Technology | The Guardian

Investment manager tells of how fraudsters managed to persuade him to hand over his life savings

Wording will form communique for AI summit next month where agreement on organisation to scrutinise technology is unlikely to be reachedRishi Sunak's advisers are trying to thrash out an agreement among world leaders on a statement warning about the risks of artificial intelligence as they finalise the agenda for the AI safety summit next month.Downing Street officials have been touring the world talking to their counterparts from China to the EU and the US as they work to agree on words to be used in a communique at the two-day conference. Continue reading...

Alex Lykos documents life without a smartphone, tablet or laptop in Disconnect Me

Elon Musk endorsed users who have posted wrong and unverifiable things' while paid-for accounts spread fake newsX's handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict has come under scrutiny after a deluge" of fake posts and Elon Musk's recommendation of war coverage from accounts that have made false claims or antisemitic comments.The owner of X, formerly Twitter, recommended two accounts on Sunday. He wrote: For following the war in real-time, @WarMonitors and @sentdefender are good. It is also worth following direct sources on the ground. Please add interesting options in the replies below." Continue reading...

Digital artist Daniel Ambrosi has created an exhibition that interprets quintessentially English, eighteenth-century vistas with AI. The exhibition runs at the Robilant+Voena gallery in London from 6 October Continue reading...

Speed is of the essence, so here are some steps to follow if you suspect fraud

Titanium sides, USB-C, 5x camera and new action button make for the biggest iPhone upgrade in yearsApple's latest, most expensive superphone is a big step forward for the iPhone. But despite a powerful new camera and USB-C port, the best feature is simply its lighter weight.That is because Apple's 6.7in iPhones have always been beasts in price and weight. But while this new iPhone 15 Pro Max is still wallet-crushingly expensive, starting at 1,199 (1,449/$1,199/A$2,199), it is at least 19g lighter, making a huge difference in your hand and pockets. Continue reading...

Matt Johnson's boisterous drama about the rise and fall of the mobile - and the Canadian nerds who created it - diverges refreshingly from the usual arc of product success storiesTech years are like dog years. Less than a decade and a half has passed since the early 2010 sheyday of the BlackBerry smartphone. But in the accelerated world of technology, the once coveted accessory of any self-respecting business bigshot or self-promoting celebrity (Paris Hilton used to carry five of them at a time) now might as well be an ancient relic.By any standard, the BlackBerry story is a wild ride - going from a prototype cobbled together from bits of a pocket calculator to a product so addictive that it was nicknamed the CrackBerry; from a share of the US mobile phone market that was at one point estimated at about 40% to virtual oblivion in the space of just a few years. Based on the 2015 book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, the film, directed by Matt Johnson (The Dirties), is a boisterous account of the boom-and-bust, crash-and-burn trajectory of one of the world's first smartphones and the chaotic collection of Canadian nerds that created it. Continue reading...

On a celebratory road trip at Lake Tahoe, the photographer spotted an umbrella on a beach ...I just loved how the scene stacked up that day, under the strong morning light," says Jessica Chou. The photographer was celebrating her husband's birthday with a road trip from Los Angeles, where the pair were living, to San Francisco, then out east, stopping in Lake Tahoe before heading to Utah.We knew Lake Tahoe as a ski spot in the winter, so it was nice to see it during the summertime," she says. The day we stopped there, the vista was all blue skies, snow-capped mountains, calm lake, miles of sand and, in the middle of all of it, this lady, who had staked out a piece of shade." Continue reading...

Steps you can take to detect fake retail websites, missed-delivery texts and other swindles

Scammers stole more than 1.2bn from UK consumers in 2022. We speak to victims of fraud - and give tips to avoid being duped

ICO inquiry provisionally finds social media app's owner failed to assess risks to users of My AI serviceSnapchat could face a fine of millions of pounds after the UK data watchdog issued it with a preliminary enforcement notice over the alleged failure to assess privacy risks its artificial intelligence chatbot may pose to users and particularly children.The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) said it had provisionally found that the social media app's owner failed to adequately identify and assess the risks" to several million UK users of My AI, including among 13- to 17-year-olds. Continue reading...

UK police forces and private firms urged to drop technology due to impact on human rightsDozens of cross-party MPs and peers have joined a campaign for an immediate stop" to the use of live facial recognition surveillance by police and private companies.The former cabinet minister David Davis, the Liberal Democrats leader, Sir Ed Davey, the Green MP Caroline Lucas and the former shadow attorney general Shami Chakrabarti are among 65 members of the House of Commons and House of Lords to call for a halt to the technology's use. Continue reading...

Temu's meteoric growth - and its astronomical marketing budget - has experts asking whether its business model is sustainableA chicken-shaped lamp. A toilet paper holder in the shape of a smiling velociraptor. An apron that catches beard hair during shaving. The list of unusual products goes on.Among the more everyday items are cleaning products, smartwatches, novelty T-shirts, knock-off sneakers and barbecue tools, but the common thread across all of them is that everything is incredibly, mindbogglingly cheap. Continue reading...

Securities and Exchange Commission inquiring whether Musk broke federal law in 2022 when he bought stock in the platformElon Musk is under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission over his $44bn takeover of social media giant Twitter, it was revealed on Thursday.The investigation concerns whether Musk broke federal securities laws in 2022 when he bought stock in Twitter, which he later renamed X, as well as statements and SEC filings he made about the deal. Continue reading...

The millennial tech journalist speaks with the activist about surviving merciless harassment, the media's double standards on gender, and why they still have hopeOccasionally, during an otherwise impassioned conversation about mental health, social media and the perils of being online while female, Taylor Lorenz and Monica Lewinsky will start laughing. It is usually Lewinsky who lightens the mood, as when Lorenz says: The biggest mistake of my career was going on MSNBC and trusting a reporter," to which Lewinsky replies: Not mine!", then starts chuckling.The pair are convening on Zoom with the Guardian for the release of Lorenz's new book, Extremely Online: The Untold Story of Fame, Influence and Power on the Internet. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Guests from John Oliver to Jen Brister join the comedian to select their most precious possessions in Wonderbox. Plus: five of the best podcasts about sporting heroes Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWonderbox

Hilarity and pathos intertwine in this likable comedy as the smartphone creators go loopy with wealth - and slack-jawed when the iPhone spoils the partyHere is a punchy Canadian comedy-drama in that burgeoning true-life genre which could loosely be called Tech Startup Hubris; we've seen Dumb Money (about GameStop), WeCrashed (about WeWork), and The Beanie Bubble (about the bizarre 90s web-driven tulip-style craze for Beanie Babies). The great ancestor of them all is naturally David Fincher's The Social Network, about Facebook, with its propulsive script by Aaron Sorkin. This film is a fictionally souped-up account of the steep rise and sudden fall of the BlackBerry, the handset device that towards the end of the 00s was so ubiquitous and addictive among the white-collar classes it was known as the Crackberry".But then Steve Jobs unveiled his iPhone, and the BlackBerry executives suddenly looked like a bunch of brontosauruses that had been hit in the face by a meteor. Continue reading...

The change came after owner Elon Musk said it would improve the esthetics' as platform becomes increasingly hostile for news organisationsX, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has stopped showing headlines for links posted on the site, after site owner Elon Musk said it would make posts look better.Links posted on Twitter now appear as the image included in the article, as well as text in the left-hand corner of the image noting the domain of the link. If users want to visit the page, they must click the image, but it only appears slightly different to how images uploaded to the site appear. Continue reading...

Readers argue that Gillian Keegan's plan to ban mobile phones in schools is not needed and won't workYour editorial on phones in schools (2 October) makes the point that most secondary schools already have clear policies to deal with this issue. The comprehensive school with 1,800 pupils that I last taught at allowed pupils to bring their phones in, but they had to be switched off and kept in bags during lessons. If a pupil tried to access their phone in class, the teacher would confiscate it and leave it at the school's reception, where it could be collected only by a parent or guardian. This policy was very effective. Pupils could use their phones at break and lunchtime, and many did - to listen to music, play games and interact socially.In my experience, most parents of secondary schoolchildren want them to carry phones. It means they can contact a parent if they are going to be late home, or want permission to go to a friend's etc, while the parents are reassured by having direct access to their children before and after the school day. Continue reading...

New phones with better cameras and heat sensing announced alongside Pixel Watch 2 and Android 14Google's latest smartphone launch packs its Pixel devices with AI, an object-measuring temperature sensor and extended software support for up to seven years.Announced alongside the second-generation of its Pixel smartwatch and the launch of Android 14, the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro hope to go toe-to-toe with Apple's iPhone 15 line while following the pioneering Fairphone's lead with longer-lasting devices. Continue reading...

US student safety not improved by surveillance technology such as cameras and facial recognition software, research showsAn ACLU report has found that despite claims from companies, surveillance technology in US schools does not improve student safety and constant surveillance can, in fact, cause a number of harms to students including making students less likely to report dangerous behavior.Schools typically use technologies such as cameras, facial recognition software and communication monitoring and filtering technology, which have been marketed by education technology surveillance companies as intervention tools against school shootings, suicides and bullying. In 2021, US schools and colleges spent $3.1bn on these products and this number is expected to grow by 8% every year, according to the report. Continue reading...

For 15 years, Brent Lee spent hours each day consuming truther' content online. Then he logged off. Can he convince his former friends to question their worldview?Brent Lee struggles to explain why he used to believe that a cabal of evil satanic paedophiles was working to establish a new world order. He pauses, looks sheepish, and says: I cringe at all this now."For 15 years, Lee collected signs that so-called Illuminati overlords were controlling global events. He convinced himself that secret societies were running politics, banks, religious institutions and the entertainment industry, and that most terrorist attacks were actually government-organised ritual sacrifices. Continue reading...

Male-skewed investment is another instance of tech gender imbalance that needs urgent redress, say researchersAn urgent issue" of gender imbalance in artificial intelligence investment must be addressed according to a government-backed body which has found that female-founded companies accounted for just 2% of AI startup deals over the past decade.The report by the Alan Turing Institute found that when female-founded companies have secured funding, they raise on average 1.3m a deal compared with 8.6m raised by all-male founder teams. Continue reading...

FTX founder shed his signature T-shirt and shorts look to don a suit with freshly cut hair as day one of fraud trial commenced

Paramount's release of the popular film in small clips reflects a rising trend of people watching movies on the platformAs the oldest and baldest person to have access to a TikTok account, I usually have a pretty good idea of what sort of content I'll be served, in that it's usually equal parts animal attack videos and jet-washing tutorials. Recently, however, the algorithm threw me a curveball: a 90-second clip of the 23-year-old Nancy Meyers film What Women Want.It was a good scene, one where Mel Gibson listens in on Judy Greer's self-hating inner monologue and starts to see her as a true contemporary. I watched the whole thing. And, as a reward, TikTok then gave me another scene from What Women Want. And then another. And another. And over the course of a couple of days, albeit in a disjointed and non-linear manner, I had basically watched all of What Women Want. It's a good film! Sarah Paulson is in it! Who knew? Continue reading...

Politicians opt for change they say amounts to de facto ban on spyware but free speech campaigners dispute claimAn attempt to stop EU governments from being able to insert spyware on journalists' phones on the grounds of national security is dead", campaigners have said after a vote in the European parliament on new media laws.MEPs voted against an amendment to scrap the right to surveil journalists in the European Media Freedom Act in Strasbourg on Tuesday, pitting themselves against free speech campaigners. Continue reading...

Meta's social networks considering charge of 13 a month on mobile and 17 on desktop, say sourcesMark Zuckerberg's Meta is considering charging users in the EU 13 (11) a month to access an ad-free version of Instagram or Facebook on their phones, as the company grapples with regulatory pressure on how it uses people's data.Meta is also weighing a 17 charge to use Instagram and Facebook without adverts on desktop, according to sources close to the discussions. Accessing both apps on smartphones would cost about 19 a month. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Geofence warrants' tied a man in the wrong place at the wrong time to a crime he didn't commit - is he the only one? Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIn January 2020, Florida resident Zachary McCoy received a concerning email from Google: local authorities were asking the company for his personal information and he had just seven days to stop them from handing it over.Police were investigating a burglary, McCoy later found out, and had issued Google what's called a geofence warrant. The court-ordered warrant requested the company look for and hand over information on all the devices that were within the vicinity of the broken-into home at the time of the alleged crime. McCoy was on one of his regular bike rides around the neighbourhood at the time and the data Google handed over to police placed him near the scene of the burglary. Continue reading...

From being unable to harvest little sister' characters but happy to kill others freely, to playing the Legend of Zelda as a vegan - gaming ethics are complex and highly personalI can kill foxes but I can't kill wolves. Not in real life, obviously - in real life I send emails eight hours a day - but in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, where every animal is an arrow away from becoming a fortifying meal. Shoot a wolf and you'll be rewarded with a thick red slab of raw prime meat, but I can't do it, I just can't do it, even though they often attack me in packs. They look too much like dogs.I can kill a fox - even though they never attack me, and they often let out sad little yelps - but many other gamers can't. One post in the Tears of the Kingdom subreddit is entitled, I can't shoot the foxes" and has almost 500 upvotes. They're so sweet and nice I can't bring myself to hurt them," the original poster wrote. Continue reading...

The education secretary is lagging behind headteachers - and ignoring much bigger problemsThat smartphones cause problems in schools is not a novel observation. It is roughly a decade since they became ubiquitous in the UK - along with many other countries - including among teenagers. Since then, day-to-day experience and research have created widespread awareness of the social and behavioural difficulties with which they are linked - despite their huge popularity and undoubted entertainment value.Most secondary schools have clear policies about mobile phone use. Hardly any permit it during lessons, although rules about break times are variable. So the announcement by the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, that the government is to issue a ban in England, deserves to be viewed as a political stunt rather than a serious contribution to schools policy. Continue reading...

Company says it will update iOS 17 to fix bug and is working with developers of apps that overload handsetsApple has identified the causes of an overheating problem with its latest iPhone series, including a software bug and using certain apps.The tech company said it would issue an update to fix the bug in its iOS 17 software and was working with developers whose apps had overloaded its handsets. Apple took action after users of its iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max products had complained that they had become too hot during use, reaching temperatures of more than 43C (110F) in some cases. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence can help predict style crazes, shape collections and help the environment by cutting waste materialIt's Paris fashion week and the streets of the city are filled with celebrities, designers, models and journalists. Among the crowds, eagle-eyed experts are taking careful notes. These are the fashion industry's trend forecasters. Their job is to get a sense of the colours, cuts, fabrics and patterns in the designers' new collections, in the hope of detecting emerging trends.Their notes will quickly be added to curated trend forecasts", which will be sold to designers and high street retailers, who will use them to inspire new pieces and decide what to stock next season - think of the blue sweater" speech in The Devil Wears Prada, where Meryl Streep's character scathingly explains this process to her naive assistant Andy (played by Anne Hathaway). Traditionally, fashion forecasters have relied solely on these qualitative methods, observing runway shows, alongside street fashion and pop culture, to make predictions. Continue reading...

Is the glow from phones, tablets, computers and other devices really bad for our health?Wherever you are reading this - on the couch or in bed - there is a good chance that you are doing it on some sort of screen. According to a 2022 review, almost everyone upped their screentime during the Covid pandemic, and there is little evidence that use has gone back down. While that may or may not be bad for all sorts of reasons, a concern for many people is blue light, and whether its haunting glow is affecting our bodies in ways sunshine doesn't. Could it somehow be bad light?To start with the basics: blue light sits on the short-wave, high-energy end of the visible spectrum, close to the UV rays that can lead to provably harmful effects on the skin and retinas. In itself, this doesn't mean anything - the sun has been bathing us in blue light since we were hunter gatherers - but concerns arise from the fact that many people stare at blue-light emitting devices for hours at a time, sometimes from mere inches away, often long after the sun has gone down. Continue reading...

Beauty brands are looking to neuroscent research and technology to sniff out the factors that lure buyersMaking perfume is an art that can be traced back to ancient Greece but now modern-day perfumiers are beginning to look beyond their noses to develop the scents most likely to appeal to us. They are, instead, turning to AI.Perfumes can now be designed to trigger emotional responses using ingredients known as neuroscents - odours shown by biometric measures to arouse different positive feelings such as calm, euphoria or sleepiness. Continue reading...

This visually striking action thriller from Monsters director Gareth Edwards, which takes a sympathetic view of artificial intelligence, is a world-building triumphIt took a while, and a rather bumpy false start with the Star Wars franchise (his Rogue One was plagued by rumours of studio interference and extensive reshoots), but with The Creator, the British director Gareth Edwards finally gets to make the sci-fi spectacular he was always destined to tackle. And with this ambitious, ideas-driven, expectation-subverting, man-versus-machines showdown, he has co-written and directed one of the finest original science-fiction films of recent years.It can be a little misleading, that word original", when it comes to science fiction. At its most basic, it just refers to any picture that isn't part of an existing franchise or culled from a recognisable IP - be it a book, video game or television series. But very occasionally the word is fully earned, by a film so distinctive in its world-building, its aesthetic and its unexpected approach to well-worn themes that it becomes a definitive example of the genre. Films such as Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (which shares an element of basic circuitry with this picture) or Alfonso Cuaron's dystopian masterpiece Children of Men: both went on to become benchmarks by which subsequent science fiction was judged. Continue reading...

Book spamming, sometimes with multiple bogus titles going online in one day, has hit writers like Rory Cellan-JonesPublishing a book is a big occasion for any writer, and Rory Cellan-Jones is no exception.Like any author, I obsessively check Amazon," he said. And this thing popped up." Continue reading...

The US justice department is belatedly addressing the company's stranglehold on digital advertising technologies in the most significant antitrust case for more than two decadesAlthough you'd never guess it from mainstream media, the most significant antitrust case in more than 20 years is under way in Washington. In it, the US justice department, alongside the attorneys general of eight states, is suing Google for abusively monopolising digital advertising technologies, thereby subverting competition through serial acquisitions" and anti-competitive auction manipulation. Or, to put it more prosaically, arguing that Google - which has between 90% and 95% of the search market - has maintained its monopoly not by making a better product, but by locking down almost every avenue through which consumers might find a different search engine and making sure they only see Google wherever they look.Why is this significant? Basically, because the US government has been asleep at the wheel for almost a quarter of a century and has finally woken up to its democratic responsibilities. The last time it stirred itself to take on an aggressive monopolist was in 2001, when it sued Microsoft for illegally tying its Internet Explorer browser to Windows as part of a (successful) campaign to destroy Netscape, maker of the first distinctive commercial web browser, which Bill Gates and co perceived as a potentially lethal competitive threat. In an eerie echo of that earlier lawsuit, the justice department is now accusing Google of similar tactics - for example, illegally tying the company's search engine to its Android smartphone operating system and its Chrome browser. And the government is seeking to break up the company, just as it once sought to break up Microsoft. Continue reading...

Our digital profiles and possessions are ever-expanding, but what happens to them after our deaths? Tech companies are yet to offer a satisfactory solution, says the technology researcher Tamara KneeseTamara Kneese studies how people experience technology. She is a senior researcher at New York-based nonprofit Data & Society Research Institute. Her new book, Death Glitch, examines what happens to our digital belongings when we die, and argues that tech companies need to improve how they deal with death on their platforms for the sake of all our digital posterity.The posthumous fate of our digital belongings seems a morbid topic. Why is it important?

Look what happened when the Thai amateur photographer spotted a big pink taxiIt may be the smaller of Bangkok's two international airports, but hundreds of people can sometimes be found waiting in line for taxis outside Don Mueang. Unlike the black cabs on London's streets, or New York's distinctive yellow ones, Thai taxis come in a whole range of colours. Here we have green and yellow, pink, orange, light yellow, light green, light blue," Jirasak Panpiansin says.On the evening this shot was taken, in the early spring of 2022, he was waiting for a flight back to his home town in north-east Thailand. I was struck by this one pink taxi among the others, and the driver taking a drink." Continue reading...

Federal civil rights agency claims in lawsuit that employees were subjected to racist slurs and graffiti including noosesA US civil rights agency has sued Tesla, claiming the electric carmaker has tolerated severe harassment of Black employees at its flagship California assembly plant.The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said in the lawsuit, filed in federal court on Thursday, that from 2015 to the present Black workers at the Tesla plant in Fremont have routinely been subjected to racist slurs and graffiti, including swastikas and nooses. Continue reading...

Some customers claim titanium frame of more expensive models becomes so hot it's too hot to hold'Apple is facing complaints from users about overheating in relation to its new iPhone 15 models, with some customers claiming the titanium frame becomes too hot to hold.The iPhone maker's community forum is carrying customer feedback about the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max claiming that the handsets are overheating. Continue reading...

Firms known for funding biased AI products would need to submit demographic information on foundersCalifornia would become the first state to require venture capital firms to disclose the race and gender of the founders of the companies they fund, under a bill currently awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom's signature.The business community strongly opposes the legislation, characterizing it as an example of bureaucratic overreach. But civil rights groups and female entrepreneurs say it could go a long way toward equalizing opportunity in Silicon Valley, where startup capital overwhelmingly flows to white men. According to the business data firm PitchBook, companies founded by all-female teams accounted for just 2% of venture capital funding last year. Those led by Black women and Latinas received even less, 0.85%, according to a report from Project Diane, a research effort focused on female founders. Continue reading...

I hate real life golf - too many things can go wrong. So why do I love playing PGA Tour 2K23?I'm sitting here trying to work out why PGA Tour 2K23 is the greatest video game of all time.Rationally, objectively and empirically it cannot be. It lacks the emotional gut punch of Final Fantasy VII, the engineering creativity of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the immersive storytelling of Red Dead Redemption or the existential horror of The Evil Within, but I really did have fun writing that sentence and hope in some way AI algorithms make it the headline for this game on Metacritic. Continue reading...

Critics decry media shut-out as judge permits evidence and testimony to be presented behind closed doorsThe landmark antitrust trial pitting the US justice department against Google is now in its third week, and the government continues to roll out its case arguing that the internet search behemoth abused its power and resources to maintain a monopoly.The trial has widespread implications for the tech industry, antitrust law and potentially the way that hundreds of millions of people engage with and access the internet. But in the courtroom, much of the proceedings have unfolded behind closed doors, in sessions that are inaccessible to the public or the media. Continue reading...

Mail-based service has had a 25-year run in the US but the streaming business eclipsed it long agoMost of Netflix's 238 million streaming customers around the world will be unaware that the company first launched 25 years ago as a DVD mailing service. Even fewer might realise that operation has continued, with under 1 million people still subscribing.But now the company is finally hitting the stop button, with its five remaining US distribution centres mailing out their final discs to American customers on Friday. Continue reading...

Lawsuit claims company knowingly sold defective car that led to Micah Lee's 2019 death while Tesla blames classic human error'The lawyer representing victims of a fatal Tesla crash blamed the company's autopilot driver assistant system, saying that a car company should never sell consumers experimental vehicles," in the opening statement of a California trial on Thursday.The case stems from a civil lawsuit alleging that the autopilot system caused the owner of a Tesla Model 3 car, Micah Lee, to suddenly veer off a highway east of Los Angeles at 65mph (105km/h), where his car struck a palm tree and burst into flames. Continue reading...

The lighthearted trend - using questionable numbers to justify indulgent purchases - has been accused of fueling sexismAnyone who watched 2000s episodes of What Not to Wear or read Cosmopolitan in the 90s knows girl math well. Back in the day, we used to call it fashion math. Let's say a designer bag costs $800. That's out of budget - until you remember you'll use it every day. That's, like, less than $1 per wear.Congratulations: you've just completed girl math 101. Women on TikTok say the trend, which began with a video made by the user Samantha James, pokes fun at the lengths we will go to justify life's indulgences. Maybe everything you want to buy on Sephora.com costs $38, but $40 will get you free shipping, so you're actually saving money if you go ahead and add a $15 mascara to your cart. Makes sense, right? Continue reading...

Amazon considers its Flex drivers' independent contractors - meaning they're not promised worker's compensation after a biteThe app told her to deliver to the porch. Jennifer Anderson, a 43-year-old gig worker for Amazon Flex and a single mother, had brought packages to the house before - so she didn't think much of it when she saw two unsecured dogs: a heeler and a chihuahua, which was barking at her. Dogs are everywhere in eastern Idaho, and Anderson's own dog was a herding breed similar to the heeler. I've never had a fear of dogs my entire life," she says.When she got to the doorstep, the chihuahua suddenly started biting her, but barely broke the skin. Anderson told the tiny dog to stop" and started walking to her car. That's when the heeler lunged, sinking his teeth into her ankle. Anderson screamed and managed to get back in her vehicle. The wound was bleeding badly. I was just shaking and completely shocked," she says. The owner came out but didn't seem overly apologetic. I know I need to get a collar for him," he told her casually, but my last dog was way worse." Continue reading...

News comes after EU says platform formerly known as Twitter has highest disinformation of social networks surveyedElon Musk, owner of X, has confirmed he has ditched his team working to prevent disruption to elections, just days after the EU announced the platform, formerly known as Twitter, had the highest proportion of disinformation in three European countries.Ahead of 70 elections around the globe in the coming year, the controversial businessman confirmed on X: Oh you mean the Election Integrity' Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they're gone." Continue reading...