Technology | The Guardian

A slick screen, top chip and long battery life are let down by lack of advanced AI and short support lifeOnePlus's latest top phone can't shake the feeling of being left behind by rivals.Even with a sleek appearance, speedy software and longer battery life the OnePlus 12 is devoid of the much-hyped AI tools packed into handsets from Samsung, Google and others. It feels more like a phone from 2020 than from the new era of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Leaked files shows range of services offered and bought, with data harvested from targets worldwideA big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients.The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office. Continue reading...

More than 70,000 affected as users of AT&T report disruptions including to emergency service callsA cellular phone outage hit cities across the US early on Thursday. Thousands of AT&T customers reported service disruptions that rendered them unable to send texts, access the internet or make calls, even to emergency services via 911.More than 50,000 incidents were reported at about 7am ET, according to data from the outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Outage reports spiked above 70,000 around 9am ET. Continue reading...

Governments and tech companies are locked in debate over how best to police an information ecosystem that is at serious risk of disruptionWhat a bunch of malarkey."Gail Huntley recognised the gravelly voice of Joe Biden as soon as she picked up the phone. Huntley, a 73-year-old resident of New Hampshire, was planning to vote for the president in the state's upcoming primary, so she was confused that a pre-recorded message from him was urging her not to. Continue reading...

The platform's listing, expected in March, would be the largest IPO by a social media company since Pinterest went public in 2019Reddit set the stage for its highly anticipated stock market debut, preparing investors for the largest initial public offering by a major social network in four years.A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday disclosed the financial performance of the social media group, and revealed that Sam Altman, the OpenAI founder and CEO, is its third-largest shareholder, with an 8.7% stake. Continue reading...

US tech firm condemns streamer for seeking to overturn its App Store rules as EU judgment is expectedApple has condemned Spotify over the long-running competition complaint filed with the EU that could see the tech company face a huge fine if found guilty.After reports the bloc has concluded its investigation into the music streaming service's claims of anti-competitive behaviour by Apple over its App Store rules, with the prospect of a 500m (425m) fine, the iPhone manufacturer has accused Spotify of trying to get limitless" access to its tools without paying. Continue reading...

PlayStation 5; Square Enix

Company says it will adjust its Gemini model after criticism of ethnically diverse Vikings and second world war German soldiersGoogle has put a temporary block on its new artificial intelligence model producing images of people after it portrayed German second world war soldiers and Vikings as people of colour.The tech company said it would stop its Gemini model generating images of people after social media users posted examples of images generated by the tool that depicted some historical figures - including popes and the founding fathers of the US - in a variety of ethnicities and genders. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: The comedian, with the help of Gary Lineker, unveils his Turdcast, and it's tummy-achingly joyful. Plus: five of the best survival stories Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereElectoral Dysfunction

Revenue at artificial intelligence chipmaker up more than 250% as CEO says demand is surging worldwide'The artificial intelligence boom is pushing demand for Nvidia's products past Wall Street's already lofty expectations.The chipmaker beat analyst expectations on Wednesday by leaps and bounds when it reported fourth-quarter earnings, posting $22.1bn in revenue on an expected $20.55bn and $4.93 in earnings per share against an expected $4.64. Revenue was 22% higher than the previous quarter, up 265% from a year ago. Continue reading...

Bosses promise to go back to drawing board while carmaker faces industrial action from another union in SwedenThe people of a small German town where Elon Musk has built a Tesla factory have thrown a spanner in the works by rejecting plans to expand the complex.The majority of residents of Grunheide in Brandenburg, an hour's drive south-east of Berlin, voted against proposals to build new infrastructure intended to improve access to the site and allow easier transport of the finished vehicles, including a freight depot and warehouses. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Xbox's big announcement' is an opportunity to call an end to manufactured rivalries Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereMicrosoft's big Xbox announcement last week turned out to be something of an anticlimax: just four games, none of them particularly earth-shattering, are making their way to PlayStation or Nintendo Switch in the near future. (Annoyingly, Microsoft's executives refused to name them, but it was later reported by Famitsu and the Verge that the games in question are Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush, which lines up with what I've heard from other sources.)Microsoft is neither exiting the console market nor taking all its games multiplatform, as whipped-up rumour mongers had wildly speculated. And the (excellent value) Xbox Game Pass subscription service is remaining exclusive to Xbox and PC. Continue reading...

The internet is a godless institution' for the screenwriter and enfant terrible - who proves it via serial killers, sex toy scandals, and an ode to Saoirse Ronan

Putting your device in a bag of rice could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone', the company warnedNo matter how your phone gets soaked - you're caught in a downpour, you drop it in the bath or you fall in a pool - perhaps the best-known folk remedy is to put the device in a bag of rice. The dry, absorbent rice should help suck out the moisture, rescuing your device, so the theory goes. Experts have for years pointed out that's a bad idea - and now Apple is officially warning users not to do it.Don't put your iPhone in a bag of rice. Doing so could allow small particles of rice to damage your iPhone," the company says in a recent support note spotted by Macworld. Along with the risk of damage, testing has suggested uncooked rice is not particularly effective at drying the device.Don't dry your iPhone using an external heat source or compressed air."Don't insert a foreign object, such as a cotton swab or a paper towel, into the connector." Continue reading...

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Ubisoft

Most schools in England already ban mobiles. If it wants to make a change, the government should fund youth clubs and social activitiesLook around next time you are out and you will see that children's addiction to smartphones nowadays often begins long before they've started school. By the age of 12, 97% of children will own their own phone. There is a growing body of evidence pointing to an alarming link between the time children spend on smartphones, and the access they provide to social media, with the likelihood of experiencing bullying, problems with self-esteem and even self-harm. So, in a bid to curb the damage to the next generation, the government has now issued statutory guidance on prohibiting their use in schools altogether.As a (reluctantly) online millennial, I grew up alongside the internet. Our relationship has developed from chatting on MSN and playing Club Penguin on the clunky PC in the corner of the dining room (so long as my mum didn't need to use the landline), to the iPhone that now lives in my pocket, seems as attached to my body as my own limbs and contains much of what I need to survive. But I am also a secondary school teacher, and you only need a single break-time spent dealing with the drama caused by a social-media comment to conclude that phones in the classroom bring nothing but disruption to what should be a calm and safe place of learning.Nadeine Asbali is a secondary school teacher in London Continue reading...

Four arrested and LockBit victims will get help to recover data after joint operation in UK, US and EuropeThe entire command and control" apparatus for the ransomware group LockBit is now in possession of law enforcement, the UK's National Crime Agency has revealed, after it emerged that it had seized the criminal gang's website in a coordinated international operation.The flood of data hacked back from the hackers has already led to four arrests, and the authorities promised on Tuesday to repurpose the technology to expose the group's operations to the world. Continue reading...

Apple has been fighting allegations about its music streaming business for years, but the company could still emerge with its head held high Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereAnother week, another clash between Apple and European regulators. According to the Financial Times, the company is facing a massive fine for alleged anti-competitive conduct in its music streaming business. From its story:The fine, which is in the region of 500mn and is expected to be announced early next month, is the culmination of a European Commission antitrust probe into whether Apple has used its own platform to favour its services over those of competitors.The probe is investigating whether Apple blocked apps from informing iPhone users of cheaper alternatives to access music subscriptions outside the App Store.Apple's App Store is an important distribution platform for Spotify. But Apple takes a 30% commission on all sales made through the App Store - including music streaming subscriptions - which Spotify and many other third-party app developers have long complained is an unfair tax".Apple requires that Spotify and other digital services pay a 30% tax on purchases made through Apple's payment system, including upgrading from our free to our premium service," said Daniel Ek, Spotify co-founder and chief executive, in a blog post. Continue reading...

CAA proposes allowing operators to fly drones at low heights beyond the line of sightDrones could be used for critical medical deliveries, as well as for inspections of railways, power lines and roads, under proposals put forward by the UK's air travel watchdog.The proposals, set out in a consultation published on Monday by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), would allow operators to fly their drones safely beyond the line of sight. Continue reading...

Advances in fields such as spectrometry and gene sequencing are unleashing torrents of new data about the ancient world - and could offer answers to questions we never even knew to askScythians did terrible things. Two-thousand five-hundred years ago, these warrior nomads, who lived in the grasslands of what is now southern Ukraine, enjoyed a truly ferocious reputation. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Scythians drank the blood of their fallen enemies, took their heads back to their king and made trinkets out of their scalps. Sometimes, they draped whole human skins over their horses and used smaller pieces of human leather to make the quivers that held the deadly arrows for which they were famous.Readers have long doubted the truth of this story, as they did many of Herodotus's more outlandish tales, gathered from all corners of the ancient world. (Not for nothing was the father of history" also known as the father of lies" in antiquity.) Recently, though, evidence has come to light that vindicates his account. In 2023, a team of scientists at the University of Copenhagen, led by Luise Orsted Brandt, tested the composition of leather goods, including several quivers, recovered from Scythian tombs in Ukraine. By using a form of mass spectrometry, which let them read the molecular barcode" of biological samples, the team found that while most of the Scythian leather came from sheep, goats, cows and horses, two of the quivers contained pieces of human skin. Herodotus's texts are sometimes questioned for their historical content, and some of the things he writes seem to be a little mythological, but in this case we could prove that he was right," Brandt told me recently. Continue reading...

LockBit's website under control of security agencies from both sides of Atlantic, according to postLockBit, a notorious cybercrime gang that holds its victims' data to ransom, has been disrupted in a rare international law enforcement operation by Britain's National Crime Agency, the FBI, Europol and a coalition of international police agencies, according to a post on the gang's extortion website.This site is now under the control of the National Crime Agency of the UK, working in close cooperation with the FBI and the international law enforcement taskforce Operation Cronos'," the post said on Monday. Continue reading...

After a complaint by Spotify European Commission will reportedly hand down punishment after Apple imposed unfair trading conditions'

Video platform under scrutiny over potential breach of Digital Services Act in areas such as age verificationThe EU has launched a formal investigation into whether TikTok has broken online content rules including the safeguarding of children.The European Commission said it had opened official proceedings against the Chinese-owned short video platform over potential breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA). Continue reading...

With a subject as complex as monitoring the effects of smartphone use, Alex Lykos's film could have paid more attention to sourcing and methodologyIt's digital detox time for film-maker Alex Lykos, as he attempts to go cold turkey on his phone and other devices for 30 days for this documentary belonging to the lower-budget end of the sub-genre of personal challenge films; previous entries include the likes of Super Size Me (man eats lots of fast food) and America Unchained (man tries to travel across America without giving any money to multinationals).Lykos begins his offline odyssey with a fun potted history of the mobile phone, starting with a 1973 model which is heavier than a four-pint carton of milk. (This comparison is illustrated by Lykos walking along holding said carton of milk to his ear.) The film is strongest in these lighter sections which lean into Lykos' naturally upbeat high-school science teacher vibe. These handy pop-quiz explainers are peppered with stats around smartphone use - there are eight billion smartphones in existence today, we apparently touch them 2,600 times a day, and Lykos himself spends an average of six hours a day using his. Continue reading...

In Oklahoma City, a five-piece band has been putting an authentic musical accent on local Mario Kart tournamentsVideo game soundtracks don't come more iconic than Mario Kart. As the characters, circuits and power-ups have evolved from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System(SNES) to the N64, Wii and Switch, so has the music. Each new interpretation comes with the familiar melodies from earlier Mario Karts alongside new tunes. What could enhance the experience further than having a live jazz band playing the familiar Mario Kart tunes as you race?There's always been this really natural pairing between video games and their soundtracks," explains Mario Kart 8 Live drummer Ethan Neel, who also plays with US alt-rock band Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards and is speaking with his bandmates from Oklahoma. Continue reading...

Teaching unions say guidance includes practices already adopted and most schools already have policies in placeMinisters have confirmed plans to ban the use of mobile phones in English schools, releasing guidance for headteachers that some unions said included practices that had already been widely adopted.However, one headteacher welcomed the Department for Education (DfE) plan, saying it would help give schools the confidence to make a change that would benefit pupils but could meet resistance from parents. Continue reading...

Brussels to issue levy after Spotify complained about block on telling users about cheaper alternatives to app store, according to FTApple is reportedly facing a 500m fine from the EU over restrictions on access to music streaming services, in what would be a landmark blow to the US tech company.The European Commission is investigating whether Apple blocked music streamers from telling users about cheaper ways to subscribe outside its app store where it takes a significant cut of revenues. Continue reading...

From Instagram to health apps, the modern world no longer allows for rich and complex storytelling argues the philosopher in an entertaining polemic that's short on humilityIn Charlie Kaufman's puppet animation Anomalisa, everyone looks and speaks the same. It's as though a scene in an earlier Kaufman-penned film, Being John Malkovich, in which Malkovich surveys a restaurant from his table and notices everyone - waiters, diners, perhaps even a passing dog - have his face and voice, has gone global.No one is immune: at one point, the mouth of the narrator, a motivational speaker called Michael Stone, falls from his face into his hands and chatters away all by itself. The guru's improving homilies are so artificially intelligent, predictable and effectively transhuman, that they need no warming body or soul to sustain them. Continue reading...

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsDoes spam email actually work? I don't mean dodgy phishing emails, but the annoying ads and sales pitches. Presumably the answer is yes, otherwise the spammers wouldn't bother, but I find it hard to believe. Ali Farhan, ManchesterPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday. Continue reading...

As demand for responsive sexbots grows, some developers are trying to thread the needle between fully neutered and fully uncensored AIWhen Ashley Neale started college in Texas in 2013, she needed money to pay for school. So, at the age of 18, she worked first as a cam girl and then as a stripper. Men would try to slip their fingers between her legs as she walked from the stage to the dressing room so often that she learned how to dislocate their shoulders. After her third successful dislocation, her manager told her to stop defending herself.Since then, she's continued her career in sex work - but in the tech world. She worked at FetLife, a social network for the fetish community; experimented with a subscription site for adult content where users paid in crypto; and has now created her own AI romance app: MyPeach.ai, which uses AI-generated text and imagery to replicate the experience of chatting - and sexting - with someone online. Continue reading...

Bizarre videos promoted the alleged Ponzi scheme and senior promoters lived the high life, but for thousands around the world the reality was a huge financial lossCan you imagine," the presenter asks, owning your own planet?"Imagine redesigning a desert planet and turning it into an oasis where human habitat can thrive and blossom. Continue reading...

The at-home genetic testing company is dealing with financial woes and a data breach. What does that mean for customers?What's next for 23andMe? Most people know the biotech company as a genetic testing service. Stories of people sending their cheek swabs off in the mail only to discover that a parent who raised them wasn't their biological one have become a kind of millennial horror genre. Of course, most 23andMe experiences aren't that dramatic: the company says more than 14 million people have used the service in hopes of learning more about their ancestry.But this month, 23andMe revealed it is facing major financial troubles, and more information came to light about a devastating security breach at the company last year. Now, customers might be wondering: can they trust 23andMe with their DNA? Continue reading...

While some technological advances are nothing short of miraculous, there are plenty of downsides, too ...Let's be fair: technology has improved my life in ways that still surprise and delight me on a daily basis. My phone is also a torch! My TV remembers how far I got in last night's episode, even if I don't! The bus stop knows when the bus is coming, and I can watch my pizza's entire journey from the restaurant to my house! These are, frankly, miracles.But there have been corresponding sacrifices. Over 20 years, I have turned over whole areas of competence, memory, authority and independence to the machines in my life. Along the way, I have become anxious about problems that didn't used to exist, indecisive over choices I never used to have to make, and angry about things I would once have been wholly unaware of. Continue reading...

When her 14-year-old child asked for social media, Guardian advice columnist Annalisa Barbieri held firm. Thank goodness, says her daughter, now grown upAs a parent, you prepare yourself for various milestones: their first tooth, first step, first word. But here we were, my eldest daughter, Raffaella, and I, and it was her first real push asking for social media. She was 14. She had talked about it before, but more in curiosity - this time she was serious. She wanted it; specifically Snapchat. And she was at the negotiating table with that focused, steely look in her eye that I have always admired.I started negotiations with a simple question: Why?" Her reasons were all to do with not wanting to feel left out. Entirely understandable. But, I explained to her, if someone wanted to leave you out they still could, by jumping from one app to another until - what? You were no longer the driver in your own life but following someone else's agenda. Where would it stop? And what if something were shared among the whole school or taken out of context? Continue reading...

Cassette players and tapes, vintage Game Boys and boomboxes seem like relics of a bygone era. So why are they being snapped up, sometimes for eye-watering prices?In 1989, jewellery maker Tiffany & Co and electronics company Sony released a silver-plated Walkman (complete with a fitted wooden box) to celebrate 10 years of the portable cassette player. Only250 were made. Several decades on, and long since the cassette Walkman began its slide into obsolescence - outpaced first by the cumbersome Discman and the vibe-less MiniDisc player, then lapped by the iPod andiPhone - you can still find some of these items sellingin auctions for hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds.One of the Tiffany Walkmans, originally presented to the Who, was later sold by the ex-wife of the band's late bassist John Entwistle on a 2011 episode of the US TV show Pawn Stars. After some haggling, the traders at Gold & Silver Pawn in Las Vegas agreed to pay $1,250 for it. This is one of those weird things that I think someone's willing to buy just to say they have it," reasoned Pawn Stars' Corey Harrison to his father, Rick. Continue reading...

How to connect age and youth in a single frame? Take young sisters to an old workman's houseSisters Saga (left) and Ylva, and photographer Tina Signesdottir Hult, a friend of their parents, could all sense the serene atmosphere of the building they were shooting in: an old workman's house at Visnes copper mine in Norway that Signesdottir Hult had chosen specifically for the purpose. I wanted to capture a sense of the passage of time by connecting the delicate, ephemeral nature of the girls' youth with the enduring, resilient spirit of the house," Signesdottir Hult says.The photographer says the girls are both very sweet, sensitive and compassionate, but otherwise complete opposites. Saga, 10, is calm, sometimes quite shy, while Ylva, 11, is very energetic. This is astudy in contrasts and connections; not just of light and shadow across their faces, but the emotional differences between the sisters. The subtlety in their expressions and body language invites the viewer to ponder the story behind their moment of quietude," she adds. Continue reading...

The punk poet has no smartphone, no email, not even a computer. Everyone should try it, he saysBack in the day, I used to feel a degree of sympathy for those who had been compelled to become computer literate. I would see these guys in the city, struggling home with a rucksack loaded with technology, ruining the line of their Hugo Boss suit. It looked like a ball and chain to me. So I stayed away. Whenever anyone mentioned computers, I would say: What do I need a computer for? I'm a poet."Later, when mobile phones came out, I was sitting on public transport next to two girls when I heard one of them say to the other: My boss has just bought me a new mobile phone." I thought, yeah, I bet he has. If he'd put an iron collar around your neck, would you be happy about that, too? Continue reading...

Platforms accused of encouraging compulsive use by gamifying users' attention and romantic investmentMany of us have had bad experiences of being swiped left, ghosted, breadcrumbed and benched on internet dating apps - though few people have ever thought to take their heartbreak to court.On Valentine's Day, six dating app users filed a proposed class-action lawsuit accusing Tinder, Hinge and other Match dating apps of using addictive, game-like features to encourage compulsive use. Continue reading...

When piles of unsolicited mail and catalogues thud through the letterbox, ask yourself: how do they get your details and how can you stop it?Do catalogues from companies you have never heard of regularly land with a thud on your doormat? These deliveries of junk mail may make you wonder how the senders got your name and address - and if your personal details are being shared without your say-so.One Guardian Moneyreader gotin touch after being inundated with unsolicited post which, shethinks, began when she orderedfrom fashion retailer Boden for the first time. Withinweeks she was sent catalogues from more than a dozen other upmarket brands selling clothes, food and furniture, ranging from Me+Em to The Fold, Biscuiteers, Daylesford Organic andLoaf. Continue reading...

Local WhatsApp group started by two mothers concerned about online safety attracts more than 4,000 membersMore than 4,000 parents have joined a group committed to barring young children from having smartphones, as concerns grow about online safety and the impact of social media on mental health.The WhatsApp group Smartphone Free Childhood was created by the former school friends Clare Fernyhough and Daisy Greenwell in response to their fears around children's smartphone use and the norm" of giving children smart devices when they go to secondary school. Continue reading...

Company to sell existing shares in tender offer' led by venture firm Thrive Capital, in similar deal as early last yearMicrosoft-backed OpenAI has completed a deal that values the artificial intelligence company at $80bn or more, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing multiple people with knowledge of the deal.The company would sell existing shares in a so-called tender offer led by venture firm Thrive Capital, the report said. Employees will be able to cash out their shares of the company rather than a traditional funding round, which would raise money for the business, the report added. Continue reading...

Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and TikTok outline methods they will use to try to detect and label deceptive AI contentMajor technology companies signed a pact Friday to voluntarily adopt reasonable precautions" to prevent artificial intelligence tools from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world.Executives from Adobe, Amazon, Google, IBM, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and TikTok gathered at the Munich Security Conference to announce a new framework for how they respond to AI-generated deepfakes that deliberately trick voters. Twelve other companies - including Elon Musk's X - are also signing on to the accord. Continue reading...

Four games that were previously exclusive to the Xbox console will be made available for the PS5 and Nintendo Switch, as the company focuses on its software productsFour of Xbox's previously exclusive games will be making the jump to PlayStation and Nintendo's consoles, Microsoft has announced. It was also suggested that the company will share details of the next version of its Xbox console before the end of 2024.In a video podcast with other Xbox executives, the CEO of Microsoft's gaming division, Phil Spencer, did not name the four titles in question, but said they are each more than a year old. Two are live-service games and two are smaller titles, with multiplayer pirate adventure Sea of Thieves and musical action game Hi-Fi Rush two likely candidates. It was confirmed that neither last year's space opus Starfield nor the forthcoming Indiana Jones game will be multiplatform. Continue reading...

Bluetooth earbuds fit around side of the ear without blocking it for full awareness with music and callsBose's latest earbuds are very different from its previous noise-cancelling champs, designed to let the sound of the outside in, rather than blocking it out and attaching to your ear, more like jewellery than gadgets.They are the latest evolution of Bose's open audio tech that uses small speakers to play music into your ears without blocking them, last seen on the excellent Frames audio glasses that have been discontinued. Continue reading...

Model from ChatGPT maker simulates physical world in motion' up to a minute long based on users' subject and style instructionsOpenAI revealed a tool on Thursday that can generate videos from text prompts.The new model, nicknamed Sora after the Japanese word for sky", can produce realistic footage up to a minute long that adheres to a user's instructions on both subject matter and style. According to a company blogpost, the model is also able to create a video based on a still image or extend existing footage with new material. Continue reading...

Move comes after Swedish court rules that informing webmasters about delisted content is breach of privacyGoogle has quietly stopped telling publishers when it has removed websites from its search results under European right to be forgotten" rules after a ruling in a Swedish court which the search engine is applying globally.Previously, when an individual applied to have records about them expunged under EU data protection laws, Google would notify the publisher of the original articles. Continue reading...

In rural Norway, a young woman's boyfriend forgets who she is overnight. In Detroit, a man is arrested for a crime, but he was never there. In a Spanish town, disturbing pictures of young girls have appeared, but no one knows who is behind them.In this new series from the Guardian, we'll explore what it is that connects all these stories: the collision between people and artificial intelligence.Coming soon ... Continue reading...

Glaad's first survey on the state of inclusion in gaming finds that 17% of US players identify as LGBTQ+, but only 2% of games feature an openly queer characterIn its first report on the state of LGBTQ+ inclusion in video games, US advocacy organisation Glaad (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has said that games are yet to catch up with TV and film when it comes to queer representation. The study of US-based players found that 17% of gamers identify as LGBTQ+ a significant increase on the 10% reported in a 2020 Nielsen Games study, and 10% more than the proportion of the US general population thought to be LGBT+.By contrast, only 2% of games feature an openly LGBTQ+ character. That compares with 28% of films released in 2022, and 11% of primetime TV characters in 2022 and 2023, per other Glaad reports. Continue reading...

More than 120,000 PlayStation users have paid 3.29 to pet virtual hamsters, dogs and beavers. What's behind this madness?Game development is an expensive and time-consuming business. Right now, 2,000 people are working on the next instalment in Ubisoft's blockbuster Assassin's Creed series, across 18 studios around the globe, and it's a project that will take 2 to 3 years. Imagine how any of those people might feel to learn that last year, a self-taught programmer racked up nearly 280,000 from a series of games he made while sitting in his pants on hot days in a two-bedroom flat in Harlesden. And that each one took him about 30 minutes.The first one, I'll be honest, probably took seven or eight hours," says TJ Gardner. But the subsequent ones - Stroke the Beaver, for example - would have taken about half an hour." Continue reading...

The new mixed-reality' headset gave me a glimpse of the future - and I'm not sure it's a future we should wantIf you ever worry that technology might be getting a little too intelligent and robots are poised to take over the world, I have a quick and easy way to deflate those fears: call up a company and try to ask them a simple question. You will be put through to an automated voice system and spend the next 10 minutes yelling NO, I DIDN'T SAY THAT! WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN'T QUITE CATCH THAT?' I DON'T WANT ANY OF THOSE OPTIONS! PUT ME THROUGH TO A HUMAN, GODDAMMIT!That was certainly my experience calling up Apple and trying to reconfirm my Vision Pro demo, which had been abruptly cancelled due to snow. But if my phone experience felt ancient, the Apple Vision Pro headset itself felt like a startling glimpse of the future. As it should: the thing costs $3,499.Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian US columnistDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...