Tech giant fired number of people who protested against $1.2bn Project Nimbus, which supports Israeli military and governmentGoogle has been accused of throwing a tantrum" after sacking more than 50 workers in response to a protest over the company's military ties to the Israeli government - firings that have shone a light on a controversial project and long-simmering tensions between staff and management.The workers were sacked following protests at Google offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, organized by No Tech for Apartheid - an alliance of Google and Amazon workers who have been protesting against a $1.2bn contract with the Israeli government called Project Nimbus that they claim will make it easier for the Israeli government to surveil Palestinians and force them off their land". Continue reading...
The photographer documents daily life at Sunda Kelapa harbour in North Jakarta, Indonesia, including the schoolchildren who turn it into their playgroundAfter school, many of the children local to theSunda Kelapa harbour, in North Jakarta, Indonesia, go down to the water to swim and play. Jelly Febrian enjoys shootingthe daily activities there whenever the weather isgood. Always preparedfor the right moment, he carries his phone with him tocapture crews loadingtheir boats, people fishing, and boysand girls jumping from the boats,aspictured.In the maritime villages near here there aren't many fields, so the children mostly play around the pier. Every boat that docks here has a different owner and purpose, they load and unload basic necessities, and every week they sail to other Indonesian islands, such as Papua, Sumatra and Sulawesi. Continue reading...
Federal transportation agency finds Tesla's claims about feature don't match their findings and opens second investigationUS auto-safety regulators said on Friday that their investigation into Tesla's Autopilot had identified at least 13 fatal crashes in which the feature had been involved. The investigation also found the electric carmaker's claims did not match up with reality.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) disclosed on Friday that during its three-year Autopilot safety investigation, which it launched in August 2021, it identified at least 13 Tesla crashes involving one or more death, and many more involving serious injuries, in which foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role". Continue reading...
Ultimate firepower companion' is purportedly for wildlife control, ecological conservation, and snow and ice removalWhat has four legs and can breathe fire? Apparently the Thermonator, a controversial first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog".According to Throwflame, an Ohio-based company that manufactures flamethrowers, its latest invention features a 30ft firing range, light detection and range mapping, as well as laser sighting, aboard a battery-powered thing with legs that can jump around. Continue reading...
Tech company's shares rise as it plans to reward investors after strong quarterly resultsGoogle's parent company has hit a stock market value of $2tn (1.6tn) as investors reacted to a declaration of its first ever dividend alongside strong results on Thursday.Shares in Alphabet rose 10% in early Wall Street trading on Friday to give the tech group a stock market capitalisation - a measure of a corporation's value - of more than $2tn. Alphabet last hit that level in intraday trading in 2021, but Friday was the first time it has closed above that benchmark. Continue reading...
EV sales have plateaued across the world but the newfound glut of vehicles may just be temporaryElon Musk became the world's richest man by evangelising about electric cars - and delivering them by the million. Yet in recent months his company, Tesla, has struggled to maintain its momentum: sales have dropped this year, and so has its share price.Those struggles have become emblematic of a broader reckoning facing the electric vehicle (EV) industry. After the soaring demand and valuations of the coronavirus pandemic years, the pace of sales growth has slowed. The industry has entered a new phase, with questions over whether the switch from petrol and diesel to cleaner electric is facing a troublesome stall or a temporary speed bump. Continue reading...
It may have looked like something you'd see a bank teller use, but it withstood heavy battering. And it ran the coolest gamesI have told my wife that I want a Mini Amiga for Christmas. I know it's only April, but I do this with things I want in the hope that when it suddenly appears in the house next week, my wife will think she bought it for me. I have slipped the purchase of seven games machines, a stuffed tarantula and an air fryer under the radar this way. In an inconsistent world, I like the way this institution of marriage works.I read the reviews and was surprised at the appearance of two words I never associated with the original Amiga: cool, and love. It might seem strange to say the Amiga wasn't loved, because a lot of people bought and used one. But people use things every day that they don't love: electric shavers, patience, door handles, the train. Continue reading...
App's secret source' algorithm reportedly core to operations of parent company, which sources say make a sale highly unlikelyByteDance would prefer to shut down TikTok rather than sell it if the Chinese company exhausts all legal options to fight legislation to ban the platform from app stores in the US, four sources said.The algorithms TikTok relies on for its operations are deemed core to ByteDance's overall operations, which would make a sale of the app with algorithms highly unlikely, said the sources close to the parent. Continue reading...
World's largest public company reports $61.86bn revenue after investing billions into artificial intelligenceProfits at Microsoft beat Wall Street's expectations as its heavy bet on artificial intelligence continued to bear fruit in the latest quarter.The technology giant has invested billions of dollars into AI in a bid to turbocharge its growth, particularly of its cloud computing services. Its cloud computing revenue surged by more than 20%. Continue reading...
Shares surge after tech giant issues first ever dividend and posts revenue of $80.5bn, up 15% since last year, despite staff turmoilShares in Alphabet, the owner of Google and YouTube, surged after it issued its first ever dividend and revealed that profits had surged in the last quarter.Sundar Pichai, CEO, hailed the transition to artificial intelligence as a once-in-a-generation opportunity" as his company races to integrate the technology across its business. Continue reading...
Snap's share surged 21% in after-hours trading as app's users increased by 422 million, bringing in $1.2bn in revenueShares in the owner of Snapchat surged 21% during after-hours trading after the social media group beat Wall Street's expectations for quarterly revenue and user growth.Improvements to Snap's advertising system are delivering results faster than anticipated, the company said. Continue reading...
Strict rules have led to a wild west of rentals, with visitors choosing between huge hotel bills or word-of-mouth dealsUntil recently, visitors to New York basically had two options: hotel rooms or short-term rental platforms like Airbnb. But in September 2023, the city started enforcing a 2022 law that banned people from renting their homes for fewer than 30 days (unless the host stayed in the home with guests).Now the only legit option for people visiting the city is hotel rooms - and they're unaffordable for many. Most of the Times Square hotels don't have rooms for less than $300 a night. A search for Thursday 2 May found the Muse at $356, Hampton Inn at $323 and the Hard Rock at $459 (although, because of dynamic pricing, these are subject to regular change). They're getting more expensive still. Hotel rates have increased between the first quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2023 at twice the rate of inflation, said Jan Freitag, an analyst at the real-estate data firm CoStar Group. Continue reading...
by Hollie Richardson and Hannah Verdier on (#6MB41)
In this week's newsletter: TV journalist Scott Bryan looks back at the making of I Wanna Marry Harry" - and the dubious ethics behind the show. Plus: five of the best podcasts hosted by pop stars Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThe Competition
Tired of colonial artefacts being hoarded, Chidi Nwaubani and Ahmed Abokor use tech to redistribute them from museums in audacious digital heistsIn March last year, two men in tracksuits, wearing hockey masks and carrying matching laundry bags, headed for the British Museum. Just outside, patrolling police asked the two strange-looking men where they were going. We're going to the British Museum to loot back stolen goods," one of them said. Well, we'll see you in there then!" the policewoman answered.But no arrests were made, as nothing incriminating happened. What did take place was a digital heist" of one of the most famous objects in the British Museum, an artefact that is, according to Egyptologist Monica Hanna, a symbol of western cultural power" and of British imperialism": the Rosetta Stone. Continue reading...
Push to integrate AI into Meta products boosts financial results, but share prices tumble with weak sales forecastMeta's drive to integrate artificial intelligence into its products yielded strong financial results for the second quarter in a row. The company plans to spend even more on AI in the coming months, though, and its share price slumped more than 15% as the company reported earnings on Wednesday. A weak sales forecast and higher spending guidance rattled investors.Mark Zuckerberg said his main focus for the rest of 2024 and probably 2025 would be getting millions or billions of people to use Meta AI" rather than generating revenue from it. He cautioned that Meta products such as Instagram Reels had in the past not immediately generated revenue as they scaled before they became profitable pieces of Meta's ad business. Continue reading...
Service suspended in France and Spain amid safety and addiction concerns among children, in first use of new digital lawsA TikTok service offering rewards such as gift vouchers for watching videos has been suspended by the company shortly after the EU threatened to block it amid fears of addiction among children.On Monday the digital commissioner, Thierry Breton, said the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform had failed to prove" the feature on TikTok Lite, which launched recently in France and Spain, complied with obligations under sweeping new Digital Service Act (DSA) laws. Continue reading...
Microsoft and Amazon asked to comment on tie-ups, a move that paves way for formal investigationThe UK competition watchdog has stepped up its scrutiny of big tech involvement in artificial intelligence startups, asking for comment on three deals by Microsoft and Amazon.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it was examining Microsoft's investment in the French firm Mistral and the hiring of the DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as head of the US company's new AI division. The watchdog is also scrutinising Amazon's $4bn (3.2bn) investment in the US AI firm Anthropic. Continue reading...
Harry Daniels's TikToks of him singing awkwardly at stars alternate between trolling and displays of love for celebrities - but how does he do it?Billie Eilish has run from him. Doja Cat stopped her security detail to allow for a sidewalk serenade of Paint the Town Red. Charli XCX let him sing a few bars from I Got It before telling him You need to work on it," turning on her heel, and strutting back to her car.Harry Daniels stakes out celebrities such as Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, Ellie Goulding - and, uh, Joe Biden - and serenades them while filming their responses for TikTok. Most of these interactions appear spontaneous, as if the celebrities are genuinely surprised to be accosted by a 20-year-old man singing at them, usually terribly and oftentimes with their own songs. When Daniels found Jacob Elordi at a restaurant, the Saltburn star stayed across the room next to a bodyguard-type, looking amused but slightly wary as Daniels crooned Murder on the Dancefloor his way. Continue reading...
Shares up despite dip in revenue and profits after company said it expects to release new vehicle models sooner than expectedTesla shares surged nearly 10% in after-hours trading on Tuesday after posting earnings results, despite a revenue miss for the first quarter of 2024, a steep decline in profits, and a recall of its most recently released car, the $100,000 Cybertruck.The electric vehicle manufacturer posted $21.3bn in revenue, lower than the $21.48bn that was estimated and a 9% drop year over year - marking its biggest decline since 2012. Profit was $1.1bn, a 55% decline from the first quarter of 2023, the company said. Continue reading...
The head of the company's gaming subscription service explains its priorities as it anticipates the Vision Pro revolution, and tries to bring originality to a market still dominated by free to play mobile titlesWhen Apple launched its games subscription service, Arcade, in September 2019, it drew a huge amount of attention - as with everything the company does. Offering 100 premium (ie, not ad-infested) mobile games for a monthly subscription fee of 4.99/$4.99 (now 6.99), and the promise of more titles to come, it was an attempt to bring the Netflix business model to gaming.It offered an alternative in a mobile gaming market in which free-to-play and ad-supported games were dominant. The dominance of behemoths such as Genshin Impact, Clash of Clans and Candy Crush previously made it difficult for the makers of paid-for, premium games to find an audience, but Arcade offered a range of curated titles that could run across Apple's devices - iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV - with no ads or in-app purchases. Games also worked offline, eliminating the annoyance of being kicked out of a game on the London Underground. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: While Apple removed the platform from App Stores without a squeak of public protest, its battle with the EU rages on. Plus, how a ban in the US could change TikTok everywhere Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereAnother day, another set of troubles for Apple's App Store. This time, the company had bowed to orders from the Chinese state to remove WhatsApp and Threads, two of the last Meta apps still available in the country.From our story:Apple confirmed it had withdrawn the two apps - both owned by Meta, also the owner of Facebook - under instruction from the Cyberspace Administration of China, which regulates and censors China's highly restricted internet and online content.The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns," Apple said in an emailed statement to Reuters. We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree."The House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 on the updated divest-or-ban [TikTok] bill that could lead to the first time ever that the US government has passed a law to shut down an entire social media platform.The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation. Continue reading...
