Technology | The Guardian

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

What happened when a vegan influencer started craving burgers?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In this week's newsletter: The all-time great podcast returns for a fourth season, investigating the infamous detention camp. Plus: five of the best hip-hop podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereSerial

Readers share their thoughts on maintaining the world physical media after a feature exploring the phenomenonAt home we have been getting into the habit, when we identify (a knack in itself!) a show or movie we are confident we will want to re-watch, of ordering an inexpensive DVD copy. Continue reading...

We were forced to cancel when the host wanted thousands extra, but were still charged a feeMy daughter used my credit card to book a five-month stay using Airbnb after taking up an internship in Toronto. After the host accepted the booking, she got an email saying the price for the overall stay had increased by 4,000 - a further 39%.Panicked, and unable to afford the extra sum, she cancelled. Airbnb has taken a 1,962 fee, plus a further 682 for cleaning and taxes. As my daughter cancelled immediately, it is extremely unlikely that a booking was lost. Continue reading...

Department of Families, Fairness and Housing says break up is overdue' as more agencies expected to close accounts

New Zealand did not follow the US and UK in imposing financial restrictions after accusing Beijing of links to cyber-attacksPoliticians, journalists and critics of Beijing were among those targeted by cyber-attacks run by groups backed by China, western intelligence services said this week.The separate cyber-attacks hit the US, UK and New Zealand - all members of the Five Eyes alliance. The network of five countries, which also includes Canada and Australia, share security related intelligence. Continue reading...

Extra financing will bring technology giant's total investment in OpenAI rival to $4bnAmazon said on Wednesday it will pour an additional $2.75bn into Anthropic, bringing its total investment in the artificial intelligence startup to $4bn.The technology giant will maintain a minority stake in San Francisco-based Anthropic, a rival of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Continue reading...

The rightwing social network's flotation, supported by fans of the ex-president, makes it look like part of the meme stock' phenomenon Business live - latest updatesDonald Trump's social network went public on Tuesday and quickly achieved a valuation of almost $8bn (6.3bn), a gain of more than 15% on its initial public offering (IPO) value. Shares rose again in volatile trading on Wednesday, rising 14% and valuing it at $9.6bn. That enormous success has raised questions, and not all of them are easy to answer. Continue reading...

My husband, Derek Shaw, who has died aged 83, worked throughout his professional life in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a technology which has since become central to the use of MRI scanners.Derek worked initially for the hi-tech US company Varian Associates as an NMR specialist and product manager in the UK. Fascinated with the possibilities of this technology and its potential medical applications, in 1976 he wrote a book, Fourier Transform NMR Spectroscopy, as a guide to the theory and practice of NMR spectroscopy. Continue reading...

Cyber-attack by Inc Ransom yielded data on at least a small number' of patients, health board saysA hacker group is in possession of at least a small number" of patients' data after a cyber-attack, NHS Dumfries and Galloway has said.Reports emerged on Wednesday of a post by the group Inc Ransom on its darknet blog, alleging it had three terabytes of data from NHS Scotland, although the Scottish government said the incident had been contained to the one health board. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Casting away all the tropes of today's open world games, Capcom's unforgiving, unpredictable RPG is a sequel unlike anything else Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereI love when a game properly captures me, to the extent that I'm thinking about it throughout the day while going about my real life. It doesn't happen very often these days, because I have played too many games in the past 30 years and am becoming immune to their most common spells. When it does happen, it's usually because a game does something I haven't seen before - like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom last year, with its madcap contraptions. Or sometimes - as with Dragon's Dogma 2, which I am very much still playing after reviewing it last week - it's because it does something I have seen before but not for a very long time.In the 12 years between the original Dragon's Dogma and this sequel, the only game that has come close to recapturing its chaotic and stubbornly idiosyncratic brand of fantasy action role-playing was Elden Ring. This is a game in which you can screw up quests by faffing about for too long before pursuing your next objective, where a griffin can show up in the middle of an otherwise unexceptional journey through the countryside and claw you near-instantly to death, where the interdimensional being who serves as your travelling companion can contract a mysterious illness and unleash the apocalypse on your game save. There's only one save slot, so every decision you make matters. Makethe wrong one, and you have to live with it. Continue reading...

Report claims posts on abortion and contraception have been deleted while misinformation on the feeds of social media users in Africa, Latin America and Asia has not been tackledMeta and Google are accused in a new report of obstructing information on abortion and reproductive healthcare across Africa, Latin America and Asia.MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Marie Stopes International) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate claim the platforms are restricting local abortion providers from advertising, but failing to tackle misinformation that undermines public access to reproductive healthcare. Continue reading...

Yes, it's a museum piece - but this mini Atari home console, reconfigured for modern gaming systems, offers a compelling retro experienceTo a kid growing up in the UK in the 1980s, the Atari 400 and 800 machines seemed impossibly glamorous. While most of my friends had Commodore 64s or ZX Spectrums (along with the occasional Amstrad or Acorn Electron), I only ever saw Atari computers on cool TV shows and movies, such as Videodrome and Police Story. Launched in 1979, these two models boasted an Antic video processor providing superior graphics for the era, as well as a sound chip named Pokey for improved audio. They were, like the Apple II, seminal machines for young game coders looking to create new types of experience beyond simple arcade conversions.Opening up the new Atari 400 Mini was, then, an oddly emotional experience. The latest nostalgic release from Retro Games is a nicely detailed facsimile of the original computer, featuring a non-functional version of its famed membrane keyboard in luscious 1970s beige, orange and brown, as well as four joystick ports along the base (now USB rather than the original Atari joystick port standard). The console comes with a new version of the classic Atari CX40 joystick, which subtly adds eight extra buttons, thereby allowing for the fact that Atari 400/800 games could call on the keyboard to provide extra input options. Continue reading...

Operators hope newly opened Dutch track will help prove feasibility of high-speed shuttle systemThe longest hyperloop test track in Europe has opened, raising faint hopes once more that the maglev meets vacuum tube transport technology could be the future.Operators said the facility would help prove the hyperloop's feasibility, saying it could allow a 6,200-mile (10,000km) network of high-speed tubes to be in place around the continent by 2050. Continue reading...

Women, younger workers and lower paid are at most risk from artificial intelligence, says IPPR thinktankAlmost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to artificial intelligence in a jobs apocalypse", according to a report warning that women, younger workers and those on lower wages are at most risk from automation.The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that entry level, part-time and administrative jobs were most exposed to being replaced by AI under a worst-case scenario" for the rollout of new technologies in the next three to five years. Continue reading...

Beijing's charge d'affaires told that UK government will not tolerate threatening' cyber-attacksMinisters summoned a senior Chinese diplomat to the Foreign Office on Tuesday after accusing Beijing-backed hackers of a cyber-attack on the British elections watchdog and a surveillance operation on politicians.The department called in China's charge d'affaires and told him the UK would not tolerate threatening" cyber-attacks. Continue reading...

App users for social media site, rebranded as X, down by 23% since November 2022 according to Sensor TowerUse of Twitter in the US has slumped by more than a fifth since Elon Musk bought the site and rebranded it to X, according to data from app-monitoring company Sensor Tower.As of February 2024, the social network's daily app users in America had fallen by 23% since November 2022, just after Musk completed his takeover. Every other major social network experienced a reduction in the same period, but none by anywhere near X's drop in user numbers. Continue reading...

The tech giant fights regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, as the US government launches a grab-bag of accusations. Plus, Elon Musk's bad day in court Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereApple's problems have gone transatlantic. Even as it squabbles with the EU over the Digital Markets Act and nervously eyes the UK's passage of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers bill, the company's biggest fight is now back at home, after the US government launched what will likely be the antitrust case of the decade.From our story:The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its control over the iPhone to engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct". The complaint states that the case is about freeing smartphone markets" from Apple's anti-competitive practices, arguing that the company has thwarted innovation to maintain market dominance.Apple has maintained its power not because of its superiority, but because of its unlawful exclusionary behavior," the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, stated in a press conference on Thursday. Monopolies like Apple's threaten the free and fair markets upon which our economy is based." Continue reading...

Warning comes after UK and US announce sanctions against Chinese companies following mass hacking of UK dataCyber-attacks linked to Chinese intelligence agencies are increasing in capability and frequency as they seek to test foreign government responses, analysts have warned in the wake of revelations about a mass hacking of UK data.On Tuesday, the UK and US governments accused hacking group Advanced Persistent Threat 31 (APT 31), backed by China's government spy agency, of conducting a years-long cyber-attack campaign, targeting politicians, national security officials, journalists and businesses. The UK said the hackers had potentially gained access to information on tens of millions of UK voters held by the Electoral Commission, as well as for cyber-espionage targeting lawmakers who have been outspoken about threats from China.This article was amended on 27 March 2024 to correct the spelling of Che Chang's name Continue reading...

The change to Instagram and Threads comes as the parent company also prepares to retire the news tab from Facebook in Australia and the USInstagram users will see less of what Meta deems to be political" content in their recommendations and feed suggestions unless they opt into it, in a change the company implemented in the past week.The change requires users to delve into their settings to specifically opt in to political content through their preferences and was first picked up by users on the platform in recent days, implementing a change first announced on 9 February.Sign up for Guardian Australia's free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

In today's newsletter: Information about 40 million UK voters was stolen by Chinese spies in a hack that also targeted elected officials. A cybersecurity experts walks us through whether these are isolated incidents, or the tip of a digital iceberg Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. You're probably not an MP or peer on the Inter-parliamentary Alliance on China (Ipac), so that part of yesterday's cyber-attack revelations needn't concern you excessively. If you are among the 40 million UK voters included on a register held by the Electoral Commission, though, I have bad news: the Chinese government has your personal details.Yesterday afternoon, deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden laid out sanctions in response to the attacks - in the case of the Electoral Commission hack, more than three years after it happened. In co-ordinated announcements, the US announced sanctions over a years-long campaign involving 10,000 malicious emails sent to politicians, journalists and businesses, and New Zealand said it had raised concerns with Beijing over an attack on its parliament in 2021.Israel-Gaza war | The UN security council has voted to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the first time after the US dropped a threat to veto, bringing Israel to near total isolation on the world stage. Benjamin Netanyahu cancelled a planned White House visit by two ministers, while the Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, called the result a belated vote for humanity to prevail".US news | A New York court has handed Donald Trump a lifeline, reducing his $454m bond to $175m over the judgment against him in a huge fraud case. Separately, the judge overseeing the hush-money case against Trump involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels refused to delay the trial, setting a date for jury selection of 15 April.Garrick club | At least four senior judges, Sir Keith Lindblom, Sir Nicholas Cusworth, Sir Nicholas Lavender and Sir Ian Dove, have resigned from the men-only Garrick Club, the Judicial Office has said, as men in the legal profession come under increasing pressure over their close association with an organisation that has repeatedly blocked attempts to allow women to join.US news | Federal agents have raided properties in Los Angeles, Miami and New York that local news outlets have reported are tied to rapper and mogul Sean Diddy" Combs. US media reported that the searches were part of a sex trafficking investigation, though the exact reason for the raids remained unclear.Conservatives | Rishi Sunak is to face another tricky byelection after former Conservative backbencher Scott Benton resigned before the conclusion of a recall petition among his constituents. The Blackpool South MP was facing likely ejection from the Commons after being suspended for 35 days over his role in a lobbying scandal. Continue reading...

While diplomatic rows are inevitable, the priority is to keep channels open, and engage with Beijing about the climate crisisOnce upon a time Britain would have sent a gunboat up the Yangtze River. That would teach those Chinese a lesson. To hear some MPs talk about Beijing's espionage activities, you would think gunboats were already on their way.Of course, it is malicious and hurtful for a foreign state patently to hack into Britain's Electoral Commission and target senior parliamentarians - as the government on Monday claimed China did in 2021. It is equally malicious to fabricate MPs' emails and use a Commons researcher as an informant. No less evil is the culture of fear sown among Britain's 150,000 Chinese students by agents of Beijing, albeit tolerated by British universities greedy for money.Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

The US alleges the individuals were working as a front for Beijing in an indictment and sanctions announcement

Chinese hacking group APT 31 has been accused by UK and US officials of targeting critics of Beijing, while New Zealand's systems have also been attackedThe US and UK have imposed sanctions on individuals and groups that they say targeted politicians, journalists and critics of Beijing in an extensive cyber espionage campaign - allegedly operated by an arm of China's ministry of state security.The scale of the operation was revealed on Monday, although some of the attacks have been previously reported on. On Tuesday, New Zealand blamed state-sponsored" Chinese hackers for a 2021 cyber-attack that infiltrated sensitive government computer systems. Continue reading...

China's NZ embassy denies involvement with the cyber-attack as fresh details provided in the wake of similar breaches in UK and USA group backed by the Chinese state targeted New Zealand government services in a cyber-attack in 2021, New Zealand's intelligence agency has said.The government and intelligence agency - the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) - confirmed the breach on Tuesday after the UK and the US accused China of similar attacks. Continue reading...

Senior Tories say ministers not holding China to account after Beijing targeted elections watchdog and politiciansTory MPs have urged ministers to take a tougher approach towards China after the security services confirmed Beijing-backed hackers were responsible for a cyber-attack targeting the UK elections watchdog and a surveillance operation on British politicians.The Chinese ambassador will be summoned to explain his country's actions, which resulted in Beijing allegedly accessing the personal details of about 40 million voters, held by the Electoral Commission. Continue reading...

Deputy PM says international partners, including the US, will also be making statements today about similar Chinese cyber-attacks. This live blog is closed

Exclusive: Warning came at party's first public meeting with Chinese government since Keir Starmer became Labour leaderLabour has warned China that it will respond to any interference in UK democracy after the government announced fresh sanctions against hackers linked to Beijing.The warning came at the party's first public meeting with the Chinese government since Keir Starmer became Labour leader. Continue reading...

Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, has said Chinese state-affiliated actors have been involved in two cyber-attacks on the UK, including the hacking of the Electoral Commission, and attacks aimed at parliamentarians. Dowden said the Foreign Office would summon China's ambassador to account for its actions

Center for Countering Digital Hate has chronicled rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X since Musk's acquisitionA judge in California on Monday dismissed the tech billionaire Elon Musk's lawsuit against the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit that has published reports chronicling the rise of racist, antisemitic and extremist content on X, formerly Twitter, since Musk's acquisition.The case was dismissed in accordance with the state's anti-Slapp law, which forbids nuisance lawsuits intended to punish the exercise of free speech. Continue reading...

Former Tory leader says China should be labelled a threat to UK security after alleged cyber-attackIain Duncan Smith has said he was impersonated by a pro-China wolf warrior" and has called for the country to be labelled a threat to UK security.The former Tory leader said on Monday that the wolf warrior", a term used for combative proponents of the Chinese government, had impersonated him and sent emails to politicians around the world suggesting he had changed his views about Beijing. Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak has restated the government's view that China represents an 'epoch-defining challenge', and said the UK has 'very strong' abilities to resist cyber-attacks. On a visit to Barrow-in-Furness, the prime minister said: 'When it comes to cyber, we have the National Cyber Security Centre, which is world leading. Indeed, when I'm out and about across the world, other leaders want to learn and talk to us because they believe that our capabilities in this country are very strong'

San Jose invited tech companies to mount cameras on a vehicle in what appears to be first-of-its-kind experimentFor the last several months, a city at the heart of Silicon Valley has been training artificial intelligence to recognize tents and cars with people living inside in what experts believe is the first experiment of its kind in the United States.Last July, San Jose issued an open invitation to technology companies to mount cameras on a municipal vehicle that began periodically driving through the city's district 10 in December, collecting footage of the streets and public spaces. The images are fed into computer vision software and used to train the companies' algorithms to detect the unwanted objects, according to interviews and documents the Guardian obtained through public records requests. Continue reading...

As deputy PM expected to impose sanctions, head of international alliance says ministers have taken years to respondThe UK government has been too slow to respond to cyber-attacks by China, the head of an international group of parliamentarians focusing on the issue has said, ahead of expected new British sanctions against Beijing.Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister, is expected to announce the sanctions in the Commons on Monday, after what the UK says have been cyber-attacks against MPs and peers, as well as one targeting the Electoral Commission in which Beijing allegedly accessed the personal details of about 40 million voters. Continue reading...

In part eight of our series exploring myths surrounding EVs, we examine whether they will break our infrastructure

Deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden to update MPs on cyber-attacks by Beijing, some of whom may also have been targetsThe personal details of millions of voters are believed to have been accessed in an attack by China on Britain's democratic process, ministers will say.MPs and peers are thought to be among 43 people who the government looks set to confirm have been targeted by cyber-attacks backed by the Chinese state. The UK could impose sanctions on individuals believed to be involved in these acts of state-backed interference, one of which was a separate attack on the Electoral Commission in which Beijing accessed the personal details of about 40 million voters. Continue reading...

Claiming to have created the concept of online dating, Grindr has been described as a lifeline for users in some countries but also a crash course' in objectification

Many businesses restrict the forms of payment they will accept - that's shortsighted and foolishSplitting the bill with Venmo, paying with your Starbucks app, tap-and-go with your phones - how we pay for things has changed forever. But while our options have changed, and are still changing, some small business owners seem determined to either keep us counting bills or jump feet first into their idea of the future.Case in point from my home town: the owner of the restaurant in South Philadelphia who doesn't accept credit cards" and instead forces their customers to use an ATM machine which - conveniently - charges a $4.50 fee to withdraw cash. Everyone has to do this because no one carries cash these days. Continue reading...

Those born after 1995, argues Jonathan Haidt in his new book, were the first people in history to go through puberty with a portal to an alternative universe in their pockets - and the toll this has taken on their wellbeing has been devastatingSuppose that when your first child turned nine, a visionary billionaire whom you'd never met chose her to join the first permanent human settlement on Mars. Unbeknown to you, she had signed herself up for the mission because she loves outer space, and, besides, all of her friends have signed up. She begs you to let her go.You hear her desire, so before saying no, you agree at least to learn more. You learn that the reason they're recruiting children is because they will better adapt to the unusual conditions of Mars than adults. If children go through puberty and its associated growth spurt on Mars, their bodies will be permanently tailored to it, unlike settlers who come over as adults. Continue reading...