Technology | The Guardian

Demis Hassabis calls for greater regulation to quell existential fears over tech with above-human levels of intelligence

It's complicated, contentious and sweeping. As the landmark legislation becomes law, here's a guide to its key rules on everything from pornographic content to protecting children Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereDeepfakes, viral online challenges and protecting freedom of expression: the online safety bill sprawls across many corners of the internet and it's about to become official. The much-debated legislation is due to receive royal assent, and therefore become law, imminently.The purpose of the act is to make sure tech firms have the right moderating systems and processes in place to deal with harmful material. This means a company cannot comply by chance," says Ben Packer, a partner at the law firm Linklaters. It must have systems and processes in place to, for instance, minimise the length of time for which illegal content is present." Continue reading...

Believe it or not, battery-powered vehicles have been around since Victorian times - everything from private automobiles to taxis, ambulances and tricycles. We've got the photos to prove itThe history of the electric car is surprisingly enraging. If you imagine early electric vehicles at all (full disclosure: I didn't until recently), it will probably be as the quixotic and possibly dangerous dream of a few eccentrics, maybe in the 1920s or 1930s, when domestic electrification became widespread. It's easy to imagine some stiff-collared proto-Musk getting bored of hunting and affairs, eyeing his newly installed electric lights speculatively, then wreaking untold havoc and mass electrocutions.The reality is entirely different. By 1900, a third of all cars on the road in the US were electric; we're looking at the history of a cruelly missed opportunity, and it started astonishingly early. The Scottish engineer Robert Anderson had a go at an electric car of sorts way back in the 1830s, though his invention was somewhat stymied by the fact rechargeable batteries were not invented until 1859, making his crude carriage something of a one-trick pony (and far less useful than an actual pony).Thomas Edison with his electric car, circa 1895. Continue reading...

Authors and academics also warn development of advanced systems utterly reckless' without safety checksPowerful artificial intelligence systems threaten social stability and AI companies must be made liable for harms caused by their products, a group of senior experts including two godfathers" of the technology has warned.Tuesday's intervention was made as international politicians, tech companies, academics and civil society figures prepare to gather at Bletchley Park next week for a summit on AI safety. Continue reading...

Dating app users will be able to show possible matches to others for their opinions and recommendationsOne of the most gruelling hurdles in any new relationship is when it becomes time to meet the parents. But now Tinder has come up with a way to make sure your partner has the familial seal of approval before they've even been introduced.The dating app has created a tool called Matchmaker, which allows users to offer up to 15 friends, family members or guardians 24 hours to scrutinise their possible matches. They can view the profiles and make suggestions without having an account of their own - and, fortunately, cannot start messaging on your behalf. Continue reading...

Tax audits and land use inquiries follow company founder announcing run for Taiwan presidency

Systems operating across government departments and police forces raise concerns about accountability and discrimination

Exclusive: findings show uncontrolled and potentially discriminatory way technology used in Whitehall and some police forces

Exclusive: Hikvision, whose kit is banned in US, receives clarification about where its cameras can be placedHikvision, the Chinese surveillance firm identified by the UK government as a security threat, has recommitted" to Britain after receiving clarification that a ban on its cameras being positioned at sensitive sites does not extend to public authorities or police stations.In a message to clients, the Chinese state-owned company, whose equipment is prohibited in the US on national security grounds, said the new guidance would allow it to move forward with our mission". Continue reading...

Travellers are getting seemingly convincing messages asking them to provide bank card details and threatening their reservation will be cancelledTravellers using the popular hotel website Booking.com are being warned not to fall for scam emails asking them to confirm their hotel payment, after a hack of Booking.com's email system.In recent weeks the Observer has been contacted by a number of customers claiming that they had received scam emails from within the Booking.com system. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used by employers to help decide who to hire. What does it mean for candidates - and their future bosses?

An Australian company that helped the website remain accessible has been ordered to pay damages - but the legal arguments remain unsettled

Businesses keep trying to prove AI's superior creativity, but haven't proved it can compete with human inspirationProve you're not a robot. It's (fairly) easy if you try. You could scroll down or click the little x in the corner of the screen to get rid of me. If you are reading the print edition you could just turn the page.One of the indignities of the digital age is being asked, constantly, to confirm we are who we say we are, that we are indeed a human being. Something feels slightly amiss when the (non-human) technology demands that we convince it that we are not the same as them. Big (and sometimes overexcited) claims are being made for artificial intelligence, the most recent being the claim from Wharton business school in Philadelphia that ChatGPT is more creative than human beings (well, more creative than MBA students, anyway). Continue reading...

With the intentions of Xi Jinping uncertain, there is a rush to build advanced chip-fabrication plants outside Taiwan. But it is proving a bigger challenge than anticipatedWhen the history of our time comes to be written, one thing that will amaze historians is how an entire civilisation managed to impale itself on its worship of optimisation and efficiency. This obsession is what underpinned the hubris of globalisation. Apple's famous slogan Designed by Apple in California, manufactured in China" became its guiding light. So long as products could be made available to consumers everywhere, it no longer mattered where they were made. Until it did.We first twigged this when the pandemic struck, and we became suddenly aware of how fragile supply chains built to maximise efficiency could be. Shouldn't we be optimising for resilience rather than efficiency, people wondered. And maybe our obsession with offshoring" production to low-wage countries might not be such a good idea after all. Continue reading...

The billionaire's posts began with a laboured gag and ended with a dangerous intervention into the reporting of the conflict in GazaA year ago this week, when he completed the purchase of Twitter for $44bn, Elon Musk tweeted the bird is freed". Billionaires like nothing more than casting themselves as popular liberators, but the acquisition fitted the pattern of his ever-expanding empire.Musk has colonised areas of the economy from which public funding and regulation have been in retreat. His carmaker, Tesla, is shaping the future of transport; SpaceX, meanwhile, has in many ways replaced Nasa on the final frontier (so far this year it has launched 75 spacecraft). Continue reading...

The AP photographer captured two friends meeting as the sun set on a torrid evening near GironaIn the countryside just outside Girona, a group of friends share a 300-year-old farmhouse. They spend their weekends and holidays here, with their kids. What began as a way to disconnect from the big city of Barcelona evolved into something quite different for Isaac, nine, and Pau, seven, pictured here; it's where they laid the bedrock of their friendship.Pau's dad, Emilio Morenatti, AP's chief photographer for Spain and Portugal, took the shot on his iPhone 14 while unpacking the car for a visit in August. We'd just arrived on this torrid, midsummer evening and were planning a few days of rest. I saw this scene in the courtyard, under the trees, and knew it was special: this moment where two lifelong friends met under a wonderful sunset. I'd have missed it had I gone inside for my camera." Continue reading...

Bidding wars appear to be over as BT and Sky share content and heat goes out of auctions in continental EuropeEight years ago a triumphant Richard Scudamore revelled in a record 5.14bn haul from the sale of Premier League TV rights, after a second consecutive high-stakes auction where eye-watering bidding fuelled another 70% increase in value.I continue to be surprised by every television deal," said the then chief executive of the body that runs and monetises the UK's crown jewel sports rights. Continue reading...

As Amazon announces it is expanding its drone delivery service to the UK and Italy, other companies are jostling to gain altitude with ultra-fast shippingJeff Bezos likes to surprise. Roaming Amazon's global headquarters in 2013, the tycoon promised a television crew half his fortune if they could guess his company's latest innovation. They did not.Oh my God," one of his wide-eyed guests exclaimed, as they caught sight of autonomous delivery drones. Continue reading...

The famous Austin festival picked the Harbour City for its first foray overseas, bringing an eclectic mix of AI, celebrities and cutting edge ideas

From Asia to Europe, AI presenters are now reading the bulletins. They're attractive, ageless and work 24/7 without being paid. Should their human counterparts be worried? And what about the rest of us?Like most newsreaders, Zae-In wears a microphone pinned to her collar and clutches a stack of notes - but unlike most, her face is entirely fake. A virtual human" designed by South Korean artificial intelligence company Pulse9, Zae-In spent five months this year reading live news bulletins on national broadcaster SBS. That, you might think, is it then. To adapt the words of another animated newscaster: I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords." The future is now. The world belongs to the artificially intelligent and the News at Ten will never be the same again.Are things really that simple? Since spring, country after country have debuted their first AI news anchor: India has Sana and Lisa, Greece has Hermes, Kuwait has Fedha and Taiwan has Ni Zhen. She is bright, gorgeous, ageless, tireless and speaks multiple languages, and is totally under my control," said Kalli Purie, the vice chairperson of the India Today Group, when Sana first appeared in March. For broadcasters, it's easy to see the appeal of AI: virtual presenters can read rolling news for 24 hours unpaid and unfed, and it's unlikely they'll ever skip the queue at a lying-in-state. Continue reading...

Parent company Meta says bug caused inappropriate' auto-translations and was now fixed while employee says it pushed a lot of people over the edge'Meta has apologised after inserting the word terrorist" into the profile bios of some Palestinian Instagram users, in what the company says was a bug in auto-translation.The issue, which was first reported by 404media, affected users with the word Palestinian" written in English on their profile, the Palestinian flag emoji and the word alhamdulillah" written in Arabic. When auto-translated to English the phrase read: Praise be to god, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom." Continue reading...

The music publishers' lawsuit appears to be the first copyright case over AI's use of song lyricsMusic publishers Universal Music, ABKCO and Concord Publishing sued the artificial intelligence company Anthropic in Tennessee federal court on Wednesday, accusing it of misusing innumerable" copyrighted song lyrics to train its chatbot Claude.The lawsuit said Anthropic violates the publishers' rights through its use of lyrics from at least 500 songs ranging from the Beach Boys' God Only Knows and the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter to Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' Uptown Funk and Beyonce's Halo. Continue reading...

Attorney general Letitia James brings lawsuit against Genesis Global - and parent DCG - and GeminiThe New York attorney general, Letitia James, on Thursday sued the cryptocurrency firms Genesis Global, and its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG), and the Winklevoss twins' Gemini for allegedly defrauding" investors of more than $1bn.At the heart of the lawsuit is a program Gemini ran in partnership with Genesis. Dubbed Gemini Earn", the program let customers lend crypto assets such as bitcoin to Genesis. Gemini had billed the program as a low-risk investment" even when its internal analyses had found Genesis was on risky financial footing, James alleged. Continue reading...

The Fresh Prince, sidekick DJ Jazzy Jeff and more take a trip down memory lane and explore how 1988 revolutionised music forever. Plus: five of the best spin-off podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereIt's intimate, it's engaging, it's a medium that feels somehow perfect for the confessional: podcasts and biopics are a really great fit. Perhaps that's why this week's two biggest releases are musical biographies of two megastars: Take That and Will Smith. The latter's new series Class of 88 is supposed to be a look at one year in hip-hop's history, but his back-and-forth with DJ pal Jazzy Jeff about scrapes involving an attempt to hack a plaster cast from Jeff's broken leg with a butterknife are far and away the highlight. The easy banter between Take That's remaining members also makes it clear why they've chosen to share their story in a medium that's recently seen Paul McCartney launch into mini biographies for a number of his biggest hits.As well as looking at Take That and Smith's podcasts, we'll be rounding up five of the finest ever spin-off podcasts (yes, S-Town is in there) and taking a look at the week's other great shows. Special mention goes to Ghost Story, which is one of the wildest real-life tales we've come across in a long, long time. Enjoy.

The whole world is warping to fit the screens of our mobile phones. I'm bracing myself for a wave of dramas set on ladders and staircasesThe phone is king. We are its subjects. Phone screens are vertical, set up for portrait mode, and our world must change to fit that frame. Cricket, of all things, is leading the way. The World Cup is presently being televised longways, so to speak, so you can watch it on your phone like you might watch TikTok. This offering comes to us courtesy of the streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar. Zeebiz.com says this feature facilitates a one-handed viewing experience, aligning with the way most users consume content". Makes it sound a tad smutty if you ask me.To be fair, cricket does lend itself to portrait mode because the action is generally shown from behind the stumps, so the wicket fits the up-down format. It is the same with tennis. Lucky for cricket, lucky for tennis. But whither football, which is televised side on? Radical change is necessary. To optimise phone viewing in portrait mode, we must move the goals from the short sides of the pitch to the long sides, and televise it from one of the short ends. The new playing area will be very short and very wide. The corner kicks will have to be more like goal kicks and keepers will be well within shooting range of the other goal. Chaos. But football must change or die.Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Spec bumps keep Apple top of smartwatch pack, with faster Siri and new hands-free gestureApple's smartwatches get their first speed increase in years along with brighter screens and new hands-free gestures - keeping the market leader still miles ahead of the pack.The Apple Watch Series 9 comes in various sizes and materials and starts at 399 (449/$399/A$649) - a 20 price cut in the UK. It launches alongside the Ultra 2 costing 799 (899/$799/A$1,399), which is 50 cheaper than last year's model. Continue reading...

Digit will begin its time on the floor by shifting empty tote boxes amid concerns humans will be shifted out of jobsAmazon is experimenting with a humanoid robot as the technology company increasingly seeks to automate its warehouses.It has started testing Digit, a two-legged robot that can grasp and lift items, at facilities this week. The device is first being used to shift empty tote boxes. Continue reading...

We try Tastilux, an Australian product that promises to mimic the flavour and mouthfeel of meat

There are three key drivers to get companies to change their behaviour: reputation, regulation and revenue,' the e-safety commissioner says

Revenue falls short of predictions as Elon Musk seeks to temper expectations' of Cybertruck, company's super-vehicle in prototypeTesla shares slid nearly 5% in after-hours trading Wednesday after several misses of Wall Street expectations in its third quarter earnings of 2023.Revenue for the third quarter was $23.4bn compared with analyst predictions of $24.09bn, with total gross profit declining 22% year-over-year. Earnings per share were $0.66 compared with a predicted $0.74, translating to a net income of $1.9bn - compared with $3.3bn one year ago. Continue reading...

Nintendo; Switch

Users say their posts no longer appear at top of feeds and some suspect platform is shadow-banning, or demoting contentInstagram users are accusing the social network of purposefully censoring posts in support of Palestine - underscoring longstanding concerns about unfair moderation as war rages in Gaza.Hena Mustafa, an Instagram user with 866 followers based in New York City, said that since she began posting about developments in Palestine as Israel mounted its siege in the past week, her Stories - photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours - have been receiving significantly less views". Friends and followers have messaged Mustafa to tell her that her posts are no longer appearing at the top of their Instagram feeds, her name has become unsearchable on the social network, and they are unable to interact with her posts. Continue reading...

Suit claims app features like disappearing messages and geolocating users make kids easy targets for dealersHanh Badger was working from home the morning of 17 June 2021. She went to the kitchen to grab a second cup of coffee and noticed her daughter's bedroom door was still shut. Badger found Brooke, 17, pale and motionless in bed.Soon, the sheriff arrived and immediately administered Naloxone, a nasal spray that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose. But Badger, a pharmacist, was confused. Brooke was a talented student who couldn't wait to begin college that fall. Continue reading...

Platform owned by Elon Musk says subscription trial is aimed at combating bots on the serviceX, the platform formerly known as Twitter, has begun rolling out a US$1 annual charge to new users in New Zealand and the Philippines in a move the service owned by Elon Musk says is aimed at combating bots.Fortune first reported the subscription plan, which costs US$1 a year for access to key functions including tweeting, replying, retweeting and liking. After Fortune's report, X revealed the details. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: The Twitter alternatives are gaining ground, and it wouldn't take much to steal X's crown as a news-sharing service Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereEvery time Elon Musk does something bad, you can see an influx of new users to Bluesky - one of the many social media sites to pop up as a potential Twitter/X alternative.The platform, still invite-only, has more than 1.5 million users but it is slowly growing. A website called Twexit, which tracks the exodus of users from Twitter to Bluesky, has noted spikes of people activating their invite codes in the past couple of months. Continue reading...

Double booking is the least of the worries awaiting the vacationers arriving at this desert homeWhether or not you think it deserves it, the online property-hire business Airbnb is taking a pasting of late, and now even horror films are piling in to sully its name. In this snappily edited film, a house in the desert near Joshua Tree national park (judging by the local flora) appears to have been double-booked, leading to murderous results. They complain about the circular frustration created by their inability to compare booking confirmations because they don't have the code for the house's wifi, which is accessible only on the Airbnb app, which they can't access because of lack of wifi or phone signal. Typical first-world problems.But the director, Travis Greene, and the screenwriter, Jonathan Buchanan, have more on their minds than shaming the booking service, mainly how to make the different crisscrossing timelines in the story make narrative sense without continuity errors, as the film cuts between four time periods in a single day. In the first, property co-owner Jessie shows up to clean a bungalow full of twee, millennial-friendly knick-knacks, as if the set designer went mad with a credit card in Urban Outfitters. At a different point that day, we see Instagram influencer Sam (Alisha Soper) and her actor boyfriend Dwayne (William Gabriel Grier)arrive at the house and unexpectedly meet a creepy middle-aged couple named Liz (Rosanne Limeres) and Richard (Tim Simek) already there, and insistent they have hired the place. Continue reading...

Large language models gave advice on how to conceal the true purpose of the purchase of anthrax, smallpox and plague bacteriaThe artificial intelligence models underpinning chatbots could help plan an attack with a biological weapon, according to research by a US thinktank.A report by the Rand Corporation released on Monday tested several large language models (LLMs) and found they could supply guidance that could assist in the planning and execution of a biological attack". However, the preliminary findings also showed that the LLMs did not generate explicit biological instructions for creating weapons. Continue reading...

Seven years of updates, advanced generative AI tools, top-class zoom and still undercuts high-end rivalsGoogle's top Pixel is back to outshoot, outsmart and outlast the competition, promising seven years of full software support. But whether the Pixel 8 Pro's high-end features justify a sharp price increase is open to debate.Costing 999 (1,099/$999/A$1,699), the new Android still undercuts the 1,200 competition from Apple and Samsung, but the 150 jump over last year's stellar 7 Pro stings.Screen: 6.7in 120Hz QHD+ OLED (489ppi)Processor: Google Tensor G3RAM: 12GB of RAMStorage: 128, 256 or 512GBOperating system: Android 14Camera: 50MP + 48MP ultrawide + 48MP 5x telephoto, 10.5MP selfieConnectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 7, UWB, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (1.5m for 30 minutes)Dimensions: 162.6 x 76.5 x 8.8mmWeight: 213g Continue reading...

Researchers say AI tool has potential to enhance diagnosis and treatment - but without discernible biasesChatGPT will see you now. The artificial intelligence tool may be better than a doctor at following recognised treatment standards for depression, and without the gender or social class biases sometimes seen in the physician-patient relationship, a study suggests.The findings were published in Family Medicine and Community Health, the open access journal owned by British Medical Journal. The researchers said further work was needed to examine the risks and ethical issues arising from AI's use. Continue reading...

Cuts in engineering, talent and finance teams affect 3% of the 20,000 staff and come amid slowing revenue growthMicrosoft's LinkedIn said on Monday it would lay off 668 employees across its engineering, talent and finance teams in the second round of job cuts this year for the social media network for professionals amid slowing revenue growth.The cuts, which affect more than 3% of the 20,000-strong staff, add to the tens of thousands of job losses this year in the technology sector in the face of an uncertain economic outlook. Continue reading...

Facebook parent company and two subcontractors face court hearing over unfair dismissal allegationsSettlement talks have collapsed between Facebook's parent company, Meta, and Kenyan content moderators over a lawsuit alleging unfair dismissal, a tech rights group working with the plaintiffs has said.The 184 moderators sued Meta and two subcontractors earlier this year after they allegedly lost their jobs with one of the subcontractors, Sama, for organising a union. They say they were then blacklisted from applying for the same roles at a second firm, Majorel, after Facebook changed contractors. Continue reading...

Sony; PS5

TaxWatch analysis estimates British arms of seven major tech firms paid 750m in corporation tax instead of possible 2.8bnThe UK might have missed out on as much as 2bn in tax in 2021 from big tech companies shifting their profits elsewhere, according to an estimate by a group campaigning for greater tax transparency.Seven of the biggest US-headquartered tech companies, including Apple, Microsoft and Google owner Alphabet, are estimated to have paid 750m in UK corporation tax and the digital sales tax, compared with 2.8bn in estimated tax due had profits not been routed elsewhere, according to TaxWatch, a campaign group. Continue reading...

Dubbed the crackberry', it was a tech gamechanger and status symbol. So what happened to the first smartphone and why didn't the execs see it coming?A decade and a half ago, there was no bigger status symbol than the BlackBerry. Lady Gaga tweeted from hers. Madonna slept with one under her pillow. Kim Kardashian owned three of them. When he became president, Barack Obama fought tooth and nail to be able to keep his device. When Naomi Campbell lost her temper with a housekeeper in 2006, which household object did she choose to use as a projectile weapon? That's right, it was the humble BlackBerry. Without any overstatement, they were everywhere.And yet, when was the last time you thought about BlackBerry? A year ago? A decade ago? More? The BlackBerry currently occupies a genuinely strange space in the culture. It swept in with such gamechanging ferocity - here was a phone that allowed you to send emails, liberating its user from the tyranny of the office - only to be displaced just as quickly when Apple announced the iPhone. BlackBerry's ups and downs were so sudden and violent that they're now almost impossible to comprehend. Continue reading...

As the world's wealthiest men chest-thump in low-Earth orbit, others wonder how their mess will eventually be cleaned upYou're a mega-billionaire. You already own one of the world's most influential social media platforms, and dominate more than half of the US electric car market. You are regularly named as one of the world's most influential people. You've had your hairline sorted, you've already had 11 children, so what do you do next?For Elon Musk, the answer is: attempt to dominate space. Continue reading...

The social network owner's business model appears to include a slurry of unmoderated toxicity, such as footage of a murderAt 4am a couple of weeks ago, Ryan Carson, a young activist for social justice, was sitting with his girlfriend at the B38 bus stop at Lafayette Avenue and Malcolm X Boulevard in New York. They were on their way home from a wedding party. Carson was suddenly accosted by an aggressive stranger who asked: What the fuck are you looking at?" and then stabbed him to death.The murder was captured by a surveillance camera, the video from which somehow made its way to the New York Post and thence on to the internet, where it was seized upon on X, formerly known as Twitter, by one of the social network's prolific shitposters" (the ones X's owner, Elon Musk, calls creators"). This particular individual specialises in incendiary incidents from all over the world and posts several times a day to just under a million followers.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

While falling sales suggest the demise of print, the industry has proved adaptable and remains attractive to media baronsThe imminent auction of the Telegraph is being viewed as a litmus test of the value of influential national newspaper titles in the era of increasingly digitally led profitability. Media barons and conglomerates, who have hung on to old-world assets for decades in the belief it was right to bet on a sector largely unfancied by tech-obsessed investors, are watching it keenly.Since the onset of the digital era at the start of the century, newspapers have, with a few notable exceptions, been a precarious investment at best. Continue reading...

Completion of sale follows regulator's decision to allow it after competition concerns were addressedMicrosoft has completed its $69bn (57bn) deal to buy Activision Blizzard, the maker of games including Call of Duty and World of Warcraft, after the UK's competition watchdog cleared the acquisition.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had moved to block the deal in April, citing concerns that Microsoft - the maker of the Xbox gaming console - would dominate the nascent cloud gaming market. Continue reading...

The former Alameda CEO offered stunning testimony against her ex-boyfriend and failed crypto mogul being tried for fraudIn the second week of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto fraud trial, Manhattan federal prosecutors called their star witness to the stand: former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison. She delivered stunning, detailed testimony against the failed crypto mogul.Over the course of three days, Ellison, also Bankman-Fried's ex-girlfriend, described her work at FTX's sister hedge fund - repeatedly implicating Bankman-Fried in allegedly siphoning $10bn in customer funds from the cryptocurrency exchange to boost Alameda after a crash in the market. Continue reading...

Microsoft; PC, Xbox