The iPhone-maker criticises Brussels' Digital Markets Act and says delayed features are leading to a worse experience for usersApple has called for the European Commission to repeal a swathe of technology legislation, warning that unless it is amended the company could stop shipping some products and services to the 27-country bloc.In the latest of a series of clashes with Brussels, the iPhone maker said the Digital Markets Act was leading to a worse experience for Apple users, exposing them to security risks, and disrupting the seamless way Apple products work together. Continue reading...

Sick of swiping and messaging but never meeting anyone you like and who likes you back? Here's what worked for some lucky couplesUsing dating apps to find love is commonplace these days - and yet, for many singles, it has become a double-edged sword. The perks of having a never-ending supply of potential matches at your fingertips are obvious - but the appeal of connecting and meeting with strangers is time-limited. It can be especially frustrating to feel as if you're stuck at the swiping stage.In 2023, US jeweller Shane Company found that the average American will spend about eight months using dating apps - swiping on around 3,960 profiles - before finding a partner. But for chronic daters, those numbers will probably sound optimistic; speaking to friends and colleagues, it's not uncommon to spend years on the apps" without significant romantic success. The download-delete-repeat" cycle can be disheartening and dating-app fatigue is growing; last year's Online Nation report from Ofcom showed that app use had declined significantly, with a drop of nearly 16% in the use of the 10 most popular dating apps. No wonder Meta this week announced that it is bringing an AI assistant to Facebook Dating, as well as Meet Cute, a new surprise match" feature designed to help users avoid swipe fatigue". Continue reading...

Europe has been slow to embrace robotaxis but Germany will allow remote-controlled rental cars from DecemberHaving been summoned by a few clicks in an app, the electric car slows to a halt outside the former cargo hall of Berlin's now defunct Tegel airport. No one is at the wheel, but upon a passenger stepping inside, a voice announces: This is Bartek, I am your driver today. Please buckle up and we can be on our way."The car emits a friendly jingle, then makes its way to the former runway, where it performs a fault-free manoeuvre around a route marked by traffic cones. Continue reading...

Under the known terms of the deal with China, TikTok would get a new board, including Murdochs and EllisonsDonald Trump revealed last week the US and China are close to inking a deal to let TikTok continue operating in the US. Details are not final, but should the agreement go through as has been reported, the owners of the US's most powerful cable TV channels may soon also steer the nation's most influential social network. The arrangement would gift Trump's billionaire allies a degree of control over US media that would be vast and unprecedented.Here's what we know. Under the known terms of the deal, which Trump declared has the tentative buy-in of Chinese president Xi Jinping, TikTok in the US would get a new group of US investors, led by the US software giant Oracle, which would license TikTok's vaunted recommendation algorithm and take over its security. Continue reading...

PC, Nintendo Switch/Switch 2; Supergiant Games

Take it from a former van-lifer: the next time you travel on the road, this is the gear you will be glad you packed

The film-making duo share their list of online essentials. It's mostly women on the verge of a nervous breakdown

In this week's newsletter: since 1988 the Game Developers Conference has been a core part of the gaming calendar - but exorbitant costs and Trumpism put that at riskEvery year for as long as I have been alive (read: since 1988), the annual Game Developers Conference has been held in California. It started out as essentially a house party: a gathering of 27 people in the living room of Atari designer Chris Crawford. By the mid-90s it had left Chris's house and grown to more than 4,000 attenders, and in 2005 found a permanent home in San Francisco's Moscone Center. These days, about 30,000 game development professionals of all kinds attend every year. The online GDC Vault is a precious trove of game development history and useful advice for any gaming discipline.GDC has developed a bit of an image problem in recent years, however, as we have reported before. It's prohibitively expensive for developers: a conference pass is more than $1,500, and travel and accommodation in one of the world's most expensive cities quickly multiplies the total cost to anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 (even for a hotel room with approximately the dimensions and safety of a phone booth). Continue reading...

Exclusive: Kirsty Innes made statement in now-deleted post on X seven months before taking up role as Liz Kendall aide

Platform's submission to age verification inquiry argues for a grace period for enforcement of laws it claims could infringe on human rights treaties

CBP officers took DNA samples from about 2,000 citizens, some as young as 14 and many who never faced criminal charges, new analysis showsIn March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago's Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which was sent to the FBI, according to a new report. The unnamed citizen was later admitted into the country. Their DNA was added to the FBI's database of genetic material despite the lack of criminal charges.The 25-year-old is one of about 2,000 US citizens whose DNA was collected between 2020 and 2024 by the Department of Homeland Security and shared with the FBI, researchers from Georgetown's Center on Privacy and Technology found in an analysis of recently released data from US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP officers took genetic material from some citizens as young as 14, according to the report. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence is making steady advances into subtitling but, say its practitioners, it's a vital service that needs a human to make it workIs artificial intelligence going to destroy the SDH [subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing] industry? It's a valid question because, while SDH is the default subtitle format on most platforms, the humans behind it - as with all creative industries - are being increasingly devalued in the age of AI. SDH is an art, and people in the industry have no idea. They think it's just a transcription," says Max Deryagin, chair of Subtle, a non-profit association of freelance subtitlers and translators.The thinking is that AI should simplify the process of creating subtitles, but that is way off the mark, says Subtle committee member Meredith Cannella. There's an assumption that we now have to do less work because of AI tools. But I've been doing this now for about 14-15 years, and there hasn't been much of a difference in how long it takes me to complete projects over the last five or six years." Continue reading...

Expert raises concerns about what US TikTok deal could mean for News Corp's worrying dominance' in Australian media

The president's deal on visas could upend Silicon Valley, and will a TikTok purchase finally go through?Hello, welcome to TechScape. I'm writing to you from a plane back to a United States in uproar. This week's tech news is all about Donald Trump's deals: with China, with the UK, and with the US tech industry, which is facing steep fines for its favorite visa.Documents offer rare insight on Ice's close relationship with PalantirNvidia to invest $100bn in OpenAI, bringing the two AI firms togetherIf Anyone Builds it, Everyone Dies review - how AI could kill us allGoogle DeepMind claims historic' AI breakthrough in problem solvingMeta announces first Ray-Ban smart glasses with in-built augmented reality displayItaly first in EU to pass comprehensive law regulating use of AIAI could never replace my authors. But, without regulation, it will ruin publishing as we know itNvidia to invest $5bn in Intel after Trump administration's 10% stakeHow will childhood be changed by AI toys? Continue reading...

Company to shut 19 shops and convert five to Whole Foods outlets, after concept of stores without tills fails to catch onAmazon is preparing to shut down all of its Amazon Fresh stores in the UK, just four years after the US tech company launched its first grocery shop in London.The company plans to close all 19 Fresh stores, with plans to convert five of these into Whole Foods Market shops, the US organic grocery chain that it bought in 2017. Continue reading...

Evangelical Christians on #RaptureTok are warning others of doom on 23 or 24 September - and sharing how they're preppingIf you believe a vocal cohort of evangelical Christians on social media, consider Tuesday 23 September - or maybe Wednesday 24 September - a wrap on this whole society thing. For the first time, the rapture is playing out on TikTok.Believers have taken to the app to disclose their preparation for impending doom, claiming to have sold their cars or requested eternity leave" from their employers, and fretting over whether the family dog gets to come to heaven too. One woman advised her followers to do away with their phones' password protections, so that any loved ones that get left behind can easily access their personal information. Another bought Bibles in bulk at Dollar Tree, which she planned to leave behind with personalized notes in hopes of saving some last-minute converts. Continue reading...

Top camera, great software, solid battery life and huge screen bolstered by helpful Gemini and Qi2 supportGoogle's Pixel superphone is back, packed with a bigger battery, faster charging, magnetic accessories and even more cutting-edge AI tools to try to usurp Apple and Samsung as the monarchs of really big phones.The Pixel 10 Pro XL is the largest slab phone Google makes and is one of the biggest available in Europe and the US. It costs 1,199 (1,299/$1,199/A$1,999), sitting above its smaller sibling the Pixel 10 Pro and below the upcoming folding Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and competing directly with Apple's iPhone 17 Pro Max and Samsung's Galaxy S25 Ultra. Continue reading...

TikTok's future in the US has been in limbo for over year, but the Trump administration has signaled a deal is comingFor a week, the White House has signaled that a deal to transfer ownership of TikTok to a US company is forthcoming. Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order this week that would create a structure for a group of investors to take over operations of the Chinese social media company in the US.On Monday, White House officials said that the US business software company Oracle would license a copy of TikTok's recommendation algorithm as part of the deal. The partnership expands on Oracle's existing management of TikTok's trove of data collected about its US users. Continue reading...

E-commerce giant accused of using tricks to enroll millions into membership and making it nearly impossible to cancelAmazon went to trial on Monday in a US government lawsuit that accuses the e-commerce giant of using tricks to enroll millions of customers in its Prime subscription service and then making it nearly impossible to cancel.The Federal Trade Commission's complaint, filed in June 2023, alleges that Amazon knowingly used designs known as dark patterns" to deceive consumers into signing up for the $139-per-year Prime service during checkouts. Continue reading...

Firm faces another dismantling attempt over allegations of illegal monopoly over digital ads brought by DoJAfter deflecting the US Department of Justice's attack on its illegal monopoly in online search, Google is facing another attempt to dismantle its internet empire in a trial focused on abusive tactics in digital advertising.The trial that opened Monday in an Alexandria, Virginia, federal court revolves around the harmful conduct that resulted in US district Judge Leonie Brinkema declaring parts of Google's digital advertising technology to be an illegal monopoly in April. The judge found that Google has been engaging in behavior that stifles competition to the detriment of online publishers that depend on the system for revenue. Continue reading...

Simon Stiell insists it is vital governments regulate the technology to blunt its dangerous edgesHarnessing artificial intelligence will help the world to tackle the climate crisis, but governments must step in to regulate the technology, the UN's climate chief has said.AI is being used to make energy systems more efficient, and to develop tools to reduce carbon from industrial processes. The UN is also using AI as an aid to climate diplomacy. Continue reading...

For years, little was known about the multibillion-dollar company that handles data for the US immigration enforcement agency. Now, a cache of emails, training documents and reports sheds light on how Palantir helps Ice with investigations and on-the-ground enforcementOver the past decade, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) has amassed millions of data points that it uses to identify and track its targets - from social media posts to location history and, most recently, tax information.And there's been one, multibillion-dollar tech company particularly instrumental in enabling Ice to put all that data to work: Palantir, the data analytics firm co-founded by Peter Thiel, the rightwing mega-donor and tech investor. Continue reading...

If machines become superintelligent we're toast, say Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. Should we believe them?What if I told you I could stop you worrying about climate change, and all you had to do was read one book? Great, you'd say, until I mentioned that the reason you'd stop worrying was because the book says our species only has a few years before it's wiped out by superintelligent AI anyway.We don't know what form this extinction will take exactly - perhaps an energy-hungry AI will let the millions of fusion power stations it has built run hot, boiling the oceans. Maybe it will want to reconfigure the atoms in our bodies into something more useful. There are many possibilities, almost all of them bad, say Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares in If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies, and who knows which will come true. But just as you can predict that an ice cube dropped into hot water will melt without knowing where any of its individual molecules will end up, you can be sure an AI that's smarter than a human being will kill us all, somehow. Continue reading...

London-based AI pioneer in talks to receive $500m investment from Nvidia as it funds its expansion in the US, Germany and JapanBritish startup Wayve has begun testing self-driving cars with Nissan in Japan ahead of a 2027 launch to consumers, as the company said it was in talks for a $500m investment from the chip-maker Nvidia.Wayve, based in London, said it had installed its self-driving technology on Nissan's electric Ariya vehicles and tested them on Tokyo's streets, after first agreeing a deal with the Japanese carmaker in April. Continue reading...

US president tells Fox News a man named Lachlan is involved ... that's a very unusual name, Lachlan Murdoch'Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch will probably be involved in the effort to buy TikTok in the US, Donald Trump said in an interview on Sunday.The president was asked about the status of the sale of the app during an interview with Peter Doocy on The Sunday Briefing on Fox News. Trump administration officials have signaled that a deal for the Chinese-owned social media platform was imminent, though there has been some confusion about the status of the agreement. Continue reading...

With hundreds of self-published books and one Hugo nomination, Tingle has become a beloved internet eccentric - and proof that anything can be horny if you try hard enough

Guardian Australia test finds scrolling shortform videos while logged out of YouTube and TikTok quickly leads to gambling, violent and far-right content

Amid the feathered dancers at an adult industry event, regulators with clipboards have been advising complianceThree Ofcom regulators with clipboards spent the weekend making their way around the exhibition floor of an international adult industry conference in Prague, trying to encourage the 1,700 delegates to comply with the UK's new Online Safety Act.Don't lie to us," one of the regulators told a room full of pornography site owners and employees during a lunchtime presentation explaining the new age verification requirements introduced in July as part of the act's measures to stop children seeing pornography. Be honest and open. If your measures are not good enough yet, put that on your risk assessment." Continue reading...

Dyson's upgraded Airwrap promises faster results and smarter tech. Here's what it gets right - and where it falls short The best hot brushes for a salon finish at home, testedOnce best known for its floor cleaners and hand dryers, Dyson has carved out a space in the electrical beauty market over the past decade. Its Supersonic hair dryer was followed by the Airwrap multi-styler, a revolution in hair styling that uses air rather than direct heat to curl hair - and regularly sells out in stores worldwide despite its high price.There have been two updates to the Airwrap since - a 2022 upgrade and the app-driven Airwrap id, which launched last year with variants for both curly and straight hair. This summer's Co-anda 2x is a completely re-tooled product, with a more powerful motor for faster styling, and new attachments, including an air-powered straightener. I tested the new model to find out if it could really be worth 580. Continue reading...

Child safety watchdog calls for child protection guidelines to be built into AI models from the outsetA chatbot site offering explicit scenarios with preteen characters, illustrated by illegal abuse images has raised fresh fears about the misuse of artificial intelligence.A report by a child safety watchdog has triggered calls for the UK government to impose safety guidelines on AI companies, amid a surge in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created by the technology. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Sarah Wynn-Williams faces $50,000 fine every time she breaches order banning her from criticising MetaA former Meta executive who wrote an explosive expose making allegations about the social media company's dealings with China and its treatment of teenagers is said to be on the verge of bankruptcy" after publishing the book.An MP has claimed in parliament that Mark Zuckerberg's company was trying to silence and punish" Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former director of global public policy at Meta's precursor, Facebook, after her decision to speak out about her time at the company. Continue reading...

Skip the wifi oven and Alexa toothbrush - these time-tested smart devices are must-haves in any homeI have tested hundreds of smart devices over the years, but only a select few have earned a permanent spot in my home. Too many seem to offer overcomplicated solutions for problems that barely existed in the first place - making them little more than a gimmick you toss in your closet weeks after purchase.However, while many smart home gadgets aren't the wisest investment, others can bring serious improvements to your home. From robot vacuums and smart bulbs to smart locks and video doorbells, here are five smart home devices that have made my life easier, and why you should consider adding them to your home, too.For automating all of your floor-cleaning chores:

ManticAI ranked eighth in the Metaculus Cup, leaving some believing bots' prediction skills could soon overtake expertsAn artificial intelligence system has beaten scores of forecasting enthusiasts, including several professionals, in a contest to predict events ranging from bust-ups between Donald Trump and Elon Musk to Kemi Badenoch being removed from the Conservative party leadership.A British AI startup, co-founded by a former Google DeepMind researcher, has ranked in the top 10 of an international forecasting competition, which requires entrants to forecast the likelihood of 60 events over the summer. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Instagram pictures of girls as young as 13 were posted to promote Threads site as bait', campaigner saysMeta has used back-to-school pictures of schoolgirls to advertise one of its social media platforms to a 37-year-old man, in a move parents described as outrageous" and upsetting".The man noticed that posts encouraging him to get Threads", Mark Zuckerberg's rival to Elon Musk's X, were being dropped into his Instagram feed featuring embedded posts of uniformed girls as young as 13 with their faces visible and, in most cases, their names. Continue reading...

Being a carmaker where everything is connected' has left JLR unable to isolate its plants or functions, forcing a shutdown of most systemsThe first external signs of the chaos about to hit JLR, Britain's largest automotive employer, came on the quiet last Sunday of August. Managers at a factory in Halewood, Merseyside, told industry contacts there might have been a hack - although it was not clear then just how bad the situation was.That changed quickly on the Monday morning. JLR, the maker of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, quickly shut down systems after realising the severity of the cyber-attack. Three weeks later, the carmaker is still incapacitated, unable to produce at any of its factories across the UK, Slovakia, Brazil and India (although a Chinese joint venture is thought to be operating). Continue reading...

Deal gives Intel a lifeline as firms team up on AI datacenters and PC chips after Trump stake sparks market surgeNvidia, the world's leading chipmaker, has announced plans to invest $5bn in Intel and collaborate with the struggling semiconductor company on products.A month after the Trump administration confirmed it had taken a 10% stake in Intel - the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America - Nvidia said it would team up with the firm to work on custom datacenters that form the backbone of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, as well as personal computer products. Continue reading...

The band cited a moral and ethical burden' placed on artists by revenue from their work ultimately funding lethal technologiesMassive Attack have become the latest act - and first major-label one - to pull their catalogue from Spotify in protest at founder Daniel Ek investing 600m (520m) in the military AI company Helsing.In June, Ek's venture capital firm Prima Materia led the defence tech firm's latest funding round. Helsing's software uses AI technology to analyse sensor and weapons system data from battlefields to inform real-time military decisions. It also makes its own military drone, the HX-2. Ek is also chairman of Helsing.Unconnected to this initiative and in light of the (reported) significant investments by its CEO in a company producing military munition drones and AI technology integrated into fighter aircraft, Massive Attack have made a separate request to our label that our music be removed from the Spotify streaming service in all territories.In our view, the historic precedent of effective artist action during apartheid South Africa and the apartheid, war crimes and genocide now being committed by the state of Israel renders the No Music for Genocide campaign imperative.In 1991 the scourge of apartheid violence fell from South Africa, aided from a distance by public boycotts, protests, and the withdrawal of work by artists, musicians and actors. Complicity with that state was considered unacceptable. In 2025 the same now applies to the genocidal state of Israel. As of today, there's a musician's equivalent of the recently announced @filmworkers4palestine campaign (signed by 4,500 filmmakers, actors, industry workers & institutions) - it can be found @nomusicforgenocide & supports the wider asks of the growing @bds.movement. We'd appeal to all musicians to transfer their sadness, anger and artistic contributions into a coherent, reasonable & vital action to end the unspeakable hell being visited upon the Palestinians hour after hour. Continue reading...

The phenomenal response to an article we published on this question led to detailed cognitive research - and the findings have implications that go way beyond gamersFive years ago, on the verge of the first Covid lockdown, I wrote an article asking what seemed to be an extremely niche question: why do some people invert their controls when playing 3D games? A majority of players push down on the controller to make their onscreen character look down, and up to make them look up. But there is a sizeable minority who do the opposite, controlling their avatars like a pilot controls a plane, pulling back to go up. For most modern games, this requires going into the settings and reconfiguring the default controls. Why do they still persist?I thought a few hardcore gamers would be interested in the question. Instead, more than one million people read the article, and the ensuing debate caught the attention of Dr Jennifer Corbett (quoted in the original piece) and Dr Jaap Munneke, then based at the Visual Perception and Attention Lab at Brunel University London. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2; Gearbox Software/2K Games

The clown duo share what makes them laugh, including pop divas, unhinged mobile game ads and Kermit unmasked

More women are entering the US ranching and agriculture field. Their struggles - and aspirations - defy the traditional Marlboro cowboy stereotypeSavanah McCarty was not riding across the wide-open prairie when a horse accident nearly killed her.She was in the driveway of her leased farm outside Bozeman, Montana, waiting for a student's mother to arrive, when her horse seized and flipped over backwards, landing on top of her. Continue reading...

From famous Street Fighter lines to quips from 90s classics, these are the quotes we hear again and again - and even incorporate into our own livesSome snippets of video game dialogue, like classic movie quotes, are immediately recognisable to a swathe of fans. From Street Fighter's hadouken!" to Call of Duty's remember, no Russian" to BioShock's would you kindly?", there are phrases so creepy, clever or cool they have slipped imperceptibly into the gaming lexicon, ensuring that whenever they're memed on social media, almost everyone gets the reference.But there are also odd little phrases, sometimes from obscure games, that stick with us for seemingly no reason. I recall most of the vocal barks from the second world war strategy game Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines, even though I haven't played it for 20 years. Why is it that I'll lose my headphones, wallet and phone on a daily basis, but I have absolute recall when it comes to the utterances of burly soldier Samuel Brooklyn? Why am I doomed to Finally, some action", Consider it done, boss" and the immortal okey dokey" echoing through my head? What is wrong with me? Continue reading...

Comments from Chinese official in Madrid have raised questions over who could control the algorithm that powers Tik Tok's video feedDonald Trump has claimed his administration has reached a deal with China to keep TikTok operating in the US, amid uncertainty over what shape the final agreement will take, with suggestions from the Chinese side that Beijing would retain control of the algorithm that powers the site's video feed.We have a deal on TikTok ... We have a group of very big companies that want to buy it," Trump said on Tuesday, without providing further details. Continue reading...

Kirk's rise to fame was largely bolstered by being extremely online - and it seems the suspect has that in commonHello, and welcome to TechScape. Dara Kerr here, filling in for Blake Montgomery, who promises he'll come back from vacation. Meanwhile, I'm looking at the memes, gaming and internet culture behind the shooting of Charlie Kirk.The bullet that killed conservative activist was inscribed with a message: Notices bulge OwO whats this?" The online world quickly recognized the reference. It's a phrase used in internet culture to troll people in online role-play communities, specifically furries (a subculture that cosplays as anthropomorphic animal characters).How thousands of overworked, underpaid' humans train Google's AI to seem smartLarry Ellison: Oracle co-founder who overtook Musk as world's richest personApple debuts thinner, $999 iPhone Air at awe-dropping' annual product eventHow to Save the Internet by Nick Clegg review - spinning Silicon ValleyThe women in love with AI companions: I vowed to my chatbot that I wouldn't leave him' Continue reading...

Carmaker says it will freeze production until at least 24 September as it continues investigationsJaguar Land Rover has extended its shutdown on car production, as Britain's biggest carmaker grapples with the aftermath of a cyber-attack.JLR said on Tuesday it would freeze production until at least next Wednesday, 24 September, as it continues its investigations into the hack, which first emerged earlier this month. Continue reading...

The knowledge economy' promised cultural and social growth. Instead, we got worsening inequality and division. Artificial intelligence will supercharge itRecently, Palantir - a tech corporation that boasts no fewer than five billionaire executives - announced its Q2 earnings: over a billion dollars generated in a single quarter. Forty-eight per cent growth in its business compared with the same quarter last year, including 93% growth in its US commercial business. These elephantine numbers are maddening - and, in large part, a result of the company fully embracing artificial intelligence (AI).The AI revolution is here and as its proponents remind us daily, it will remake our world, making every company and government agency more efficient and less error-prone while helping us unlock hitherto unheard of advances in science and technology. Not only this, but if we play our cards right, big tech's latest explosion could yield unprecedented economic growth.Dustin Guastella is the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623 in Philadelphia, and a research associate at the Center for Working-Class Politics Continue reading...

When you're done settling for the sludge in the hotel lobby, this portable brewing setup will open the door to perfect coffee anywhereNothing makes me feel more settled than making a cup of coffee in the morning. Without it, my whole day feels slightly off. For years, that was just something I accepted about traveling or camping - there might be coffee, but it wouldn't quite ground me. It would be a compromise. A little off.That's why I've spent the past few years perfecting my travel coffee setup: so I can make rich, comforting, homey coffee anywhere in the world, without trying to wedge an espresso machine into my carry-on. Here are the inexpensive tools that make it possible. Continue reading...

Rachel Reeves says move is a vote of confidence' in British economy as she prepares to open firm's first UK datacentre

Artificial intelligence will replace creativity with something closer to magical wishing. The challenge for future generations will be dealing with the feeling of emptiness that leaves us withIn the German fairytale The Fisherman and His Wife, an old man one day catches a strange fish: a talking flounder. It turns out that an enchanted prince is trapped inside this fish and that it can therefore grant any wish. The man's wife, Ilsebill, is delighted and wishes for increasingly excessive things. She turns their miserable hut into a castle, but that is not enough; eventually she wants to become the pope and, finally, God. This enrages the elements; the sea turns dark and she is transformed back into her original impoverished state. The moral of the story: don't wish for anything you're not entitled to.Several variations of this classic fairytale motif are known. Sometimes, the wishes are not so much excessive or offensive to the divine order of the world, but simply clumsy or contradictory, such as in Charles Perrault's The Ridiculous Wishes. Or, as in WW Jacobs' 1902 horror story The Monkey's Paw, their wishes unintentionally harm someone who is actually much closer to them than the object of their desire. Continue reading...

The cuddly chatbot Grem is designed to learn' your child's personality, while every conversation they have is recorded, then transcribed by a third party. It wasn't long before I wanted this experiment to be over ...I'm going to throw that thing into a river!" my wife says as she comes down the stairs looking frazzled after putting our four-year-old daughter to bed.To be clear, that thing" is not our daughter, Emma*. It's Grem, an AI-powered stuffed alien toy that the musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, helped develop with toy company Curio. Designed for kids aged three and over and built with OpenAI's technology, the toy is supposed to learn" your child's personality and have fun, educational conversations with them. It's advertised as a healthier alternative to screen time and is part of a growing market of AI-powered toys. Continue reading...