US tech innovators have a culture of regarding government as an innovation-blocking nuisance. But when Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, investors screamed for state protectionSo one day Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was a bank, and then the next day it was a smoking hulk that looked as though it might bring down a whole segment of the US banking sector. The US government, which is widely regarded by the denizens of Silicon Valley as a lumbering, obsolescent colossus, then magically turned on a dime, ensuring that no depositors would lose even a cent. And over on this side of the pond, regulators arranged that HSBC, another lumbering colossus, would buy the UK subsidiary of SVB for the princely sum of £1.Panic over, then? We’ll see. In the meantime it’s worth taking a more sardonic look at what went on. Continue reading...
UK has removed app over concerns data can be monitored by Chinese state, but public remain vulnerableTikTok is wildly popular, with more than 1 billion people consuming its short video posts around the world. But the app is less favoured by politicians in key markets such as the US and UK, where it has been banned from government-issued phones over security fears. We answer your questions about why TikTok has become a lightning rod for suspicion of Chinese state espionage – and whether nationwide bans are likely. Continue reading...
Sam Altman stresses need to guard against negative consequences of technology, as company releases new version GPT-4Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that developed the controversial consumer-facing artificial intelligence application ChatGPT, has warned that the technology comes with real dangers as it reshapes society.Altman, 37, stressed that regulators and society need to be involved with the technology to guard against potentially negative consequences for humanity. “We’ve got to be careful here,” Altman told ABC News on Thursday, adding: “I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this. Continue reading...
The US says the extremely popular video-sharing app ‘screams’ of national security concerns and considers a countrywide banTikTok is once again fending off claims that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, would share user data from its popular video-sharing app with the Chinese government, or push propaganda and misinformation on its behalf.China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday accused the US itself of spreading disinformation about TikTok’s potential security risks following a report in the Wall Street Journal that the committee on foreign investment in the US – part of the treasury department – was threatening a US ban on the app unless its Chinese owners divest their stake. Continue reading...
In the wake of the bank’s crisis, venture capitalists have been trading accusations over who is responsible for the collapseFacing heat for his investment fund’s role in triggering the run on the Silicon Valley Bank last week, billionaire Peter Thiel told the Financial Times that he had $50m of his own money “stuck” in the bank when it collapsed.Even as Thiel’s Founders Fund was advising companies to move their money from the bank, a decision that has been widely blamed for precipitating its failure, Thiel said that he kept a portion of his own $4bn personal fortune in the bank. Continue reading...
TikTok will be concerned Rishi Sunak will match each upward ratchet in pressure from his alliesWhen asked this week whether the UK would ban TikTok on government phones, Rishi Sunak’s response signalled a change in stance: “We look at what our allies are doing.”Previously ministers had seemed sanguine, even saying that whether or not the app stayed on someone’s phone should be a matter of “personal choice”. Continue reading...
Move is latest escalation by lawmakers over fears user data could be passed on to China’s governmentThe Biden administration has threatened to ban TikTok in the US unless the social media company’s Chinese owners divest their stakes in it, according to news reports on Wednesday.The move, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is the most dramatic in a series of escalations by US officials and legislators, driven by fears that US user data held by the company could be passed on to China’s government. It also comes amid a global backlash to the popular video-based app over concerns about the potential for Chinese spying, with countries including the UK, Canada and Australia recently moving to ban the app from government phones. Continue reading...
by Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editor on (#69W3B)
Move brings Britain in line with US and Europe and reflects worsening relations with ChinaBritain is to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok from ministers’ and civil servants’ mobile phones, bringing the UK in line with the US and the European Commission and reflecting deteriorating relations with Beijing.The decision marks a sharp U-turn from the UK’s previous position and came a few hours after TikTok said its owner, ByteDance, had been told by Washington to sell the app or face a possible ban in the country. Continue reading...
The biggest ever update to Spotify’s app is set to bring artists and fans closer together. But given the platform’s longstanding lean-back experience, has the horse already bolted?Since its inception, Spotify has drawn criticism for helping to turn music from a cherished commodity into a utility. Critics argue that its all-you-can-eat monthly subscription doesn’t encourage long-term engagement, while its uniform, blank presentation of an artist’s catalogue reveals little of the hard work or distinct narrative behind any given release: the platform didn’t display songwriting and production credits until 2018, 12 years after launch.Last week, Spotify announced its biggest ever interface overhaul, designed to address these issues. These updates, which are being rolled out to users in the UK in the coming weeks, include the ability for artists to add 30-second videos to their pages, target superfans with special releases, and give higher profile placement to merchandising and gig tickets. The biggest change comes in the form of a redesigned homepage featuring an endless feed of short-form videos, which looks strikingly similar to TikTok’s feed. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Tara Joshi on (#69VXY)
In this week’s newsletter: Hear the whole story of how a British man turned bank robber looted a dozen San Diego banks in Time with Mr Reed. Plus: five of the best podcasts for indie music fans
Shares plummet after Ernie Bot AI chatbot software falls short of expectations at unveiling in BeijingThe Chinese search engine company Baidu’s shares have fallen by as much as 10% after it presented its ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence software, with investors unimpressed by the bot’s display of linguistic and maths skills.The AI-powered ChatGPT, created by the San Francisco company OpenAI, has caused a sensation for its ability to write essays, poems and programming code on demand within seconds, prompting widespread fears over cheating or of professions becoming obsolete. Continue reading...
The Kremlin is deploying new tactics by drawing on favorite themes and conspiracy theories of rightwing RepublicansAs Russia’s ruthless war against Ukraine has faced major setbacks since it began a year ago, the Kremlin has deployed new disinformation themes and tactics to weaken US support for Kyiv with help from conservative media stars and some Republicans in Congress, according to new studies and experts.Moscow’s disinformation messages have included widely debunked conspiracy theories about US bioweapon labs in Ukraine, and pet themes on the American right that portray the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as an ally in backing traditional values, religion and family in the fight against “woke” ideas. Continue reading...
Artificial intelligence in its current form is based on the wholesale appropriation of existing culture, and the notion that it is actually intelligent could be actively dangerousIn January 2021, the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI gave a limited release to a piece of software called Dall-E. The software allowed users to enter a simple description of an image they had in their mind and, after a brief pause, the software would produce an almost uncannily good interpretation of their suggestion, worthy of a jobbing illustrator or Adobe-proficient designer – but much faster, and for free. Typing in, for example, “a pig with wings flying over the moon, illustrated by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry” resulted, after a minute or two of processing, in something reminiscent of the patchy but recognisable watercolour brushes of the creator of The Little Prince.A year or so later, when the software got a wider release, the internet went wild. Social media was flooded with all sorts of bizarre and wondrous creations, an exuberant hodgepodge of fantasies and artistic styles. And a few months later it happened again, this time with language, and a product called ChatGPT, also produced by OpenAI. Ask ChatGPT to produce a summary of the Book of Job in the style of the poet Allen Ginsberg and it would come up with a reasonable attempt in a few seconds. Ask it to render Ginsberg’s poem Howl in the form of a management consultant’s slide deck presentation and it would do that too. The abilities of these programs to conjure up strange new worlds in words and pictures alike entranced the public, and the desire to have a go oneself produced a growing literature on the ins and outs of making the best use of these tools, and particularly how to structure inputs to get the most interesting outcomes. Continue reading...
Treasury announces plans for exascale computer so as not to risk losing out to ChinaThe UK government is to invest £900m in a cutting-edge supercomputer as part of an artificial intelligence strategy that includes ensuring the country can build its own “BritGPT”.The treasury outlined plans to spend around £900m on building an exascale computer, which would be several times more powerful than the UK’s biggest computers, and establishing a new AI research body. Continue reading...
by Alex Hern in London and Johana Bhuiyan in New York on (#69T14)
Latest version can take images as inputs and improves upon many of the criticisms users had, but will still ‘hallucinate’ factsThe artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI has released GPT-4, the latest version of the groundbreaking AI system that powers ChatGPT, which it says is more creative, less likely to make up facts and less biased than its predecessor.Calling it “our most capable and aligned model yet”, OpenAI cofounder Sam Altman said the new system is a “multimodal” model, which means it can accept images as well as text as inputs, allowing users to ask questions about pictures. The new version can handle massive text inputs and can remember and act on more than 20,000 words at once, letting it take an entire novella as a prompt. Continue reading...
Restructuring, as part of the company’s ‘Year of Efficiency’, also sees 5,000 unfulfilled job adverts closedMark Zuckerberg’s Meta is laying off another 10,000 people and instituting a further hiring freeze as part of the company’s “Year of Efficiency”, the chief executive announced in a Facebook post on Tuesday.The restructuring, which also sees a further 5,000 unfilled job adverts closed without hiring, comes less than six months after the company announced another wave of 11,000 redundancies. At its peak in 2022, Meta had grown to 87,000 employees globally, with a substantial portion of that hiring occurring since the onset of the Covid pandemic. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: While its quick slip into financial hardship has left American bankers reeling, its UK division is surprisingly fine. But the tech sector isn’t out of trouble yet
by Sandra Laville Environment correspondent on (#69SEJ)
Twenty pools may be upgraded this year after startup uses energy from small data centre to heat waterPublic swimming pools facing closure because of soaring energy bills have been offered a lifeline via new technology to heat the water.Mark Bjornsgaard, the chief executive of the tech startup Deep Green, has trialled the idea in Exmouth, Devon. He has put a small computer data processing centre underneath the pool and the energy from it heats the water. Continue reading...
Prime minister says he will take ‘whatever steps necessary’ to protect Britain’s securityRishi Sunak has indicated that the UK could follow the US and Canada in banning TikTok from government devices, saying he will take “whatever steps are necessary” to protect Britain’s security.The prime minister said the UK was “looking at what our allies are doing” in the wake of the decision by other countries to remove TikTok from government phones amid fears over the social video app’s links to China. The European Commission and European parliament have also banned TikTok from staff devices. Continue reading...
In the US, the Federal Reserve has stepped in to guarantee deposits. The tech sector should realise it can’t go it aloneSilicon Valley Bank (SVB) became one of the 20 largest banks in the US by being the darling of west coast tech startups, but it transpires that it expanded at the expense of managing its exposure to risk.The bank provided services to more than 2,500 venture capital firms (VCs) – companies that invest in startups with the hope that they’ll achieve long-term growth – and nearly half of the US’s venture-capital-backed technology and life-science companies.James Ball is the global editor at The Bureau of Investigative Journalism Continue reading...
With cheap apps proliferating, how long til our likeness appears in a nonconsensual deepfake porn video?In the ad, a woman in a white lace dress makes suggestive faces at the camera, and then kneels. There’s something a bit uncanny about her; a quiver at the side of her temple, a peculiar stillness of her lip. But if you saw the video in the wild, you might not know that it’s a deepfake fabrication. It would just look like a video, like the opening shots of some cheesy, low-budget internet porn.In top right corner, as the video loops, there is a still image of the actress Emma Watson, taken when she was a teenager, from a promotional shoot for the Harry Potter movies. It’s her face that has been pasted on to the porn performer’s. Suddenly, a woman who has never performed in pornography is featured in it. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#69R0Y)
Low-cost smartphone has three-day battery life, decent camera and is designed to be taken apartDesigned to allow the back to be popped off and the battery replaced within minutes, Nokia’s new G22 is not the first smartphone to be DIY-repairable. But the Android handset is the first to come in at a budget price.Costing less than £170, the new phone has replacement parts already available starting at just £19. The repairable design is halfway between the truly modular £449 Fairphone 4 and the £849 iPhone 14, which has been constructed to make professional repairs easier. Continue reading...
Until last Friday Silicon Valley Bank was the 16th largest bank in the US, worth more than $200bnFour decades ago, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was born in the heart of a region known for its technological prowess and savvy decision making.The California-headquartered organisation grew to become the 16th largest bank in the US, catering for the financial needs of technology companies around the world, before a series of ill-fated investment decisions led to its collapse. Continue reading...
The writer says that meganets – the huge tech networks already part of daily life – have led to groupthink and the breakdown of public discourse and that we must exert more influence on themDavid Auerbach is a writer and software engineer who has worked for Google and Microsoft. He also teaches the history of computation at the New Centre for Research & Practice in Seattle, US. His new book is Meganets: How Digital Forms Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities. He argues that widespread concern about artificial intelligence is legitimate, but the problem is already all around us, with huge tech networks that no one – neither governments nor their owners – is able to control.Your book is concerned with the threat to social and economic stability represented by what you call meganets. How do you define a meganet?
Car engines, bespoke medicines, organs for transplant, food, fashion and now even a whole street of houses… Is the all-conquering promise of 3D printing finally coming true?Nori bricks, which were first fired in the Lancashire town of Accrington in 1887, quickly became legendary as the hardest brick ever produced. Their strength, derived from the chemical properties of the local clay, enabled megastructures to rise up around the world, including the Blackpool Tower in 1894 and the Empire State Building in New York in 1930. Their name is said to be a cock-up from when they meant to write “iron” on the works’ chimney.This year a different, though equally pioneering, construction material is set to bring attention to the town, which is 20 miles north of Manchester and whose most recent claim to fame is being trash-talked in a 1989 advert for milk. On Charter Street, on a patch of disused land owned by the council, there are plans to build 46 net-zero-carbon homes, ranging from single-bedroom apartments to four-bed houses, all occupied by low-income families or military veterans. The homes will be made not from Nori bricks, but from 3D-extruded concrete. When the development is complete, potentially in late 2023, it will be the largest printed building complex in Europe. Continue reading...
Raising funds from investors is unfavorable for marginalized founders, who face racial bias in the world of venture capitalRechelle Balanzat, an Asian-American founder, has led her startup Juliette, a self-funded, app-enabled dry-cleaning startup since 2014. As a double minority in tech, Balanzat said she faced gender bias with investors, and also encountered investors who inflicted racial bias. Investors would often expect Balanzat to speak with an accent and if not they were amazed she could speak English, she said.Balanzat said her decision to self-fund her startup was born out of necessity. In fact, she is not the only founder of color that finds venture capital fundraising to feel more like a marathon than a sprint. In actuality, many report that the process can feel more like running on a hamster wheel, endless and with no positive outcome. Continue reading...
So many of our most precious memories are anchored in particular songs. But does the easy availability of every track spell the end of that? Jude Rogers and her young son compare music notesThe second we get in the car, my son strikes up his familiar tune. “I want my playlist, Mum!” Put your belt on, young man. “Pleeease?” Some politeness for a change. Belt. Now.I get a second’s sweet peace as I hear the clunk-click. Then the noise: “Mum! I need my playlist right now!” Continue reading...
The stablecoin fell as low as $0.87 as Circle broke the news that its reserves were at the collapsed lenderThe value of the world’s fifth-biggest cryptocurrency, USD Coin (USDC), slumped to an all-time low on Saturday after Circle, the US firm behind the coin, revealed that $3.3bn of the reserves backing it were held at Silicon Valley Bank.USDC is a stablecoin – cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value – USDC’s value is supposed to mimic the dollar. But the coin broke its 1:1 dollar peg and fell as low as $0.87 on Saturday morning. Continue reading...
Portrait of the colossally successful pornography website dithers between its defenders and critics and doesn’t really tell us muchDocumentaries about pornography are usually building to one of two different climactic conclusions: that porn is actually a hateful enabler of rape, or that porn is actually a sex-positive celebration of sensual pleasure. It seems to me that Suzanne Hillinger’s uncertain documentary about Pornhub isn’t exactly sure what its money shot should be.Pornhub is the colossally successful porn site, owned by a Canadian company with the airily tech-bro name of MindGeek; for years it provided a lucrative and arguably enlightened outlet for adult content creators and models who were providing a consensual, legal service to paying customers, and who were thus able to get away from the sleazier and more exploitative side of studio-based porn and sex work. But a 2020 exposé by New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof revealed that alongside this perfectly respectable material, people were uploading rape videos and child-abuse videos and the outrage meant that Pornhub’s activities were severely curtailed. Continue reading...
Endnight Games’ sequel sold vast numbers on Steam. What’s behind its remarkable success – and what should you know before you play it?Late last month, a game called Sons of the Forest launched on the Steam Early Access programme, which allows players to buy unfinished games still in active development, and immediately became one of the biggest new titles of 2023. Within 24 hours, it had sold 2m copies, and it has remained near the top of Steam’s top-sellers list ever since.Sons of the Forest’s phenomenal success has seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but the momentum has been quietly building for years. Canadian developer Endnight Games has carved out a niche, delivering immersive, tangible and thrilling survival games. Continue reading...
Meta’s head of chat app says it would not comply with the requirements set out in online safety billWhatsApp would refuse to comply with requirements in the online safety bill that attempted to outlaw end-to-end encryption, the chat app’s boss has said, casting the future of the service in the UK in doubt.Speaking during a UK visit in which he will meet legislators to discuss the government’s flagship internet regulation, Will Cathcart, Meta’s head of WhatsApp, described the bill as the most concerning piece of legislation currently being discussed in the western world. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hollie Richardson, Hannah Verdier a on (#69M1D)
In this week’s newsletter: The first Black student at the University of Mississippi looks back at segregation and his activism and legacy in Breaking Mississippi. Plus: five of the best Oscars podcasts
Breach in the systems of DC Health Link, a health insurance company, led to 170,000 records being compromisedMembers of the House and Senate were informed on Wednesday that hackers may have gained access to their sensitive personal data in a breach of a Washington DC health insurance marketplace. Employees of the lawmakers and their families were also affected.DC Health Link confirmed that data on an unspecified number of customers was affected and said it was notifying them and working with law enforcement. It said it was offering identity theft service to those affected and extending credit monitoring to all customers. Continue reading...
by Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent on (#69JZC)
Joint investigation with police in London follows similar operartion in Leeds as part of wider crackdown on sectorThe City watchdog and local police have raided several sites in east London suspected of housing illegal ATMs distributing cryptocurrencies, as part of a widening crackdown on the sector.The joint operation between the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Metropolitan police came just weeks after similar raids in Leeds. Those are believed to be the first to target crypto distribution in the UK, including machines that allow customers to buy or convert traditional currencies into cryptoassets such as bitcoin. Continue reading...
From boats to backyards, peer-to-peer lending services have gone well beyond spare rooms. While renting your assets to strangers can be lucrative, there are risks
Joel and Ellie try to survive the bleak midwinter – then encounter David and his strange meat-eating club. What unbelievably horrifying viewingThis article contains spoilers for The Last of Us. Please do not read unless you have seen episodes one to eight …After threatening it for a week or two, winter is now fully upon The Last of Us. Continue reading...
Cuts range from 4% on performance version of Model S to 9% on more expensive Model XTesla has cut prices on its two most expensive electric vehicles in the United States, according to the company’s website, days after its chief executive, Elon Musk, said recent price cuts on other models had stoked demand.The price cuts, Tesla’s fifth adjustment since the start of the year, ranged from 4% on the performance version of the Model S to 9% on the more expensive Model X. Continue reading...
The Albanese government promises to treat video games as art – but developers must also be treated like artists, and supported to experiment, fail and flourish
It may be just a game but some players have gone on to careers in physics, engineering and aeronautics. Now the team behind Kerbal Space Program 2 is working with the European Space Agency to make it even more realisticWhen Dr Uri Shumlack was contacted by a video game developer who wanted to discuss his work on interstellar propulsion, for a game about spaceflight, he was wary. A professor of aeronautics and astronautics at the University of Washington, he was a busy individual, and not exactly an avid gamer. He asked some of his engineering undergraduates whether they had heard of a game called Kerbal Space Program, only to discover that half the class were there because of the game.First playable in 2011, Kerbal Space Program is an idiosyncratic and extremely difficult video game that involves getting little green aliens off the surface of their planet using rockets that you must cobble together from a library of parts. To do this, though – and leave the launchpad without exploding – you have to develop a pretty good understanding of the physics of space travel, calculating orbit trajectories and figuring out how much fuel you need, and whether you can carry it without messing up your thrust-to-weight ratio. It is beloved by space and astrophysics enthusiasts, who have posted thousands of hours of gameplay video showing off their unlikely crafts and ambitious missions in this simulated solar system. Continue reading...
Mouse movers have existed for years, but have recently become a symbol of resistance against workplace surveillanceWatching Premier League matches can be difficult when you live in the US. For midweek games, the kickoff is often in the middle of the work day, posing a challenge even for remote workers: how do you keep your online status from going idle?The solution is a mouse mover: a tool that keeps your cursor jiggling even as you turn your full attention to the game. And last month, the Premier League’s US Twitter feed endorsed goofing off by offering a “PLinUSA mouse mover” to a lucky winner. Continue reading...
Despite fears that AI will replace workers, research shows that in real work situations humans still have the edgeArtificial intelligence is getting everyone excited. It’s going to end or improve the world, depending on your optimism/pessimism. The latest hullabaloo was triggered by the release of ChatGPT – the progression of so called generative AI, which doesn’t just analyse data but actually creates new content (in this case written text).There’s been lots of speculation of what this might mean for education (the end of coursework?), but my focus is on the implications for the labour market. Now the first serious research on that front has arrived. Economists conducted an online experiment that saw about 450 professionals complete a writing task of the kind they’d do in their day job, with only some having access to ChatGPT to assist them. Continue reading...
Michelle Donelan says artificial intelligence represents a ‘massive opportunity’ for the civil service and beyondArtificial intelligence systems such as ChatGPT could play a role in Whitehall and represent a “massive opportunity”, the new science secretary has suggested.Michelle Donelan, who took over the new role after the prime minister’s departmental reshuffle last month, said the civil service should rely on its own experts but did not rule out a role for artificial intelligence in the future. Continue reading...
Information commissioner’s warning comes after leak of messages sent by Matt Hancock during Covid pandemicThe widespread use of WhatsApp by parliamentary ministers and officials in Whitehall poses risks for transparency, the information commissioner has said.Writing in the Telegraph, John Edwards said there was nothing necessarily wrong with the use of WhatsApp, but that the form of communication did pose questions for current policies and procedures. Continue reading...
Our tendency to humanise large language models and AI is daft – let’s worry about corporate grabs and environmental damageOn 14 February, Kevin Roose, the New York Times tech columnist, had a two-hour conversation with Bing, Microsoft’s ChatGPT-enhanced search engine. He emerged from the experience an apparently changed man, because the chatbot had told him, among other things, that it would like to be human, that it harboured destructive desires and was in love with him.The transcript of the conversation, together with Roose’s appearance on the paper’s The Daily podcast, immediately ratcheted up the moral panic already raging about the implications of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5 (which apparently underpins Bing) and other “generative AI” tools that are now loose in the world. These are variously seen as chronically untrustworthy artefacts, as examples of technology that is out of control or as precursors of so-called artificial general intelligence (AGI) – ie human-level intelligence – and therefore posing an existential threat to humanity. Continue reading...
For the photographer, these women embody the harmonious life of her ‘dream destination’Last year, Magdalena Szurek wanted to fulfil all the travel plans the pandemic had stalled, and she saw Sarajevo as her “dream destination”. “I have family from Croatia,” says Szurek, who lives in Poland. “So I used to visit the Balkans every year, but only its coast. I’d heard a lot about Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s a city that has experienced a lot of pain and sadness but today Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Jews live side by side in harmony.”Szurek had just arrived and was looking for somewhere to stop for a coffee. “There were two places next to each other, and these women were sitting on the steps outside a closed shop. I think they were waiting for a free table, too. Asking them to pose would have been against the rules of street photography. There was no opportunity to speak to them, but they smiled at me afterwards.” Continue reading...
Organisations including NSPCC say app has chosen to deny the problem and must take meaningful actionTikTok has been urged to strengthen its content moderation policies around suicide and eating disorder material by organisations including the NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation.The groups claimed TikTok had not acted swiftly enough following the publication of research suggesting the app’s recommendation algorithm pushes self-harm and eating disorder content to teenagers within minutes of them expressing interest in the topics.In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk. Continue reading...
PM had held talks with firm’s owner SoftBank in effort to make London first choice for tech flotationsThe Cambridge-based chip designer Arm is to pursue a US-only listing this year, dealing a major blow to Rishi Sunak’s ambitions to make London the first choice for tech company flotations.The company, which is owned by the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank, confirmed its preferred plan of seeking a US-only main listing later this year, spurning the UK despite heavy lobbying by successive prime ministers. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian