from her landlord of 17 years, who said she consistently paid her rent on time. She would also be using a voucher for low-income renters, guaranteeing the management company would receive at least some portion of the monthly rent in government payments. Her son, also named on the voucher, had a high credit score, indicating he could serve as a backstop against missed payments. Continue reading...
From voters picking up bad vibes' to the Brat girl summer, vague instincts now make the world go round. Does this represent a crisis of seriousness or has it always been feelings that make us human?Facts were cool for about 250 years. From the Enlightenment until this century, facts were where it was at. They had a good innings. But it is game over for facts, the end of the line for statistics. These days, what counts is what you feel. In other words, it's all about the vibe.Vibes are everywhere. Disillusioned Labour voters are picking up bad vibes", reports this paper. The Bank of England gets wrong-footed by a vibe shift in the economy". In the US, a vibe-cession" - a downturn in economic confidence at an impressionistic level - was a key electoral issue. Google Maps will not only give you directions, but vibe check" a neighbourhood for you. Of all this year's hit albums, the one that had a vibe named after it - Brat - won the culture, catapulting Charli XCX to seven Grammy nominations. When a new production of Romeo & Juliet opened on Broadway recently, a US newspaper wrote that the vibe is very teens hanging out in the Target parking lot', only with a lot more sonnets and glitter" - because even William Shakespeare is no one without a vibe these days. Continue reading...
Ruling means short-video app and Chinese parent ByteDance must appeal to supreme court by 19 JanuaryA US appeals court on Friday rejected an emergency bid by TikTok to temporarily block a law that would require its Chinese parent company ByteDance to divest of the short-video app by 19 January or face a ban on the app.TikTok and ByteDance on Monday filed the emergency motion with the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia, asking for more time to make their case to the US supreme court. Friday's ruling means that TikTok now must quickly move to the supreme court in an attempt to halt the pending ban. Continue reading...
by Agence France-Press and Guardian staff on (#6SY05)
Notifications from a new Apple product falsely suggested the BBC claimed the New York gunman Luigi Mangione had killed himselfThe BBC says it has filed a complaint with the US tech giant Apple over AI-generated fake news that was shared on iPhones and attributed to the broadcaster.Apple Intelligence, which was launched in Britain this week, produces grouped notifications from several information sites that have been generated by artificial intelligence. Continue reading...
OpenAI's Sam Altman also announced a $1m personal donation to Trump on the same day, joining MetaAmazon is the latest tech giant to donate to Donald Trump's inaugural fund.The company plans to give $1m to the fund, first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Amazon follows Meta, Facebook's parent company, also handing over $1m to Trump's inaugural committee. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Friday that he, too, would make a personal donation of $1m, first reported by Fox News. Continue reading...
OpenAI's new o1' system seeks to solve the limits to growth but it raises concerns about control and the risks of smart machinesMore than 300 million people use OpenAI's ChatGPT each week, a testament to the technology's appeal. This month, the company unveiled a pro mode" for its new o1" AI system, offering human-level reasoning - for 10 times the current $20 monthly subscription fee. One of its advanced behaviours appears to be self-preservation. In testing, when the system was led to believe it would be shut down, it attempted to disable an oversight mechanism. When o1" found memos about its replacement, it tried copying itself and overwriting its core code. Creepy? Absolutely.More realistically, the move probably reflects the system's programming to optimise outcomes rather than demonstrating intentions or awareness. The idea of creating intelligent machines induces feelings of unease. In computing this is the gorilla problem: 7m years ago, a now-extinct primate evolved, with one branch leading to gorillas and one to humans. The concern is that just as gorillas lost control over their fate to humans, humans might lose control to superintelligent AI. It is not obvious that we can control machines that are smarter than us. Continue reading...
Sports stars are rushing to promote coins and exchanges. But they are stepping into a world of which they often have scant knowledgeScottie Pippen is selling out his NBA legacy again, to be world champion of crypto.In his heyday, the hall of famer was happy to be the Robin to Michael Jordan's Batman. But time, Netflix's Last Dance documentary and the compounding embarrassment of his public divorce from the ex-girlfriend of Jordan's eldest son, Marcus, appear to have made him so bitter about playing second fiddle that he has apparently moved to contemplating whether the NBA's 90s dynasty needed another hero. Continue reading...
Average user generates greenhouse gases equal to driving an extra 123 miles in gasoline-powered car a year, data showsTikTok's annual carbon footprint is probably larger than that of Greece, according to a new analysis of the social media platform's environmental impact, with the average user generating greenhouse gases equivalent to driving an extra 123 miles in a gasoline-powered car each year.Estimates from Greenly, a carbon accounting consultancy based in Paris, place TikTok's 2023 emissions in the US, UK and France at about 7.6m metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) - higher than those associated with Twitter/X and Snapchat in the same region. Continue reading...
Hawk tuah girl' Haliey Welch's coin fails amid new wave of hype around crypto-related assetsIt is a parable for the attention economy. A celebrity created entirely by social media, hawk tuah girl" Haliey Welch, helps launch a crypto asset that stokes a viral frenzy and then flames out.The Hawk memecoin was worth $490m (385m) hours after it launched on 4 December but now has a market capitalisation - the value of all Hawk coins in circulation - of $17m. Continue reading...
Doughnut maker said it was investigating attack, which affects its online operations but not in-person salesKrispy Kreme is struggling to meet online orders of its doughnuts, after a cybersecurity attack that continues to disrupt the company's operations almost two weeks after it was noticed.The doughnut maker said on Wednesday that it became aware of unauthorized activity" on a portion of its computer systems on 29 November. Continue reading...
Musk's platform has lost 2.7 million active US users in two months, while its rival has gained 2.5 millionA mass departure from Elon Musk's X has led to the site losing about 2.7 million active Apple and Android users in the US in two months, with its rival social media platform Bluesky gaining nearly 2.5 million over the same period.The exodus has coincided with the departure of prominent figures such as the filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Mike Flanagan, and the actors Quinta Brunson and Mark Hamill. Others, such as the politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have maintained their X account but have begun posting more regularly on Bluesky. Continue reading...
Elon Musk carmaker pushed for British government to introduce rules for HGVs, as it readies Semi truckTesla lobbied the UK government to strengthen rules on carbon emissions from cars and lorries, according to documents that also show the electric carmaker continued to push for increased taxes on fossil fuel cars.The US carmaker, which is run by Elon Musk, pushed for the British government to strengthen its zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate for cars and introduce equivalent rules for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), in a letter to Lilian Greenwood, the Labour roads minister. Continue reading...
From football to food to Taylor Swift, many of the most common subjects were what you expect - but others less soVirtual assistant units have become a staple in many UK households, telling people whether it is expected to rain, what the time is, and what the result in the football was.Among the most common used is Alexa, whose parent company Amazon has released the top questions and requests given to the software during 2024. Some were ones you would expect: What is the value of bitcoin?"; what is the population of earth?"; and what does AI mean?". Continue reading...
Firm announces tool that can create AI video clip based on user's written prompts will be available to anyone in the USAnyone in the US can now use OpenAI's artificial intelligence video generator, Sora, which the company announced on Monday would become publicly available. OpenAI first presented Sora in February, but it was only accessible to select artists, film-makers and safety testers. At multiple points on Monday, though, OpenAI's website did not allow for new sign-ups for Sora, citing heavy traffic.Sora is known as a text-to-video generator, a tool that can create AI video clips based on a user's written prompts. An example on OpenAI's website has the prompt of a wide, serene shot of a family of woolly mammoths in an open desert". Its video shows a group of three of the extinct creatures slowly walking through sand dunes. Continue reading...
Tech corporation suspected of violating anti-monopoly law after Washington's latest curbs on Chinese chip sectorChina said on Monday it had launched an investigation into Nvidia over suspected violations of the country's anti-monopoly law, in a move widely seen as a retaliatory shot against Washington's latest curbs on the Chinese chip sector.The statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announcing the investigation did not elaborate on how the US company, known for its artificial intelligence (AI) and gaming chips, might have violated China's anti-monopoly laws. Continue reading...
Chip takes minutes to complete tasks that would otherwise take 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 yearsIt measures just 4cm squared but it possesses almost inconceivable speed.Google has built a computing chip that takes just five minutes to complete tasks that would take 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years for some of the world's fastest conventional computers to complete. Continue reading...
SpaceX head has had Trump's ear since election, and Israel hopes he can convince president-elect to pursue a dealIsrael has sought to enlist Elon Musk's help in reviving hostage negotiations with Hamas, according to reports in US media.Israel's president, Isaac Herzog, called the billionaire tech entrepreneur earlier this week to ask for his help in convincing Donald Trump to pursue a deal, according to CNN. Continue reading...
Musk bolstered Pac with $20.5m ahead of election while late supreme court justice's family denounced it as appalling'Elon Musk has emerged as the sole financial architect behind a provocative political action committee that appropriated the name of late US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to bolster Donald Trump's presidential campaign, according to federal campaign finance reports released on Thursday.The RBG Pac, funded entirely by the world's richest man with a $20.5m donation in the final two weeks of the campaign, ran advertisements and mailers suggesting an ideological alignment between Trump and Ginsburg on abortion. Continue reading...
This latest piece of modern vintage hardware from Retro Games Ltd makes for an astonishingly nostalgic experienceThe first time I played on a ZX Spectrum was at the Stockport branch of Debenhams, which in 1983 had an impressive home computer section that quickly turned into a sort of free creche for bored 13-year-old boys. You could hang out there for hours, typing rude Basic programs into an array of machines while the harried staff rushed about trying to stop them running. Some of the computers, however, ran games for customers to try - and this was where I encountered Manic Miner, the legendary platformer with its strange flashing visuals and surreal enemies. Speccy games looked utterly unique thanks to the machine's idiosyncratic way of restricting 8x8 sprite maps to two colours, which meant moving objects on screen were usually collections of coloured pixel patchworks, leading to an effect known as attribute clash. Somehow, it was both ugly and beautiful - and it still is.Unpacking The Spectrum, the latest piece of modern vintage hardware from Retro Games Ltd, is an astonishingly nostalgic experience. It looks exactly how I remember the original machine: a black slab with rubber keys, each one displaying not just a number or letter, but also a Basic programming command. Rem", Rand", Gosub", the mystical words of the home programming era. There is a USB cable to plug it in (though you'll need a USB plug of your own) and an HDMI lead, but no joystick. The machine is compatible with most USB gamepads - you just need to configure the buttons yourself, which takes a little time but is worth it if you can't bear using those rubber buttons to control your games. Continue reading...
The only hospital in the country using foetal safety software has seen baby fatalities drop by 82% in three yearsWhen Ellen Kaphamtengo felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen, she thought she might be in labour. It was the ninth month of her first pregnancy and she wasn't taking any chances. With the help of her mother, the 18-year-old climbed on to a motorcycle taxi and rushed to a hospital in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, a 20-minute ride away.At the Area 25 health centre, they told her it was a false alarm and took her to the maternity ward. But things escalated quickly when a routine ultrasound revealed that her baby was much smaller than expected for her pregnancy stage, which can cause asphyxia - a condition that limits blood flow and oxygen to the baby. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Age, disability, marital status and nationality influence decisions to investigate claims, prompting fears of hurt first, fix later' approachAn artificial intelligence system used by the UK government to detect welfare fraud is showing bias according to people's age, disability, marital status and nationality, the Guardian can reveal.An internal assessment of a machine-learning programme used to vet thousands of claims for universal credit payments across England found it incorrectly selected people from some groups more than others when recommending whom to investigate for possible fraud. Continue reading...
Amazon billionaire known for previously frosty relations with president-elect signals willingness to collaborateAmazon's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, is the latest tech mogul to offer a new wave of support for Donald Trump's incoming presidency, endorsing the former president's plans to reduce government regulation and signalling a willingness to collaborate.Speaking at the New York Times's DealBook Summit on Wednesday, the entrepreneur and Washington Post owner described himself as very optimistic this time around" about Trump's economic and tech strategy. Continue reading...
