Technology | The Guardian

Development of technology and tactics of groups like Islamic State have led to rise in online extremismMost convicted terrorists in Britain were turned to extremism by the internet, with half of those radicalised online having some problems with mental health, personality disorders, depression, or autism, the most authoritative study of its kind has found.The study for the Ministry of Justice, released on Thursday, examined official risk assessments of every convicted terrorist in prison since 2010 in England and Wales. The majority were radicalised at least in part online – a trend caused by technology and the tactics of groups such as Islamic State. Continue reading...

Caitlin Cassidy gives Nino Bucci the full picture of the latest ‘magic avatar’ generator and image editing app

In this week’s newsletter: Over the course of 60 hours of interviews from 1993, the revolutionary leader opens up in Mandela: The Lost Tapes. Plus: five of the best podcasts with massive archives

Draw the curtains, pull up your weighted blanket and hunker down with these cosy sims, expansive fantasies or, for actual goblins, subterranean dungeon crawlersEarlier this week, “goblin mode” was announced as Oxford’s word of the year, bringing a new level of awareness – and hopefully acceptance – to this previously misunderstood and maligned lifestyle choice. It is defined as “a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations” (also known, throughout lockdown, as simply “existing”), though the exact parameters of the term have been much discussed. But one thing is certain: video games are the perfect goblin mode entertainment. They can be enjoyed from bed, they require little energy and yet they simulate a lot of real-world activities so you can at least pretend to be a functioning member of the human race.But not all games are suitable for goblin mode. Pokémon Go is an absolute no-go (you have to go outside) as are Just Dance (you have to stand up) and driving sims such as Gran Turismo 7 (waaaaay too intense). It is important to play games that complement your slovenly state of mind. Here, then, are some perfect picks for those dank, dungeon-dwelling days of duvet exile. Continue reading...

Term slightly longer than one given to Elizabeth Holmes for defrauding investors in now-defunct blood testing firmSunny Balwani, the former Theranos executive and ex-romantic partner of Elizabeth Holmes, has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison over his role in the now-defunct blood testing firm.The sentence is slightly longer than that given to Holmes, who was his accomplice in one of Silicon Valley’s biggest scandals, just a few weeks ago. Continue reading...

About 12,000 people reported facing difficulty using the shopping portal, according to Downdetector, a site that tracks outagesAmazon said it has resolved an issue that prevented some users from accessing the shopping site on Wednesday.“We’re sorry that some customers may have temporarily experienced issues while shopping. We have resolved the issue,” a company spokesperson said, but did not provide any details on what caused the outage. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Give kids time, and they’ll find a game that captures their imagination – and yours too, if you’re lucky

For a generation of players, these colourful cabinets house not just ailing electronics, but formative memories. Meet the people who save them from landfillOn a rural industrial estate five miles outside Honiton, under the flight path of a nearby aerodrome, sits a rather nondescript warehouse. Only one feature marks it out: in front is a graveyard of stripped arcade cabinets, slowly rotting in the cold and damp.I am here to visit Play Leisure, a company that restores and sells old arcade games. It has a compelling TikTok account where it shares new discoveries – a recent post showed off a Deadstorm Pirates machine with its enormous sit-in cabinet and giant cinematic display. I’ve dragged my friend and fellow arcade fanatic Joao Sanches along, and now I’m feeling nervous and responsible because, walking up to the unmarked entrance, I’ve no idea if they will have anything interesting in stock after our 90-minute drive. Continue reading...

The company now known as Meta has spent staggering amounts on creating an immersive successor to the traditional 2D internet. But what has it got to show for it, apart from 11,000 job losses?What a difference a year makes. Last October, Facebook supremo Mark Zuckerberg could barely wait to show the world what he was up to. “Today, we’re going to talk about the metaverse,” he enthused in a slick video presentation. “I want to share what we imagine is possible.” Transitioning almost seamlessly from his real self into a computer-generated avatar, Zuckerberg guided us through his vision for the virtual-reality future: playing poker in space with your buddies; sharing cool stuff; having work meetings and birthday parties with people on the other side of the world; customising your avatar (the avatars had no legs, which was weird). Zuckerberg was so all-in on the metaverse, he even rechristened his company Meta.This month, we saw a more subdued Zuckerberg on display: “I wanna say upfront that I take full responsibility for this decision,” he told employees morosely. “This was ultimately my call and it was one of the hardest calls that I’ve had to make in the 18 years of running the company.” Meta was laying off 11,000 people – 13% of its workforce. Poor third-quarter results had seen Meta’s share price drop by 25%, wiping $80bn off the company’s value. Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse division, had lost $3.7bn in the past three months, with worse expected to come. It wasn’t all bad news, though: Zuckerberg announced last month that Meta avatars would at last be getting legs. Continue reading...

‘Cross-check’ system appears to protect users who generate high revenue from content moderation more than ordinary usersA policy designed to protect high-profile Facebook and Instagram users from moderation was structured to satisfy their parent company’s business interests, Meta’s “supreme court” has found, and did not prioritise protecting free speech and civil rights.The oversight board, which scrutinises moderation decisions on Facebook and Instagram, said the platforms’ “cross-check” system appeared to favour “business partners” – such as users including celebrities who generate money for the company – while journalists and civil society organisations had “less clear paths” to access the programme. Continue reading...

PC; Bay 12/Kitfox

Exiled protest organiser Yusuf al-Jamri is beginning legal action against Bahrain and NSO Group after finding Pegasus spyware on his phoneYusuf al-Jamri had every reason to believe he was safe when he arrived in Britain in October 2017 and applied for asylum protection.The 41-year-old Bahraini activist had experienced sporadic periods of detention and torture beginning at the age of 16, when he was first held for five months without charge. In 2011, during the Arab spring, al-Jamri faced regular questioning and harassment by authorities because of his work as a protest organiser. But it wasn’t until 2017 – after multiple episodes of detention; alleged torture by Bahrain’s notorious intelligence agency, the National Security Apparatus; sexual assault; interrogations; and threats of rape – that he decided to flee Bahrain with his family. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: OpenAI’s new chatbot isn’t a novelty. It’s already powerful and useful – and could radically change the way we write online

Brain-implant company accused of causing needless suffering and deaths amid pressure from CEOElon Musk’s Neuralink, a medical device company, is under federal investigation for potential animal-welfare violations amid internal staff complaints that its animal testing is being rushed, causing needless suffering and deaths, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and sources familiar with the investigation and company operations.Neuralink Corp is developing a brain implant it hopes will help paralyzed people walk again and cure other neurological ailments. The federal investigation, which has not been previously reported, was opened in recent months by the US Department of Agriculture’s inspector general at the request of a federal prosecutor, according to two sources with knowledge of the investigation. The inquiry, one of the sources said, focuses on violations of the Animal Welfare Act, which governs how researchers treat and test some animals. Continue reading...

The attempt to bring big tech to heel promised much but, three years on, pleases no one – it’s the Brexit disaster writ largeThe online safety bill was tabled for discussion in parliament on Monday, resuscitating it from its deathbed and adding yet another chapter to this controversial attempt to bring the internet to heel. But rather than celebrate its return, we should greet it with a groan: an already unwieldy attempt to regulate the internet has become a confusing mishmash of competing interests.The bill has become a Frankenstein’s monster of legislation, in part thanks to the chaotic recent history of UK politics. Successive governments and successive culture secretaries have tried to put their stamp on the legislation, pulling it this way and that until it becomes meaningless. We are now on our fourth prime minister and fifth secretary of state since the idea of legislating the digital sphere was first introduced. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation, Xbox; Striking Distance Studios/Krafton

When you’re infected by Pegasus, spies effectively hold a clone of your phone – we’re fighting backI was warned in August 2020. A source told me to meet him at six o’clock at night in an empty parking lot in San Salvador. He had my number, but he contacted me through a mutual acquaintance instead; he didn’t want to leave a trace. When I arrived, he told me to leave my phone in the car. As we walked, he warned me that my colleagues at El Faro, the Salvadoran news organization, were being followed because of a story they were pursuing about negotiations between the president of El Salvador and the notorious MS-13 gang.This may read like an eerie movie scene, but there are many Central American journalists who have lived it for real. The suspicion you’re being followed, ditching your phone before meetings, using encrypted messaging and email apps, speaking in code, never publishing your live location – these are ordinary routines for many in my profession. Continue reading...

Live and on-demand pay-TV delivered over wifi to an easy-to-use box is let down by some crummy appsSky has taken its satellite-free pay-TV service from the Glass television and shoved it into a tiny streaming box that you can plug into your existing kit and hook up to wifi.The Sky Stream box subscription starts at £25 a month with a £20 fee upfront, which gives you Sky’s entertainment package for 18 months plus a basic Netflix account. It then rises in price depending on any other channels or content you add. Alternatively, you can subscribe on a 31-day rolling contract and chop and change as you see fit, although without an active subscription the box becomes useless. Continue reading...

Flagship internet regulation has survived four PMs, shifting its focus to child protection and free speechThe online safety bill, the government’s flagship internet regulation, returns to parliament on Monday, after a five-month delay prompted by Conservative party factional warfare threatened to kill it off.The bill was postponed until after the summer recess in July in order to make room for Boris Johnson’s unusual decision to call a confidence vote in his own government, and its return has since been put back multiple times. An anticipated revival in late October was delayed to December, while this week’s return will not see the bill progress rapidly through parliament, the digital minister Paul Scully has said, as it will instead be sent back to committee stage for deeper scrutiny. Continue reading...

EU-funded survey of people aged 16-19 finds one in four have trolled someone – while UK least ‘cyberdeviant’ of nine countriesRisky and criminal online behaviour is in danger of becoming normalised among a generation of young people across Europe, according to EU-funded research that found one in four 16- to 19-year-olds have trolled someone online and one in three have engaged in digital piracy.An EU-funded study found evidence of widespread criminal, risky and delinquent behaviour among the 16-19 age group in nine European countries including the UK. Continue reading...

Latest chatbot from Elon Musk-founded OpenAI can identify incorrect premises and refuse to answer inappropriate requestsProfessors, programmers and journalists could all be out of a job in just a few years, after the latest chatbot from the Elon Musk-founded OpenAI foundation stunned onlookers with its writing ability, proficiency at complex tasks, and ease of use.The system, called ChatGPT, is the latest evolution of the GPT family of text-generating AIs. Two years ago, the team’s previous AI, GPT3, was able to generate an opinion piece for the Guardian, and ChatGPT has significant further capabilities. Continue reading...

Campaigners concerned that ‘same racist technology used to repress Uyghurs is being marketed in Britain’A Chinese security camera company has been advertising ethnicity recognition features to British and other European customers, even while it faces a ban on UK operations over allegations of involvement in ethnic cleansing in Xinjiang.In a brochure published on its website, Hikvision advertised a range of features that it said it could provide in collaboration with the UK startup FaiceTech. Continue reading...

It gave its customers low prices by making them wait. So why did the dream of affordable luxury end with a mountain of boxes in a Port Talbot warehouse?Every day since 16 November, 25 lorryloads of sleek, Scandinavian-inspired furniture have arrived at Europe’s largest indoor auctioneers in Port Talbot, south Wales. Staff at John Pye Auctions normally work from 8.30am to 5pm, but until Christmas the warehouse will be staffed from 5am to 2am as workers unload beige box after beige box into the 316,000 sq ft facility. From a metal balcony overlooking the warehouse, the stacked boxes look not unlike a towering cityscape. On the side of each is a white plus sign inside a circle – the logo of former furniture retailer Made.com.Seven days before the first truck arrived, Made.com went into administration. Launched in London in 2010, until very recently Made was a success story: a disruptive e-commerce model combined with a desirable mid-century style helped the brand earn £100m in sales by 2017. You have probably encountered Made.com furniture if you’ve ever been inside a millennial’s home or even so much as glanced at Instagram – bright velvets, tapered wooden legs and gold accents put Made.com on the map. But now, seemingly overnight, the brand has been unmade. Continue reading...

Tech billionaires seem intent on giving away a lot of money. But are those who support ‘effective altruism’ ignoring the very real problems of today?In the past few weeks a photograph of Tony Blair and his buddy Bill Clinton sharing a panel with a scruffy kid wearing a T-shirt, baggy shorts and trainers has been doing the rounds. The April event was in the Bahamas and funded by an outfit called FTX – a supposedly “user-friendly crypto exchange” – owned by the scruffy kid, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF from now on). Blair and Clinton are looking very pleased to be there, providing confirmation of the aphrodisiac effect of great wealth, because the lad who was playing host was apparently as rich as Croesus, or at any rate worth $32bn.And this was real wealth, it seemed. After all, the venture capitalists at Sequoia – who had backed Silicon Valley success stories such as Google and PayPal – had given him the green light (as well as some of their investors’ money). A few months after Blair and Clinton made their pilgrimage to the sun-soaked and regulation-lite Bahamas, one of Sequoia’s partners offered a breathless endorsement of SBF and his crypto exchange. “Of the exchanges that we had met and looked at”, she wrote, “some of them had regulatory issues, some of them were already public. And then there was Sam.” And FTX, which, Sequoia felt, was “Goldilocks-perfect”. Continue reading...

(Bad Viking; Iceberg Interactive; PC, Switch)

It’s 30 years since the first SMS landed. Writers, authors and comedians share the txt msgs that changed their lifeIt was 2007: the nation was saying goodbye to Tony Blair and the tightness of my jeans was outrageous. I was 22, fresh out of university and in a thrilling new relationship with the man who would, 11 years later, become my husband. For ages, I kept this relationship from my family, but towards the end of spring I was done with the indignity of sneaking around. I wanted to be open. I eventually told my fairly traditional Ghanaian mother that I was gay and had a boyfriend who I had been seeing for months. Let’s just say that the conversation involved increasingly heated uses of the word “No”. Continue reading...

The New York subway provided the inspiration for this photo of a woman waiting on a platformChris Maliwat describes the New York subway as the first slot in a pinball machine. “Whenever I head down there, I know it’s going to be a mini adventure, like I’m about to be launched into the world,” he says. “I saw this woman waiting at Metropolitan Avenue/Grand Street station and wondered which world she was about to shoot out into. Are there people like her where she’s going? Is she headed to her tribe? I think so. Everyone finds their tribe in New York – that’s why people come here.”He didn’t approach her but instead surreptitiously took her photo for his Instagram page Subwaygram. “The subway is full of people on their phones and the ubiquity means mine disappears. We’re all familiar with what we do when we feel a camera pointing our way; there’s a flit in the eyes, a tightening of the body. I don’t want that. I’m not a travel photographer, a hunter out on safari; I’m a fellow passenger making this a regular part of my day,” Maliwat says. Continue reading...

New head of trust and safety Ella Irwin says Elon Musk is urging Twitter ‘to take more risks’ in the wake of mass layoffsElon Musk’s Twitter is leaning heavily on automation to moderate content according to the company’s new head of trust and safety, amid a reported surge in hate speech on the social media platform.Ella Irwin has told the Reuters news agency that Musk, who acquired the company in October, was focused on using automation more, arguing that Twitter had in the past erred on the side of using time and labour-intensive human reviews of harmful content. Continue reading...

Super apps can revolutionise your life – but do you want to pay the price, wonders AI and innovation professor David ShrierAcross Asia, the trend for a single app that does everything – from deliveries to bookings to chatting – is spreading. Known as super apps, they are rumoured to be the inspiration for Elon Musk’s plan for Twitter. Could they take off here – and should they? I asked David Shrier, professor of practice, AI and innovation at Imperial College Business School in London.Have you tried a super app?

Deciphering encryption is said to have upended a vast drug network, but some say the method should worry us allLaw enforcement sources have described it as an embarrassment of riches, a treasure trove that led to raids across Europe and in Dubai this week that were said to have brought down a super-cartel controlling a third of the European cocaine trade.“It was as if we were sitting at the table with the criminals,” the executive director of Europol, Catherine De Bolle, said in a recent interview. Continue reading...

Licensed video game movies get a bad rap – but free film-makers from the franchises and you get some great films about games. Here are some of the bestWhen most people think of movies about games, they immediately recall the astonishing light-cycle chase in Steven Lisberger’s visually daring film. With its underlying themes of dehumanisation and corporate greed in the digital era, Tron was more than an action romp with pretty effects and a cool arcade setting; a fact underlined by a committed lead performance from Jeff Bridges. Continue reading...

Many researchers are fleeing the platform, unnerved by the surge in climate misinformation since Musk’s chaotic takeoverTwitter has proved a cherished forum for climate scientists to share research, as well as for activists seeking to rally action to halt oil pipelines or decry politicians’ failure to cut pollution. But many are now fleeing Twitter due to a surge in climate misinformation, spam and even threats that have upended their relationship with the platform.Scientists and advocates have told the Guardian they have become unnerved by a recent resurgence of debunked climate change denialist talking points and memes on Twitter, with the term #ClimateScam now regularly the first result that appears when “climate” is searched on the site. Continue reading...

World’s richest man says human trials will begin within six months during presentation at health tech company NeuralinkElon Musk said on Wednesday he expects a brain chip developed by his health tech company to begin human trials in the next six months.During a presentation by Musk’s company Neuralink, Musk gave updates on the company’s wireless brain chip. In addition to forecasting clinical trials, Musk said he plans to get one of the chips himself. Continue reading...

Guardian clip attracted more than 103m views and 1.5m likes and was No 1 trending on the website in the UKA Guardian video of the moment Will Smith slapped Chris Rock on stage at the Oscars was the top trending video on YouTube in the UK this year.The uncensored clip of the smack that reverberated around the world has racked up more than 103m views and 1.5m likes on the video-sharing website. Continue reading...

We all said goodbye at the restaurant only to find we were walking in the same direction, unsure of what to sayThat’s it, time to pull the plug. Enough is enough.We’ve been more than patient with Elon Musk, weathering the constant cringe posts and the crypto memes, the randomly generated child names and the Mars colony dystopianism – and that’s before you even get into the basic culture-destroying billionaire stuff. Continue reading...

Disgraced chief executive tells summit he ‘didn’t knowingly commingle funds’ with FTX’s sister company Alameda Research“Look, I screwed up,” the fallen crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried told a conference in New York on Wednesday, but he maintained he “didn’t ever try to commit fraud” and was “shocked” by the collapse of his businesses.With glassy eyes, at times visibly shaking, Bankman-Fried appeared via video conference from a nondescript room in the Bahamas. He told the New York Times DealBook summit he was “deeply sorry about what happened” but consistently said he did not have a full picture of what was going on within the various branches of FTX, his now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, and its offshoots. Continue reading...

Ofcom inquiry follows complaints over lack of information on annual mid-contract price risesThe telecoms regulator has launched an investigation into whether companies are ripping off mobile and broadband customers by not telling them that they could face bill increases of hundreds of pounds when they sign their contract.Ofcom will investigate the sales practices used in the UK telecoms market – which is dominated by BT, EE, Virgin Media O2, Sky, Vodafone, Three and TalkTalk – after complaints that customers were not told about mid-contract price rises when they signed up. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Actor Michael Nathanson hears from his peers on what happens when your character meets their end in Playing Dead. Plus: five podcasts adapted for TV

After chat with Tim Cook the tycoon admits misunderstanding and Apple had ‘never considered removing platform’Elon Musk has said he has “resolved” a misunderstanding with Apple over his claim that Twitter was being threatened with removal from the iPhone maker’s app store.The new Twitter owner tweeted on Wednesday that he had had a “good conversation” with Apple CEO Tim Cook and that Apple had “never considered” removing the social media platform from its app store. Continue reading...

Company says its security system prevented the hacker accessing customer data or encrypted passwords

Adoption of ‘multi-technology mix’ model and decision to preference regions in rollout cited as major factors in reported losses

The Starlink technology uses more than 3,000 low Earth small orbit satellites to beam broadband signalsElon Musk’s satellite Starlink technology is to be part of a UK government trial to get better internet connectivity to remote parts of the country.The technology, which uses more than 3,000 low Earth orbit small satellites to beam a broadband signal and is operated by the firm SpaceX, will initially be trialled at three remote locations – Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire Moors national park, Wasdale Head in the Lake District and two sites within Snowdonia national park, the government said. Continue reading...

European Bank criticises digital currency sector for facilitating illegal activityThe European Central Bank says bitcoin is on an “artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance”, in a scathing intervention arguing against giving regulatory legitimacy to the cryptocurrency.In a strongly worded blogpost, senior European Central Bank (ECB) staffers Ulrich Bindseil and Jürgen Schaaf criticised bitcoin for being a hotbed of illegal transactions that brings reputational risk for any bank that gets involved with the sector. Continue reading...

Now that Elon Musk has bought the social media platform, some users fear a unique form of Black witnessing will be lostOn Twitter – Black Twitter – Sydette Harry found people who resonated with her intersectional identities as a Black woman, a New Yorker, an immigrant and a member of the diaspora with family in England, Guyana and Trinidad.But she also found other affinity groups. Continue reading...

Take a trip down memory lane with six superb retro games consoles you can get your hands on without breaking the bankSince the hugely successful launch of the Nintendo NES Classic Edition back in 2016, the retro games console has become a lucrative little side hustle for the big console manufacturers and smaller retro hardware companies; so much so that machines such as the SNES Classic Mini and Mega Drive Mini – which are both excellent – are now hard to get hold of without paying vastly inflated prices. Here, though, are six superb alternatives you can buy now without too much of a hunt or the need to take out a second mortgage. Continue reading...

Decision comes after heated debate as police oversight groups warn over further militarization of law enforcementPolice in San Francisco will be allowed to deploy potentially lethal, remote-controlled robots in emergency situations. The controversial policy was approved after weeks of scrutiny and a heated debate among the city’s board of supervisors during their meeting on Tuesday.Police oversight groups, the ACLU and San Francisco’s public defender had urged the 11-member body to reject the police’s use of equipment proposal. Opponents of the policy said it would lead to further militarization of a police force already too aggressive with underserved communities. They said the parameters under which use would be allowed were too vague. Supporters argued that having these robots as an option in dangerous situations was necessary given what they see as an ever-increasing risk of a high-profile shooting hitting the city. Continue reading...

Ministers drop ‘harmful communications’ offence with some arguing it was ‘legislating for hurt feelings’The online safety bill is returning to parliament under the aegis of its fourth prime minister and seventh secretary of state since it was first proposed as an online harms white paper under Theresa May.Each of those has been determined to leave their fingerprints on the legislation, which has swollen to encompass everything from age verification on pornography to criminalisation of posting falsehoods online, and Rishi Sunak and the digital and culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, are no different. Continue reading...

Michelle Donelan rejects claim by father of Molly Russell that online safety bill has been watered down

US owners say they’ve been on the receiving end of road rage, but it may be more about EVs than the CEO himselfTesla lost at least one customer this weekend, after Alyssa Milano tweeted that she had returned her model for a Volkswagen electric vehicle, prompting jokes from Elon Musk and conservative commentators about the German manufacturer’s Nazi origin story. Milano said she had ditched Tesla due to Musk’s ownership of Twitter.While Tesla owners do not seem to be following the actor’s move en masse, some note that they have been on the receiving end of road rage directed toward their vehicle choice. Continue reading...

Experts say investing in identity theft protection may provide peace of mind, but won’t help recover lost information