Dominik Diamond’s 18-year-old son was setting off for his first Christmas away from home. How could he send him off with memories to savour?It was a strange Christmas in the Diamond household, because for the first time in 23 years as a parent, my family wasn’t complete. My 18-year-old son Charlie was spending it with his girlfriend and pals 3,000 miles away on the other side of Canada, so he was away for three weeks. This made me sad, for me, but also happy for him that he is mature enough to make these decisions. One of the aims of parenting is to get your kids into a position where they want to leave home and are able to do so, and my son is a man now.So, we had a Charlie Diamond Christmas before he left. Whatever he wanted to do, we would do. This involved going out for dinner to a place where I actually wore a shirt like a proper grownup and put on trousers that weren’t sweatpants; watching whatever movie he wanted; and playing whatever video games he wanted afterwards. I will admit that I wasn’t looking forward to the last two. He likes horror movies, and I tend to go more for upbeat stuff in my middle age, owing to the unending horrors of real life. Also, he would kick my arse at any of the games he likes. Continue reading...
Sean Monahan, who coined the term, sees a difficult year ahead for Silicon Valley and the music sceneYou may not need to be a trend-forecaster to know this but “2023 is going to be a bad year”. So says Sean Monahan, who writes the substack 8Ball, and last year correctly predicted the “vibe shift” popularized in a widely shared essay in the Cut by Allison P Davis.“It’s hard for me to predict or have a strong intuition on 2023, because the economy is behaving very strangely now,” Monahan tells the Guardian. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson a on (#67GE5)
In this week’s newsletter: The British-born woman left London to join the Islamic State at just 15 – but is there more to the story? Plus: five of the best podcasts about music icons
Apple and Google’s AI turn in a booming market may sound less than human and raise the ire of voiceover actors, but it has cost benefitsFor the first few seconds, the narrator of Kristen Ethridge’s new romance audiobook, Shelter from the Storm, sounds like a human being. The voice is light and carefully enunciated, with the slow pacing of any audiobook narrator, as it begins: “There’s a storm coming, and her name is Hope.”Then, something about the pacing of the words grates on the ear. It’s a little too regular, even robotic. “I know that sounds a little crazy,” the breathy voice continues, grinding out the words. “That something so destructive could be labeled with such a peaceful name.” Continue reading...
Agreement caps regulator’s investigation into cryptocurrency’s compliance with requirements to prevent money launderingUS-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has reached a $100m settlement with New York’s Department of Financial Services (DFS), the exchange and the regulator said in statements on Wednesday.The settlement, which includes a $50m penalty, caps the regulator’s investigation into the firm’s compliance with requirements to prevent money laundering. Continue reading...
Annual wraps remind me I’m tethered to my phone like a sad puppy. So give me a round-up from the app with the plainest of truthsOver the last few weeks a particularly pernicious form of alert has been clogging up our phones. It is the beast with many heads – all of which are designed to attack me specifically – morphing into different shapes and appearing in the least expected of places. It is the year in review: the content sent out by our favourite and least favourite apps to confirm how much we have depended on them in the past 12 months; how much we are tethered to them like sad puppies waiting for treats (notifications) from our masters.Spotify is the progenitor of this degrading trend: its annual Wrapped began in 2016, when seeing all your data crunched by a corporation was “fun” instead of “a haunting reminder of surveillance capitalism”. With its aggressive kookiness and promises of personal branding, it became a hit among those of us who defined our entire lives by consumption – not the chic kind that befalls a waify Victorian heroine, but a consumption far more prosaic. Suddenly, listening to your depression playlist on repeat 50 times wasn’t just cause for concern, it was also a shareable, snackable badge of pride. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#67F8B)
Hands-free, AI buggy on display at CES 2023 automatically brakes, warns of danger and can pilot itself while emptySelf-driving technology has been seen in cars, delivery robots and now a $3,300 (£2,700) “hands-free” motorised stroller that can cruise along with the parent, using AI to detect obstacles and danger on the pavement.The Ella smart stroller by the Canadian startup Glüxkind aims to be the “driver assist” of parenting to bring the buggy into the 21st century. It is being shown off at the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas alongside various other gadgets. Continue reading...
Landlord alleges the social media company owes back rent for its California Street branch in San FranciscoElon Musk is trying to slash expenses at Twitter as close to zero as possible while his personal wealth shrinks – and this apparently has included falling behind on rent payments at the company’s offices.Twitter owes $136,260 (£113,601) in overdue rent on its offices on the 30th floor of a building in downtown San Francisco, according to a lawsuit filed by the building’s landlord last week. Continue reading...
In the 13 years since Ties Carlier and his brother started their e-bike company, it has grown to over 1,000 employees but, he says, there is a lot more to do to improve urban environmentsThe rebuilt Battersea power station in south-west London is an impressive architectural feat: its landmark towers were carefully deconstructed and then rebuilt while the derelict structure beneath was filled with modern conveniences. It has also received its fair share of opprobrium, with critics objecting to the privatisation, monetisation and gentrification the project has entailed.All of which makes it an apt place to meet Ties Carlier, at the new London store of VanMoof, the e-bike company he founded with his brother in 2009. He, too, is out to reinvent an old classic, building it from the ground up for the modern era, injecting convenience and polish where others prefer the more rustic charm of what came before. Continue reading...
With the acquisition of game developer Activision Blizzard in the works, the company is facing investigations by trade commissions the world over. If the deal goes through, could it help the forgotten tech giant gain new relevance?
Twitter bans | New year honours | A flummoxed philosopher | Brief giggles | Hung up on hoi polloiHaving read of Andrew Tate’s attempt to belittle Greta Thunberg, it cheered me up to hear of his arrest. What did surprise me was to read that his vile Twitter account had been reinstated after a ban (Andrew Tate put in 30-day pre-trial detention in Romania after arrest, 30 December). I’m still waiting to get my account back after being mildly rude about Nadine Dorries.
by Sean Ingle, John Naughton, Barbara Ellen, Simon Ti on (#67CAY)
From culture to politics, the cost of living crisis, lifestyle, the environment and science – the next 12 months will bring new stars, trends and challenges. Our experts point the wayThere has been an audible buzz about Jack Draper in tennis circles for a while. But in 2023 expect the 21-year-old from Sutton in south-west London, who also has a contract with IMG Models, to crash into the mainstream. He certainly has enough of the right stuff, including the whiplash serve and punishing groundstrokes on the court, and the looks and personality off it. Continue reading...
Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell vows to target algorithms that bombard children with harmful content if party wins powerTough new laws that would protect children from being bombarded with seriously harmful online material, will be introduced as a top priority of a Labour government.After meeting families who have lost children as a result of exposure to harmful content, the shadow culture secretary, Lucy Powell, has won the backing of party leader Keir Starmer to legislate as one of the first acts of a Labour government, if the party wins the next election. Continue reading...
by Alex Lawson, Julia Kollewe, Kalyeena Makortoff , G on (#67BTR)
Times are tough for businesses old and new, but the pace of change in many sectors this year will be relentlessThe upheavals of recent years have posed huge challenges for established companies, but for others rapid change can mean big opportunities. Entrepreneurs are breaking ground in important new areas, from artificial intelligence to biotechnology and super-smart energy meters. Here, we look at six companies making the most of the moment. Continue reading...
Since taking this self-portrait, the photographer says her life has been transformed by motherhoodWhen Tinatin Jabanashvili began studying law in her home town of Tbilisi, Georgia, she left her passions of dancing and acting behind. Photography, she says, took their place; a way to express her feelings, and how she saw the world, without words.Having completed her master’s, she now works in HR in the parliament of Georgia. “My work is very interesting, but very corporate. My art is what fills me with freedom.” Her biggest passion, however, arrived six months ago, in the form of a little girl called Elene. “She’s my first child, and has become my biggest and best inspiration. Before, it was people, streets, shadows and sunshine, but now I’m at home raising my child I’m grateful for every minute, for all the new things she’s doing,” she says. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson a on (#679PB)
In this week’s newsletter: Cerebral raised millions from investors, but ended under investigation. How did it go wrong? Plus: five podcasts to help you understand British politics
Politicians ordered to delete Chinese-owned social video app that House has said represents ‘high risk to users’TikTok has been banned from any devices issued by the US House of Representatives, as political pressure continues to build on the Chinese-owned social video app.The order to delete the app was issued by Catherine Szpindor, the chief administrative officer (CAO) of the House, whose office had warned in August that the app represented a “high risk to users”. Continue reading...
Presenter’s account loses most of its content after apparent hacker shares false information and racial slursPiers Morgan’s Twitter account has been wiped of much of its content, amid reports it was hacked.The former Good Morning Britain (GMB) presenter, 57, who has 8.3 million followers on the social media site, had no profile picture, banner image or posts on Tuesday afternoon. Some tweets containing still and video images remained, as did records of tweets his account had liked. Continue reading...
Crypto self-destructed (twice) and Twitter got a new, CEO-shaped main character– but what else happened this year?Happy Betwixtmas to those who celebrate, and mournful “sorry everything fun is shut” to those who don’t. Me? I’m thankful for the one week of the year where tech news stops – or at least, slows down. (This is written in advance and I’ve got a lot riding on that sentence still being true by the time you read it).It’s been an odd year. Even by the standards of the sector, it was just extraordinarily silly. Crypto collapsed in the dumbest possible way, twice. Elon Musk bought his way into being the main character of Twitter, for good. AI seems just on the precipice of doing away with the Ucas personal statement. Nothing is normal.Standing for “decentralised autonomous organisation”, a DAO isn’t really in the same class as an NFT. Rather than being a singular digital asset, like a picture of a monkey or a dog-themed copy of a dog-themed copy of bitcoin, a DAO is more like a company – but one which is directly controlled by its shareholders, without the need for employees or directors.(Although, we should note, a DAO is Not A Company and owners of DAOs are Not Shareholders, because if it were and they were, the whole thing would be wildly illegal. Glad we’ve cleared that up.)Given what we know and expect from Russia, it’s unlikely to come as a shock that – according to data from Checkpoint Research – in the first three days of combat, cyber-attacks on Ukraine’s government and military sector went up by 196%, compared to the rest of February.But what has been interesting to watch has been the fightback, with attacks on Russia up 4% for the week. It might not sound like much, but there has been noticeable pushback from white hat hackers, hactivist groups and others on the counterattack.What happened was unexpected. Upon proving that I was the real Alex Hern, I was greeted with a wall of glee. One user spammed the phrase “YOUNG_HERN_IN_THE_HOUSE”, another posted “ITS_FUCKING_ALEX”. “ALEX NEXT ELON”, “ALEX SAVE OUR BAGS”… before I could even post my first real message, someone had sent “ALEX TYPING” 15 times. Where my first appearance had felt like a parent breaking up an illicit house party, this felt more like the second coming, with me unwillingly cast in the role of Jesus.Things got worse when I said I wanted to speak to people for a story about it. No matter how explicit I was that I thought the entire thing was dumb as hell – dumber than I thought was possible for an already extremely-dumb sector – news of a forthcoming article spread like wildfire. “All publicity is good publicity,” was spammed into the channel, with one user pointing out that Shiba Inu, a shitcoin worth an inexplicable $7bn, had had a very similar genesis, with the majority of its early press simply mocking it as a low-effort clone of the original shitcoin, Dogecoin.[Elizabeth Lagone], the head of health and wellbeing policy at Mark Zuckerberg’s company was taken through a selection of the Instagram posts the teenager had viewed in the six months before her death – deeming many of them to be “safe” for children to view. It was not an opinion shared by many in the room at north London coroner’s court.Molly, from north-west London, died in 2017 after viewing extensive amounts of online content related to suicide, depression, self-harm and anxiety. In what the NSPCC described as a global first, the senior coroner said social media had contributed to Molly’s death, ruling that that Molly had died from “an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content”. Continue reading...
It’s been a bad year for delusional egomaniacs in Silicon Valley. But who had it worst?It’s been a pretty good few decades for America’s top tech CEOs, as their supposed brilliance turned them into billionaire oligarchs with cultlike followings. But in 2022, things suddenly looked a bit bleaker.Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Jeff Bezos’s Amazon reportedly cut thousands of workers. Elon Musk, once hailed as a genius, has revealed a truly impressive level of incompetence at Twitter. Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to more than a decade in prison. And then there’s Sam Bankman-Fried, who recently became a household name for disastrous reasons. Continue reading...
Move follows criticism of Elon Musk after #ThereIsHelp feature disappeared from searchesTwitter has restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and support groups after its CEO Elon Musk was criticised over their removal.The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics and listed contacts for organisations in numerous countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression. Continue reading...
The Little Car Company, housed in a converted RAF base at Bicester, makes miniature classics that run on batteriesBuilding cars is hard, so when Ben Hedley started his business he started small. To be precise, he started at 75% of the size. The Little Car Company does what its name suggests, producing shrunken but drivable battery electric toy versions of full-size classics from the likes of Aston Martin and Ferrari.The company has made its way to £10m in turnover and 60 employees almost by accident over four years, Hedley says, walking around the company’s workshop in Bicester Heritage, a converted Royal Air Force base in Oxfordshire that has been turned into a hub for classic car businesses. The company made its first profits in the last financial quarter, despite supply chain problems that have hit automotive manufacturers big and small. Continue reading...
How the Ukraine-born photographer, on a hot day by a pool in San Francisco, came to snap Santa socksPasha Francuz was born in Chernivtsi, in western Ukraine, but left eight years ago, living in Poland and Italy before settling near San Francisco with his wife and teenage daughter.“A friend in Kyiv, Oleg, is a fashion designer, and sent me a few pairs of his socks to take some marketing shots of. It was one of the hottest days of the year, so I was down by our apartment complex’s pool with my friend and neighbour Nick. We took a series of photos, then Nick jumped in the water and this shot happened,” Francuz says. Continue reading...
Sources say new owner sought removal of #ThereIsHelp feature that appeared at top of certain searchesTwitter has removed a feature in the past few days that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, according to two people familiar with the matter, who said it was ordered by new owner Elon Musk.The removal of the feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, has not been previously reported. It had shown at the top of specific searches contacts for support organisations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, Covid19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression. Continue reading...
Curry in Delhi | Elderly resilience | Jeremy Clarkson | Ransomware attack on the GuardianI have a clear recollection of eating chicken tikka masala in August 1971 in Delhi, India. It was with my parents in Kwality restaurant in the then Connaught Place area (Ali Ahmed Aslam, inventor of chicken tikka masala, dies at 77, theguardian.com, 21 December).
Chinese parent company, ByteDance says four employees, based in both US and China, have been firedTikTok has admitted that it used its own app to spy on reporters as part of an attempt to track down the journalists’ sources, according to an internal email.The data was accessed by employees of ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company and was used to track the reporters’ physical movements. The company’s chief internal auditor Chris Lepitak, who led the team involved in the operation, has been fired, while his China-based manager Song Ye has resigned. Continue reading...
Additional technology – and potential extension to factory – could help raise production to up to 1bn chocolates a yearShiny tanks of molten chocolate stand guard over a factory floor where three production lines squirt, chill and fill festive treats into existence.Production of Hotel Chocolat’s Christmas selection starts in June at its factory in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and finishes several weeks before Christmas, when it switches to making Valentine’s Day and Easter delicacies. Continue reading...
by Edward Helmore in New York and Alex Hern in London on (#6744C)
FTX founder must remain under strict supervision at parents’ California home, judge saysThe fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was freed on $250m bail on Thursday, a day after agreeing to be extradited from the Bahamas.The 30-year-old faces eight charges connected to his role in the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX, which carry a maximum sentence of 110 years. Judge Gabriel Gorenstein said Bankman-Fried would have to remain under strict supervision at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California. Continue reading...
It your children have a new Xbox, Playstation or Nintendo Switch waiting under the tree, here is what you need to know about subscriptions, parental controls … and getting the most fun out of it for all the familyThe days of game consoles being ready for action as soon as they’re plugged in are long gone, I’m afraid. Whether you’ve gone for an Xbox, PlayStation or Switch, your machine will need time to download the latest firmware updates before you can play anything. Depending on your broadband connection this can take anything from one to eight hours, so if you’re a parent, you may want to think about how you’re going to keep everyone entertained until that’s done. If it’s not already beautifully wrapped, it may even be worth sneakily unpacking the console and doing this prep-work before Christmas morning. If you have a spare ethernet cable (or can nick one from your PC for a day), consider setting up your console with a wired connection to your router rather than over wifi – this usually gives you a faster, more reliable connection. Continue reading...
Layoffs have made a precarious situation for noncitizens even worse, forcing them to play a game of chance to stay in the USLess than a year ago, K was working with a US-based team at Amazon from one of the e-commerce giant’s many international outposts in east Asia. While the distance between himself and those on his team had made his role tricky, he was at a stable job, at a company in his home country where labor laws protected workers from layoffs and sudden terminations.To make it easier for him and his team to work together, Amazon offered him a role in the US and said it would sponsor his L visa – a temporary worker visa available to employees of US-based companies who transfer from an international office. Though that meant uprooting his family, including his children who did not speak English, K took the job, confident in the importance of his department, the Amazon’s devices team, to the company. Continue reading...
Carolyn Ellison, former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, co-founder of FTX, said to be cooperating with investigatorsTwo associates of Sam Bankman-Fried have pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and are helping investigators with their inquiries.News of the charges, guilty pleas and the pair’s cooperation with the investigation was only announced once the FTX co-founder was on a plane to the US from the Bahamas after he agreed to voluntary extradition to answer to charges tied to his role in the exchange’s failure. The aircraft touched down in New York at 10pm local time. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier and Hollie Richardso on (#673H3)
In this week’s newsletter: The new season of Queen of the Con tells the wild story of how the New York ‘rich girl’ stole $1m from the US government. Plus: five of the best documentary podcasts
Tesla shareholders hoping for the full attention of their distracted CEO are likely to be disappointedManagement by Twitter poll is such a silly idea that it remains hard to believe Elon Musk was being sincere when he invited the site’s users to determine if he should continue as chief executive. One suspects he had already decided to hire an executive to front the business – which is what, note, he told a Delaware court he would do several weeks ago. The poll merely created a buzz.In the unlikely event that users had voted to keep him as boss, Musk could have given roughly the same answer as the one he is giving now. In short, he will stay in charge for a while because a chief executive cannot be recruited overnight. Continue reading...
Elon Musk admits banning links to Twitter rival was a mistakeElon Musk’s chaotic autumn at Twitter has produced one clear winner: Mastodon, the open-source social network, has now grown to 2.5m users – triggering a land-grab for space on it from groups including browser makers, cryptocurrency advocates and other social networks.Despite the Twitter CEO’s best efforts to disparage the rival platform, Mastodon has grown by more than 800%, according to its founder and lead developer, Eugen Rochko, who said on Tuesday that it had jumped “from approximately 300k monthly active users to 2.5m between the months of October and November, with more and more journalists, political figures, writers, actors and organisations moving over”. Continue reading...
From robot-dinosaurs and hypersexual witches to epic clashes with mythological Gods and exquisite fantasies of supernatural wars, 2022 had it all – including a certain word game. Our critics pick the best
Incident has hit parts of media company’s technology infrastructure, with staff told to work from homeThe Guardian has been hit by a serious IT incident, which is believed to be a ransomware attack.The incident began late on Tuesday night and has affected parts of the company’s technology infrastructure, with staff told to work from home. Continue reading...
This is the first time the platform’s new owner has indicated he will pull back after calls for his ouster grewElon Musk said on Tuesday that he will not step down as chief executive of the company until he can find a suitable replacement, citing the state of the company’s finances as a reason to delay his promised departure.“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” Musk tweeted, before joining a Twitter livestream to discuss the company’s situation with a former intern. Continue reading...
The makers of the wheeled shoes promise to turbo-charge your daily stroll, allowing you to walk at 250% of your usual speed. Could they be the future of pedestrianism?Walking is all right, isn’t it, but it’s a bit slow. A bit ponderous. Wouldn’t it be good if you could walk, but, like, go faster? That is the premise of Moonwalkers: a pair of wheeled shoes that promise you can walk at running speed, without any of the effort of actually running. “Walk how you usually do, and our AI adapts to you,” reads the website blurb. “It’s not skating; it’s genuinely walking, so no new skills are necessary to learn.”The Moonwalkers sounded perfect. I don’t like learning new skills, but I do like the idea of going faster while putting in zero extra effort. That was enough. On a cold winter afternoon, I meet up with Joseph Yang, the lead software engineer on Moonwalkers at Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York City, looking out across a swirling Hudson River. Yang, 26, pulls a pair of the vaunted Moonwalkers out of a canvas bag and sets them on the ground. Continue reading...
Regional provider is owned by LetterOne, whose investors include Mikhail Fridman and Petr AvenThe UK government has ordered the Russian oligarch-backed investment company LetterOne to sell regional broadband provider Upp, saying its current ownership was a national security risk.The business secretary, Grant Shapps, said the risk to national security relates to “the ownership of Upp … and Upp’s expanding full fibre broadband network”. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: Musk has a talent for trying to wiggle out of trouble on Twitter, only to land deeper in it – this time by asking users if he should quit as chief executive
Crypto mogul’s lawyer in Bahamas says he wanted to see indictment before consenting to travel to face fraud chargesFallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried has now decided to agree to be extradited to the United States to face fraud charges, two of his lawyers said on Monday, just hours after one of them told a Bahamas judge the FTX founder wanted to see the US indictment against him before consenting.On Monday afternoon, Jerone Roberts, Bankman-Fried’s criminal defense lawyer in the Bahamas, told media outlets including the New York Times that his client had agreed to be voluntarily extradited and that he hoped Bankman-Fried would be back in court later this week. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#67112)
Monochrome device offers reading and handwriting on a big e-ink screen with very long battery lifeAmazon’s latest Kindle is a supersized e-reader that wants to replace not only the printed book but paper itself, offering reading and on-screen writing with the included stylus.The Scribe costs from £330 ($340) and is the firm’s largest and most expensive model yet with a 10.2in screen, dwarfing the 7in Oasis and 6.8in Paperwhite. Continue reading...
I forgot the Freeletics renewal date but £75 was taken from my account and I can’t get it backDo I have any rights against an automatic subscription renewal?A year ago I signed up to Freeletics, an exercise app. Since then I have stopped using it, and, unsurprisingly, forgot about the renewal date. Continue reading...
The billionaire says only paid Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to vote in future policy-related polls on the platformElon Musk has tweeted for the first time since more than 10 million people voted in favour of him stepping down as Twitter’s chief executive, saying that only paid Twitter Blue subscribers will be able to vote in future policy-related polls.On Sunday, Musk asked Twitter users whether he should step down as the head of the company, promising to abide by the results of his poll. When the poll closed on Monday, 57.5% said he should step down. Continue reading...
Epic Games agrees with FTC to pay $275m fine for collecting data on children and refund customers $245m for deceptive practicesThe video game company Epic Games will pay a total of $520m in penalties and refunds to settle complaints involving children’s privacy and methods that tricked players into making purchases, US federal regulators said on Monday.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that it had secured the record-breaking settlements for two cases from Epic Games, which makes the popular game Fortnite. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian