Technology | The Guardian

Musk, despite his wealth, good fortune and global influence, is not a serious person – but he is toying with dangerous ideasIt took less than 48 hours for Elon Musk to reveal just how dangerous his new toy can be to this world. Replying to a tweet from former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, the man worth more than $210bn with more than 112 million Twitter followers spread a dangerous conspiracy theory intended to distract people from an attempted political assassination just one week before a major US election.Clinton had warned that “the Republican party and its mouthpieces now regularly spread hate and deranged conspiracy theories”, in response not just to the attack on home and spouse of Nancy Pelosi but a slew of attempted kidnappings and threats against elected officials who have stood up to the Trump agenda and the attempted overthrow of the US government in January 2021.Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy Continue reading...

Setting one’s unease at delighting in hi-tech warfare aside, this is a precisely tooled, intensely immersive combat simulatorIt is almost comforting in this era of “games as a service”, where franchises exist as endless monetisation machines designed to consume every second of our free time, that Call of Duty still gets an annual retail release. Once upon a time, these games sold 30m copies a year, and people queued outside stores at midnight to buy them. Those days are gone, but Modern Warfare II shows there is still guilty pleasure to be had in these ridiculous yearly instalments of macho combat gymnastics.The campaign story takes place three years after the close of 2019’s Modern Warfare. The newly created Task Force 141 is sent to track down an Iranian terrorist who has somehow acquired a set of American nuclear missiles. It’s slickly produced, fast-moving stuff, ricocheting around the world, from the Middle East to Mexico, while gruff guys yell macho spec-ops phrases at each other. En route, there are a few spectacular set-pieces. A section where you infiltrate a convoy of military vehicles as it zooms along a civilian highway might be one of the best driving sequences I’ve ever played in a mainstream shooter; and there’s a brilliant gun fight on the deck of a cargo boat in rough seas, where massive shipping containers slide all over the place, squishing unwary combatants. Continue reading...

It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurking in your console. Many things, in fact, but here are some of the top scarers, from eldritch Victoriana to teen slasher horror and the video game equivalent of black metalFolk horror meets point-and-click adventure in this richly atmospheric narrative yomp over the desolate moors of Victorian England. Thomasina Bateman is an archeologist and woman of science, summoned to excavate an ancient mound near a remote rural village – and terrible forces are brought forth. With its engaging protagonist, brooding yokels and atmospheric locations, it’s like taking part in a chilling BBC costume drama starring Suranne Jones and Sean Harris. Continue reading...

Smaller Android phone offers great software, smart AI and performance for much less than rivalsGoogle appears to have triumphed again. The new Pixel 7 offers the same the top-flight software, camera and smart AI systems that have made its phones winners, but at a knockdown price that significantly undercuts rivals.Costing £599 ($899/A$1,299) it sits in between the top £849 Pixel 7 Pro and the budget £399 Pixel 6a, competing very favourably on price and specs with rivals from Samsung, Apple and others that are typically in the £700-800 range. Continue reading...

The social media platform has had its fair share of run-ins with misinformation, data privacy and child safety concerns

Post comes days after Musk takes over social media platform amid concern that hate speech will run rampant under his leadershipElon Musk was criticized on Sunday after posting a baseless conspiracy theory about the assault of Paul Pelosi to Twitter – the social media giant he took over several days ago with a promise to impose fewer restrictions on its content.Paul Pelosi, husband of US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked with a hammer at their California home on Friday. The attacker, identified by authorities as David DePape, allegedly said “Where is Nancy?” during the attack; Joe Biden said that she appeared to be the intended target. Continue reading...

Unsecured mobiles, email accounts and WhatsApp chats could pose national security risk, intelligence experts warnMinisters risk creating “wild west” conditions in matters of national security by the increased use of personal email and phones to conduct confidential business, intelligence experts and former officials have warned.After a week tainted by a row over the use of a personal email account by the home secretary, it was revealed on Sunday that Liz Truss’s mobile is alleged to have been hacked by overseas agents. Continue reading...

We may never know just what happened with Liz Truss’s mobile, but it’s clear that ministers need to up their security gameIt is no longer news to point out that a mobile phone, if hacked, can be the ultimate tool for surveillance. But the question is whether it is a surprise to British politicians – and whether they are using their devices sensibly or carelessly.We will almost certainly never know precisely what happened to Liz Truss’s phone. The then foreign secretary had to abruptly drop her main number and take up a new, government-issued handset in the summer, just as it emerged she was likely to be the next prime minister after Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

More and more smart baby monitors and AI-powered toys are entering the Australian market, but these expensive products can have a significant privacy cost

Platform says 300 accounts carried out 50,000-plus tweets in ‘organised effort to make users think firm has changed content policy’

Nearly six in 10 teenagers count themselves as daily users of the app yet little is known about the impacts on the brain

If this week’s results show a profit like last quarter’s, the company may at last be on the road to respectabilityIt has 120 million customers, takes $10bn worth of bookings a month, and, it transpired this year, more or less had the French president on speed-dial, doing its bidding. But can Uber turn a profit?The San Francisco-based ride-hailing giant squealed into “free cash flow”, as it puts it, in the last quarter, after racking up $23bn (£20bn) in losses in its first heady decade or so. On Tuesday, investors will see if it can repeat the trick in its third-quarter results. Continue reading...

Some sites that mediate the sale of hacked data use Reddit-style upvoting systems to weed out scammers and law enforcement

To mark the site’s takeover by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, we present a survey of its most media-friendly momentsTwitter has great influence for a social media platform. It has a comparatively modest 230 million users, given that the likes of Instagram, Facebook and TikTok have user bases that run into the billions. But Twitter is beloved of politicians, celebrities, commentators and journalists and can have a great impact on the political and news cycle as a result. Here are some of the best-known and notorious tweets in the company’s 16-year history. Continue reading...

Fears have grown that the world’s richest man would remove the social network’s controls on hate speech – but can he really afford to?Elon Musk is not buying Twitter to make more money: he’s doing it to help humanity.In a message to advertisers last week, the world’s richest man said it was important to the future of civilisation to have a “common digital town square”. But bettering the species is going to cost money, given that Musk has paid $44bn for a social media platform to achieve that aim. Continue reading...

After the astonishing wealth earned during lockdown, investors fear times may never be as good again for Silicon Valley’s giantsLast week was a bad time to be a tech billionaire. When the pandemic drove the world online, the founders of Facebook, Google and Microsoft reaped wealth gains described as “pornographic” and cemented their position as among the richest cohort ever to have trod the planet. Well, the “good times” are over. Sort of.The world’s biggest tech companies reported their latest earnings last week and, for most, the news was bad. Meta (formerly Facebook), Alphabet (formerly Google) and Microsoft saw billions wiped off their values as investors began to worry that the best days of the tech titans were behind them. As investors made for the exit, the five biggest tech stocks crashed by a combined $950bn (£820m) at their lowest point. The slide also hit the fortunes of their creators. Continue reading...

Techniques which allow the sharing of data whilst keeping it secure may revolutionise fields from healthcare to law enforcementRachel is a student at a US university who was sexually assaulted on campus. She decided against reporting it (fewer than 10% of survivors do). What she did, however, was register the assault on a website that is using novel ideas from cryptography to help catch serial sexual predators.The organisation Callisto lets a survivor enter their name in a database, together with identifying details of their assailant, such as social media handle or phone number. These details are encrypted, meaning that the identities of the survivor and the perpetrator are anonymous. If you hacked into the database, there is no way to identify either party. Continue reading...

Conservative users began recirculating conspiracy theories as others voiced concerns over allowing hate speech and disinformationAmong the most urgent questions facing Twitter in its new era as a private company under Elon Musk, a self-declared “free speech absolutist”, is how the platform will handle moderation.After finalizing his takeover and ousting senior leadership, Musk declared on Friday that he would be forming a new “content moderation council” that would bring together “diverse views” on the issue. Continue reading...

Experts say the recent prominence of data breaches is just companies being more forthcoming and the media more focused on reporting them

Shares delisted and top execs reportedly fired as world’s richest man closes deal to buy social media platformThe world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn acquisition of Twitter, amid warnings from politicians and campaigners that hate speech on the platform must be held in check.The social media group confirmed the deal in a brief filing on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday morning, disclosing the deal had closed the day before. Shares in the company have been suspended and will delist on 8 November, capping a chaotic saga that began when the Tesla CEO first announced his plans to take the tech business private in April. Continue reading...

Donald Trump says he is happy Twitter is in ‘sane hands,’ as SEC filing confirms the Tesla billionaire has bought the social media platform with over 230m usersHow have Twitter users reacted? The Guardian’s Matthew Cantor in San Francisco has taken a look.Richard Murphy, economic justice campaigner and professor of accounting practice at Sheffield University, says: Continue reading...

The $44bn deal will give world’s richest man control of social media platform with more than 230m usersElon Musk has completed his $44bn takeover of Twitter, taking control of the company and reportedly firing several top executives, including the chief executive, Parag Agrawal.The world’s richest man tweeted “the bird is freed”, in a reference to Twitter’s corporate logo, just hours before a court-ordered deadline to buy the business expired. Continue reading...

‘Free speech absolutist’ could reinstate Donald Trump’s account and press ahead with staff cutsAfter a months-long fight over whether Elon Musk would become its new owner, Twitter appears to have entered a new chapter with the reported exit of several top executives.Ahead of a Friday deadline for the Tesla CEO to complete his $44bn deal to buy the social media company, it was widely reported that Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, the chief financial officer, Ned Segal, and the head of legal policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde, were ousted. Continue reading...

The company was saved by its oldest technology, desktop computers, with sales worth of $11.5bnApple’s quarterly earnings on Thursday revealed that the company is weathering the ongoing tech downturn better than its competitors, reporting revenue and profit that topped Wall Street targets.Revenue rose 8% this quarter to $90.1bn, above estimates of $88.9bn, while net profit was $1.29 a share, topping with the average analyst estimate of $1.27 a share, according to data from the market research firm Refinitiv. Continue reading...

Company sees drop in after-hours trading after issuing guidance on the holiday quarter that worried investorsAmazon shares dropped close to 20% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the company said its all-important holiday shopping season would be smaller than expected.The company is the latest tech giant to disappoint Wall Street this week. After enjoying phenomenal growth during the pandemic, Amazon has struggled to contain costs as inflation and rising interest rates have taken their toll. The company has slowed the rollout of new facilities, leased out some warehouse space and enacted a hiring freeze in parts of its business. Continue reading...

Virtual reality gamble is not paying off as Mark Zuckerberg appears to be going out on a limb with avatarsAfter shares in Facebook’s parent, Meta, slumped by as much as 25% in the wake of abysmal quarterly results, critics intensified their calls for its chief executive to abandon his astronomically expensive pivot to the “metaverse” – a 3D virtual world intended to replace much of real-world socialising.“The cost of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse ambition is clearer than ever,” said Rachel Foster Jones, a thematic analyst at GlobalData. “Meta has put its entire business on the line for the metaverse, which still doesn’t exist, and the gamble is not paying off. Continue reading...

Internet safety groups say withdrawal of proposed legislation from next week’s Commons schedule leaves children at continued riskThe government has been criticised for endangering children by failing to pass its online safety bill, after it confirmed that the change of prime minister had caused yet another delay to the proposed legislation.With no known date for when the bill will return to the Commons, internet safety groups warned that any further delay would continue to place children at risk. Continue reading...

Sell-off that began overnight continues after Mark Zuckerberg’s company reports halving of profitsInvestors wiped $80bn (£69bn) off the market value of Facebook and Instagram’s owner, Meta, after Mark Zuckerberg’s company reported profits had halved during the third quarter as advertisers reined in spending amid the global economic downturn.The 25% tumble in Meta’s share price since Wednesday evening has knocked billions off the personal wealth of Zuckerberg, its chief executive and largest shareholder. Continue reading...

Tweet comes as advertisers fear one of his first moves as chief will be to restore Donald Trump’s accountElon Musk has claimed he has “acquired Twitter” in a post to the social network reassuring advertisers it will stay a safe place for their brands, amid fears one of his first actions as chief executive will be to restore Donald Trump’s account.After months of uncertainty over whether or not his $44bn acquisition of the social media platform would go through, the Tesla chief executive’s post is the strongest acknowledgment yet that the deal is expected to be sealed before its deadline of 5pm in Delaware on Friday. Continue reading...

Speculation is rife about whether the insurer will pay a hacker who claims to have extracted 200GB of files

Study says deployment of technology in public by Met and South Wales police failed to meet standardsPolice should be banned from using live facial recognition technology in all public spaces because they are breaking ethical standards and human rights laws, a study has concluded.LFR involves linking cameras to databases containing photos of people. Images from the cameras can then be checked against those photos to see if they match. Continue reading...

The performance-capture body suits, the annoying helmet cams, the makeshift props … actors describe the experience of making video games ‘where there’s nowhere to hide’The Call of Duty series is the action-movie blockbuster of the video game world. Loud, violent and filled with crazy stunts, these globetrotting military romps put their fictitious heroes through incredible physical danger, usually involving plane crashes, collapsing skyscrapers and vast firefights on sinking cruise liners.So what is it like to actually star in one? Continue reading...

Tesla CEO changes his profile to ‘Chief Twit’ as Friday deadline to finalize his takeover deal nearsElon Musk paid a visit to Twitter’s headquarters ahead of an end-of-week deadline to close his deal to buy the company, posting a video of himself in the company’s San Francisco lobby carrying a sink.“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” he tweeted on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Reuters learns US DoJ launched investigation last year after more than a dozen crashes, some fatal, involving Autopilot systemTesla is under criminal investigation in the United States over claims that the company’s electric vehicles can drive themselves, three people familiar with the matter said.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) launched the previously undisclosed investigation last year following more than a dozen crashes, some of them fatal, involving Tesla’s driver assistance system known as Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents, the people said. Continue reading...

Metallopolymer conducts electricity and can be painted, sprayed or moulded into any shapeA plastic material that has metallic properties and remains stable even when heated, chilled, left in the air or exposed to acid has been revealed, with researchers saying it could prove valuable in wearable electronics.What’s more, the material can be made into any shape, the researchers say. Continue reading...

Firm says it has no choice but to switch from proprietary Lightning port to the USB standard in EUApple will ditch the Lightning connector on its iPhones, the company has confirmed, after European regulators decided all smartphones should have USB charging as standard in two years’ time.New EU rules require all phones sold after autumn 2024 to use the USB-C connector for their charging ports. The oval-shaped plugs are already standard on other consumer electronics such as e-readers, games consoles, laptops and the vast majority of new Android phones. Continue reading...

Aileen Barratt of @tindertranslators shares what makes her laugh online, including Adam Levine memes, Saturday Night Live and a horse called Steven

Owner Alphabet reveals first decline since it began reporting streaming site’s performance separately two years agoYouTube’s long battle against TikTok has started to take its toll after its parent company, Alphabet, reported a decline in revenue at the video-streaming site.The fall, from $7.2bn (£6.2bn) in 2021 to $7bn this year, is the first since Alphabet started reporting YouTube’s performance separately two years ago, and marks a financial slowdown at the once dominant internet video hub. Continue reading...

In his 36-year career, Kojima has become one of the world’s best-known game directors – and he has never been keener to welcome fans into his worldOn 8 July 2022, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was delivering a political campaign speech outside the Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara City, Japan, when a man approached and shot him in the back using a homemade firearm. Even before Abe died from his injuries, footage of the assassination had been posted online. Social media users began to speculate as to the identity and motive of the killer. On the internet forum 4chan, a site notorious for its anarchic, often hateful trolling, an anonymous user posted a photograph of the video game director Hideo Kojima, claiming this “left-wing extremist” was the perpetrator.If the post was intended to bait the gullible, it worked. The far-right French politician Damien Rieu shared the images on Twitter, where Kojima – who has more than three million followers, and obviously had nothing to do with what happened to Shinzo Abe – began to receive dozens of accusatory messages. Rieu eventually deleted the tweet and published an apology, but not before Kojima had been identified as Abe’s killer on Greek and Iranian news channels. Continue reading...

After streamer complaints of a toxic community culture, slashes in earnings and an unsustainable work model, what next for the Amazon-owned site?

Companies ‘should not make meaningful decisions based on technology not backed by science’The information commissioner has warned companies to steer clear of “emotional analysis” technologies or face fines, because of the “pseudoscientific” nature of the field.It’s the first time the regulator has issued a blanket warning on the ineffectiveness of a new technology, said Stephen Bonner, the deputy commissioner, but one that is justified by the harm that could be caused if companies made meaningful decisions based on meaningless data. Continue reading...

App Store update undercuts a key feature of non-fungible tokens by banning their use to unlock contentApple is facing new accusations of anti-competitive behaviour after changing the rules on non-fungible token-powered apps and adding more paid-for promotions to the company’s App Store.Apple introduced the changes as part of a number of updates to the rules it requires app developers to abide by in order to publish software for iPhones and iPads. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch; Platinum Games/Nintendo

Platform apologises after users across the world report issues sending messagesWhatsApp, the messaging platform, was starting to come back online and the company said the issue has been fixed after users across the world reported problems earlier on Tuesday.At about 07.50 GMT, the outage reporting site Downdetector had shown more than 68,000 users in the UK had reported problems with the app. Issues were also reported by 19,000 users in Singapore and 15,000 in South Africa. Continue reading...

Medibank says it is in communication with the hacker, but declined to say whether it would pay any demands made

A study suggests the video platform is failing to filter false claims and rhetoric in the weeks leading up to US midterms

Uber said it would appeal against the decision, which judge said ‘may well’ affect other drivers’ status and entitle them to workers’ rights and protectionsA group of New Zealand Uber drivers have won a landmark case against the global ridesharing company, forcing it to treat them as employees, not contractors, and entitling them to a suite of worker rights and protections.New Zealand’s employment court ruled on Tuesday that the drivers were employees, not independent contractors. While the ruling applies specifically to the case of four drivers, the court noted that it may have wider implications for drivers across the country. Continue reading...

The company’s secret sauce is what populates its For You Page, which predicts the videos that will pique a viewer’s interest

Celebrity and trainspotter are not words you see together very often. But Francis Bourgeois’ unique style and infectious enthusiasm is proving to be a ‘hellfire’ hitHow fast can you run?” Francis Bourgeois asks, not waiting for an answer. It’s 9am and we’re barely done with bleary-eyed introductions on platform 5 at Willesden Junction in London. Now the 22-year-old is legging it towards the exit, weaving through the throngs of Thursday- morning commuters. He’s into the ticket hall, through the barriers, down the street and up a grotty roadside staircase. In the centre of a footbridge, he comes to a halt. Bourgeois catches his breath and breaks into a smile – proper ear-to-ear grin – as he looks over the crisscrossing railway tracks sprawling towards the city ahead.“Last night I did a lot of planning,” he says, “trying to find this morning’s best London train action. And passing through Willesden now are your standard passenger trains, and aggregate and intermodal freight services, but also…” he cuts himself off, hearing something in the distance. “There it is,” he says, as a train appears on the horizon right on cue. “It’s the British Pullman,” he informs me, “one of the most luxurious trains in the UK today.” Continue reading...

The app has grown at breakneck speed to surpass the internet behemoths in downloads