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NSPCC says tech firms and MPs must back bill after UK police data shows scale of child abuse happening on social media'Tens of thousands of online grooming crimes have been recorded during the wait for updated online safety laws.The online safety bill is expected to become law in the autumn, but has faced a lengthy route to the statute book with repeated changes and delays to the proposed legislation. Continue reading...

Social media app, launched in the wake of Twitter chaos, recorded 576,000 active users in August, down 79% from 2.3 million in JulyThe daily usage of Threads, Meta's answer to Twitter, continues to slump after a strong start in its first weeks of existence.Engagement with the social media app is down 79% from a high of 2.3 million active users in early July to 576,000 as of 7 August, according to Similarweb, a digital intelligence platform. Continue reading...

A hit-and-miss documentary often struggles to explain the hows and whys of the Bangladesh Central Bank cyber heist of 2016Cybercrime, on top of being difficult to detect and even more so to prove, is notoriously tricky to visualize. The impact may be tangible, even devastating - nuclear plants damaged, hospitals disabled, pipelines shut down - but the perpetrators are shadowy and inscrutable, the crime unseen and insidious, the methods vague and indecipherable to lay people without a knack for computer science.Billion Dollar Heist, a new feature-length documentary, attempts the formidable challenge of turning one of the biggest financial crimes in history - the February 2016 cyber heist of $81m from the US Federal Reserve accounts for the central bank of Bangladesh - into informative entertainment. Director Daniel Gordon employs a range of cinematic techniques - some illuminative, some overly cliched - to get at a highly sophisticated cyber crime involving several countries, time zones and financial institutions. Among them: animation, dramatic recreation, stock footage of beeping ones and zeros, archival footage on the relatively brief history of hacking, ominous narration from British broadcaster and cybersecurity journalist Misha Glenny. Continue reading...

Walking robot who looks like a Nazi youth leader turns out - surprise surprise - to have creepy designs on his ownerAs if the future of AI wasn't already nightmarish enough, along comes this British sci-fi thriller with its storyline about an AI servant becoming dangerously infatuated with his female owner. It's a creepy premise: a cross between Fatal Attraction and The Servant, Harold Pinter and Joseph Losey's 1963 drama about a malevolent manservant. Though in the end TIM might be too silly to be scary and yet not sharp enough to work as satire.Part of the problem is the AI itself, a humanoid robot inoffensively named TIM (short for technologically integrated manservant"), played by Eamon Farren. There's no question of keeping us guessing about his intentions: TIM is sinister from the get-go. With his slicked-down blond hair and penetrating blue-eye stare, he looks like a spoof of a Nazi youth leader with a flash of Hannibal Lecter. Continue reading...

Lighter, slicker, gapless folder has great multitasking software and rapid chip - but extremely high priceSamsung's latest folding phone-tablet sets new standards for the most hi-tech of gadgets - and with it comes a very high price tag.The Galaxy Z Fold 5 is an important update for Samsung in the face of stiff new competition from the Google Pixel line. The new folder costs 1,749 ($1,799.99/A$2,599), making it 100 more than last year's excellent Fold 4 and the same eye-wateringly expensive price as Google's Fold. Continue reading...

Meta boss says time to move on' after Twitter owner fails to name date and says he needs surgeryMark Zuckerberg has said he is moving on from a rumoured cage fight with Elon Musk, claiming the Tesla boss isn't serious".The rival billionaire tech bosses seemingly agreed to a brawl in June when Musk tweeted that he was up for a cage fight". Continue reading...

Technology proves able to identify dozens of species in thousands of hours of recordingsResearchers have developed arrays of AI-controlled cameras and microphones to identify animals and birds and to monitor their movements in the wild - technology, they say, that should help tackle Britain's growing biodiversity problem.The robot monitors have been tested at three sites and have captured sounds and images from which computers were able to identify specific species and map their locations. Dozens of different birds were recognised from their songs while foxes, deer, hedgehogs and bats were pinpointed and identified by AI analysis. No human observers are involved. Continue reading...

Lifestyle and shopping apps are the latest weapons in Beijing's information war against its neighbourAriel Lo spends a couple of hours most weeks sharing anime art and memes on Chinese apps, often chatting with friends in China in a Mandarin slightly different from the one she uses at home in Taiwan.People use English on Instagram, and for Chinese apps they use Chinese phrases. If I am talking to friends in China, I would use them," Lo said as she picked up a bubble tea at a street market in central Taichung city. Continue reading...

