Lawsuit filed by publishers including Axel Springer allege Google abused its dominant position' in digital ad-techAlphabet's Google was hit with a 2.1bn ($2.3bn) lawsuit by 32 media groups including Axel Springer and Schibsted on Wednesday, alleging that they had suffered losses due to the company's practices in digital advertising.The move by the groups - which include publishers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden - comes as antitrust regulators also crack down on Google's ad-tech business. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: Sony's news that it is cutting jobs and cancelling projects for the mega-console underlines a depressing fact about game development - it's go big, or go home Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereI wrote last week about the decades-long console wars between Xbox and PlayStation - and how the Microsoft's looser attitude to releasing games everywhere people play them, even on rival consoles, might be the beginning of an end to them. Now we have news that Sony is laying off 900 people across its studios all over the world. Why is the maker of the hugely successful PlayStation 5, which has outsold its main rival by three to one, doing something so drastic? It seems that the end of the console wars might come not by choice, but by necessity: the way that the games industry worked in the past is simply not how it works now.The news that PlayStation would be laying off what amounts 8% of its workforce came via an all-company email from Jim Ryan, the company's outgoing boss - who, less than a week ago, was pictured celebrating his Sony career at London Studios with many people who now no longer have jobs: the company is closing it entirely, along with cuts at Firesprite, and there will be reductions in various functions" across the company in the UK. Guerilla Games (makers of the Horizon series), Naughty Dog (The Last of Us) and Insomniac (Marvel's Spider-Man) are also seeing reductions. At the time of writing, Sony employees at US studios were still waiting to hear how they would be affected. Please be kind to yourselves and to each other," the email ends, with almost jaw-dropping irony. Continue reading...
Little discussed outside its fanbase, it amassed 75 million registered users who provide a brilliantly welcoming community for neurodivergent gamersSix months ago my son Zac started to play a video game I knew very little about - which, as a games journalist, I found slightly disconcerting. Created by the Canada-based developer Digital Extremes, Warframe is an online sci-fi shooter, originally launched in 2013. Though little discussed outside its fanbase, it is consistently one of the biggest titles on Steam, with 75 million registered users.Set in a distant future version of our solar system, riddled with warring alien factions, the player takes part on the side of the Tenno, an ancient warrior race that employs barely sentient cybernetic fighters - the warframes of the title - as their primary weapons. Each day, Zac spends hours whizzing between planets, carrying out missions or exploring, all the while fighting enemies including a brutish clone army known as the Grineer, and the diseased, monstrous Infested. It sounds like a dozen other so-called live service games, which run indefinitely online, constantly adding new tasks, locations and items - the likes of Destiny, The Division and Final Fantasy XIV Online. But Warframe has held my son's attention, and there's one key reason for that: a remarkably friendly and welcoming community. Continue reading...
Entire online communities have developed around naming this 17-second snippet of catchy pop - and three years after it was uploaded no one has solved the mysteryIt's only 17 seconds long, and sounds a bit like 80s-era Genesis playing at the bottom of a swimming pool. But this snippet of bouncy yet sonically degraded pop has become one of the biggest and most enduring musical mysteries on the internet.The clip was uploaded in 2021 by someone called Carl92, who wanted to know if anyone could identify it. I don't remember its origin," he wrote on a site called WatZatSong, saying he found it between a bunch of very old files in a DVD backup ... it sounds somewhat familiar to me." But even after the 17-second sample was posted on Reddit, where the mighty pop-culture hive mind rarely fails, not a single person managed to identify the song or the artist. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6JYQT)
Packed with swappable parts including the keyboard, ports and graphics card, this machine is uniqueFramework is back with the new, larger and more powerful Laptop 16 that is its most ambitious device yet: a highly modular and upgradeable 16in machine that can transform in layout and power in minutes. It is quite unlike anything else on the market.Packed with hot-swappable components, the laptop can be customised in myriad ways, converting from a fast but quiet workhorse by day into an LED-strewn gaming PC by night. Continue reading...
Reports say tech giant made announcement during meeting and forecast layoffs, ending secretive and resource-heavy projectApple is canceling its plans to build an electric car, according to multiple outlets, ending a secretive project that has consumed immense resources over the past decade. Executives from the company made the unexpected announcement during an internal team meeting on Tuesday, forecasting layoffs and telling employees that many of them would shift to working on generative artificial intelligence, per reports.Apple is believed to have spent billions of dollars attempting to develop an electric, semi-autonomous vehicle under the codename Project Titan, and its decision to kill the program is a major retreat from its previous strategy. Continue reading...
In a filing Monday, OpenAI claims a hired gun' took tens of thousands of attempts to generate the highly anomalous results'OpenAI has asked a federal judge to dismiss parts of the New York Times' copyright lawsuit against it, arguing that the newspaper hacked" its chatbot ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence systems to generate misleading evidence for the case.OpenAI said in a filing in Manhattan federal court on Monday that the Times caused the technology to reproduce its material through deceptive prompts that blatantly violate OpenAI's terms of use". Continue reading...
Company will cut 8% of workforce, citing changes in industry and a need to deliver on expectations from developers and gamers'Sony will cut about 900 jobs in its PlayStation division, or about 8% of its global workforce, becoming the latest company in the technology and gaming sector to announce layoffs.The company cited changes in the industry as a reason for the restructuring. The job cuts will occur in the Americas, Japan, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific region. Continue reading...
Federal judge in Texas says new requirement would cause irreparable injury' to industry amid surging electricity usageThe US government has suspended its effort to survey cryptocurrency mining operations over their ballooning energy use following a lawsuit from an industry that has been accused by environmental groups of fueling the climate crisis.A federal judge in Texas has granted a temporary order blocking the new requirements that would ascertain the energy use of the crypto miners, stating that the industry had shown it would suffer irreparable injury" if it was made to comply. Continue reading...
The US chip maker is the company to bet on if you want to invest in AI, but with the future of artificial intelligence in flux, staying on top of the game won't be easy Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereEveryone wants to be like Apple. The largest publicly traded company in the world, with a flagship product that prints money, and a cultural footprint that has reached world-historical importance: the 21st-century Ford.On a surface level, the companies that get slapped with that comparison are obvious enough. If you pump out well-made, slickly designed consumer electronics that arrive in a nice box, someone somewhere will compare you to the Cupertino giant.The AI supercomputer, dubbed AI Research SuperCluster (RSC) by Zuckerberg's Meta business, is already the fifth fastest in the world, the company said.The experiences we're building for the metaverse require enormous compute [sic] power (quintillions of operations/second!) and RSC will enable new AI models that can learn from trillions of examples, understand hundreds of languages, and more," wrote Zuckerberg. Continue reading...
by Richard Sprenger, Alex Healey, Frances Rankin, Bru on (#6JXY6)
Images created by AI are getting exponentially better, to the point where many people are unable to distinguish them from the real thing. As this technology continues to develop, challenges to our perception of what is real are immense, and our trust in what we are seeing is eroded. Fakes are already changing industries such as modelling and marketing, but can they offer a more diverse reflection of humanity than has historically been available - or are they destined to reflect the narrow standards of beauty these industries have long been drawn to?*With thanks to the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona*Great British Brands is published by Country & Town House magazine Continue reading...
Last week, I downloaded a game called Balatro for a few casual turns on Steam Deck. I haven't been able to think of much else sinceI am one of those people who feels like crying when the rules of a board game are explained to me, so card games are generally not my thing. In real life poker, I inevitably get bored after a few rounds, go all in, and crash out spectacularly, just so something will happen. But real life poker is not Balatro. Balatro might be the best card game you will ever come across. I specifically left my Steam Deck at home this morning so that I would not sit at my desk playing Balatro instead of doing all the other, less fun things I am supposed to do at work, such as staring disconsolately at my perpetually overflowing email inbox. I think it will be one of the breakout games of the year. Join me, and it will suck you in, too.Here is how you play. You're dealt a hand of nine normal playing cards, and then you play the best four or five-card poker hand you can muster from them: flush, straight, three of a kind, all that. Then you're scored on the hand, with satisfying, ratcheting ding!"s, and you move on to the next one. You're only ever playing against yourself: beat the points target, which at the beginning is maybe a few hundred easily scored points, and you move on to the next round. Continue reading...
World's biggest social media firms challenge state laws blocking them from moderating certain content or banning usersMembers of the United States supreme court expressed skepticism regarding two laws being debated in oral arguments on Monday, both of which deal with how social media platforms moderate content and could have broad implications for freedom of speech online.Filed by NetChoice, an association representing the world's largest social media firms, both cases challenge state laws blocking social media platforms from moderating certain user content or banning users. Arguments on Monday lasted longer than many experts anticipated, extending into a marathon four-hour session. Continue reading...
Stuart Harrington doubts that such a ban will work, while Oscar Acton spells out the benefits of smartphone access for school studentsThe members of the WhatsApp group Smartphone Free Childhood have an unrealistic expectation if they believe that banning under-14s from possessing smartphones and trying to prevent under-16s accessing social media is a practical way of protecting them from the very real dangers that the internet can unveil (It went nuts: Thousands join UK parents calling for smartphone-free childhood', 17 February).If the first duty of any parent or guardian is to provide a safe and healthy environment for their children, then showing them how to access and use the internet safely is their responsibility. Roads are also potentially dangerous for children, but we do not ban cars - instead we spend time teaching young people the safe way to navigate through busy traffic. Continue reading...
Gang sets up new site on dark web and releases rambling statement explaining how it was infiltrated by law enforcement agenciesThe LockBit ransomware gang is attempting a comeback days after its operations were severely disrupted by a coordinated international crackdown.The Russia-based group has set up a new site on the dark web to advertise a small number of alleged victims and leak stolen data, as well as releasing a rambling statement explaining how it had been hobbled by the UK's National Crime Agency, the FBI, Europol and other police agencies in an operation last week. Continue reading...
Robocalls of President Biden already confused primary voters in New Hampshire - but measures to curb the technology could be too little too lateThe AI election is here.Already this year, a robocall generated using artificial intelligence targeted New Hampshire voters in the January primary, purporting to be President Joe Biden and telling them to stay home in what officials said could be the first attempt at using AI to interfere with a US election. The deepfake" calls were linked to two Texas companies, Life Corporation and Lingo Telecom. Continue reading...
A tech company supported by Trump's former lawyer is injecting chaos into the state's vote-counting processA tech company supported by Donald Trump's former lawyer has been facilitating mass challenges to voter registrations in Georgia. State officials say its methods are inaccurate and likely skirt state law.Founded in the wake of the 2020 election, EagleAI, pronounced Eagle Eye", offers a tool that streamlines challenges to voter registrations. Pulling data from both public and purchased information, it allows anyone to investigate potential errors on voter registrations forms. With a few clicks to attach evidence of alleged disqualifying mistakes, EagleAI automatically fills out challenges to registrations. A local volunteer then downloads and emails them to their county election board. A successful challenge stops a person from voting unless they reregister. Continue reading...
Home secretary, who is due to meet US tech bosses, says states such as Russia and Iran could target other countries as wellCriminals and malign actors" working on behalf of malicious states could use AI-generated deepfakes" to hijack the general election, the home secretary has said.James Cleverly was speaking before meetings with social media bosses and said the rapid advancement of technology could pose a serious threat to elections across the globe. Continue reading...
Data from cyber security firm I-Soon offers a rare glimpse in to the inner workings of China's hacking programA massive data leak from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has offered a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Beijing-linked hackers.Analysts say the leak is a treasure-trove of intel into the day-to-day operations of China's hacking programme, which the FBI says is the biggest of any country. The company, I-Soon, has yet to confirm the leak is genuine and has not responded to a request for comment. As of Friday, the leaked data was removed from the online software repository GitHub, where it had been posted. Continue reading...
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers' questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsDoes spam email actually work? I don't mean dodgy phishing emails, but the annoying ads and sales pitches. Presumably the answer is yes, otherwise the spammers wouldn't bother, but I find it hard to believe. Ali Farhan, ManchesterSend new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...
Is all this bunker-building a sign the 1% know something we don't and are preparing for end times?What's your plan for the apocalypse? I'll tell you what mine is: death. I am not really built for battle - I need five cups of coffee just to function and I have terrible allergies. My body can't even handle pollen, it's not going to do well with nuclear war. Plus, even if I was hardier - who wants to live a few extra months in a completely destroyed world?Billionaires. Billionaires do. As you have probably noticed bunkers have become the ultimate status symbol among the 1%. The bunker craze, accelerated by the pandemic, has been going on for a while now. However I'm starting to think that bunker-fever is getting out of hand. The rich are no longer content with run-of-the-mill $500,000 survival shelters, they're taking things to the next level: a development which should probably worry us all. Continue reading...
Experts alerted motor trade to security risks of smart key' systems which have now fuelled highest level of car thefts for a decade Gone in 20 seconds: how smart keys' have fuelled a new wave of car crimeThe car industry ignored warnings more than a decade ago that keyless technology on modern vehicles risked a surge in vehicle thefts, an investigation by the Observer can reveal.Legal and computer researchers claimed keyless entry and vehicle software would be subverted" because of inadequate security. Continue reading...
One London resident watched on CCTV as a thief walked up to his 40,000 car and drove away. Now manufacturers say they are being drawn in to a hi-tech arms race' with criminals Read more: car industry was warned keyless vehicles vulnerable to theft a decade agoWhen Steve Jessop's electric Hyundai car was stolen outside his west London house on a rainy day earlier this month, he appealed to neighbours for potential footage of the crime.He quickly secured a CCTV video and was stunned at the ease with which his car had been taken. A hooded figure approached it, opened the doors without forced entry, started the engine and drove off. Continue reading...
Frank Skinner's new Radio 4 panel show is a winner; the Daily Mail goes below the line; Misha Glenny gives us microchips with everything; and Capital gains Radio 1 star Jordan NorthOne Person Found This Helpful (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Our sugar problem could be solved by counteracting it after we've eaten it, as stomach sponges' and fibre-making enzymes head to marketI am in a kitchen shared by bio-based startups in San Francisco looking forward to a chocolate chip cookie. Having been diagnosed with prediabetes a few years ago, I usually stay well away from sweet treats. But I have a secret weapon: a sachet of Monch Monch, a proprietary plant fibre-based drink mix that has been engineered to expand in my stomach like a kitchen sponge and soak up sugar in food, rendering it unavailable for early absorption.The idea is that, locked in the sponge", a significant amount of the sugar will simply pass through. One gram of the product can absorb six grams of sugar according to lab tests by the startup behind it, BioLumen. Sucrose (table sugar), glucose, fructose and to a lesser extent simple starches can all be sequestered. Given there's just over four grams in the sachet, I calculate it should - if it works - nicely nullify the sugar in my treat and give my gut a fibre boost to boot. How do you eat food without paying the health price? We think we have figured out a way," says Paolo Costa, co-founder and CEO of the company, as I mix the powder in the sachet with water and drink it. Continue reading...
A Tesla employee ordered 2,000 mini pies from San Jose's Giving Pies, only to later cancel the $6,000 order from the small bakeryBillionaire Elon Musk has promised to make things good" with a California bakery after his company backed out of a pie order that cost the owner thousands of dollars.Just hearing about this. Will make things good with the bakery," Musk said on X (formerly Twitter) in response to a story about the cancelled order. Continue reading...
On the banks of Myanmar's largest river, the photographer captured the joy and spontaneity of five young boysAyeyarwady River is Myanmar's largest, andit was on its sandbanks near Sagaing Bridge that Kyaw Zay YarLin found these children playing.I often go there, because it's such abeautiful place," Kyaw says. I go to relax, enjoy the weather and the views, but that day I approached these five boys playing in the mud and asked permission to take their photo. Continue reading...
US enthusiasts who follow the tradition of sharing dough are now receiving about 1,000 requests a week, up from 30 to 60There's an old pioneer tradition" dating from the earliest days of the colonisation of the US west, says Mary Buckingham, that you shared your bread starter with anyone who asked."Which was all very well until TikTok came along. Continue reading...
R Adm Grace Hopper, namesake of the tech titan's new superchip, pioneered the idea of automatic programmingIn the arid tech sphere of semiconductor manufacturing, one hardback book-sized processor stands out: Nvidia's H-100. On Friday, the Santa Clara, California, company surpassed $2tn in valuation. Where it goes next will be down to a chip named after Amazing Grace" Hopper, a US navy rear admiral who became instrumental in the development of design and implementation of programming languages.Nvidia supplies approximately 80% of the global market in chips used in AI applications. The company's H-100 chips - the H is for Hopper - are now so valuable they have to be transported by armored car, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, and demand is so great that some customers are waiting as long as six months to receive it. Continue reading...
What you need to know about the company, its importance to AI and whether the stock market boom is sustainableInvestor excitement over artificial intelligence reached a new peak this week when better-than-expected results from chipmaker Nvidia drove stock markets in three continents to record highs.The rally began on Thursday and continued into Friday, as Nvidia overtook Google's parent group, Alphabet, to become the third most valuable company in the US. Its market capitalisation hit $2tn (1.58tn), surpassed only by Microsoft and Apple. Continue reading...
Social media sensations such as the Spudman, Binley Mega Chippy, Get Baked and Wakey Wines cope with the crowds - and the falloutBen Newman, also known as the Spudman, spends as much time posing for selfies these days as he does selling jacket potatoes from his van in the middle of Tamworth.His shop is the latest viral sensation on TikTok and has seen people travel from all over the world to try his food - jacket potatoes with classic toppings such as butter, cheese and beans - although Newman isn't quite sure why. Continue reading...
US film and TV mogul says he has paused his plans, having seen demonstrations of OpenAI video generatorTyler Perry has paused an $800m (630m) expansion of his Atlanta studio complex after the release of OpenAI's video generator Sora and warned that a lot of jobs" in the film industry will be lost to artificial intelligence.The US film and TV mogul said he was in the process of adding 12 sound stages to his studio but has halted those plans indefinitely after he saw demonstrations of Sora and its shocking" capabilities. Continue reading...
After a very public breakup, Dominik Diamond had avoided the addictive football game for two years - until he was suckered in with a free trial of EA Sports FC 24I fell off the wagon recently. Two and a half years, and all it took was one little slip. I was home one night and there it was, offered to me: a little free taste to suck me in. Before I knew it, I was hooked. I know it's a terrible thing to do; I know it serves no purpose other than to get me to do more of it, taking my money in ever larger fistfuls as I plunge deeper and deeper into the mire of addiction. But there I was. I was back on the Fifa. (Or rather, the EA Sports FC 24, as they lost the official rights.)It was a 10-hour free trial on Xbox Live. Ten hours, that'll be OK, I told myself. Just a taste. See what it's like after 30 months away. And before I know it, I'm into Ultimate Team again. This is the gaming equivalent of standing outside your ex-wife's house trying to see what toys her new fella has bought for your kids. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6JV2T)
A slick screen, top chip and long battery life are let down by lack of advanced AI and short support lifeOnePlus's latest top phone can't shake the feeling of being left behind by rivals.Even with a sleek appearance, speedy software and longer battery life the OnePlus 12 is devoid of the much-hyped AI tools packed into handsets from Samsung, Google and others. It feels more like a phone from 2020 than from the new era of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...
Leaked files shows range of services offered and bought, with data harvested from targets worldwideA big leak of data from a Chinese cybersecurity firm has revealed state security agents paying tens of thousands of pounds to harvest data on targets, including foreign governments, while hackers hoover up huge amounts of information on any person or institution who might be of interest to their prospective clients.The cache of more than 500 leaked files from the Chinese firm I-Soon was posted on the developer website Github and is thought by cybersecurity experts to be genuine. Some of the targets discussed include Nato and the UK Foreign Office. Continue reading...
More than 70,000 affected as users of AT&T report disruptions including to emergency service callsA cellular phone outage hit cities across the US early on Thursday. Thousands of AT&T customers reported service disruptions that rendered them unable to send texts, access the internet or make calls, even to emergency services via 911.More than 50,000 incidents were reported at about 7am ET, according to data from the outage tracking website Downdetector.com. Outage reports spiked above 70,000 around 9am ET. Continue reading...
Governments and tech companies are locked in debate over how best to police an information ecosystem that is at serious risk of disruptionWhat a bunch of malarkey."Gail Huntley recognised the gravelly voice of Joe Biden as soon as she picked up the phone. Huntley, a 73-year-old resident of New Hampshire, was planning to vote for the president in the state's upcoming primary, so she was confused that a pre-recorded message from him was urging her not to. Continue reading...
The platform's listing, expected in March, would be the largest IPO by a social media company since Pinterest went public in 2019Reddit set the stage for its highly anticipated stock market debut, preparing investors for the largest initial public offering by a major social network in four years.A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday disclosed the financial performance of the social media group, and revealed that Sam Altman, the OpenAI founder and CEO, is its third-largest shareholder, with an 8.7% stake. Continue reading...
US tech firm condemns streamer for seeking to overturn its App Store rules as EU judgment is expectedApple has condemned Spotify over the long-running competition complaint filed with the EU that could see the tech company face a huge fine if found guilty.After reports the bloc has concluded its investigation into the music streaming service's claims of anti-competitive behaviour by Apple over its App Store rules, with the prospect of a 500m (425m) fine, the iPhone manufacturer has accused Spotify of trying to get limitless" access to its tools without paying. Continue reading...
Company says it will adjust its Gemini model after criticism of ethnically diverse Vikings and second world war German soldiersGoogle has put a temporary block on its new artificial intelligence model producing images of people after it portrayed German second world war soldiers and Vikings as people of colour.The tech company said it would stop its Gemini model generating images of people after social media users posted examples of images generated by the tool that depicted some historical figures - including popes and the founding fathers of the US - in a variety of ethnicities and genders. Continue reading...
by Hollie Richardson, Hannah Verdier and Ella Braidwo on (#6JT7C)
In this week's newsletter: The comedian, with the help of Gary Lineker, unveils his Turdcast, and it's tummy-achingly joyful. Plus: five of the best survival stories Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereElectoral Dysfunction
Revenue at artificial intelligence chipmaker up more than 250% as CEO says demand is surging worldwide'The artificial intelligence boom is pushing demand for Nvidia's products past Wall Street's already lofty expectations.The chipmaker beat analyst expectations on Wednesday by leaps and bounds when it reported fourth-quarter earnings, posting $22.1bn in revenue on an expected $20.55bn and $4.93 in earnings per share against an expected $4.64. Revenue was 22% higher than the previous quarter, up 265% from a year ago. Continue reading...
by Kate Connolly in Berlin and Miranda Bryant in Stoc on (#6JSPT)
Bosses promise to go back to drawing board while carmaker faces industrial action from another union in SwedenThe people of a small German town where Elon Musk has built a Tesla factory have thrown a spanner in the works by rejecting plans to expand the complex.The majority of residents of Grunheide in Brandenburg, an hour's drive south-east of Berlin, voted against proposals to build new infrastructure intended to improve access to the site and allow easier transport of the finished vehicles, including a freight depot and warehouses. Continue reading...
In this week's newsletter: Xbox's big announcement' is an opportunity to call an end to manufactured rivalries Don't get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereMicrosoft's big Xbox announcement last week turned out to be something of an anticlimax: just four games, none of them particularly earth-shattering, are making their way to PlayStation or Nintendo Switch in the near future. (Annoyingly, Microsoft's executives refused to name them, but it was later reported by Famitsu and the Verge that the games in question are Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush, which lines up with what I've heard from other sources.)Microsoft is neither exiting the console market nor taking all its games multiplatform, as whipped-up rumour mongers had wildly speculated. And the (excellent value) Xbox Game Pass subscription service is remaining exclusive to Xbox and PC. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian