Technology | The Guardian

Plan represents move away from SoftBank-owned group licensing its chip blueprints to firms such as Apple and NvidiaThe British semiconductor designer Arm is reportedly planning to launch its own chip this year, after landing Meta as one of its first customers.The move represents a major overhaul of the SoftBank-owned group's business model of licensing its chip blueprints to the likes of Apple and Nvidia. Continue reading...

A blind audition, a fruitful collaboration, a tense creative fallout: composer Jack Wall's journey through the Mass Effect universe was as epic as the player'sMass Effect is some of the best science fiction ever made. That may sound like a grandiose comment, but it's true. As a trilogy, the original games from 2007-2013 effortlessly plucked the most cerebral ideas from the sci-fi genre and slotted them into a memorable military role-playing game that had players invested from beginning to controversial end.Whether you prefer the hopeful, optimistic outlook of Asimov, the dark and reflective commentary of Shelley, the accessible thought experiments of Star Trek, or the arch melodrama of Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect has it all. The trilogy is as happy grazing on the western-inspired tropes of Star Wars as the hard" sci-fi of Iain M Banks, blending all its moods and micro-stories into a compelling, believable galaxy that somehow walks a line between breathless optimism and suffocating bleakness. Continue reading...

Chinese social media platform again available for download in US as Donald Trump continues to mull its future there amid security concernsTikTok returned to the US app stores of Apple and Google on Thursday as President Donald Trump delayed a ban on the Chinese-owned social media app and assured the tech giants they would not be fined for distributing or maintaining it.The popular short video app used by nearly half of all Americans went dark briefly last month, before a law took effect on 19 January that requires its Chinese owner ByteDance either to sell it on national security grounds or face a ban. Continue reading...

About 200 drivers got in touch with the Guardian to share their views on the industrial actionWhen Simon Waite began working as a private hire driver in 2017, it gave him the flexibility and income to spend time with his children, then aged five, 12 and 18. One of the reasons I loved Uber was because I could now go to the school plays, my son's football, I could earn my money around life," he says.But over the past few years, Waite, a 41-year-old in Hertfordshire, says he has to spend dramatically more time on the road to earn a living. To make 1,000 a week a couple of years ago it took about 50 hours, he says, whereas now it's about 70 hours - with most drivers needing to pay insurance, tax, vehicle fees and upkeep, fuel, licenses, rent, bills and living costs. Continue reading...

AI Action Summit ends with US vice-president criticising European regulation and warning against cooperation with ChinaPolitical and business leaders descended on Paris this week for the third annual artificial intelligence summit with the technology causing tensions across the globe.Emmanuel Macron, who opened the summit with a montage of deepfakes of himself, acknowledged AI's potential to disrupt". A day later, the schism threatened by the rapidly developing technology was apparent. Continue reading...

Billionaire's lawyers say offer will be withdrawn if firm he helped found a decade ago preserves the charity's mission'Elon Musk says he will abandon his $97.4bn offer to buy the non-profit behind OpenAI if the ChatGPT maker drops its plan to convert into a for-profit company.If OpenAI, Inc's Board is prepared to preserve the charity's mission and stipulate to take the for sale' sign off its assets by halting its conversion, Musk will withdraw the bid," lawyers for the billionaire said in a filing to a California court on Wednesday. Otherwise, the charity must be compensated by what an arms-length buyer will pay for its assets." Continue reading...

Short film falsely depicts actor and other Jewish celebrities opposing recent antisemitic remarks from pop starScarlett Johansson has warned of the imminent dangers of AI" after a deepfake video of her and other prominent Jewish celebrities opposing recent antisemitic remarks from Kanye West went viral this week.The video contained AI-generated versions of more than a dozen celebrities, including Johansson, David Schwimmer, Jerry Seinfeld, Drake, Adam Sandler, Stephen Spielberg, and Mila Kunis. Continue reading...

Earlier procurement forecast had suggested Elon Musk's company would be a beneficiary of planned purchasesThe US Department of State has removed the name Tesla" from a list of planned purchases, after an earlier version of the list said it would spend $400m buying new electric armoured vehicles, even as the carmaker's boss, Elon Musk, leads efforts to slash government spending under Donald Trump.A procurement forecast produced by the department showed the $400m (320m) proposed spending on armoured Tesla (production units)" in December. The most likely Tesla model was the Cybertruck, the company's electric pickup, given Musk's claims that the vehicle is bulletproof. Continue reading...

Xbox, PC; Obsidian Entertainment/Microsoft

Eric Schmidt fears terrorist groups or countries such as North Korea, Iran or Russia may use AI to develop weaponsGoogle's former chief executive has warned that artificial intelligence could be used by rogue states such as North Korea, Iran and Russia to harm innocent people".Eric Schmidt, who held senior posts at Google from 2001 to 2017, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that those countries and terrorists could adopt and misuse the technology to develop weapons to create a bad biological attack from some evil person". Continue reading...

RPG Maker was launched in 1992 and has become increasingly complex, but it's still a remarkably accessible way to make adventure games with no development experienceIt is said that every 100 years, a small fishing village on the southern coast of an unknown fantasy realm holds a magical artisanal cheese festival. As an adventurer and fan of ethically produced dairy products, you are determined to attend the fabled event, arriving at the dock on a small boat with only a few gold coins and a dream. This is the backdrop to the worst role-playing adventure I have ever experienced - and, entirely coincidentally, the only one I have ever designed.The game creation package RPG Maker has been around since 1992, the first version launching on the Japanese PC-98 computer. Since then, development has been passed from veteran software publisher ASCII to Enterbrain and then Chiyoda-based Gotcha Gotcha Games, and dozens of instalments have appeared. Although it has become increasingly complex over the years, RPG Maker remains a remarkably intuitive way to make adventure games with no development experience at all. Continue reading...

Match Group has known since 2016 about abusive users on its dozen dating apps, but leaves millions of people in the darkThe Dating Apps Reporting Project is an 18-month investigation. It was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center's AI Accountability Network and the Markup, now a part of CalMatters, and co-published with the Guardian and the 19th.When a young woman in Denver met up with a smiling cardiologist she matched with on the dating app Hinge, she had no way of knowing that the company behind the app had already received reports from two other women who had accused him of rape. Continue reading...

President brought suit under X's previous leadership after he was banned from platform following January 6 eventsElon Musk's social media platform X will pay Donald Trump $10m to settle a lawsuit the president filed after he was banned from the platform following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a report.The lawsuit was filed against X under the leadership of its previous CEO, Jack Dorsey. After Musk purchased X, reinstated Trump's account, began developing a relationship with the president and spent $250m on his re-election campaign, Trump's legal team considered abandoning the lawsuit, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the case. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Google executives gave employees details on dropping the company's promise against weaponized AI and nixing diversity goalsGoogle's executives gave details on Wednesday on how the tech giant will sunset its diversity initiatives and defended dropping its pledge against building artificial intelligence for weaponry and surveillance in an all-staff meeting.Melonie Parker, Google's former head of diversity, said the company was doing away with its diversity and inclusion employee training programs and updating" broader training programs that have DEI content". It was the first time company executives have addressed the whole staff since Google announced it would no longer follow hiring goals for diversity and took down its pledge not to build militarized AI. The chief legal officer, Kent Walker, said a lot had changed since Google first introduced its AI principles in 2018, which explicitly stated Google would not build AI for harmful purposes. He said it would be good for society" for the company to be part of evolving geopolitical discussions in response to a question about why the company removed prohibitions against building AI for weapons and surveillance. Continue reading...

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has reached 1.5 million gamers around the world - yet its developers have labelled it a disappointment. With unfair expectations, it's the niche and left-field titles that will sufferBack in 2013, having bought the series from Eidos, Square Enix released a reboot of the hit 1990s action game Tomb Raider starring a significantly less objectified Lara Croft. I loved that game, despite a quasi-assault scene near the beginning that I would later come to view as a bit icky, and I wasn't the only one - it was extremely well received, selling 3.4m copies in its first month alone. Then Square Enix came out and called it a disappointment.Sales did not meet the publisher's expectations, apparently, which raises the question: what were the expectations? Was it supposed to sell 5m in one month? If a book sells 10,000 copies in a week it's considered a bestseller. Even at the height of its popularity in the 90s, no Tomb Raider game ever sold more than a few million. Square Enix's expectations were clearly unrealistic. It wouldn't be the last time; in a 2016 interview with Hajime Tabata, Final Fantasy XV's director, he told me that game needed to sell 10m to succeed. Continue reading...

Voice actors demanding compensation when AI generates performances from their work have taken industrial action since JulyWhen Harrison Ford spoke to the Wall Street Journal last week, praising the performance of voice actor Troy Baker in the recent video game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, he was doing much more than recognising a great impression of himself. You don't need artificial intelligence to steal my soul," he told the paper. You can already do it for nickels and dimes with good ideas and talent. [Baker] did a brilliant job, and it didn't take AI to do it."Video game performers in the SAG-AFTRA union have been on strike since July, the major issue being the use of generative AI in the games industry. The union wants members to be compensated when AI performances are generated from their work, and demands consent and transparency around Gen AI technology. Major video game publishers such as Activision Blizzard, Disney, Warner Bros and Electronic Arts are involved in the dispute, and several recent titles including Destiny 2: Heresy and Genshin Impact have been affected, with English-language voice performances missing. AI voice synthesis is being touted as a means of cutting costs in an industry where game budgets are spiralling, but such technologies imperil actors' livelihoods while relying on their work to seed virtual performances. Plus, the budgetary benefits of the tech are still in question. Continue reading...

Tech firms must invest in and respect the people who filter social media and label the data that AI relies on

My heart says he is settling scores and making mischief. My head fears Trump might like an ally controlling the key AI companyElon Musk and Sam Altman aren't exactly the best of friends. The two had a blowout argument over the future direction of OpenAI - the company they came together to found in 2015 - with Altman seemingly content to pursue a for-profit approach and Musk feeling that was forswearing the founding principles of the firm as well as its name. OpenAI couldn't be open, he reckoned, if it was closed off and trying to make money rather than better humanity.So it's no surprise that Musk, who lodged an audacious bid to take over Twitter a little more than two years ago, which ended up with his ownership of the platform now called X, has sought to put a spoiler in two years of near-untrammelled growth for OpenAI. Continue reading...

Better fit, great sound, noise cancelling, longer battery life and heart rate sensors upgrade just about everythingAfter five years, Apple is back with a full revamp of the earbuds that put its Beats headphones brand on the map for athletes and sports people: the Powerbeats Pro 2.Designed to hook on to the ear and stay put without wires, the original Powerbeats Pro were the best earbuds for working out and were worn by sports superstars including LeBron James and Anthony Joshua. Continue reading...

Collaboration and opportunity were at the centre of the talks, as JD Vance urged his European friends' to view the technology with optimism rather than trepidation'. The US and the UK refused to sign a declaration on inclusive and sustainable' artificial intelligence at the summit. Campaign groups criticised the UK's decision and said it risked damaging its reputation in this area

Company says listed holidays were not sustainable' for its model as tech firms roll back diversity effortsGoogle's online and mobile calendars are no longer including references to Black History Month, Women's History Month and LGBTQ+ holidays, among other events.The world's biggest search engine previously marked the beginning of Black History Month in February and Pride Month in June, but the events do not appear for 2025. Continue reading...

Confirmation of snub comes after JD Vance criticises Europe's excessive regulation' of technologyThe US and the UK have refused to sign a declaration on inclusive and sustainable" artificial intelligence at a landmark Paris summit, in a blow to hopes for a concerted approach to developing and regulating the technology.The communique states that priorities include ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all" and making AI sustainable for people and the planet". Continue reading...

Musk raids a dizzying swath of agencies with the goal of slashing waste and fraud' as the two deploy brinkmanshipHello, and welcome back to TechScape. This week in tech: Elon Musk and Donald Trump flood the zone and deploy brinkmanship as a negotiating tactic; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement learns search engine optimization amid arrests and deportations; and Spotify tries to soften its algorithmic image with human-centric public relations. Thank you for reading. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Beeban Kidron says plans will lead to wholesale' transfer of wealth from creative industries to tech sector

Meta once invested millions and attracted top talent as tech's leader in corporate diversity. After those aspirations peaked in 2019, the company scuttled them altogetherIn 2019, Facebook set a goal for itself: ensure half of its workforce was from diverse or underrepresented backgrounds by 2024.The lofty ambition made the company stand out among its Silicon Valley peers. Maxine Williams, a longtime employee and chief diversity officer at the time, wrote in a 2021 blogpost that Facebook was up to the challenge. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Italy-based David Yambio, a critic of Meloni government, was told of attempt to compromise his phoneAn Italy-based human rights activist whose work supports the international criminal court in providing evidence about cases of abuse suffered by migrants and refugees held in Libyan detention camps and prisons has revealed that Apple informed him his phone was targeted in a spyware attackDavid Yambio, the president and co-founder of Refugees in Libya, has been a critic of the Italian government's migrant pact with the north African country and its recent controversial decision to release Osama Najim, a Libyan police chief wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for suspected war crimes, including torture, murder, enslavement and rape. Yambio, 27, was an alleged victim of Najim's abuses during his detention at the notorious Mitiga prison near Tripoli. Continue reading...

Most answers had significant issues' when researchers asked services to use broadcaster's news articles as sourceLeading artificial intelligence assistants create distortions, factual inaccuracies and misleading content in response to questions about news and current affairs, research has found.More than half of the AI-generated answers provided by ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini and Perplexity were judged to have significant issues", according to the study by the BBC.Microsoft's Copilot falsely stating that the French rape victim Gisele Pelicot uncovered crimes against her when she began having blackouts and memory loss, when in fact she found out about the crimes when police showed her videos they had confiscated from her husband's devices.ChatGPT said Ismail Haniyeh was part of Hamas's leadership months after he was assassinated in Iran. It also falsely said Sunak and Sturgeon were still in office.Gemini incorrectly stated: The NHS advises people not to start vaping, and recommends that smokers who want to quit use other methods."Perplexity falsely stated the date of the TV presenter Michael Mosley's death and misquoted a statement from the family of the One Direction singer Liam Payne after his death. Continue reading...

Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO and co-founder, responded that he would not accept and offered to buy X insteadElon Musk escalated his feud with OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, on Monday. The billionaire is leading a consortium of investors that announced it had submitted a bid of $97.4bn for all assets" of the artificial intelligence company to OpenAI's board of directors.The startup, which operates ChatGPT, has been working to restructure itself away from its original non-profit status. OpenAI also operates a for-profit subsidiary, and Musk's unsolicited offer could complicate the company's plans. The Wall Street Journal first reported the proposed bid. Continue reading...

After WhatsApp claimed 90 users were targeted last year, experts concerned over how US could use cyberweaponsEven as WhatsApp celebrated a major legal victory in December against NSO Group, the Israeli maker of one of the world's most powerful cyberweapons, a new threat was detected, this time involving another Israel-based company that has previously agreed contracts with democratic governments around the world - including the US.Late in January, WhatsApp claimed that 90 of its users, including some journalists and members of civil society, were targeted last year by spyware made by a company called Paragon Solutions. The allegation is raising urgent questions about how Paragon's government clients are using the powerful hacking tool. Continue reading...

Emmanuel Macron's tech envoy warns attenders current trajectory of artificial intelligence is unsustainableThe impact of artificial intelligence on the environment and inequality have featured in the opening exchanges of a global summit in Paris attended by political leaders, tech executives and experts.Emmanuel Macron's AI envoy, Anne Bouverot, opened the two-day gathering at the Grand Palais in the heart of the French capital with a speech referring to the environmental impact of AI, which requires vast amounts of energy and resource to develop and operate. Continue reading...

When EA surprise-dropped a rerelease of The Sims 1 and 2, I was delighted to return to a defining video game of millennial childhoods - but it feels different 25 years laterWhen I was growing up, the genre-defining dollhouse sim The Sims was the ultimate escape. I'd build dream homes, cultivate a neighbourhood of weird and wonderful friends and live out a fantasy adult life.So when EA surprise-dropped a rerelease of The Sims 1 and 2 last weekend to celebrate the series' 25th anniversary, with all expansions included (my nine-year-old self's dream) naturally I was compelled to return to my happy place, revisiting my 10-hour pyjama-clad marathon sessions micromanaging the lives of the Newbies, Roomies, and the Goths, and occasionally removing their pool ladders when they were taking a little swim, and only taking a necessary pause for mum's roast dinner. Continue reading...

Every year of human history has a dedicated entry. But surf far enough into the future, and you'll find evaporating oceans, planetary collisions, and the ultimate apocalypse: the Big Slurp

Letter says many of works being sold by Christie's are made by AI models trained on pieces by human artists, without a licenceThousands of artists are urging the auction house Christie's to cancel a sale of art created with artificial intelligence, claiming the technology behind the works is committing mass theft".The Augmented Intelligence auction has been described by Christie's as the first AI-dedicated sale by a major auctioneer and features 20 lots with prices ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 for works by artists including Refik Anadol and the late AI art pioneer Harold Cohen. Continue reading...

Technology secretary delivers veiled warning over China's role ahead of Paris summitThe artificial intelligence race must be led by western, liberal, democratic" countries, said the UK technology secretary in a veiled warning over China's role in the contest, before a global AI summit in Paris.Peter Kyle spoke as political leaders and tech company bosses gather in France, and after the emergence of a new Chinese force in AI, DeepSeek, rattled US investors and upended assumptions about Silicon Valley's leadership in the technology. Continue reading...

Report urges ministers to overhaul market to increase rollout in areas that have ample power generationTech companies are putting pressure on the UK government to encourage an AI datacentre boom in remote areas of Great Britain by offering some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe.A report paid for by the tech companies Amazon and OpenAI has called on ministers to overhaul the UK's electricity market by splitting it into different zones so that prices become more expensive in areas where power is in short supply, and cheaper in those where it is ample. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Greens call for NBN CEO salary to be cut by estimated $2.5m alongside cost-of-living' relief for users

Are they the same as crypto, why has the US president launched one, and who's really coining it in? Here's a complete guide to the latest digital money maniaThree days before his inauguration as US president, Donald Trump made an unusual move. He launched $Trump, a so-called meme coin that fans and speculators could buy in the hopes it would gain value. Initially, $Trump soared from a value of $7 to $75 per coin in a day, according to crypto price-tracking website CoinMarketCap. Two days later, it dropped to about $40 - just as incoming first lady Melania Trump launched her own meme coin, $Melania. Even the pastor at Trump's inauguration ceremony, Lorenzo Sewell, got swept up in the meme coin frenzy, promoting a $Lorenzo version the same afternoon.So what exactly are meme coins, and why is everyone and their vicar suddenly getting involved?

This weekend the mapping platform turns 20 - and Stephen Ma is writing himself and his friends back into its origin story

Meta accounts of those affected flooded with ads for casinos and betting sites

The billionaire's cost-cutting Doge' staff includes wealthy executives, far-right ideologues and young engineersElon Musk's rapid attempt to defund and depopulate the federal government has thrown US politics into chaos while the billionaire's so-called department of government efficiency" seizes control of operations at key agencies. Carrying out this hostile takeover are a team of staffers made up of wealthy executives, far-right ideologues and young engineers that have come to make up Doge".At government institutions such as the treasury department, General Services Administration and United States Agency for International Development, Musk's allies have gained access to computer systems, including the sensitive personal data and payment information of tens of millions of Americans. His team is working to shut down USAid, the world's largest single supplier of humanitarian aid, and members have been spotted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Education and National Institutes of Health. Continue reading...

The man given free rein by Trump to crusade against the federal government supported Democrats until 2022. But some of Musk's longstanding positions lead a straight line to his far-right sympathiesElon Musk is not a people person, as millions around the world will be able to attest after the planet's richest man cut off food supplies, healthcare and probably even life itself to some of the most vulnerable without so much as a fore- or afterthought.Musk sees himself as a data man, wielding numbers like a machete to slash and burn his way through government waste and corruption as he leads the rightwing charge to capture the US state. Continue reading...

Injunction granted in response to lawsuit alleging the Trump administration allowed Musk's team access to sensitive data in violation of federal lawA federal judge early on Saturday blocked Elon Musk's department of government efficiency" (Doge) from accessing treasury department records that contain sensitive personal data such as social security and bank account numbers for millions of Americans.US district judge Paul A Engelmayer issued the preliminary injunction after 19 Democratic attorneys general sued Donald Trump. The case, filed in federal court in New York city, alleges the Trump administration allowed Musk's team access to the treasury department's central payment system in violation of federal law. Continue reading...

Highway agency ordered states to no longer spend funds allocated under Biden's EV charging station programThe Trump administration has ordered US states to suspend a $5bn electric vehicle charging station program in a further blow to the environmental movement since the president's return to the White House.In a memo issued on Thursday to state transportation directors, the transportation department's Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) ordered states not to spend any funds allocated to them under the Biden administration as part of the national electric vehicle infrastructure (NEVI) program. Continue reading...

Parents claim four children died as a result of attempting challenge that went viral in 2021The parents of four British teenagers have sued TikTok over the deaths of their children, which they claim were the result of the viral blackout challenge".The lawsuit claims Isaac Kenevan, 13, Archie Battersbee, 12, Julian Jools" Sweeney, 14, and Maia Walsh, 13, died in 2022 while attempting the blackout challenge", which became popular on social media in 2021. Continue reading...

Expert says government has lit the blue touch paper on a truly enormous fight' as it challenges firm's privacy stanceThe UK government has demanded that Apple creates a backdoor in its encrypted cloud service, in a confrontation that challenges the US tech firm's avowed stance on protecting user privacy.The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Home Office had issued a technical capability notice" under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), which requires companies to assist law enforcement in providing evidence. Continue reading...

Experts say mandatory reporting on energy and water use is needed to avoid irreparable damage to environmentTech companies should be required by law to report the energy and water consumption for their data centres, as the boom in AI risks causing irreparable damage to the environment, experts have said.AI is growing at a rate unparalleled by other energy systems, bringing heightened environmental risk, a report by the National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) said.Expand mandatory environmental reporting.Provide information on environmental impacts of AI systems.Set environmental sustainability requirements for data centres.And reconsider data collection, transmission, storage and management practices. Continue reading...

Robust fourth-quarter earnings take into account holiday shopping season, but first-quarter estimates disappointAmazon outdid Wall Street's expectations with its earnings from the fourth quarter of 2024 on Thursday but forecast a weak upcoming quarter.The retail giant ended the year on a strong note, reporting $187.79bn in revenue and $1.86 per share, beating analysts' estimates of revenue of $187.3bn and share price at $1.49. Continue reading...

Tech company removes error about gouda cheese after blogger points out unequivocally' untrue statisticGoogle has edited an advert for its leading artificial intelligence (AI) tool, Gemini, before its broadcast during the Super Bowl after it was found to contain false information about gouda cheese.The local commercial, which advertises how people can use AI for every business", showcases Gemini's abilities by depicting the tool helping a cheesemonger in Wisconsin to write a product description, including the erroneous line that gouda accounts for 50% to 60% of global cheese consumption". Continue reading...

Exclusive: Decision comes after Italian investigative journalist and two activists alleged to have been targeted by Paragon Solutions spywareParagon Solutions, whose military-grade hacking software was allegedly used to target 90 people, including journalists and members of civil society, in two dozen countries, has terminated its client relationship with Italy, according a person familiar with the matter.Paragon's decision to end the Italy contract followed revelations that an Italian investigative journalist and two activists who were critical of Italy's dealings with Libya were among the people who had allegedly been targeted with the spyware. The work of all three individuals has been critical of the rightwing government of Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Continue reading...