Global headquarters forced to shut down computer systems for programme that reunites families separated by conflictThe International Committee of the Red Cross has been the victim of a cyber-attack in which hackers seized the data of more than 515,000 extremely vulnerable people, some of whom had fled conflicts.“A sophisticated cybersecurity attack against computer servers hosting information held by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was detected this week,” it said in a statement. Continue reading...
The video game industry is bigger than the film and music industries combined – yet has faced far less scrutiny than major tech companies like Facebook and GoogleMicrosoft recently announced plans to purchase Activision Blizzard – one of the world’s largest video game companies – for nearly $70bn, making it the biggest acquisition in tech to date. While big tech always seems to be facing some sort of – usually well-deserved – public criticism lately, the ire has mostly focused on social media. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter executives have all had to testify before Congress about their platforms’ roles in spreading misinformation and being used as organizing tools for events like the January 6 storming of the US Capitol. This is all on top of a history of alleged labor violations, including complaints that traumatized content moderators are paid poverty wages and reports that Black employees face racial discrimination.Video game companies mirror many of the alleged problems of social media yet have long evaded accountability, outside of the occasional attempt to ban a violent video game. This is troubling given the staggering size of the game industry, which produces more revenue than the film and music industries combined and whose biggest hits make more money in days than most entire franchises make in their lifetimes. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: How a judge’s ruling could pave the way for a costly, lengthy legal battle over the future of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram
UK ‘little nearer to closing great digital divide’ between cities and rural areas, says committeeBoris Johnson’s promise to “level up” the nation by providing next-generation-speed broadband to most homes by 2025 is under threat as rural dwellers are left behind in the internet revolution, according to a report by parliament’s spending watchdog.The report by the public accounts committee found that the government is relying too heavily on companies, most notably BT Openreach and Virgin Media O2, to achieve Johnson’s key election manifesto pledge of addressing the UK’s status as a global laggard in broadband speeds. Continue reading...
Analysis: Activision Blizzard deal would help Xbox compete against PlayStation – but will regulators play along?Microsoft’s planned takeover of Activision Blizzard puts the tech company at the centre of two big issues facing the sector: the metaverse and Washington’s determination to rein in big tech.The metaverse is where the physical and digital worlds come together, although it is very much at the concept stage. The idea is that you will put on a virtual reality headset and a digital representation of yourself – an avatar – will interact with others at work and play in a combination of virtual and augmented reality. Continue reading...
Move to change law would see assets subject to the same FCA rules as shares and insuranceThe government has unveiled plans to crack down on misleading cryptocurrency ads by making them subject to the same regulations as marketing for other financial products such as shares and insurance.The Treasury has responded to rising concern over a surge in ads promoting cryptoassets, which are unregulated in the UK, and the potential for naive investors to lose money given the highly volatile price swings of digital currencies such as bitcoin. Continue reading...
Introduction of the new technology near airports could interfere with critical airplane instruments such as radio altimetersUS airline chiefs have warned that the introduction of a new 5G service could cause US commerce to “grind to a halt” due to possibly grounding a significant number of aircraft and might “strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas”.Warnings of an impending “catastrophic” crisis in aviation came in a letter sent to the White House national economic council director, Brian Deese, transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator, Steve Dickson, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, Reuters reported on Monday. Continue reading...
In his book Reality+ David Chalmers says the material world may lose its allure as VR technology advancesIt is hard to imagine humans spending their lives in virtual reality when the experience amounts to waving your arms about in the middle of the lounge with a device the size of a house brick strapped to your face.But this is where humanity is heading, says the philosopher David Chalmers, who argues for embracing the fate. Advances in technology will deliver virtual worlds that rival and then surpass the physical realm. And with limitless, convincing experiences on tap, the material world may lose its allure, he says. Continue reading...
Claim comes as Microsoft warns hack that hit government websites could be worse than first fearedUkraine has said it has “evidence” Russia was behind a massive cyber-attack that knocked out key government websites last week, while Microsoft warned the hack could be far worse than first thought.Tensions are at an all-time high between Ukraine and Russia, which Kyiv accuses of having massed troops on its border before a possible invasion. Some analysts fear the cyber-attack could be the prelude to a military attack. Continue reading...
No more generic American voice. Let Colin Farrell, Michael Fassbender and Paul Mescal do your bidding insteadInside my iPhone is a cornucopia of Irish men.“It’s currently clear and 25 degrees,” Colin Farrell replies when I ask him the weather. Continue reading...
Newly revealed documents from the complaint against Google shed light on potential advertising sales manipulationFacebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai were allegedly aware of and approved a deal to collaborate on the potential manipulation of advertising sales, according to newly revealed documents.The documents, which came to light on Friday, were filed as part of a lawsuit against Google brought by the attorneys general of multiple US states. The lawsuit was first filed in December 2020 and claimed Google misled publishers and advertisers about the price and process of advertising auctions. At that time, many documents and parts of the lawsuit were redacted, but court rulings have since made them public. Continue reading...
Profit forecast cut as Christmas supply problems hit products including PlayStation 5Currys has trimmed its annual profit forecast after a shortage of goods ranging from PlayStation 5 consoles and Apple products to hairdryers and TVs resulted in a 5% fall in sales over the peak Christmas period.The UK’s biggest electrical retailer said sales were hit by problems including the global chip shortage, which is affecting the supply of electrical goods including TVs and appliances and the shipping of products. Continue reading...
Suspected Russian hackers leave message warning: ‘Ukrainians … be afraid and expect worse’Ukraine has been hit by a “massive” cyber-attack, with the websites of several government departments including the ministry of foreign affairs and the education ministry knocked out.Officials said it was too early to draw any conclusions but they pointed to a “long record” of Russian cyber assaults against Ukraine, with the attack coming after security talks between Moscow and the US and its allies this week ended in stalemate. Continue reading...
by Alexi Duggins, Hollie Richardson, Hannah Verdier on (#5V0E9)
The danger of being one of the world’s most recognisable celebrities is revealed as the Disgraceland podcast profiles the Shake It Off singer. Plus: a conversation with a dominatrixDisgraceland
Subpoenas are an escalation in the committee’s efforts for answers as companies ignored information requestsThe House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol has ordered several social media firms to hand over data relating to the attack, asignificant step toward transparency that could have broader privacy implications.The committee on Thursday subpoenaed Twitter, Meta, Alphabet and Reddit for private messages exchanged on the platforms about the attack aas well as information regarding moderation policies that allowed communities to remain online even as they incited violence in early 2021. Continue reading...
Site will have space for 10,000 UK employees who will work under hybrid workplace modelGoogle has announced a $1bn (£871m) deal to buy the London development Central Saint Giles, calling the move a show of confidence in the return to more office working.The US tech firm currently rents space in the brightly coloured development designed by the architect Renzo Piano, which is located in the centre of the capital, near Oxford Street. Continue reading...
Holmes remains free on bond till September and faces up to 20 years in prison, but experts say she will likely receive far fewerElizabeth Holmes is slated to be sentenced on 26 September after being found guilty of defrauding Theranos investors, according to a court filing on Wednesday.A California jury found Holmes, 37, guilty on four of 11 charges, including three counts of fraud and one count of conspiring to defraud private investors in the blood-testing startup. She remains free on a $500,000 bond while awaiting sentencing. Continue reading...
DMV revisiting prior decision that full self-driving is not subject to its regulations on autonomous vehiclesCalifornia is evaluating whether Tesla’s self-driving tests require regulatory oversight, following “videos showing a dangerous use of that technology” and federal investigations into Tesla vehicle crashes, a state regulator said.The California department of motor vehicles previous said that Tesla’s full self-driving, or FSD, beta requires human intervention and therefore is not subject to its regulations on autonomous vehicles. Continue reading...
Class action lawsuit alleges celebrities and EthereumMax executives made ‘false and misleading statements’The reality TV star Kim Kardashian and boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr are among celebrities being sued over their promotion of an alleged “pump and dump” cryptocurrency scheme that investors say caused them to lose money.According to a class action lawsuit filed in a California court, executives of EthereumMax, in collaboration with Kardashian, Mayweather Jr and the basketball player Paul Pierce, sought to enrich themselves by making “false and misleading” statements to investors. Continue reading...
Fresh election in Alabama comes after US official finds company violated labor law in last year’s voteAmazon workers at an Alabama warehouse will get another chance to unionize next month, after a federal labor board set a February date for the rerun election.The fresh vote comes after an official at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found that Amazon had violated labor law in the union election held last year and ruled in November that workers must get another chance to vote. Continue reading...
Another non-fungible token TV show has been announced, a possible sign that the way we consume content could be about to changeIf, like me, you spent the first week of the year excitedly hoovering up every last “Best upcoming shows of 2022” list online, I’m afraid I have some bad news. Not one list mentioned GenZeroes, and GenZeroes has the potential to be the most important television series ever made. Or, you know, it might be a steaming bag of turds that is watched by literally zero people on Earth. But, hey, it’s always nice to be positive.Because, just as the television industry is starting to adjust to the popularity of non-linear, streaming viewing habits, GenZeroes represents the next incredible frontier of home entertainment. That’s right, GenZeroes is an NFT (non-fungible token) show. Continue reading...
In this week’s newsletter: before it was banned, Politics For All’s emoji-laden tweets were reaching millions of followers – and the UK government - by manipulating the perverse incentives of social media
The NGO Nana is upending gender norms in conservative Sokoto state, where one in 20 girls finish secondary schoolThe green-and-red Nana Female Mechanic Garage sign is visible from the main road into Sokoto city. Behind its sliding iron gate, Zainab Dayyabu stomps around in heavy work boots and a blue jumpsuit, her hands callused and oily.“I love the job I’m doing,” says the 23-year-old, as she opens the bonnet of a Peugeot van to test its battery. Continue reading...
Platform is not doing enough to tackle spread of falsehoods, claims letter signed by 80 groupsYouTube is a major conduit of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide and is not doing enough to tackle the spread of falsehoods on its platform, according to a global coalition of factchecking organisations.A letter signed by more than 80 groups, including Full Fact in the UK and the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, says the video platform is hosting content by groups including Doctors for the Truth, which spread Covid misinformation, and videos supporting the “fraud” narrative during the US presidential election. Continue reading...
Josh Wardle developed game to play with his partner – and now more than 2m others have joined inWordle, a deceptively simple online word puzzle, has had a meteoric rise since its launch last autumn, from 90 daily players in November to 300,000 at the beginning of January, to 2 million last weekend. But, for its creator, the game’s rapid success has resulted in as much anxiety as excitement.The game has become an unexpected grassroots hit for Josh Wardle, who developed it for his puzzle-loving partner. The pair played it for fun on their sofa, and other users slowly began to join them. Continue reading...
From ‘bubble barriers’ to floating drones, a host of new projects aim to stop plastic pollution before it ever reaches the oceanThe Great Bubble Barrier is just that – a wall of bubbles. It gurgles across the water in a diagonal screen, pushing plastic to one side while allowing fish and other wildlife to pass unharmed.The technology, created by a Dutch firm and already being used in Amsterdam, is being trialled in the Douro River in Porto, Portugal, as part of the EU-supported Maelstrom (marine litter sustainable removal and management) project. Continue reading...
There’s no surer way to date yourself than the way you use your mobile. From leaving voicemails to leaving voice notes, each generation has a different etiquetteA lot of people, particularly at this self-improvement stage of the year, spend a great deal of time worrying about what makes them look old. Is it the bags under the eyes or the invisible triceps? This is daft, since, if you have a ring light or – better yet – are willing to pretend that your camera isn’t working, no one needs to know what you really look like unless they live with you (and those people have a fair idea already). The giveaway now is how you use your phone. You can absolutely carbon-date yourself in a single exchange.If you leave voicemail, that makes you a boomer, according to assorted experts. If you send a voice note, you are (spiritually, at least) a millennial, or even generation Z. This makes no sense, since, to your interlocutor, these are two identical experiences: an annoying taped message that they are burdened with listening to. However, if you query the rules, that puts you back in boomer territory.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Romance scams robbed Britons of nearly £100m last year. Thanks to online dating and the pandemic, these cruel crimes are more sophisticated and prevalent than everIn February 2019, Anna, a finance professional in her 50s, joined the dating website Zoosk. She had been single for four years, recovering from an incredibly difficult, abusive marriage. “I was finally ready to meet someone,” she says.So, when she met Andrew, a handsome Bulgarian food importer living in London, she was thrilled. The pair were soon spending hours talking on the phone each day. Anna was smitten. “He showered me with love and affection,” she says. “If you imagine candy floss, I was the stick and he was the sugar wrapped around me. I felt as though I was floating.” Continue reading...
A new breed of supermarkets means the days of queues, checkouts and shoplifting are numbered. But what else will we lose when no-transaction shopping becomes the norm?Welcome to the supermarkets of the future. They may look and feel like the supermarkets we are all used to – and stock the same bread, butter and bananas – but these shops are now fitted out with more than £1m of the latest technology that their bosses promise will put an end to our biggest frustration (queueing) and our most persistent crime (shoplifting).Jill French, a legal secretary in her 30s, wearing a sharp navy suit and matching beret, has just left a Tesco Express on London’s Holborn Viaduct empty-handed. It’s coming up to 6.30pm on a Thursday and, like dozens of others, French has popped in for a few essentials on her way home. “I just went in to grab pasta, milk and some broccoli,” she says. “But there was such a queue I got frustrated and walked out.” Continue reading...
Tokyo-listed shares in Japanese group rise after it shows off second concept vehicleSony has revealed plans to start an electric car company, making it the latest electronics manufacturer to target the automotive sector.The Japanese tech firm is “exploring a commercial launch” of electric vehicles, and will launch a new company, Sony Mobility Inc, in the spring, its chairman and president, Kenichiro Yoshida, told a news conference before the Consumer Electronics Show in the US. Continue reading...
Experts say the fraud charges could open up tech industry to further scrutiny, making startups tread more carefullyTheranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was found guilty on Monday of fraud, concluding a high-profile trial that captivated Silicon Valley and chronicled the missteps of the now-defunct blood testing startup.After seven days of deliberation, the jury in San Jose, California, convicted Holmes on four charges: one count of conspiracy to defraud investors, and three counts of wire fraud against investors. It acquitted her on three charges, including one conspiracy to defraud patients and two charges related to patients who received inaccurate test results. It remained deadlocked on three remaining charges. Continue reading...
Elon Musk and Tesla must consider human rights in the Chinese region or risk being complicit, says Human Rights WatchTesla has opened a new showroom in the capital of Xinjiang, a region at the heart of years-long campaign by Chinese authorities of repression and assimilation against the Uyghur people.Tesla announced the opening in Urumqi with a Weibo post on 31 December saying: “On the last day of 2021, we meet in Xinjiang. In 2022 let us together launch Xinjiang on its electric journey!” Continue reading...
The trial of CEO Elizabeth Holmes saw several former employees, board directors and even Holmes herself testifyElizabeth Holmes, the founder of blood testing company Theranos, was found guilty of four charges of fraud on Monday, ending a closely followed saga that could have major implications for the tech world.Over the course of several months, federal prosecutors laid out a case to the jury that Holmes knowingly scammed investors and patients, artificially inflating the value of Theranos and lying about the capabilities of its technology. Continue reading...
Former senior officer says unsolved hack of MoD training school systems did not succeed but still had costsA cyber-attack on the UK’s Defence Academy caused “significant” damage, a retired high-ranking officer has revealed.Air Marshal Edward Stringer, who left the armed forces in August, told Sky News the attack, which was discovered in March 2021, meant the Defence Academy was forced to rebuild its network. Continue reading...
Smoother skin, slimmer faces, plumper lips … how unattainable ideals are harming young usersPopping a beautifying filter on the TikTok video she was filming seemed harmless to Mia. It made it look as though she had done her makeup, took away the hint of a double chin that always bothered her, and gently altered her bone structure to make her just that bit closer to perfect.After a while, using filters on videos became second nature – until she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror one day and realised, to her horror, she no longer recognised her own face. Continue reading...
To find out why Finland is the happiest place in the world, the photographer visited a steam room in HelsinkiIn 2019, the UN named Finland the happiest place in the world, and Manuel Vazquez and journalist Ana Alfageme were sent by a Spanish magazine to find out why. Saunas are a big part of life there; the country has more than 2 million in residential and public settings. The pair agreed that they’d be good places to find locals to interview.This photo was taken on a sub-zero November day, when only six hours of light can be expected. The pair had already tried out a swanky coastal sauna. “I didn’t think I’d be able to do it,” Vazquez laughs. “But it really does liberate the endorphins. It’s exhilarating.” Next, Vazquez wanted to seek out a more authentic, traditional version that used wood. He had heard of a particularly popular one in the Helsinki neighbourhood of Kallio. “In winter, the practice is to alternate between the sauna and a body of water, like a lake or the sea,” he says. “But because this sauna is in the city, patrons just go and sit on the icy street.” Continue reading...
The first of a series on how digital technologies shape our thoughts, emotions and interior livesIn March 2020, as the Covid pandemic took hold, the language learning app Duolingo reported double its usual number of sign-ups. Stuck inside under lockdown orders, people had time on their hands and were looking for ways to occupy it.It wasn’t long before I joined its 500 million users in an attempt to recapture the feeling of learning Portuguese during three months spent in Brazil several years ago: that heady thrill of realising I had conveyed the meaning I meant to, the strange alchemy of suddenly understanding what people around me were saying. Could an app give me that? Continue reading...
Ahmad Fawad Yusufi’s family wants $4m in aid from Uber and better pay for its drivers. The company said he was logged off when he was killedMohammad Dawood Mommand was at home in Sacramento, California, when he received a call that left him in shock and unable to stand. Ahmad Fawad Yusufi, a cousin who he considered like a brother, had been shot and killed in San Francisco, where he worked as an Uber driver.Yusufi, 31, was an Afghan immigrant and father of three who came to the US on a special visa after serving as a translator for the US military. Family and gig worker organizers say Yusufi was getting some rest in his car between driving shifts when someone attempted to steal his wallet and shot him to death. Continue reading...
The child had asked the Echo smart speaker for a challenge, prompting her mother to post the response on TwitterVirtual assistants can set timers for people, play music, control smart home devices, respond to voice commands and set up reminders. As of Sunday, they have also proven their ability to challenge children to lethal dares.Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, recently advised a 10-year-old girl to touch a penny to a live plug socket after she asked the Echo smart speaker for a challenge. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian