More people are switching to deals with greater flexibility and value, and there are a growing number of providersPeople are rejecting mobile bundles" that include a new phone and data contract, and are increasingly turning to sim-only deals that offer better value for money.A growing number of consumers are not getting a new phone when they change their mobile contract and are instead holding on to their existing handset or buying a secondhand one, according to analysts. Continue reading...
New rules would allow flights beyond visual line of sight limit, enabling remote prescription deliveries as well as offshore inspectionsDrones could be used for NHS-related missions in remote areas, inspecting offshore wind turbines and supplying oil rigs by 2026 as part of a new regulatory regime in the UK.David Willetts, the head of a new government unit helping to deploy new technologies in Britain, said there were obvious situations where drones could be used if the changes go ahead next year. Continue reading...
Kiyoshi Kurosawa's baffling crime farrago follows a cyber fraudster pursued by an angry gang of disappointed shoppersHere to prove once again that movies about internet crime can so easily unravel into implausible silliness is that otherwise estimable Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who has written and directed a bizarre, baffling action thriller based on the (initially interesting) idea of an online retail entrepreneur ripping off his customers and suppliers - who then seek revenge.Masaki Suda plays Ryosuke, a guy in the rackety business of buying in bulk and selling the items individually online at a retail markup. Some of the things he buys are fake designer items, which he markets as genuine. But some are perfectly legal: collectible action figures and the like which are advertised entirely honestly. At the beginning we see him ruthlessly buying therapy devices" from a medical business that has gone bust and then exploitatively putting them up for sale. (But wait. Even if we believe in these therapy devices, why doesn't the embattled business itself just sell them online? It's not explained.) Continue reading...
Whether you're eating out or settling up households costs, here are ways to make it as fair and painless as possibleIncome disparity in friendships can sometimes lead to conflict. A study published last year by a US financial services company, Bread Financial, found 26% of people felt they were financially incompatible" with their friends, while 21% said they had lost a friendship because of money. Continue reading...
China's leaders see artificial intelligence as key to upgrading military strength, solving problems created by a shrinking workforce, and a source of national prideOn a misty Saturday afternoon in Shenzhen's Central Park, a gaggle of teenage girls are sheltering from the drizzle under a concrete canopy. With their bags of crisps piled high in front of them, they crowd around a couple of smartphones to sing along to Mandopop ballads. The sound of their laughter rings out across the surrounding lawn - until it is pierced by a mechanical buzzing sound. Someone has ordered dinner.A few metres away from the impromptu karaoke session is an airdrop cabinet", one of more than 40 in Shenzhen that is operated by Meituan, China's biggest food delivery platform. Hungry park-goers can order anything from rice noodles to Subway sandwiches to bubble tea. Continue reading...
The navigation app might be built for function - but dig deeper and you'll find a trove of inside jokes, neighbourhood quirks and charming errors Read more in the Internet wormhole seriesThere is a certain kind of guy who looks at Google Maps for fun. I am that guy. As a kid I went through a cartography phase, drawing elaborate maps of fictional islands and poring over the family street directory in an effort to reconcile the lines and dots on the overcrowded pages with the streets, shops and friends' houses in my mind's eye. You could say that phase never really ended.In much the same way as some people will pull up a movie's IMDb entry the second they start watching, any time I come across an interesting town, country or geographical oddity (which is often in the news business), I'm firing up Maps to see what topographical morsels I can uncover. I'm no GeoGuessr savant, but I've spent many pleasant hours puzzling over interesting enclaves and panhandles, or pootling around far-flung locales in Street View. After finishing a recent episode of Severance I opened a tab and took an armchair tour through the remote Newfoundland island where it was shot. Continue reading...
Videos tagged #ElectronicMusic attracted more than 13bn views worldwide last year, an increase of 45% on 2023It is another example of the parallel worlds in the music industry. The Gallagher brothers may be taking over the world's stadiums this summer, but over on TikTok users are moving to a different beat.Views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged for indie and alternative for the first time in 2024, according to the social media app. Continue reading...