In a Hear Here special, we round up five of the best unscripted shows, and five of the best video game podcastsRachel Aroesti chooses five of the best unscripted podcasts, from a long-running improv sketch show to a musical podcast with a difference
Largest cryptocurrency, prone to volatile market surges, lifts amid hopes of lighter regulation with Trump's returnBitcoin has crossed $100,000 for the first time, scaling a fresh record high amid a euphoric rally sparked by Donald Trump's election victory.The world's largest and most valuable cryptocurrency - prone to volatile market surges and routs - has been lifted in recent weeks by hopes that the president-elect's return to the White House will usher in a new era of lighter regulation and supportive policies. Continue reading...
Cyber-espionage group Salt Typhoon' targeting at least' eight US telecom and telecom infrastructure firmsA large number of Americans' metadata has been stolen in the sweeping cyber-espionage campaign carried out by a Chinese hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon", a senior US official told journalists on Wednesday.The official declined to provide specific figures but noted that China's access to America's telecommunications infrastructure was broad and that the hacking was ongoing. Continue reading...
Mashinsky, 59, who led Celsius and was charged last year on seven criminal counts, agrees to plead guilty to twoAlex Mashinsky, the founder of bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Celsius Network, said on Tuesday he intends to plead guilty to two counts of fraud.The former CEO, 59, was indicted in July last year on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and market manipulation charges. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said he misled customers of Celsius to persuade them to invest, and artificially inflated the value of his company's proprietary crypto token. He pleaded not guilty later that day. Continue reading...
The board of the non-profit Code for Science & Society blocked a statement against genocide. The fallout tore the high-profile organization apartMiliaku Nwabueze, a senior program manager at Code for Science & Society, had been concerned for some time about the role of technology in state violence. Then, on 7 October of last year, Hamas entered Israel, killing and kidnapping about 1,400 people. Less than a week later, as Israel ordered 1.1 million Palestinians out of northern Gaza in the onset of its deadly retaliation, Nwabueze decided to write a message to her colleagues on the US-based non-profit organization's Slack channel.Hey y'all ... I have been watching multiple genocides around the world," she began, naming Palestine as well as Sudan, the Congo and Artsakh. All of these have heavy linkages to the tech industry." The 30-year-old went on to assert that CS&S - whose stated mission is to advance the power of data to improve the social and economic lives of all people" - should say, at the minimum, we support demands for a ceasefire" in Gaza. Continue reading...
Firm names Russia as top source of such activity but says it is striking' how little AI was used to try to trick votersMeta has intervened to take down about 20 covert influence operations around the world this year, it has emerged - though the tech firm said fears of AI-fuelled fakery warping elections had not materialised in 2024.Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at the company that runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said Russia was still the No 1 source of the adversarial online activity but said in a briefing it was striking" how little AI was used to try to trick voters in the busiest ever year for elections around the world. Continue reading...
While the tech giant wrestles with an US antitrust case, its managing director in London is pushing hard on the commercial possibilities of artificial intelligenceGoogle's central London office cost as much as a tech unicorn and the company's UK boss, Debbie Weinstein, says it pulses with a similar spirit.It feels like a startup energy," she says. Continue reading...
Launched in Japan in December 1994, the record-breaking PlayStation started out as a CD add-on for the Super Nintendo - but ended up ushering video games into a new era all on its ownIf you were an obsessive video game fan in the summer of 1994, you'll remember where you were when Edge magazine's August issue dropped. By then, Sony had already announced its intention to develop the PlayStation console - the previous October - but it was the cover feature in the world's most forward-looking game publication that really blew open the possibilities of the machine. As well as listing its specifications in full, Edge secured enthusiastic statements of support from Capcom, Namco and Konami. One breathless developer told the mag: It's going to revolutionise the way computers are at the moment." Suddenly, the whole structure of the console games business was being threatened. All it needed was a push.Sony's entry into the video game industry has become the stuff of legend (and probably, one day, the stuff of a passable Netflix movie). In the late 1980s, the company was keen to get a foothold in an increasingly profitable business after the failure of its MSX games computer, so when the chance came up to build a CD-Rom drive for the soon-to-be-released Super Nintendo (SNES) console, Sony leapt at it. In the background, however, Sony's engineering genius Ken Kutaragi, was also designing a standalone system, the PlayStation, capable of playing SNES games as well as a new CD format that Sony itself would control. Continue reading...
People are turning to chatbots to solve all their life problems, and they like its answers. But are they on a very slippery slope?When Tim first tried ChatGPT, he wasn't very impressed. He had a play around, but ended up cancelling his subscription. Then he started having marriage troubles. Seeking to alleviate his soul-searching and sleepless nights, he took up journalling and found it beneficial. From there, it was a small step to unburdening himself to the chatbot, he says: ChatGPT is the perfect journal - because it will talk back."Tim started telling the platform about himself, his wife, Jill, and their recurring conflicts. They have been married for nearly 20 years, but still struggle to communicate; during arguments, Tim wants to talk things through, while Jill seeks space. ChatGPT has helped him to understand their differences and manage his own emotional responses, Tim says. He likens it to a friend who can help translate from husband' to wife' and back, and tell me if I'm being reasonable". Continue reading...
by Miranda Bryant, Nordic correspondent on (#6SKTH)
Researchers say parent company Meta is failing to remove explicit images on the social media siteMeta is actively helping self-harm content to flourish on Instagram by failing to remove explicit images and encouraging those engaging with such content to befriend one another, according to a damning new study that found its moderation extremely inadequate".Danish researchers created a private self-harm network on the social media platform, including fake profiles of people as young as 13 years old, in which they shared 85 pieces of self-harm-related content gradually increasing in severity, including blood, razor blades and encouragement of self-harm. Continue reading...
He's said $42.45bn spent by the US for rural internet isn't efficient. His Starlink company stands to benefit if he reduces that investmentElon Musk, named by Donald Trump to co-lead a commission aimed at reducing the size of the federal government, is poised to undermine funding for rural broadband services to benefit his satellite internet services company, Starlink.Musk has long been a critic of the Biden administration's Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (Bead) Program, which provides $42.45bn through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to expand high-speed internet access in rural communities. Starlink, the satellite internet services subsidiary of SpaceX, has largely been shut out of this funding after government agencies deemed it too slow to qualify. Continue reading...
Some say they used bitcoin or Dogecoin to help reach goals such as affording to have a child or buy a houseMiles, a 37-year-old NHS doctor from London, has been trying to persuade friends to buy cryptocurrencies for years. In recent weeks, the Trump pump" to crypto prices has left them envious. They have watched in frustration as my gamble paid off," he says.Miles's crypto portfolio is now worth 2.3m, despite having cashed out about 600,000 earlier this year to buy a house. It's set me up for life," says Miles, who invested 4,000 in bitcoin in 2012. My pot fluctuates by hundreds of thousands each day, but I've been through years of volatile periods." Continue reading...
Meta CEO reportedly wants to support president-elect after previously banning him from Instagram and FacebookMark Zuckerberg has become the latest former Donald Trump critic to make his way Mar-a-Lago to break bread with the incoming US president.The tech mogul had banned Trump from the social media sites Instagram and Facebook, which he owns, following the January 6 riot that the president-elect egged on in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. Continue reading...
Technology secretary admits Whitehall departments are not being transparent over way they use AI and algorithmsNot a single Whitehall department has registered the use of artificial intelligence systems since the government said it would become mandatory, prompting warnings that the public sector is flying blind" about the deployment of algorithmic technology affecting millions of lives.AI is already being used by government to inform decisions on everything from benefit payments to immigration enforcement, and records show public bodies have awarded dozens of contracts for AI and algorithmic services. A contract for facial recognition software, worth up to 20m, was put up for grabs last week by a police procurement body set up by the Home Office, reigniting concerns about mass biometric surveillance".The Department for Work and Pensions has been using generative AI to read more than 20,000 documents a day to understand and summarise correspondence" after which the full information is then shared with officials for decision-making. It has automated systems for detecting fraud and error in universal credit claims, and AI assists agents working on personal independence payment claims by summarising evidence. This autumn, DWP started deploying basic AI tools in jobcentres, allowing work coaches to ask questions about universal credit guidance in an attempt to improve the effectiveness of conversations with jobseekers.The Home Office deploys an AI-powered immigration enforcement system, which critics call a robo-caseworker". An algorithm is involved in shaping decisions, including returning people to their home countries. The government describes it as a rules-based" rather than AI system, as it does not involve machine-learning from data. It says it brings efficiencies by prioritising work, but that a human remains responsible for each decision. The system is being used amid a rising caseload of asylum seekers who are subject to removal action, now at about 41,000 people.Several police forces use facial recognition software to track down suspected criminals with the help of artificial intelligence. These have included the Metropolitan police, South Wales police and Essex police. Critics have warned that such software will transform the streets of Britain into hi-tech police line-ups", but supporters say it catches criminal suspects and the data of innocent passersby is not stored.NHS England has a 330m contract with Palantir to create a huge new data platform. The deal with the US company that builds AI-enabled digital infrastructure and is led by Donald Trump backer Peter Thiel has sparked concerns about patient privacy, although Palantir says its customers retain full control of the data.An AI chatbot is being trialled to help people navigate the sprawling gov.uk government website. It has been built by the government's digital service using OpenAI's ChatGPT technology. Redbox, another AI chatbot for use by civil servants in Downing Street and other government departments, has also been deployed to allow officials to quickly delve into secure government papers and get rapid summaries and tailored briefings. Continue reading...
More than 3m votes were cast for this year's awards, which went heavy on T-shirt guns and brand activations, but stayed quiet on the government's proposed social media banBetween them, the Australian online personalities who took the stage at the annual TikTok awards on Wednesday have more than 100 million followers - but if you're over the age of 30, you probably haven't heard of any of them.About 3.4m public votes were cast for this year's TikTok awards, which honour the top creators in categories like beauty, fitness, food, comedy and music. Just about everyone at the invite-only event found fame in a particular niche. Among the online stars in attendance were a quartet of brothers who perform highly choreographed dances in public (160,000 followers), a gay couple who constantly redecorate their home (3.4m followers), and a woman who has built her following on having very long hair (The Aussie Rapunzel, 1.3m followers). Another woman has amassed 1.5m followers by posting videos where she asks strangers if they are currently on their period. These are people who are regularly stopped on the street by fans, and who have so many followers they can make their living from brand deals. Continue reading...
Discussion platform takes fifth place in rankings and is the fastest growing large social media platform in the UKReddit, the American online discussion platform, has overtaken X to become the fifth most popular social media platform in the UK, according to the communications watchdog.Ofcom said Reddit, where users post on discussion threads within topic-based communities, was visited by 22.9 million UK adults in May this year, compared with 22.1 million on X. Continue reading...
In a world where books have to vie with smartphones for attention, a brilliant ebook reader is more necessary than everE-readers have been one of the greatest single-purpose gadgets for almost three decades. They offer an escape from technology and the endless distraction of mobile phones, despite also being tech devices.But that is starting to change. Colour ebook readers, for graphic novels, magazines and books, are now fairly common, and there are several models designed for note-taking. Plus, a whole family of these devices uses Android, meaning they can run all of those apps that often distract from reading.Best e-reader overall:
Social network says it must give permission for accounts to be sold or transferred after sale of rightwing InfoWarsElon Musk's X is trying to block the transfer of the platform's InfoWars accounts to the Onion after filing a legal objection stating that it owns users' accounts.The social network has filed a limited objection" to the sale of InfoWars, a media platform run by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, to the satirical news outlet the Onion. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: A new PlayStation portable device that will play the PS back catalogue is reportedly in the offing - it could be a gamechanger for the market Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereA report from Bloomberg this week suggests that Sony is working on a new portable PlayStation device. As someone who still has a PlayStation Vita languishing in my desk drawer because I can't quite bear to put it in the attic, this is an exciting prospect. It has been almost 13 years since Sony released the Vita, its last portable console, and it's such a wonder of a thing, with its big crisp screen and dinky little sticks. I wish more people had made games for it - paper-craft adventure Tearaway and topsy-turvy platform-puzzler Gravity Rush remain underrated.Actually, apart from the lovely and extremely niche Playdate, nobody has bothered to release a dedicated handheld games console in over a decade. Both the Nintendo Switch and Valve's Steam Deck are hybrids that can be played handheld and connected to a big screen. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian