Technology | The Guardian

Climate coalition cites Twitter's lack of clear policies to stop incorrect information and confusion from Musk takeoverA report ranking climate change misinformation gave Twitter (recently rebranded as X) only a single point out of a 21-point scorecard when assessing policies aimed at reducing inaccurate information - the worst out of five major tech platforms.The Climate of Misinformation report by Climate Action Against Disinformation looked at Meta, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok and Twitter for their content moderation policies and efforts to mitigate inaccurate information such as climate denialism. The group, which is made up of dozens of international climate and anti-disinformation organizations including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, released the report to draw attention towards climate misinformation on major platforms and makes the claim that big tech has become a complicit actor" in accelerating the spread of climate denial. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Maligned on its 2016 release, No Man's Sky offers a richer, more human-centred drama than the Bethesda blockbuster's empty experience Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereLike several million other video game players, I spent many hours last week travelling the galaxy in Starfield, the latest adventure from Bethesda, the creator of Fallout and the Elder Scrolls. But as with a number of my colleagues in the games press, I have spent much of this time wondering what it is about the game that's not quite right, that's lacking somehow.The consensus - summed up neatly in Eurogamer's review and this PCGamesN op-ed - is that the game adheres too closely to the well-worn structure of modern open-world games, where an inescapable main narrative is bulked up with optional side challenges that give the illusion of freedom, without any of the substance or unpredictability, or indeed actual freedom. Starfield represents a highly commodified form of exploration in which player adventures are channeled into endless fetch quests and box-ticking busywork. You're free, but you're unable to create any meaning or narrative of your own. You are there to shop, to consume; it is the wonder of the cosmos repackaged into a tract about capitalist realism. Continue reading...

Brother and sister duo Grace and Harry Chadwick have followed in the footsteps of Charlie Brooker's Bandersnatch with an interactive film about body swappingThe receptionist is standing behind the hotel desk, his back towards me. An uncomfortable moment passes as I wait for him to register my presence. He doesn't move. A giant, Father Christmas-bearded man with colourful braces appears from a side door and silently sits in a tall chair. He looks directly at me, then his eyes flick to the bell on the reception desk. I ring it.Slowly, the receptionist turns around, revealing round, dark glasses, crooked teeth and a lined, almost cruel face. He speaks in a slow, vaguely unsettling drawl, seemingly mistaking me for someone called Miss Ray, who is apparently here for her final night". I mumble in surprise. He pauses, removing his glasses to reveal unseeing eyes. He's suspicious now, polite but threatening. He asks why I'm here. What do I tell him? Continue reading...

Company says it believes about 193,000 customers are affected by the breach, which it spotted in early SeptemberFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

In Home Office initiative, survivors urge Mark Zuckerberg to rethink changes to Messenger and InstagramMark Zuckerberg's plan to roll out encrypted messaging on his platforms will let child abusers hide in the dark", according to a government campaign urging the tech billionaire to halt the move.The Facebook founder has been under pressure from ministers over plans to automatically encrypt communications on his Messenger service later this year, with Instagram expected to follow soon after. Continue reading...

Company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device after getting green light from independent review boardElon Musk's brain-implant startup, Neuralink, said it has received approval from an independent review board to begin recruiting patients for its first human trial. The company is seeking people with paralysis to test its experimental device in a six-year study.Neuralink is one of several companies developing a brain-computer interface (BCI) that can collect and analyze brain signals. But its billionaire executive's bombastic promotion of the company, including promises to develop an all-encompassing brain computer to help humans keep up with artificial intelligence, has attracted skepticism and raised ethical concerns among neuroscientists and other experts. Continue reading...

AlphaMissense's predictions could help speed up research and diagnosis of rare disordersScientists at Google DeepMind have built an artificial intelligence program that can predict whether millions of genetic mutations are either harmless or likely to cause disease, in an effort to speed up research and the diagnosis of rare disorders.The program makes predictions about so-called missense mutations, where a single letter is misspelt in the DNA code. Such mutations are often harmless but they can disrupt how proteins work and cause diseases from cystic fibrosis and sickle-cell anaemia to cancer and problems with brain development. Continue reading...

Billionaire also says platform has 550 million monthly users generating up to 200m posts a dayElon Musk has indicated that X, formerly known as Twitter, is considering charging all users for accessing the platform.The X owner said erecting a paywall around the business would ward off the bots, or automated accounts, that have become a bugbear for Musk. Continue reading...

