The story of how investigative journalists exposed the frightening abuse of software that can infect your phoneWhen asked what superpower they would wish for, quite a lot of people choose invisibility. The desire to be able to spy unnoticed on others appeals to something in our nature: a wish for knowledge without retribution.The arrival of the mobile phone, and then the smartphone, has brought that power of invisible oversight to governments willing to pay the comparatively small cost – some millions of pounds – of licensing invasive software that will silently monitor a phone. The most popular one (that we know about) is called Pegasus, created by an Israeli company called NSO. Continue reading...
A perfect storm of wider cultural and economic forces have been pulling the video games industry apart. Is this the year it remakes itself?There are, littered throughout the history of video games, certain years of radical, fundamental change. We can look at the major crashes in the US games industry in 1977 and 1983, where bloated software libraries and hardware gluts destroyed confidence in the medium and cleared out dozens of companies. We can also look at the arrival of the Sony PlayStation and Sega Saturn in 1994, which made 32-bit processors and rendered 3D visuals the entire focus of the industry, expunging a generation of competing products, from the Philips CD-i to the Atari Jaguar. I think 2023 could be one of those years of radical change, not because of some major new technical landmark, but because the structure of the games industry is now dissolving and remaking itself.First, we’re going to see a lot more consolidation this year, as major corporations bet on continued growth in the gaming sector. The big precursors were Microsoft’s 2021 purchase of Bethesda and Take-Two’s acquisition of Zynga last year, but that was just the beginning. Tech giants Amazon, Alphabet and Meta are circling the industry eyeing up legacy publishers such as Square Enix and Electronic Arts to get a foothold in the industry, and a neat leg up toward what they all think is the next big thing: the metaverse. But it’s Microsoft’s ongoing attempt to take over Activision, currently being investigated by competition regulators in the US, Europe and the UK, that will be a major focus during 2023. Continue reading...
The restoration of communications to the war-torn Ethiopian region after last month’s peace deal has ended two years of extreme and destructive isolation for TigrayansWhen Lemlem read online that phone lines had been restored to parts of Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region last month, she spent the entire night trying to call her elderly mother, who lives in the Tigrayan town of Adwa.“I tried maybe 20 or 30 times but the call wouldn’t go through,” Lemlem said from her home in Maryland in the US. “When I finally heard her voice, it was so emotional. We were crying together and I was just so happy. For two years, I didn’t know if she was alive.” Continue reading...
Doncaster, Hemel Hempstead and Gourock sites to close as well as seven delivery sites, as retailer prepares two new facilitiesAmazon has announced plans to shut three of its 30-plus UK warehouses and seven small delivery sites, affecting more than 1,300 jobs.Workers from the large warehouses in Doncaster, Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire and Gourock in western Scotland will be offered roles at other Amazon locations. Continue reading...
From February advertisers will no longer be able to see young users’ gender or type of posts they have engaged withFacebook and Instagram are to tighten restrictions around the data available to firms to target ads at teenage users, the platforms’ parent company, Meta, has said.From February, advertisers will no longer be able see a user’s gender or the type of posts they have engaged with as a way of targeting adverts to them. Under the enhanced restrictions, only a user’s age and location will be used to show them advertising, Meta said. Continue reading...
Sarah, 59, and Martin, 56, met playing Words with Friends in 2019. They live at opposite ends of the world, but can’t wait to be togetherSarah never imagined that her online word-game addiction would become more than a hobby. But at the end of 2019 it led to an unexpected, long-distance love story. “I was living in Germany but spending a lot of time with my daughter in Switzerland,” says Sarah, who left the UK with her husband when she was 20. “She had had a third baby and needed some extra help. I’d also been widowed in 2018 and was still feeling a bit disoriented.”The Scrabble-style game Words with Friends soon became a nice distraction. “You can play with anyone in the world,” she says. “I would often be sitting in my grandchildren’s rooms waiting for them to sleep while I played.” Continue reading...
Wildlife departments in Washington and Oklahoma have led the way as government officials find a new voice“If you encounter a cougar, never approach or offer it food. You are not a Disney princess.”“Most grandma/reindeer collisions are entirely preventable. Please give wildlife plenty of space.” Continue reading...
The father-son relationship in Sony’s smash hit shows how important actors have become to video games. Its creators discuss their blockbuster success – and the future of gamingIn Los Angeles last month, Al Pacino walked on stage at the Microsoft theatre in front of an audience of video game developers and performers to present a trophy at the Game awards. Looking pleased but mildly baffled, and struggling to read his autocue, he announced the winner: Christopher Judge, for his performance as Kratos in the video game God of War: Ragnarök. Dressed in a sparkling gold suit, Judge enveloped a surprised-looking Pacino in a giant hug before embarking on a 10-minute acceptance speech. “I was the last actor in California to read for this role,” he says. “Back then, if I’d known it was for a video game, I might not have taken it. Boy, how things have changed.”Back in the 00s, Sony’s God of War games were notable for several reasons – their jaw-dropping scale, the bite and immediacy of their combat, the sheer spectacle of their fantasy violence – but they were not exactly famed for their characters. Kratos, the protagonist, was an angry lump of muscle whose narrative arc mostly involved killing bigger and bigger things and getting more and more furious. So when Kratos and God of War returned in 2018 after a long hiatus, it was a surprise to find that not only had he left the realm of Greek mythology for Scandinavia, but he was now a widower, accompanied by a young son with whom he struggled to connect. Continue reading...
Is that Harry Kane and Stormzy arguing over a broken patio tile? This new, CGI-assisted comedy is astonishing to watch – but is it ethically OK?Spencer Jones beckons me into a Soho editing suite. “Do you want to see some of the stuff we’ve done so far?” he asks, readying a clip of his new ITV sketch show. It’s funny enough; a young impressionist does an impersonation of Tom Holland griping about something in his flat.But then Jones stands up and walks me through to a different room. He closes the door and opens up a laptop. “Now watch this,” he says, grinning. It’s the same clip: same script, same flat, same line delivery. But there’s one small difference – this time, incredibly, the sketch is being performed by Tom Holland. Except it isn’t. My jaw drops open, and my eyes start flitting around wildly, unable to compute what I’m seeing. In other words, I have just had my first experience of Deep Fake Neighbour Wars. Continue reading...
Work carried on as usual in the facility as workers were not informed of colleague’s death even as the body lay on the floorOn the morning of 27 December 2022 at the Amazon DEN4 warehouse in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 61-year-old Rick Jacobs died on the job after experiencing a cardiac event, right before a shift change. What happened next has angered his former colleagues.Witnesses say a makeshift barrier around the deceased worker using large cardboard bins was used to block off the area on the outbound shipping dock where the incident occurred, and workers criticized the response and lack of transparency about the incident. Amazon denied boxes were used to cordon off the area, but said managers stood around to make sure no one came near for privacy and security. Continue reading...
The British photographer didn’t want to climb Pulpit Rock in Dorset, but his wife didMatt Writtle wasn’t scared of heights in his youth, but says that over the years he’s become increasingly reluctant to take the risk. As such, the British photographer didn’t make it to the pinnacle of Pulpit Rock, on the Dorset coast, though his wife, Caroline, did. The couple were holidaying with their two young sons, Billy, six, and Thommi, four – a two-week affair of typical British weather and cloudy days by the water.Writtle took the shot from the rock opposite, on his iPhone 10. “I liked the juxtaposition of the young boy entering the frame to the left, and the old man exiting the frame to the right. The people look so small, like ants; the resulting shot is almost Lowry-esque. People have also suggested it reminds them of the evolution of man.” Continue reading...
As Amazon axes 18,000 roles and Tesla loses 65% of its value, we examine the causes of the glitch hitting Silicon ValleyAmazon announced 18,000 job cuts, Apple’s share price fell below $2tn (£1.7tn) and there was more bad news from Tesla: it has been another tough week for big US tech firms.But this has not been a one-off. The ongoing drama at Twitter since its takeover by Elon Musk in October has taken place against a backdrop of global economic uncertainty, retrenchment from aggressive expansion plans and China’s disruptive transition from Covid lockdowns to rocketing case numbers as restrictions ease. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#67HWR)
AI-ovens, dual-display or 3D screen laptops and satellite SOS texting shine at Las Vegas tech showFrom colour-changing cars, dual-screen laptops and satellite emergency texts to AI-ovens and a urine-scanning smart toilet upgrade, the annual CES tech show in Las Vegas had more concepts of the future on show than ever before.The biggest consumer gadget show of the year was still quieter than pre-pandemic levels, with the global economic slowdown biting big tech along with everything else. Continue reading...
Information posted on a hacking forum in ‘one of the most significant’ breaches of users’ email addresses and phone numbersHackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users and posted them on an online hacking forum, a security researcher said on Wednesday.The breach “will unfortunately lead to a lot of hacking, targeted phishing and doxxing”, Alon Gal, co-founder of Israeli cybersecurity monitoring firm Hudson Rock, wrote on LinkedIn. He called it “one of the most significant leaks I’ve seen”. Continue reading...
City agency approved raises for drivers by 7.42% per minute and 23.93% per mile but company filed lawsuitAt noon on Thursday, hundreds of Uber drivers gathered outside the company’s headquarters in downtown New York, and chants echoed across the 9/11 Memorial Plaza: “Shame on Uber.”Uber drivers were engaging in a 24-hour strike that began first thing on Thursday in response to Uber’s move to sue New York’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) for approving a raise and fare hike. Continue reading...
Administrators jailed for 32 years, and eight years, as activists warn of ploy to infiltrate websiteSaudi Arabia has infiltrated Wikipedia and jailed two administrators in a bid to control content on the website, weeks after a former Twitter worker was jailed in the US for spying for the Saudis.One administrator was jailed for 32 years, and another was sentenced to eight years, the activists said. Continue reading...
Company’s new feature hopes to challenge Google’s search engineMicrosoft is reportedly in the works to launch a version of its search engine Bing using the artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT, launched by OpenAI.The Information reported the news on Tuesday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the plans. Continue reading...
The US bank was forced to sell $5.2bn worth of assets for cash and booked a loss of $718m on those salesCustomers of the US bank Silvergate, one of the few mainstream financial organisations that focuses on providing services to the cryptocurrency sector, have pulled more than $8bn (£6.7bn) of their crypto-related deposits from the lender.More than two-thirds of customers’ deposits were withdrawn in the final three months of 2022, as the collapse of the FTX exchange reverberated around the cryptocurrency world. Continue reading...
Amazon boss blames economic uncertainty and recent rapid hiring while Salesforce cuts 8,000 roles, almost 1 in 10 staffThe jobs purge sweeping US tech firms has escalated as Amazon expanded staff-cutting plans to affect more than 18,000 workers and the software maker Salesforce said it would axe 8,000 employees.Amazon’s reductions are the biggest by a big tech firm over the past year and the largest set of layoffs in the company’s history. The online retailer’s chief executive cited “the uncertain economy” for the move and said Amazon had “hired rapidly over the last several years”. Continue reading...
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...
Technology | The Guardian