Technology | The Guardian

Rossgram, a substitute for Instagram, mocked as Russian PM announces policy of ignoring copyright

A French startup may have cracked AI’s problem of trust with software that can learn better than humans – and express that learningLast week an artificial intelligence – called NooK – beat eight world champion players at bridge. That algorithms can outwit humans might not seem newsworthy. IBM’s Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. In 2016, Google’s AlphaGo defeated a Go grandmaster. A year later the AI Libratus saw off four poker stars. Yet the real-world applications of such technologies have been limited. Stephen Muggleton, a computer scientist, suggests this is because they are “black boxes” that can learn better than people but cannot express, and communicate, that learning.NooK, from French startup NukkAI, is different. It won by formulating rules, not just brute-force calculation. Bridge is not the same as chess or Go, which are two-player games based on an entirely known set of facts. Bridge is a game for four players split into two teams, involving collaboration and competition with incomplete information. Each player sees only their cards and needs to gather information about the other players’ hands. Unlike poker, which also involves hidden information and bluffing, in bridge a player must disclose to their opponents the information they are passing to their partner. Continue reading...

Alphabet’s autonomous vehicle unit said it started carrying employees in electric Jaguar I-Pace SUVs without human backupWaymo’s self-driving ride-hailing service is branching out to San Francisco.The autonomous vehicle unit of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said Wednesday that it started carrying employees in electric Jaguar I-Pace SUVs without human backup drivers. Previously the company had been testing the vehicles with a safety driver behind the wheel just in case. Continue reading...

Ronin, blockchain project that powers the popular online game Axie Infinity, says unidentified hackers used stolen private keysBlockchain project Ronin said on Tuesday that hackers stole cryptocurrency now worth almost $615m from its systems, in what would be one of the largest cryptocurrency heists on record.The project said that unidentified hackers on 23 March stole 173,600 ether tokens and 25.5 million USD coin tokens. At current exchange rates, the stolen funds are worth $615m, but they were worth $540m at the time of the attack. Continue reading...

Matthew Hardy so frightened some of his victims that they slept with weapons. Although he was known to the police – and even prosecuted – it was more than a decade before he was jailedThe conversations always started the same way. A woman would get a message from a social media user. It would say: “Can I tell you a secret?” The messenger often, but not always, appeared to be a friendly young woman, peppering the conversation with words such as “hun” and signing off with a kiss.But the messenger would also claim to have information about the woman’s life. The victim’s partner was cheating on her; a friend was talking behind her back. If the woman blocked the anonymous messenger, another appeared. If the woman stopped responding, she would get incessant calls from someone breathing down the phone. Continue reading...

Three-year-olds are on the video-sharing platform and it may be affecting their attention spanBritish toddlers are increasingly likely to be users of TikTok, with a substantial number of parents saying their preschool children use the video service despite the app supposedly being restricted to those aged 13 and older.About 16% of three- and four-year-olds view TikTok content, according to research commissioned by media regulator Ofcom. This rises to a third of all children in the five- to seven-year-old age group. Continue reading...

Gaming company, which faces further lawsuits, agrees to take steps to prevent and address discrimination and harassmentA US judge has approved an $18m settlement between Activision Blizzard and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, bringing one of several discrimination lawsuits against the gaming company to a close.During a hearing on Tuesday, US district judge Dale Fischer said she would give final approval to the settlement after Activision and the EEOC made various tweaks she requested last week. Continue reading...

Subscription offers games for low fee as tech firms compete to establish Netflix-style streaming serviceSony is preparing to launch a PlayStation competitor to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, kick-starting a race between the console firms to establish a Netflix-style service for gaming.The service will offer a wide selection of titles for a low monthly subscription and build on Sony’s long-running PlayStation Plus model, which offers members two free games a month and access to online multiplayer options for £49.99 a year. Continue reading...

Run out of cyan? Help could be at hand as the takeaway delivery company teams up with WH Smith to get your home printer working againPass notes: Printer ink.Age: Ink has been around for yonks, since early folks started using soot to draw pictures on the walls of their caves. The history of ink can be traced through ancient Egypt, China, fountain pens, the birth of printing … Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: from Firewatch to Old Man’s Journey, we let you tell us what to play next

They are low-tech and hard to text on, but the simplicity is comforting. I was a devotee for years and can see the appealI was never ideologically opposed to smartphones. Or, at least, I wasn’t at first. It all began one spring afternoon in 2006, when a group of friends and I were mugged. The assailant demanded our phones and wallets but when I handed him my Nokia 1110, whose keypad was strapped to it with an elastic band, the mugger’s response was categorical: “Nah, mate.”It was humiliating. While my friends could bask in universal sympathy – they had, after all, lost their beloved and expensive BlackBerrys – I had to tell the rest of our school and the police that my phone was so crap it had been rejected. Even as a trophy.Max Fletcher is writer based in London. Continue reading...

Part laptop, part drawing tablet, part workstation, there’s nothing quite like this Windows 11 machineThe Surface Laptop Studio is Microsoft’s creative workstation that replaces the unique outgoing Surface Book line with a slightly more normal laptop-like form but is still very unusual.The new top of Microsoft’s laptop line costs from £1,449 ($1,399.99/A$2,399) and is a chunky machine geared up as a desktop replacement, rather than a thin and light notebook you carry everywhere. Continue reading...

Victory marks milestone for AI as bridge requires more human skills than other strategy gamesAn artificial intelligence has beaten eight world champions at bridge, a game in which human supremacy has resisted the march of the machines until now.The victory represents a new milestone for AI because in bridge players work with incomplete information and must react to the behaviour of several other players – a scenario far closer to human decision-making.1996: IBM’s Deep Blue chess machine wins a game against world chess champion Garry Kasparov but loses the match 2-4. A year later, Kasparov loses the rematch.2007: Checkers is solved by researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada. After sifting through 500bn positions, they build a checkers-playing computer programme that can’t be beaten.2011: IBM’s Watson computer defeats TV gameshow Jeopardy! champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, claiming the $1m first prize.2016: Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo defeats Korean Go champion Lee Sedol 4-1. The Korea Baduk Association awards AlphaGo the highest Go grandmaster rank, an honorary 9 dan.2022: NukkAI’s bridge-playing computer NooK defeats eight world bridge champions in Paris. Continue reading...

Jim Carrey reprises his role as baddy Robotnik and Idris Elba plays spiny anteater Knuckles in Sonic’s so-so second comingBefore the screening of this sequel to 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog started, a representative from the film company asked us to please not spoil any of the film’s big surprises. Human nature being what it is, I spent the whole time anxiously wondering what is the thing I’m not supposed to spoil. That the good guys win in the end? Surely you could have guessed that, dear reader, given the film is clearly aimed at a family audience and features animated characters who first emerged in a video game where no one ever dies, just respawns.There’s not much to spoil about Sonic the Hedgehog 2 because there’s not very much to say about it, other than it’s mildly amusing and reasonably competently assembled. Picking up where the first film left off, bright-blue hedgehog from another dimension Sonic (voiced again by Parks and Recreation’s Ben Schwartz) is still living as a kind of adopted son with Tom (James Marsden), a local cop in the small Montana town of Green Hills, and his veterinarian wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter), both of whom are kindly but not great at pretending to be acting with an animated character they can’t see during filming. Continue reading...

Top boss Meng Wanzhou makes first public appearance since her release from custody in Canada last yearChinese telecoms company Huawei has reported a decrease in sales but record profit for 2021, as its top executive, Meng Wanzhou, made her first public appearance since being released from Canadian custody last autumn.The Shenzhen-based company said on Monday its net profits surged 75.9% year on year to 113.7bn yuan (£13.6bn), despite US sanctions. But its revenue skidded 29% to 636.8bn yuan, in line with Huawei’s previous forecast in December. Continue reading...

Special IT force of 30 soldiers on quad bikes is vital part of Ukraine’s defence, but forced to crowdfund for suppliesOne week into its invasion of Ukraine, Russia massed a 40-mile mechanised column in order to mount an overwhelming attack on Kyiv from the north.But the convoy of armoured vehicles and supply trucks ground to a halt within days, and the offensive failed, in significant part because of a series of night ambushes carried out by a team of 30 Ukrainian special forces and drone operators on quad bikes, according to a Ukrainian commander. Continue reading...

The technology behind autonomous vehicles has proved devilishly hard to perfect. And progress hasn’t been helped by Tesla boss Elon Musk’s army of superfans“I would be shocked if we do not achieve full self-driving safer than a human this year,” said Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, in January. For anyone who follows Musk’s commentary, this might sound familiar. In 2020, he promised autonomous cars the same year, saying: “There are no fundamental challenges.” In 2019, he promised Teslas would be able to drive themselves by 2020 – converting into a fleet of 1m “robotaxis”. He has made similar predictions every year going back to 2014.From late 2020, Tesla expanded beta trials of its “Full Self-Driving” software (FSD) to about 60,000 Tesla owners, who must pass a safety test and pay $12,000 for the privilege. The customers will pilot the automated driver assistance technology, helping to refine it before a general release. Continue reading...

Waiting lists of thousands, cars selling out in seconds – welcome to the frustrating world of the Australian EV buyer

Having ensured the Swedish firm led the switch away from fossil fuels, its former boss is full of praise for Tesla – but has no regrets about filling city streets with SUVsHåkan Samuelsson was a relatively late convert to electric cars. He took over as boss of Volvo in 2012, but it was only three or four years later that he realised he needed to oversee the biggest shift in the company’s history: ending the use of fossil fuels.Since then, Volvo has committed to making no more petrol or diesel cars after 2030. That will be the fastest phase-out of any traditional carmaker of equivalent size, and Volvo has put sustainability at the heart of its branding. Continue reading...

The Venezuela-based photographer on a moment of magical realism in CaracasAccording to Isabela Eseverri, Caracas has a very specific morning soundtrack. Wake early enough in Venezuela’s capital and you’ll hear the transition from crickets to birds, most notably the loud chachalacas. The bark from a neighbourhood dog sets off the rest, then, later, the macaws join in.“Growing up, you didn’t see them much, but in the last decade their population has grown exponentially,” Eseverri says. “Because they’re an invasive species there are worries that they threaten our local bird population, but the locals adore them and feed them. You’ll be on the freeway and you’ll see 10 of these incredibly colourful birds fly by. It’s in keeping with the Latin American magical realism I love so much.” Continue reading...

Digital Markets Act seeks to prevent the likes of Google and Facebook parent company Meta from dominating digital marketsThe European Union reached an agreement on landmark digital rules to rein in online “gatekeepers” such as Google and Facebook’s parent company, Meta.EU officials agreed late on Thursday on wording for the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, part of a long-awaited overhaul of digital regulations with major implications for the global tech market. The act, which still needs other approvals, seeks to prevent the biggest of tech firms from dominating digital markets through the threat of fines or even the possibility of a company breakup. Continue reading...

New target comes after criticism of infrastructure rollout for failing to match surging vehicle salesThe UK government has set a new target to increase the number of electric car chargers more than ten times to 300,000 by 2030 after heavy criticism that the rollout of public infrastructure is too slow to match rapid growth in sales.The Department for Transport (DfT) said it would invest an extra £450m to do so, alongside hefty sums of private capital. Sales of new cars and vans with petrol and diesel engines will be banned from 2030. Continue reading...

Quartet accused in two major hacking campaigns between 2012 and 2018, indictment unsealed by justice department readsThe US has unveiled criminal charges against four Russian government officials, saying they engaged in two major hacking campaigns between 2012 and 2018 that targeted the global energy sector and affected thousands of computers across 135 countries.In one now-unsealed indictment from August 2021, the justice department said three alleged hackers from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) carried out cyber-attacks on the computer networks of oil and gas firms, nuclear power plants, and utility and power transmission companies across the world between 2012 and 2017. Continue reading...

He created the image file format that defined an internet culture for decades in 1987 while working at CompuServeIf a picture is worth a thousand words, then a gif is worth millions. The image file format has been a defining element of internet culture for decades, with glass-raising DiCaprios and mic-dropping Obamas facilitating self-expression in a faceless digital world. And we have one man to thank for all the jokes, snark and praise: Stephen Wilhite, inventor of the gif, who died last week, aged 74.Wilhite, who lived in Milford, Ohio, contracted Covid two weeks before his death, his wife, Kathaleen Wilhite, told NPR. Continue reading...

The defense ministry began using technology from Clearview AI which scrapes images on the web to match uploaded photosUkraine is using facial recognition software to help identify the bodies of Russian soldiers killed in combat and track down their families to inform them of their deaths, Ukraine’s vice-prime minister told the Reuters news service.Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice-prime minister who also runs the ministry of digital transformation, told Reuters his country had been using software facial recognition provider Clearview AI to find the social media accounts of dead Russian soldiers. Continue reading...

Data brokers collect our personal data and sell it on – but a new case shows just how easily people’s security can be breachedThere are a number of ways your personal data could end up in the hands of entities you’ve never directly given it to. One of them is through the data-broker industry: a complex network of companies that profits off the sale of data such as your location and your purchases, as well as biographical and demographic information.Now, a new lawsuit is giving consumers an unprecedented peek into this opaque world, and illuminating just how easily a data broker can lose control of the user information it collects. Continue reading...

Services including App Store, Apple TV and Apple Music resume after outage, as Apple yet to confirm what caused problemsApple has said all its services, including the App Store, Apple TV and Apple Music, have resumed following an outage that started late afternoon on Monday.Nearly a dozen Apple services were down for thousands of users. Continue reading...

Technology firm should help spot Russian-based users, says founder of group matching up with UK hosts• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updatesOne of the largest Facebook groups matching Ukrainian refugees with UK host families has warned of the dangers of infiltration posed by Russian trolls and traffickers.Room for Ukrainians in the UK is a Facebook group that was set up little over two weeks ago and already has 12,500 members. Most of those posting are Ukrainians in need of sponsors and British people who want to open their homes to the new arrivals. Continue reading...

Scrolling curated For You Page exposes users to disinformation within 40 minutes, investigation by NewsGuard suggests

By zeroing in on the burgeoning eSports market, the kingdom has added a new layer to its soft power strategy in an attempt to polish its public imageSaudi Arabia has grand plans to become a powerhouse in the world of eSports and gaming.The kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund – a $500bn entity chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – announced a new gaming company in January 2022 with the intention of staking its claim in the booming industry. Continue reading...

A reader writes that they are £1,000 out of pocket and no longer have a working tabletLast year I bought an iPad Pro from the Apple website. After six months of use I noticed that the frame had warped substantially, so I took it to the Apple store in London’s Covent Garden. The staff declared that the problem must have been caused by accidental damage and insisted that I pay a £350 out-of-warranty charge to replace it.I reluctantly paid up, and took the new iPad home, but within two days noticed that it, too, had developed a slight warp. The next day a thick band developed down the middle of the screen, making the iPad unusable. Continue reading...

Top performance, 5G, good camera and long software support ensure cheapest iPhone is worth buyingApple’s cut-price iPhone is back and has been upgraded for 2022, with a faster chip and 5G making it an even better bargain than before.The third-generation iPhone SE costs £419 ($429/A$719) and is the cheapest smartphone Apple sells, priced to compete with myriad mid-range Android devices. Continue reading...

Many features make the platform susceptible to disinformation as world leaders try to harness influencers’ power for goodMany have called the invasion of Ukraine the world’s first “TikTok war”, and experts say it is high time for the short video platform – once known primarily for silly lip syncs and dance challenge – to be taken seriously.Some politicians are doing just that. In a speech, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, appealed to “TikTokers” as a group that could help end the war. Last week, Joe Biden spoke to dozens of top users on the app in a first-of-its kind meeting to brief the influencers on the conflict in Ukraine and how the US is addressing it. Continue reading...

Experts recommend password managers for convenience and enhanced online safety, yet few of us use themIn a competitive field, passwords are one of the worst things about the internet. Long and complex passwords are more secure but difficult to remember, leaving many people using weak and easy-to-guess credentials. One study by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) revealed how millions are using their pet’s name, football team names, ‘password’ and “123456” to access online services.But this leaves you wide open to attack: cybercriminals can crack weak passwords in seconds using automated tools. “A hacker needs roughly two seconds to crack an 11-character password made up of numbers,” says Alex Balan, director of security research at security company Bitdefender. If the password is more complex, containing numbers, symbols and uppercase and lowercase letters, the time needed to break it jumps to 400 years. Continue reading...

Ukraine and its allies seem to be doing a good job in this vital battleground, but experts warn the global picture is complex

Western officials say they would ‘strongly discourage’ any kind of criminal activity against Russia

The singer is casual and welcoming as he talks to experts in his thoughtful new podcast about mental health. Plus: Michelle Visage has a charismatic conversation with Cameron DiazFrom next week, your podcast newsletter will have a brand new look. Discover the best new shows and hidden gems with the new Hear Here, which will arrive in your inbox on Thursdays Continue reading...

App claimed that it could help LGBT+ people ‘return to nature’ but the tech company has now made it unavailable for downloadsAn app produced by the Malaysian government that promised to help the LGBTI community “return to nature” has been removed from the Google Play store, after it was found to be in breach of the platform’s guidelines.The app was first released in July 2016, but attracted fresh attention after it was shared on Twitter by the Malaysian government’s Islamic development department. It claimed the app would enable LGBTI people to return to a state of nature or purity, and that it included an e-book detailing the experience of a gay man who “abandoned homosexual behaviour” during Ramadan. Continue reading...

Overhaul of online safety bill reduces grace period for criminal prosecution of senior managers from two years to two monthsTech bosses face the threat of prosecution and up to two years in jail if they hamper investigations by the communications watchdog from next year, under a wide-ranging overhaul of a landmark online safety bill.The government has reduced a grace period for criminal prosecution of senior managers by 22 months from two years to just two months, meaning tech bosses could be charged with offences from early next year. Continue reading...

Stunning 10.9in tablet gets Apple’s top chip, long battery life and best-in-class smart video call cameraApple’s latest tablet is an iPad Air upgraded with the M1 chip from the newest Macs and iPad Pro – turning it into a compact powerhouse that’s just as happy manipulating images in Photoshop as it is binge-watching the latest series of Star Trek: Picard.This new fifth-generation model is £10 cheaper than the outgoing model, costing £569 ($599/A$929). While certainly premium-priced, it undercuts Apple’s other M1-equipped 11in tablet, the iPad Pro, by £180. Continue reading...

From a dome celebrating smog-free Sheffield to a rollercoaster ride through Blackpool’s LGBTQ+ past, presenter and historian David Olusoga reveals how cutting edge tech can show us a new BritainIn the summer of 2020, a month after the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston was toppled and three months after George Floyd was murdered outside a convenience store in Minneapolis, I gave a lecture about race and racism, diversity and inclusion within the television industry. I used that platform, the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, to tell the story of how for decades TV has failed not only to address its diversity problem but, at times, even to acknowledge that it has one. On the small screen – as in the worlds of art, publishing, theatre and film – who gets their stories told and who gets to do the telling have never been based on talent and passion alone.Television is an old medium with a long established internal culture, one that developed over the decades and from the outset was exclusive rather than inclusive. The BBC that emerged in the 1920s very much reflected the class-bound society that had spawned it. Early television was dominated by London, and its programmes were largely produced and presented by members of a middle-class elite. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: games are nourishment for the soul – make time to play, even if its only ten minutes

Ukraine appealed for a global army of IT experts to help in the battle against Putin – and many answered the call. We speak to people on the digital frontline

At a Miami event, I found myself surrounded by a cult obsessed with minting bananas and trading Eth. Does it all mean anything?Two weeks ago, I walked into an upscale restaurant for a networking dinner. I was brand new to Miami, a city whose residents pride themselves on two-story strip clubs, too-orange spray tans and rented Ferraris.I didn’t want to be here – neither at this dinner, nor in Miami – but since I was supposed to spend six months stuck in this city receiving medical treatment for a weird dizziness issue I’d been dealing with, I figured I’d try my best to make friends with any non-terrible Miamians I could find. Continue reading...

Company says most of redundancies will be in UK and US after Nvidia takeover falls throughArm is planning to cut up to 15% of its workforce, the UK computer chipmaker has said, just over a month after the collapse of its $40bn (£30bn) sale to its US rival Nvidia.The Cambridge-based company said most of the job losses, totalling up to about 1,000 roles, would be in the UK and the US. Arm employs more than 6,500 people worldwide, including 3,000 in the UK. Continue reading...

Now more than ever we all need to sprinkle some happiness into our social media feeds. Here are the best accounts to follow, whether you love spectacular jelly creations or hilarious Japanese mascotsEverything is terrible. You know this as well as anyone because, like the rest of the world, you have spent the past few years pummelled by waves of awful historical events, each more debilitating than the last. The only thing that would make everything even worse is dunking your head into the furious, screaming world of social media.However, it doesn’t have to be this way. In times of enormous crisis, one way to find temporary respite is to dilute your feeds with goodness. Below, I – along with some wonderful Guardian readers – have tracked down 50 feelgood social media accounts. Some are on Twitter, some on Instagram, some on TikTok. Some are uplifting, some are funny, some are weird, many have dogs in them. Sprinkle your accounts into your scrolling and you should end up in a much better frame of mind. Continue reading...

As some are busy setting up channels on Telegram, others seek ways to evade the social media ban

From beautiful celestial metaphors to a virtual simulacrum of an entire galaxy, our critics suggest popular culture inspired by the wonders of astronomyIt looks as if the universe was designed by a Romantic painter. Great glowing clouds of smoke and mist hang in the void with twinkling stars spangled within them. Instead of lonely bright dots in black nothingness, as space used to be pictured, it turns out to be a sublime storm of dazzling richness. The Pillars of Creation is the photo that made the Hubble telescope’s name. It shows a star-forming region of the Eagle nebula, 7,000 light years from Earth. In 2015 Nasa released a second, even more detailed and glorious Pillars of Creation). The successful launch of the new James Webb telescope has eclipsed Hubble, but as it “sees” in infrared, it is unlikely to provide similarly beguiling pictures. The Hubble Age is ending but it changed our cosmic perception for ever. Jonathan Jones Continue reading...

Collectible and cartoonish, these digital multiples, traded in cryptocurrency, confer membership of an exclusive club – sometimes literally. But do they have any aesthetic value? A critic weighs inIn January, a clip from The Tonight Show featuring Jimmy Fallon and Paris Hilton went viral: not because either had said anything particularly interesting or scandalous, but because the interview was so uncanny in its content and its style. In the video, Hilton, who looks like a telegenic, radioactive Barbie in a lime green cocktail dress, is discussing Bored Ape NFTs, the popular crypto images that have been selling for a minimum of $200,000 since their first release in April 2021.“I’m so happy I taught you what they were,” she informs Fallon in a voice a little lower than her usual characteristic purr. Continue reading...

The term embraces the comforts of depravity and a direct departure from the ‘cottagecore’ influence of early pandemic daysAt some point in the stretch of days between the start of the pandemic’s third year and the launch of world war three, a new phrase entered the zeitgeist, a mysterious harbinger of an age to come: people were going “goblin mode”.The term embraces the comforts of depravity: spending the day in bed watching 90 Day Fiancé on mute while scrolling endlessly through social media, pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth; downing Eggo toaster oven waffles with hot sauce over the sink because you can’t be bothered to put them on a plate. Leaving the house in your pajamas and socks only to get a single Diet Coke from the bodega. Continue reading...