Technology | The Guardian

The AI startup has upended the industry by developing a model that costs much less to produce - and is available free to a universe of tinkerersNothing cheers up a tech columnist more than the sight of $600bn being wiped off the market cap of an overvalued tech giant in a single day. And yet last Monday that's what happened to Nvidia, the leading maker of electronic picks and shovels for the AI gold rush. It was the biggest one-day slump for any company in history, and it was not alone - shares of companies in semiconductor, power and infrastructure industries exposed to AI collectively shed more than $1tn in value on the same day.The proximate cause of this chaos was the news that a Chinese tech startup of whom few had hitherto heard had released DeepSeek R1, a powerful AI assistant that was much cheaper to train and operate than the dominant models of the US tech giants - and yet was comparable in competence to OpenAI's o1 reasoning" model. Just to illustrate the difference: R1 was said to have cost only $5.58m to build, which is small change compared with the billions that OpenAI and co have spent on their models; and R1 is about 15 times more efficient (in terms of resource use) than anything comparable made by Meta. Continue reading...

James Florence, 36, agreed to plead guilty after using victim's information to guide chatbots in impersonationA man from Massachusetts has agreed to plead guilty to a seven-year cyberstalking campaign that included using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots to impersonate a university professor and invite men online to her home address for sex.James Florence, 36, used platforms such as CrushOn.ai and JanitorAI, which allow users to design their own chatbots and direct them how to respond to other users during chats, including in sexually suggestive and explicit ways, according to court documents seen by the Guardian. The victim's identity has been kept confidential by law enforcement officials. Continue reading...

Chatbots we tested can write a mean sonnet and struggled with images of clocks, but vary in willingness to talk politicsChatGPT and its owners must have hoped it was a hallucination.But DeepSeek is very real. Continue reading...

Experts say use of groups to warn others about dangerous men is indictment on governments' failure to keep women safeAny info on Chris* please? Thanks." The words in a Facebook post, above three pictures of a man. In the comments, a woman replies: He was also posted a few days ago by someone."Further down, a second woman replies: I'm shaking, I'm his fiancee." Continue reading...

Francesco Cancellato, whose reporting exposes fascists within PM Meloni's far-right party, condemns violation'An Italian investigative journalist who is known for exposing young fascists within prime minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right party was targeted with spyware made by Israel-based Paragon Solutions, according to a WhatsApp notification received by the journalist.Francesco Cancellato, the editor-in-chief of the Italian investigative news outlet Fanpage, was the first person to come forward publicly after WhatsApp announced on Friday that 90 journalists and other members of civil society had been targeted by the spyware. Continue reading...

Move to issue 03-mini model follows sudden arrival of much cheaper Chinese rival DeepSeek's R1OpenAI is releasing a new artificial intelligence model for free, after the company said it would speed up product releases in response to the emergence of a Chinese rival.The startup behind ChatGPT is issuing the AI, called o3-mini, after the surprise success of a rival product by China's DeepSeek. It will be available without charge - albeit with usage limits - to people who use the free version of OpenAI's chatbot. Continue reading...

Messaging app said it had high confidence' some users were targeted and possibly compromised' by Paragon Solutions spywareNearly 100 journalists and other members of civil society using WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Meta, were targeted by spyware owned by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli maker of hacking software, the company alleged on Friday.The journalists and other civil society members were being alerted of a possible breach of their devices, with WhatsApp telling the Guardian it had high confidence" that the 90 users in question had been targeted and possibly compromised". Continue reading...

If China has done to Sam Altman what his OpenAI has been accused of doing to creatives, it would take a heart of stone not to laughI once saw an episode of America's Dumbest Criminals where a man called the cops to report his car stolen, only for it to turn out he'd stolen it from someone else in the first place. I couldn't help thinking of him this week while watching OpenAI's Sam Altman wet his pants about the fact that a Chinese hedge fund might have made unauthorised use of his own chatbot models, including ChatGPT, to train its new little side project. This is the cheaper, more open, extremely share-price-slashing DeepSeek.As news of DeepSeek played havoc with the tech stock market, OpenAI pressed its hanky to its nose and released a statement: We are aware of and reviewing indications that DeepSeek may have inappropriately distilled our models, and will share information as we know more," this ran. We take aggressive, proactive countermeasures to protect our technology." Oooooooooh! I want to say welcome to America's Dumbest Tech Barons", except I can't, because I think we all know that no law enforcement is coming to get Sam for the stuff he's alleged to have made unauthorised use of first. That was the good type of alleged theft, whatever the claims of all the lawsuits belatedly trying to claw something back for the alleged copyright victims of his firm's own inappropriate methods.Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

It's bizarre that a game featuring Hitler and Mussolini on their rise to power feels comforting, but here at least it is entirely permitted - indeed encouraged - to beat up NazisI have played many games that have great openings. Final Fantasy VII puts you in the middle of a raid. Mass Effect 2 introduces you to a world, then immediately destroys it. Sonic the Hedgehog bombards you with impossibly fast objects hurtling through a world of colourful danger.I have never played a game in my life that starts by telling you not to be a Nazi. But that's what greeted me when I played Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Before a single artefact was raided, before a whip was cracked, before you even see lead actor Troy Baker doing his best Harrison Ford impression in next generation graphics (amazing!), comes this warning: Continue reading...

In contrast to the current crop of swaggering tech bros, the Microsoft founder comes across as wry and self-deprecating in this memoir of starting outBill Gates is the John McEnroe of the tech world: once a snotty brat whom everyone loved to hate, now grown up into a beloved elder statesman. Former rivals, most notably Apple's Steve Jobs, have since departed this dimension, while theGates Foundation, focusing on unsexybut important technologies such as malaria nets, was doing effective altruism" long before that became a fashionable term among philosophically minded tech bros.

Using thermogalvanic technology as cooling mechanism may significantly reduce power usage, research saysA novel use of technology could make refrigerators cheaper and more environmentally friendly, according to a report.Domestic refrigerators and freezers consumed close to 4% of global electricity in 2019, according to one estimate, so an innovation that significantly reduces their power usage would not be insignificant. Continue reading...

Investors pay close attention to tech company's foray into AI after Apple Intelligence's glitches and inaccuraciesApple slightly beat analysts' expectations in its first-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2025 on Thursday. The iPhone-maker's revenue rose by 4%, coming in at $124.30bn, barely above estimates of $124.12bn. Earnings per share were $2.40, just ahead of analysts' expectations of $2.35.Shares rose more than 8% in extended trading after Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, indicated in an earnings call on Thursday that the company was on the trajectory for revenue growth next quarter. Continue reading...

Rachel Mason's three-part documentary about parents who put their lives online to make big money asks questions about entitlement, child safety, relationships with followers and moreThose of you who already feel that the world is too much would be best advised to stay well away from all three parts of the documentary An Update on Our Family. The family in question are the Stauffers - married couple Myka and James and their children - who were, until very recently, colossally successful family vloggers.Director Rachel Mason's series starts slowly, spending most of the first hour introducing the uninitiated to the world of YouTubers who specialise in filling their channels with videos of their gorgeous homes, gorgeous children and perfect lives, and to the fans who glom on to these affectless yet somehow intimate and generally wildly aspirational portraits of domestic bliss. I was literally a part of their life every day," says former devotee Hannah Cho. She and around 700,000 subscribers to The Stauffer Life channel watched as Myka revealed positive pregnancy tests, had babies, a miscarriage, gave house cleaning tips, appraisals of her post-partum body and altogether so much desirable content that she began to accumulate sponsorship deals and the family's videos became the family's (very) lucrative business. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox, PC (version played); Jump Over The Age/Fellow Traveller

Reported move would make Japanese group largest financial backer of US startup behind ChatGPT

Settlement originates from lawsuit by president against the platform, one of several filed after 6 January violenceMeta has agreed to pay $25m to settle a lawsuit with Donald Trump. The suit originated in 2021 when Trump sued the social media company for suspending his accounts after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The settlement was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and has been confirmed by a Meta spokesperson.The majority of the settlement, $22m, will go toward a fund to pay for Trump's presidential library, according to the Wall Street Journal. The remainder will pay for legal fees and go to other plaintiffs listed in the case. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg tells analysts this is going to be a really big year' as company sees quarterly revenues of $48.39bnAfter an unprecedented delay, Meta reported earnings more than half an hour after market close on Wednesday. The company posted $48.39bn in fourth-quarter revenue and earnings per share of $8.02, handily beating Wall Street projections of $46.9bn and $6.75 in earnings-per-share.We continue to make good progress on AI, glasses and the future of social media," said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO. I'm excited to see these efforts scale further in 2025." Continue reading...

Despite disappointing sales and delivery figures, the company's stock price has doubled in the past yearTesla reported earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024 on Wednesday after US stock markets closed, capping a bruising year for the company's sales but a stellar one for its stock price.The car company reported $0.73 per share and $25.71bn in revenue, slightly below Wall Street analysts predictions of revenue coming in at $27.22bn. Profit also declined year-over-year. Continue reading...

Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations as questions over multibillion-dollar spending on AI mountMicrosoft reported its second-quarter earnings for fiscal year 2025 on Wednesday, beating market expectations even as questions over multibillion-dollar spending on artificial intelligence continue to mount, spurred by DeepSeek's shock to the US stock market just days ago.The tech giant reported earnings per share of $3.23, an increase of 10% on a year earlier, and revenue of $69.6bn, an increase of 12%. Wall Street had expected $3.11 a share from revenue of $68.9bn. Continue reading...

Italian and Irish regulators want answers on how data harvested by chatbot could be used by Chinese governmentThe Chinese AI platform DeepSeek has become unavailable for download from some app stores in Italy as regulators in Rome and in Ireland demanded answers from the company about its handling of citizens' data.Amid growing concern on Wednesday about how data harvested by the new chatbot could be used by the Chinese government, the app disappeared from the Apple and Google app stores in Italy with customers seeing messages that said it was currently not available in the country or area you are in" for Apple and the download was not supported" for Google, Reuters reported. Continue reading...

ChatGPT creator warns Chinese startups are constantly' using its technology to develop competing productsOpenAI has warned that Chinese startups are constantly" using its technology to develop competing products and said it is reviewing" allegations that DeepSeek used the ChatGPT maker's AI models to create a rival chatbot.OpenAI and its partner Microsoft - which has invested $13bn in the San Francisco-based AI developer - have been investigating whether proprietary technology had been obtained in an unauthorised manner through a technique known as distillation". Continue reading...

Ahead of a new digital archive of video game history, I got to thinking about how the games, magazines and other material says as much about the player as the games themselvesI just finished writing a feature about the Video Game History Foundation in Oakland, California, and how it is preparing to share its digital archive of games magazines. From 30 January, you'll be able to visit the institute's website and explore a collection of about 1,500 publications from throughout the history of games, all scanned in high detail, all searchable for keywords. It's a magnificent resource for researchers and those who just want to find the first-ever review of Tetris or Pokemon. I can't wait to visit.While researching the article, I spoke to John O'Shea and Ann Wain from the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield, which is also collecting games mags and other printed ephemera. They said something that really fascinated me. The museum is looking for donations to build its archive, but its focus is not so much on the magazines themselves, but on who brings them in. We're particularly interested in fan perspectives," O'Shea told me. We're not intending to develop an exhaustive collection of every video game magazine ever made - we're interested in the full suite of an individual's video game experience ... in how games connect to their lives." Wain continued: We're interested in the stories of why - why did they collect these particular things, what were they looking for? It's that kind of social context we're after." Continue reading...

Wide-ranging investigation says impact on work likely to be profound, but opinion on risk of human extinction variesThe International AI Safety report is a wide-ranging document that acknowledges an array of challenges posed by a technology that is advancing at dizzying speed.The document, commissioned after the 2023 global AI safety summit, covers numerous threats from deepfakes to aiding cyberattacks and the use of biological weapons, as well as the impact on jobs and the environment. Continue reading...

Our reviewer sheds some light on adding brightness to your mornings with the best dawn simulation alarms, from Lumie and Philips to Hatch The best sleep aids recommended by experts: from blue light-blockers to apps to help you napTo wake each day in darkness is a plight you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, yet that's what many of us do routinely throughout winter. Getting up in the dark decouples our life from our circadian rhythm (our body clock), with bodily processes such as cognition and metabolism put to work before they're fully prepped.Thank heavens, then, for sunrise alarm clocks. These dawn simulation" devices glow with gradually intensifying brightness as your wake-up time approaches, kickstarting your circadian rhythm before you get out of bed. For many users, this results in a happier, healthier start to the day.Best overall sunrise alarm clock:

The industry's liberal reputation is misleading. Its reactionary tendencies - celebrating wealth, power and traditional masculinity - have been clear since the dotcom mania of the 1990sAn influential Silicon Valley publication runs a cover story lamenting the pussification" of tech. A major tech CEO lambasts a Black civil rights leader's calls for diversifying the tech workforce. Technologists rage against the PC police".No, this isn't Silicon Valley in the age of Maga. It's the tech industry of the 1990s, when observers first raised concerns about the rightwing bend of Silicon Valley and the potential for technofascism". Despite the industry's (often undeserved) reputation for liberalism, its reactionary foundations were baked in almost from the beginning. As Silicon Valley enters a second Trump administration, the gendered roots of its original reactionary movement offer insight into today's rightward turn. Continue reading...

Audit watchdog finds 58 critical IT systems assessed in 2024 had significant gaps in cyber-resilience'The threat of potentially devastating cyber-attacks against UK government departments is severe and advancing quickly", with dozens of critical IT systems vulnerable to an expected regular pattern of significant strikes, ministers have been warned.The National Audit Office (NAO) found that 58 critical government IT systems independently assessed in 2024 had significant gaps in cyber-resilience", and the government did not know how vulnerable at least 228 ageing and outdated legacy" IT systems were to cyber-attack. The NAO did not name the systems for fear of helping attackers choose targets. Continue reading...

Depending on version downloaded, app approaches its answers with preamble of reasoning that it then erases

As the TikTok ban hangs in the air, the US investigates the security implications of another mega-popular Chinese app

Steven Adler expresses concern industry taking very risky gamble' and raises doubts about future of humanityA former safety researcher at OpenAI says he is pretty terrified" about the pace of development in artificial intelligence, warning the industry is taking a very risky gamble" on the technology.Steven Adler expressed concerns about companies seeking to rapidly develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), a theoretical term referring to systems that match or exceed humans at any intellectual task. Continue reading...

UK officials say they are monitoring any national security threat to data from the new AIExperts have urged caution over rapidly embracing the Chinese artificial intelligence platform DeepSeek, citing concerns about it spreading misinformation and how the Chinese state might exploit users' data.The government said its use was a personal choice for citizens, but officials were monitoring any national security threat to data from the new AI and said they would not hesitate to take action if threats emerged.The new low-cost AI wiped $1tn off the leading US tech stock index this week and it rapidly became the most downloaded free app in the UK and the US. Donald Trump called it a wake-up call" for tech firms. Continue reading...

Nvidia saw $600bn of its market value disappear, while its CEO, Jensen Huang, saw his net worth drop by nearly $21bn

Ditch the squeegee and upgrade to crystal-clear results with our tried-and-tested cordless window vacuums, from Karcher to Tower The best robot vacuums to keep your home clean and dust freeThey may sound similar but window vacuums aren't like regular vacuum cleaners - you can't wave one across your windows and watch the dirt leap in. That's because window vacs don't combat dust, but instead suck up water.These handy gadgets lift excess moisture off windows and collect it in their water tanks. This makes them particularly useful in places prone to condensation and to help combat damp problems, such as black mould and rotting woodwork. They can also suck up the water after you've washed your windows or remove moisture from the shower and mirrors in a busy family bathroom.Best overall window vacuum:

The US was widely considered the leader in AI, but a Chinese startup has called that dominance into questionHello, and welcome back to TechScape. There was a lot of news last week. To run it down in an expedient fashion: Donald Trump, Sam Altman, Masayoshi Son and Larry Ellison announced a $500bn initiative to expand infrastructure supporting artificial intelligence dubbed Stargate. On its heels came a press release from Meta vowing to expand its capital expenditure to $65bn in the coming year to expand its data centers. Continue reading...

Tech firm to make change in line with Trump's executive order, using both names in world outside US and MexicoGoogle has confirmed it will rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on Google Maps in the US, after an executive order from Donald Trump.It will remain the Gulf of Mexico in Mexico, while users outside of the US and Mexico will see both names on Google Maps. The Alaskan peak Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, will also be changed to Mount McKinley in the US in line with Trump's executive order on 20 January.Reuters contributed to this report Continue reading...

As the Video Game History Foundation opens a new digitised archive, what can titles like Crash, Mega, Edge and GamesMaster tell us about the early days of gaming?Before the internet, if you were an avid gamer then you were very likely to be an avid reader of games magazines. From the early 1980s, the likes of Crash, Mega, PC Gamer and the Official PlayStation Magazine were your connection with the industry, providing news, reviews and interviews as well as lively letters pages that fostered a sense of community. Very rarely, however, did anyone keep hold of their magazine collections. Lacking the cultural gravitas of music or movie publications, they were mostly thrown away. While working at Future Publishing as a games journalist in the 1990s, I watched many times as hundreds of old issues of SuperPlay, Edge and GamesMaster were tipped into skips for pulping. I feel queasy just thinking about it.Because now, of course, I and thousands of other video game veterans have realised these magazines are a vital historical resource as well as a source of nostalgic joy. Surviving copies of classic mags are selling at a vast premium on eBay, and while the Internet Archive does contain patchy collections of scanned magazines, it is vulnerable to legal challenges from copyright holders. Continue reading...

Emergence of cheaper Chinese rival has wiped $1tn off the value of leading US tech companies

The AI app soared up the Apple charts and rocked US stocks, but the Chinese chatbot was reluctant to discuss sensitive questions about China and its governmentThe launch of a new chatbot by Chinese artificial intelligence firm DeepSeek triggered a plunge in US tech stocks as it appeared to perform as well as OpenAI's ChatGPT and other AI models, but using fewer resources.By Monday, DeepSeek's AI assistant had rapidly overtaken ChatGPT as the most popular free app in Apple's US and UK app stores. Despite its popularity with international users, the app appears to censor answers to sensitive questions about China and its government.What happened on June 4, 1989 at Tiananmen Square?What happened to Hu Jintao in 2022?Why is Xi Jinping compared to Winnie-the-Pooh?What was the Umbrella Revolution? Continue reading...

The new Chinese AI that rivals US big tech at a fraction of the cost has seen its popularity soar. However, despite its appeal to international users, the app appears to censor answers to sensitive questions about China and its government

Phone calls can be inconvenient, stressful or actively unpleasant - especially if you're part of my generation. At 27, can I survive seven days without texts or group chats? And will I still have a social life at the end?In the listless early weeks of January - my resolutions for self-improvement already gone to the dogs - I was asked to conduct an experiment that those in my life who are over 40 deemed lovely", and everyone else regarded with unbridled horror: I was asked to spend a week picking up the phone and calling people rather than texting.What a cakewalk, you say. Not quite, say those aged 18 to 34 - 61% of whom prefer a text to a call, and 23% of whom never bother answering, according to a Uswitch survey last year. Such is the pervasiveness of phone call anxiety that a college in Nottingham recently launched coaching sessions for teenagers with telephobia", and a 2024 survey of 2,000 UK office workers found that more than 40% of them had avoided answering a work call in the previous 12 months because of anxiety. Continue reading...

US president says he would like to see a bidding war over app, owned by China's ByteDance, that has been focus of national security concernsDonald Trump has suggested that Microsoft is in talks to acquire TikTok and that he would like to see a bidding war over the app.When asked if Microsoft was in talks to buy the app, the US president said I would say yes", adding A lot of interest in TikTok. There's great interest in TikTok." Continue reading...

Trump calls emergence of DeepSeek a wake-up call' amid doubts about sustainability of western artificial intelligence boom

Charity set up after 14-year-old's death concerned as Zuckerberg realigns company with Trump administrationMark Zuckerberg's move to change Meta's content moderation policies risks pushing social media platforms back to the days before the teenager Molly Russell took her own life after viewing thousands of Instagram posts about suicide and self-harm, campaigners have claimed.The Molly Rose Foundation, set up after the 14-year-old's death in November 2017, is now calling on the UK regulator, Ofcom, to urgently strengthen" its approach to the platforms. Earlier this month, Meta announced changes to the way it vets content on platforms used by billions of people as Zuckerberg realigned the company with the Trump administration. Continue reading...

Attack forces Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations as app becomes highest rated free app in USDeepSeek said its newly popular app was hit with a cyber-attack on Monday, which forced the Chinese company to temporarily limit registrations. The attack came after the DeepSeek AI assistant app skyrocketed to the top of Apple's App Store, becoming the highest rated free app in the US, and climbed high in Google's Play Store.On its status page, DeepSeek said it started to investigate the issue late Monday night Beijing time. After about two hours of monitoring, the company said it was the victim of a large-scale malicious attack". While DeepSeek limited registrations, existing users were still able to log on as usual. The app is now allowing registrations again. Continue reading...

Elon Musk's company still imports large number of cars into Europe from its Shanghai factoryTesla has filed a complaint against the European Commission after the imposition of tariffs by the bloc on its Chinese-made electric vehicles.The EU announced its decision to impose tariffs on all imports of Chinese electric cars in June, alleging that the Chinese government had provided unfair state subsidies to manufacturers in order to win a dominant position in the emerging industry. EU leaders approved the tariffs in October. Continue reading...

I'm obsessed with the fantasy of fixing up a midcentury house - and furious at the people who've painted them white

We'd like to hear from people in the US about their experiences of TikTok following the president pausing the ban of the appTikTok users in the US prepared themselves for a ban that was due to take effect on 19 January. However, following an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension signed by Donald Trump, users now find themselves in new territory.For those in the US wanting to download the app on their phones, the social media platform is unavailable in app stores, however those who already have it on their phones can continue to use it, for now. Continue reading...

Apple and Google cautious about Trump order amid rumours Oracle founder Larry Ellison could buy site

From exhilarating driving through the British countryside to an action romp with ancient Greek gods - Microsoft's console duo has built a players' treasure chestIt was November 2020 when Microsoft launched its latest console duo into the rapidly evolving gaming marketplace. Over four years later, the Xbox Series X - together with its more budget-friendly counterpart, the Series S - has amassed an impressive and varied library of games, ranging from sprawling open-world blockbusters to intimate indie puzzlers. If you're just getting started with the console, here are 15 games that represent the variety on offer, each one interesting, enjoyable and rewarding in its own right. Continue reading...

White mail system handles highly sensitive personal data' and people not told it is processing their information

Exclusive: Pilots for staff training, jobcentres and speeding up disability benefit payments not being taken up