AI models take every toxic gendered beauty norm and bundle them up into completely unrealistic packageMeet Madame Potato. She doesn't actually exist, but, if things go my way, she's going to be the world's first Miss AI". I recently created her image on a website that generates AI faces and then entered her into a beauty pageant. Now I am sitting back in anticipation of netting the $20,000 grand prize.What fresh hell is this, you ask? Well, I regret to inform you that AI beauty pageants are a thing now. A company called Fanvue, which is a subscription-based content creator platform along the same lines as OnlyFans, recently teamed up with the World AI Creator Awards (WAICA) to launch the world's first Miss AI" competition. A team of judges - comprising two humans and two virtual models - will sort through AI-generated pictures of women and choose one to crown as Miss AI". The winner gets a cash prize along with the chance to monetize their creation on Fanvue. Continue reading...
Internet Watch Foundation has found a manual on dark web encouraging criminals to use software tools that remove clothingPaedophiles are being urged to use artificial intelligence to create nude images of children to extort more extreme material from them, according to a child abuse charity.The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) said a manual found on the dark web contained a section encouraging criminals to use nudifying" tools to remove clothing from underwear shots sent by a child. The manipulated image could then be used against the child to blackmail them into sending more graphic content, the IWF said. Continue reading...
As one of the largest training' datasets has been found to contain child sexual abuse material, can bans on creating such imagery be feasible?Child abusers are creating AI-generated deepfakes" of their targets in order to blackmail them into filming their own abuse, beginning a cycle of sextortion that can last for years.Creating simulated child abuse imagery is illegal in the UK, and Labour and the Conservatives have aligned on the desire to ban all explicit AI-generated images of real people. Continue reading...
App feature could be suspended unless child safety concerns addressed, in first use of sweeping new digital powersThe EU has said it will ban a new service launched by TikTok in Europe that it believes could be as addictive as cigarettes" unless the company offers compelling" fresh evidence that children are safeguarded.If the ban goes ahead, it would be the first time the EU has used sweeping new powers to impose sanctions on social media companies since its landmark Digital Service Act (DSA) came into force last August. Continue reading...
Experts say setting boundaries online creates a healthier digital environment and helps preserve your mental wellbeingI don't generally believe in life hacks. As much as I'd love to imagine that one easy tweak could resurface my life like it's a cracked tennis court, time and experience have shown me that positive change usually comes slowly and incrementally.But there is one hack I fully believe in. It's fast and free, and will instantly change your life for the better: just mute people who annoy you on social media. Continue reading...
Platform's future in US in doubt after House approves bill ordering Bytedance to sell stakeTikTok has said it will fight any ban or forced sale of the app's US operation in the courts, after the House of Representatives passed legislation targeting the viral video platform.The company's future in the US was placed in further doubt over the weekend after lawmakers in Washington passed a bill that will ban the app if TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its stake in the American business. Continue reading...
High court action will claim US owner allowed access to app users' private information in breach of UK lawGrindr faces the prospect of legal action by hundreds of users who will allege that the dating app shared highly sensitive personal information, including in some cases their HIV status, with advertising companies.The law firm Austen Hays is to file a claim on Monday in London's high court alleging that the US owner of the app breached British data protection laws. Continue reading...
by Robyn Vinter North of England correspondent on (#6M876)
Two friends tell their story for National Stalking Awareness Week, as police bring in new powers to protect victimsMaddy Laing and Phoebe Collin had not seen the camera pointing at them as they walked down a busy Manchester street last April.It was a warm spring day and the women were wearing brightly coloured cycling shorts, oblivious to the fact that someone was taking voyeuristic videos of their bodies using a device held below waist level. Continue reading...
Global vehicle deliveries fall for first time in four years amid growing competition, while Cybertruck faces recallTesla slashed prices of three of its five models in the US late on Friday, then went on to cut prices around the globe - including in China and Germany - as the company faces falling sales, a Cybertruck recall and an intensifying war for electric vehicles (EVs).On Friday, the company, led by the billionaire Elon Musk, cut the prices of the Model Y, a small SUV that is Tesla's most popular model and the top-selling electric vehicle in the US, and also of the Models X and S, its older and more expensive models. Prices for the Model 3 sedan and the Cybertruck stayed the same. Continue reading...
Young people feel their internet activity is overwhelmed by betting promotions and similar content, says GambleAwareChildren are saturated" with betting promotions and gambling-like content while using the internet, despite restrictions on ad campaigns targeting young people, new researchreveals.GambleAware, the charity funded by donations from gambling firms, commissioned research that found the risks of online gambling were not understood by children because of the blurred line" between betting ads and popular online casino-style games. It warns gambling ads with cartoon graphics are likely to be strongly appealing to children. Last week, one gambling firm was promoting a new online slots game on social media with three cartoon frogs, urging people to take a dip" with the ribbiting rascals". Continue reading...
The handheld console introduced millions to the joy of video games, and remains one of the best-selling consoles everOn April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky grey game-playing rectangle to stores in Japan. It's fair to say that nobody expected much of it. Internally, at Nintendo's Kyoto HQ, the portable console was reportedly not a well-loved project. But within two weeks, it had sold out its entire 300,000-unit initial run. The Game Boy would arrive later that year in the US, and across the rest of the world over the next couple of years. Everywhere it went, it proved just as popular. Thirty-five years and almost 120m sales later, it is still the fourth best-selling games console in history.Like Sony's Walkman, the Game Boy is a tech design icon of its time, still instantly recognisable from its silhouette alone. Developed by a team led by Satoru Okada and Gunpei Yokoi in Kyoto, the Game Boy is perhaps the preeminent example of Yokoi's lateral thinking with withered technology" maxim, a do-more-with-less technological principle that endures at Nintendo to this day. It's so simply designed - with four buttons and a cross-shaped directional pad - that you already know how to use it as soon as you look at it. Thanks to its greyscale screen, the battery lasted for days of play. And most importantly for accident-prone kids of the 90s (and their parents), you could throw it off a bridge and it would probably still work. Continue reading...
by Shanti Das, Home affairs correspondent on (#6M7SR)
The decision could set a precedent for future monitoring of people convicted of indecent image offencesA sex offender convicted of making more than 1,000 indecent images of children has been banned from using any AI creating tools" for the next five years in the first known case of its kind.Anthony Dover, 48, was ordered by a UK court not to use, visit or access" artificial intelligence generation tools without the prior permission of police as a condition of a sexual harm prevention order imposed in February. Continue reading...
Bill - with updated language that extends deadline to a year for ByteDance to divest of TikTok - to go before Senate next weekThe House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 on the updated divest-or-ban bill that could lead to the first time ever that the US government has passed a law to shut down an entire social media platform.The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation. Continue reading...
After a car crash nearly killed her 20 years ago, the dotcom entrepreneur is climbing three peaks to make 300,000 for charityEven to the able-bodied, climbing Britain's three highest peaks might seem like a test of resolve. But Martha Lane Fox has had 47 operations, struggles with her balance, nerve damage and constant pain, and needs two sticks to walk anywhere - the legacy of a car crash 20 years ago that nearly killed her.On Saturday she completed the first leg of Martha's Mountain Mission" by reaching the summit of Snowdon, or Yr Wyddfa. England's highest peak, Scafell Pike, comes next, on 6 May, and she will be tackling Ben Nevis on 7 September. Continue reading...
Microsoft, Meta and Google are snapping up small players in the burgeoning industry - but the Competition and Markets Authority is demanding fair playMonopoly," said Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley's answer to Darth Vader, is the condition of every successful business." This aspiration is widely shared by Gamman, the new acronynm for the Valley's giants - Google, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia. And the arrival of AI has sharpened the appetite of each for attaining that blessed state before the others get there.One symptom of their anxiety is the way they have been throwing unconscionable amounts of money at the 70-odd generative AI startups that have mushroomed since it became clear that AI was going to be the new new thing. Microsoft reportedly put $13bn (about 10.4bn) into OpenAI, for example, but it was also the lead investor in a $1.3bn funding round for Inflection, Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman's startup. Amazon put $4bn into Anthropic, the startup founded by refugees from OpenAI. Google invested $500m in the same outfit, with a promise of $1.5bn more, and unspecified sums in A121 Labs and Hugging Face. (Yeah, I know the names make no sense.) Microsoft has also invested in Mistral, the French AI startup. And so on. In 2023, of the $27bn that was invested in AI startups, only $9bn came from venture capitalist firms - which until recently had been by far the biggest funders of new tech enterprises in Silicon Valley. Continue reading...
Recall represents another black eye' for the company, which saw its share prices fall this week, wiping away all its gains this yearTesla recalled all Cybertrucks Friday after federal safety regulators contacted the company over malfunctions with the vehicle's accelerator pedal. New Cybertruck orders have been reportedly cancelled or stalled. The news follows numerous reports of embarrassing Cybertruck failures.The recall represents a major blow to Tesla, which has weathered a difficult year, seeing poor earnings reports in recent quarters as competing Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers encroach on the electric vehicle market. Continue reading...
The vibrant colours of Lagos take centre stage in this bold image by the Nigerian photographerWhen location scouting for this shoot, KamzyNuel was primarily hunting for colour. He settled on the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria. There are so many vibrant colours around, giving room to have as much as possible in the frame to work with," theNigerian photographer says.Hoping to portray afine blend of modernism and culture" in the styling, Nuel chose the red and yellow outfit for his muse, Kommie, a professional model. This was the pair's first time working together; they have since become friends. She's a great person," Nuel says, and she loved the departure from traditional portraiture." Continue reading...
Recent controversies, including Civil War posters and altered photos in a Netflix documentary, have led to concern over the growing use of artificial intelligence on screenThough last year's writers' and actors' strikes in Hollywood were about myriad factors, fair compensation and residual payments among them, one concern rose far above the others: the encroachment of generative AI - the type that can produce text, images and video - on people's livelihoods. The use of generative AI in the content we watch, from film to television to large swaths of internet garbage, was a foregone conclusion; Pandora's box has been opened. But the rallying cry, at the time, was that any protection secured against companies using AI to cut corners was a win, even if only for a three-year contract, as the development, deployment and adoption of this technology will be so swift.That was no bluster. In the mere months since the writers' and actors' guilds made historic deals with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the average social media user has almost certainly encountered AI-generated material, whether they realized it or not. Efforts to curb pornographic AI deepfakes of celebrities have reached the notoriously recalcitrant and obtuse US Congress. The internet is now so rife with misinformation and conspiracies, and the existence of generative AI has so shredded what remained of shared reality, that a Kate Middleton AI deepfake video seemed, to many, a not unreasonable conclusion. (For the record, it was real.) Hollywood executives have already tested OpenAI's forthcoming text-to-video program Sora, which caused the producer Tyler Perry to halt an $800m expansion of his studios in Atlanta because jobs are going to be lost". Continue reading...
Nick Bostrom's Future of Humanity Institute closed this week in what Swedish-born philosopher says was death by bureaucracy'Oxford University this week shut down an academic institute run by one of Elon Musk's favorite philosophers. The Future of Humanity Institute, dedicated to the long-termism movement and other Silicon Valley-endorsed ideas such as effective altruism, closed this week after 19 years of operation. Musk had donated 1m to the FHI in 2015 through a sister organization to research the threat of artificial intelligence. He had also boosted the ideas of its leader for nearly a decade on X, formerly Twitter.The center was run by Nick Bostrom, a Swedish-born philosopher whose writings about the long-term threat of AI replacing humanity turned him into a celebrity figure among the tech elite and routinely landed him on lists of top global thinkers. Sam Altman of OpenAI, Bill Gates of Microsoft and Musk all wrote blurbs for his 2014 bestselling book Superintelligence. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian