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...
Children should be banned from most social media until 18 amid attempts to monetise' them, says Macron-commissioned studyChildren should not be allowed to use smartphones until they are 13 and should be banned from accessing conventional social media such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat until they are 18, according to a report by experts commissioned by Emmanuel Macron.The French president had asked scientists and experts to suggest screen use guidelines for children with a view to France taking unprecedented steps on limiting their exposure. It was unclear how the government might now proceed after the report's publication. Macron said in January: There might be bans, there might be restrictions." Continue reading...
With his interchangeable T-shirts and short neat hair, Facebook's founder famously never tried to be cool'. Is his makeover just a distraction from what's going on at Meta?A vibe shift is afoot in Silicon Valley. For aeons, the movers and shakers of the tech industry signalled that they were serious people working on serious things via their simple outfits. Crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried (now in jail) always looked as if he had rolled out of bed and forgotten to change out of his pyjamas. The late Steve Jobs famously adopted a uniform of black polo necks. Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, once boasted that he owned and wore multiple versions of the same T-shirt because it was efficient.I'm not a cool person and I've never really tried to be cool," Zuckerberg said in a 2014 Q&A. I really want to clear my life so that I have to make as few decisions as possible ... I feel like I'm not doing my job if I spend any of my energy on things that are silly or frivolous." That attitude seemed to extend to his hair, which has always been kept Lego-style short. Continue reading...
In 2021, the web felt dead because algorithms were driving people to act like robots. Now, the robots are posting like people Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereI know I'm real. And you, dear reader, know you're real. But do you ever suspect that everyone else on the internet is acting strange? That the spaces you used to frequent feel a bit ... dead? You aren't alone. Dead internet theory" first hit the web almost three years ago, propelled to the mainstream by an essay in the Atlantic by Kaitlyn Tiffany:Dead-internet theory suggests that the internet has been almost entirely taken over by artificial intelligence. Like lots of other online conspiracy theories, the audience for this one is growing because of discussion led by a mix of true believers, sarcastic trolls and idly curious lovers of chitchat ... But unlike lots of other online conspiracy theories, this one has a morsel of truth to it. Person or bot: Does it really matter?On Twitter itself, after Musk rescued the site from the frying pan and tossed it in a volcano, an ill-conceived monetisation scheme has made it profitable to buy a blue checkmark, attach it to a large language model, and set it running wild replying to viral content. The social network now pays verified users a proportion of the ad revenue received from their own comment threads, turning the most viral posts on the site into a low-stakes all-bot battle royale.Death permeates Google. The top of its search results is a valuable position - so valuable that businesses competing to be there have no spare money to actually write their articles. No problem: ChatGPT can churn something out in a second. Of course, that's only valuable if the resultant visitors are humans who you can make money from. Bad news, because ...... across the web, bots account for around half of all internet traffic, according to research from cybersecurity firm Imperva. Almost one-third of all traffic is what the company calls bad bots", doing anything from ad fraud to brute force hacking attacks. But even the good bots" are struggling to earn that categorisation: Google's crawler" was a welcome sight when it was updating your search entry, but less so when it was simply training an AI to repeat what you wrote without sending any users over.And then there's Crab Jesus. An unholy marriage of Facebook content farms, AI-generated imagery, and automated testing to work out what goes the most viral led to weeks of viral content featuring combinations of Jesus, crustaceans and female flight attendants. In one such image, Jesus was pictured eating shellfish wearing a jacket made of prawns. More confusing was the image of a sort of crab-centaur saviour walking along a beach arm-in-arm with what appears to be the entire crew from a long-haul flight. It was, at least, interestingly bizarre - a step up from the previous viral chum of the 122-year-old woman posing in front of her homemade birthday cake.The supreme court on Monday rejected an appeal from Elon Musk over a settlement with securities regulators that requires him to get approval in advance of some tweets that relate to Tesla, the electric vehicle company he leads.The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower-court rulings against Musk, who complained that the requirement amounts to prior restraint" on his speech in violation of the first amendment. The ruling comes a day after he made an unannounced visit to China aimed at sealing a deal to roll out Tesla's driver assistance features there. Continue reading...
Rachel Coster's TikTok show, which documents the extremely messy dwelling spaces of New York's young men, has clearly struck a nerveSnowboarding boots on the kitchen table. A steering wheel in the bedroom. And clothes absolutely everywhere, with no system to determine which, if any, are clean.These are just a few of the sights that indicate you're in a boy room. It's a bedroom with no form and little function, inhabited by an adult male who doesn't think much about either concept. The decor, if you can call it that, generally consists of arbitrary trinkets - a favorite old skateboard on the wall, a handful of childhood action figures on the windowsill. The floor is often difficult to see thanks to the density of piled-up sneakers or trash. The best you can say for the furniture is that there might be some; otherwise the resident sleeps on a bare mattress set directly on the floor, with a single pillow and a coverless duvet insert. Continue reading...
