by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6EVAW)
iPhone upgrade joined by watchOS 10 and iPadOS 17, adding new features to Apple's mobile devicesApple plans to release software updates for its iPhone, iPad and smartwatch on Monday, adding new features and designs for compatible devices.Announced at the company's developer conference in June, iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and watchOS 10 add a much-improved keyboard with autocorrect that will let you swear, new standby modes, contact posters, greater customisation and the biggest reworking of the Apple Watch's interface since launch. Continue reading...
Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous is based on the principles of AA, offering community support to aid recoveryHi, my name is Sarah* and I am an internet and technology addict."So began a meeting on a recent Wednesday afternoon, as 18 people quietly gathered on a Zoom call. Text in their small video boxes showed they hailed from locations as disparate as Oregon, India and Namibia. Continue reading...
The tech mogul is portrayed as a brutal visionary with father issues in this comprehensive biographyThe big question in the public mind about Elon Musk, as a London cabbie once put it to me, is whether he's a pillock or a genius". The quick answer is that he's both; a better answer is that there's a lot of detail between those two extremes - so much so, in fact, that it takes Walter Isaacson 688 pages to cram it all in. But cram it in he does.Isaacson is an experienced biographer, with lives of Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Jennifer Doudna and Steve Jobs to his credit. With the benefit of hindsight, that last volume looks like a practice run for a life of Elon Musk, who, like Jobs, makes people wonder whether appalling personal behaviour can be separated from the relentless drive that has made him successful. Continue reading...
The tech giant has bowed to European legislation with a USB-C connector on its new iPhone but the UK government has failed to make messaging services toe the line on encryptionSometimes, when Apple launches a new device (or even an upgrade of an existing one), it's tempting to think that the accompanying blurb is a satirical spoof. On Tuesday, the day the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus were launched in California, for example, it burbled that both phones featured industry-first colour-infused back glass with a stunning, textured matt finish and a new contoured edge on the aluminium enclosure. Both models feature the dynamic island [which displays outputs and alerts] and an advanced camera system designed to help users take fantastic photos of everyday moments in their lives. A powerful 48MP [megapixel] main camera enables super-high-resolution photos and a new 2x telephoto option to give users a total of three optical zoom levels - like having a third camera. The iPhone 15 lineup also introduces the next generation of portraits, making it easier to capture portraits with great detail and low-light performance."Oh, and by the way, it also has a USB-C charging port. This information, which comes towards the end of the blurb, is both interesting and symbolic: interesting because it signals that Apple is finally bowing to the EU's requirement that all electronic devices should use the USB-C standard by 2024; and symbolic because it demonstrates that regulators can clip the wings of even the most powerful companies if they are resolute and clear about the consequences of noncompliance. Continue reading...
Banks and insurers join Google, Amazon and Meta in encouraging staff to spend most of week in officeFree parking and changes to managers' bonuses have helped Britain's biggest insurer, Aviva, lure staff back to their desks for most of the working week.Welcome to the new-old world of work: where companies, particularly those in financial services and technology, push for staff to spend more days in the office as they try to rebalance the working from home trend. Continue reading...
Newly unsealed court filings show company turned over messages after receiving search warrant in election subversion caseTwitter gave the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for alleged election subversion access to at least 32 of the former president's private messages.The company, now known as X, turned over the messages after receiving a search warrant, CNN first reported on Friday, citing newly unsealed filings to the US circuit court of appeals. Continue reading...
Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users' accounts on default public setting, among other breachesTikTok has been fined 345m (296m) for breaking EU data law in its handling of children's accounts, including failing to shield underage users' content from public view.The Irish data watchdog, which regulates TikTok across the EU, said the Chinese-owned video app had committed multiple breaches of GDPR rules. Continue reading...
With videos that are part thirst trap, part protest, gen Z is changing the image of the nu metal fanAt first listen, a song with violent and sexual imagery seems like an unlikely anthem for women who dressed up to see the Barbie movie. But many on TikTok are claiming Custer, by the nu metal band Slipknot, as a feminist anthem.In TikTok videos, girly pop" creators who celebrate dressing up, doing their makeup, and enjoying the fluffiness of girlhood are twerking along to the loud and aggressive metal track. Continue reading...
Greater Manchester police becomes latest entity to fall victim to this kind of hackThe Greater Manchester police force has become the latest entity to fall victim to a now well-established form of cyberattack: the ransomware hack.GMP said on Thursday a third-party supplier holding information on its employees had been breached. It is understood that data potentially exposed in the hack included the details of officers' name badges such as ranks, photos and serial numbers. Continue reading...
Justice department takes on tech giant in court, seeking to prove it illegally used its power to maintain monopoly on internet searchThe court battle between the US justice department and Google has entered its second day, as the United States government seeks to prove that the tech behemoth illegally leveraged its power to maintain a monopoly over internet search engines. The trial is a major test of antitrust law and could have far-reaching implications for the tech industry and for how people engage with the internet.The question at the heart of the trial is whether Google's place as the search engine for most Americans is the result of anti-competitive practices that gave internet users no other choice but to use its services. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: Unconcerned with things like enemies or objectives, this experimental food game is chaotic yet oddly soothing Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereA shower of chopped onions fall into a bowl of broth, making little plinks on its surface. They are joined by thick ribbons of noodle, and then ... an entire raw steak, which flops off the table. Then everything begins to levitate and pulse with multicoloured light.Everyone I know is playing either Baldur's Gate or Starfield, and here I am playing with my food. Nour: Play With Your Food is a strange wee game that I first played years ago at a video game convention, and it's finally been released. The game presents you with delicious little scenes - a burger tray, a sushi set, a bath full of ice-cream with a shower that sprays colourful sprinkles - and then you press buttons to make delectable objects fall from the sky. Do it in time to the music, and weird stuff begins to happen. The lettuce will start dancing, or a jellyfish will show up. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6EQ9Z)
Apple disputing tests by watchdog that showed radio frequency exposure was higher than permittedApple is facing a ban on the sale and potential recall of its iPhone 12 in France, as the US company contests a report that the smartphone exceeds radio frequency exposure limits by the nation's regulator.Apple said on Wednesday its iPhone 12 was certified by multiple international bodies as compliant with global radiation standards, disputing tests by the French ANFR watchdog that said the model emits more electromagnetic waves susceptible to be absorbed by the body than permitted. Continue reading...
Games creators attack the fees, due for implementation in 2024, as company executive dials back on initial planTech company Unity has sought to clarify its decision to charge a controversial new fee to game developers. A blogpost on its official site last night announced the company would be introducing a runtime fee", which would require developers to pay a fixed sum each time a game built using the Unity Engine was installed by a player.Unity stipulated that the fee would only be chargeable after a game made $200,000 (160,000) in 12 months and had at least 200,000 lifetime game installs, but developers nevertheless vented outrage on social media. Continue reading...
Young people are growing up online, just a few clicks away from explicit content. As part of a theatre project, I asked them a simple question - what do you think about it?Between 2016 and 2022, I spoke to around 10,000 children and young people aged between six and 22 about the impact of pornography on their lives. These children were from right across the UK and a range of backgrounds. I met children in classrooms, youth theatres and clubs; I got in my car and travelled to Dundee,Cornwall, Derby, Pembrokeshire and Newcastle.I am a theatre director and maker and undertook this research as part of the creation of two new musicals: Why is the Sky Blue? (Southwark Playhouse) and You don't need to make a Big Song and Dance out of it (National Theatre Connections Festival); made with my brilliant collaborators Matt Regan and Shireen Mula, and produced by Tackroom. Continue reading...
Senator Richard Blumenthal urges risk-based approach to regulation as panel hears from companies at forefront of AI boomMicrosoft and the chipmaker Nvidia are the latest companies to take the hot seat in a series of Senate judiciary hearings on artificial intelligence as the federal government continues to grapple with how to regulate the technology.Microsoft's president, Brad Smith, and Nvidia's chief scientist, William Dally, are testifying on Tuesday alongside Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law at Boston University School of Law. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6EPKK)
Company dumps Lightning port, and has titanium sides and new 5x zoom for top models, plus new Apple Watch Series 9Apple has announced that the iPhone 15 makes its long awaited switch to USB-C, while gaining much extended camera zoom for its most expensive Pro model.The new line of smartphones for 2023 was unveiled on Tuesday by the chief executive, Tim Cook, alongside several new Apple Watches and AirPods Pro 2 earbuds with USB-C charging, all of which the firm hopes will tempt customers to switch or upgrade and buck its recent share price slide. Continue reading...
From consulting with military advisers on raid tactics to tailoring responses for different player styles ... the game's development team take us inside their creative campaignThe Call of Duty games are huge, multimillion dollar affairs. They are built by hundreds of staff working in studios across the globe, each dealing with specific aspects of the production. Their budgets are the same as the biggest Hollywood movies - ie vast, but then so are the rewards. The last title in the series, Modern Warfare II, a reimagining of the hugely successful 2009 original, made $1bn in 10 days. This is as big as entertainment gets. So what is it like for the storytellers working on this leviathan, who need to create narrative cogency and tie it all together?For most of its millions of players, Call of Duty is all about multiplayer mode, but each instalment's single-player campaign is an explosive, cinematic adventure, pitching lone players against waves of enemy soldiers as planes crash, buildings fall and nuclear missiles scorch across the sky. The protagonists of the current Modern Warfare series are Task Force 141, a ragtag group of spec-ops warriors led by SAS veteran and moustache enthusiast Capt Price; their arch-nemesis is Makarov, a Russian ultranationalist, sociopath and the Thanos to their Avengers. Continue reading...
The plant will inject 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the ground each year - but is it just greenwashing from big oil?Rising out of the arid scrubland of western Texas is the world's largest project yet to remove excess carbon dioxide (CO) from the atmosphere, a quest that has been lauded as essential to help avert climate catastrophe. The creators of the project have now been awarded funding from the Biden administration, even as critics attack the technology as a fossil fuel industry-backed distraction.Proponents of setting up enormous fans to gulp in huge amounts of air and remove planet-heating carbon from it, a process called direct air capture (DAC), are basking in their greatest breakthroughs yet in the US. In June, ceremonial shovels were plunged into the dirt in Ector county, Texas, to mark the start of a $1bn project called Stratos, which aims to remove 500,000 tons of CO from the atmosphere a year once fully operational in 2025. Continue reading...
Elon Musk's hindrance of a Ukraine attack via Starlink caused a row. But other firms have similar power, and need scrutinyThe revelations that Ukrainian naval operations were blocked by a lack of support from Elon Musk's Starlink system cast light on to his complex relationship with Russia and Ukraine.But it is an area that deserves more light still, for Starlink's parent, SpaceX, is far from the only technology company playing a vital role in Ukraine's resistance against the Russian invasion. Household names such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others have also been essential to the defence of Ukraine. Continue reading...
How a dedicated collector rallied an international team to track down the long-forgotten 1981 title and painstakingly recreate the original cabinetNintendo's arcade games were hit and miss in early days, with titles such as Monkey Magic and Space Firebird failing to leave much of a lasting impression. That all changed in the summer of 1981 with the release of the all-conquering Donkey Kong (designed by a young Shigeru Miyamoto), which went on to become one of the bestselling arcade games of all time, as well as marking the debut of Mario.But that same year, Miyamoto worked with director Genyo Takeda on an arcade game that has since been all but forgotten. Sky Skipper featured giant gorillas, just like Donkey Kong, but here the player was piloting a biplane and collecting anthropomorphic playing cards. Continue reading...
Symptoms include trembling, disorientation, tachycardia and changes to your breathing. If only there was someone you could call ...Name: Nomophobia.Age: The term is 15 years old, although the condition is older. Continue reading...
US justice department accuses Google of monopolizing search space in landmark case to start on TuesdayThe trial in a landmark antitrust case against Google is scheduled to start on Tuesday in Washington district court over charges of monopolizing the online search space.The suit, filed by the US justice department in 2020, represents the biggest legal challenge to the power and influence of big tech in decades, and could be a bellwether in the fight against the industry's monopolies. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6EMWX)
Long battery life, great sound and solid noise-cancelling make for a good buy - but Sony can't beat BoseSony's latest top-end Bluetooth earbuds are smaller, lighter and more comfortable, promising class-leading noise cancelling and quality sound - but that is no longer enough to stand out from the crowd.The WF-1000XM5 cost 259 ($299.99/A$419) and are the fifth generation of the firm's standard-setting earbuds, replacing the excellent XM4s from a couple of years ago. Continue reading...
Schools minister Lotta Edholm moves students off digital devices and on to books and handwriting, with teachers and experts debating the pros and consSince young children went back to school across Sweden recently, many of their teachers have been putting a new emphasis on printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice, and devoting less time to tablets, independent online research and keyboarding skills.The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether Sweden's hyper-digitalised approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills. Continue reading...
Surveying everything from hunter gatherers to Elon Musk, the Cambridge politics professor debates whether our fate is sealed by the machines we've createdBack in 2016, a month before the EU referendum, I went along to the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford to interview its director, the Swedish-born philosopher Nick Bostrom, who had just written a book called Superintelligence. The book outlined the existential risk to democracy and humanity implied by advances in machine learning. Bostrom's institute, which sought to weigh the apocalyptic potential of various humanity-threatening forces, had just been given a 1m grant by Elon Musk.If I think about that encounter, I remember three things. The first was that when I arrived a bed was being delivered to the institute, cementing the belief that anxiety about impending catastrophe was, these days, a 24/7 kind of occupation. The second was that the germophobic Bostrom was the first interviewee I'd met who insisted on fist bumps rather than handshakes (the shape of things to come). And the third was his insistence that in important ways, artificial intelligence posed a more imminent threat to the survival of our species than, say, climate crisis or pandemics or nuclear war. Continue reading...
by Introduction by Observer technology columnist John on (#6EM75)
The fast-growing US writing platform has come of age, offering all kinds of newsletters from a range of writers and experts for a subscription or even free. But how do you find the good stuff? We pick some of the best by themeSubstack - the American tech platform that enables anyone to create, publish, and (if they wish) get paid for a subscription newsletter - has belatedly become the New New Thing in mainstream media (MSM) discourse. It's actually been around for ever (since 2017, ie 42 internet-years ago) and you could think of it as the continuation of blogging by other means (and indeed, the tradition of conspiracy-theorising is alive and well on Substack). But MSM was never much interested in blogs - possibly because many journalists, like Samuel Johnson, regard anyone who writes for nothing as an imbecile. Substack, though, they can understand, because well-known writers (including a few famous hacks) appear to be earning serious money from it.Substack is free for authors, operationally reliable and easy to use. If you want to charge subscribers a monthly fee, there's a simple button to activate it. The financial side is handled by Stripe; Substack takes 10%, and Stripe levies a 3% fee, but after that it's all yours (and the tax collector's). Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6EM1N)
Geopolitics may affect sales in a big market - and customers may be annoyed by the new charging socket tooApple chief executive Tim Cook will hope that the launch of the latest iPhones on Tuesday will be enough to buoy consumers and investors in the face of a falling share price caused by deteriorating international relations.Almost $200bn (160bn) was wiped from this most valuable tech stock last week as escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington threatened to restrict sales in one of its biggest markets: China accounts for roughly a fifth of Apple's revenue. Reports of the Chinese government clamping down on use of the American devices by state employees may be having a wider chilling effect as consumers across the country are encouraged to buy from homegrown champions such as Huawei. Continue reading...
The US firm best known for its gaming tech has long been ahead of the curve in supplying the tools needed by tech developersIt's not often that the jaws of Wall Street analysts drop to the floor but late last month it happened: Nvidia, a company that makes computer chips, issued sales figures that blew the street's collective mind. It had pulled in $13.5bn in revenue in the last quarter, which was at least $2bn more than the aforementioned financial geniuses had predicted. Suddenly, the surge in the company's share price in May that had turned it into a trillion-dollar company made sense.Well, up to a point, anyway. But how had a company that since 1998 - when it released the revolutionary Riva TNT video and graphics accelerator chip - had been the lodestone of gamers become worth a trillion dollars, almost overnight? The answer, oddly enough, can be found in the folk wisdom that emerged in the California gold rush of the mid-19th century, when it became clear that while few prospectors made fortunes panning for gold, the suppliers who sold them picks and shovels prospered nicely. Continue reading...
Two studies use artificial intelligence to analyse old master' painting and return opposite verdictsAuthenticating works of art is far from an exact science, but a madonna and child painting has sparked a furious row, being dubbed the battle of the AIs", after two separate scientific studies arrived at contradictory conclusions.Both studies used state-of-the art AI technology. Months after one study proclaimed that the so-called de Brecy Tondo, currently on display at Bradford council's Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, is undoubtedly" by Raphael, another has found that it cannot be by the Renaissance master. Continue reading...
The Spanish photographer on teaching portraiture to children - and the muse he found among themThe Senegalese village of Sare Soukande is home to fewer than 500 people. Ten-year-old Moussa, pictured here, is one of them. Attentive, passionate and a great football player, Moussa is one of the boys enrolled in an educational project Quim Fabregas works on beside his professional photography. That day in the village, Moussa was the muse.Photography is one of the activities we teach - art is very important for children. In this case, we did a portrait exercise, then analysed the photos we took together," says Fabregas, who had been thinking about this shot for a long time. The hands belong to Moussa's friends. I wanted to send the message that human suffering is not only of one, but of those around us, too." Continue reading...
This misguided Tory crackdown won't keep kids off social media. The best solution is for families to have open conversationsIt's easy to talk tough on tech, as Michelle Donelan, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology has shown this week. In an interview with the Telegraph, Donelan warned that social media platforms could be on the hook for humongous" fines if they allowed under-13s to remain on their platforms. If that means deactivating the accounts of nine-year-olds or eight-year-olds, then they're going to have to do that," the cabinet minister said.The approach sounds all well and good in theory. It's red meat to the pearl-clutching, law and order Tories who believe the world is full of danger, and tech companies are to blame. Don't get me wrong - there is plenty to lay at the feet of social media companies for the harm they have caused. But the tough talk is part of a wider tendency in our politics that ignores the reality of how we interact with the internet - and demands a degree of censorship that is not only unworkable, but counterproductive.
Generative technology is Hollywood's current arch nemesis, but as exhibitors on Venice film festival's immersive island' will tell you, AI, VR and XR could lead to a brighter futureOne of the hottest tickets at the 80th Venice film festival isn't a movie at all but a VR installation on the event's self-styled Immersive Island". Each user sits at a computer and answers a series of personal questions, which the exhibit - in the space of a few seconds - converts into a bespoke portrait of their life. The project, Tulpamancer, is officially the work of Brooklyn-based artists Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser. In practice, though, it amounts to a creative collaboration between the user and AI.Generative AI plays the role of Sleeping Beauty's bad fairy at Venice. The ongoing writers and actors' strike was largely prompted by fears over the new technology's impact on film and TV production and has resulted in numerous star performers deciding to skip this year's festival. But in the meantime, AI - unwelcome, uninvited and arguably misunderstood - has already joined the party. It's hiding in the cracks of the films on the main programme and helping facilitate the creation of the XR (extended reality) pieces on the island. Continue reading...
Ukrainian presidential adviser says deaths of civilians the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego'A senior Ukrainian official has accused Elon Musk of committing evil" after a new biography revealed details about how the business magnate ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships.In a statement on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which Musk owns, the Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote that Musk's interference led to the deaths of civilians, calling them the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego". Continue reading...
by Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington on (#6EJM7)
Lawyers for family say Saudi government took brother's data in breach and arrested, tortured, and imprisoned' him and othersThe company formerly known as Twitter is unfit" to hold banking licenses because of its alleged intentional complicity" with human rights violations in Saudi Arabia and treatment of users' personal data, according to an open letter sent to federal and state banking regulators that was signed by a law firm representing a Saudi victim's family.The allegations by lawyers representing Areej al-Sadhan, whose brother Abdulrahman was one of thousands of Saudis whose confidential personal information was obtained by Saudi agents posing as Twitter employees in 2014-15, comes as Twitter Payments LLC, a subsidiary of X (the company formerly known as Twitter), is in the process of applying for money-transmitter licenses across the US. Continue reading...
Biography alleges Musk told engineers to turn off communications network to hobble Ukraine drone attack on Russian warshipsElon Musk ordered his Starlink satellite communications network to be turned off near the Crimean coast last year to hobble a Ukrainian drone attack on Russian warships, according to a new biography.CNN quoted an excerpt from the biography Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which described how armed submarine drones were approaching their targets when they lost connectivity and washed ashore harmlessly". Continue reading...
The move suggests that China, which is one of Apple's biggest markets, is unwilling to spare any US company in fight to boost homegrown technologyApple stocks fell after China reportedly banned officials at central government agencies from using or bringing iPhones and other foreign-branded devices into the office.In recent weeks, Chinese officials were given the instructions by their superiors in workplace chat groups or meetings, the Wall Street Journal reported, adding that it wasn't clear how widely the orders were being distributed. Continue reading...
Lawsuit claims search engine stifled competition, contributing to rising cost of living for consumersGoogle faces a new multibillion-pound lawsuit from UK consumers accusing the company of contributing to cost-of-living price rises.The lawsuit, on behalf of every consumer in the UK, says that Google has stifled competition in the search engine market, which caused prices to rise across the UK economy. Continue reading...
Digital Markets Act aims to allow more competition and let consumers delete preloaded phone appsThe EU has unveiled a set of revolutionary" laws to curb the power of six big tech companies, including allowing consumers to decide what apps they want on their phone and to delete pre-loaded software such as Google or Apple's maps apps.The package of laws will also pave the way for more competition in some of the areas most closely guarded by the tech firms, including Apple Wallet and Google Pay. Continue reading...
Maybe it feels satisfying to see the US elite in discomfort because we're so unlikely to see them face accountability in normal lifeIt feels important to note that most of the people at Burning Man, the week-long festival of radical self-reliance" held every summer in the inhospitable Nevada desert, are not evil. But the festival, which draws thousands of people for its music, experiments in self-governance, revealing costuming and ready availability of drugs, has become a stand-in for a certain kind of self-congratulatory excess.At least in the popular imagination, Burning Man has become associated with the kind of person who will rapturously tell you about their love for taxidermy, or polyamory, or electronic dance music, often while you smile stiffly and scan the room for an exit. Imagine a white person with dreadlocks: that person loves Burning Man. The clientele is heavy on privilege and light on self-awareness. But most of them, it should be emphasized, do not deserve to suffer. Their only crime is being annoying. Continue reading...
Under the new restrictions, short-term renters will need to register with the city and must be present in the home for the duration of the rentalHome-sharing company Airbnb said it had to stop accepting some reservations in New York City after new regulations on short-term rentals went into effect.The new rules are intended to effectively end a free-for-all in which landlords and residents have been renting out their apartments by the week or the night to tourists or others in the city for short stays. Advocates say the practice has driven a rise in demand for housing in already scarce neighbourhoods in the city. Continue reading...
Mate 60 Pro mobile phone is said to use chip made in China that was thought impossible without access to restricted western technologyChina has produced a 5G smartphone using an advanced silicon chip on a scale of miniaturisation that was thought beyond its capabilities due to US-led export restrictions, analysts have said.Huawei's Mate 60 Pro is powered by a new Kirin 9000s chip that was made in China by the partly state-owned Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), the analysis firm TechInsights said. Continue reading...
Investigation claims networks convert illicit cash to bitcoin to pay people who sell false streams on the platformCriminal gangs behind a rise in bombings and shootings in Sweden in recent years are using fake Spotify streams to launder money, a Swedish newspaper reported on Tuesday.Criminal networks have for several years been using money from drug deals, robberies, fraud and contract killings to pay for false Spotify streams of songs published by artists with ties to the gangs, an investigative report in Svenska Dagbladet claimed. Continue reading...
World's richest man claims civil rights group has falsely accused site formerly known as Twitter of being antisemiticElon Musk has threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League after accusing the US-based civil rights group that campaigns against antisemitism and bigotry of trying to kill" his X social media platform.The owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, said the ADL was trying to shut down his company by falsely accusing it and me of being antisemitic". Continue reading...
The Chinese-owned app also announced a UK-based cybersecurity company will independently audit data controls and protectionsTikTok has begun shifting European citizens' user data to a newly operational site in Dublin as it moves to address western politicians' concerns about Chinese state influence over the company.The video-sharing app also announced that an independent UK-based cybersecurity company will vet any transfer of data outside Europe. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian