Technology | The Guardian

Company's long-awaited headphones deliver top sound, long battery life, supreme comfort and killer home-cinema featureThe wifi hi-fi maker Sonos has finally released its much-anticipated first set of headphones, the Ace, which combine the best elements from Bose, Apple and other high-end rivals with supreme comfort, sleek styling and a killer party trick for owners of the company's soundbars.The hi-tech noise-cancelling headphones cost an eye-watering 449 (499/$449/A$699) and rub shoulders at the top of the market with a range of extremely accomplished competitors such as the Bose QuietComfort Ultra, Sennheiser's Momentum 4 and Apple's AirPods Max.Weight: 312gDimensions: 191 x 160 x 85mmDrivers: 40mmConnectivity: Bluetooth 5.4 with multipoint, wifi, USB-C audio and chargingBluetooth codecs: SBC, AAC, aptX Adaptive with LosslessBattery life: 30+ hours with ANC over Bluetooth Continue reading...

Charity Ekezie has made it her mission to educate naive westerners about her continent on social media, and have some fun along the wayWhen Charity Ekezie first joined TikTok and started posting videos from her home in Minna state, Nigeria, in 2020, she had just left a job at a radio station and thought it might be a good way to keep busy and not let her journalism skills fall away.Within months, she began to realise from the comments underneath her posts that some people knew nothing about Africa. Commenters from the US, as well as the UK and other European countries, would ask her how she had a phone or whether there was water in Africa. Continue reading...

The social media network's new rules, announced on Monday, come after regulator pressure around the world to better protect children from inappropriate contentElon Musk's X now officially allows pornographic content on its platform but says it will block adult and violent posts from being seen by users who are under 18 or who do not opt-in to see it.The company announced on Monday new policies that formalise what is viewable on the platform. Continue reading...

Fake video uses AI-generated audio of the movie star to disparage the Olympic CommitteeRussia is targeting the Paris Olympics with a disinformation campaign that includes deploying a deepfake Tom Cruise to narrate a documentary criticising the organisation behind the games, according to a new report from Microsoft.Microsoft said a network of Russia-affiliated groups are running malign influence campaigns" against France, Emmanuel Macron, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Paris Games with the event less than 80 days away. Russia has been banned from the 2024 Olympics, although a small number of Russian athletes may compete as neutrals. Continue reading...

Far from a business sim, players act as tastemaker for a litany of lovable oddballs that swing by, using clues to deduce the perfect album recommendationEvery time I go through a breakup, I'm compelled to rewatch the noughties classic High Fidelity, in which OG softboi John Cusack mournfully chronicles a top 10 list" of his all-time worst breakups, soundtracked by the albums that accompanied them.Rather than his parade of enthralling exes, including a wonderfully vapid Catherine Zeta-Jones, it's Cusack's record shop, Championship Vinyl, that's the film's star. A sanctuary for a hurting Cusack, this battered boutique becomes a refuge for Chicago's other lost souls, giving its perennially hungover proprietor and a gaggle of local music nerds a place to lick their wounds. Continue reading...

The online safety bill was a start, but campaigners are right to demand more, especially in situations where a child has diedBereaved parents of children whose deaths have been linked to social media are crucial voices in the debate over how to ensure that under-18s are not harmed by their experiences online. Two years ago, a coroner's verdict that the death of Molly Russell was contributed to by the negative effects of online content", including algorithmically delivered self-harm material, was a watershed moment. Now Ellen Roome, whose son Jools Sweeney took his own life for unknown reasons in Cheltenham in 2022, has become the latest campaigner for changes to the law in this area.Her petition calling for parents whose children have died to have a right of access to social media accounts has attracted 120,000 signatures and is likely to be debated by MPs early in the next parliament. While the online safety bill, which received royal assent in October, significantly strengthened a weak and outdated regulatory framework, Ms Roome and the other families in the Bereaved Parents for Online Safety group are right that more needs to be done.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

CEO Jensen Huang tells packed stadium in Taipei next Industrial Revolution has begun'Nvidia has unveiled new products and plans to accelerate the advance of artificial intelligence, with the AI hardware company's chief executive telling a packed stadium in Taipei on Sunday that the next Industrial Revolution has begun".Jensen Huang is in Taiwan for the island's leading tech expo, Computex, along with the CEOs of some of the world's biggest semiconductor companies - including AMD, Intel and Qualcomm - and their plans for a tech industry dominated by AI are top of the agenda. Continue reading...

New York's governor backs a plan to remove smartphones from the classroom. Here are some suggestions for how it might workOn Thursday, Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, announced plans to sponsor legislation that would ban smartphones in schools as part of her broader effort to protect children from technology's negative effects. She intends to introduce the bill later this year so that it can be considered during New York's next legislative session, which begins in January.Hochul's announcement should come as welcome news to anyone concerned about the effects of smartphones and social media on students' attention spans, relationships, learning and mental health. However, given that it could be more than a year before the bill goes into effect - provided it's passed to begin with - caregivers and school administrators may be wondering what they can do to shield their children from technology's worst traits now.Catherine Price is the writer of the Guardian's Reclaim Your Brain" email newsletter series. She's also the founder of Screen/Life Balance and the author of How to Break Up With Your Phone and the How to Feel Alive Substack newsletter, for which she's compiled a collection of resources about kids, smartphones and social media Continue reading...

As we know more about our bodies, from wearable tech to data feedback, so our health anxiety increases. So is it better not to know?One thing led to another and then I was topless on a couch and then a cardiologist, his nose wrinkled, was explaining that everything was fine, except my heart was a bit... weird? I can't remember the exact words, but they amounted, I think, to slightly more than eccentric", far less than bizarre. Though he was investigating something else entirely, he'd noticed that avalve up in there was slightly odd, definitely unrelated to the issue I was here for, and unlikely to impact my future health in any way. But now that he'd seen it, he thought it best to tell me. It's better to know, though, Iasked, right? He shrugged. Sometimes?" he said, non-committal. It's complicated."At home, I found myself more aware of my heartbeat, listening for unusual sounds. When, some months later, I had what turned out to be indigestion, I went to the doctor assuming it was that valve, preparing to, perhaps, explode. I have no history of anxiety, had always been largely uninterested in what was happening inside my body - I thought of it in a similar way to the goings on in the vast deep waters of the sea, necessarily unfathomable. But having had this defect revealed to me, I became uncomfortably conscious of all these moving parts, all that could go wrong. Continue reading...

The Tories and Labour are forking out more than ever on social media ads, but going viral isn't easy. We speak to influencers and strategists about the messages and memesWhy would you hold an election in November? The question came from digital marketing guru Mike Harris and was asked in a message to his friend, Labour's campaign manager, Morgan McSweeney, earlier this year. Digital advertising is more expensive in October and November because the internet is swamped with ads for Christmas and Black Friday, said Harris, the founder of communications agency 89up. Why not pick a cheaper time of year?McSweeney shot back: How about June?" Continue reading...

Cybercrime group ShinyHunters reportedly demanding 400,000 ransom to prevent data being soldTicketmaster has been targeted in a cyber-attack, with hackers allegedly offering to sell customer data on the dark web, its parent company, Live Nation, has confirmed.The ShinyHunters hacking group is reportedly demanding about 400,000 in a ransom payment to prevent the data being sold. Continue reading...

Auction house hit by cyber-extortionist group RansomHub which claims to have sensitive information of at least 500,000 clientsA ransomware hack was the last thing the precarious fine art market needed - but that's what it got when Christie's website went down days before it began its all-important 20th and 21st century May auctions in New York.Guillaume Cerutti, CEO of the French-owned auctioneer, gently called the attack a technology security incident". Christie's posted its auction catalogs on a separate site, the sale went ahead with sales of $640m, and 10 days later the website came back to life. Continue reading...

The photographer got as close as he could when cadets' endurance, strength and teamwork were tested at Canada's Royal Military CollegeEvery year, as spring blooms, first-year officer cadets of Canada's Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, take part in a series of competitions. The challenges and obstacle course aim to test their strength, endurance andteamwork.As long as you don't mind getting a little wet and don't step on any of the smoke canisters, you can get really close to the action," says Elliot Ferguson, who had captured the event before in his capacity asa news and sportsphotographer. Continue reading...

After new feature tells people to eat rocks or add glue to pizza sauce, company to restrict which searches return summariesGoogle announced on Thursday that it would refine and retool its summaries of search results generated by artificial intelligence, posting a blog explaining why the feature was returning bizarre and inaccurate answers that included telling people to eat rocks or add glue to pizza sauce. The company will reduce the scope of searches that will return an AI-written summary.Google has added several restrictions on the types of searches that would generate AI Overview results, the company's head of search, Liz Reid, said, as well as limited the inclusion of satire and humor content". The company is also taking action against what it described as a small number of AI Overviews that violate its content policies, which it said occurred in fewer than 1 in 7m unique search queries where the feature appeared. Continue reading...

ShinyHunters stole information including bank and credit card numbers, as well as staff HR detailsHackers are attempting to sell confidential information including the bank and credit card numbers of millions of Santander customers to the highest bidder.ShinyHunters posted an advert on a hacker forum for the data, which it says also includes staff HR details, with an asking price of $2m (1.6m). It is the same organisation that claims to have hacked Ticketmaster. Continue reading...

Showrunner will let users generate episodes with prompts, which could be an alarming next step or a fleeting noveltyOne of the key strategies of streaming services is to keep you in front of a screen for as long as possible. As soon as one episode of a show you're watching ends, the next one pops up automatically. But this approach has its limits. After all, when a series ends, Netflix will try to autoplay another series that it thinks you'll like, but it has a terrible success rate. Maybe the tone of the suggested show is wrong, or maybe it's too exhausting to be dumped into the sea of exposition that a new show brings. Maybe it's just too jarring to be pulled out of one world and dumped straight into another without any space to breathe.You know what would fix that? If Netflix gave you the chance to automatically create a new episode of the show you were already watching. You'd stay there forever, wouldn't you? It would be wonderful. Ladies and gentlemen, you will be thrilled to learn that this glorious technology now exists. Continue reading...

Videos on Douyin give people step-by-step instructions on how to get to the US - and then leave them stranded upon arrivalThis article is copublished with Documented, a multilingual news site about immigrants in New York, and the Markup, a non-profit, investigative newsroom that challenges technology to serve the public good.Xiong couldn't pinpoint exactly what finally prompted him to leave his home town in China, the only place he had lived for 32 years, and embark on the arduous journey on foot through Central and South America to reach the United States in 2023. However, he clearly remembered the catalyst that first ignited the idea. Continue reading...

Marijuana is legal where I live in Canada, so I decided to give it a try and see whether it would improve my gaming experience - or just end in a panic attackI have a complicated relationship with marijuana. I wish I liked it more. But I'm a control freak, and so it makes me relax for about three minutes before sending me into a panic attack because I have lost control.I live in Canada, where it's legal, with government shops full of wacky baccy wares in all shapes and sizes. They even have lurid canned drinks, like some form of anti-Red Bull. It's all very tempting. And I have never tried video games stoned. Continue reading...

Networks in China and Iran also used AI models to create and post disinformation but campaigns did not reach large audiencesOpenAI on Thursday released its first ever report on how its artificial intelligence tools are being used for covert influence operations, revealing that the company had disrupted disinformation campaigns originating from Russia, China, Israel and Iran.Malicious actors used the company's generative AI models to create and post propaganda content across social media platforms, and to translate their content into different languages. None of the campaigns gained traction or reached large audiences, according to the report. Continue reading...

World's largest botnet' - spread through infected emails - taken down through coordinated police action among several countriesUS authorities announced on Thursday that they had dismantled the world's largest botnet ever", allegedly responsible for nearly $6bn in Covid insurance fraud.The Department of Justice arrested a Chinese national, YunHe Wang, 35, and seized luxury watches, more than 20 properties and a Ferrari. The networks allegedly operated by Wang and others, dubbed 911 S5", spread ransomware via infected emails from 2014 to 2022. Wang allegedly accrued a fortune of $99m by licensing his malware to other criminals. The network allegedly pulled in $5.9bn in fraudulent unemployment claims from Covid relief programs. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Kathy Hochul pushes online child safety, telling social media companies: You're not going to profit off the mental health of children'The New York governor, Kathy Hochul, plans to introduce a bill banning smartphones in schools, the latest in a series of legislative moves aimed at online child safety by New York's top official.I have seen these addictive algorithms pull in young people, literally capture them and make them prisoners in a space where they are cut off from human connection, social interaction and normal classroom activity," she said. Continue reading...

China shows off mechanical canine with an automatic rifle on its back at joint military drills with CambodiaThe Chinese army has debuted its latest weapon: a gun-toting robotic dog.The mechanical canine, which has an automatic rifle on its back, was front and centre of recent joint military drills with Cambodia, according to footage from the state broadcaster CCTV. Continue reading...

Most Americans concerned about online misinformation as election nears, according to poll by watchdog group Free PressAs US presidential elections approach, the vast majority of Americans are concerned about online misinformation and fear they do not have enough accurate information on candidates, especially local ones, a new poll has shown.While people across the political and racial spectrum reported being very concerned" about the deliberate spread of online misinformation, the study found Black Americans are disproportionately encountering misinformation when seeking accurate news. Continue reading...

As summer approaches, we want to hear about how easy or challenging you find being off your phone while on holidayWith the summer fast approaching, many of us will be looking forward to unwinding in the sun, our out of office auto-reply switched firmly on.But with smartphone use on the rise, it's not always easy to completely unplug while on holiday. Continue reading...

Israeli-made Pegasus cyberweapon used in hacking attempts on at least seven journalists and activists in EUAt least seven journalists and activists who have been vocal critics of the Kremlin and its allies have been targeted inside the EU by a state using Pegasus, the hacking spyware made by Israel's NSO Group, according to a new report by security researchers.The targets of the hacking attempts - who were first alerted to the attempted cyber-intrusions after receiving threat notifications from Apple on their iPhones - include Russian, Belarusian, Latvian and Israeli journalists and activists inside the EU. Continue reading...

When my son, who is on the austim spectrum, was struggling, this classic game opened up his world. It continues to help lonely, isolated people find ways to connect and belongA few days ago, I was tidying my home office - which more closely resembles a video game arcade recently hit by a tornado - when I found a long-lost piece of technology in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet. It was an old Xbox 360, the Elite model - black, heavy, ungainly, impossibly retro. Out of curiosity, I hauled it out, found a controller and power cable and switched it on. I knew immediately what I wanted to look for, but I was also apprehensive: I didn't know how I'd feel if Minecraft was still there - or worse, if it wasn't. Minecraft, you see, is more than just a game for me. I thought about just putting the console back where I found it. But as this month sees the 15th anniversary of the game's original release, I felt I had to go on.In 2012, Microsoft held a big Xbox Games Showcase event at a cavernous venue in San Francisco. The company was showing all the biggest titles of the era - Forza, Gears of War, Halo - but in one quiet corner sat a couple of demo units showing off the as yet unreleased Xbox version of Minecraft. I already knew about the game, of course - designed by Swedish studio Mojang, it was an open-world creative adventure, allowing players to explore vast, procedurally generated worlds, collect resources and build whatever they wanted. It was already attracting millions of players on PC. But I had never really given it much time; so I sat down to have a quick go ... and ended up staying for an hour. There was something in it that was holding me there, despite all the other games on offer. That something was Zac. Continue reading...

Celebrity posts of graphic following IDF strike help make it among most-shared content of Israel-Gaza warAn image depicting refugee tents spelling out the phrase all eyes on Rafah" has become one of the most-shared pieces of content relating to the Israel-Gaza war, spreading rapidly on social media this week. The graphic, which was generated using artificial intelligence, had been shared on Instagram more than 45m times by Wednesday.The image and reactions to it have also gained traction outside Instagram. On TikTok, one creator's video commenting on the image amassed 10m plays within 24 hours of being posted. After the image was shared on a pro-Palestinian account on X on Monday, the post gained 8m views and 188,000 retweets within days. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, PC; Codemasters/EA Sports

Big tech is playing its part in reaching net zero targets, but its vast new datacentres are run at huge cost to the environment

Wall Street Journal reports pair have had several phone calls recently and that Musk could assist if Trump wins another termDonald Trump has floated a possible advisory role for the tech billionaire Elon Musk if he were to retake the White House next year, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.The two men, who once had a tense relationship, have had several phone calls a month since March as Trump looks to court powerful donors and Musk seeks an outlet for his policy ideas, the newspaper said, citing several anonymous sources familiar with their conversations. Continue reading...

Up to 28,000 people at tech giant in South Korea will strike for one day on 7 June after negotiations over wages stallA major union representing tens of thousands of people at the South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics said on Wednesday that workers will go on strike for the first time, potentially threatening key global semiconductor supply chains.A spokesperson said union members, around 20% of the company workforce, or 28,000 people, would use annual leave to strike for one day on 7 June, leaving the door open for a potential general strike down the road. Continue reading...

The action comes after nearly 200 Meta employees sign open letter to Mark Zuckerberg demanding end to alleged censorshipAs Meta held its annual shareholder meeting online Wednesday, human rights groups coordinated online protests calling the company to put an end to what they call systemic censorship of pro-Palestinian content, both on the company's social networks and within its own workforce.The day of action comes after nearly 200 Meta employees signed a letter to Mark Zuckerberg this month demanding the company put an end to alleged censorship of internal voices advocating for Palestinian rights. The employees called for more transparency around alleged biases on public facing platforms and issued a statement urging for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Continue reading...

Security incident at pension scheme being taken extremely seriously', but broadcaster says there is no evidence of a ransomware attackThe BBC has launched an investigation after the details of more than 25,000 current and former employees were exposed in a data breach.The corporation's pension scheme wrote to members on Wednesday to say their details had been stolen in a data security incident that it was taking extremely seriously". Continue reading...

A Hamilton-esque performance extolling the virtues of design software was exactly the wrong kind of cornyThe next time you're sitting through a company-wide meeting, half-listening to a leader drone on about updates or product launches (and hoping they don't announce layoffs or budget cuts), remember this: at least they're not rapping.That's what happened at Canva Create, a summit held in Los Angeles last week, in honor of Canva, a graphic design company known for helping non-designers produce good-enough flyers to advertise a yard sale or middle school talent show. In LA, Melanie Perkins, co-founder of the $40bn Australian brand, spoke to attendees about brand-building, maintaining a strong company culture and scaling operations", per Variety. (Something she knows a lot about: Disney's CEO, Bob Iger, who also spoke at the summit, is an investor and board member of the platform.) Continue reading...

Ellen Roome says firms should be required to hand over data in case it can help parents understand why their child diedA woman whose 14-year-old son killed himself is calling for parents to be given the legal right to access their child's social media accounts to help understand why they died.Ellen Roome has gathered more than 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for social media companies to be required to hand over data to parents after a child has died.In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org. Continue reading...

Xbox, PlayStation 4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch; Moonloop Games/Firestoke

Ryan Salame is first of Sam Bankman-Fried's lieutenants to get jail time for his role in 2022 collapse of cryptocurrency exchangeA federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the former FTX executive Ryan Salame to more than seven years in prison, the first of the lieutenants of the failed cryptocurrency mogul Sam Bankman-Fried to receive jail time for their roles in the 2022 collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange.Salame, 30, was a high-ranking executive at FTX for most of the exchange's existence and, up until its collapse, was the co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets. He pleaded guilty last year to illegally making unlawful US campaign contributions and to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Continue reading...

Javier Milei to hold private talks with Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman as Argentina faces worst economic crisis in decadesJavier Milei, Argentina's president, is set to meet with the leaders of some of the world's largest tech companies in Silicon Valley this week. The far-right libertarian leader will hold private talks with Sundar Pichai of Google, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta and Tim Cook of Apple.Milei also met last month with Elon Musk, who has become one of the South American president's most prominent cheerleaders and repeatedly shared his pro-deregulation, anti-social justice message on X (formerly Twitter). Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire, has also twice visited Milei, flying to Buenos Aires to speak with him in February and May of this year. Continue reading...

US tech startup says committee will advise on critical safety and security decisions'OpenAI says it is setting up a safety and security committee and has begun training a new AI model to supplant the GPT-4 system that underpins its ChatGPT chatbot.The San Francisco startup said in a blogpost on Tuesday that the committee will advise the full board on critical safety and security decisions" for its projects and operations. Continue reading...

One day and six (very long) agreements later, can we call the meeting to hammer out the future of AI regulation a success? Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWhat does success look like for the second global AI summit? As the great and good of the industry (and me) gathered last week at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, a sprawling hilltop campus in eastern Seoul, that was the question I kept asking myself.If we're ranking the event by the quantity of announcements generated, then it's a roaring success. In less than 24 hours - starting with a virtual leader's summit" at 8pm and ending with a joint press conference with the South Korean and British science and technology ministers - I counted no fewer than six agreements, pacts, pledges and statements, all demonstrating the success of the event in getting people around the table to hammer out a deal.The first 16 companies have signed up to voluntary artificial intelligence safety standards introduced at the Bletchley Park summit, Rishi Sunak has said on the eve of the follow-up event in Seoul.These commitments ensure the world's leading AI companies will provide transparency and accountability on their plans to develop safe AI," Sunak said. It sets a precedent for global standards on AI safety that will unlock the benefits of this transformative technology."Those institutes will begin sharing information about models, their limitations, capabilities and risks, as well as monitoring specific AI harms and safety incidents" where they occur and sharing resources to advance global understanding of the science of AI safety.At the first full house" meeting of those countries on Wednesday, [Michelle Donelan, the UK technology secretary] warned the creation of the network was only a first step. We must not rest on our laurels. As the pace of AI development accelerates, we must match that speed with our own efforts if we are to grip the risks and seize the limitless opportunities for our public."Twenty-seven nations, including the United Kingdom, Republic of Korea, France, United States, United Arab Emirates, as well as the European Union, have signed up to developing proposals for assessing AI risks over the coming months, in a set of agreements that bring the AI Seoul summit to an end. The Seoul Ministerial Statement sees countries agreeing for the first time to develop shared risk thresholds for frontier AI development and deployment, including agreeing when model capabilities could pose severe risks" without appropriate mitigations. This could include helping malicious actors to acquire or use chemical or biological weapons, and AI's ability to evade human oversight, for example by manipulation and deception or autonomous replication and adaptation. Continue reading...

In 2007, a big-screen version of the hit video game was announced, but it languished in development limbo. What happened, and what does it mean for Margot Robbie's new adaptation?When the news came out that Margot Robbie is set to produce a movie based on the iconic life-simulation video game, The Sims, many people's first response was: How the heck do you make a movie out of The Sims?" It may be one of the bestselling game series of all time but, crucially, it doesn't really have any plot to work with. The entire point is that it's a sandbox life sim, and players can do whatever they want.This has all happened before. In 2007, it was announced that a movie based on The Sims was coming to the big screen, with what was then 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios) acquiring the rights. It was written by Brian Lynch, who has become the Hollywood screenwriter of choice for some of the past decade's biggest and most critically acclaimed family animations, including Puss in Boots (2011), Minions (2015) and Minions: The Rise of Gru (2022), and The Secret Life of Pets movies. Continue reading...

UK touts Bletchley effect' of safety institutes, but division remains over whether to limit AI abilities

Journalist Maria Ressa named Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk in speech at Hay literary festival in PowysTech bros" such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are the largest dictators", Maria Ressa, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2021 for her defence of media freedom, has said.The American-Filipina journalist has spent a number of years fighting charges filed during then president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte's administration, but said Duterte is a far smaller dictator compared to Mark Zuckerberg, and now let me throw in Elon Musk". Continue reading...

Funding round values artificial intelligence startup at $18bn before investment, says multibillionaireElon Musk's artificial intelligence company xAI has closed a $6bn (4.7bn) investment round that will make it among the best-funded challengers to OpenAI.The startup is only a year old, but it has rapidly built its own large language model (LLM), the technology underpinning many of the recent advances in generative artificial intelligence capable of creating human-like text, pictures, video, and voices. Continue reading...

Hollywood star's claim ChatGPT update used an imitation of her voice highlights tensions over rapidly accelerating technologyWhen OpenAI's new voice assistant said it was doing fantastic" in a launch demo this month, Scarlett Johansson was not.The Hollywood star said she was shocked, angered and in disbelief" that the updated version of ChatGPT, which can listen to spoken prompts and respond verbally, had a voice eerily similar" to hers. Continue reading...

One computer scientist says we should embrace human-machine relationships, but other experts are more cautiousHollywood may have warned about the perils of striking up relationships with artificial intelligence, but one computer scientist says we may be missing a trick if we do not embrace the positives that human-machine relationships have to offer.Despite the travails of Joaquin Phoenix's introverted and soon-to-be-divorced protagonist in the 2013 movie Her, one professor says we should be open to the comforts that chatbots can provide. Continue reading...

Petrolheads are quick to scorn the idea of electric car racing, but the series' chief executive is sure that time, technology - and even geography - are on his sideJeff Dodds has been a fan of Formula One all my life", he says. That is probably a good thing because, as chief executive of electric racing series Formula E, he must find the comparison with its fossil-fuelled cousin is constant.So he takes it head-on. Such is the growth and improvement in technology in Formula E that one day, he says, it is realistic that a question will be asked about whether both can exist together". Talking to the Observer in the race company's west London headquarters, he adds that maybe one day, as Formula E develops, they won't [both exist]". Continue reading...

OpenAI's unsubtle approximation of the actor's voice for its new GPT-4o software was a stark illustration of the firm's high-handed attitudeOn Monday 13 May, OpenAI livestreamed an event to launch a fancy new product - a large language model (LLM) dubbed GPT-4o - that the company's chief technology officer, Mira Murati, claimed to be more user-friendly and faster than boring ol' ChatGPT. It was also more versatile, and multimodal, which is tech-speak for being able to interact in voice, text and vision. Key features of the new model, we were told, were that you could interrupt it in mid-sentence, that it had very low latency (delay in responding) and that it was sensitive to the user's emotions.Viewers were then treated to the customary toe-curling spectacle of Mark and Barret", a brace of tech bros straight out of central casting, interacting with the machine. First off, Mark confessed to being nervous, so the machine helped him to do some breathing exercises to calm his nerves. Then Barret wrote a simple equation on a piece of paper and the machine showed him how to find the value of X, after which he showed it a piece of computer code and the machine was able to deal with that too. Continue reading...

Scientists have found that immersing kids in computer games can train their brains to localise sounds betterScientists have recruited an unusual ally in their efforts to help children overcome profound deafness. They are using computer games to boost the children's ability to localise sounds and understand speech.The project is known as Bears - for Both Ears - and it is aimed at youngsters who have been given twin cochlea implants because they were born with little or no hearing. Continue reading...

The photographer had to gain the trust of women in south Iran to capture this imageIranian photographer Forough Alaei has aspecial interest in women's rights: she has documented female football fans prohibited from entering her country's stadiums, andfor this project spent a month on Hengam Island. Alaei explains that here, in the south ofIran, the women have a major role in the economy of the family. While they are very traditional and do housework, they also do fishing and crafts, and have jobs. This is Marziyeh; she's 38 and achef in an independent restaurant serving delicious, spicy seafood to the increasing number of tourists in theregion."Alaei stayed for an extended period in order to gain the women's trust, and found it easiest to document their lives and work using a phone. They're familiar objects," she says. Digital cameras can be intimidating or off-putting to people in the small, traditional regions." Continue reading...