Technology | The Guardian

The billionaire was indispensable to Trump's campaign and now has a senior job. He is about to become dangerously usefulPicture, if you will, the scene in Mar-a-Lago on election night at the moment when it's become clear that Trump has won. The atmosphere is hysterical. Trump is in expansive form. He stands surrounded by his ghastly tribe of dependants, plus AN Other. In his victory speech, the president-elect praises his campaign staff, his prospective vice-president, and his family. Each gets a few seconds of adulation.But AN Other gets a whole four minutes. He is Elon Musk, the richest manchild in history. Trump calls him a super genius", a special guy" and a star". He has flown straight from Texas in his Gulfstream to bask in the adulation of his new lord and master. He has also paid several hundred million dollars, plus a month of his time, to be here. But now his time has come. Continue reading...

Put Santa on alert - it's Deadpool figures, bracelet-making kits, laptops and, yep, slime sets that are topping tweens' Christmas present listsThe pros of buying a Christmas present for a tween (age nine to 12): they'll tell you exactly what they want. The cons: they'll tell you exactly what they want, and could very well change their mind 17 times before Christmas.Time moves fast for Gen A tweens, who start as children with a love of Beyblades and end as teens who likely have a more expensive skincare routine than you. So, we spoke to several tweens to find out what they really want for Christmas (for now, at least). Continue reading...

Users turn to the heavily moderated network after warnings about misinformation on Elon Musk's XThe great X-odus is under way. More than 1 million new users have joined the social media platform Bluesky since the US election.Many are seeking to escape Elon Musk's X amid warnings from anti-hate speech campaign groups and the EU about misinformation and extremism on the platform. Continue reading...

A population numbed, dazed, present-but-not-present - had it happened overnight it would be a sci-fi horror movie. And if you looked up from your phone for long enough, you might notice it's started already...Nobody's home. Not in the young woman with the big headphones cycling against the light. Not in the person in the middle of the crossing staring at their phone, or the person talking to someone who's not there and ignoring the one they're pushing in the baby carriage, or the distracted driver who doesn't seem to notice those cyclists and pedestrians. So I move through a world of people who are not all the way there and sometimes hardly there at all - and who don't seem to want anyone else to be there either.Aversion to direct contact with others has become so normal in my home town - San Francisco, a city swallowed up by Silicon Valley - that I've become avoidant myself after too many encounters with people who seem to find it bafflingly transgressive to engage with any casual remark or question from a stranger, and mostly fail to respond. I wander in a city that feels ghostly, depopulated, even when bodies are on the street, and I feel like a ghost myself in the lack of acknowledgment, in others' blank reluctance to utter even those tiny excuse me" negotiations to get around someone or warn someone. Continue reading...

Billionaire alleges Microsoft and OpenAI illegally sought to monopolize AI market and sideline competitorsElon Musk has expanded his lawsuit against the ChatGPT maker OpenAI, adding federal antitrust and other claims and adding OpenAI's largest financial backer, Microsoft, as a defendant.Musk's amended lawsuit, filed on Thursday night in federal court in Oakland, California, said Microsoft and OpenAI illegally sought to monopolize the market for generative artificial intelligence and sideline competitors. Continue reading...

Even if you haven't knowingly opted in, companies are still scraping your personal information to train their systemsWelcome 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. If you'd like to skip to a section about a particular site or social network, click the Jump to" menu at the top of this article.The competition to make the latest, greatest, most advanced artificial intelligence thing has turned an already data-hungry tech industry ravenous. Companies looking to build out their AI-powered search engines, smart email composers or chatbots are scraping your posts and personal data and using them to train those systems, which need ever-increasing amounts of text and images. Continue reading...

Details of emerge in sworn depositions by employees of Israeli company as part of lawsuit brought by WhatsAppLegal documents released in ongoing US litigation between NSO Group and WhatsApp have revealed for the first time that the Israeli cyberweapons maker - and not its government customers - is the party that installs and extracts" information from mobile phones targeted by the company's hacking software.The new details were contained in sworn depositions from NSO Group employees, portions of which were published for the first time on Thursday. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence doesn't just incrementally erode the rights of authors and other creators. These technologies are designed to replace creative workers altogether

Vertical's crash and cash crisis highlight challenge of making flying taxis a reality after nearly a century of effortsOn a dreary November day in the Cotswolds, England, the VX4 - a cross between a plane and a helicopter - rose from an airport runway, hovered a few feet off the ground and set back down.It might not have reached a heady altitude, but for its British owner, Vertical Aerospace, it was a crucial moment. The company, which has received millions of pounds in UK taxpayer support, is running short of cash. Continue reading...

On the 20th anniversary of the seminal game, we look back at the extraordinary moment where sci-fi dystopia turned into tense and terrifying body horrorAt the start of Valve's Half-Life 2, the seminal first-person shooter game that turns 20 this month, taciturn scientist Gordon Freeman is trapped within a dystopian cityscape. Armed soldiers patrol the streets, and innocent citizens wander around in a daze, bereft of purpose and future. Dr Wallace Breen, Freeman's former boss at the scientific research centre" Black Mesa, looks down from giant video screens, espousing the virtues of humankind's benefactors, an alien race known as The Combine.As Freeman stumbles through these first few levels of Half-Life 2, the player acclimatises to the horrible future laid out before them. It's hardly the most cheerful setting, but there are some friendly faces (security guard Barney, Alyx and Eli Vance) and even moments of humour, as Dr Isaac Kleiner's pet, a debeaked face-eating alien called Lamarr, runs amok in his laboratory. It feels safe. It feels fun. It feels familiar. There's even a crowbar! And then, the foreshadowing. That's the old passage to Ravenholm," mutters Alyx Vance during Freeman's chapter five tour of the Black Mesa East facility. We don't go there any more." You feel a shiver down your spine; you know you will end up going there. Continue reading...

Even if you haven't knowingly opted in, companies are still scraping your personal information to train their systemsWelcome 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. If you'd like to skip to a section about a particular site or social network, click the Jump to" menu at the top of this article.The competition to make the latest, greatest, most advanced artificial intelligence thing has turned an already data-hungry tech industry ravenous. Companies looking to build out their AI-powered search engines, smart email composers or chatbots are scraping your posts and personal data and using them to train those systems, which need ever-increasing amounts of text and images. Continue reading...

World's richest man solicits applications for tedious work' in newly formed Department of Government EfficiencyElon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are high-IQ small-government revolutionaries" and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency - at zero pay.In a new X post on Thursday that doubled as a job announcement and another one of Musk's trolling attempts, the account for the newly formed Doge wrote: We don't need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting." Continue reading...

Arcola theatre, London

Game of Thrones actor reportedly in talks to play Lara Croft in Fleabag creator's new take on the gaming franchiseSophie Turner will take on the role of Lara Croft in Phoebe Waller-Bridge's new Tomb Raider series.According to Deadline, the Game of Thrones actor is in negotiations to take on the lead in the Amazon series based on the hit gaming franchise. It had been reported last month that Turner was competing against Bohemian Rhapsody's Lucy Boynton for the role. Continue reading...

Despite civil liberty and accuracy concerns, the NYPD will dispatch drones to gunshots reported by ShotspotterThe New York police department (NYPD) announced it will begin using drones to respond to reports of robberies and alerts from a city-wide gunshot detection system.The drones will fly to the scene, piloted by an NYPD officer, and record video and audio that will be sent to police officers' smartphones in real time, according to a press release. The integration of these two surveillance technologies is part of a broader Drone as First Responder" program that has existed since 2018. The New York city mayor, Eric Adams, and the city's interim police commissioner, Tom Donlan, announced the expansion on Wednesday afternoon. It will be initially rolled out to five precincts in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan. The drones will also be used to collect evidence for investigations, aid in searches for missing people and respond to natural disasters, according to the announcement. Continue reading...

Dr Jan Udris notes the catastrophic contribution to global warming, and says the more complex technology is, the more likely it is to go wrongVictoria Turk (As a jaded tech journalist, I'm in a battle to keep smart' devices out of my home - despite my partner's efforts, 9 November) makes animportant point about the excesses of smart" internet-connected appliances, and it is certainly true that many of us are truly spoilt: not only do we have devices that make it unnecessary for us to make any physical effort, we are now browbeaten into giving up any vestige of real control overthose devices. But there are two other crucial points that Turk fails to make.First, the more complex the technology, the more likely it is to go wrong. When a vacuum cleaner malfunctions, I can usually fix it. Ifa smart" device malfunctions, most of us don't know where to start. Hence wasted time, frustration and a predictable tendency to throw it away and get a new one. This benefits only the grotesque late capitalism that cares nothing about the consumer or theplanet. Continue reading...

PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PlayStation 4/5, smartphones (via Netflix); Color Gray Games/Playstack

Fire and Rescue NSW responded to 272 battery-related fires last year, while Victoria and Queensland authorities say they happen almost every day

Have you reduced your recoil, picked the best perks and maxxed out your XP gains? If you're not sure ... you're in the right placeLet me guess: you recently bought Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, strayed into the multiplayer mode and now you're being mercilessly pummelled by hundreds of teenagers with suggestive usernames? Don't worry, that's perfectly normal. Call of Duty has always been the arcade twitchfest of the online shooter scene, but Black Ops 6 has a whole new feel thanks to its omni-movement system, which lets you dive, roll and sprint in every direction. And the weapons have all been completely redesigned. It is, as Olivia Rodrigo put it, brutal out there.So I asked two excellent pro players - Ethan Fifakill" Pink and Liam Jukeyz" James - for their tips. Instead of laughing and pointing at me, they agreed. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: For its 13th season, the investigative titan explores the complicated story of Keiko. Plus: five of the best podcasts to dip into Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Facebook and Meta founder said he recorded the track as a tribute to his wife, Priscilla Chan, in honour of their dating anniversary'Facebook and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg has collaborated with US music star T-Pain on a cover of Get Low by rap group Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz.Zuckerberg said he recorded the track, under the band name Z-Pain, as a tribute to his wife, Priscilla Chan, in honour of their dating anniversary". Continue reading...

Paranormal investigators use the devices to show presence of ghosts - or give their claims a gloss of plausibilityGhost hunting has become a television sensation, with help from an unexpected accessory: the portable weather meter.Years ago, weather stations were static installations, but these days all the necessary instrumentation can be packed into an electronic device no larger than a smartphone, providing a handy scientific device for meteorologists - and for spirit seekers. Continue reading...

Company says Amazon Haul will mostly feature products under $10, which it plans to ship from China warehouseAmazon has launched a low-cost online storefront featuring electronics, apparel and other products priced at under $20, an effort to compete with discount retailers that have increasingly encroached on the e-commerce giant's turf.In a blogpost on Wednesday, the company said the new Amazon Haul storefront would mostly feature products that cost less than $10 and offer free delivery on orders over $25. Amazon plans to ship the products to US customers from a warehouse it operates in China, according to documentation the company provided to sellers. Amazon said Haul orders could arrive within one to two weeks. Continue reading...

Social media platform has become a refuge' from the far-right activism on X, experts say, after Elon Musk teamed up with Donald TrumpSocial media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 1 million new users since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach nearly 15 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said. Continue reading...

Platform's coverage of US election crystallised longstanding concerns about its content, says Guardian

Cryptocurrency boosters are expecting the president-elect's economic team to be crypto-friendlyThe price of bitcoin scaled a fresh all-time high on Wednesday, soaring above $93,000 as cryptocurrency investors continued to cheer the election victory of Donald Trump.Dogecoin, a meme coin previously backed by Elon Musk, has risen as much as 150% in value since election day. It continued to rise after the president-elect announced that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a new outside advisory group. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: With its clamshell design and innovative touch-screen, the DS was the bridge between handheld games devices and the iPhone Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereBy 2004, video games were well into their adolescence. The war between Sega and Nintendo that defined the early 1990s was in the rear-view mirror - the PlayStation had knocked both of them off their perch, and Microsoft had released the Xbox. The critical and commercial hits of the day were not cartoon platformers but operatic space shooters (Halo) and anarchic crime games (Grand Theft Auto). There were lots of guns, and most games were embracing increasingly cinematic cutscenes.Nintendo, meanwhile, had fallen into third place with its Game Cube home console - but it still owned the handheld game market with the Game Boy Advance. Everyone was expecting the next iteration in the Game Boy family. But instead, Nintendo released a strange-looking silver clamshell console that you controlled with a stylus. Continue reading...

The ultimate multi-player has survived frat boy' slurs, a ropey film, one mega lawsuit, legions of change-averse puritans - and Mr T in a Night Elf Mohawk. As it hits 20, join us on a trip to the green hills of StranglehornIn 2004, Holly Longdale was a game designer on EverQuest, then the champion of a new genre of video game that allowed for multiplayer role-playing on a huge scale. In these online fantasy worlds, players could quest together rather than alone, adding a fascinating new social - and competitive - dimension to the static, offline role-playing that Holly's generation had grown up with. But whenever she could, Longdale would sneak in a few hours playing EverQuest's main competitor instead. That game was World of Warcraft (WoW).There were so many moments in WoW I was envious of," she says, and completely lost in. I remember running through Ashenvale as a Night Elf Hunter and the music and the ambience - there was a mood you couldn't deny. Then I saw another player running in the opposite direction, a Druid who buffed me on their way by. That was when I knew I was going to be in this for the long-haul." Twenty years later, Longdale is now WoW's VP and executive producer at its developer, Blizzard, as well as one of millions who embraced the game as part of their lives. Continue reading...

An interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse goes deep on the 40-year history of TetrisBelieve me when I say: I truly thought I knew the story of Tetris. The puzzle game's journey from behind the iron curtain in 1980s Moscow to multi-million-selling video game has been the subject of countless articles, a greatly entertaining book and a recent film. I have played Tetris in various forms for more than 30 years, from the Game Boy to the Nintendo Switch, even in VR. So when I loaded up Tetris Forever, an interactive documentary on Tetris's 40-year history from the developers-slash-archivists at Digital Eclipse, I wasn't expecting to learn anything new. I was proven very wrong.Did you know about Hatris, the 1990 Tetris follow-up that involved stacking colourful hats on top of heads? I did, vaguely, but I did not know about the semi-authorised twist on that game put out by Spectrum Holobyte the same year, a mildly horrifying swap-and-drop puzzler that had players stacking up mouths, noses and eyes to try to make human faces. They called it Faces...tris III, which suggests that whoever named it gave up halfway through. No wonder it wasn't a hit. I didn't know that Henk Rogers, the charismatic Dutch-American who played a huge part in turning Tetris into a global phenomenon, spent his student years surfing and diving in Hawaii before (his words) chasing a girl to Japan and coding the country's first bestselling RPG in 1984. Continue reading...

Musk and ex-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head up Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)

No reason given for departure of Nadhmi al-Nasr, longtime CEO of $500bn project launched by Mohammed bin SalmanNadhmi al-Nasr, the longtime chief executive of the $500bn Saudi development project Neom launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has departed, according to a Neom statement issued on Tuesday that did not give a reason for the departure.Prince Mohammed has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into development projects through the kingdom's PIF sovereign wealth fund. Continue reading...

Social media site accused of violating law that requires platforms to pay media when republishing articlesSeveral leading French newspapers have said they are suing the social media platform X, accusing it of running their content without payment.The joint action against the company run by the US billionaire Elon Musk is being led by several daily newspapers - Le Figaro, Les Echos, Le Parisien and Le Monde - and includes other titles such as the culture magazine Telerama, Courrier International, HuffPost, Malesherbes Publications and the Nouvel Obs news weekly. Continue reading...

This documentary follows the formation of the Amazon Labor Union, showing how difficult it is for workers working for a company determined to efface their rightsThe historic 2022 victory in getting union recognition for Amazon workers in a huge warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and the creation of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), is the subject of this candid and valuable film. It's another reminder that the kind of rights that the ALU secured - however reasonable and modest - are still precarious, have never been freely given and need to be fought for. The corporation in question is uniquely powerful, well aware that it operates in a world where people will cancel their Washington Post subscription but not their Amazon Prime membership.This documentary's hero is Christian Smalls, who deserves his own chapter in the history of the American labour movement, alongside Sylvia Woods and Cesar Chavez. Smalls was laid off from the Amazon fulfilment centre for objecting to poor safety protocols; he set about creating a union, with a lonely, cold vigil outside the warehouse, handing out leaflets, accepting support from well-wishers, doing media interviews. The pressure grew, and the dream of creating a union was theoretically possible because of the law that if 30% of the workforce require it, a vote on unionisation has to be taken. Amazon's workforce turnover means employees come and go and it is very difficult to get up to this point. But it was achieved, and a yes" majority secured - after which Amazon started a huge legal campaign to have that vote annulled. Continue reading...

Musk and Donald Trump propose a Department of Government Efficiency', crypto wins big in the election and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereHello, and welcome to TechScape. I'm Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. In this week's newsletter: Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to create a Department of Government Efficiency", crypto wins big across the board, and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok. Thank you for joining me.Trump, president-elect of the US, said he wants to appoint Musk, the world's richest man, as the country's secretary of cost-cutting" to reduce bureaucracy in the federal government by an order of $2tn, roughly a third. Trump announced in September that he would create a Department of Government Efficiency". Musk had pushed for the idea and has since relentlessly promoted it, emphasizing the acronym for the agency: Doge, a reference to a meme of an expressive Shiba Inu. Trump said the agency will be conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, and making recommendations for drastic reforms".The billionaire does not seem to be under illusions of what will happen after his proposed cuts. Continue reading...

Tycoon might help president-elect realise race for artificial general intelligence is a suicide race', says Max Tegmark

Collapsed cryptocurrency company says $1.8bn was fraudulently transferred' to Binance and its executivesThe collapsed cryptocurrency company FTX is suing Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao, alleging that $1.8bn was fraudulently transferred" by FTX management to Binance and its executives.The lawsuit relates to Binance's sale of its stake in Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX, which it acquired in 2019 but then negotiated to sell back to FTX in July 2021. Continue reading...

Four years after the PS5's release, Sony has now put out a more powerful version. But the asking price is steepThe PlayStation 5 Pro was announced in September, and immediately people reacted with disbelief to the price: 699/$699, without a disc drive. Adjusted for inflation, it is the second-most expensive games console ever released - beaten only by the PlayStation 3, whose price was quickly slashed when it turned out nobody was willing to work a second job to afford one. It's an addition to, rather than a replacement for, the original PS5 model. All games released so far work on the Pro, and all future PS5 games will work on both models.For your money, you get an upgraded GPU (graphics processing unit), which is overall 45% more powerful that the original PS5's; AI upscaling, which makes images more detailed; and advanced ray tracing, which makes the lighting better. In plain English, it's supposed to make all PS5 games prettier and faster. Continue reading...

A Dutch publisher has announced that it will use AI to translate some of its books - but those in the industry are worried about the consequences if this becomes the normAs anyone who has tried pointing their phone's camera at a menu in a foreign country lately will know, machine translation has improved rapidly since the first days of Google Translate. The utility of AI-powered translation in situations like this is unquestionable - but the proposed use of AI in literary translation has been significantly more controversial.Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning's announcement that it would use AI translation for commercial fiction has outraged both authors and translators - despite attempts to reassure them with promises that no books will be translated in this way without careful checking and that authors will have to give consent. Continue reading...

Experts say new government could blunt regulation and appoint officials sympathetic to Musk's brood of companiesDonald Trump owes his decisive 2024 presidential victory in no small part to the enthusiastic support of the world's richest man. In the months leading up to the election, Elon Musk put his full weight behind the Maga movement, advocated for Trump on major podcasts and used his influence over X to shape political discourse. Musk's America Pac injected nearly $120m into the former president's campaign.Now, Trump is looking to return the favor. Speaking with reporters last month, he said he would appoint Musk as secretary of cost-cutting". Musk, for his part, has joked he would be interested in serving as head of the Department of Government Efficiency" (Doge) with a stated goal of reducing government spending by $2tn. Practically speaking, experts say those cost cuts could result in deregulation and policy changes that would directly impact Musk's universe of companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink. Continue reading...

The world's richest man has risen to become the second most powerful man in US politics. None of it was accidentalAs Donald Trump watched election results roll in from a party at his Mar-a-Lago compound, Elon Musk sat arm's length away, basking in the impending victory he had helped secure. In less than five months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had gone from not endorsing a candidate to becoming a fixture of the president-elect's inner circle.The future is gonna be so ," Musk posted to his social media platform, X, just after midnight, along with a photo of himself leaning over to talk with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago dinner. Continue reading...

If Trump's re-election is getting you down, these innovations in medicine and technology should cheer you upIan Sample Continue reading...

The good news is, your phone isn't listening to you. But that's because your doorbell has already sold all your secretsThere's one battle my husband and I have fought ever since we started cohabiting: whether to allow smart" appliances in our home. He, an enthusiastic gadget fan, would happily connect all of our household goods to the internet so he could control them from his phone. I, a jaded tech journalist, am far too paranoid to surround myself with a bunch of data-guzzling surveillance machines.So I felt somewhat vindicated when I saw the latest story about a seemingly innocuous utensil apparently getting a bit too data-hungry. The consumer group Which? found that three air fryers it tested had connected phone apps that requested permission to record audio - not something you'd imagine to be a critical function for an object whose sole purpose is to cook food. The devices also wanted to know users' exact locations.Victoria Turk is a London-based journalist covering technology, culture and society Continue reading...

From subscribing to apps to who should foot the cost of nights out, it's worth getting your finances right

After distressing incidents', watchdog says content from user-made bots would be covered by UK Online Safety ActOfcom has warned tech firms that content from chatbots impersonating real and fictional people could fall foul of the UK's new digital laws.The communications regulator issued the guidance after it emerged that users on the Character.AI platform had created avatars mimicking the deceased British teenagers Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

X chief, who campaigned hard for Trump, spoke to Ukraine leader after being handed phone by president-electElon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive's role as the most influential civilian in the country come January.Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call. Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly. On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to AFP. Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said. Continue reading...

Car company's valuation saw sharp rally on growing bets CEO would reap the benefits of his support for president-electTesla's market value breached the $1tn mark in a sharp rally on Friday, on growing bets of a favorable treatment for CEO Elon Musk's companies in return for his support for President-elect Donald Trump in his poll campaign.The electric automaker's shares rose more than 6% to a more than two-year high of $315.56, after having gained 19.3% up to Thursday's close. The company crossed the $1tn valuation for the first time in more than two years. Continue reading...

Instant boom enjoyed by some sectors belies complex decisions to be made on AI, monopolies and social mediaWhen the US election result pushed shares in the artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia to a record high and did the same to the price of bitcoin cryptocurrency, the market gave its verdict on what Trump redux means for at least parts of the technology world: a boom.Stock in the electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla surged by nearly 15%, which must have cheered its boss, Elon Musk, whom Trump called a super genius" on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Chip, memory, battery and power upgrades add to laptop's appeal along with new webcam and Apple IntelligenceApple's upgraded MacBook Pro for 2024 gets a significant power boost with the M4 chip, double the memory as standard, even longer battery life and a price cut, ending the year on a high.The longstanding laptop line now starts at 1,599 (1,899/$1,599/A$2,499), making it 100 or so cheaper than last year's M3 models. Though still an expensive, premium laptop, it comes with at least 16GB of RAM rather than 8GB, which was an upgrade worth paying extra for on previous models.Screen: 14.2in mini LED (3024x1964; 254 ppi) ProMotion (120Hz)Processor: Apple M4, Pro or MaxRAM: 16, 24, 32 or up to 128GBStorage: 512GB, 1, 2, 4 or 8TB SSDOperating system: macOS 15.1 SequoiaCamera: 12MP Centre StageConnectivity: wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 3x Thunderbolt 4/USB 4, HDMI 2.1, SD card, headphonesDimensions: 221.2 x 312.6 x 15.5mmWeight: 1.55kg Continue reading...

Tech elites scored local and national wins after backing Donald Trump and conservative California ballot measures

Americans will be stuck cleaning up after Maga's destructive streak because men like this never clean up after themselvesOur mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do. Our mistake was to see the joy, the extraordinary balance between idealism and pragmatism, the energy, the generosity, the coalition-building of the Kamala Harris campaign and think that it must triumph over the politics of lies and resentment. Our mistake was to think that racism and misogyny were not as bad as they are, whether it applied to who was willing to vote for a supremely qualified Black woman or who was willing to vote for an adjudicated rapist and convicted criminal who admires Hitler. Our mistake was to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it.We knew what the problems were, and we wanted to fix them. The principal problems that got us to this bleakest moment in American history are intertwined. They are the crisis of masculinity, the failure of the mainstream news media and the rise of Silicon Valley, and in a way they are all the same problem. Continue reading...