Justices reject appeal from CEO, who said requirement amounts to prior restraint' on his speech in violation of first amendmentThe supreme court on Monday rejected an appeal from Elon Musk over a settlement with securities regulators that requires him to get approval in advance of some tweets that relate to Tesla, the electric vehicle company he leads.The justices did not comment in leaving in place lower-court rulings against Musk, who complained that the requirement amounts to prior restraint" on his speech in violation of the first amendment. The ruling comes a day after he made an unannounced visit to China aimed at sealing a deal to roll out Tesla's driver assistance features there. Continue reading...
Under deal, ChatGPT users will receive summaries and quotes from Financial Times content and links to articlesThe Financial Times has struck a deal with the ChatGPT developer OpenAI that allows its content to be used in training artificial intelligence systems.The FT will receive an undisclosed payment as part of the deal, which is the latest to be agreed between OpenAI and news publishers. Continue reading...
Brussels to act later this week against Facebook and Instagram owner over policies on deceptive advertising and political content, reports sayThe EU is set to launch formal proceedings against Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, amid concerns it is not doing enough to counter Russian disinformation before the EU elections in June, according to reports.It is also expected to express concerns about the lack of effective monitoring of election content and a potentially inadequate mechanism for flagging illegal content. Continue reading...
Deal to use mapping data from web search giant Baidu is a big step towards launching driver assistance tech in world's biggest car marketElon Musk's visit to China has reportedly reaped immediate rewards with a deal for Tesla to use mapping data provided by web search company Baidu, a big step in introducing driver assistance technology in the world's largest car market.Musk made an unannounced visit to China over the weekend. The billionaire posted a picture of his meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang, on X, the social network he took over in 2022. Continue reading...
Makers of phones, TVs and smart doorbells legally required to protect devices against access by cybercriminalsTech that comes with weak passwords such as admin" or 12345" will be banned in the UK under new laws dictating that all smart devices must meet minimum security standards.Measures to protect consumers from hacking and cyber-attacks come into effect on Monday, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said. Continue reading...
The effectiveness of Tinder and Hinge is hard to judge without access to their data. But now researchers are creating a free alternative with full transparencyA class-action lawsuit filed in a US federal court last Valentine's Day accuses Match Group - the owners of Tinder, Hinge and OkCupid dating apps, among others - of using a predatory business model" and of doing everything in its power to keep users hooked, in flagrant opposition to Hinge's claim that it is designed to be deleted".The lawsuit crystallised an ocean of dissatisfaction with the apps, and stimulated a new round of debate over their potential to harm mental health, but for scientists who study romantic relationships it sidestepped the central issue: do they work? Does using the apps increase your chances of finding your soulmate, or not? The answer is, nobody knows. Continue reading...
Founded in 2005 and lauded by Silicon Valley, the Nick Bostrom's centre for studying existential risk warned about AI but also gave rise to cultish ideas such as effective altruismTwo weeks ago it was quietly announced that the Future of Humanity Institute, the renowned multidisciplinary research centre in Oxford, no longer had a future. It shut down without warning on 16 April. Initially there was just a brief statement on its website stating it had closed and that its research may continue elsewhere within and outside the university.The institute, which was dedicated to studying existential risks to humanity, was founded in 2005 by the Swedish-born philosopher Nick Bostrom and quickly made a name for itself beyond academic circles - particularly in Silicon Valley, where a number of tech billionaires sang its praises and provided financial support. Continue reading...
In the early days it was seen as a place for genuine public discourse', but users have fled since Elon Musk took over. What went wrong?If anything is emblematic of the demise of Twitter, it is the rise and stall of the account of Oprah Winfrey.Oprah joined the platform in 2009, tweeting for the first time live from her wildly popular TV show: HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY."Sign up for Guardian Australia's free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...
Tech giant fired number of people who protested against $1.2bn Project Nimbus, which supports Israeli military and governmentGoogle has been accused of throwing a tantrum" after sacking more than 50 workers in response to a protest over the company's military ties to the Israeli government - firings that have shone a light on a controversial project and long-simmering tensions between staff and management.The workers were sacked following protests at Google offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, organized by No Tech for Apartheid - an alliance of Google and Amazon workers who have been protesting against a $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government called Project Nimbus that they claim will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land". Continue reading...
The photographer documents daily life at Sunda Kelapa harbour in North Jakarta, Indonesia, including the schoolchildren who turn it into their playgroundAfter school, many of the children local to theSunda Kelapa harbour, in North Jakarta, Indonesia, go down to the water to swim and play. Jelly Febrian enjoys shootingthe daily activities there whenever the weather isgood. Always preparedfor the right moment, he carries his phone with him tocapture crews loadingtheir boats, people fishing, and boysand girls jumping from the boats,aspictured.In the maritime villages near here there aren't many fields, so the children mostly play around the pier. Every boat that docks here has a different owner and purpose, they load and unload basic necessities, and every week they sail to other Indonesian islands, such as Papua, Sumatra and Sulawesi. Continue reading...
Federal transportation agency finds Tesla's claims about feature don't match their findings and opens second investigationUS auto-safety regulators said on Friday that their investigation into Tesla's Autopilot had identified at least 13 fatal crashes in which the feature had been involved. The investigation also found the electric carmaker's claims did not match up with reality.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disclosed on Friday that during its three-year Autopilot safety investigation, which it launched in August 2021, it identified at least 13 Tesla crashes involving one or more death, and many more involving serious injuries, in which foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role". Continue reading...
Ultimate firepower companion' is purportedly for wildlife control, ecological conservation, and snow and ice removalWhat has four legs and can breathe fire? Apparently the Thermonator, a controversial first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog".According to Throwflame, an Ohio-based company that manufactures flamethrowers, its latest invention features a 30ft firing range, light detection and range mapping, as well as laser sighting, aboard a battery-powered thing with legs that can jump around. Continue reading...
Tech company's shares rise as it plans to reward investors after strong quarterly resultsGoogle's parent company has hit a stock market value of $2tn (1.6tn) as investors reacted to a declaration of its first ever dividend alongside strong results on Thursday.Shares in Alphabet rose 10% in early Wall Street trading on Friday to give the tech group a stock market capitalisation - a measure of a corporation's value - of more than $2tn. Alphabet last hit that level in intraday trading in 2021, but Friday was the first time it has closed above that benchmark. Continue reading...
EV sales have plateaued across the world but the newfound glut of vehicles may just be temporaryElon Musk became the world's richest man by evangelising about electric cars - and delivering them by the million. Yet in recent months his company, Tesla, has struggled to maintain its momentum: sales have dropped this year, and so has its share price.Those struggles have become emblematic of a broader reckoning facing the electric vehicle (EV) industry. After the soaring demand and valuations of the coronavirus pandemic years, the pace of sales growth has slowed. The industry has entered a new phase, with questions over whether the switch from petrol and diesel to cleaner electric is facing a troublesome stall or a temporary speed bump. Continue reading...
It may have looked like something you'd see a bank teller use, but it withstood heavy battering. And it ran the coolest gamesI have told my wife that I want a Mini Amiga for Christmas. I know it's only April, but I do this with things I want in the hope that when it suddenly appears in the house next week, my wife will think she bought it for me. I have slipped the purchase of seven games machines, a stuffed tarantula and an air fryer under the radar this way. In an inconsistent world, I like the way this institution of marriage works.I read the reviews and was surprised at the appearance of two words I never associated with the original Amiga: cool, and love. It might seem strange to say the Amiga wasn't loved, because a lot of people bought and used one. But people use things every day that they don't love: electric shavers, patience, door handles, the train. Continue reading...
App's secret source' algorithm reportedly core to operations of parent company, which sources say make a sale highly unlikelyByteDance would prefer to shut down TikTok rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the US, four sources said.The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance's overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent. Continue reading...
World's largest public company reports $61.86bn revenue after investing billions into artificial intelligenceProfits at Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations as its heavy bet on artificial intelligence continued to bear fruit in the latest quarter.The technology giant has invested billions of dollars into AI in a bid to turbocharge its growth, particularly of its cloud computing services. Its cloud computing revenue surged by more than 20%. Continue reading...
Shares surge after tech giant issues first ever dividend and posts revenue of $80.5bn, up 15% since last year, despite staff turmoilShares in Alphabet, the owner of Google and YouTube, surged after it issued its first ever dividend and revealed that profits had surged in the last quarter.Sundar Pichai, CEO, hailed the transition to artificial intelligence as a once-in-a-generation opportunity" as his company races to integrate the technology across its business. Continue reading...
Snap's share surged 21% in after-hours trading as app's users increased by 422 million, bringing in $1.2bn in revenueShares in the owner of Snapchat surged 21% during after-hours trading after the social media group beat Wall Street's expectations for quarterly revenue and user growth.Improvements to Snap's advertising system are delivering results faster than anticipated, the company said. Continue reading...
Strict rules have led to a wild west of rentals, with visitors choosing between huge hotel bills or word-of-mouth dealsUntil recently, visitors to New York basically had two options: hotel rooms or short-term rental platforms like Airbnb. But in September 2023, the city started enforcing a 2022 law that banned people from renting their homes for fewer than 30 days (unless the host stayed in the home with guests).Now the only legit option for people visiting the city is hotel rooms - and they're unaffordable for many. Most of the Times Square hotels don't have rooms for less than $300 a night. A search for Thursday 2 May found the Muse at $356, Hampton Inn at $323 and the Hard Rock at $459 (although, because of dynamic pricing, these are subject to regular change). They're getting more expensive still. Hotel rates have increased between the first quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2023 at twice the rate of inflation, said Jan Freitag, an analyst at the real-estate data firm CoStar Group. Continue reading...
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In this week's newsletter: TV journalist Scott Bryan looks back at the making of I Wanna Marry Harry" - and the dubious ethics behind the show. Plus: five of the best podcasts hosted by pop stars Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Competition
Tired of colonial artefacts being hoarded, Chidi Nwaubani and Ahmed Abokor use tech to redistribute them from museums in audacious digital heistsIn March last year, two men in tracksuits, wearing hockey masks and carrying matching laundry bags, headed for the British Museum. Just outside, patrolling police asked the two strange-looking men where they were going. We're going to the British Museum to loot back stolen goods," one of them said. Well, we'll see you in there then!" the policewoman answered.But no arrests were made, as nothing incriminating happened. What did take place was a digital heist" of one of the most famous objects in the British Museum, an artefact that is, according to Egyptologist Monica Hanna, a symbol of western cultural power" and of British imperialism": the Rosetta Stone. Continue reading...
Push to integrate AI into Meta products boosts financial results, but share prices tumble with weak sales forecastMeta's drive to integrate artificial intelligence into its products yielded strong financial results for the second quarter in a row. The company plans to spend even more on AI in the coming months, though, and its share price slumped more than 15% as the company reported earnings on Wednesday. A weak sales forecast and higher spending guidance rattled investors.Mark Zuckerberg said his main focus for the rest of 2024 and probably 2025 would be getting millions or billions of people to use Meta AI" rather than generating revenue from it. He cautioned that Meta products such as Instagram Reels had in the past not immediately generated revenue as they scaled before they became profitable pieces of Meta's ad business. Continue reading...
Service suspended in France and Spain amid safety and addiction concerns among children, in first use of new digital lawsA TikTok service offering rewards such as gift vouchers for watching videos has been suspended by the company shortly after the EU threatened to block it amid fears of addiction among children.On Monday the digital commissioner, Thierry Breton, said the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform had failed to prove" the feature on TikTok Lite, which launched recently in France and Spain, complied with obligations under sweeping new Digital Service Act (DSA) laws. Continue reading...
Microsoft and Amazon asked to comment on tie-ups, a move that paves way for formal investigationThe UK competition watchdog has stepped up its scrutiny of big tech involvement in artificial intelligence startups, asking for comment on three deals by Microsoft and Amazon.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it was examining Microsoft's investment in the French firm Mistral and the hiring of the DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as head of the US company's new AI division. The watchdog is also scrutinising Amazon's $4bn (3.2bn) investment in the US AI firm Anthropic. Continue reading...
Harry Daniels's TikToks of him singing awkwardly at stars alternate between trolling and displays of love for celebrities - but how does he do it?Billie Eilish has run from him. Doja Cat stopped her security detail to allow for a sidewalk serenade of Paint the Town Red. Charli XCX let him sing a few bars from I Got It before telling him You need to work on it," turning on her heel, and strutting back to her car.Harry Daniels stakes out celebrities such as Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding - and, uh, Joe Biden - and serenades them while filming their responses for TikTok. Most of these interactions appear spontaneous, as if the celebrities are genuinely surprised to be accosted by a 20-year-old man singing at them, usually terribly and oftentimes with their own songs. When Daniels found Jacob Elordi at a restaurant, the Saltburn star stayed across the room next to a bodyguard-type, looking amused but slightly wary as Daniels crooned Murder on the Dancefloor his way. Continue reading...
Shares up despite dip in revenue and profits after company said it expects to release new vehicle models sooner than expectedTesla shares surged nearly 10% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after posting earnings results, despite a revenue miss for the first quarter of 2024, a steep decline in profits, and a recall of its most recently released car, the $100,000 Cybertruck.The electric vehicle manufacturer posted $21.3bn in revenue, lower than the $21.48bn that was estimated and a 9% drop year over year - marking its biggest decline since 2012. Profit was $1.1bn, a 55% decline from the first quarter of 2023, the company said. Continue reading...
The head of the company's gaming subscription service explains its priorities as it anticipates the Vision Pro revolution, and tries to bring originality to a market still dominated by free to play mobile titlesWhen Apple launched its games subscription service, Arcade, in September 2019, it drew a huge amount of attention - as with everything the company does. Offering 100 premium (ie, not ad-infested) mobile games for a monthly subscription fee of 4.99/$4.99 (now 6.99), and the promise of more titles to come, it was an attempt to bring the Netflix business model to gaming.It offered an alternative in a mobile gaming market in which free-to-play and ad-supported games were dominant. The dominance of behemoths such as Genshin Impact, Clash of Clans and Candy Crush previously made it difficult for the makers of paid-for, premium games to find an audience, but Arcade offered a range of curated titles that could run across Apple's devices - iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV - with no ads or in-app purchases. Games also worked offline, eliminating the annoyance of being kicked out of a game on the London Underground. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: While Apple removed the platform from App Stores without a squeak of public protest, its battle with the EU rages on. Plus, how a ban in the US could change TikTok everywhere Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereAnother day, another set of troubles for Apple's App Store. This time, the company had bowed to orders from the Chinese state to remove WhatsApp and Threads, two of the last Meta apps still available in the country.From our story:Apple confirmed it had withdrawn the two apps - both owned by Meta, also the owner of Facebook - under instruction from the Cyberspace Administration of China, which regulates and censors China's highly restricted internet and online content.The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns," Apple said in an emailed statement to Reuters. We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree."The House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 on the updated divest-or-ban [TikTok] bill that could lead to the first time ever that the US government has passed a law to shut down an entire social media platform.The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation. Continue reading...
AI models take every toxic gendered beauty norm and bundle them up into completely unrealistic packageMeet Madame Potato. She doesn't actually exist, but, if things go my way, she's going to be the world's first Miss AI". I recently created her image on a website that generates AI faces and then entered her into a beauty pageant. Now I am sitting back in anticipation of netting the $20,000 grand prize.What fresh hell is this, you ask? Well, I regret to inform you that AI beauty pageants are a thing now. A company called Fanvue, which is a subscription-based content creator platform along the same lines as OnlyFans, recently teamed up with the World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) to launch the world's first Miss AI" competition. A team of judges - comprising two humans and two virtual models - will sort through AI-generated pictures of women and choose one to crown as Miss AI". The winner gets a cash prize along with the chance to monetize their creation on Fanvue. Continue reading...
Internet Watch Foundation has found a manual on dark web encouraging criminals to use software tools that remove clothingPaedophiles are being urged to use artificial intelligence to create nude images of children to extort more extreme material from them, according to a child abuse charity.The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said a manual found on the dark web contained a section encouraging criminals to use nudifying" tools to remove clothing from underwear shots sent by a child. The manipulated image could then be used against the child to blackmail them into sending more graphic content, the IWF said. Continue reading...
As one of the largest training' datasets has been found to contain child sexual abuse material, can bans on creating such imagery be feasible?Child abusers are creating AI-generated deepfakes" of their targets in order to blackmail them into filming their own abuse, beginning a cycle of sextortion that can last for years.Creating simulated child abuse imagery is illegal in the UK, and Labour and the Conservatives have aligned on the desire to ban all explicit AI-generated images of real people. Continue reading...
App feature could be suspended unless child safety concerns addressed, in first use of sweeping new digital powersThe EU has said it will ban a new service launched by TikTok in Europe that it believes could be as addictive as cigarettes" unless the company offers compelling" fresh evidence that children are safeguarded.If the ban goes ahead, it would be the first time the EU has used sweeping new powers to impose sanctions on social media companies since its landmark Digital Service Act (DSA) came into force last August. Continue reading...
Experts say setting boundaries online creates a healthier digital environment and helps preserve your mental wellbeingI don't generally believe in life hacks. As much as I'd love to imagine that one easy tweak could resurface my life like it's a cracked tennis court, time and experience have shown me that positive change usually comes slowly and incrementally.But there is one hack I fully believe in. It's fast and free, and will instantly change your life for the better: just mute people who annoy you on social media. Continue reading...
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