Technology | The Guardian

The advanced large language model's ability to reason is a feather in the cap for developers of generative AI technologyIn 2017, researchers at the British AI company DeepMind (now Google DeepMind) published an extraordinary paper describing how their new algorithm, AlphaZero, had taught itself to play a number of games to superhuman standards without any instruction. The machine could, they wrote, achieve, tabula rasa, superhuman performance in many challenging domains. Starting from random play, and given no domain knowledge except the game rules, AlphaZero achieved within 24 hours a superhuman level of play in the games of chess and shogi (Japanese chess) as well as Go, and convincingly defeated a world-champion program in each case."Speaking afterwards at a big machine-learning conference, DeepMind's chief executive, Demis Hassabis (himself a world-class chess player), observed that the program often made moves that would seem unthinkable to a human chess player. It doesn't play like a human," he said, and it doesn't play like a program. It plays in a third, almost alien, way." It would be an overstatement to say that AlphaZero's capabilities spooked those who built it, but it clearly surprised some of them. It was, one (privately) noted later, a bit like putting your baby daughter to sleep one evening and finding her solving equations in the morning. Continue reading...

The ramifications of artificial intelligence are of concern to the actors and writers on strike - from big stars to bit playersTo get her start in Hollywood, Chivonne Michelle studied acting at New York University. But what helped her break into the industry and gave her the key training she needed was working on set as a background actor.Today, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) technology threatens to put those entry level and working class" Hollywood jobs at risk, Michelle and other striking actors say. Continue reading...

How the Irish photographer mashed up multiple images from the streets of Seoul, Tokyo and KyotoIn his day job as head of development in the Language Centre of University College Cork, Brendan O Se takes annual trips to Japan for student recruitment. In his free time, he shapeshifts to street photographer, exploring with his iPhone the cities to which he's been temporarily transplanted. Using the Snapseed app, he created this multilayered image out of three trips: to Seoul (in South Korea) in 2017, to Tokyo in 2019 and last year to Kyoto, where the base image, with the yellow marking, was taken in a train station.I rotated the shot, then layered on top of it the silhouette of a passenger repeated in the bottom right and top left corners, to create a frame," O Se says. I then began pulling in images from elsewhere: I had shot the guy in the mask on a subway train in Tokyo, while the red and blue lights came from a neon display reflecting on a taxi in Seoul. Continue reading...

Self-service EBars have been popping up at sporting and cultural events, replacing the need for lots of bar staffThe queue for the bar has long been a bugbear for the thirsty sports fan, a gamble that all too often results in a rushed pint, downed just before the whistle for the start of the second-half.After missing a key try at an international rugby match while waiting for a beer a few years ago, Sam Pettipher decided to do something about it. Studying for an MBA at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen at the time, he dedicated his final project on technology commercialisation" to finding a better way of lubricating crowds at mass events. Continue reading...

Chatbots such as Eva AI are getting better at mimicking human interaction but some fear they feed into unhealthy beliefs around gender-based control and violenceControl it all the way you want to," reads the slogan for AI girlfriend app Eva AI. Connect with a virtual AI partner who listens, responds, and appreciates you."A decade since Joaquin Phoenix fell in love with his AI companion Samantha, played by Scarlett Johansson in the Spike Jonze film Her, the proliferation of large language models has brought companion apps closer than ever. Continue reading...

Joe Biden announced Meta, Amazon and OpenAI among others had agreed to eight measures to encourage responsible practicesTop players in the development of artificial intelligence, including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI, have agreed to new safeguards for the fast-moving technology, Joe Biden announced on Friday.Among the guidelines brokered by the Biden administration are watermarks for AI content to make it easier to identify and third-party testing of the technology that will try to spot dangerous flaws.Using watermarking on audio and visual content to help identify content generated by AI.Allowing independent experts to try to push models into bad behavior - a process known as red-teaming".Sharing trust and safety information with the government and other companies.Investing in cybersecurity measures.Encouraging third parties to uncover security vulnerabilities.Reporting societal risks such as inappropriate uses and bias.Prioritizing research on AI's societal risks.Using the most cutting-edge AI systems, known as frontier models, to solve society's greatest problems. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch; Nintendo

EVs are heralding a new kind of driving culture, from friendly chats at charging stations to reshaping where and how long we stop on road trips

Clear similarities between J Robert Oppenheimer's views and those who want AI reined in, film's director saysThe Oppenheimer director, Christopher Nolan, has highlighted the difficulties of applying nuclear weapons-style regulation to artificial intelligence, as he warned that the United Nations had become a very diminished" force.Nolan told the Guardian J Robert Oppenheimer's call for international control of nuclear weapons had sort of come true", but there had nonetheless been extensive proliferation of the technology since the father of the atomic bomb" led the Manhattan project in the second world war. Continue reading...

So how does the post-Fifa branded game hold up? Surprisingly well, thanks to new motion innovations and more inclusivityThe world of football is strange and unpredictable. Leicester City's 2016 Premier League win. Diego Maradona's Hand of God. Sylvester Stallone playing in goal in Escape to Victory. And then, in May 2022, Electronic Arts lost the $20bn Fifa licence, putting a sudden end to the world's bestselling sports game. The split came after the football body demanded double the previous $150m sum to use its brand. Huge corporations falling out over eye-popping amounts of money? Not so strange and unpredictable after all.Now, we have EA Sports' solo version of their beautiful game: EA Sports FC 24. Also to be known henceforth as the slightly less clunky, FC 24. So, what is a Fifa game without the, erm, Fifa part? According to the development team (the same team that made the Fifa games), this latest iteration is built on new animation technology and a fresh PlayStyles feature. The latter offers an intricate level of player customisation recognising that every player has a distinctive style, allowing you to give special skills to your squad members to make the most of their specific abilities. Continue reading...

Beyond the expected fashion designing and beach parties, Barbie games have explored her more adventurous side - from jungle adventurer to swashbuckling heroineBarbie (1984, Commodore 64)The first official Barbie game was effectively a simulator for getting ready to go out, in which Ken invited Barbie on a series of dates - to the pool, a party, a tennis match - and the player then had to zoom off in a yellow convertible to buy the correct outfits. It was annoying that Ken got to pick all the activities, but the detailed graphics and use of digitised speech were impressive at the time. Continue reading...

Written recipes have become too formulaic. Computing can help restore the fun and the fusion of the oral traditionOver the past few weeks I have been using GPT-4 to help me cook. Need a substitute for an ingredient you forgot to buy? GPT can suggest an alternative. Time to clear out the cupboards? Simply type: Please create a recipe using two eggs, a jar of borlotti beans, a potato, a leek, and the scrapings on the bottom of a jar of pickle." I'm always polite, and so is GPT. It thinks for a moment - then whips up the instructions for an unusual but edible hash and even wishes me bon appetit. But that's not all it can do.On a recent trip to Venice, I wanted to know what sort of fish I should eat. One of the local speciality fish is the branzino, or European sea bass," GPT explained, without mocking my ignorance. And much as image generation models such as Stable Diffusion and Midjourney can imitate popular artists, you can input well-known chefs to influence the results. When I asked for beans on toast in the style of Yotam Ottolenghi", for instance, I received a recipe for spiced beans on sourdough toast" which included cumin, za'atar and greek yoghurt, among about 12 other components. The feeling of reading the long list of ingredients before realising I didn't have the energy was almost like-for-like. Continue reading...

Nicholas Burns' emails reportedly accessed in hack that exploited flaw in Microsoft system and took Washington by surpriseThe US ambassador to Beijing, Nicholas Burns, was reportedly one of the American officials whose emails were accessed in a recent Chinese hacking attack which took Washington by surprise with its sophistication.Another target was Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for east Asia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. When the attack was first disclosed last week, the administration admitted the email account of the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo, had also been compromised. US officials were quoted as saying those were the three most senior targets but that in total, hundreds of thousands of government email accounts could have been breached. Continue reading...

Episodes can feature a character based on user's own looks and voice - but tool will not be released to publicA US company says it has cracked the formula for making an episode of South Park using artificial intelligence - and it allows users to be the star of the show.Fable Simulation has created an AI tool that can create brief original episodes of the cartoon. Not just the dialogue. It animates, it does the voices, it does the editing," the company's chief executive, Edward Saatchi, told the GamesBeat website. Continue reading...

Possible reasons for release of LLM include potential for diluting rivals' competitive edgeMark Zuckerberg's Meta has this week released an open-source version of an artificial intelligence model, Llama 2, for public use. The large language model (LLM), which can be used to create a ChatGPT-like chatbot, is available to startups, established businesses and lone operators. But why is Meta doing this and what are the potential risks involved? Continue reading...

US tech firm says giving government oversight of security changes could endanger encrypted productsApple has said planned changes to British surveillance laws could affect iPhone users' privacy by forcing it to withdraw security features, which could ultimately lead to the closure of services such as FaceTime and iMessage in the UK.The firm has become a vocal opponent of what it views as UK government moves against online privacy, and it said last month that provisions in the forthcoming online safety bill could endanger message encryption. Continue reading...

Tool is said to have been pitched to several US news outlets as an aid for journalists rather than a replacementGoogle is testing an artificial intelligence tool that can write news articles, in the latest evidence that the technology has the potential to transform white-collar professions.The product, known as Genesis, uses AI technology to absorb information such as details of current events and then create news stories. The tool was pitched to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal's owner, News Corp as a helpmate", according to the New York Times. Continue reading...

Fireplace Games' debut has comedic sword-fighting and an appealing anti-authoritarian vibeFrom Assassin's Creed to Rocksteady's Batman trilogy, from Absolver to For Honor, games never tire of coming up with interesting permutations of combat duels to fulfil the power fantasy of being a suave fighter. And then there's En Garde!, a game determined to let us know that you can't spell funeral without fun.You take on the role of Adalia de Volador, a renowned swashbuckler, ready to face a cruel Count-Duke and his minions in battle. In colourful environments that make Spain look like a giant theatre stage, Adalia confronts her enemies with a sharp sword and an equally sharp tongue. The heart of En Garde! is the carefully controlled chaos of its combat - you parry, attack and jump away from large groups of enemies, none of whom politely wait for their turn to stab you. Adalia can kick barrels, drop chandeliers, throw jugs left on tables and smack enemies with lutes. Foes come equipped with more than 3,000 individual voice lines, adding a chorus of haha!" hoho!" and surrender now!" to the fighting as you run rings around them.En Garde! is out 16 August on PC Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: With the release of the much-hyped movie, hear how a doll became an icon in LA Made: The Barbie Tapes. Plus: five of the best Women's World Cup podcasts

Report comes amid concerns Elon Musk, who owns SpaceX, Neuralink and Twitter, is spread too thinTesla narrowly beat Wall Street expectations in the second quarter of 2023, but shares began to fall in after hours trading following an earnings call that offered shareholders little reassurance surrounding Tesla's promised Cybertruck release and other production concerns.Revenue for the quarter topped $24.97bn compared with analyst predictions of $24.7bn. Continue reading...

Algorithm-driven viral video app overtakes YouTube and Instagram as most used single source of news for young teenagersTikTok has become the most popular news source for 12 to 15-year-olds, according to the UK's communications watchdog.Ofcom's latest report on news consumption in the UK has revealed that the viral video app is now the most used single source of news across all platforms for young teenagers, followed by YouTube and Instagram. Continue reading...

The Barons and Hungry Ghosts actor shares what makes her laugh online, including Jennifer Coolidge, a cute baby and multiple ethnic dads'

There are anarchic, erotic undertones to NPC streaming', the trend in which ordinary people play video-game charactersIf you haven't seen them yet, the videos are mesmerizing. A content creator with long, straight hair sits at her kitchen table, rapidly stringing together nonsense catchphrases, over and over with the same cheerful expression and tone. Yes yes yes. Mmm, ice cream so good. Ooh, you got me feeling like a cowgirl. Gang gang. Mmm, ice cream so good. Yes yes yes."The trend is called NPC streaming" - named after the non-playable characters in video games that awkwardly repeat pre-programmed phrases and movements. Its most recognizable face is Pinkydoll, a Montreal content creator whose ice cream so good" clips went viral this week. Those phrases are actually her real-time reactions to gifts from her thousands of viewers, who send over digital ice-cream cones, roses, doughnuts and hearts, which pop up as cartoon graphics on the screen. The gifts are worth anywhere from half a cent to a few dollars - but with a big audience it adds up. In a full day of NPC streaming, Pinkydoll says she's netted more than $7,000. Continue reading...

Advances in generative artificial intelligence could supercharge the propaganda playbook, experts warnA banal dystopia where manipulative content is so cheap to make and so easy to produce on a massive scale that it becomes ubiquitous: that's the political future digital experts are worried about in the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI).In the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, social media platforms were vectors for misinformation as far-right activists, foreign influence campaigns and fake news sites worked to spread false information and sharpen divisions. Four years later, the 2020 election was overrun with conspiracy theories and baseless claims about voter fraud that were amplified to millions, fueling an anti-democratic movement to overturn the election. Continue reading...

Head of global affairs at Facebook owner claims AI's development is running behind hype' about its risksNick Clegg has defended the release of an open-source artificial intelligence model by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, as he claimed that hype" about AI's dangers was running ahead of the technology's development.The president of global affairs at Meta and former UK deputy prime minister spoke on Wednesday after the company said it was opening access to its new large language model (LLM), Llama 2, which will be free for research and commercial use. LLMs are trained on vast amounts of data and underpin generative AI products such as the ChatGPT chatbot. Continue reading...

Gaming is a huge force for good, but developers using gambling industry tactics are causing nothing but harm Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereOver the weekend, the Guardian published a trio of stories about video game addiction. One was about the 850 people referred to an NHS treatment clinic in the last three years (of whom 227 were under 18). Another was on developers' use of tactics from the gambling industry to keep people spending on games. The third was by the director of the National Centre for Gaming Disorders, calling for industry regulation to better protect young people.These stories concern a problem that is certainly real, especially so for people affected by compulsive gaming behaviour, whose stories are no less affecting than those of gambling addicts. They also highlight a need for mechanisms to help struggling people. For adults, it is possible to exclude yourself from casinos and lock yourself out of online gambling accounts, should you request it; no such possibility exists if you're finding yourself dropping thousands on a free-to-play mobile game instead. For under-18s, the paucity of help available to families and young people struggling with social isolation or destructive behaviour at home, of which compulsive gaming can be a part, is one fact of a youth mental health crisis across the UK, where 250,000 young people are going without help. Continue reading...

Listing on Australian government's classification board website describes Bluey video game as a treasure hunt-style game

Move gives start-ups and other businesses a low-cost opportunity to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's BardMark Zuckerberg's Meta is making a commercial version of its artificial intelligence model freely available, in a move that gives startups and other businesses a low-cost opportunity compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Bard.A new version of a Meta large language model (LLM), called Llama 2, will be distributed by Microsoft through its Azure cloud service and will run on the Windows operating system, Meta said in a blogpost, referring to Microsoft as our preferred partner" for the release. LLMs underpin generative AI products like the ChatGPT chatbot, although ChatGPT's owner has not open-sourced - or made widely available to others - its LLM, called GPT-4. Continue reading...

State supreme court said UberEats driver did not give up his right under state law to sue on behalf of a large group of workersUber must face a lawsuit claiming it should have covered UberEats drivers' work-related expenses, California's top court said on Monday, in what could be a major blow to companies in the largest US state and a win for labor advocates.In a unanimous ruling, the California supreme court said UberEats driver Erik Adolph did not give up his right under state law to sue on behalf of a large group of workers even though he signed an agreement to bring his own work-related legal claims in private arbitration. Continue reading...

Antonio Guterres calls for new UN body along the lines of IPCC to tackle threats posed by artificial intelligenceMalicious use of artificial intelligence systems could cause a horrific" amount of death and destruction, the UN secretary general has said, calling for a new UN body to tackle the threats posed by the technology.Antonio Guterres said harmful use of AI for terrorist, criminal or state purposes could also cause deep psychological damage", and he said AI-enabled cyber-attacks were already targeting UN peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. Continue reading...

Firm benefited from close relationship with Emmanuel Macron when he was economy minister, inquiry findsA French parliamentary investigation into Uber has concluded there are serious flaws" in France's system of governing the gig economy, with gaping loopholes" in rules around transparency still in place almost 10 years after the ride-hailing app established itself in Paris and beyond.The six-month investigation, prompted by the Guardian's Uber Files revelations last year and involving 67 hearings and testimony from 120 witnesses, found Uber benefited from a close relationship with Emmanuel Macron when he was the economy minister and the company was trying to establish its services. Continue reading...

Entering a crowded field, the Nintendo Famicom came to dominate the market in the 1980s, leaving a family orientated legacy that continues to be felt todayWhen the Nintendo Famicom, known abroad as the Nintendo Entertainment System, was launched on 15 July 1983, it entered a market crowded with formidable rivals. Six other consoles were released in Japan that year, including the Sega SG-1000, which arrived on the same day and would later be redesigned as the Master System in the west. Also in the running were the My Vision from Nichibutsu, the Pyuta Jr. from Tomy and the PV-1000 from Casio - all major consumer electronics manufacturers. But it was the Famicom that became a sales phenomenon, shifting more than 2.5m units by the end of 1984 and completely dominating the Japanese games industry.When it was redesigned as the NES and launched in the US in 1985, it revitalised the country's flagging games sector after an infamous crash a few years earlier. Its reach was truly global: even in markets where the console wasn't officially launched, bootlegged versions were rife. The Famicom is by far the most copied console of all time, and so called Famiclones" are still being made now. Continue reading...

Elon Musk has said advertising has plunged on his social media platform and it is cashflow negativeAn investor in Elon Musk's Twitter has written down their stake in the business by 47% as advertisers rein in their spending on the social media platform.The move by ARK Investment Management came as an analysis firm claimed that usage of the Twitter killer" Threads app has fallen by half since its launch by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta. Continue reading...

Content moderation and algorithmic safeguards are meant to help protect the privacy of people in legally contentious cases. So what went wrong? Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereSocial media imploded and the BBC practically ate itself last week as the scandal over Huw Edwards allegedly paying for explicit images from an unnamed young person unspooled.But what you knew, and when, depended largely on where you looked. Continue reading...

Critics say app - partly owned by a Saudi investor - promoting image of Mohammed bin Salman while critical voices are punishedSaudi Arabia appears to be exploiting the US messaging app Snapchat to promote the image of its crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, while also imposing draconian sentences on influencers who use the platform to post even mild criticism of the future king.The California-based company, which last year agreed to a collaboration" with the Saudi culture ministry, has more than 20 million users in the kingdom - including an estimated 90% of 13-to-34-year-olds - and the crown prince has met personally with some of the platform's biggest Snapchatters" for informal talks about current events, according to people familiar with the encounters. Continue reading...

People are turning to chatbot impersonations of lost loved ones to help them grieve. Will AI help us live after we're dead?When Sunshine Henle's mother, Linda, died unexpectedly at the age of 72, Henle, a 42-year-old Floridian, was left with what she describes as a gaping hole of silence" in her life.Even though Linda had lived in New York, where she worked as a Sunday school teacher, the pair had kept in constant contact through phone calls and texting. I always knew she was there, no matter what - if I was upset, or if I just needed to talk. She would always respond," says Henle. Continue reading...

Shareholders sued the directors over stock option awards in 2017, accusing them of unfair and excessive compensationTesla Inc's directors will return $735m to the company to settle claims they grossly overpaid themselves in one of the largest shareholder settlements of its kind, according to a Monday filing in a Delaware court.The settlement resolves a 2020 lawsuit by a retirement fund that holds Tesla stock and challenged stock options that were granted to Tesla directors starting in June 2017. Continue reading...

Device launched by Steve Jobs in 2007 with promise to reinvent the phone' sells for 300 times original priceA 2007 Apple iPhone has been sold at auction for $190,372.80 (145,416) - 300 times its original sale price.The 4GB model , originally bought for $599, was still in its factory wrapping and was in exceptional condition, the auction listing said. The auctioneer LCG Auctions described the device as a popular high-end collectible" and exceedingly rare". Continue reading...

Sad Owl Studios/Thunderful; PS5, PC (version played)

It's the defining cyber crime of the 2020s, and hackers are only just beginning to exploit its potential to make money and sow mayhemIn the past year, some of the UK's most recognised institutions, from the Guardian to Royal Mail, have been hit with the defining cyber crime of our time: ransomware. Hackers locking up computer networks and demanding payment for the keys to restore them have snarled operations and left victims scrambling to recover.Nearly every sector of society, including healthcare, business, government and education, has now been targeted by ransomware gangs making demands that stretch into the tens of millions. Ironically, just a few months before the release of my own book on ransomware, my publisher was hit with a bruising attack, leaving my co-author and I unable to reach our editors via phone or email.Renee Dudley is a technology reporter at ProPublica and co-author of The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits' Improbable Crusade to Save the World From Cybercrime Continue reading...

Biggest and most premium Amazon slate yet is let down badly by Fire OS and lack of key appsThe Fire Max 11 is Amazon's first premium tablet and is designed to look and feel more like an iPad at half the cost. But while the appearance of the new machine is a step up, it falls far short of expectations when it is turned on.The new tablet starts at 249.99, undercutting Apple's cheapest iPad by more than 100 and just half of the price of the 10.9in model. Continue reading...

As unprecedented weather leads to increasing climate anxiety, there's a raft of different apps catering for every kind of forecastOne day in 2020, close to the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Matt Rickett realized he was checking weather apps all the time. He immediately understood why: Everything felt so unpredictable, so out of control," he says. Just knowing that something was going to happen, tomorrow, that people said was gonna happen, was reassuring."The next year Rickett, who lives in Austin, Texas, decided to stop using social media: I didn't like the control it had over my life," he says. But I still had the energy, the need to look at my phone, for some reason. So I got even more into weather." Continue reading...

Software giant acquiesced after US trade commission expressed concern that Activision Blizzard acquisition would hurt gamersMicrosoft has signed a binding agreement to ensure that the Call of Duty video game franchise remains available on Sony's PlayStation platform after Microsoft's $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the tech company said on Sunday, easing concerns from Sony and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).A tweet from Phil Spencer, Microsoft Gaming's CEO, read: We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games." Continue reading...

Latest sign that aggressive cost-cutting measures since Musk acquired Twitter are not enough to get cashflow positiveTwitter's cashflow remains negative because of a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load, Elon Musk said on Saturday, falling short of his expectation in March that Twitter could be cashflow positive by June.Need to reach positive cashflow before we have the luxury of anything else," Musk said in a tweet replying to suggestions on recapitalization. Continue reading...

Experts say LBRY's failure casts shadow on future of other alt-tech' sites as Twitter becomes more receptive to far rightLBRY, the company whose video-sharing technology and bespoke cryptocurrency once powered the extremist-friendly video platform Odysee, announced on Twitter this week that it would close its doors after a federal judge in New Hampshire fined the firm more than $111,000 for securities fraud.The announcement saw the value of its LBRY Credit (LBC) cryptocurrency - which was at the center of the Security and Exchange Commission's (SEC's) two-year prosecution of the company - sink to around 1/3000th of a cent by Thursday night. Continue reading...

The inventiveness and artistry of the Lumiere brothersA nude woman reclines on a tumble of fabric, a flower in her hair and bracelet on her wrist, frankly challenging the viewer with her gaze. It's almost Manet's Olympia, but not quite. This photograph is an Autochrome, the process invented by Auguste and Louis Lumiere in 1904 and explored by the Observer Magazine on 2 November 1980, with recently unearthed images from the French Photographic Society.Autochrome was an early answer to frustration at the limitations of photography in capturing the colour and complexity of real life and its secret was an unlikely ingredient': potato starch. Minute grains of starch were dyed in primary colours, carefully mixed and held on a glass plate with silver bromide solution.' Continue reading...

EU legislation will herald greener devices, with greater longevity for software and access to user-replaceable partsThe current status quo of smartphone design, repair and longevity could finally be upended in favour of users - and the planet. That is the message from campaign groups on the landmark overhaul of rules concerning batteries and eco-sensitive design working their way through the various legislative bodies of the European Union - a market big enough to force manufacturers to change, even if EU rules don't directly apply to other regions.MEPs voted on 14 June to accept new battery regulations, elements of which look to ensure cells in smartphones and gadgets can be replaced with parts available for five years after the device is discontinued. In many cases, the rules say, batteries should be user-replaceable without requiring the use of specialised tools" and without the heat or solvents typically required to unglue components today. Manufacturers also won't be able to use software to stop batteries installed by third parties from working. Continue reading...

From excessive praise to overly perfect grammar, what to look out for to avoid getting scammed

EV manufacturer Lordstown Motors, lauded by Trump in 2020, has gone bankrupt - what now for the once-proud auto-making region?When Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicles (EV) manufacturer in Ohio's Mahoning Valley, declared bankruptcy last month, it was the latest blow to a region that has seen decades of extravagant promises fail to deliver.The 5,000 new jobs executives vowed to create in 2020 generated fresh hope for the shuttered General Motors Lordstown plant, which once functioned as an economic engine for the area and a critical piece of the nation's industrial heartland. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence produces plausible verdicts on hotels, restaurants and tech in an instant