Technology | The Guardian

What began as a primitive tool has spawned hyperrealistic fakes with the potential to disrupt elections around the worldConcern about doctored or manipulative media is always high around election cycles, but 2024 will be different for two reasons: deepfakes made by artificial intelligence (AI) and the sheer number of polls.The term deepfake refers to a hoax that uses AI to create a phoney image, most commonly fake videos of people, with the effect often compounded by a voice component. Combined with the fact that around half the world's population is holding important elections this year - including India, the US, the EU and, most probably, the UK - and there is potential for the technology to be highly disruptive. Continue reading...

Faster chip, tremendous battery life, premium touch points and a price cut make the best even betterApple's latest MacBook Air adds more power to an already potent package while maintaining its very long battery life and coming at a lower price than its predecessor.The 2024 model ships with Apple's latest M3 chip, first seen in the MacBook Pro, giving the company's thinnest and lightest machine a boost in performance. On the outside the laptop is identical to the 2022 model. Continue reading...

Tell-tale signs of generative AI images are disappearing as the technology improves, and experts are scrambling for new methods to counter disinformationWith more than 4,000 shares, 20,000 comments, and 100,000 reactions on Facebook, the photo of the elderly woman, sitting behind her homemade 122nd birthday cake, has unquestionably gone viral. I started decorating cakes from five years old," the caption reads, and I can't wait to grow my baking journey."The picture is also unquestionably fake. If the curious candles - one seems to float in the air, attached to nothing - or the weird amorphous blobs on the cake in the foreground didn't give it away, then the fact the celebrant would be the oldest person in the world by almost five years should. Continue reading...

Pierre Huyghe's uncanny machine-human hybrids in Venice are the latest attempt to find deeper meaning in a technology that leaves many creatives playing catch-upTwo people dressed in black are kneeling on the floor, so still that they must surely be in pain. If they are grimacing, there would be no way to know - their features are obscured by oversized, smooth gold masks, as though they have buried their faces in half an Easter egg.Their stillness makes them seem like sculptures, and only by checking for the subtle rise and fall of their chests can you confirm they are indeed human. Which is fitting, really - because they aren't actually human, at least not totally. They're human-machine hybrids, Idioms", created by French artist Pierre Huyghe for his largest ever exhibition, Liminal, at the Punta della Dogana in Venice. Continue reading...

A jury found that Do Kwon and Terraform Labs misled investors before the collapse of the company's namesake cryptocurrencyA jury in Manhattan found a Singapore-based former crypto CEO liable on civil fraud charges on Friday, agreeing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that both he and his firm misled investors before the 2022 collapse of the company's namesake cryptocurrency wrecked cryptocurrency markets.The jury delivered the verdict in federal court after a two-week trial after hearing closing arguments earlier in the day. The Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon did not attend the trial, as he has been detained in Montenegro since March 2023. He was intercepted while on his way to Dubai on the lam from authorities in multiple countries, traveling using forged Costa Rican travel documents. Continue reading...

In discovering malicious code that endangered global networks in open-source software, Andres Freund exposed our reliance on insecure, volunteer-maintained techOn Good Friday, a Microsoft engineer named Andres Freund noticed something peculiar. He was using a software tool called SSH for securely logging into remote computers on the internet, but the interactions with the distant machines were significantly slower than usual. So he did some digging and found malicious code embedded in a software package called XZ Utils that was running on his machine. This is a critical utility for compressing (and decompressing) data running on the Linux operating system, the OS that powers the vast majority of publicly accessible internet servers across the world. Which means that every such machine is running XZ Utils.Freund's digging revealed that the malicious code had arrived in his machine via two recent updates to XZ Utils, and he alerted the Open Source Security list to reveal that those updates were the result of someone intentionally planting a backdoor in the compression software. It was what is called a supply-chain attack" (like the catastrophic SolarWinds one of 2020) - where malicious software is not directly injected into targeted machines, but distributed by infecting the regular software updates to which all computer users are wearily accustomed. If you want to get malware out there, infecting the supply chain is the smart way to do it. Continue reading...

A massive cliff and a fearless friend helped the photographer capture an unforgettable imageEskil is a tough guy," Atle Ronningen says of the friend he was hiking Pulpit Rock with. It's a massive cliff over 600 metres high, in Preikestolen, Norway. It's so popular and busy in the summer months, so we went in the spring as soon as the snow had gone. It was still icy in some places, and the weather changed abruptly all day," he says.It was fortunate Eskil had no fear of heights, Ronningen adds, because as he approached the ledge, the rain had turned to snow and the wind had picked up. Even so, the guys kept their goal in mind. We wanted to show how capable mobile phone photography is," Ronningen explains. This was 2014, so Instagram was very new and few people knew how to take good pictures using their phone. We wanted to show what could be done." Continue reading...

Parent company Meta also to add high-risk' label to Al-altered content that deceives the public on a matter of importance'Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, announced major changes to its policies on digitally created and altered media on Friday, before elections poised to test its ability to police deceptive content generated by artificial intelligence technologies.The social media giant will start applying Made with AI" labels in May to AI-generated videos, images and audio posted on Facebook and Instagram, expanding a policy that previously addressed only a narrow slice of doctored videos, the vice-president of content policy, Monika Bickert, said in a blogpost. Continue reading...

Tech company cuts employees from eight offices in Santa Clara in its first big wave of post-pandemic job cutsApple is laying off more than 600 workers in California, marking the company's first big wave of post-pandemic job cuts amid a broader wave of tech industry consolidation.The iPhone maker notified 614 workers in multiple offices on 28 March that they were losing their jobs, with the layoffs becoming effective on 27 May, according to reports to regional authorities. Continue reading...

Beijing did a test run in Taiwan using AI-generated content to influence voters away from a pro-sovereignty candidateChina will attempt to disrupt elections in the US, South Korea and India this year with artificial intelligence-generated content after making a dry run with the presidential poll in Taiwan, Microsoft has warned.The US tech firm said it expected Chinese state-backed cyber groups to target high-profile elections in 2024, with North Korea also involved, according to a report by the company's threat intelligence team published on Friday. Continue reading...

The surveillance specialist was invited to dine with the home secretary after the company he ran gave the party thousandsRevealed: Tories planned to make millions from members' data with True Blue' appChristen Ager-Hanssen was in Mallorca conducting an espionage operation when the email from Conservative party headquarters arrived.Thank you for indicating you would like to attend our private dinner with Suella Braverman," a party official wrote to the Norwegian businessman last September. It promises to be a great evening." Continue reading...

Researchers have created fibre-based electronics that use the human body to power T-shirts that display changing messagesWhether it is a T-shirt that can display changing messages or a carpet that can sense where you are standing, the future of smart textiles has often seemed rooted in science fiction.Now researchers say they have created smart fibres that can do exactly those things - and they do not even require a battery pack. Continue reading...

AI is not only scarily expensive to run, it is also antithetical to the advertising that is Google's bread and butter

Elon Musk's firm reverses policy of insisting on payment for verified status' - embarrassing some beneficiariesElon Musk has reversed one of his most notorious decisions since taking over X, the social network better known as Twitter, and started bestowing blue ticks on the site's most-followed users - whether they want them or not.The entrepreneur and one-time Chief Twit" had tweeted last week that the service would grant free premium" status to any user with more than 2,500 verified subscriber follows" and accounts with more than 5,000 would get premium+". That policy is now being enacted. Continue reading...

Cost of artificial intelligence service could mean leaders in sector turning to subscription modelsGoogle is reportedly drawing up plans to charge for AI-enhanced search features, in what would be the biggest shake-up to the company's revenue model in its history.The radical shift is a natural consequence of the vast expense required to provide the service, experts say, and would leave every leading player in the sector offering some variety of subscription model to cover its costs. Continue reading...

The Welsh singer and actor explores family, love and working-class life through her Cardiff upbringing. Plus: five of the most controversial podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereKicking Back With the Cardiffians

The same year, 2022, company replaced plastic sleeves in EU with paper and cardboard, and cut plastic packaging globally by 11.6%The amount of plastic packaging waste created by Amazon has increased in the US even as the online retail giant sought to phase out plastics elsewhere in the world, a report claims, amid growing pressure for a global treaty to end plastic pollution.Amazon created 208m pounds (94m kg) of plastic packaging in the US in 2022, equal to the weight of nearly 14,000 large African elephants, which is a 9.8% increase in the amount of packaging it produced in 2021, according to Oceana, a US marine conservation group that used industry data and Amazon's market announcements to form its analysis. Continue reading...

Growing interest in services that create digital clones of the dead as millions visit graves this week for tomb-sweeping festivalAs millions of people across China travel to the graves of their ancestors to pay their respects for the annual tomb-sweeping festival - a traditional day to honour and maintain the graves of the dead - a new way of remembering, and reviving, their beloved relatives is being born.For as little as 20 yuan (2.20), Chinese netizens can create a moving digital avatar of their loved one, according to some services advertised online. So this year, to mark tomb-sweeping festival on Thursday, innovative mourners are turning to artificial intelligence to commune with the departed. Continue reading...

Federal report says cascade of errors' by tech giant let Chinese operators break into senior government officials' email accountsIn a scathing indictment of Microsoft corporate security and transparency, a Biden administration-appointed review board issued a report on Tuesday saying a cascade of errors" by the tech giant let state-backed Chinese cyber operators break into email accounts of senior US officials including the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo.The Cyber Safety Review Board, created in 2021 by executive order, describes shoddy cybersecurity practices, a lax corporate culture and a lack of sincerity about the company's knowledge of the targeted breach, which affected multiple US agencies that deal with China. Continue reading...

Suit claimed Dudesy podcast violated Carlin's copyright, calling it a casual theft of a great American artist's work'The estate of comedian George Carlin settled a lawsuit on Tuesday against the owners of a comedy podcast who claimed they used artificial intelligence to mimic the deceased stand-up's voice. The lawsuit was one of the first in the US to focus on the legality of deepfakes imitating a celebrity's likeness.The Dudesy podcast and its creators - the former Mad TV comedian Will Sasso and the writer Chad Kultgen - agreed to remove all versions of the podcast from the internet and permanently refrain from using Carlin's voice, likeness or image in any content. Danielle Del, a spokesperson for Sasso, declined to comment. Continue reading...

A minister, political advisers and journalists were among those who received potentially compromising messages over six-month periodMore than a dozen politicians, advisers and journalists have been targeted in a phishing attack, in what cybersecurity experts believe is an attempt to compromise them.Twelve men working in Westminster, including a serving government minister, told Politico they had received unsolicited WhatsApp messages from two suspicious mobile numbers in the past six months. Continue reading...

Investor points finger at CEO's antics on X, but analysts say train wreck' quarter more down to problems in China and with EV demandFor one Tesla investor, the cause of Tuesday's underwhelming sales figures was clear: the chief executive.Basically, Tesla can't sell its cars due to Elon's behaviour," wrote Ross Gerber, the chief executive of the investment management firm Gerber Kawasaki. Let's stop blaming the Houthi rebels or German environmental terrorists. Or a recession that never came. Or interest rates. Only one person responsible for this." Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Fastest-selling, highest gross revenue ... the biggest gaming companies have long employed untrustworthy metrics to hype up their products, and it's the consumer who always suffers Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe outgoing boss of Sony's games division, Jim Ryan, who joined the company a few months before the launch of the original PlayStation, was interviewed by the official PlayStation podcast last week to mark his retirement. He talked up the PlayStation 5 as potentially Sony's most successful ever console across multiple vectors" - interestingly, he did not specify what those vectors actually were. Time spent playing? Individual player spend? Sales? It would have to go some to beat the PlayStation 2's total of 160m - so far it's sold about 55m.As for that PlayStation 2 total: that's actually the first time we've heard it, in this podcast, in 2024, despite the fact that the PS2 was discontinued in 2013. The last official number we had for the PS2 was more than 155m" as of March 2012, a number that's still quoted on Sony's own website. Ryan claims that 160m was celebrated as an internal sales milestone, but Sony never actually announced it. Industry analyst Daniel Ahmad did some back-of-an-envelope maths that substantiates the total, but it begs the question: why did Sony never actually tell anyone how many PS2s it sold? Continue reading...

Paper by Anthropic outlines how LLMs can be forced to generate responses to potentially harmful requestsThe safety features on some of the most powerful AI tools that stop them being used for cybercrime or terrorism can be bypassed simply by flooding them with examples of wrongdoing, research has shown.In a paper from the AI lab Anthropic, which produces the large language model (LLM) behind the ChatGPT rival Claude, researchers described an attack they called many-shot jailbreaking". The attack was as simple as it was effective. Continue reading...

Letter signed by more than 200 artists makes broad ask that tech firms pledge to not develop AI tools to replace human creativesA group of more than 200 high-profile musicians have signed an open letter calling for protections against the predatory use of artificial intelligence that mimics human artists' likenesses, voices and sound. The signatories span musical genres and eras, ranging from A-list stars such as Billie Eilish, J Balvin and Nicki Minaj to Rock and Roll Hall of Famers like Stevie Wonder and REM. The estates of Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley are also signatories.The letter, which was issued by the Artist Rights Alliance advocacy group, makes the broad demand that technology companies pledge not to develop AI tools that undermine or replace human songwriters and artists. Continue reading...

Drop is sign that effects of its price cuts are waning while electric automaker's shares have fallen nearly 30% so far this yearTesla posted a fall in deliveries for the first time in nearly four years and missed Wall Street estimates, a sign that the effects of its price cuts are waning as the automaker battles rising competition and softer demand.Tesla's shares have fallen nearly 30% in value so far this year, sliding 5.7% in early trading on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Countries sign memorandum to develop advanced AI model testing amid growing safety concernsThe United States and Britain on Monday announced a new partnership on the science of artificial intelligence safety, amid growing concerns about upcoming next-generation versions.The US commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, and British technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, signed a memorandum of understanding in Washington DC to work jointly to develop advanced AI model testing, following commitments announced at an AI safety summit in Bletchley Park in November. Continue reading...

Retro video games and aesthetics are having a moment, but it's not just gen X and older millennials reliving their heyday: younger millennials and gen Z are getting in on the nostalgia tooThe bouncy, midi melody of Nintendo's Wii theme descends into a drill beat. A Game Boy Colour opens up into a lip gloss case. A$AP Rocky goes full Minecraft" in a pixelated hoodie, and a panting man bobs up and down with his arm stuck in a bush. This is not a glitch. Both online and IRL, pop culture is embracing the sounds, visuals and experience of retro gaming.On TikTok, #retrogaming videos have amassed over 6bn views. On YouTube, uploads have increased 1,000-fold. Spotify users are creating 50% more retro-gaming-themed playlists than they were at this time last year, and live streamers are cashing in on the repetitive catchphrases and mechanical movements of NPCs (non-player characters). So why, in this age of hyperrealistic graphics and ever-expanding technological possibility, are younger generations captivated by an era of technological limitation? Continue reading...

Tech firms can do more, but it's the government's job to ensure children have safe places to play - and it's not doing itThree-quarters of children want to spend more time in nature. Having spent the Easter weekend trying to force four resistant teenagers off their phones and out for a nice walk over the Yorkshire Dales, admittedly I'll have to take the National Trust's word for this. But that's what its survey of children aged between seven and 14 finds, anyway.Kids don't necessarily want to spend every waking minute hunched over a screen, however strongly they give that impression; even though retreating online satisfies the developmentally important desire to escape their annoying parents, even teenagers still want to run wild in the real world occasionally. Their relationship with phones is complex and maddening, but not a million miles off adults' own love-hate relationship with social media; a greasy sugar-rush we crave but rarely feel better for indulging. Yet lately, longstanding parental unease over children's screen habits has been hardening into something more like revolt.Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Suit claimed tech giant tracked activity of people who thought they were privately using its Chrome browser's incognito modeGoogle agreed to destroy billions of records to settle a lawsuit claiming it secretly tracked the internet use of people who thought they were browsing privately in its Chrome browser's incognito mode.Users alleged that Google's analytics, cookies and apps let the Alphabet unit improperly track people who set Google's Chrome browser to incognito" mode and other browsers to private" browsing mode. Continue reading...

App-based cognitive tests found to be proficient at detecting frontotemporal dementia in those most at riskA smartphone app could help detect a leading cause of early-onset dementia in people who are at high risk of developing it, data suggests.Scientists have demonstrated that cognitive tests done via a smartphone app are at least as sensitive at detecting early signs of frontotemporal dementia in people with a genetic predisposition to the condition as medical evaluations performed in clinics. Continue reading...

The royals are perennial clickbait, but the wild online bunkum over the Princess of Wales reveals new and darker forcesOn TikTok, there is a short clip of what an AI voiceover claims is a supposed ring glitch" in the video in which Princess of Wales reveals her cancer diagnosis. It has 1.3 million views. Others, in which users break down" aspects of the video and analyse the saga with spurious evidence, also rack up millions of views and shares. I have then seen them surface on X, formerly known as Twitter, and even shared on WhatsApp by friends and family, who see in these videos, presented as factual and delivered in reporter-style, nothing that indicates that this is wild internet bunkum.Something has changed about the way social media content is presented to us. It is both a huge and subtle shift. Until recently, types of content were segregated by platform. Instagram was for pictures and short reels, TikTok for longer videos, X for short written posts. Now Instagram reels post TikTok videos, which post Instagram reels, and all are posted on X. Often it feels like a closed loop, with the algorithm taking you further and further away from discretion and choice in who you follow. All social media apps now have the equivalent of a For you" page, a feed of content from people you don't follow, and which, if you don't consciously adjust your settings, the homepage defaults to. The result is that increasingly, you have less control over what you see. Continue reading...

Lena Forsen picture used as reference photo since 1970s now breaches code of ethics, professional association saysCropped from the shoulders up, the Playboy centrefold of Swedish model Lena Forsen looking back at the photographer is an unlikely candidate for one of the most reproduced images ever.Shortly after it was printed in the November 1972 issue of the magazine, the photograph was digitised by Alexander Sawchuk, an assistant professor at the University of California, using a scanner designed for press agencies. Sawchuk and his engineering colleagues needed new images to test their processing algorithms. Bored with TV test images, they turned to the centrefold, defending its choice by noting that it featured a face and a mixture of light and dark colours. Fortunately, the limits of the scanner meant that only the top five inches were scanned, with just Forsen's bare shoulder hinting at the nature of the original picture. Continue reading...

Delaying the Voice Engine technology rollout minimises the potential for misinformation in an important global election yearA new tool from OpenAI that can generate a convincing clone of anyone's voice using just 15 seconds of recorded audio has been deemed too risky for general release, as the AI lab seeks to minimise the threat of damaging misinformation in a global year of elections.Voice Engine was first developed in 2022 and an initial version was used for the text-to-speech feature built into ChatGPT, the organisation's leading AI tool. But its power has never been revealed publicly, in part because of the cautious and informed" approach that OpenAI is taking to release it more widely. Continue reading...

Portable AI-powered devices that connect directly to a chatbot without the need for apps or a touchscreen are set to hit the market. Are they the emperor's new clothes or a gamechanger?Imagine it: you're on the bus or walking in the park, when you remember some important task has slipped your mind. You were meant to send an email, catch up on a meeting, or arrange to grab lunch with a friend. Without missing a beat, you simply say aloud what you've forgotten and the small device that's pinned to your chest, or resting on the bridge of your nose, sends the message, summarises the meeting, or pings your buddy a lunch invitation. The work has been taken care of, without you ever having to prod the screen of your smartphone.It's the sort of utopian convenience that a growing wave of tech companies are hoping to realise through artificial intelligence. Generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT exploded in popularity last year, as search engines like Google, messaging apps such as Slack and social media services like Snapchat raced to integrate the tech into their systems. Yet while AI add-ons have become a familiar sight across apps and software, the same generative tech is now making an attempt to join the realm of hardware, as the first AI-powered consumer devices rear their heads and jostle for space with our smartphones. Continue reading...

New tool may offer prescription safety net' and reduce the 237m medication errors made each year in EnglandDrugs are a cornerstone of medicine, but sometimes doctors make mistakes when prescribing them and patients don't take them properly.A new AI tool developed at Oxford University aims to tackle both those problems. DrugGPT offers a safety net for clinicians when they prescribe medicines and gives them information that may help their patients better understand why and how to take them. Continue reading...

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By turning his computer chip-making company Nvidia into a vital component in the AI arms race, Jensen Huang has placed himself at the forefront of the biggest gold rush in tech historyA funny thing happened on our way to the future. It took place recently in a huge sports arena in San Jose, California, and was described by some wag as AI Woodstock". But whereas that original music festival had attendees who were mainly stoned on conventional narcotics, the 11,000 or so in San Jose were high on the Kool-Aid so lavishly provided by the tech industry.They were gathered to hear a keynote address at a technology conference given by Jensen Huang, the founder of computer chip-maker Nvidia, who is now the Taylor Swift of Silicon Valley. Dressed in his customary leather jacket and white-soled trainers, he delivered a bravura 50-minute performance that recalled Steve Jobs in his heyday, though with slightly less slick delivery. The audience, likewise, recalled the fanboys who used to queue for hours to be allowed into Jobs's reality distortion field, except that the Huang fans were not as attentive to the cues he gave them to applaud. Continue reading...

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Capturing the sights, smells and heat of India's spiritual capitalVaranasi, on the banks of the Ganges, is viewed as the spiritual capital of India," photographer Svetlin Yosifov says. It's also known as the city of death. While many Hindus undertake pilgrimage to see its temples and ghats, and bathe in the sacred river, some come when they feel death is near. Hindu scripture says dying and being cremated there frees a person from the cycle of rebirth and grants them salvation."In 2022, Yosifov, from Bulgaria, had already visited India four times, including one trip to Varanasi. This time he traversed the city on foot for hours, looking for the perfect shot. The streets are so crowded," he says. Any empty space is filled instantly." Continue reading...

Mayor Eric Adams announced pilot program as part of effort to deter violence, with plans to evaluate scanners at some stationsNew York City officials announced a pilot program on Thursday to deploy portable gun scanners in the subway system, part of an effort to deter violence underground and to make the system feel safer.The scanners will be introduced in certain stations after a legally mandated 90-day waiting period, the mayor, Eric Adams, said. Continue reading...

Revenue at Chinese telecom rose 10% as net profit more than doublesChinese telecoms firm Huawei grew faster in 2023 than it has for four years, as it shrugged off the impact of US sanctions.Revenues rose by nearly 10% to 704.2bn yuan (77bn) as the Shenzhen-based company enjoyed a rebound within its consumer segment, which includes smartphone handsets. Continue reading...

Uber of the skies' Joby Aviation will build its fleet of aircraft at a $500m facility in Dayton and plans to employ 2,000 peopleFor a decade, Dayton in south-west Ohio has fought to shed its rust belt past. New apartment blocks, hotels and breweries have cut into a landscape dominated by derelict warehouses and general industrial decline. But today, that transformation is shifting gears and taking to the skies.A town that 120 years ago produced the pioneers of human flight the Wright brothers is set to build hundreds of futuristic flying taxis each year. Continue reading...

The increased use of AI to replicate the voice and movements of actors has benefits but some are concerned over how and when it might be used and who might be left short-changedWhen she discovered her voice had been uploaded to multiple websites without her consent, the actor Cissy Jones told them to take it down immediately. Some complied. Others who have more money in their banks basically sent me the email equivalent of a digital middle finger and said: don't care," Jones recalls by phone.That was the genesis for me to start talking to friends of mine about: listen, how do we do this the right way? How do we understand that the genie is out of the bottle and find a way to be a part of the conversation or we will get systematically annihilated? I know that sounds dramatic but, given how easy it is to steal a person's voice, it's not far off the mark." Continue reading...

While religion doesn't feature much in video games, I find the theory that we are all characters in a huge sim ever more believable - and appealingIt's Easter weekend, when Catholics like me spend hours in church listening to the extended editor's cut of a story whose ending we already know. Sitting there for the millionth performance of the Passion recently, I got to thinking about how few religious video game characters I've ever encountered. It's interesting that in a world where so many people's lives are dictated by religious beliefs, there is such a scarcity of religion in games. I mean, you could argue that all games are Jesus homages, with their respawns and extra lives, but even I admit that's a stretch.The Peggies in Far Cry 5 are a mind-controlling violent cult; those Founders in BioShock Infinite use religion to elevate and justify hatred of foreigners; and you have those wackadoodles in Fallout worshipping atomic bombs. Religion is almost exclusively used as means for leaders to get minions to do bad things. (Admittedly, they may be on to something here.) I guess that when so many video games are structured so as to set you up as a lone protagonist, up against a huge force, religion is a fairly obvious go-to villain. Continue reading...

Experts say UK-imposed sanctions will make no difference when hacking is part of ecosystem of dealing with BeijingWith the announcement that the UK government would be imposing sanctions on two individuals and one entity accused of targeting - without success - UK parliamentarians in cyber-attacks in 2021, the phrase tip of the iceberg" comes to mind. But that would underestimate the iceberg.James Cleverly, the home secretary, said the sanctions were a sign that targeting our elected representatives and electoral processes will never go unchallenged". Continue reading...

Sam Bankman-Fried oversaw its collapse - now the crypto firm is in bankruptcy proceedings as contentious as his fraud trialSam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, presided over a spectacular collapse that cost his customers billions of dollars. He argues in court filings that anyone owed money by FTX will eventually be paid in full". The US government says he's living in a fantasy land. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday.Last week, FTX's caretaker, John Ray III, appointed to oversee the company's bankruptcy proceedings, reminded the court that Bankman-Fried had masterminded a colossal fraud", lived a life of delusion", and called Bankman-Fried's lawyers' claim that no one had been harmed as categorically, callously, and demonstrably false". Continue reading...

Judge orders disgraced crypto mogul to forfeit $11bn in assets and says he showed no remorse for his crimesSam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced cryptocurrency mogul who perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in history, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $11bn in assets. His lawyer reiterated a pledge to appeal the sentence the same day.The judge, Lewis Kaplan, issued the penalty in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday. Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was convicted of fraud and conspiracy to launder money late last year. Continue reading...

A small team of skilled players set themselves a near-impossible task: to complete every level of Super Mario Maker before Nintendo shut its servers. Did they manage it?On 14 March, Team 0% was close to finishing its seven-year mission to complete every single uncleared level in the 2015 Nintendo game Super Mario Maker - all 80,000 of them. Two hellish maps stood in their way: Trimming the Herbs and The Last Dance. And time was ticking. Nintendo had announced it was shutting down the game's servers on 8 April, and if the levels weren't completed by then, they would remain forever unfinished. Team 0% would fail at the last stretch of their marathon.When Nintendo released Super Mario Maker for its Wii U console, it was packed with platforming levels made by its design team. But the game's lasting appeal came from the tools it gave players to make their own levels that they could share online. The only barrier to uploading was that its creator must have completed the level at least once, proving that it was possible. Continue reading...