Technology | The Guardian

Paranormal investigators use the devices to show presence of ghosts - or give their claims a gloss of plausibilityGhost hunting has become a television sensation, with help from an unexpected accessory: the portable weather meter.Years ago, weather stations were static installations, but these days all the necessary instrumentation can be packed into an electronic device no larger than a smartphone, providing a handy scientific device for meteorologists - and for spirit seekers. Continue reading...

Company says Amazon Haul will mostly feature products under $10, which it plans to ship from China warehouseAmazon has launched a low-cost online storefront featuring electronics, apparel and other products priced at under $20, an effort to compete with discount retailers that have increasingly encroached on the e-commerce giant's turf.In a blogpost on Wednesday, the company said the new Amazon Haul storefront would mostly feature products that cost less than $10 and offer free delivery on orders over $25. Amazon plans to ship the products to US customers from a warehouse it operates in China, according to documentation the company provided to sellers. Amazon said Haul orders could arrive within one to two weeks. Continue reading...

Social media platform has become a refuge' from the far-right activism on X, experts say, after Elon Musk teamed up with Donald TrumpSocial media platform Bluesky has picked up more than 1 million new users since the US election, as users seek to escape misinformation and offensive posts on X.The influx, largely from North America and the UK, has helped Bluesky reach nearly 15 million users worldwide, up from 9 million in September, the company said. Continue reading...

Platform's coverage of US election crystallised longstanding concerns about its content, says Guardian

Cryptocurrency boosters are expecting the president-elect's economic team to be crypto-friendlyThe price of bitcoin scaled a fresh all-time high on Wednesday, soaring above $93,000 as cryptocurrency investors continued to cheer the election victory of Donald Trump.Dogecoin, a meme coin previously backed by Elon Musk, has risen as much as 150% in value since election day. It continued to rise after the president-elect announced that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), a new outside advisory group. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: With its clamshell design and innovative touch-screen, the DS was the bridge between handheld games devices and the iPhone Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereBy 2004, video games were well into their adolescence. The war between Sega and Nintendo that defined the early 1990s was in the rear-view mirror - the PlayStation had knocked both of them off their perch, and Microsoft had released the Xbox. The critical and commercial hits of the day were not cartoon platformers but operatic space shooters (Halo) and anarchic crime games (Grand Theft Auto). There were lots of guns, and most games were embracing increasingly cinematic cutscenes.Nintendo, meanwhile, had fallen into third place with its Game Cube home console - but it still owned the handheld game market with the Game Boy Advance. Everyone was expecting the next iteration in the Game Boy family. But instead, Nintendo released a strange-looking silver clamshell console that you controlled with a stylus. Continue reading...

The ultimate multi-player has survived frat boy' slurs, a ropey film, one mega lawsuit, legions of change-averse puritans - and Mr T in a Night Elf Mohawk. As it hits 20, join us on a trip to the green hills of StranglehornIn 2004, Holly Longdale was a game designer on EverQuest, then the champion of a new genre of video game that allowed for multiplayer role-playing on a huge scale. In these online fantasy worlds, players could quest together rather than alone, adding a fascinating new social - and competitive - dimension to the static, offline role-playing that Holly's generation had grown up with. But whenever she could, Longdale would sneak in a few hours playing EverQuest's main competitor instead. That game was World of Warcraft (WoW).There were so many moments in WoW I was envious of," she says, and completely lost in. I remember running through Ashenvale as a Night Elf Hunter and the music and the ambience - there was a mood you couldn't deny. Then I saw another player running in the opposite direction, a Druid who buffed me on their way by. That was when I knew I was going to be in this for the long-haul." Twenty years later, Longdale is now WoW's VP and executive producer at its developer, Blizzard, as well as one of millions who embraced the game as part of their lives. Continue reading...

An interactive documentary from Digital Eclipse goes deep on the 40-year history of TetrisBelieve me when I say: I truly thought I knew the story of Tetris. The puzzle game's journey from behind the iron curtain in 1980s Moscow to multi-million-selling video game has been the subject of countless articles, a greatly entertaining book and a recent film. I have played Tetris in various forms for more than 30 years, from the Game Boy to the Nintendo Switch, even in VR. So when I loaded up Tetris Forever, an interactive documentary on Tetris's 40-year history from the developers-slash-archivists at Digital Eclipse, I wasn't expecting to learn anything new. I was proven very wrong.Did you know about Hatris, the 1990 Tetris follow-up that involved stacking colourful hats on top of heads? I did, vaguely, but I did not know about the semi-authorised twist on that game put out by Spectrum Holobyte the same year, a mildly horrifying swap-and-drop puzzler that had players stacking up mouths, noses and eyes to try to make human faces. They called it Faces...tris III, which suggests that whoever named it gave up halfway through. No wonder it wasn't a hit. I didn't know that Henk Rogers, the charismatic Dutch-American who played a huge part in turning Tetris into a global phenomenon, spent his student years surfing and diving in Hawaii before (his words) chasing a girl to Japan and coding the country's first bestselling RPG in 1984. Continue reading...

Musk and ex-presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to head up Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)

No reason given for departure of Nadhmi al-Nasr, longtime CEO of $500bn project launched by Mohammed bin SalmanNadhmi al-Nasr, the longtime chief executive of the $500bn Saudi development project Neom launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has departed, according to a Neom statement issued on Tuesday that did not give a reason for the departure.Prince Mohammed has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into development projects through the kingdom's PIF sovereign wealth fund. Continue reading...

Social media site accused of violating law that requires platforms to pay media when republishing articlesSeveral leading French newspapers have said they are suing the social media platform X, accusing it of running their content without payment.The joint action against the company run by the US billionaire Elon Musk is being led by several daily newspapers - Le Figaro, Les Echos, Le Parisien and Le Monde - and includes other titles such as the culture magazine Telerama, Courrier International, HuffPost, Malesherbes Publications and the Nouvel Obs news weekly. Continue reading...

This documentary follows the formation of the Amazon Labor Union, showing how difficult it is for workers working for a company determined to efface their rightsThe historic 2022 victory in getting union recognition for Amazon workers in a huge warehouse in Staten Island, New York, and the creation of the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), is the subject of this candid and valuable film. It's another reminder that the kind of rights that the ALU secured - however reasonable and modest - are still precarious, have never been freely given and need to be fought for. The corporation in question is uniquely powerful, well aware that it operates in a world where people will cancel their Washington Post subscription but not their Amazon Prime membership.This documentary's hero is Christian Smalls, who deserves his own chapter in the history of the American labour movement, alongside Sylvia Woods and Cesar Chavez. Smalls was laid off from the Amazon fulfilment centre for objecting to poor safety protocols; he set about creating a union, with a lonely, cold vigil outside the warehouse, handing out leaflets, accepting support from well-wishers, doing media interviews. The pressure grew, and the dream of creating a union was theoretically possible because of the law that if 30% of the workforce require it, a vote on unionisation has to be taken. Amazon's workforce turnover means employees come and go and it is very difficult to get up to this point. But it was achieved, and a yes" majority secured - after which Amazon started a huge legal campaign to have that vote annulled. Continue reading...

Musk and Donald Trump propose a Department of Government Efficiency', crypto wins big in the election and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereHello, and welcome to TechScape. I'm Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian. In this week's newsletter: Elon Musk and Donald Trump want to create a Department of Government Efficiency", crypto wins big across the board, and a modern equivalent of Lysistrata takes hold on TikTok. Thank you for joining me.Trump, president-elect of the US, said he wants to appoint Musk, the world's richest man, as the country's secretary of cost-cutting" to reduce bureaucracy in the federal government by an order of $2tn, roughly a third. Trump announced in September that he would create a Department of Government Efficiency". Musk had pushed for the idea and has since relentlessly promoted it, emphasizing the acronym for the agency: Doge, a reference to a meme of an expressive Shiba Inu. Trump said the agency will be conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government, and making recommendations for drastic reforms".The billionaire does not seem to be under illusions of what will happen after his proposed cuts. Continue reading...

Tycoon might help president-elect realise race for artificial general intelligence is a suicide race', says Max Tegmark

Collapsed cryptocurrency company says $1.8bn was fraudulently transferred' to Binance and its executivesThe collapsed cryptocurrency company FTX is suing Binance and its former CEO Changpeng Zhao, alleging that $1.8bn was fraudulently transferred" by FTX management to Binance and its executives.The lawsuit relates to Binance's sale of its stake in Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX, which it acquired in 2019 but then negotiated to sell back to FTX in July 2021. Continue reading...

Four years after the PS5's release, Sony has now put out a more powerful version. But the asking price is steepThe PlayStation 5 Pro was announced in September, and immediately people reacted with disbelief to the price: 699/$699, without a disc drive. Adjusted for inflation, it is the second-most expensive games console ever released - beaten only by the PlayStation 3, whose price was quickly slashed when it turned out nobody was willing to work a second job to afford one. It's an addition to, rather than a replacement for, the original PS5 model. All games released so far work on the Pro, and all future PS5 games will work on both models.For your money, you get an upgraded GPU (graphics processing unit), which is overall 45% more powerful that the original PS5's; AI upscaling, which makes images more detailed; and advanced ray tracing, which makes the lighting better. In plain English, it's supposed to make all PS5 games prettier and faster. Continue reading...

A Dutch publisher has announced that it will use AI to translate some of its books - but those in the industry are worried about the consequences if this becomes the normAs anyone who has tried pointing their phone's camera at a menu in a foreign country lately will know, machine translation has improved rapidly since the first days of Google Translate. The utility of AI-powered translation in situations like this is unquestionable - but the proposed use of AI in literary translation has been significantly more controversial.Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning's announcement that it would use AI translation for commercial fiction has outraged both authors and translators - despite attempts to reassure them with promises that no books will be translated in this way without careful checking and that authors will have to give consent. Continue reading...

Experts say new government could blunt regulation and appoint officials sympathetic to Musk's brood of companiesDonald Trump owes his decisive 2024 presidential victory in no small part to the enthusiastic support of the world's richest man. In the months leading up to the election, Elon Musk put his full weight behind the Maga movement, advocated for Trump on major podcasts and used his influence over X to shape political discourse. Musk's America Pac injected nearly $120m into the former president's campaign.Now, Trump is looking to return the favor. Speaking with reporters last month, he said he would appoint Musk as secretary of cost-cutting". Musk, for his part, has joked he would be interested in serving as head of the Department of Government Efficiency" (Doge) with a stated goal of reducing government spending by $2tn. Practically speaking, experts say those cost cuts could result in deregulation and policy changes that would directly impact Musk's universe of companies, particularly Tesla, SpaceX, X and Neuralink. Continue reading...

The world's richest man has risen to become the second most powerful man in US politics. None of it was accidentalAs Donald Trump watched election results roll in from a party at his Mar-a-Lago compound, Elon Musk sat arm's length away, basking in the impending victory he had helped secure. In less than five months, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO had gone from not endorsing a candidate to becoming a fixture of the president-elect's inner circle.The future is gonna be so ," Musk posted to his social media platform, X, just after midnight, along with a photo of himself leaning over to talk with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago dinner. Continue reading...

If Trump's re-election is getting you down, these innovations in medicine and technology should cheer you upIan Sample Continue reading...

The good news is, your phone isn't listening to you. But that's because your doorbell has already sold all your secretsThere's one battle my husband and I have fought ever since we started cohabiting: whether to allow smart" appliances in our home. He, an enthusiastic gadget fan, would happily connect all of our household goods to the internet so he could control them from his phone. I, a jaded tech journalist, am far too paranoid to surround myself with a bunch of data-guzzling surveillance machines.So I felt somewhat vindicated when I saw the latest story about a seemingly innocuous utensil apparently getting a bit too data-hungry. The consumer group Which? found that three air fryers it tested had connected phone apps that requested permission to record audio - not something you'd imagine to be a critical function for an object whose sole purpose is to cook food. The devices also wanted to know users' exact locations.Victoria Turk is a London-based journalist covering technology, culture and society Continue reading...

From subscribing to apps to who should foot the cost of nights out, it's worth getting your finances right

After distressing incidents', watchdog says content from user-made bots would be covered by UK Online Safety ActOfcom has warned tech firms that content from chatbots impersonating real and fictional people could fall foul of the UK's new digital laws.The communications regulator issued the guidance after it emerged that users on the Character.AI platform had created avatars mimicking the deceased British teenagers Brianna Ghey and Molly Russell.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

X chief, who campaigned hard for Trump, spoke to Ukraine leader after being handed phone by president-electElon Musk reportedly made a surprise guest appearance on a call between Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, solidifying the Tesla chief executive's role as the most influential civilian in the country come January.Musk was present with Trump during the call for roughly 25 minutes, according to Axios, which first reported the call. Trump handed Musk the phone and Musk and Zelenskyy spoke briefly. On the call, Zelenskyy thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink, according to AFP. Musk said he would continue to provide satellite internet connection, the report said. Continue reading...