Alison Lomax, London chief of the video platform, says it is committed to embracing artificial intelligence - but responsibly'Alison Lomax's presence on the video streaming platform she runs is relatively scant compared with the YouTubers with whom she spends much of her time.But what clips exist succinctly chart the marketing tech revolution she's been navigating: there's a badly framed 12 minutes from 2014 of Lomax lecturing on the rise of influencers working with brands; in another she describes how TV companies woke up to the potential of partnering with YouTube in 2016; and there's her on stage at London's podcast show this year, discussing YouTube's imminent relaunch into the booming audio format. Continue reading...

Unredacted court documents show digital-only cylindrical Xbox Series X console plans, a new controller and future Bethesda games releasesAn unredacted document accidentally made public as part of Microsoft's court battle with the Federal Trade Commission over its proposed $69bn acquisition of Activision Blizzard has revealed key information regarding the future of Xbox as well as forthcoming video games and messages regarding a potential bid to buy Nintendo.One piece of documentation, dated from April 2022, details Microsoft's plan to launch refreshed versions of its Xbox Series S and Series X consoles in September and November 2024 respectively. The Xbox Series X update, codenamed Project Brooklin is, according to the document, set to be digital only - with no disc drive - and features a new cylindrical design, 2TB storage drive, faster wifi, and a new version of the Xbox controller with motion controls via a new accelerometer and a swappable, rechargeable battery. The Xbox Series S (codenamed Ellewood) is also set to boast faster wifi as well as a 1TB storage drive and lower power consumption. Continue reading...

Hampstead theatre, London

In this week's newsletter: It's been ten years since the dawn of the iPhone age - and since I started covering tech at the Guardian. This is how much the world has changed since Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe annual cadence of Apple's money-printing press conferences is a big date on the tech journalism calendar. It might not be exciting any more (as we discussed last year), with a steady stream of leaks removing the chance of big surprises and an increasingly incremental approach to product design ensuring that each year's release is mostly the same as the previous year's. But it's still a big moment for readers, reporters and the industry.For me, it's also a personal milestone. I joined the Guardian when the iPhone 5S was announced, and I've covered technology here for ten years since then. Continue reading...

Mayor of London expected to tell social media firms of campaign and urge them to bear down on the attempts to distort truth'Sadiq Khan is expected to claim that hundreds of thousands of dollars" were spent on an anti-Ulez online manipulation campaign on Twitter, citing research conducted after Labour's unexpected Uxbridge byelection defeat.The London mayor, who will speak at a conference in New York on Tuesday, said he feared that disinformation and manipulation campaigns were spreading apace" but it was not always clear who was behind them. Continue reading...

Benjamin Netanyahu called on the billionaire owner to clamp down on the hate on the site formerly known as TwitterIsrael's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, urged Elon Musk to address the proliferation of antisemitism on the billionaire's social media platform X.In an in-person meeting in California on Monday, Netanyahu said he hoped Musk would find ways within the confines of the first amendment to clamp down on antisemitism and other forms of hatred on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Continue reading...

Risks include high prices as well as proliferation of false information, fraud and fake reviews, says CMAPeople should not assume a positive outcome from the artificial intelligence boom, the UK's competition watchdog has warned, citing risks including a proliferation of false information, fraud and fake reviews as well as high prices for using the technology.The Competition and Markets Authority said people and businesses could benefit from a new generation of AI systems but dominance by entrenched players and flouting of consumer protection law posed a number of potential threats. Continue reading...

One in three online daters have been ditched by emoji. But what are the symbols that spell out It's not you, it's me'?Name: Emoji dumping.Age: No more than 15. Continue reading...

X owner makes comment on his platform as he prepares to meet Israeli prime minister Benjamin NetanyahuElon Musk has accused George Soros's foundation of wanting to destroy western civilisation, as the tech tycoon prepares to meet the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in California.Musk made the comment in reply to a post by a user sharing footage of people arriving on the Italian island of Lampedusa from north Africa that referred to a George Soros led invasion" of Europe. Continue reading...

iPhone upgrade joined by watchOS 10 and iPadOS 17, adding new features to Apple's mobile devicesApple plans to release software updates for its iPhone, iPad and smartwatch on Monday, adding new features and designs for compatible devices.Announced at the company's developer conference in June, iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and watchOS 10 add a much-improved keyboard with autocorrect that will let you swear, new standby modes, contact posters, greater customisation and the biggest reworking of the Apple Watch's interface since launch. Continue reading...

National cybersecurity coordinator Darren Goldie reveals some clients with personal information exposed in hack on law firm yet to be informed

Internet and Technology Addicts Anonymous is based on the principles of AA, offering community support to aid recoveryHi, my name is Sarah* and I am an internet and technology addict."So began a meeting on a recent Wednesday afternoon, as 18 people quietly gathered on a Zoom call. Text in their small video boxes showed they hailed from locations as disparate as Oregon, India and Namibia. Continue reading...

The tech mogul is portrayed as a brutal visionary with father issues in this comprehensive biographyThe big question in the public mind about Elon Musk, as a London cabbie once put it to me, is whether he's a pillock or a genius". The quick answer is that he's both; a better answer is that there's a lot of detail between those two extremes - so much so, in fact, that it takes Walter Isaacson 688 pages to cram it all in. But cram it in he does.Isaacson is an experienced biographer, with lives of Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, Jennifer Doudna and Steve Jobs to his credit. With the benefit of hindsight, that last volume looks like a practice run for a life of Elon Musk, who, like Jobs, makes people wonder whether appalling personal behaviour can be separated from the relentless drive that has made him successful. Continue reading...

The tech giant has bowed to European legislation with a USB-C connector on its new iPhone but the UK government has failed to make messaging services toe the line on encryptionSometimes, when Apple launches a new device (or even an upgrade of an existing one), it's tempting to think that the accompanying blurb is a satirical spoof. On Tuesday, the day the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus were launched in California, for example, it burbled that both phones featured industry-first colour-infused back glass with a stunning, textured matt finish and a new contoured edge on the aluminium enclosure. Both models feature the dynamic island [which displays outputs and alerts] and an advanced camera system designed to help users take fantastic photos of everyday moments in their lives. A powerful 48MP [megapixel] main camera enables super-high-resolution photos and a new 2x telephoto option to give users a total of three optical zoom levels - like having a third camera. The iPhone 15 lineup also introduces the next generation of portraits, making it easier to capture portraits with great detail and low-light performance."Oh, and by the way, it also has a USB-C charging port. This information, which comes towards the end of the blurb, is both interesting and symbolic: interesting because it signals that Apple is finally bowing to the EU's requirement that all electronic devices should use the USB-C standard by 2024; and symbolic because it demonstrates that regulators can clip the wings of even the most powerful companies if they are resolute and clear about the consequences of noncompliance. Continue reading...

Banks and insurers join Google, Amazon and Meta in encouraging staff to spend most of week in officeFree parking and changes to managers' bonuses have helped Britain's biggest insurer, Aviva, lure staff back to their desks for most of the working week.Welcome to the new-old world of work: where companies, particularly those in financial services and technology, push for staff to spend more days in the office as they try to rebalance the working from home trend. Continue reading...

Newly unsealed court filings show company turned over messages after receiving search warrant in election subversion caseTwitter gave the special counsel prosecuting Donald Trump for alleged election subversion access to at least 32 of the former president's private messages.The company, now known as X, turned over the messages after receiving a search warrant, CNN first reported on Friday, citing newly unsealed filings to the US circuit court of appeals. Continue reading...

PlayStation 5

Irish data regulator says platform put 13- to 17-year-old users' accounts on default public setting, among other breachesTikTok has been fined 345m (296m) for breaking EU data law in its handling of children's accounts, including failing to shield underage users' content from public view.The Irish data watchdog, which regulates TikTok across the EU, said the Chinese-owned video app had committed multiple breaches of GDPR rules. Continue reading...

The AFP is the latest organisation revealed to have been caught up in the HWL Ebsworth hack, perpetrated by a Russian ransomware group in April

With videos that are part thirst trap, part protest, gen Z is changing the image of the nu metal fanAt first listen, a song with violent and sexual imagery seems like an unlikely anthem for women who dressed up to see the Barbie movie. But many on TikTok are claiming Custer, by the nu metal band Slipknot, as a feminist anthem.In TikTok videos, girly pop" creators who celebrate dressing up, doing their makeup, and enjoying the fluffiness of girlhood are twerking along to the loud and aggressive metal track. Continue reading...

Greater Manchester police becomes latest entity to fall victim to this kind of hackThe Greater Manchester police force has become the latest entity to fall victim to a now well-established form of cyberattack: the ransomware hack.GMP said on Thursday a third-party supplier holding information on its employees had been breached. It is understood that data potentially exposed in the hack included the details of officers' name badges such as ranks, photos and serial numbers. Continue reading...

Justice department takes on tech giant in court, seeking to prove it illegally used its power to maintain monopoly on internet searchThe court battle between the US justice department and Google has entered its second day, as the United States government seeks to prove that the tech behemoth illegally leveraged its power to maintain a monopoly over internet search engines. The trial is a major test of antitrust law and could have far-reaching implications for the tech industry and for how people engage with the internet.The question at the heart of the trial is whether Google's place as the search engine for most Americans is the result of anti-competitive practices that gave internet users no other choice but to use its services. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: Unconcerned with things like enemies or objectives, this experimental food game is chaotic yet oddly soothing Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereA shower of chopped onions fall into a bowl of broth, making little plinks on its surface. They are joined by thick ribbons of noodle, and then ... an entire raw steak, which flops off the table. Then everything begins to levitate and pulse with multicoloured light.Everyone I know is playing either Baldur's Gate or Starfield, and here I am playing with my food. Nour: Play With Your Food is a strange wee game that I first played years ago at a video game convention, and it's finally been released. The game presents you with delicious little scenes - a burger tray, a sushi set, a bath full of ice-cream with a shower that sprays colourful sprinkles - and then you press buttons to make delectable objects fall from the sky. Do it in time to the music, and weird stuff begins to happen. The lettuce will start dancing, or a jellyfish will show up. Continue reading...

Apple disputing tests by watchdog that showed radio frequency exposure was higher than permittedApple is facing a ban on the sale and potential recall of its iPhone 12 in France, as the US company contests a report that the smartphone exceeds radio frequency exposure limits by the nation's regulator.Apple said on Wednesday its iPhone 12 was certified by multiple international bodies as compliant with global radiation standards, disputing tests by the French ANFR watchdog that said the model emits more electromagnetic waves susceptible to be absorbed by the body than permitted. Continue reading...

Games creators attack the fees, due for implementation in 2024, as company executive dials back on initial planTech company Unity has sought to clarify its decision to charge a controversial new fee to game developers. A blogpost on its official site last night announced the company would be introducing a runtime fee", which would require developers to pay a fixed sum each time a game built using the Unity Engine was installed by a player.Unity stipulated that the fee would only be chargeable after a game made $200,000 (160,000) in 12 months and had at least 200,000 lifetime game installs, but developers nevertheless vented outrage on social media. Continue reading...

Young people are growing up online, just a few clicks away from explicit content. As part of a theatre project, I asked them a simple question - what do you think about it?Between 2016 and 2022, I spoke to around 10,000 children and young people aged between six and 22 about the impact of pornography on their lives. These children were from right across the UK and a range of backgrounds. I met children in classrooms, youth theatres and clubs; I got in my car and travelled to Dundee,Cornwall, Derby, Pembrokeshire and Newcastle.I am a theatre director and maker and undertook this research as part of the creation of two new musicals: Why is the Sky Blue? (Southwark Playhouse) and You don't need to make a Big Song and Dance out of it (National Theatre Connections Festival); made with my brilliant collaborators Matt Regan and Shireen Mula, and produced by Tackroom. Continue reading...

Senator Richard Blumenthal urges risk-based approach to regulation as panel hears from companies at forefront of AI boomMicrosoft and the chipmaker Nvidia are the latest companies to take the hot seat in a series of Senate judiciary hearings on artificial intelligence as the federal government continues to grapple with how to regulate the technology.Microsoft's president, Brad Smith, and Nvidia's chief scientist, William Dally, are testifying on Tuesday alongside Woodrow Hartzog, a professor of law at Boston University School of Law. Continue reading...

Company dumps Lightning port, and has titanium sides and new 5x zoom for top models, plus new Apple Watch Series 9Apple has announced that the iPhone 15 makes its long awaited switch to USB-C, while gaining much extended camera zoom for its most expensive Pro model.The new line of smartphones for 2023 was unveiled on Tuesday by the chief executive, Tim Cook, alongside several new Apple Watches and AirPods Pro 2 earbuds with USB-C charging, all of which the firm hopes will tempt customers to switch or upgrade and buck its recent share price slide. Continue reading...

PC (version played), PlayStation 4/5; Gammera Nest/Astrolabe Games

From consulting with military advisers on raid tactics to tailoring responses for different player styles ... the game's development team take us inside their creative campaignThe Call of Duty games are huge, multimillion dollar affairs. They are built by hundreds of staff working in studios across the globe, each dealing with specific aspects of the production. Their budgets are the same as the biggest Hollywood movies - ie vast, but then so are the rewards. The last title in the series, Modern Warfare II, a reimagining of the hugely successful 2009 original, made $1bn in 10 days. This is as big as entertainment gets. So what is it like for the storytellers working on this leviathan, who need to create narrative cogency and tie it all together?For most of its millions of players, Call of Duty is all about multiplayer mode, but each instalment's single-player campaign is an explosive, cinematic adventure, pitching lone players against waves of enemy soldiers as planes crash, buildings fall and nuclear missiles scorch across the sky. The protagonists of the current Modern Warfare series are Task Force 141, a ragtag group of spec-ops warriors led by SAS veteran and moustache enthusiast Capt Price; their arch-nemesis is Makarov, a Russian ultranationalist, sociopath and the Thanos to their Avengers. Continue reading...

The plant will inject 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the ground each year - but is it just greenwashing from big oil?Rising out of the arid scrubland of western Texas is the world's largest project yet to remove excess carbon dioxide (CO) from the atmosphere, a quest that has been lauded as essential to help avert climate catastrophe. The creators of the project have now been awarded funding from the Biden administration, even as critics attack the technology as a fossil fuel industry-backed distraction.Proponents of setting up enormous fans to gulp in huge amounts of air and remove planet-heating carbon from it, a process called direct air capture (DAC), are basking in their greatest breakthroughs yet in the US. In June, ceremonial shovels were plunged into the dirt in Ector county, Texas, to mark the start of a $1bn project called Stratos, which aims to remove 500,000 tons of CO from the atmosphere a year once fully operational in 2025. Continue reading...

Elon Musk's hindrance of a Ukraine attack via Starlink caused a row. But other firms have similar power, and need scrutinyThe revelations that Ukrainian naval operations were blocked by a lack of support from Elon Musk's Starlink system cast light on to his complex relationship with Russia and Ukraine.But it is an area that deserves more light still, for Starlink's parent, SpaceX, is far from the only technology company playing a vital role in Ukraine's resistance against the Russian invasion. Household names such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and others have also been essential to the defence of Ukraine. Continue reading...

How a dedicated collector rallied an international team to track down the long-forgotten 1981 title and painstakingly recreate the original cabinetNintendo's arcade games were hit and miss in early days, with titles such as Monkey Magic and Space Firebird failing to leave much of a lasting impression. That all changed in the summer of 1981 with the release of the all-conquering Donkey Kong (designed by a young Shigeru Miyamoto), which went on to become one of the bestselling arcade games of all time, as well as marking the debut of Mario.But that same year, Miyamoto worked with director Genyo Takeda on an arcade game that has since been all but forgotten. Sky Skipper featured giant gorillas, just like Donkey Kong, but here the player was piloting a biplane and collecting anthropomorphic playing cards. Continue reading...

Symptoms include trembling, disorientation, tachycardia and changes to your breathing. If only there was someone you could call ...Name: Nomophobia.Age: The term is 15 years old, although the condition is older. Continue reading...

US justice department accuses Google of monopolizing search space in landmark case to start on TuesdayThe trial in a landmark antitrust case against Google is scheduled to start on Tuesday in Washington district court over charges of monopolizing the online search space.The suit, filed by the US justice department in 2020, represents the biggest legal challenge to the power and influence of big tech in decades, and could be a bellwether in the fight against the industry's monopolies. Continue reading...

Long battery life, great sound and solid noise-cancelling make for a good buy - but Sony can't beat BoseSony's latest top-end Bluetooth earbuds are smaller, lighter and more comfortable, promising class-leading noise cancelling and quality sound - but that is no longer enough to stand out from the crowd.The WF-1000XM5 cost 259 ($299.99/A$419) and are the fifth generation of the firm's standard-setting earbuds, replacing the excellent XM4s from a couple of years ago. Continue reading...

Schools minister Lotta Edholm moves students off digital devices and on to books and handwriting, with teachers and experts debating the pros and consSince young children went back to school across Sweden recently, many of their teachers have been putting a new emphasis on printed books, quiet reading time and handwriting practice, and devoting less time to tablets, independent online research and keyboarding skills.The return to more traditional ways of learning is a response to politicians and experts questioning whether Sweden's hyper-digitalised approach to education, including the introduction of tablets in nursery schools, had led to a decline in basic skills. Continue reading...

Surveying everything from hunter gatherers to Elon Musk, the Cambridge politics professor debates whether our fate is sealed by the machines we've createdBack in 2016, a month before the EU referendum, I went along to the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford to interview its director, the Swedish-born philosopher Nick Bostrom, who had just written a book called Superintelligence. The book outlined the existential risk to democracy and humanity implied by advances in machine learning. Bostrom's institute, which sought to weigh the apocalyptic potential of various humanity-threatening forces, had just been given a 1m grant by Elon Musk.If I think about that encounter, I remember three things. The first was that when I arrived a bed was being delivered to the institute, cementing the belief that anxiety about impending catastrophe was, these days, a 24/7 kind of occupation. The second was that the germophobic Bostrom was the first interviewee I'd met who insisted on fist bumps rather than handshakes (the shape of things to come). And the third was his insistence that in important ways, artificial intelligence posed a more imminent threat to the survival of our species than, say, climate crisis or pandemics or nuclear war. Continue reading...

The fast-growing US writing platform has come of age, offering all kinds of newsletters from a range of writers and experts for a subscription or even free. But how do you find the good stuff? We pick some of the best by themeSubstack - the American tech platform that enables anyone to create, publish, and (if they wish) get paid for a subscription newsletter - has belatedly become the New New Thing in mainstream media (MSM) discourse. It's actually been around for ever (since 2017, ie 42 internet-years ago) and you could think of it as the continuation of blogging by other means (and indeed, the tradition of conspiracy-theorising is alive and well on Substack). But MSM was never much interested in blogs - possibly because many journalists, like Samuel Johnson, regard anyone who writes for nothing as an imbecile. Substack, though, they can understand, because well-known writers (including a few famous hacks) appear to be earning serious money from it.Substack is free for authors, operationally reliable and easy to use. If you want to charge subscribers a monthly fee, there's a simple button to activate it. The financial side is handled by Stripe; Substack takes 10%, and Stripe levies a 3% fee, but after that it's all yours (and the tax collector's). Continue reading...

Geopolitics may affect sales in a big market - and customers may be annoyed by the new charging socket tooApple chief executive Tim Cook will hope that the launch of the latest iPhones on Tuesday will be enough to buoy consumers and investors in the face of a falling share price caused by deteriorating international relations.Almost $200bn (160bn) was wiped from this most valuable tech stock last week as escalating tensions between Beijing and Washington threatened to restrict sales in one of its biggest markets: China accounts for roughly a fifth of Apple's revenue. Reports of the Chinese government clamping down on use of the American devices by state employees may be having a wider chilling effect as consumers across the country are encouraged to buy from homegrown champions such as Huawei. Continue reading...

The US firm best known for its gaming tech has long been ahead of the curve in supplying the tools needed by tech developersIt's not often that the jaws of Wall Street analysts drop to the floor but late last month it happened: Nvidia, a company that makes computer chips, issued sales figures that blew the street's collective mind. It had pulled in $13.5bn in revenue in the last quarter, which was at least $2bn more than the aforementioned financial geniuses had predicted. Suddenly, the surge in the company's share price in May that had turned it into a trillion-dollar company made sense.Well, up to a point, anyway. But how had a company that since 1998 - when it released the revolutionary Riva TNT video and graphics accelerator chip - had been the lodestone of gamers become worth a trillion dollars, almost overnight? The answer, oddly enough, can be found in the folk wisdom that emerged in the California gold rush of the mid-19th century, when it became clear that while few prospectors made fortunes panning for gold, the suppliers who sold them picks and shovels prospered nicely. Continue reading...

Two studies use artificial intelligence to analyse old master' painting and return opposite verdictsAuthenticating works of art is far from an exact science, but a madonna and child painting has sparked a furious row, being dubbed the battle of the AIs", after two separate scientific studies arrived at contradictory conclusions.Both studies used state-of-the art AI technology. Months after one study proclaimed that the so-called de Brecy Tondo, currently on display at Bradford council's Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, is undoubtedly" by Raphael, another has found that it cannot be by the Renaissance master. Continue reading...