Technology | The Guardian

From the writer of lockdown hit Before Your Eyes, the new game uses VR or plain old webcam tech to see how life looks as a paranormally gifted infantHow do you follow the game that made the world cry? It's a question that's haunted writer Graham Parkes ever since 2021's Bafta-winning Before Your Eyes. Released during the height of lockdown, Parkes' webcam-controlled yarn uses players' blinks to fast-forward through protagonist Benny's memories, blinking in and out of each uplifting and gut-wrenching moment of his existence. It quickly gained a reputation for being a Twitch tearjerker, its affecting tale and months of pandemic-fuelled misery creating a perfect, Kleenex-blowing storm. As a writer, that has definitely been intimidating.," says Parkes, I'm interested in using games to tell concise, emotional stories, but we can't say that every single time we're going to make you weep."Still, tears or no, things are already looking pretty promising for Before Your Eyes' intriguing followup, Goodnight Universe. Developed by Nice Dream, an all-new studio formed by creators Graham Parkes and Oliver Lewin, Goodnight Universe has already won the 2024 game award at the Tribeca film festival, beating the brilliant Thank Goodness You're Here! to the punch. Continue reading...

A big-money business pitch is threatened when a tech entrepreneur's unpredictable inner child is unleashed after hypnotherapyThe squirm factor is high in this dark comedy of social awkwardness from Sweden, ruthlessly directed by first-time feature director Ernst De Geer to maximise audience discomfort. There are a couple of scenes here so excruciating I would have found it less painful watching someone getting their fingernails prised out with pliers. The Hypnosis stars Asta Kamma August and Herbert Nordrum as Vera and Andre, a couple in their 30s who are the founders of an app that tracks women's reproductive health in developing countries. Dressed in tasteful knitwear and limited-edition trainers, they look the part of startup entrepreneurs, and seem pleasant enough - though it's immediately clear that Andre dominates Vera, who is quieter.Things start to go pear-shaped when Vera sees a hypnotherapist to quit smoking. This is just before an important pitching event where the pair will be competing against other apps in front of big-money investors. At the session, Vera's hypnotherapist gently observes that she seems to be holding back her true self; she should listen to her inner child more. And something inside Vera switches and she loses her social inhibitions - in a way that I didn't quite buy into - instantly, and at full throttle. Continue reading...

Musk blames cyber-attack as conversation is delayed, resembling glitchy launch of Ron DeSantis's campaignAs a high-profile conversation between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was about to begin, users of X, formerly Twitter, were confronted with the message: This Space is not available."Spaces, X's livestreaming audio feature, was the chosen forum for the dialogue, but it wasn't working. Clicking on the link to the broadcast, hosted by Trump's dormant @RealDonaldTrump account, froze the site and rendered it unusable. Tweeters said they couldn't dial in; some said their browsers had crashed. Continue reading...

Bruce Daisley calls for beefed-up' online safety laws and compares tech billionaires to unaccountable oligarchs

It cannot be right that Musk can sow discord without personal risk. He's a jetsetter: perhaps fear of unexpected detention will concentrate his mindThe way social media is making headlines currently is not without precedent: a fragile narcissist posting relentlessly on a social network he's made his own. We know well how this has ended in the past; Donald Trump's furious posts after his election defeat led to the assault on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. The aftermath of that episode saw the then president suspended from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even, to the dismay of those hoping to mood-board the Mar-a-Lago aesthetic, Pinterest.This time is likely to be different, not least because the person agitating the social media furore, Elon Musk, owns the platform he is using. Continue reading...

Summerhall, Edinburgh

X owner, who will interview Trump on Monday, has cast doubt on mail ballots and spread false claimsWhen Elon Musk took over as owner of Twitter, researchers and elections officials feared a rampant spread of misinformation that would lead to threats and harassment and undermine democracy.Their fears came true - and Musk himself has emerged as one of its main drivers. Continue reading...

It's easy to blame viral videos - and far harder to change the culture in which they thriveAmong those swiftly convicted and sentenced last week for their part in the racist rioting was Bobby Shirbon, who had left his 18th birthday party at a bingo hall in Hartlepool to join the mob roaming the town's streets, targeting houses thought to be occupied by asylum seekers. Shirbon was arrested for smashing windows and throwing bottles at police. He was sentenced to 20 months in prison.In custody, Shirbon had claimed that his actions had been justified by their ubiquity: It's OK," he told officers, everyone else is doing it." That has, of course, been a consistent claim from those caught up in mass thuggery down the years, but for many of the hundreds of people now facing significant prison sentences, the defence" has a sharper resonance. Continue reading...

An abandoned Australian experiment' shows that the public can successfully object to what companies and politicians claim is inevitable progressScratch a digital capitalist and you'll find a technological determinist - someone who believes that technology drives history. These people see themselves as agents of what Joseph Schumpeter famously described as creative destruction". They revel in moving fast and breaking things" as the Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, used to put it until his PR people convinced him it was not a good vibe, not least because it implied leaving taxpayers to pick up the broken pieces.Tech determinism is an ideology, really; it's what determines how you think when you don't even know that you're thinking. And it feeds on a narrative of technological inevitability, which says that new stuff is coming down the line whether you like it or not. As the writer LM Sacasas puts it, all assertions of inevitability have agendas, and narratives of technological inevitability provide convenient cover for tech companies to secure their desired ends, minimise resistance, and convince consumers that they are buying into a necessary, if not necessarily desirable future". Continue reading...

The networking site one is calling a cesspool' is riddled with oversharing and lunatics - it's time for changeIn need of a laugh? Spend an hour or two on the subreddit LinkedInLunatics. Trust me.There's the financial expert who believes it necessary to share with his friends, clients and community that he enjoys watching porn (in moderation, mind you!). There's the usual crowd of pundits who use cultural events like the Olympics competitions to teach us life lessons. Or the matchmaking company that thinks LinkedIn is Hinge. Continue reading...

Personalised videos from celebrities such as Elijah Wood were a lockdown hit for a firm once valued at 1bn. Now A-listers have deserted it - though there's always Nigel FarageIt started, as many things do, with drama in the WhatsApp group. It was 2021, and a loose coalition of my friends and acquaintances was passing the on-again, off-again lockdowns by playing a spectacularly vicious online game called Subterfuge, in which treachery and betrayal are all part of how to play.Only, this time, people had gone too far and someone had been upset badly enough that they had quit the group. To win him back, my friends came up with a dubious plan - they would have Nigel Farage, of all people, record an ironic apology video urging their departed comrade to rejoin the group. Continue reading...

A mirrored image shows how the photographer uses self-portraiture to explore feminism, motherhood and identityHeather McAlister was staying in a remote California farming community when she took this self-portrait. Wewere staying in Tomales, near the Point Reyes national seashore. The landscape is known for its simple farmhouse architecture and green hills lined with windswept cypress trees," she says. It'svery serene."She uses self-portraiture to interpret emotion", speaking to themes of femininity, feminism, motherhood, identity, all while confronting society's definitions of beauty while ageing. The women in the photo are both me," she explains. The images are mirrored, with one faded and ghost-like. Both women cover their faces with an allium bloom, making their age hard to determine." Continue reading...

Wojcicki, one of the most prominent women in tech, had been living with cancer for two yearsSusan Wojcicki, the former YouTube CEO and one of the first Google employees, has died at the age of 56 after two years of living with cancer.Her husband, Dennis Troper, announced the news of her death on Friday. Continue reading...

The England men's team's first foreign manager was blamed for their failure and had his private life splashed across the tabloids. Now, with months to live, he's got some scores to settleSven-Goran Eriksson is saying his farewells to the world. The former England men's football manager has pancreatic cancer, and is approaching the end of his life. In January, he announced he had at most a year to live. He is keen to talk. But he wants to do it in Sven style - calm, measured, drama-free. He tells me he wants to set the record straight. I had a lot to do with the press in a lot of countries, but especially in England. So why not tell my truth? What I think is the truth."Eriksson was England's first foreign manager. He seemed to belong more to the contemplative world of an Ingmar Bergman film than the cut and thrust of football - professorial, urbane, with a distinctive high forehead, spectacles and a kindly face. He wore immaculately pressed suits on the touchline and rarely showed emotion. While other managers threw tantrums, kicked water bottles or applauded referees ironically, Eriksson sat in silence and watched. He could just as easily have been meditating as managing a football team. Continue reading...

There are signs the billionaire is becoming unpopular with the very demographic group most likely to buy EVsElon Musk has long flirted with rightwing politics, and delights in pushing an image of himself as a contrarian showman. Yet in recent months the billionaire's political allegiances have started to raise a question for Tesla, the company that he built into the world's largest electric carmaker: just how far can he go before customers start to abandon his products?The German pharmacy chain Rossmann was one of the first to put its head above the parapet this week. The family-owned company announced that it would not add to the 34 Teslas in its company fleet because of Musk's endorsement of Donald Trump for US president. Continue reading...

Change in policy means developers will be able to communicate with customers outside App StoreApple on Thursday changed its policy in the European Union to allow developers to communicate with their customers outside its App Store after the commission charged the iPhone maker in June for breaching the bloc's tech rules.The commission had said that under most of the business terms, Apple allows steering only through link-outs", meaning that app developers can include a link in their app that redirects the customer to a web page where the customer can conclude a contract. Continue reading...

Catherine Suttle remembers when numbers were three digits, Dan Zerdin's grandparents thought a naked' phone was unsightly, and Janette Ward recalls how she rumbled her bossI smiled all the way through Viv Groskop's article (The hunt for a missing date, the numbers I'll never forget: we'll never match the magic of a landline, 2 August). It all rang true, so to speak. Never mind four digits, our family landline in the 1960s was three digits, which are embedded in my brain. Then we moved to a town and had five digits, which later became six, no less. On answering, Mum spoke these slowly and carefully until she identified the caller, then her voice could be pure joy if it turned out to be an old friend.Ours was wall-mounted by the front door and, as Viv says, it was a sort of gateway to everything else. I remember waiting all day for a phone call from a boy I liked, willing the phone to ring until I realised Nan had cut the line while pruning the roses. It turned out to be not the best match, so maybe Nan knew a thing or two about landlines and boys.

Hackers tried breaking into account of high-ranking official' on US presidential campaign, researchers sayMicrosoft researchers said on Friday that Iran government-tied hackers tried breaking into the account of a high-ranking official" on the US presidential campaign in June, weeks after breaching the account of a county-level US official.The breaches were part of Iranian groups' increasing attempts to influence the US presidential election in November, the researchers said in a report that did not provide any further detail on the apparent official in question. Continue reading...

X owner has cited transgender daughter Vivian's transition as reason for shift, blaming the woke mind virus'Once, the chief executive of one of the world's largest companies approvingly sharing a fabricated headline published by the leadership of a fascist party would have been news. For Elon Musk, it was just Thursday.Unusually for Musk, his post, a retweet of the Britain First co-leader Ashlea Simon sharing a fake Telegraph headline about detainment camps in the Falkland Islands for the English rioters, was deleted shortly after being sent. In the 30 minutes it was live on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter that he bought in 2022, it managed to rack up almost 2m views. Continue reading...

Lace up your simulators and waggle your joystick for gold, from Mario racing Sonic in the 200m freestyle or pole vaulting on a PlayStationOver the past three weeks the Paris Olympics have provided some spectacular sporting moments, from incredible victories to heartbreaking defeats to Snoop Dogg standing about in full equestrian regalia. For most of us, such sporting brilliance is way beyond reach - unless, that is, you have access to video games.Although there was no official tie-in this year, there have been many well-loved Olympic-inspired games over the past four decades. If you have an old Commodore 64, PlayStation or Wii, or a suitable emulator on your PC, here's how you can relive this summer's immortal sporting memories in the safety of your own home. Continue reading...

A Twitch streamer claims to be able to control games with her mind. I thought it was telekinetic baloney - so I went round to give it a goI am sitting in a house in North London with electrodes attached to my temporal lobes to supposedly learn how to control video games with my mind.Wait, let me explain. In July, twentysomething Twitch streamer Perri Karyal hit headlines when she claimed to have defeated two bosses in Elden Ring by thought alone. The cynics, being cynics, were soon to call her out on social media. It's faked," posted @gamerguru2924. What a fraud," yelled @saucypepperoni. This is some bullshit, why are you fools believing this?" considered @Pennywyze-ub7ry. Continue reading...

Decision from WFA follows X suit accusing advertisers of conspiring to withhold billions of dollars in revenue'A global advertiser alliance has discontinued its corporate responsibility program after a lawsuit from Elon Musk's X accused the group of orchestrating a massive advertiser boycott".The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) told members on Thursday that it would shut down the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (Garm) following legal attacks from X, formerly Twitter, according to Business Insider, which first reported the news. Garm is a not-for-profit initiative within the WFA that helps brands avoid advertising alongside or monetizing harmful content. Continue reading...

Nuclear site awaits sentencing over breaches that it admitted could have threatened national securitySellafield has apologised after pleading guilty to criminal charges relating to a string of cybersecurity failings at Britain's most hazardous nuclear site, which it admitted could have threatened national security.Among the failings at the vast nuclear waste dump in Cumbria was the discovery that 75% of its computer servers were vulnerable to cyber-attacks, Westminster magistrates court in London heard. Continue reading...

The Elon Musk-owned platform remains a vital tool for politicians despite misinformation about disorder in BritainWhen Keir Starmer was running to be Labour leader in 2020, his aides seriously considered whether they should leave Twitter for good.A number of those who remain close to Starmer as prime minister were then enthusiastic about moving off the platform. The party was still feeling wounded by the brutal election campaign and by the bitterness of the way it had been conducted on social media. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Fashion loves a kooky accessory, but it is the sensible phone strap that is trending - and leaving hands free up and down the country Don't get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereFashion is not averse to a ridiculous accessory. See, recently, a tiny Fendi lollipop holder, specifically tailored to the measurements of a Chupa Chups and yours for 440, or a Gucci canvas pet carrier for 2,290. But, sometimes, a trend emerges that is - whisper it - practical and affordable. Enter, this summer, the jazzy phone strap - freeing the palms of everyone from parents and pub-goers to Hollywood stars.Look around at rush hour, and commuters and tourists alike have their phones hooked on to corded straps and slung across sweaty torsos. Meanwhile, the finishing touch to gen Z's OOTD videos on TikTok is to clip their phone on to a beaded strap and toss it around a wrist or shoulder. Continue reading...

Move is the latest of a string of CMA investigations into technology tie-upsAmazon's $4bn investment into US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic is to be examined in the latest investigation into technology tie-ups by the UK's competition watchdog.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Thursday that it was launching a preliminary investigation into the deal, before deciding whether to refer it for an in-depth review. Continue reading...

From a quick message of support to a moan about your in-laws, the sound of a human voice is a blessing to a frazzled parentWhat is it about the voice note that bothers so many people? I've seen it accused of all sorts - of being narcissistic, invasive, annoying - yet as a communication method, it continues to thrive. Having been a late adopter, I now send them all the time, usually while pushing my son around the city in his buggy (something that is impossible to do while texting).Where once I felt annoyed when I received one, as though listening to another human being's voice were simply too demanding, now I'm excited to hear what the person has to say, and how. Funny, sad, entertaining, long-winded, digressive, insightful; whatever their style, I can't praise them enough.Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat turn their hand to audio with True Tales of Possession. Plus: five of the best podcasts featuring A-listers Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereParanormal Activity: True Tales of Possession

Gameplay designer Adrien Poncet explains how this seafaring adventure anchors the idea of common effort' by linking problem-solving players out of timeAzure skies; crystalline waters; a flotilla emblazoned with welcome to Pleasureland". It sounds like a dream holiday but this is actually dystopia: continents lie submerged after the Great Flood; a disease caused by toxic plastic ravages every living organism.There's no mistaking Tides of Tomorrow for anything other than anxious cli-fi", but its tone is exuberant, brash and irreverent rather than moody or dread-laden. The setting is the fictional planet of Elynd which, says lead game designer Adrien Poncet, lets him and his colleagues take liberties with the science and technology they are depicting. We see one character inhaling ozen" from a canister - it's an oxygen-like substance keeping people alive. Elsewhere, players bear witness to striking and unsettling images, including a vast mass of bobbing plastic akin to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Continue reading...

Alex Hern reports on recent problems artificial intelligence companies have faced and asks whether the billions invested are paying offEven if the AI boom turns out to be an AI bubble, the LLMs aren't going anywhere," the Guardian's UK technology editor, Alex Hern, tells Michael Safi.Whether or not OpenAI goes bust, whether or not Google and Microsoft's valuations plummet back to the ground, there is this technology that was created. They may go bust, but that doesn't mean we're back to the world we were in in 2020, for good and for ill." Continue reading...

Analysis of more than 200,000 chatbot conversations shows how the new tech is actually being used. Turns out quite a lot of it is racy role play' ...Name: AI dirty talk.Age: Since 2022. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: This autumn may not deliver its usual raft of franchise mega-titles, so use this time to embrace the weird, wonderful and original instead Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereEarlier this week, the culture desk asked me to recommend four games for our annual autumn arts preview. Reader: I struggled. The period between September and November is usually stacked with AAA releases as publishers jostle for space in the historically lucrative run-up to Christmas. Even in this era of live service" games such as Fortnite, Destiny and Genshin Impact (which ignore external sales patterns in favour of their own ever-updating season passes) you're usually guaranteed an autumnal belch of major gaming releases.But this year ... not so much. September is mostly about The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom (below). October is the Silent Hill 2 reboot, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and at a stretch Sonic X Shadow Generations. We have to wait until November for a truly busy blockbuster lineup with Slitterhead, Football Manager 2025, Assassin's Creed Shadows and Stalker 2: Heart of Chernobyl all lining up for our wintery delectation. The long anticipated role-playing game Avowed has been delayed until 2025, while Indiana Jones and the Great Circle still hasn't been given a release date beyond 2024", which doesn't seem promising. Continue reading...

Our video games writers get their children to play the games they loved as kids - and get to grips with the ones they adore now. Will they be bored, baffled - or hooked?Keza MacDonald plays Pokemon Shield Continue reading...

From card sharps to crypto traders, a statistician asks what we can learn from the people prepared to gamble everythingNothing is more interesting to poker players and less interesting to everyone else than a breathless recounting of who bet how much with a jack and six of clubs in some game years ago. There's an awful lot of that kind of thing in this book, which celebrates poker players as paradigmatic citizens of a global intellectual community it calls the River", which also counts among its inhabitants venture capitalists, crypto traders, fashionable philosophers and mild-mannered statisticians.One such statistician, Nate Silver himself, came topublic prominence as a data-driven analyst of politicalpolls at his website FiveThirtyEight, which predicted the results of US elections in 2008 and 2012 with seemingly uncanny accuracy. But before that hewas a poker player, making money especially in thenascent internet-casino business, until Congress banned onlinepoker in 2006. That, he has said, was hispoliticalawakening. Continue reading...

With 550m users, the social network has been accused of providing a platform for organising riots in the UK

The ruling found Google broke antitrust laws by making multibillion-dollar deals. Will those agreements evaporate?Google lost its landmark antitrust case against the US Department of Justice this week after a federal judge ruled the tech giant had built an illegal monopoly over the online search and advertising industry. The decision will probably have immense implications for both Google's internal operations and how people interact with the most popular page on the internet.Judge Amit Mehta's ruling specifically found that Google broke antitrust laws by striking exclusive agreements with device makers like Apple and Samsung, in which Google would pay billions of dollars to ensure that its product was the default search engine on their phones and tablets. During the trial, it was revealed that Google paid companies, including Apple, more than $26bn in 2021 alone to remain the default option for search in Safari. Those deals allowed Google to build a monopoly over search and unfairly suppress competition, Mehta found. Continue reading...

Vacation rental company reports second-quarter profit of $555m compared with last year's $650mThe vacation rental company Airbnb forecast third-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on Tuesday and reported a lower second-quarter profit, as it flagged weakening demand from US customers.Shares of the company were down about 12% after the bell. Continue reading...

X said the companies worked against their economic self-interests in a conspiracy violating US antitrust lawElon Musk's social media platform, X, on Tuesday sued a global advertising alliance and several major companies, including Unilever, Mars and CVS Health, accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to shun the social network and intentionally causing it to lose revenue. The company formerly known as Twitter accused the defendants of a massive advertiser boycott".X filed the lawsuit in federal court in Texas on Tuesday against the World Federation of Advertisers as well as the companies individually. Continue reading...

Owner of X uses platform to promote conspiracy theory that white far-right protesters' involved in disorder are treated more severely than minoritiesElon Musk has called the prime minister two-tier Keir" in reference to the conspiracy theory that police are treating white far-right protesters" more harshly than minority groups.Downing Street would not engage again with the billionaire owner of X, having previously said his comments about a potential civil war in the UK had no justification". Since that criticism, Musk has been repeatedly targeting Keir Starmer on his social media platform. Continue reading...

Billionaire confirms website's main office will relocate to Austin, Texas, while SpaceX will also leave California

Assemble a crew of navy seers and necro medics to take down a dictatorship in a spellbinding new game inspired by XCOM, but without the punishmentWe're only just over half way through the year, but Tactical Breach Wizards is already a contender for best video game title of 2024. At once exquisitely silly and decidedly practical, the name neatly reflects the intent behind this magically infused turn-based tactics game. Putting you in command of a sorcerous SEAL team that uses guns and spells to fight through puzzle-like scenarios, Tactical Breach Wizards combines a decade-old joke with a desire to solve a problem particular to genre which inspired it.It came out of playing XCOM a lot, especially XCOM 2," says Tom Francis, director at Suspicious Developments and creator of acclaimed titles Gunpoint and Heat Signature. Loving that game in so many ways, but also being very frustrated by the many ways you can misunderstand things and not realise a rule, and just lose irreplaceable troops or suffer catastrophic losses." Continue reading...

LLMs' reversal curse' leads it to fail at drawing relationships between simple facts. It's a problem that could prove fatalIn 2021, linguist Emily Bender and computer scientist Timnit Gebru published a paper that described the then-nascent field of language models as one of stochastic parrots". A language model, they wrote, is a system for haphazardly stitching together sequences of linguistic forms it has observed in its vast training data, according to probabilistic information about how they combine, but without any reference to meaning."The phrase stuck. AI can still get better, even if it is a stochastic parrot, because the more training data it has, the better it will seem. But does something like ChatGPT actually display anything like intelligence, reasoning, or thought? Or is it simply, at ever-increasing scales, haphazardly stitching together sequences of linguistic forms"?If a human learns the fact, Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to travel to space", they can also correctly answer, Who was the first woman to travel to space?" This is such a basic form of generalization that it seems trivial. Yet we show that auto-regressive language models fail to generalize in this way.This is an instance of an ordering effect we call the Reversal Curse.We test GPT-4 on pairs of questions like, Who is Tom Cruise's mother?" and, Who is Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son?" for 1,000 different celebrities and their actual parents. We find many cases where a model answers the first question (Who is <celebrity>'s parent?") correctly, but not the second. We hypothesize this is because the pretraining data includes fewer examples of the ordering where the parent precedes the celebrity (eg Mary Lee Pfeiffer's son is Tom Cruise"). Continue reading...

White House calls decision - that could have major implications for web use - victory for the American people'Google violated antitrust laws as it built an internet search empire, a federal judge ruled on Monday in a decision that could have major implications for the way people interact with the internet.Judge Amit Mehta found that Google violated section 2 of the Sherman Act, a US antitrust law. His decision states that Google maintained a monopoly over search services and advertising. Continue reading...

Tesla CEO alleges his former partners, including CEO Sam Altman, manipulated him into co-founding the companyElon Musk is once again suing OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, resurrecting a legal battle against his former partners with a case that now claims they manipulated him into co-founding the artificial intelligence company.Months after abruptly withdrawing a similar lawsuit without explanation, Musk filed a new lawsuit on Monday in a northern California federal court. Continue reading...

X's Grok AI chatbot falsely told users ballot deadline has passed for several states'Five secretaries of state plan to send a letter to Elon Musk calling on the billionaire owner of X to make changes to the social media platform's Grok AI chatbot after it gave users misinformation about Kamala Harris appearing on the 2024 White House ballot in certain states.Grok told users that the ballots were locked and loaded" and that the ballot deadline has passed for several states". Continue reading...

The use of fake AI vocals - including those of Donald Trump - is sending shockwaves through this historic scene. At a Montego Bay clash, performers debate their culture's futureFour days after the attempt on his life, the voice of Donald Trump booms from the speakers in Montego Bay, Jamaica: If they needed an assassin, they should have sent for Bodyguard ... about to commit a quadruple murder at Sumfest in Montego Bay." The audience are taken by surprise, having been primed for a reggae riddim to drop, and laugh.The Bodyguard crew have just taken to the stage at Sumfest Global Sound Clash, a musical gladiatorial contest where sound systems battle against one another with creative mixing, hyped-up MCs and exclusive - often incendiary - recordings featuring star guests and in-jokes. AI vocalists such as this fake Trump, however, are sending shockwaves through a decades-old musical tradition in which authenticity and originality are paramount, and sound systems pay premium rates to artists to get vocals for clashes. Continue reading...

The developers behind Moncage challenge you to sit still in this irreverent waiting simulatorAlthough it can be frustrating to be told patience is a virtue" while you wait for something menial, bored out of your mind, there is sometimes enjoyment and peace to be found in the everyday mundane. This is something California studio Optillusion is trying to capture with its tongue-in-cheek patience simulator, While Waiting. Often, when we're waiting - whether for a bus, in traffic or in a line - we seek ways to entertain ourselves," says producer Dong Zhou. People just play with their phones because there is nothing to do, but is that even true? I believe everyone hates waiting, but that's just because they are not playful enough. We want to create a game from every mundane moment to help players find their own ways to kill time."In While Waiting, players follow the life of Adam, an everyman who must traverse a series of tedious tasks - waiting for a bus, lining up for a carnival ride, or staring out of the window until the rain stops. Waiting is not purely a negative experience but a part of life," Zhou says. Each situation carries its unique anticipation and anxiety." The game is a personal journey of growth, as Adam's goals shift from simple pleasures to complex aspirations. Depending on the different waiting scenarios, he may end up happy, relieved, or sad. But all he knows is that the only solution is to wait," says Zhou. Continue reading...

Founder says procedure, aimed at helping paralyzed people use digital devices by thinking alone, went extremely well'Neuralink has successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give paralyzed patients the ability to use digital devices by thinking alone, according to the startup's owner Elon Musk.Neuralink is in the process of testing its device, which is intended to help people with spinal cord injuries. The device has allowed the first patient to play video games, browse the internet, post on social media and move a cursor on his laptop. Continue reading...

Algorithms that send the most outrageous comments viral and a chain reaction of anger and disinformation made the riots that followed the Southport killings inevitableThe 1996 Dunblane massacre and the outcry that followed are held up in the US as a textbook example of how an act of terror mobilised a country to demand effective gun regulation.The atrocity, in which 16 children and their teacher were killed, provoked a wave of national revulsion that, within weeks, led to 750,000 people signing a petition demanding a change to the law. Within a year and a half, new legislation had outlawed the ownership of handguns. Continue reading...

Their shares have fallen 11.8% from last month's peak but more AI breakthroughs may reassure investorsIt has been tough week for the magnificent seven, the group of technology stocks that has played a dominant role in the US stock market, buoyed by investor excitement about breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.Last year Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, the chipmaker Nvidia, Google's parent, Alphabet, Facebook's owner, Meta, and Elon Musk's Tesla accounted for half the gains in the S&P 500 share index. But doubts about the return on AI investment, along with a mixed set of quarterly results, investors shifting their focus to other sectors and weak US economic data have hit the group over the past month. Continue reading...