Car company's valuation saw sharp rally on growing bets CEO would reap the benefits of his support for president-electTesla's market value breached the $1tn mark in a sharp rally on Friday, on growing bets of a favorable treatment for CEO Elon Musk's companies in return for his support for President-elect Donald Trump in his poll campaign.The electric automaker's shares rose more than 6% to a more than two-year high of $315.56, after having gained 19.3% up to Thursday's close. The company crossed the $1tn valuation for the first time in more than two years. Continue reading...

Instant boom enjoyed by some sectors belies complex decisions to be made on AI, monopolies and social mediaWhen the US election result pushed shares in the artificial intelligence chip giant Nvidia to a record high and did the same to the price of bitcoin cryptocurrency, the market gave its verdict on what Trump redux means for at least parts of the technology world: a boom.Stock in the electric vehicle (EV) company Tesla surged by nearly 15%, which must have cheered its boss, Elon Musk, whom Trump called a super genius" on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Chip, memory, battery and power upgrades add to laptop's appeal along with new webcam and Apple IntelligenceApple's upgraded MacBook Pro for 2024 gets a significant power boost with the M4 chip, double the memory as standard, even longer battery life and a price cut, ending the year on a high.The longstanding laptop line now starts at 1,599 (1,899/$1,599/A$2,499), making it 100 or so cheaper than last year's M3 models. Though still an expensive, premium laptop, it comes with at least 16GB of RAM rather than 8GB, which was an upgrade worth paying extra for on previous models.Screen: 14.2in mini LED (3024x1964; 254 ppi) ProMotion (120Hz)Processor: Apple M4, Pro or MaxRAM: 16, 24, 32 or up to 128GBStorage: 512GB, 1, 2, 4 or 8TB SSDOperating system: macOS 15.1 SequoiaCamera: 12MP Centre StageConnectivity: wifi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, 3x Thunderbolt 4/USB 4, HDMI 2.1, SD card, headphonesDimensions: 221.2 x 312.6 x 15.5mmWeight: 1.55kg Continue reading...

Tech elites scored local and national wins after backing Donald Trump and conservative California ballot measures

Americans will be stuck cleaning up after Maga's destructive streak because men like this never clean up after themselvesOur mistake was to think we lived in a better country than we do. Our mistake was to see the joy, the extraordinary balance between idealism and pragmatism, the energy, the generosity, the coalition-building of the Kamala Harris campaign and think that it must triumph over the politics of lies and resentment. Our mistake was to think that racism and misogyny were not as bad as they are, whether it applied to who was willing to vote for a supremely qualified Black woman or who was willing to vote for an adjudicated rapist and convicted criminal who admires Hitler. Our mistake was to think we could row this boat across the acid lake before the acid dissolved it.We knew what the problems were, and we wanted to fix them. The principal problems that got us to this bleakest moment in American history are intertwined. They are the crisis of masculinity, the failure of the mainstream news media and the rise of Silicon Valley, and in a way they are all the same problem. Continue reading...

The singer-songwriter hosts a podcast talking to ordinary people about their often extraordinary lives. Plus: five of the best 90s podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Sunshine Place

Meta says it will comply if required, but the technology is not ready to enforce proposed age limit across up to 40 apps

Securities fraud lawsuit brought by shareholders accuses the social media platform of misleading them about misuse of user dataThe US supreme court grappled on Wednesday with a bid by Meta's Facebook to scuttle a federal securities fraud lawsuit brought by shareholders who accused the social media platform of misleading them about the misuse of user data.The justices heard arguments in Facebook's appeal of a lower court's decision allowing the 2018 class action suit led by Amalgamated Bank to proceed. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages in part to recoup the lost value of the Facebook stock held by the investors. It is one of two cases coming before them this month - the other one involving artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia on 13 November - that could lead to rulings making it harder for private litigants to hold companies to account for alleged securities fraud. Continue reading...

There are already signs of a return on the Tesla chief's political investment, and there could be more to come

AI has given us the pope in a puffer, but it is also predicted to wipe out 200,000 entertainment jobs. We report from a crucial event in Portugal, full of angry artists, digital miracles - and a surprising amount of optimismThe first piece of AI-generated video I ever made moved me to tears - tears of laughter. Given the chance to fool around with Runway AI's Gen-3 Alpha, I dropped in an image of an eagle carrying off a wolf. Moments later, the picture sprang into life. The eagle slowly flapped its wings as it glided down a mountainside, dropping the wolf from its talons. Except the bird only had one leg - and its plummeting prey sprouted wings from its tail and morphed into a wolf-headed goose. It was weird and hilarious.Make no mistake, though - this is the future. Generative AI has given us amusingly surreal images such as the pope in a puffer jacket and a 90s nightclub where everyone is Gordon Ramsay, but the entertainment industry is not laughing. In fact, it's panicking. A recent statement opposing the unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI" has been signed by more than 25,000 writers, actors and musicians, including Julianne Moore, Kazuo Ishiguro and Thom Yorke. Continue reading...

The industry may be struggling, but being surrounded by 20,000 fans in the O2 arena reminded me that gaming isn't just a business - it represents culture and community Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereGiven the deluge of bad news emanating from the games industry over the past 10 months, it was somewhat reassuring this weekend to sit in a crowd of 20,000 happy, passionate fans, watching the biggest event in the esports calendar: the League of Legends world championship finals. The event, at the O2 arena in London, was the culmination of a globetrotting five-week competition to discover the best team in the world. Never having attended before - mostly because the final is usually held in Asia, where the best players tend to come from - I wasn't really sure what to expect. Would I be able to follow what was happening? Would I care? It turns out the answers to those questions were sort of" and hell, yes".For the uninitiated, League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena game (Moba for short) in which two teams of five players choose warriors from a selection of 170, and then battle to control a fantasy-themed map before destroying the other's home base. The arena is divided into three lanes with an area known as the jungle in the middle, and each of the team members patrols their own specific section - like any traditional team sport. Adding complexity is the fact that all the champion characters have their own skills, weapons and magical attacks, and throughout the game, they also have to defeat monsters and dragons to earn experience points that make them more powerful. It's both a deep strategy game and a bewildering riot of stomping warriors, galloping horsemen and levitating wizards. Continue reading...

Elon Musk turning you off Tesla? Here are the best EVs from other carmakers, chosen and driven by our expert

Republican candidate is seen as pro-crypto and price of bitcoin has followed his position in the polls

Initial test run of GPT-4o technology can help with regulations but cannot provide predictions or opinions'It speaks a bit of Welsh, can recite the building regulations, refuses to say whether Rishi Sunak is better than Keir Starmer and won't explain the UK corporation tax regime. The government is launching an artificial intelligence chatbot to help businesses chart the 700,000 page labyrinth that is the Gov.UK website and it looks like users can expect varied results.The experimental system will be tested by up to 15,000 business users before wider availability, possibly next year. Before you get started it warns: The biggest limitation of AI tools like me is a problem known as hallucination'. This means we sometimes make up false information or facts but present them to you confidently." Continue reading...

As competition watchdog looks poised to approve tie-up, questions raised over what it could mean for prices, competition and investment

A commercial failure by comparison with its rival the PlayStation, the Saturn nevertheless boasted stylish, genre-defining titles that are still played and beloved by retro games enthusiasts todayIt is one of the greatest injustices of video game history that the Sega Saturn is widely considered a failure. The console, which was launched in Japan on 22 November 1994, almost two weeks ahead of the PlayStation, is continually and pejoratively compared to its rival. We hear about how Sony produced a high-end machine laser targeted at producing fast 3D graphics, while Sega's engineers had to add an extra chip to the Saturn at the last minute. We read that Sony's Ken Kutaragi provided creators with a much more user-friendly development system. We know that Sony undercut the price of Sega's machine, using its might as a consumer electronics giant to take the financial hit. All of that is true, but what aren't always mentioned are the vast success of the Japanese Saturn launch, and the extraordinary legacy that Sega's 32-bit machine left behind.What I remember is this: Edge magazine reporting from Akihabara in Tokyo, where its Japanese correspondent had joined a queue outside the major Laox computer game centre to try and snag one of the thousand or so machines not already preordered by fans. Two-and-a-half hours later, the writer emerged with his purchase, which included a copy of Virtua Fighter, the best arcade fighting game of the year. It was a lucky buy: the shelves were emptying fast all over town. Sega shifted an unprecedented 200,000 units that day. Continue reading...

Activities of those aged 0 to three often involve sensory exploration and embodied cognition, researchers findAlthough it has been argued that under-threes should not have any screen time at all, research has found that digital tech can offer rich opportunities" for young children's development.A two-year study, Toddlers, Tech and Talk, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and led by researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), working with Lancaster, Queen's Belfast, Strathclyde and Swansea universities, looked at children's interactions with everything from Amazon Alexa to Ring doorbells, in diverse communities across the UK, to find out how tech was influencing 0- to three-year-olds' early talk and literacy. Continue reading...

UK consumer group Which? finds some everyday items including watches and speakers are stuffed with trackers'Air fryers that gather your personal data and audio speakers stuffed with trackers" are among examples of smart devices engaged in excessive" surveillance, according to the consumer group Which?The organisation tested three air fryers, increasingly a staple of British kitchens, each of which requested permission to record audio on the user's phone through a connected app. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch, Acquire/ Nintendo

When human solvers battle artificial intelligence, who is able to think more cryptically, faster? And are some devious clues just too tough for software?The Times hosts an annual crossword-solving competition and it remains, until such time as the Guardian has its own version, the gold standard.This year's competitors included a dog. Rather, an AI represented as a jolly coffee-drinking dog named Ross (a name hidden in crossword"), and who is embedded on the Crossword Genius smartphone app.1ac MP ousted by Liberal, absolutely without authority (9)13d Radical overhaul of motorsport's image (9) Continue reading...

Lawsuit alleges TikTok's algorithm exposed teenagers to videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disordersSeven French families have filed a lawsuit against TikTok, accusing the platform of exposing their adolescent children to harmful content that led to two of them taking their own lives at 15, their lawyer said.The lawsuit alleges TikTok's algorithm exposed the seven teenagers to videos promoting suicide, self-harm and eating disorders, lawyer Laure Boutron-Marmion told broadcaster Franceinfo on Monday.In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

Even bigger titanium superphone packs very long battery life and great camera but Apple Intelligence isn't killer featureThe iPhone 16 Pro Max is Apple's latest superphone, with a massive screen, the fastest chip and the most advanced cameras on an iPhone, ready to be your entertainment powerhouse, if you can squeeze it into a pocket or bag.This enormous iPhone comes at an equally huge price. Starting at 1,199 (1,449/$1,199/A$2,149) the 16 Pro Max tops the iPhone 16 series, towering above the 999 16 Pro and 899 16 Plus, though, at least it comes with double the starting storage of the rest.Screen: 6.9in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A18 ProRAM: 8GBStorage: 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: iOS 18Camera: 48MP main, 48MP UW and 12MP 5x zoom, 12MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 163 x 77.6 x 8.25mmWeight: 227g Continue reading...

With poor internet and electricity, Palestinians flock to co-working spaces and find hope despite Israel's attacksIt took more than 20 minutes and eight dropped WhatsApp calls to finally connect with Farida Algoul in Gaza. Internet service is not reliable anywhere in the territory, including in the provisional co-working space in the city of Deir al-Balah, where she and 50 or so others work remotely.An English teacher by training, Algoul splits her time between a makeshift classroom in a tent, where she teaches for free, and a table in this cafe turned workspace where she translates documents from Arabic to English. Over the grainy video call, other freelancers who had been forcibly displaced to the central Gazan city could be seen working alongside her, all of them vying for the coveted internet connection. Continue reading...

Google and its rivals are increasingly employing AI-generated summaries, but research indicates their results are far from authoritative and open to manipulationDoes aspartame cause cancer? The potentially carcinogenic properties of the popular artificial sweetener, added to everything from soft drinks to children's medicine, have been debated for decades. Its approval in the US stirred controversy in 1974, several UK supermarkets banned it from their products in the 00s, and peer-reviewed academic studies have long butted heads. Last year, the World Health Organization concluded aspartame was possibly carcinogenic" to humans, while public health regulators suggest that it's safe to consume in the small portions in which it is commonly used.While many of us may look to settle the question with a quick Google search, this is exactly the sort of contentious debate that could cause problems for the internet of the future. As generative AI chatbots have rapidly developed over the past couple of years, tech companies have been quick to hype them as a utopian replacement for various jobs and services - including internet search engines. Instead of scrolling through a list of webpages to find the answer to a question, the thinking goes, an AI chatbot can scour the internet for you, combing it for relevant information to compile into a short answer to your query. Google and Microsoft are betting big on the idea and have already introduced AI-generated summaries into Google Search and Bing. Continue reading...

Online services that promise to find people romantic matches have been likened to gambling products designed to keep customers hookedDesigned to be deleted" is the tagline of one of the UK's most popular dating apps. Hinge promises that it is the dating app for people who want to get off dating apps" - the place to find lasting love.But critics say modern dating is in crisis. They claim that dating apps, which have been downloaded hundreds of millions of times worldwide, are exploitative"and are designed not to be deleted but to be addictive, to retain users in order to create revenue. Continue reading...

Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg; Finji; PC, Mac