The most marvellous app I've had the good fortune to click on has become the subject of the latest moral panicFor the vast majority of human history, it has been impossible for anyone - no matter their wealth or status - to watch a video of a man who eats entire blocks of cheese followed by a video of a woman who dresses like Dr Nick Riviera from The Simpsons.I've done this - I have done what my ancestors could never have dared to dream - thanks to TikTok. The video-sharing app needs no introduction, because you've undoubtedly already read endless scaremongering headlines claiming it's about to destroy us all. Continue reading...

District 9 director Neill Blomkamp's true-life tale is unable to swerve the cliches yet delivers pedal-to-the-metal entertainmentSouth African-Canadian director Neill Blomkamp arrived with a bang in 2009 thanks to District 9, an urgent sci-fi fable that used modern fears of extraterrestrial invaders to tell an old-as-time story of racism and segregation. Blomkamp's interest in wryly satirical socioeconomic sci-fi continued through the big-budget ecocide parable Elysium (2013) and the altogether more anarchically scrappy Chappie (2015) in which a sentient armoured police robot is led into a life of crime.On the surface, this based on a true story" account of video gamer turned race car driver Jann Mardenborough may seem like a left turn for a film-maker whose career has been built on adventurous fantasy. But if the story of a Darlington-born son of a former professional footballer parlaying video-gaming skills into international racetrack success is not the stuff of fantasy, then frankly what is? While the narrative roots may be real", at heart this is essentially The Last Starfighter with fast cars standing in for spaceships. No wonder Speed Racer (the manga/anime hit that the Wachowskis adapted for the screen in 2008) gets a cheeky namecheck. Continue reading...

Artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Atmospheric Memory allows visitors to interact with generative tech - and become part of the show in unexpected ways

Using VR and haptic vests to transport users to a sweaty club in 1980s Britain, In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats is so realistic that you might need a lie down afterwards

UK governments let processor manufacturing drift overseas for years. Now Covid and war have shown how vital homegrown capability is, the country is scrambling to catch up. But so is everyone elseFor a short time in the late 1990s, passengers stepping off the train at Newcastle station were greeted with a bold slogan: Fish Into Chips - From Mackerel Economy To Micro Technology. Invest In North Tyneside - Siemens Did."As globalisation marched ever onwards after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this painfully British pun spoke of a swagger on the world stage. It referred to a vast 1.1bn microchip factory that the German industrial giant had just opened in the Wallsend area of the city, in a deal greased by taxpayer funding and personally brokered by John Major. Continue reading...

If you thought social media had a hand in getting Trump elected, watch what happens when you throw AI into the mixIt looks like 2024 will be a pivotal year for democracy. There are elections taking place all over the free world - in South Africa, Ghana, Tunisia, Mexico, India, Austria, Belgium, Lithuania, Moldova and Slovakia, to name just a few. And of course there's also the UK and the US. Of these, the last may be the most pivotal because: Donald Trump is a racing certainty to be the Republican candidate; a significant segment of the voting population seems to believe that the 2020 election was stolen"; and the Democrats are, well... underwhelming.The consequences of a Trump victory would be epochal. It would mean the end (for the time being, at least) of the US experiment with democracy, because the people behind Trump have been assiduously making what the normally sober Economist describes as meticulous, ruthless preparations" for his second, vengeful term. The US would morph into an authoritarian state, Ukraine would be abandoned and US corporations unhindered in maximising shareholder value while incinerating the planet. Continue reading...

Deputy PM says technology may aid faster government decisions - but warns of massive hacking risksArtificial intelligence could have a more significant impact on Britain than the Industrial Revolution, the deputy prime minister has said, but warned it could be used by hackers to access sensitive information from the government.Oliver Dowden said AI could speed up productivity and perform boring aspects of jobs. Continue reading...

X owner in talks with government over historic site for event - though Colosseum and Rome ruled outElon Musk is in talks with Italy's government about hosting his proposed cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg at a historic site in the country, but the Colosseum has been ruled out as a venue.The owner of X Corp and the chief executive of Facebook-owner Meta first raised the idea of a one-on-one scrap in a series of social media posts back in June. The challenge came as Zuckerberg prepared to launch Threads, a rival microblogging site to Musk's now rebranded Twitter platform. Continue reading...

When the Taiwanese photographer lived in Japan, he found the working days were long and conforming was essentialReflecting on his three years in Japan, Taiwan-based photographer Jeff Liang says, Someone said to me once that Japanese society is like nigiri rice - that's a perfect bowl' of rice, formed with your hands: nothing can fall out, or stick out - every single grain of rice must stick together to make it work. In Japanese culture, conforming is deemed essential."He had arrived in Japan on a working holiday visa and found a job as a souvenir shop clerk in Osaka, before being hired as a photographer and designer for an app. His office was in Shibuya, one of Tokyo's busiest areas. I was working for a Taiwanese company though, so my working day was only 10am to 8pm. It sounds long, but that's pretty short by Tokyo standards. From 8am to 10pm is more normal. People are afraid to leave early and make a bad impression." Continue reading...

This week in artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is either going to save humanity or finish it off, depending on who you speak to. Either way, every week there are new developments and breakthroughs. Here are just some of the AI stories that have emerged in recent days:Just accept the tech, architects!" Oliver Wainwright, our architecture and design critic, looks at whether AI will wipe out architects. Teaser: it can quickly show you what mosques in Abu Dhabi could look like, summarises local planning policies and allows the public to experiment with projects. If architects want to explore the endless world of AI, they can start by viewing AI as their perfectly on-time, organised and eager studio assistant.

For most, giving up a smartphone in 2023 would be an almost inconceivable inconvenience. But those who've done it say they found delight with dumber devices

Offer a wooden city a helping hand in this beguiling Australian climate puzzlerIf you've ever spent time in Melbourne, Australia, you will undoubtedly have heard a local explain their four seasons in one day" lifestyle. Perhaps you were told to pack a raincoat and some heavy-duty sunscreen, or warned of hail on a sunny day. This typical Melbournian weather chatter is something the team at Paper House revelled in when developing their cosy god game Wood and Weather, imbuing it with a distinctly local feel.What makes the weather interesting is how humans react and interpret it," says game director Terry Burdak, who took an introductory course at the Bureau of Meteorology during Wood and Weather's development. I wanted to create a game where you get to see a bunch of little people respond to the change of weather in unexpected ways and how it can influence their lives." Continue reading...

Surf across an ever-shifting ocean of sand and battle giant leviathans in the latest game from Giant Squid, makers of Abzu and The PathlessThere's a joyous moment in the 2012 game Journey where, in a break from trudging through the desert, your robed character surfs effortlessly down a mountain of shifting sand while Austin Wintory's award-winning soundtrack rises into an uplifting, triumphant melody. Sword of the Sea feels like that joyous moment has been stretched into an entire game.Matt Nava, director of Sword of the Sea, says that he set out to create something fresh in the snowboarding/surfing genre, where the sea is made of undulating, ever-moving sand, and your surfboard doubles up as a weapon. Nava was the art director for Journey, but he left thatgamecompany shortly after Journey's release to co-found Giant Squid, which launched the serene underwater exploration game Abzu in 2016, followed by third-person action adventure The Pathless in 2020. Sword of the Sea mixes elements from all of Nava's previous games. I think people definitely are going to feel that connection to Journey," he says, not least because Austin Wintory is returning to compose the soundtrack, but also because Sword of the Sea tells an emotive story without any dialogue - or as Nava puts it, creating narrative with colour and music and space". Continue reading...

Notice sent to employees who were not in office at least three times a week, after other tech firms' efforts to get workers back on siteAmazon workers in the US are being tracked and penalized for not spending sufficient time in the company's offices, an email sent to employees this week revealed, as tech companies push back against work-from-home practices that flourished during the pandemic.Some staff members were alerted on Wednesday they were not currently meeting our expectation of joining your colleagues in the office at least three days a week", according to emails shared with the Financial Times. The emails were also discussed on the anonymous corporate message board platform Blind. Continue reading...

Platform rebranded X last month lists 584 lots including Twitter signs, a wooden bird table and outsized bird cagesElon Musk is to auction Twitter memorabilia from its San Francisco headquarters following the social media platform's switch to the name X, including its former bird logo from the side of the building.The billionaire rebranded the site late last month with a new logo, an X, replacing its distinctive bird symbol. On announcing the move, Musk tweeted: And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds." Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: The Match of the Day presenter joins Alan Shearer and Micah Richards for The Rest Is Football, just in time for the new season. Plus: five of the best summer podcasts

More refined flip phone gets better screen on the outside, gapless hinge and faster chipsSamsung's popular folding-screen flip phone gains a bigger, more useful screen on the outside for its fifth generation, while keeping its stylish looks with a sleeker gapless design when shut.The new Z Flip 5 costs 1,049 ($999/A$1,649) - 50 more than last year's model - and comes with twice the starting storage and a collection of small but meaningful upgrades. There is no doubt that folding tech still commands a premium, with prices similar to high-end Androids and iPhones. Continue reading...

Ben Joseph Andrews' chronic vestibular condition leaves him with migraines and dizziness - which he has transformed into a VR experience. Luke Buckmaster gives it a go

Early stage talks are expected to include a potential tool fans could use to make AI-generated songsGoogle and Universal Music are negotiating a deal on how to license the voices and melodies of artists for artificial intelligence-generated songs.The talks are expected to include the potential development of a tool for fans where individuals could make AI-generated songs but the relevant copyright owners would be paid. The artists would have a choice to opt in to the process. Continue reading...

Creative director Hannah Nicklin explains how the narrative adventure game offers a far-reaching new take on storytellingWhat does it mean to play a video game as an ensemble rather than a single character? How would it change your experience of people and plot? What if there was no single hero, or perhaps no heroes at all? As Hannah Nicklin, a creative director at independent studio Die Gute Fabrik explains, these are questions that narrative adventure Saltsea Chronicles is attempting to answer, all while telling its own charming story of misfit sailors voyaging across a flooded archipelago to uncover a conspiracy.It's a lofty pitch, and one Nicklin brings back down to earth with a comparison: Star Trek: The Next Generation without the manifest destiny" - a description that hints at the game's politics and its structure. We take that ensemble cast, and we put you in the centre of a mystery that you are trying to uncover," she says. You're on the ship and often get to choose which islands to visit. You choose who forms the expedition party and what they say when they get there." All this plays out across gorgeously rendered environments, like a classic LucasArts adventure game of the 1990s with the visual the flair of a European arthouse cartoon. Logic puzzles make way for an emphasis on character, world-building, and exploration - the simple pleasures of getting to know a people and place. Continue reading...

The culture, media and sport select committee has warned of risks not just to workers' jobs but also their autonomyRishi Sunak will gather world leaders in London this autumn for a summit on safety in artificial intelligence, after expressing concern about the existential risks" of the rapidly evolving technology.Apparently, even our wannabe tech bro prime minister - currently holidaying in California - is willing to acknowledge the potential need for state intervention to prevent AI going rogue. Continue reading...

The tech company's latest proposal about generative AI turns copyright law on its head, and could especially hurt smaller content creators, say experts

Names and addresses of 40 million registered voters were accessible as far back as 2021 after cyber-attackConfidence in the UK's electoral regulator has been thrown into question after it emerged a hostile cyber-attack accessing the data of 40 million voters went undetected for a year and the public was not told for another 10 months.The Electoral Commission apologised for the security breach in which the names and addresses of all voters registered between 2014 and 2022 were open to hostile actors" as far back as August 2021. Continue reading...

Electoral Commission hack is reminder of importance of protecting democratic system where it countsIt turns out that while Conservative ministers were spending hours of parliamentary time in 2021-22 introducing requirements for voters to produce ID at polling stations - to protect elections against a threat most experts believed was negligible - the Electoral Commission was being hacked by hostile actors".These hackers, who have not been identified and whose motivations are unclear, were able to access the data, such as home addresses, of millions of voters, many of whom choose not to make that information publicly available. Continue reading...

From a sweetshop in Stevenage to good old Marks & Spencer, British businesses are using live events to spice up their online businesses. And the money is pouring in ...Zainab Hakim finds it tiring to go to the shops but thinks she might be addicted to shopping. She's a 23-year-old receptionist from Birmingham, and doesn't visit the high street to buy clothes - she watches sellers livestream on the social media site TikTok, peddling their wares in real time. With a couple of clicks, she can buy things via the app. I probably have an addiction at this point," she says. I just get sucked in."At any time of day, you can scroll through TikTok Live and see someone selling all sorts of things - from clothes to fitness equipment to toys to sweets, cakes, crystals and coffee mugs. One afternoon in 2022, Hakim bought eight items from eight sellers. It's things you don't even need," she says. Recently, she bought a kitchen gadget that spiralises potatoes, simply because it looked cool". She especially likes buying clothes because, You can ask them to show you the material and they'll bring it up close to the camera so you get an idea of what you're buying." Continue reading...

Inspired by folding up a piece of paper, Henry and Fred Hoffman explain their new game's spatial manipulation mechanic - even the British Origami Society likes itMany ideas start on paper, few go on to be made of it. Yet, when brothers Henry and Fred Hoffman, the duo behind Norwich-based Newfangled Games, sketched their level ideas for a new platformer and then began manipulating the A4 sheet in their hands, Paper Trail was born.The top-down puzzle adventure employs a spatial manipulation mechanic, allowing you to fold its planes and merge its sides to solve puzzles. You play as Paige (get it?), a budding academic leaving home for the first time to pursue her studies, spurred on by this unique ability. Continue reading...

In social media quibble, Musk causes confusion by saying he will livestream fight - and one day later saying he has back problemsMark Zuckerberg has said he is not holding his breath" over a proposed cage fight with Elon Musk, as he revealed that he had suggested a date of 26 August for the contest.The Facebook co-founder posted on the Threads app that he was ready today" for a bout but that he had not received confirmation from the Tesla chief executive and world's richest man. Continue reading...

Elaine Bennett believes the increasing use of technology is only serving to further isolate some people in a neurotypical worldI disagree with your correspondent (Letters, 3 August) that a ban on mobile phones in schools will impact pupils with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) negatively. People with ASD are already at risk of being pushed away from contact with other people and offered technology as an answer to every need.I have ASD and I'm increasingly finding that the answers to any difficulties I have are all technological ones, often involving a smartphone that I don't have. Having ASD does not equate to preferring to not speak to other humans. I feel that technology is being used as another way to silo people out of a neurotypical world. Continue reading...

People scoffed at the idea of electric vehicles for the masses. But now a Tesla hatchback has outsold the Toyota CorollaAn intriguing news item dropped into my inbox this week. It said that in the first quarter of this year, an electric vehicle (EV) had become the biggest-selling car in the world, outselling the Toyota Corolla. I know, I know, dear reader: you think this is non-news of the Small earthquake in Chile, not many dead" variety. But to those of us condemned to follow the tech industry, three things are significant about it: the vanquished car was a Corolla, the EV was a Tesla (the Model Y hatchback), and the runner-up is made by Toyota.The poor Corolla gets a lot of disdainful looks from petrolheads, who tell rude jokes about it and view the vehicle as bland, unimaginative and boring. Normal people, however, have consistently regarded it as one of the best compact cars available, with good fuel economy, impressive reliability and excellent luggage capacity. And they have backed that judgment with their wallets for many years. So on the sales front, the Corolla was no pushover. Continue reading...

From travel planners and money management to outdoor adventure and nature-spotting, here's how to get your smartphone ready for actionWhile July may have been a little grey, we're still in for some warm days this summer. There are trips to take and barbecues to attend, and no matter who's joining us on these outings, our smartphones surely will. So here are some apps to help you make the best of the season.Whether you're trying to find your tent in a sea of identical blue and green at a festival (as I did at Glastonbury) or trying to figure out the best time to run to the loo during a Barbenheimer marathon, these apps might be lifesavers. Continue reading...

The Reuters cameraman embraced the opportunity to capture life with his family in Sicily, where he grew upWith two decades' experience as a Reuters cameraman and visual journalist, Antonio Denti says he found the transition to using his phone as a camera jarring. I was brought up in the analogue days and was quite hostile to the idea. I've been in St Peter's Square twice when the white smoke announced the election of a new pope. I covered the 2004 tsunami, conflict in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Gaza. It was my job to report to those back home who could not see for themselves. Now phones can do that, and often they are held by people in the right place, at a more powerful time, long before I get there."Over time, however, he embraced this new opportunity to capture life, particularly with his family. He took this photo when visiting his parents, who live in Sicily. It is a very special stretch of coast because Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, hovers over it like a spirit. The coast is stark and black, made of sharp rocks in tormented shapes. In the second world war, Germans used this area as a military outpost, but for me it's where I grew up, where I learned to both love and fear the sea." Continue reading...

Retaliatory move against Online News Act is epic miscalculation' that will promote spread of misinformation, analysts saySocial media giant Meta's ban on news access on its platforms in Canada is an epic miscalculation" that could damage journalism and promote the spread of misinformation and fake news, experts are warning.The company announced the move on Tuesday, saying they had begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada. Continue reading...

Action by regulator follows 12.7m fine by UK for illegally processing data of 1.4m children under 13TikTok is to be fined potentially millions of pounds for breaching children's privacy after a ruling by EU data protection regulator.The European Data Protection Board said it had reached a binding decision on the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform over its processing of children's data. Continue reading...

CEO Tim Cook says increased R&D spending is in part driven by work on generative artificial intelligenceApple boss Tim Cook announced the company was investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) on Thursday as the company announced its third consecutive quarter of declining revenues, the company's most prolonged sales slump since 2016.Apple's sales for the fiscal third quarter ending 1 July fell 1.4% to $81.8bn. Over the quarter the company made a profit of $19.9bn, higher than analysts had expected.Reuters contributed to this story Continue reading...

Anything seems possible in this massive RPG, but the trick isn't magic technology, say developers at Larian StudiosA scripter was convinced that it would make the scene complete if you could be turned into a wheel of cheese," Larian Studios' lead systems designer Nick Pechenin tells me. The main story of Baldur's Gate 3 is about an invasion of tentacle-mouthed creatures that wouldn't look out of place in one of HP Lovecraft's Cthulhu horror stories, so a sidequest where a disgruntled wizard transforms you into cheese may seem out of place. But moments like this encapsulate why Larian is the game developer that comes closest to capturing the anarchic freedom of real-world sessions of Dungeons & Dragons.More than 20 years ago, before Mass Effect and Dragon Age, before even Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, much-loved developer BioWare made its name with Baldur's Gate and its sequel. When the original games came out, they were the bleeding edge of what was possible technologically, visually, and story-wise," says Pechenin. BioWare was trying to release a game that was as beautiful and as technologically powerful as could be humanly achieved at that stage; that's what we are trying to do." Continue reading...

Pandawara formed in 2022 after flooding caused by rivers clogged with rubbish damaged their homes - now they are national celebritiesThey started as flood victims, now they are touted as local heroes for cleaning up the rivers and beaches of Indonesia's third largest city Bandung in West Java, amassing over 9 million followers on TikTok and Instagram in the process and influencing others across the country to join the fight against pollution.The Pandawara group is five men in their early twenties and was formed in 2022 after flooding caused by rivers clogged with rubbish damaged their homes. They take their name from the five Pandava princes of Indian folklore and the word wara, which translates to the five bearers of good news. Continue reading...

YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson claims his reputation irreparably harmed' as customers complain of revolting' MrBeast burgersThe YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, more widely known as MrBeast, is suing the company behind his fast food chain MrBeast Burger for making inedible" food.The lawsuit, filed on Monday, claims the company has irreparably harmed" his reputation. He has asked a judge to give him the right to terminate the arrangement, claiming the company is serving low-quality products. Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: the D&D-inspired RPG is an almost bottomless sandbox, and represents a new frontier for the genre Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereThis week brings a preposterously generous gift for lovers of timesink role-playing games: Larian Studios's Baldur's Gate 3. Depending on your level of engagement with Dungeon and Dragons-inspired RPGs, you will know it either as the unlikely and long-awaited follow-up to 2000's Baldur's Gate 2 - one of the great computer RPGs of its era - or as the game where you can have sex with a bear.Look, technically it's not a bear - it's a shapeshifting druid in bear form. But still, the scene inevitably went viral when Larian showed it off during a livestream last month. It is the tip of the iceberg: you can romance pretty much any available character in this role-playing game, or several of them at once. You can try to steal almost anything, or throw it at an enemy as a makeshift weapon. You can be good, or creatively, grotesquely evil. It is indicative of Larian's approach to the genre, which is that if the player can imagine it and it can be determined by a dice roll, you should be able to do it. The studio wants to capture some of the unpredictable, anarchic spirit that players of real-life D&D adore about their hobby. Continue reading...

From the Gutenberg press to the word processor, a detailed trawl through the history of print offers lessons for the digital ageThe Gutenberg Parenthesis is a term coined by Danish scholar Lars Ole Sauerberg, who proposed that the history of literary culture as we had hitherto known it - the 500-plus years from the invention of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press in the mid-15th century until around the turn of the millennium - would come to be regarded as a mere blip. Digital technology would transform our cultural institutions by undermining their core foundation: the intellectual property and moral authority bound up in individual authorship. The future of knowledge production would be collective and collaborative - entailing, in essence, a return to the oral tradition of the world before print.In The Gutenberg Parenthesis, US journalist Jeff Jarvis considers this thesis and its possible implications. He is anxious that we should retain what was good and useful about analog-era gatekeeping structures, which played an important role in recommending quality, certifying fact, supporting creativity. What must we create to replace these functions?" Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don'ts of photographing the moon

Move comes in response to Canadian legislation requiring internet giants to pay news publishersMeta has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada, the company said on Tuesday.The move comes in response to legislation in the country requiring internet giants to pay news publishers. Continue reading...