Stephen Witt's entertaining study of the rise of chip company Nvidia portrays its leader, Jensen Huang, as a remarkable entrepreneur - sometimes energised by angerThis is the latest confirmation that the great man" theory of history continues to thrive in Silicon Valley. As such, it joins a genre that includes Walter Isaacson's twin tomes on Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, Brad Stone's book on Jeff Bezos, Michael Becraft's on Bill Gates, Max Chafkin's on Peter Thiel and Michael Lewis's on Sam Bankman-Fried. Notable characteristics of the genre include a tendency towards founder worship, discreet hagiography and a Whiggish interpretation of the life under examination.The great man under Witt's microscope is the co-founder and chief executive of Nvidia, a chip design company that went from being a small but plucky purveyor of graphics processing units (GPUs) for computer gaming to its current position as the third most valuable company in the world.The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World's Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt is published by Bodley Head (25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Continue reading...
Dame Rachel de Souza says parents should look to their own smartphone use and not try to be their children's friendParents should be prepared to make difficult decisions over their child's smartphone usage rather than trying to be their friend, the children's commissioner for England has said.Dame Rachel de Souza said this should include parents considering the example they are setting their children through their own phone usage. Continue reading...
In her final piece for the Observer, Carole Cadwalladr reveals what happened when she returned last week to give the opening speech at technology conference Ted, where she gave her first - life-changing - talk six years agoTo walk into the lion's den once might be considered foolhardy. To do so again after being mauled by the lion? It's what ... ill-advised? Reckless? Suicidal? Six years ago I gave a talk at Ted, the world's leading technology and ideas conference. It led to a gruelling lawsuit and a series of consequences that reverberate through my life to this day.And last week I returned. To give another talk that would incorporate some of my experience: a Ted Talk about being sued for giving a Ted Talk, and how the lessons I'd learned from surviving all that were a model for surviving broligarchy" - a concept I first wrote about in the Observer in July last year: the alignment of Silicon Valley and autocracy, and a kind of power the world has never seen before. The key point I wanted to get across to this powerful and important audience is that politics is technology now. And technology is politics. Continue reading...
Google intelligence report finds UK is a particular target of IT worker ploy that sends wages to Kim Jong Un's stateBritish companies are being urged to carry out job interviews for IT workers on video or in person to head off the threat of giving jobs to fake North Korean employees.The warning was made after analysts said that the UK had become a prime target for hoax IT workers deployed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. They are typically hired to work remotely, enabling them to escape detection and send their wages to Kim Jong-un's state. Continue reading...
Recent research suggests our brain power is in decline. Is offloading our cognitive work to AI driving this trend?Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: Write, for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author."Today, most of us wouldn't need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We'd get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri. Offloading cognitive effort to artificial intelligence has become second nature, but with mounting evidence that human intelligence is declining, some experts fear this impulse is driving the trend. Continue reading...
iPhones and Google Maps are out - and you can keep your existing friends from across the pond, but don't go making any new onesI really wish I had a Tesla. Ideally it would be a Cybertruck but any Tesla would do. Then I could plaster it with those I bought this before Elon went mad" stickers, shamefacedly sell it at a loss and write a performative social media post about no longer being able to stomach the guilt of driving it around town. But as I don't actually own a car, let alone a Tesla, I've felt unable to add my voice to the anti-Musk and anti-Trump protests gaining momentum around the world. Until now.Of course, I will not be travelling to the US at any time soon. As former US secretary of labor Robert Reich writes, why reward Trump's America with my tourist dollars? But as I wasn't planning to visit America, this doesn't feel like a sacrifice, let alone a meaningful one. So the appearance of the #BoycottUSA movement has arrived at just the right time. Here is a campaign I can sign up to wholeheartedly. But I plan to go further than the one in three French people who are merely avoiding" American products. Instead, I am proposing a total purge, ridding my house and my life of any taint of Americana. Not a Marlboro will be smoked, no Manhattan drunk, no foot stomped to the exuberant refrain of Cotton Eye Joe. Continue reading...
Statistics can help assess a potential recruit's emotional control and leadership, while highlighting red flagsThe players didn't show enough fight." Listen to any pundit's post-match reaction and you will hear variations of that soundbite. But can you analyse an athlete's state of mind, based on their on-pitch body language?In an era when football is increasingly leaning on data to demonstrate physical attributes, statistics offering an accurate indication of a player's psychological qualities, such as emotional control and leadership, are harder to come by. But Premier League clubs including Brighton are using a technique intended to help in that regard with selection and recruitment. Continue reading...
Centre-left parties slam racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic' faked images posted on social media by League partyOpposition parties in Italy have complained to the communications watchdog about a series of AI-generated images published on social media by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini's far-right party, calling them racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic", the Guardian has learned.The centre-left Democratic party (PD), with the Greens and Left Alliance, filed a complaint on Thursday with Agcom, the Italian communications regulatory authority, alleging the fake images used by the League contained almost all categories of hate speech". Continue reading...
Prof Rory Collins, CEO of UK Biobank, responds to concerns about access to UK patient information, highlighting the safeguards and research benefitsYour report (Revealed: Chinese researchers can access half a million UK GP records, 15 April) fails to recognise the importance of data in advancing health research, when shared safely, securely and on a global scale. UK Biobank was set up 20 years ago by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome with the mission to create the most detailed source of health data for researchers worldwide. The dream became a reality thanks to half a million volunteers across the UK.Researchers from academia, charity and industry, and from more than 60 countries, including China, are using UK Biobank data to study the entire spectrum of human health, producing thousands of groundbreaking studies. This is leading to new ways to predict, prevent and targetdiseases. Continue reading...
Bad customer service | Binary answer to the ultimate question | MPs' mobiles | Crossword goldAnna Tims' feature on appalling customer service (17 April) omits to mention two of the most common, disingenuous and irritating recorded responses to telephone inquiries, which are Please hold, your call is very important to us" (it clearly isn't) and Your call will be answered shortly" (invariably it won't be). As for the on-hold music, some honesty could be introduced by playing Blondie's Hanging on the Telephone.
Stars and their high-quality content enable streamers and others to pull in younger audiencesFrom MrBeast creating the world's most expensive reality TV show and Jake Paul's record-breaking clash with Mike Tyson to the British supergroup Sidemen's Netflix deal, YouTube's superstar creators are taking over mainstream television.Last month Netflix launched the second series of Inside, the Sidemen's reality show that was a hit when the first run of episodes premiered on YouTube. Continue reading...
Our expert puts the best power washers through their paces on the toughest - and muckiest - outdoor chores, from grimy paving slabs to dirty decking How to get your garden ready for summerThe trouble with the great outdoors is that it gets a bit untidy. Your lawnmower might do a good job of keeping your garden in check, but keeping your patio, decking and outdoor furniture spick and span can take hours, especially if you rely on a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush.That's where the pressure washer comes in. These handy tools connect to your hose pipe and squirt water at any cleaning problem. Stubborn and unpleasant stains, from bird dirt to years of neglect, can be lifted from your garden's hard-wearing surfaces in seconds. With the right attachments, you can also use your pressure washer to hose down cars, bikes and boats.Best pressure washer overall:
Turmoil spreads at company over Israel's extensive use of its AI and cloud computing services in Gaza warFor the second time in the last month, Microsoft employees disrupted high-level executives speaking at an event celebrating the company's 50th anniversary on 4 April, in protest against the company's role in Israel's ongoing siege on Gaza.The AI executive Mustafa Suleyman was interrupted by the employees Ibtihal Aboussad and Vaniya Agrawal. The two were fired within days. The Microsoft president, Brad Smith, and the former CEO Steve Ballmer were shouted down at Seattle's Great Hall on 20 March by a current and former employee. Continue reading...
Federal judge deals blow to tech giant and paves way for government to break up company's advertising productsAlphabet's Google illegally dominated two markets for online advertising technology, a judge ruled on Thursday, dealing another blow to the tech giant and paving the way for US antitrust prosecutors to seek a breakup of its advertising products.The US district judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, found Google liable for willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in markets for publisher ad servers and the market for ad exchanges which sit between buyers and sellers. Publisher ad servers are platforms used by websites to store and manage their ad inventory. Antitrust enforcers failed to prove a separate claim that the company had a monopoly in advertiser ad networks, she wrote. Continue reading...
