Technology | The Guardian

In this week’s newsletter: Two reporters get to the heart of the adult industry in Hot Money: Who Rules Porn? Plus: five of the best food podcasts

After scanning millions of images, this is what a text-to-image AI model generates from the prompt ‘Boris eating fish’

Network ready to provide stream of daily data after world’s richest man threatened to pull out of $44bn purchase if Twitter refusedTwitter is preparing to comply with Elon Musk’s demand for data on fake accounts, after the Tesla chief executive threatened to walk away from buying the business if it refused.The social media company will provide the world’s richest man with access to a stream of data comprising more than 500 million tweets posted every day, according to the Washington Post. A number of companies already pay for access to the data, which includes a real-time record of tweets, the devices users tweet from and information about the accounts that tweet, the Post reported. Continue reading...

UK-based e-commerce boss Joshua Ma to step back from role, according to reportsTikTok says it is investigating remarks allegedly made by a senior executive disparaging the concept of maternity leave, amid reports he is stepping back from his role.Joshua Ma, the head of the company’s e-commerce division across Europe, told staff that as a “capitalist”, he “didn’t believe” firms should offer maternity leave, according to a report in the Financial Times on Wednesday. Continue reading...

The comedian and musician shares his favourite online japes, including a Lana Del Rey love song to Stuart Little, a pigeon at Pride and a Lee Lin Chin blooper

PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One; 2K Games/Supermassive Games

In this week’s newsletter: Apple’s CarPlay updates put a dizzying amount of information at a driver’s fingertips – for good or bad. Plus, Elon Musk continues to try not to buy Twitter

Have teenagers taken control of publishing? With some authors notching up a billion views, we look at how TikTok is electrifying the world of books – creating bestsellers, reviving classics and rescuing neglected genresIt’s four o’clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon and the Krispy Kreme doughnut stall is doing a brisk trade at Lakeside shopping centre, a huge mall in Essex. But a few metres further along, young shoppers are salivating over a different sort of treat. A girl in a silky red dress runs her fingers along the spines of nine novels by bestselling YA author Colleen Hoover, while a couple of twentysomething men in biker jackets pore over shelves of manga comics. They’re in a Waterstones that has been laid out like a pick-and-mix stall, with brightly jacketed paperbacks piled on round tables, or grouped seductively in booths, under headings such as “Romance” or “LGBTQ+”. Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper – a graphic novel series about a love affair between two schoolboys that’s now a Netflix show – has a table to itself.All this is down to #BookTok, a niche on the platform TikTok that became a social media sensation in the early months of Covid, and has been gathering momentum ever since. “We used to rely on millennials,” says the store’s 30-year-old manager, Peter. “But now the majority of our customers are teenagers, who have money and influence and want to find their own stories. A lot of black and Asian authors are coming through. I always wanted to have an LGBTQ section and now it wouldn’t make sense not to. It’s exciting. You can see publishing changing. It’s made it fun to come into work.” Continue reading...

Tech giant was ordered to pay $715,000 over YouTube videos but academics say courts may struggle to enforce it

Bloc agrees move to legally require all smartphones to use common charger within two yearsThe EU has paved the way for all smartphones to be legally required to use a USB-C port for charging, a move that could be a headache for Apple, whose iPhone is the only main brand smartphone without this type of connection.The EU’s agreement will apply from autumn 2024 for all smartphones sold in the bloc, a decision that could substantially impact Apple as the iPhone uses Apple’s lightning port for wired charging. Continue reading...

In the next version of the Apple app, you’ll be able to click ‘unsend’ and your message will disappear. Could this be the end of the drunken text?Name: Unsending.Age: Brand new, long overdue. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: from pure escape watches to gripping adventures, my fellow backseat gamers on titles that are as good to view as to play

Worldwide developer conference begins with changes to iPhone operating system and redesigned version of cheapest laptopApple is taking on Klarna and ClearPay with a new “buy now, pay later” feature for iPhones, the company has announced at its worldwide developer conference.The company is also redesigning the iPhone’s lock screen, in the most substantial visual redesign the operating system for iPhones has received since the introduction of the iPhone X, and introducing a new version of the MacBook Air built around its M2 chip.The Messages app will allow users to edit, or even recall, iMessages sent in error.Dictation has been redesigned to make it easier to switch between dictating text and editing it with a keyboard.Live text will now work with video, letting users cut and paste text from a paused video still.Apple Maps lets users add multiple stops to a route, and sync them between iOS and Macs.A new “shared photo library” allows families to seamlessly bundle all their pictures taken together in one shared online library.“Safety Check” lets people leaving abusive relationships sever all access given to other people with one click.The Fitness app, once limited to users with an Apple Watch, will now be on iPhones too, tracking steps and movement.“Continuity camera” lets you use your iPhone as a webcam for any Mac computer. Continue reading...

Company accused of refusing to provide sufficient information about number of false usersElon Musk has accused Twitter of committing a “material breach” of his $44bn (£35bn) agreement to buy the company and has threatened to terminate the deal, in the clearest indication yet that the world’s richest man is preparing to walk away from the takeover.Musk’s lawyers have written to Twitter accusing it of refusing to provide sufficient information about the number of false users on the service, as part of a simmering dispute over the number of spam and fake accounts that populate the platform. Continue reading...

New computers, iPad overhaul and expanded Messages app on the cards, with AR glasses a possibilityApple is to reveal details of the software updates coming to its phones, tablets and computers, in the company’s annual worldwide developers’ conference (WWDC).But while new computers, an expanded Messages app, and an overhaul of the iPad’s software to make it more like a laptop are all on the cards, the biggest question mark on Monday is whether Apple will show any evidence of its forthcoming augmented reality – or AR – glasses. Continue reading...

If successful, the store in Towson, Maryland, would be the first to unionize at the US tech companyWorkers at an Apple store in Towson, Maryland, are set to begin their in-person union election on 15 June and, if successful, the store would be the first to unionize at the US tech company.Workers at the Maryland store – calling themselves the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees (AppleCore) – went public on 3 May with their intent to hold a union election, with the assistance of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), shortly after an Apple store in Atlanta filed for a union election. Continue reading...

Curious Bird; PC, Mac

From epic data mining to shocking failures of content moderation, Meta’s COO passes on a vast clean-up jobIf you are reading this, odds are that you are one of the 2.87 billion daily users of the products offered by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. If you are not using any of these products, you are connected to people who do use them. And this connects you to Sheryl Sandberg, who resigned last week from her role as Meta’s chief operating officer.Even if you have never met her, interacted directly with her or read her books on corporate feminism or bereavement, Sandberg has had an impact on your life. She’s not the only reason that our data is tracked online, whether we use Meta’s products or not. Many others have helped to create and exploit an entire industry that profits from our data. What’s more, lawmakers and regulators worldwide have done little to stop this, in no small part because companies like the ones Sandberg helped run spend millions of dollars every year lobbying to prevent or water down any attempts at regulation. Continue reading...

German carmaker says move due to a potential problem with the braking systemMercedes-Benz has announced it is immediately recalling nearly one million older vehicles worldwide due to a potential problem with the braking system.Germany’s federal transport authority (KBA) said that the recall affected cars built between 2004 and 2015 of the SUV series ML and GL, and the R-Class luxury minivan. Continue reading...

A new wave of enthusiasts are eschewing the multi-megapixel convenience of digital photography in favour of an older, slower, ‘magical’ techIndi Shields first discovered film in the drawer of her childhood home. “The first film camera I picked up was my great grandfather’s,” she says. “It felt so special to hold it and use it in the same way that he used to. Even though I never got to meet him.”While Shields was already taking analogue photographs before the pandemic began, the way she used it shifted during lockdowns. Where once the camera would only come out at big events like birthday parties, she found herself snapping away at “mundane things like my friend watching TV on the couch or the tunnel I walk through to get to the train – just because these are sweet little moments I want to look back on or remember in five or 10 years.” Continue reading...

A lot of investors don’t understand their liability, warn tax agents, while others call for the complicated Australian system to be overhauledAs tax time approaches in Australia, cryptocurrency investors have been warned to begin working out what they owe.Some lessons can be drawn from the recent US tax season, where some enthusiasts found themselves with a tax bill that exceeded their earnings after the recent crypto market crash. Continue reading...

Chau Chak Wing Museum is Australia’s first to offer visitors colour-vision-enhancing glasses. So what happens when one man tries them on?

US farmers’ struggles for the right to fix their own, now highly computer-controlled equipment, have implications for us allIt was one of the few pieces of cheery news to emerge from the war in Ukraine. Russian looters, no doubt with the assistance of Russian troops, stole 27 pieces of John Deere farm equipment, worth about $5m, from a dealership in Melitopol. The kit was shipped to Chechnya, where a nasty surprise awaited the crooks. Their shiny new vehicles had, overnight, become the world’s heaviest paperweights: the dealership from which they had been stolen had “bricked” them remotely, using an inbuilt “kill-switch”.This news item no doubt warmed the cockles of many a western heart. But it would have raised only hollow laughs from farmers in US states who are customers of John Deere and are mightily pissed off, because although they have paid small fortunes (up to $800,000 apparently) for the firm’s machinery, they are unable to service or repair them when they go wrong. These gigantic vehicles are no longer purely mechanical devices, but depend on lots of electronic control units (ECUs) to operate everything from the air conditioning to the driver’s seat to the engine. The ICUs run software that is essential to the operation, maintenance and repair of the machine. But only John Deere has access to that computer code and without employing a company technician the tractor’s software won’t even recognise (let alone allow) replacement parts from another manufacturer. Continue reading...

The 21st century will be make or break for humanity, says Oxford University transhumanist Elise Bohan. If we get it right, she thinks we might find something better

The robotic electric cabs will be restricted to less congested times and places until regulators can assess its safetyCalifornia regulators on Thursday gave a robotic taxi service the green light to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco, a first in a state where dozens of companies have been trying to train vehicles to steer themselves on increasingly congested roads.The California Public Utilities Commission unanimously granted Cruise, a company controlled by automaker General Motors, approval to launch its driverless ride-hailing service. The regulators issued the permit despite safety concerns arising from Cruise’s inability to pick up and drop off passengers at the curb in its autonomous taxis, requiring the vehicles to double park in traffic lanes. Continue reading...

US regulators investigating hundreds of reports that self-driving models 3 and Y have braked on highwaysMore than 750 Tesla owners have complained to US safety regulators that cars operating on the automaker’s partially automated driving systems have suddenly stopped on roadways for no apparent reason.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revealed the number in a detailed information request letter to Tesla that was posted on Friday on the agency’s website. Continue reading...

Email to executives also calls for hiring freeze at electric car maker, which has 100,000 staff worldwideElon Musk is considering a hiring freeze and job cuts of up to 10% of staff at Tesla because he has a “super bad feeling” about the state of the economy, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.Tesla currently has about 5,000 job openings advertised worldwide, and 100,000 employees. The email was sent to Tesla executives late on Thursday with the subject line “pause all hiring worldwide”, and comes days after Musk ordered all employees to return to the office for at least 40 hours a week or face immediate termination. Continue reading...

This seductive sandbox attracts Washington lawyers and real-life rocket scientists to a safe space for virtual villainyAs the roar of revellers reverberates around a rowdy Reykjavik, you would be forgiven for thinking this was an average Friday night. Yet among the bearded Icelanders quietly sipping their Einstök is a different kind of drinker: multiplayer spaceship game EVE Online’s intergalactic elite. On one May weekend each year, this island becomes the playground of the world’s most devoted gaming community.For those who don’t know their Minmatar from their Caldari, EVE Online is a hugely complex player-led video game, a virtual spaceship sandbox where – in the right hands – spreadsheets are as powerful as space fleets. Its complex history has been written by its players, with numerous fascinating tales of wars, betrayals and heists. Because the developers of the game rarely interfere, EVE is an experience that often feels less like a video game and more like a libertarian social experiment. As such, it attracts an intellectual – and extremely driven – player base. Continue reading...

The return of the hit zombie sequel topped the bill during online showcase, which also featured a new Final Fantasy 16 trailerThe long-awaited remake of acclaimed zombie adventure Resident Evil 4 was the highlight of Sony’s State of Play online showcase on Thursday evening.The 2005 original marked a radical change in direction for the Resident Evil series, with a new focus on action and a refreshed “behind-the-shoulder” camera view to replace the creaking third-person visuals. A story posted on Sony’s blog following the half-hour long event, promised that the remake would preserve the essence of the game while “re-imagining” the story, modernising the visuals and updating the controls. The teaser for the game also promised virtual reality content for the PlayStation VR headset. A release date of 24 March 2023 was given. Continue reading...

Ex-employee of the NFT marketplace, Nathaniel Chastain, charged with wire fraud and money launderingAn ex-employee of the leading non-fungible tokens (NFT) marketplace has been charged with wire fraud and money-laundering offences in a sign that US law enforcement will no longer turn a blind eye to the crypto economy.Nathaniel Chastain left his job as a product manager at OpenSea, the largest marketplace for NFTs – the unique crypto assets used to denote ownership of items such as digital art – after being accused of insider trading. Continue reading...

PC, Nintendo Switch; Devolver/Nerial

In this week’s newsletter: Gay Pride & Prejudice follows a single gay man as his chosen family marry off. Plus: five of the best history podcasts

The chief operating officer saw Facebook through multiple controversies and turned into the profitable juggernaut it is todaySheryl Sandberg announced on Wednesday she will step down from her role as chief operating officer of Facebook, after 14 years as one of the most powerful figures at a company that transformed Silicon Valley.During her time at Facebook, now Meta, she saw the company through a meteoric rise and an ongoing storm of controversies. Sandberg herself transformed into a controversial figurehead for corporate feminism following the release of her book Lean In, which became a seminal manifesto for women in the workplace. Continue reading...

Sandberg joined the company in 2008 and will leave the company this fall, although she will continue to be on Meta’s boardSheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and its parent company Meta, has announced she will step down from her role, ending 14 years in the job that made her one of the most powerful figures in the tech world and saw the company weather a meteoric rise and multiple controversies.Sandberg announced the move in a post on her own Facebook page on Wednesday, adding that she was not sure of what the future holds for her but plans to focus on her foundation and philanthropic work going forward. Continue reading...

The comedian and Triple J host shares online bits and pieces that make him laugh, including very specific impressions, chaotic nightclub photos and a quiz about a dragon

Neither Musk nor Tesla confirmed he sent memo with remark but the CEO tweeted: ‘They should pretend to work somewhere else’Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive, has asked employees to return to the office or “pretend to work somewhere else”, according to a memo sent to staff.About 30% of US office workers are still working from home, according to Nick Bloom, a Stanford economics professor and co-founder of Working from Home Research Project. Many companies are moving to a hybrid work model where staff will come in two or three days a week. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: When I was sent DMs asking for advice about Tsuka, a new coin I was supposedly involved in, I could never have expected what happened next

Annie Hardy plays a livestream host so toxic that even zombies struggle to deal with herNasty, brutish and mercifully short, but occasionally mildly amusing, Dashcam represents another dollop of pandemic-themed shock schlock from writer-director Rob Savage, recently renowned for his lockdown-set horror pic Host. This time around, Savage has exchanged Host’s Zoom-chat framing device for a Discord stream, with comments and emojis scrolling up from the bottom of the screen as a fictional audience reacts to the main content. This will probably need a lot of explaining to viewers in 20 years’ time, but for now it seems very à la mode and down with the kids, as is the blurry gore-soaked violence, smutty material (get ready for lots of jokes about anal insertions) and air of cynicism.The star of the show is Annie Hardy, a social media star apparently playing a version of her IRL self: she is an intentionally abrasive millennial Maga fan, whose usual gig is driving around Los Angeles livestreaming and improvising raps in response to suggestions from her fanbase. Unfortunately, lockdown has thinned the action on the streets, apart from the odd naked cyclist. So Annie flies over to the UK to visit her old friend and former bandmate Stretch (Amar Chadha-Patel), who in the years since he’s seen Annie last has got less amused by her racism and refusal to conform by, for instance, wearing a mask around others. Hardy is a personification of everything that is obnoxious about the American right, but seemingly about as unkillable as a cockroach or Donald Trump’s political career judging by the way she navigates through a zombie apocalypse that starts out of nowhere. Continue reading...

Treasury inquiry told ‘crypto is high-risk and unsophisticated investors are at high risk of losing significant funds’

In this extract from his new book, Sam Wallman recalls working as an Amazon picker – walking 30km a day with a constantly pinging timerThis is an edited extract from Our Members Be Unlimited by Sam Wallman (Scribe, $39.99, out now). Continue reading...

Readers of the Guardian can now access our journalism entirely within the Tor network – an internet communication system designed to promote online privacy and offer enhanced protection from digital surveillanceThe Guardian website is now available to Tor users as an “onion service”, at the address:https://www.guardian2zotagl6tmjucg3lrhxdk4dw3lhbqnkvvkywawy3oqfoprid.onion Continue reading...

People living in a Lagos care home are enjoying a break in routine with a virtual mix of therapy and entertainment delivered via headsetIn the living room of the Regina Mundi care home in Lagos, 70-year-old Baba Raphael hauls himself up from his chair and puts on a virtual reality headset. For nine minutes, Raphael dances to the folksy tones of his favourite singer, the late Ayinla Omowura, while watching a music video.“Are you enjoying it?” one of the staff asks Raphael. He doesn’t answer, oblivious as he sings along. Continue reading...

Compact earphones have a central hole so you can hear what is going on around you while you listen or talkPersonal audio has taken a bizarre turn with Sony’s latest attempt to reinvent the earbud. The weird doughnut-shaped speaker with a hole in the middle allows you to listen to music without blocking out the world.The LinkBuds are the first in a new line of earbuds from Sony that aim to let you listen to music but also have awareness of what is going on around you. They cost £149 ($179/A$319) and compete with earbuds such as Apple’s standard AirPods and Google’s Pixel Buds A.Water resistance: IPX4 (sweat)Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.2, SBC, AACBattery life: 5.5 hours/2.5 hours talk, up to 17.5 hours with caseEarbud weight: 4.1gDriver size: 12mm ringCharging case weight: 34gCase dimensions: 41.4 x 48.5 x 30.9mmCase charging: USB-C Continue reading...

The Paypal Mafia’s lynchpin is putting his vast tech fortune to work for candidates aligned to Trump’s agenda in the midtermsAs the Republican party primaries play out across the US, the most sought after endorsement is still that of former president Donald Trump. But when it comes to the most vital part of any American campaign – money – another figure is emerging on the right of US politics who is becoming equally significant.Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder and former CEO referred to as the “don” of the original PayPal Mafia, a group that included Elon Musk, is establishing himself as a serious power player in American rightwing politics by wielding the power of his vast fortune. Continue reading...

Ellis Parry created the Alfred app to help the rehabilitation process after his twin brother suffered a devastating accidentIdentical twins Luke and Ellis Parry were studying engineering at Oxford in 2012 when Luke suffered a devastating brain injury after falling from a balcony. Doctors told Ellis that his brother only had hours to live.A decade later, Luke is now in work and is training to be a Paralympic athlete. Much of this remarkable recovery is due to his own strength of character, although his recuperation has also been helped by his brother. Ellis has set up Neumind, a company developing a next-generation app to help individuals with neurological conditions live independent lives. Continue reading...

Employees within Meta say the move amid the standoff with the Morrison government was no accident

Clearview AI was fined for using internet-sourced images of UK residents in its database – but not before police forces used its serviceLast week, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) slapped a £7.5m fine on a smallish tech company called Clearview AI for “using images of people in the UK, and elsewhere, that were collected from the web and social media to create a global online database that could be used for facial recognition”. The ICO also issued an enforcement notice, ordering the company to stop obtaining and using the personal data of UK residents that is publicly available on the internet and to delete the data of UK residents from its systems.Since Clearview AI is not exactly a household name some background might be helpful. It’s a US outfit that has “scraped” (ie digitally collected) more than 20bn images of people’s faces from publicly available information on the internet and social media platforms all over the world to create an online database. The company uses this database to provide a service that allows customers to upload an image of a person to its app, which is then checked for a match against all the images in the database. The app produces a list of images that have similar characteristics to those in the photo provided by the customer, together with a link to the websites whence those images came. Clearview describes its business as “building a secure world, one face at a time”. Continue reading...

The billionaire has received loans and tax breaks to help keep Tesla afloat, now he says other companies should go bankrupt for the good of the economyWith the invasion of Ukraine and lockdowns in China putting added pressure on a supply chain that has yet to recover from the ongoing pandemic, many are predicting a global recession. Elon Musk says bring it on.“This is actually a good thing,” Musk said in response to a question from a Twitter user. “It has been raining money on fools for too long. Some bankruptcies need to happen. Continue reading...

Creating a machine that can perform the delicate work of picking an apple is tricky – and farmworkers say it could be a benefitRobots can do a lot. They build cars in factories. They sort goods in Amazon warehouses. Robotic dogs can, allegedly and a little creepily, make us safer by patrolling our streets. But there are some things robots still cannot do – things that sound quite basic in comparison. Like picking an apple from a tree.“It’s a simple thing” for humans, says robotics researcher Joe Davidson. “You and I, we could close our eyes, reach into the tree. We could feel around, touch it, and say ‘hey, that’s an apple and the stem’s up here’. Pull, twist. We could do all that without even looking.” Continue reading...

A chance array of possessions gave the camera-shy Spanish stylist the inspiration for a revealing self-portraitAlmudena López Calafate is no hoarder, but she doesn’t like to throw things in the bin unnecessarily. The red roses on her bedroom dressing cabinet were from her then boyfriend – a gift given with love – and she had held on to them even once they had wilted. The stylist, who hails from Spain, was getting dressed one morning and was drawn by the contrast of her yellow skirt against the muted trinkets.“On the right is an old photo of my mum in the 70s,” she says, “and to the left are stones I found on the beach, amulets, perfume bottles. The only thing I repositioned is the rose reflected in the handheld mirror. I love reflections; they make me think of Alice in Wonderland, of mystery and distortion.” Continue reading...