Technology | The Guardian

Elon Musk will proceed with the $44bn buyout of Twitter, but a bumpy road still lies ahead for the companyElon Musk was always going to struggle to win in Delaware. He had signed a binding agreement to buy Twitter for $44bn and to make his “reasonable best efforts” to complete the deal. Saying he didn’t want to buy it any more wasn’t going to work in Delaware, the state where Twitter is incorporated and one that carries a reputation for making sure agreed company transactions happen.And so it appears that Musk has chosen the least bad option, which is going ahead with the deal before spending millions more dollars trying to convince a judge that he should be allowed to walk away even though he had no grounds to do so. Continue reading...

Judge rules Twitter has ‘done enough’ to remove defamatory tweets about Bodegraven ReeuwijkA Dutch town has lost a court case asking Twitter to do more to stop the spread of a false conspiracy theory claiming it was home to a ring of Satan-worshipping paedophiles.Bodegraven Reeuwijk in the western Netherlands sued the social media company in September over the unfounded rumours spread by three men since 2021. Continue reading...

Chinese-owned platform popular among teens and young adults saw its turnover rise by 477% last yearTikTok has reported a five-fold surge in turnover to $1bn (£875m) across its operations in international markets including the UK and Europe last year, as trend-setting teens and young adults continue to make the video-sharing platform the hottest social app of the moment.Financial filings for Chinese-owned TikTok UK, which also covers operations in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, South Africa and Colombia, shows that its popularity with the public is rapidly translating into an advertising and e-commerce boom. Continue reading...

Google’s gaming platform had good tech but it’s become the latest casualty in the cloud-gaming realm. Plus, the creators of Monument Valley are back with a gorgeous game of feelings-dodgeball

Hackers are increasingly taking users’ data hostage and demanding huge sums for its release. They have targeted individuals, businesses, vital infrastructure and even hospitals. Authorities have been slow to respond – but there is help out thereAround 9pm on Monday 23 November 2020, the IT manager for a school in central London received a text message from a colleague, saying the school’s website was down. He tried logging on but couldn’t. At first, he thought he had forgotten the password. After several attempts, he realised that he was locked out.The IT manager, Matthew (he asked us not to use his last name), works in a central London neighbourhood where affluence hides pockets of poverty, and migrant families from Pakistan, India and eastern Europe pin their hopes for their children on a small, publicly funded school. It has about 150 students aged between five and 10, many of them on free school meals. On a shoestring budget, in a Victorian building that’s showing its age, teachers track the students’ progress by photographing them as they learn how to hold a pencil, draw a picture or write their name. The snapshots and other progress reports are uploaded to a server, a powerful computer that processes data and provides services for other devices used around the school. Continue reading...

The founder of the language app is in talks with the UK government about offering its online test to visa applicants, at less than £50 a timeDuolingo is in discussions with the government to allow UK visa applicants to take an online language test for less than £50, replacing a system that costs some more than £1,000.Luis von Ahn, the founder of the online language-learning app, said the $49 Duolingo test had less risk of fraud and would be fairer for people wanting to study or work in the UK. Continue reading...

Texts disclosed to a US court show the two bonding before the Tesla CEO tweeted: ‘Is Twitter dying?’Newly published messages between Elon Musk and the CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, show that their relationship appeared to be blossoming before it dramatically soured, with the Tesla boss tweeting: “Is Twitter dying?”The series of text messages, disclosed in a Delaware court filing, suggest that the two men were for a short period bonding, including over their shared love of engineering, after Agrawal got in touch with him, weeks before Musk revealed his offer to buy Twitter. Continue reading...

Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, showcased his humanoid robot, Optimus, at the electric vehicle maker's AI Day event. The billionaire has said a robot business will be worth more than its carmaking business. At the event a prototype of the robot walked on stage and waved to the audience. And a video of it carrying a box, watering plants and moving metal bars in the Tesla factory was shown.'Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible,' Musk said at the event in Palo Alto, California.

The British photographer on the timeless quality black and white gives to an image of a young boy learning to swimHarry had never swum without armbands before. It was August 2021 and the three-year-old was on holiday with his parents, grandparents, sister and aunt, the photographer Hannah Cassidy. It had been the second arduous year of pandemic restrictions and time stuck at home for the toddler, so he and his sister Rose, six, were thrilled to arrive in southern Spain. The extended family had rented a villa in Murcia and from day one the kids gravitated towards the pool. Rose had taken swimming lessons before, but Harry had not.“A few days in, we switched his armbands for a float that strapped to his back,” Cassidy says. “He was standing on the side while we were in the pool, cheering him on, encouraging him to jump in and try to swim towards us. The outstretched arms you can see belong to Rose. They’re really close.” Continue reading...

Prototype walks onstage and waves at event as company looks to future beyond vehiclesTesla CEO Elon Musk showcased his much-touted humanoid robot “Optimus” at the electric vehicle maker’s “AI Day” event on Friday.The billionaire has said a robot business will be worth more than its cars, hoping to expand beyond self-driving vehicles that have not yet become a reality despite his repeated promises. Continue reading...

These companies make decisions that harm children. The government must take action

The older, saggier and sadder you get, the less you want to stare at your own digital doppelganger in a game, finds Dominik DiamondI’m having a midlife crisis with character creation in video games. My kids have always known the joy of recreating themselves virtually, but those of us who started playing in the 1970s as yellow balls with ghost-munching mouths still feel a tingle of excitement at those opportunities to put yourself into a game.The first time, for me, was when I created my own player in Fifa’s Career Mode in about 2006. This was an intoxicating addition to the football game genre, because you could live your dream of playing for the team you supported. But I was overweight, 6ft 2in and balding. In-game Dominik had the acceleration of an Acme anvil and looked like a fat Stanley Matthews. I could create a smaller, leaner whippet of a player who could score a bucketload of goals and lead Celtic to glory, but it wouldn’t be me in any way, shape or form. Continue reading...

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says tech company aims to ‘plan somewhat conservatively’ and will ‘further restructure’Meta employees have been warned of potential layoffs after the Facebook parent company announced on Thursday it would freeze hiring and “further restructure”, Bloomberg News has reported.In company communication with employees, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg cited the uncertain macroeconomic environment for the changes. The announcement comes after several tech companies have been forced to slash headcount in recent months, as advertisers trim spending in anticipation of a recession. Continue reading...

David and Ina Steiner were sent live spiders, cockroaches and funeral wreaths among other things by executives to harass themA former eBay executive was sentenced on Thursday to almost five years in prison for leading a scheme to terrorize the creators of an online newsletter that included sending live spiders, cockroaches, a funeral wreath and other disturbing deliveries to their home.David Steiner, who along with his wife was the target of the harassment campaign, told the court that eBay’s former senior director of safety and security James Baugh and other eBay employees made their lives “a living hell”. He expressed fear that other companies would use it as a blueprint to go after journalists in the future. Continue reading...

A report raises serious doubts about the US intelligence agency’s handling of safety measures after flaws put sources at riskThe CIA used hundreds of websites for covert communications that were severely flawed and could have been identified by even an “amateur sleuth”, according to security researchers.The flaws reportedly led to the death of more than two dozen US sources in China in 2011 and 2012 and also reportedly led Iran to execute or imprison other CIA assets. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Steve Coogan’s character returns in the new season of From the Oasthouse. Plus: five of the funniest podcast host duos

‘Disney Animal Crossing’ is all over the video platform, but is it merely an imitation of everyone’s favourite pandemic play? Or will Mickey and co have you enthralled?When I first noticed TikTokers effusing about something called Disney Dreamlight Valley, I imagined it was your standard gem-matching mobile game, complete with in-app purchases and the occasional uncanny valley Elsa cheering you on from the sidelines. But throughout September, TikTok continued to feed me more and more videos of people claiming to be “addicted” to a game that had “taken over their life”. Someone, somewhere called it “Disney Animal Crossing” and with that, I was off to see a mouse about a house.Available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, Gameloft’s Disney Dreamlight Valley is a simulation adventure that owes Tom Nook-levels of debt to everyone’s favourite pandemic play, Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In both games, you obtain a home in a strange land and start fishing, digging, breaking rocks, picking flowers, growing crops and crafting to make it as idyllic as possible for new residents. In Disney’s offering, these residents are Goofy, WALL·E and Ursula. Dreamlight even rips off ACNH’s rewards programme, rebranding “Nook miles” to “Dreamlight duties”, though it gives it a notably more adult – or at least, Disney adult – interface. Continue reading...

In the digital age, marketability is just as important as music. Artist and repertoire reps from Warner, Ministry of Sound and Partisan explain how they discover music in 2022Artists and repertoire representatives (A&Rs) are the wildcatters of the music business, spotting new acts, signing them and guiding their artistic development. The essence of what they do hasn’t fundamentally changed in over a century – but the way they do it has shifted significantly.Joe Kentish is president of Warner Records UK, and has signed acts such as Dua Lipa and Griff. He says his early days in A&R took place in “an analogue world” where he might be tipped off at 4pm “to see an act in Preston tonight” that he had never heard of, scrambling to arrive in time lest his competitors swoop first. Continue reading...

Future of company hailed by Boris Johnson as key to green industrial revolution hangs in the balance, as the first in our Electric Dreams series on Britain’s fledgling battery industry revealsChampagne flowed freely as Orral Nadjari courted bankers and potential business partners in a private box, against a soundtrack of V12 supercar engines, at the Goodwood festival of Speed.Nadjari had hit the big time: his Britishvolt battery startup was gatecrashing the annual petrolheads’ gathering at the historic West Sussex circuit in June with plans to power cars of the future using British-made batteries. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch; Microids/Pendulo Studios

Headteacher describes ‘terrible shock’ at north London school after 14-year-old killed herself in 2017The headteacher of Molly Russell’s secondary school has told an inquest into the teenager’s death it is “almost impossible” to keep track of the risks posed to pupils by social media.North London coroner’s court heard of the “complete and terrible shock” at Molly’s school after the 14-year-old killed herself in November 2017. Molly, from Harrow in north-west London, killed herself after viewing extensive amounts of online content related to suicide, depression, self-harm and anxiety.In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counsellor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org Continue reading...

Apple is now manufacturing a new phone model outside China – and the implications could be huge. Plus, a cyberstalking saga puts social media platforms on the spot

Company says British sanctions compel it to remove the social media app from its store globallyApple has removed VK, Russia’s homegrown Facebook competitor, from its App Store globally, citing conflicts with British sanctions.In a statement on the social network’s website, the company said the app would continue to work on smartphones that had already installed it before the takedown, but warned users that “there may be difficulties with notifications and payments” as a result. Continue reading...

A text-based, multiplayer role-playing game based on the works of Terry Pratchett, the Discworld MUD has been in constant service for 30 yearsSir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld has a long association with video games. Not only was the author himself a fan of Doom, Thief, and The Elder Scrolls, but the relationship between his satirical fantasy world and video games goes all the way back to 1986’s The Colour of Magic – a text-adventure adaptation of Pratchett’s first Discworld novel. Later games based on Pratchett’s work include 1995’s Discworld, a notoriously difficult adventure game voiced by actors including Eric Idle and Tony Robinson, and 1999’s Discworld Noir, a 3D detective game where you play as the universe’s first private investigator.But the most ambitious Discworld game in existence is not officially associated with Terry Pratchett at all. The Discworld MUD is a text-based “multi-user-dungeon” – an early form of online role-playing game where everything from places to in-game actions are described in words. Created in 1991 by David “Pinkfish” Bennett, the MUD has been in consistent service for over 30 years, and today offers the most detailed depiction of the Discworld outside of Pratchett’s books. Not only does it feature most of the key locations, from the city of Ankh-Morpork to areas such as Klatch and the Ramtops, it has seven guilds, player-run shops, and countless quests and adventures featuring many of the Discworld’s most notable characters. It even has its own newspaper. Continue reading...

What’s more annoying than a very rich boss cutting his staff’s benefits? A very rich boss announcing it shouldn’t stop them having fun

Minor update adds new temperature sensors and car crash safety features, but higher prices outside US stingThe latest Apple Watch adds new safety features and a temperature sensor for some intriguing uses for women’s health and family planning. But otherwise it remains the same as last year’s version.Like the latest iPhones, the Series 8 gets a £50 (A$30 in Australia) price hike over its predecessor, costing from £419 (A$629) despite remaining $399 in the US, owing to weak currency rates against the dollar. But the Series 8 is not Apple’s most expensive new smartwatch. That title goes to the Ultra model costing £849 ($799/A$1,299). Continue reading...

Researchers suggest devices such as Alexa could have a long-term impact on empathy, compassion and critical thinking skillsFrom reminding potty-training toddlers to go to the loo to telling bedtime stories and being used as a “conversation partner”, voice-activated smart devices are being used to help rear children almost from the day they are born.But the rapid rise in voice assistants, including Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple’s Siri could, researchers suggest, have a long-term impact on children’s social and cognitive development, specifically their empathy, compassion and critical thinking skills. Continue reading...

A Kyiv startup helped ‘clone’ the voice of legendary actor James Earl Jones, 91, for the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi seriesArtificial intelligence developed in Kyiv is taking over one of the most treasured roles in film, as James Earl Jones steps back as the voice of Darth Vader.The Star Wars actor, 91, was helped to reach the chilling heights of his performance 45 years ago by the Ukrainian startup Respeecher in the recent Obi-Wan Kenobi series as the company worked with Jones and clips of his past performances. Continue reading...

Musk to be questioned under oath by Twitter lawyers on 6 and 7 October in preparation for trial over abandoned $44bn takeoverElon Musk is scheduled to be questioned under oath by Twitter lawyers next month as the social media company prepares for a trial over the billionaire’s bid to walk away from a $44bn takeover, according to a Tuesday court filing.Musk’s deposition was originally scheduled for this week but sources close to the litigation said on Monday that the timing of the interview was always subject to change given the fast-tracked nature of the litigation. He is scheduled to be questioned on 6 and 7 October. Continue reading...

Fake Guardian article among ‘sprawling network’ of bogus sites used to target users in UK, US and EUFacebook’s parent company, Meta, has said it has removed a pair of “influence operations” run by China and Russia, which aimed to sway views on the US elections and the war in Ukraine.The Russian network, the largest the company has disrupted since the war began, targeted audiences across Europe and the UK, and incorporated a “sprawling network” of websites impersonating news websites including the Guardian, according to Meta. Continue reading...

Search for crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon after Luna and UST collapse drags down rival currenciesThe crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon has denied being in hiding, even as Interpol issued a “red notice” for his arrest after the collapse of the Terra project he founded.After South Korean prosecutors said he was “obviously on the run”, Kwon tweeted that he was making no attempt to evade law officers. “I’m writing code in my living room … I’m making zero effort to hide,” he said. “I go on walks and malls, no way none of [crypto Twitter] hasn’t run into me the past couple weeks.” Continue reading...

Michael Grade cites Molly Russell’s death as reminder of urgent need for new era of accountabilityThe death of the teenager Molly Russell is an urgent reminder that big tech needs to be forced into a new era of accountability and to prioritise trust and safety alongside “clicks and profit,” says the new chair of the UK media regulator Ofcom.Michael Grade said Ofcom was set to be given new powers under the government’s online safety bill that he would use to hold the biggest and most powerful tech companies to account. Continue reading...

This ridiculous Trombone Champ is an encore to all of the wild rhythm games I grew up on – and a fitting return for a forgotten genre

Online account claims it published records of 10,000 customers and threatened to release more before change of heart

Former streaming service subscribers on why they have ditched mod cons for MP3s, CDs and other DIY music formatsMeg Lethem was working at her bakery job one morning in Boston when she had an epiphany. Tasked with choosing the day’s soundtrack, she opened Spotify, then flicked and flicked, endlessly searching for something to play. Nothing was perfect for the moment. She looked some more, through playlist after playlist. An uncomfortably familiar loop, it made her realise: she hated how music was being used in her life. “That was the problem,” she says. “Using music, rather than having it be its own experience … What kind of music am I going to use to set a mood for the day? What am I going to use to enjoy my walk? I started not really liking what that meant.”It wasn’t just passive listening, but a utilitarian approach to music that felt like a creation of the streaming environment. “I decided that having music be this tool to [create] an experience instead of an experience itself was not something I was into,” she reflects. So she cut off her Spotify service, and later, Apple Music too, to focus on making her listening more “home-based” and less of a background experience. Continue reading...

Investigation finds video-sharing app may have breached UK data protection law between 2018 and 2020TikTok is facing the prospect of a £27m fine for failing to protect the privacy of children, the UK’s data watchdog has said.An investigation conducted by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) found the video-sharing app may have breached data protection law between May 2018 and July 2020. Continue reading...

Services such as Spotify and Apple Music give us access to the entire history of popular songs. But has that access made us lazy listeners? And could TikTok or TV really help us rediscover our passion for discovery?Earlier this year, Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill unexpectedly became the most popular song in the world. After it was used on the soundtrack of the Netflix sci-fi series Stranger Things, the streaming figures for Bush’s 1985 single rocketed by 9,900% in the US alone. Something similar was happening wherever Stranger Things was available: by 18 June, three weeks after season four of Stranger Things premiered, Running Up That Hill was No 1 on Billboard’s Global 200 chart, which, as its name suggests, collects sales and streaming data from 200-plus countries.It became a big news story, big enough that Bush – no one’s idea of an artist intent on hogging the media spotlight – was impelled to issue a couple of statements and give a rare interview. That was partly because it was an extraordinary state of affairs: the upper reaches of the Global 200 are usually the sole province of what you might call the usual suspects – BTS, Bad Bunny, Adele, Drake et al – and not a world that plays host to tracks from critically acclaimed 37-year-old art-rock concept albums. And it was partly because the unexpected success of Running Up That Hill seemed to say something about how we discover and consume music in 2022. Continue reading...

Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1930s film gives a fascinating account of a medieval-style society about the supposed blessings of the USSR’s modernising impactIn 1930, just as Luis Buñuel was releasing his classic L’Age d’Or, the Georgian director Mikhail Kalatozov gave us the 55-minute silent movie Salt for Svanetia, an equally rich, strange and mysterious work of ethno-fantasy and social-surrealist reverie. It is theoretically a documentary about the blessings which Soviet modernisation brought to the remote community of Ushguli in the Svanetia province of north-west Georgia; it contains a people governed by tribal traditions going back to the middle ages. Working with editor and formalist literary critic Viktor Shklovsky, and inspired by a magazine article by the writer Sergei Tretyakov, Kalatozov appears to have been initially undecided whether his film set in Svanetia would be fact or fiction. He settled – ostensibly – on the former.The fundamental idea is that Svanetia’s people are on the brink of starvation because they have no salt, which their cattle need to lick to get vital mineral nutrients. They are surrounded by impassable mountains and glaciers so little or no salt can be brought in. Cattle have to lick the sweat from other animals or humans – one of many bizarre closeup vignettes – or from urine, or even blood. Clearly, a road built with Bolshevik industry will help them. Continue reading...

Don’t worry about the equipment … the most important thing is the ideaEveryone, they say, has a story to tell, and increasingly those stories are being told directly into the ears of podcast listeners – which, according to Ofcom, was about 25% of the adult population in the UK in 2021. If you have something to say, podcasting provides an easy, accessible and low-cost way to say it. Continue reading...

Dan and Jackie Vecchitto created the internet’s latest obsession, with real-life trombonists’ firm approvalTrombone Champ, the musical computer game, has received more than 20,000 downloads since it was released last week, and gameplay videos have rippled through social media, featuring beloved songs ruined by terrible trombone playing.The game is like Guitar Hero, but with your mouse acting as a trombone. You move it up and down to simulate the slide, and click to blow the horn. Your goal is to play along with such trombone classics as Beethoven’s Fifth, Hava Nagila and Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Continue reading...

Labour deputy and London mayor call for ministers to push ahead with online harms bill

The software giant paying vastly over the odds for a small but strategically threatening company should alarm US regulatorsThe big tech news in a slow week was that the software giant Adobe is planning to pay the unconscionable sum of $20bn (£18bn) to acquire a small company called Figma. Why is this news? Well, first of all, there’s the price – way above any rational valuation of Figma. Second, there’s the question that we have finally learned to ask about tech mergers and acquisitions: is there a competition or antitrust issue here somewhere?We’ll come to the price later, but at first sight, the answer to the second question would seem to be no: the two companies are not direct competitors. Adobe dominates the market in software for creating and publishing digital and printed material – graphics, photography, illustration, animation, multimedia/video, motion pictures and print. If you’ve ever used Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat Reader or opened a pdf (portable document format), then you’ve used an Adobe product. Continue reading...

McDonald’s has shelved its meat-free burger trial and stock in one of the major manufacturers has dipped nearly 70%At the start of the year, McDonald’s launched a plant-based burger “sizzled on a flat-iron grill, then topped with slivered onions, tangy pickles, crisp shredded lettuce, Roma tomato slices, ketchup, mustard, mayo and a slice of melty American cheese”. For a while, it looked like a glimpse of the future.The US test run of the McPlant burger was quietly shelved last month (it is still available in some markets, including the UK) in one of a series of setbacks for a meatless-meat industry that only a year ago was claiming it could change the great American menu for ever. Continue reading...

The photographer was on holiday with friends and their twin boys when she spotted a chance to capture teenage ennuiIdentical twin teenagers Joe and Duke were fed up. Walking to a local supermarket in the midday sun with their parents and photographer Sarah Lee, a family friend, was not their preferred choice of activity while on holiday in Ibiza, yet here they were.Lee had known the boys since they were very small. In 2019 they were 17, right on the brink of adulthood. “They weren’t able to get into the clubs at night; they were still being cajoled into doing something dull in the day. It’s only their silhouettes, but you can see how bored they were. The epitome of pissed-off teenagers!” Continue reading...

TikTok searches soared amid flood of media coverage, raising questions about the response to extreme social media challengesInterest in NyQuil chicken appears to have substantially increased after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning about the “recent social media video challenge” that drew widespread media coverage.The FDA issued a statement on 15 September warning of social media videos encouraging people to cook chicken in NyQuil: “The challenge sounds silly and unappetizing – and it is. But it could also be very unsafe. Continue reading...

In its submission to Privacy Act review telco said giving people right to erase personal data would involve ‘significant’ hurdles and costs

Meta’s president of global affairs said it would be a decision ‘I oversee’ after the ex-president’s accounts were suspended in 2021Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, is charged with deciding whether Donald Trump will be allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram in 2023, Clegg said on Thursday.Speaking at an event held in Washington by news organization Semafor, Clegg said the company was seriously debating whether Trump’s accounts should be reinstated and said it was a decision that “I oversee and I drive”. Continue reading...

Riverside Studios, London

Tech behemoth could do more to protect user data from landing in the hands of police and other authorities, some sayFor years, Apple has carefully curated a reputation as a privacy stalwart among data-hungry and growth-seeking tech companies.In multi-platform ad campaigns, the company told consumers that “what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone,” and equated its products with security through slogans like “Privacy. That’s iPhone.” Continue reading...