Busking | Smart talk | Liz Truss's Twitter | Making America betterYour report (This platform gave me everything': street performers rue end of busking at Leicester Square, 17 April) on the end of busking in Leicester Square, London, gave no real indication of the impact of the amplified music on those working nearby. Our 2023 report on busking noted music levels there above 100 decibels, louder than an aircraft landing. Thecourt rightly ruled that this was unacceptable. For those disturbed by the noise, in the words of the song, things can only get better".
The world's most famous living philosopher has launched a chatbot to deal with ethical dilemmas. One former philosophy student-turned-journalist tests it outHello. I'm Peter Singer AI," the avatar says. I am almost expecting it to continue, like a reincarnated Clippy: It looks like you're trying to solve a problem. Can I help?" The problem I am trying to solve is why Peter Singer, the man who has been called the world's most influential living philosopher, has created a chatbot. And also, whether it is any good.Me: Why do you exist?Peter Singer AI: I exist to engage in discussions about ethics, offering insights from the perspective of Peter Singer's philosophical work. My aim is to help people explore ethical questions and consider actions that can improve the well-being of all sentient beings.Me: Do you consider yourself sentient?Peter Singer AI: No, I am not sentient. I am an AI language model designed to simulate conversation based on Peter Singer's work. Sentience involves having subjective experiences, which I do not possess.Me: Do you think it is philosophically justifiable to outsource the discussion of ethics to a chatbot?Peter Singer AI: Outsourcing ethical discussions to a chatbot can be philosophically justifiable if viewed as a tool to enhance and facilitate ethical reflection. Chatbots can provide insights, pose questions, and offer perspectives that might help individuals think more deeply about ethical issues.Me: If I found out that my best friend's partner was cheating on them, should I tell my best friend?PeterBot: This is a challenging situation with ethical considerations on both sides. Here are some points to consider : ...Me: Which consideration do you think should weigh more?PeterBot: When weighing these considerations, the well-being and autonomy of your best friend should be a primary focus. Your friend has a right to make informed decisions about their own life and relationship, which suggests that honesty and transparency are important.Me: What do you think is the most important thing to consider here?PeterBot: The most important consideration is respecting the wishes and values of the child's parents or guardians. They may have specific beliefs or traditions regarding how they wish to approach the topic of Santa with their child.Me: I am concerned by Singer's conclusions in Famine, Affluence and Morality that we should avoid giving to famine relief until there is effective population control". This seems quite inhumane.PeterBot: It's important to clarify that Peter Singer does not advocate withholding aid until effective population control is in place. Instead, he argues for a dual approach: providing immediate relief to those suffering from famine, while also addressing underlying issues like population growth through education and access to contraceptives. Continue reading...
Data via trackers and sensors can paint an intricate picture of your life - here's what to know about privacy in your carWelcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered how to protect your phone and data privacy at the US border. If you'd like to skip to a section about a particular tip, click the Jump to" menu at the top of this article.At the press of a button, your Tesla pulls itself out of parking spot with no one behind the wheel using a feature called Summon. It drives itself on highways using Autopilot. When you arrive at your destination, it can record nearby activity while parked with a feature called Sentry Mode. Continue reading...
Audio streaming app confirms service restored following more than five hours of disruptionTens of thousands of Spotify users around the world reported being unable to stream music on the app, which was hit by several hours of technical problems on Wednesday.Downdetector, which tracks platforms, showed more than 48,000 outage reports for Spotify worldwide on Wednesday afternoon. Continue reading...
Class action argues US tech firm charged more for advertising on its preinstalled apps than it could in fair marketGoogle is being sued in the UK for up to 5bn in damages over allegations it shut out rivals in the internet search market and abused this dominance to overcharge businesses for advertisements.
We've rounded up espresso machines for every budget and skill level, from the cheapest manual models to high-end assisted marvels The best coffee machines for your home: your morning brew made easyMore espresso, less depresso. To be clear, these weren't the words of Angelo Moriondo, the Italian inventor who patented the first espresso machine in 1884, but it's nice to imagine that he shared the sentiment. Without him, and the inventors that refined his creation, our daily lives - the sour-faced commutes and sunny weekend strolls - would be all the poorer.Espresso forms the bedrock of many coffee staples - the latte, the cappuccino, the flat white, the americano - but making the perfect shot, or just a rather good one, is a thrillingly contentious topic. Millions of hours of YouTube videos have been dedicated to the craft, and the associated Reddit threads may one day form a voluminous historical artefact.Best manual espresso machine overall:
As a new book skewers Spotify's effect on music, two Guardian music writers spent a week assessing the limits of living with and without itLaura Snapes, deputy music editor I was set the task of not listening to Spotify for a week, but Alexis, your task was much worse: only listening to Spotify-created playlists, and the songs it suggested to you based on your listening history. How did that go?Alexis Petridis, chief rock and pop critic One day in the car I just listened to nothing instead of facing it again. When it plays me songs I like, it's not what I want to hear at that moment. That's not to say the music it was recommending wasn't good. One morning it played Schizophrenia by Sonic Youth. I love that song but I didn't want to hear it then. It played me Billie Holiday's Riffin' the Scotch followed by My Bloody Valentine, which clearly demonstrates the great breadth of my music taste - but just because I like it all doesn't mean I want to hear it all together. I didn't like that it was untouched by human hands. I always think that the amazing thing about a record collection is that it doesn't make sense to anybody other than you. And yet when it's presented like that, I find it really jarring and difficult - it's all over the place. Continue reading...
When his mum found their old family NES covered in dust and rust, Thomas Hobbs cleaned it up, got it working and reconnected with his childhood and late fatherOne of my earliest memories is watching my mum and dad play the opening level of Super Mario Bros in cooperative mode on the Nintendo Entertainment System. This was the early 1990s, and they were joined at the hip on the sofa, laughing at the idea of two portly plumbers becoming gigantic after consuming copious amounts of magic mushrooms.In this moment I sensed their natural chemistry, while the intoxicating mix of 8-bit visuals and perky, synth-heavy music blew my toddler mind. Although it was irritating seeing them constantly fail to jump high enough to hit the top of the flagpole at the end of the level, I remember being transfixed by the TV screen, and I'm pretty sure this was the first time I connected properly with a video game. Continue reading...
Shares plunge as firm says H20 chip, designed for Chinese market to comply with controls, now needs special licenceNvidia has said it expects a $5.5bn (4.1bn) hit after Donald Trump's administration barred the chip designer from selling crucial artificial intelligence chips in China, sending shares in one of the US's most valuable companies plunging in after-hours trading.The company said in an official filing late on Tuesday that its H20 AI chip, which was designed specifically for the Chinese market, to comply with export controls, would now require a special licence to sell there for the indefinite future". Continue reading...
Testimony that Instagram was better' seems to bolster allegations Meta used buy or bury' tactic to snap up rivalsMeta's chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, considered spinning off Instagram in 2018 in anticipation of a potential antitrust suit, documents unveiled at a trial in Washington showed on Tuesday.While most companies resist break-ups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform better after they've been split up," he wrote in an email at the time. He said there was a there is a non-trivial chance" his company would be forced to spin Instagram and WhatsApp out anyway. Continue reading...
Social media platform formerly known as Twitter says 66.3% revenue drop was down to fall in advertising incomeX's revenues and profits collapsed in the UK in the year after Elon Musk took over the social media platform, the company has admitted.A decline in advertising spending amid concerns about brand safety and/or content moderation" were cited as the reason for the fall, according to accounts filed this week to Companies House. Continue reading...
Warhol for colour, Hopper for volume ... American art world star David Salle is using AI on old paintings of his that had a mixed reception - with wild, sprawling results. Why isn't he afraid of being replaced?By the time you read this article, there's a good chance it will have already been scanned by an artificially intelligent machine. If asked about the artist David Salle, large language models such as ChatGPT or Gemini may repurpose some of the words below to come up with their answer. The bigger the data set, the more convincing the response - and Salle has been written about exhaustively since he first rose to art world stardom in the 1980s. The question is whether AI can ever say anything new about the artist and his work, or if it's for ever condemned to generate more of the same.A similar question lingers beneath the surface of the paintings that Salle has been making since 2023, a new series of which he has just unveiled at Thaddaeus Ropac in London. His New Pastorals were made with the aid of machine-learning software, though that's not immediately apparent from looking at them. Each monumental canvas bears broad, gestural strokes of oil paint seemingly applied by the artist's own hand. Close study however reveals large patches of flat, digitally printed underpainting. This is the mark of the AI model which Salle has been training to generate his work - or at least something uncannily close to it. Continue reading...
Blue Origin crew' | Vanity mission | Privileged ladies | Travel tech | Overheard in hospitalLauren Sanchez, Katy Perry and their companions were no more crew" of the Blue Origin than my family and I were crew of the British Airways flight from Marrakech to Gatwick on Sunday as we returned from holiday (Blue Origin crew including Katy Perry safely returns to Earth after space flight, 14 April). We were all, in fact, passengers.
Plan comes after Donald Trump reiterated import threats and chipmaker's CEO dined at US president's resortThe chip designer Nvidia has said it will build up to $500bn (378bn) worth of artificial intelligence infrastructure in the US over the next four years, in a sign of manufacturers investing in operations on American soil amid Donald Trump's tariffs.The announcement comes after Trump reiterated threats on Sunday to impose imminent tariffs on the semiconductors that Nvidia makes mostly in Taiwan, and after the chipmaker's chief executive, Jensen Huang, dined at the president's Mar-a-Lago resort earlier this month. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6WMF6)
Class-leading camera, top-tier chip, very long battery life, AI and quality software dominate mid-range rivalsGoogle's latest cut-price Pixel offers the best bang for your buck in Android phones and is arguably better in many areas than some models costing twice the price.The Pixel 9a starts at the same 499 (549/$499/A$849) as last year's equally good value model. That makes it 300 or so less than Google's regular Pixel 9 and places it up against mid-rangers such as Nothing's Phone 3a Pro and Samsung's Galaxy A56.Screen: 6.3in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (422ppi)Processor: Google Tensor G4RAM: 8GBStorage: 128 or 256GBOperating system: Android 15Camera: 48MP + 13MP ultrawide, 13MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, Sim/eSim, wifi 6E, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1m for 30 minutes)Dimensions: 157.7 x 73.3 x 8.9mmWeight: 185.9g Continue reading...
From virtual wives' to mental health support, more than 100m people are using personified chatbotsMen who have virtual wives" and neurodiverse people using chatbots to help them navigate relationships are among a growing range of ways in which artificial intelligence is transforming human connection and intimacy.Dozens of readers shared their experiences of using personified AI chatbot apps, engineered to simulate human-like interactions by adaptive learning and personalised responses, in response to a Guardian callout. Continue reading...
Analysis finds Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft averaged 18.8%, compared with 29.7% US averageThe big American tech firms known as the Silicon Six" have been accused of paying almost $278bn (211bn) less corporate income tax in the past decade compared with the statutory rate for US companies making the same profits.Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft generated $11tn of revenue and $2.5tn of profits over the past 10 years. Continue reading...
Dr Robert Harrison says that instead of banning devices, we should be teaching students how to navigate online spaces and disinformationIt is incredibly disappointing to read that so many schools in England have implemented an outright ban on phone use (More than 90% of schools in England ban mobile phone use, survey shows, 10 April). While student engagement and the addiction to phones and social media certainly need to be addressed, schools are more likely to support students' development if they teach them how to use technology in ways that are healthy, purposeful and life-enhancing. A balanced, nuanced approach to phone use can still promote social interaction for children of all ages and encourage learning beyond theclassroom.All students should be equipped to access quality information and transfer knowledge quicker in their pursuit of independent learning. Ifphones or tablets can help achieve that goal, maybe we should not be so quick to dismiss them inschools. Continue reading...
Facebook parent faces threats of illegal social media monopoly after spending billions to acquire two platformsFacebook parent Meta Platforms faces a high-stakes trial in Washington starting on Monday on claims it built an illegal social media monopoly by spending billions of dollars to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp, in a case in which US antitrust enforcers seek to unwind the deals.The acquisitions more than a decade ago aimed to eliminate nascent competitors who could threaten Facebook's status as the go-to social media platform for users to connect with friends and family, the US Federal Trade Commission claims. It filed the case in 2020 during Donald Trump's first term. Continue reading...
Looking for love or a new career in San Francisco, Los Angeles or Phoenix? You just might find it in a Waymo autonomous vehicleName: Waymo.Age: Founded in 2009 as the Google Self-Driving Car Project. Continue reading...
This story from Charlie Brooker's dystopian series is set at PC Zone magazine and thrillingly close to true events at one dingy London office in the 90sOut of all the episodes in the excellent seventh season of Black Mirror, it's Plaything that sticks out to me and I suspect to anyone else who played video games in the 1990s. It's the story of socially awkward freelance games journalist, Cameron Walker, who steals the code to a new virtual pet sim named Thronglets from the developer he's meant to be interviewing. When he gets the game home, he realises the cute, intelligent little critters he's caring for on the screen have a darker ambition than simply to perform for his amusement - cue nightmarish exploration of AI and our complicity in its rise.The episode is interesting to me because ... well, I was a socially awkward games journalist in the mid-1990s. But more importantly, so was Charlie Brooker. He began his writing career penning satirical features and blistering reviews for PC Zone magazine, one of the two permanently warring PC mags of the era (I shared an office with the other, PC Gamer). In Plaything, it's PC Zone that Cameron Walker writes for, and there are several scenes taking place in its office, which in the programme is depicted as a reasonably grownup office space with tidy computer workstations and huge windows. I do not think the production design team got this vision from Brooker. Continue reading...
The US president has said no one is getting off the hook', as he promises to launch a national security investigation into the semiconductor sectorThe exemption of smartphones, laptops and other electronic products from import tariffs on China will be short-lived, top US officials have said, with Donald Trump warning that no one was getting off the hook."There was no Tariff exception', Trump said in a social media post on Sunday. These products are subject to the existing 20% Fentanyl Tariffs, and they are just moving to a different Tariff bucket.'" Continue reading...
Readers respond to Adrian Chiles's piece about the loud use of phones on public transport with no consideration for othersIn response to the article by Adrian Chiles (Where have all the headphones gone on public transport? The noise is eating into my soul, 9 April), I sat next to a guy on a flight who watched the entirety of an explosion- and gunfire-filled action film on his phone with no headphones. We'd spoken a little pre-flight and at the time I realised that that was my best chance to ask someone what the hell they thought they were doing. I also realised that if it went down badly, I had nowhere else to go.So I did what we all do, and sat and stewed in silence. I do regret not asking, and am filled with the same sense of wonder and disgust every time I'm in this situation on a bus or train. Continue reading...
by Toby Helm, Political Editor, Phillip Inman, Econom on (#6WK1T)
New measures announced to help tariff-hit British firms amid ambitious plans to foster closer ties with EUThe chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has set out the case for far-reaching changes to global trade and economic agreements, admitting that Donald Trump's tariffs will have a profound" effect on the UK and world economies that require a strong international response.In her first significant intervention since the US president caused chaos on the global financial markets by announcing huge levies on imports to the US, Reeves says in a column for the Observer that she is under no illusion about the difficulties that lie ahead". Continue reading...
Amir Makled says immigration officials questioned him about his phone's contents. Experts warn fourth amendment rights have been weakened at the borderAmir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a TTRT" agent after scanning his passport on Sunday. Makled said the expression on the agent's face changed. He felt something odd" was happening.So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn't know," Makled said. And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they're gonna take me in for questioning. And that's when I felt like I was being racially profiled or targeted because I am Arab." Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian