Technology | The Guardian

Arion Kurtaj, who has acute autism, hacked Rockstar Games using just an Amazon Firestick, mobile phone and hotel TVA teenager who stole 90 clips of the unreleased Grand Theft Auto 6 game as part of a hacking spree has been sentenced to an indefinite hospital order.Arion Kurtaj, 18, who is autistic, was on bail for hacking the software firm Nvidia and BT/EE and also in police protection at a Travelodge hotel when he continued his hacking and breached Rockstar Games, the company behind GTA, a court heard. Continue reading...

Rights group says Facebook and Instagram routinely engage in six key patterns of undue censorship' of content supporting PalestineMeta has engaged in a systemic and global" censorship of pro-Palestinian content since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on 7 October, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).In a scathing 51-page report, the organization documented and reviewed more than a thousand reported instances of Meta removing content and suspending or permanently banning accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The company exhibited six key patterns of undue censorship" of content in support of Palestine and Palestinians, including the taking down of posts, stories and comments; disabling accounts; restricting users' ability to interact with others' posts; and shadow banning", where the visibility and reach of a person's material is significantly reduced, according to HRW. Continue reading...

From dense' training and tests to going live, answering for idles' - and some of the types of videos receivedTikTok says it has more than 40,000 professionals dedicated to keeping the platform safe. Moderators work alongside automated moderation systems, reviewing content in more than 70 languages.Earlier this year, TikTok invited journalists to its new transparency and accountability" centre, a move aimed at showing the company wanted to be more open. It says moderators receive training that is thorough and under constant review.Phishing and scam videos in a selection of foreign languages that promise guaranteed high-paying jobs at reputable companies and have instructions to send a CV to a Telegram account.Sex workers trying to direct you to their OnlyFans and so on, while not being able to mention OnlyFans. They use a variety of slang terms and emojis to indicate they have an account on OnlyFans as well as instructions to check their Instagram for more", meaning that, while direct links to OnlyFans aren't allowed on TikTok, by using the in-app feature that lets you open the user's Instagram profile, the link is never more than a few clicks away.A 10- to 60-minute get ready with me" uploaded by an underage user where they dress and get ready for school.A recap video featuring hundreds of photos and clips of an entire school year uploaded by someone who just finished their end-of-year exams.Footage of well-known YouTubers' and streamers' most controversial moments, or popular TV shows such as South Park or Family Guy in the top half of the video and Subway Surfers/Grand Theft Auto in the bottom half.A four-minute explicit video of hardcore pornography.Videos featuring what could be Islamist extremist militants but with little to no context because none of the text and spoken language is in a language you were hired to moderate or that you understand.A first-hand recording of young men/teenagers using power tools to steal a selection of motorbikes/scooters/cars, followed by clips of them either driving the vehicles dangerously, destroying the vehicles or listing them for sale.A recording of a livestream that happened on TikTok and has been reposted, probably because it contains controversial comments or behaviour.A list of a person's name, address, place of work and other personal information followed by harassing statements or requests for violence to be committed against the person.TikTok declined to comment on the record. However, it insisted moderator systems" do not shut down after five minutes, and it said it did not recognise the term recaps". In response to other stories about how the app is policed, it said: These allegations about TikTok's policies are wrong or based on misunderstandings, while the Guardian has not given us enough information about their other claims to investigate." Continue reading...

Just below billionaires' charity is an endless well of self-preservation. Their desperate planning for the end betrays everything they spout about equality and progressThe rich can't buy their way out of death, but they can certainly postpone it for a while. All of the pure food and expensive healthcare and personal trainers that money can buy do indeed keep the wealthy breathing longer, on average, than the rest of us. Yet it is not death itself that is the great equalizer; it is the fear of death. That is the thing that the highest piles of money cannot safeguard against.The futility of all of those meticulous attempts to maximize lifespan is revealed by death's approach. Much of the behavior of the world's wealthiest people can be understood as a pitiful attempt to stave off something that is unstoppable, like a person throwing their hands up to stop an oncoming freight train. For all of us languishing in the masses of regular-folkdom, this is our consolation: we cannot match the world's greatest fortunes, but we can take solace in the knowledge that they are being wasted on mankind's oldest folly.Hamilton Nolan is a writer on labor and politics, based in New York City Continue reading...

Thousands of users reported being unable to access social media platform for more than an hour on ThursdayThe social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has been restored after a global outage on Thursday.The problem reportedly began after 5am UK time and its cause is not yet known. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Voice actors and expert analysis bring juicy celebrity legal affairs to life in Courtroom Drama. Plus: five of the best myth-busting podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereJune: Voice of a Silent Twin

Exclusive: Privacy campaigners say clause in new criminal justice bill will put all UK drivers on permanent police lineup'The police will be able to run facial recognition searches on a database containing images of Britain's 50 million driving licence holders under a law change being quietly introduced by the government.Should the police wish to put a name to an image collected on CCTV, or shared on social media, the legislation would provide them with the powers to search driving licence records for a match. Continue reading...

Surveillance systems incorrectly and without customer consent marked shoppers as persons of interest', an FTC settlement saysRite Aid used facial recognition systems to identify shoppers that were previously deemed likely to engage" in shoplifting without customer consent and misidentified people - particularly women and Black, Latino or Asian people - on numerous" occasions, according to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. As part of the settlement, Rite Aid has been forbidden from deploying facial recognition technology in its stores for five years.The FTC said in a federal court complaint that Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior". The technology sent alerts to Rite Aid employees either by email or phone when it identified people entering the store on its watchlist.This article was amended on 21 December 2023 to correct a misspelling of John Davisson's name. Continue reading...

Images might have helped AI systems produce realistic sexual imagery of fake children; the database was taken down in responseHidden inside the foundation of popular artificial intelligence (AI) image generators are thousands of images of child sexual abuse, according to new research published on Wednesday. The operators of some of the largest and most-used sets of images utilized to train AI shut off access to them in response to the study.The Stanford Internet Observatory found more than 3,200 images of suspected child sexual abuse in the giant AI database LAION, an index of online images and captions that's been used to train leading AI image-makers such as Stable Diffusion. The watchdog group based at Stanford University worked with the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and other anti-abuse charities to identify the illegal material and report the original photo links to law enforcement. More than 1,000 of the suspected images were confirmed as child sexual abuse material. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: While it was an incredible year for players, it was a tough year for anyone making games Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe time has come: our list of the 20 best games of 2023 is now live. I can't remember a year with such an embarrassment of riches to choose from, and the diversity of this list really reflects that. Most outlets - and players - appear to have divided themselves along the lines of Team Baldur's Gate, Team Zelda or Team Alan Wake 2, and any one of them would be a worthy GOTY. In the end you have to go with your heart. Have a read and see if your feelings align with ours.Keep an eye out, too, for our games-you-might-have-missed list tomorrow, in which our full complement of critics recommend more than 30 additional games. And if you'd like to hit reply on this newsletter and share a few sentences about your own favourite games of 2023 and your most anticipated games of 2024, there's still time! We'll be publishing your responses next week. Continue reading...

US technologist loses dispute with Intellectual Property Office over ideas generated by programArtificial intelligence cannot be legally named as an inventor to secure patent rights, the UK supreme court has ruled.In a judgment on Wednesday, Britain's highest court concluded that an inventor must be a person" in order to apply for patents under the current law. Continue reading...

There has been a remarkable intersection between video games and musical performance this year, from villains lending vocals to their own theme tunes to interactive songsToward the end of Baldur's Gate 3, widely considered the most outstanding video game released this year, you can literally go to hell. If you do, you'll have a showdown with the game's equivalent of the devil, a charismatic yet demonic trickster who calls himself Raphael.It's one of the toughest, most dramatic encounters in the game, the culmination of 150 hours of play. Naturally, developer Larian Studios wanted it to feel monumental. So they decided that the battle should be accompanied by a song, and that Raphael should be the one singing it. The idea for a song to be performed by Raphael himself came from our director Swen Vincke about six months before the release of the game," says Borislav Slavov, Baldur's Gate 3's music director. The team instantly loved it." Continue reading...

Button letting moderators flag video content in language they do not understand has been removed, source saysTikTok moderators have struggled to assess content related to the Israel-Gaza conflict because the platform removed an internal tool for flagging videos in a foreign language, the Guardian has been told.The change has meant moderators in Europe cannot flag that they do not understand foreign-language videos, for example, in Arabic and Hebrew, which are understood to be appearing more frequently in video queues. Continue reading...

Board describes the two videos, which were reinstated, as valuable for informing the world about human suffering on both sides'Meta's oversight board said on Tuesday that the social media company erred in removing two videos depicting hostages and injured people in the Israel-Gaza war, saying the videos were valuable to understanding human suffering in the war. Meta had already reinstated the videos when the oversight board took up the case.One of the cases concerned a video posted on Instagram, which showed the aftermath of an airstrike near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, including children who appeared injured or dead. The second case involved a video on Facebook of the 7 October attack, which showed an Israeli woman begging her kidnappers not to kill her as she is taken hostage. The board described the videos as important for informing the world about human suffering on both sides". Meta's automatic moderation systems removed the content. Continue reading...

Experts on tech, politics and culture weigh in on the year the hype faded and what could come nextRemember 2022? Elon Musk had just been named Time's Person of The Year, Marvel still ruled the box office, Tucker Carlson was the most-watched host on cable news and it seemed as if all of life was going to take place on the blockchain (the Staples Center in LA had been rechristened the Crypto.com arena, and Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, was valued at $4bn).What a difference a year makes: 2023 has seen the crash of digital currency, the flatlining of NFTs, and the floundering of blockbuster franchises. Previously beloved musicians took on a more sinister edge, a celebrated social network imploded, and a TV show became the biggest faceplant" in a network's five-decade history. Below, experts from the worlds of tech, politics, and the arts give the inside track on the sacred cows that have been put out to pasture, the buzzy upstarts that faced a reckoning, and the lessons that can be learned for the future. Continue reading...

Questions for tech giant over claims underage users can remain on platform if they say parents are overseeing their accountTikTok faces questions over safeguards for child users after a Guardian investigation found that moderators were being told to allow under-13s to stay on the platform if they claimed their parents were overseeing their accounts.In one example seen by the Guardian, a user who declared themselves to be 12 in their account bio, under TikTok's minimum age of 13, was allowed to stay on the platform because their user profile stated the account was managed by their parents. Continue reading...

Low-cost, low-quality everything' stores such as Temu, Shein and Amazon make buying stuff easier than ever - but it comes at a cost Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the free newsletter hereThis year, like retirees are wont to do, my dad got extremely into a very specific hobby. In his case, it was hauling out the espresso machine from its usual hiding spot in the hard-to-reach cabinet and making lattes for the family. He lamented his inability to make a perfect swirl with the foam frequently enough that, in anticipation of Christmas, I went online to search for latte art stencils.The Google search result was like nothing I had encountered before. Instead of a list of actual shops that sold reputable, well-crafted products, I was served an overwhelming mess of online retailers I had either never heard of or had once been cautioned against. Every widget, sidebar and filter had been deployed to ostensibly aid in my search experience, but actually ended up crowding the screen with sponsored listings and images. Continue reading...

The company was accused of overcharging consumers but did not admit wrongdoingGoogle has agreed to pay US$700m and to allow for greater competition in its Play app store, according to the terms of an antitrust settlement with US states and consumers disclosed in a San Francisco federal court.Google was accused of overcharging consumers through unlawful restrictions on the distribution of apps on Android devices and unnecessary fees for in-app transactions. It did not admit wrongdoing. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Moderators in Europe encouraged to be more lenient with accounts of some high-profile figuresTikTok has given special status to certain high-profile accounts, with moderators in Europe encouraged to be more lenient with content posted by people including Russell Brand, according to internal messages seen by the Guardian.The demand to be less stringent has also been underlined in meetings with moderators, the Guardian has been told. Continue reading...

Prof Michael Wooldridge has been an AI researcher for more than 30 years, and in the year that AI was supercharged by ChatGPT, he is giving the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures on the truth about AI. The Guardian science correspondent Nicola Davis sat down with him to find out how he sees AI evolving, what makes human intelligence unique, and what really keeps him awake at night. Madeleine Finlay hears from them both in this Science Weekly Christmas special. Continue reading...

The actor, who also starred in film and television for decades, was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancerJames McCaffrey, the actor who provided the voice of the titular character of the Max Payne video games, has died aged 65.The actor died on Sunday at his home in Larchmont, New York, having been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, his wife, the actor Rochelle Bostrom confirmed. Continue reading...

Trevor Milton had requested probation after being found guilty of misrepresenting his company's technology to investorsTrevor Milton, the convicted founder of the electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker Nikola, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday after a jury last year found him guilty of lying to investors about the company's technology.Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Milton misled investors by stating that Nikola had built a pickup from the ground up", that it had developed its own batteries even though he knew it was buying them, and that it had early success creating a Nikola One" semi-truck that he knew did not work. Continue reading...

Sales of Series 9 and Ultra 2 watches affected amid dispute with Masimo over technology behind blood oxygen featureApple said on Monday it would pause sales of its Series 9 and Ultra 2 smartwatches in the United States from this week, as it deals with a patent dispute over the technology that enables the blood oxygen feature on the devices.The move comes after an order in October from the US International Trade Commission (ITC) that could bar Apple from importing its Apple Watches after finding the devices violate the medical technology company Masimo's patent rights. Continue reading...

UK's CMA said deal would threaten competition in the product design, image editing and illustration marketsAdobe has abandoned its $20bn (15.8bn) takeover of its smaller rival Figma, after European and UK regulators raised concerns that it would eliminate competition in the product design software market.The Photoshop owner, which dominates the market with products including Illustrator and Acrobat Reader, said the two companies had come to a joint assessment that there was no clear path" to regulatory approval. Continue reading...

Minister's move follows reports of pensioners left unable to call for helpTelecoms providers have been forced to pause plans to impose digital phone lines on vulnerable customers after reports of pensioners left unable to call for help during power cuts.Companies including BT and Virgin Media have been forced by Michelle Donelan, the technology secretary, to sign a charter to safeguard at-risk households during the nationwide switchover from analogue to internet-based landlines. Continue reading...

EU launches proceedings against Elon Musk's social media platform under new Digital Services ActThe social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is being investigated for allegedly breaking EU law on disinformation, illegal content and transparency, the European Commission has announced.The decision to launch formal infringement proceedings against the company, owned by the US billionaire Elon Musk, comes weeks after X was asked to provide evidence of compliance with new laws designed to eliminate hate speech, racism and fake news from platforms in the EU. Continue reading...

From skateboard romances and a horror fishing simulator to the return of beloved classics and the ever-enduring appeal of Zelda, 2023 was a bumper year for gaming. Our critics pick their favourites

Workers making $17 an hour not impressed by holiday offer from company that just tripled profits to $9.9bnAmazon is asking workers experiencing hardship to write a letter to its company mascot, Peccy, this holiday season so some of their holiday wishes can come true".A flyer from the Amazon warehouse SWF1 in Rock Tavern, New York, states: Are you or someone you know facing financial hardship this holiday season? Peccy wants to help! Write a letter to Peccy. If the Peccy team selects you, some of your holiday wishes could come true!" Continue reading...

Put away that outdated edition of Trivial Pursuit and get your pads and pens at the ready ... these are the best recent word games, drawing games, bluffing games and others, to get the whole family involvedIt is a terrifying statistical fact that if you have a roomful of friends and relatives gathered at Christmas, you are only ever 20 minutes away from someone suggesting Trivial Pursuit. Don't become a victim this year - have an alternative ready. Here are my 12 board games of Christmas, some of which I've played, the rest suggested by trustworthy pals on X. They're all suitable for at least six players and there are no overly complicated rules to learn, making them perfect for slightly boozy Christmas afternoons.If your favourite isn't included, please do suggest alternatives in the comments. Continue reading...

Presenters walk the aisles of supermarkets and small shops offering what they can findThere are times when other customers browsing the malls in Gifu city, Japan, seem to wonder why Kenneth Gongon Watanabe is buying so many items, and why he is talking so energetically on his phone.But the goods in his trolleys - which can range from hoards of shoes and anime socks, to stacks of Japanese sweets and matcha latte powders - are not for him. They're actually being bought by dozens of customers in Watanabe's home country, the Philippines, who follow live on Facebook as he browses the shops. Continue reading...

The jury in the video game developer's antitrust case over Google's app store monopoly were under no illusionsThe big news last week was that a jury in San Francisco had found Google guilty on all counts of antitrust violations stemming from its dispute with Epic Games, maker of the bestselling Fortnite, which had lodged a number of complaints related to how Google runs its Play store, an Android app market with a revenue of about $48bn (38bn) a year.Why is this interesting? Isn't it just another case of two tech companies squabbling in a US court? Well, in the first place, something very rare happened - a tech giant actually lost a big case in a US court. Second, the case was decided by a jury, not (as often happens in such cases) by a judge. Third, it showed that venerable antitrust (ie anti-monopoly) laws such as the Sherman Act still work. Continue reading...

The Fortnite maker filed antitrust suits against both tech companies - while one emerged victorious, the other was found at fault on 11 claimsLate on Monday afternoon, nine jurors huddled together in a San Francisco federal court tasked with deciding the fate of Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Google. They emerged with a bomb likely to keep the tech world's ears ringing for years to come. After just three hours of deliberation, the jury shocked observers and legal experts by siding with the Fortnite maker, which had accused the tech giant of maintaining an illegal monopoly in the Android app market. Jurors found Google at fault for all 11 antitrust claims brought by Epic.The verdict surprised many observers because Epic had lost a very similar battle with Apple two years ago. The gaming company alleged the iPhone maker also operated an illegal monopoly via the App Store; a judge ruled against Epic in September 2021. Both cases highlighted app developers' longstanding resentment of Google and Apple's in-app purchasing fees, which can top out at 30%. Epic had tried to implement a payment system within Fortnite in 2020 that would have bypassed Google and Apple. Both companies briefly banned Fortnite from their app stores in response. Then Epic sued. Continue reading...

The photographer enjoys the sadness in this shot of her son lost in thought against the backdrop of the Golden Gate BridgeOn a family holiday with her son to San Francisco Bay in 2019, Lisa Carney was practising taking photographs in extreme lighting conditions. It's pretty amazing the tonal range you can get with smartphone cameras," she says. Here she was using an iPhone 10. I was experimenting with exposure for highlights," she explains, while still being able to bring out lots of detail in shadows."Carney shoots only on smartphones, usually editing with the Lightroom app, and says that she finds no need to use large sensor cameras. I enlarge many of my images to poster size and I'm still able to get the quality I need. I like to say, It's the wizard, not the wand.'" Continue reading...

This niche, lovingly crafted piece of hardware brings back vibrant and exciting details and memories of a much-missed consoleA few years ago I bought a Japanese copy of Snatcher, a cyberpunk video game designed by Hideo Kojima before he went on to create the legendary Metal Gear Solid series. There were just two problems with this purchase: the game is a text-heavy role-playing adventure with no English translation, and I don't own a PC Engine, a cult 16 bit machine first released in Japan in 1987, which hosted some of the finest arcade conversions of the era in then-astounding visual quality. A small number were imported into the UK, but it was never a huge hit here, so getting one on eBay is a costly and risk-laden adventure. None of this put me off. I bought Snatcher because I loved its anime aesthetic and its role in the nascent career of a games industry legend. Last week, I loaded it up for the first ever time, thanks to the Analogue Duo.Committed retro gaming fiends will be familiar with Analogue, a small, specialist maker of incredibly precise nostalgic gaming technology. It is known for building versions of the Super Nintendo and Sega Mega Drive that don't run software emulations of old games, which can introduce lag, and will sometimes refuse to load certain titles. Instead, they're constructed around programmable circuit boards known as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA), which accurately simulate the original hardware so they will load and play actual SNES and Mega Drive carts as God intended. Continue reading...

From mobile phone cases to grips to refurbished headphones, there are plenty of optionsIf you are looking for last-minute Christmas gifts and don't know what to buy, gadgets and accessories mean you don't need to know someone's clothes size or availability for a night at the theatre.There's no need to buy the latest shiny new phone or smartwatch - there are some smaller things that will be welcome presents and help extend the life of your loved ones' existing electronics. Continue reading...

Elizabeth Warren sends terse letter to Mark Zuckerberg, citing human rights organizations and Wall Street Journal reportThe US senator Elizabeth Warren issued a letter on Thursday to Mark Zuckerberg demanding information relating to allegations of suppression of pro-Palestine content on Meta platforms.Warren cited a statement co-signed by more than 90 human rights and civil rights organizations and listed various media reports and concerns about Meta's censorship, removal and mistranslation of Palestine-related content since Hamas attacks on Israel escalated conflict there in October. Continue reading...

The tech giant's app, which launched in July 2023, first needed approval from the European Commission over privacy provisionsThreads launched in the European Union on Thursday, further expanding the Meta-owned platform's user base and dealing another blow to competitor Twitter/X.Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the launch in a post on Threads. Continue reading...

Reports suggest a ban is among potential options to protect young people from online harmRishi Sunak is considering limiting social media access for teenagers under the age of 16 to try to protect them from online harm, with reports suggesting a potential ban is on the cards.The government is considering further action despite bringing in the Online Safety Act, which requires social media platforms to shield children from harmful content or face fines of up to 10% of a company's global revenue. Continue reading...

Tax filings show Musk's charity The Foundation seeks to establish primary and secondary Stem school in AustinElon Musk has plans to open a new university in Texas, according to tax filings.Bloomberg reported the filings show Musk donated $100m to his charity, The Foundation, to establish a primary and secondary Stem school in Austin - and later to seek accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges for launching a university. Continue reading...

The retro-futuristic' mid-2000s look harks back to a time of technological optimismWhat do tropical fish, bubbles, green fields and dewdrops have in common? They are all visual markers of a mid-2000s aesthetic that is taking the TikTok generation by storm, amid a wave of nostalgia for a time when technology was seen as a path to a brighter future.Dubbed Frutiger Aero by design gurus, the trend is named after the Swiss typesetter Adrian Frutiger whose lettering featured widely in early colour computers, and Windows Aero, a visual style embraced by Microsoft's 2006 Vista software, with its screensavers depicting electric-green grass and impossibly blue skies. Continue reading...

New folder is thinner, lighter and cheaper, with almost invisible crease, challenging Samsung and GoogleOnePlus's first foldable phone is the Open, which aims to give Samsung and Google a run for their money with a slightly different form for the tablet-phone hybrid that may just be the best shape yet.The Open costs 1,599 (1,849/$1,699.99), which makes it twice the price of the brand's regular smartphones but undercuts the Samsung and Google folders by 150. It still puts the OnePlus in the ultra-premium gadget world, although closer to the price of top standard models. Continue reading...

OpenAI to pay German media group Axel Springer to use its material, including stories behind paywallsAxel Springer, the publisher of Business Insider and Politico, said on Wednesday it was partnering with OpenAI, which will pay the German media group to allow ChatGPT to summarize current articles in responses generated by the chatbot.ChatGPT users around the world will receive summaries of selected global news content from Axel Springer's media brands," which also includes the German tabloid Bild, the two companies said in a statement. Continue reading...

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says it has begun process to force adoption of technology, as long as it worksUS auto-safety regulators announced Tuesday that they had begun the process that would eventually force carmakers to adopt new technology to prevent intoxicated drivers from starting vehicles.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking" to start gathering information and public comments on how to develop, legally require and deploy technology to prevent impaired people from firing up their vehicles. Continue reading...

Wouldn't it be great to have an LED sign in the back window of your car to send messages to other drivers and put an end to waving and gesturing? Well, such a device existsI know what I want for Christmas - an LED sign for the back window of my car. I've only just realised these things are readily available. I assumed otherwise because in all my years of motoring I've only ever seen one in operation. It was about six years ago on the A55 heading south towards Wrexham. I was riding my motorbike. It was a beautiful moment. A black Range Rover ahead of me was indicating a wish to move into my lane. I slowed down a little and nodded my helmet to signal my assent. And blow me down if an LED sign in the back window didn't flash up a cheery THANK YOU. So sweet. But then I felt a bit rotten because I had no way of returning this friendly fire when I overtook him. It felt impolite not to say NOT AT ALL! But it's difficult to physically communicate that, especially on a motorbike. With a random head movement and a slightly raised thumb, I did the best I could. All in all, it really was a most satisfactory exchange.You get a lot of thinking time when you're riding a motorbike, so I came to wondering what he might have flashed up if I hadn't allowed him to pull in front of me. If he'd been disappointed enough to chase me down and get past me, what might have been his message? I thought of THANKS FOR NOTHING, or perhaps a simple FUCK YOU.Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The annual list of Alexa's most-asked questions reveals evidence the UK is a nation of masochists, obsessed with football - and fartingName: Alexa.Age: Born 6 November 2014. Continue reading...

Exclusive: the New Zealand regulator has warned the schemes could be a scam' but they have escaped such scrutiny in Australia and thousands have lost money

In this week's newsletter: While the gaming Oscars' are more like a three-hour long ad show these days, here's the best of what was announced Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe gaming year used to follow a predictable rhythm: we'd have a flurry of announcements in the summer, around the gaming trade event E3, then a rush of releases between September and the end of November - and then absolutely nothing would happen until March at the earliest. But now E3 is gone for good, and the Game Awards - the industry's most glamorous and also most intensely commercial awards show - takes place in early December, so we suddenly have an eye-watering number of new trailers and debuts right as we're all preparing to hibernate.I didn't watch this year's show live (it started at 12.30am UK time last Saturday morning and was over three hours long) and I'm betting that most of you didn't watch it either, so here are the headlines: Baldur's Gate 3 won nearly everything; as ever the awards felt like something that had to be squeezed in around all the trailers; there was not very much time given to developers to speak, which rankled; The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Spider-Man 2 were snubbed in several categories (Zelda won best action adventure game, Spider-Man won nothing). Continue reading...

PC; Frozen District, PlayWay

Recall comes after safety regulator says advanced driver-assistance system open to foreseeable misuse'Tesla is recalling just over 2m vehicles in the United States fitted with its Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system to install new safeguards, after a safety regulator said the system was open to foreseeable misuse".The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been investigating the electric automaker led by the billionaire Elon Musk for more than two years over whether Tesla vehicles adequately ensure that drivers pay attention when using the driver assistance system. Continue reading...

The musician and comedian (AKA Candy Moore) tells us what's calming his existential dread lately - including a classic Vine, a classic TikTok and two covers of stone-cold classics