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From driving licence to local air quality, app offers myriad of features and has been rolled out to little opposition Concerns Gov.uk app could lead to mandatory ID scheme'Much is being said about Poland's economy potentially overtaking Britain by 2030, but in some areas Poles are already ahead.They can produce a digital identity card or driving licence and use an array of public services using a mobile app, mObywatel. When accessing it for the first time, users have to verify their identity by logging into electronic banking, using a digitally enabled physical ID card, or through a special trusted profile" online. Continue reading...

App and wallet would allow people to carry digital versions of key documents such as driving licence on their phones Convenient or intrusive? How Poland has embraced digital ID cardsA new app to hold citizens' driving licences, passports and benefits documents risks being used as a launchpad for a mandatory ID scheme", privacy campaigners have claimed.Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, last week unveiled plans for a gov.uk app and gov.uk wallet, intended to save time and hassle for millions by allowing them to carry on their phones digital versions of paper documents. Continue reading...

Elon Musk grew up with the privileges of a stratified racial order and Peter Thiel lived in a city that venerated HitlerWhen Elon Musk's arm shot out in a stiff arm salute at Donald Trump's inaugural celebrations, startled viewers mostly drew the obvious comparison.But in the fired-up debate about Musk's intent that followed, as the world's richest man insisted he wasn't trying to be a Nazi, speculation inevitably focused on whether his roots in apartheid-era South Africa offered an insight. Continue reading...

Tesla and SpaceX boss made supportive speech at a campaign event for the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) party in Halle, eastern Germany. Musk told attenders that Germany was too focused on past guilt and said the AfD was the best hope for the country

Amy Spitalnick of Jewish Council for Public Affairs warns far right will take action as license for violent extremism'The head of a prominent US Jewish civil rights body said Elon Musk's repeated fascist-style salute during Donald Trump's inauguration could act as a spur for violent extremists.The salute itself should be enough to warrant condemnation and attention," said Amy Spitalnick, adding that so should the ways extremists see an action like this and take it as license for their own violent extremism". Continue reading...

Christiane Amanpour has spent four decades as a celebrated journalist and war reporter. With disinformation rampaging through the media, she talks about the threat of technocracy, Donald Trump's second term - and why facts are more important than everJust occasionally, in more than 40 years of reporting the world's troubles, Christiane Amanpour has forced herself to step away and pause for breath. One of those moments for rebooting came over Christmas and new year, when she took a holiday in South Africa. I met her on the day she got back to work at the CNN offices in London, from which she makes her nightly news programme, and Saturday's The Amanpour Hour. There is a powerful sense of her team buckling up for the tumultuous year ahead. What I cover is the international reverberations of what America does in the world and what might be coming back at America," she says. The good, the bad and the ugly."Amanpour's choice of holiday destination was, inevitably, not unrelated to the immediate challenges of that role as kickstarted by the second inauguration of President Trump this week in Washington DC. Before that she wanted to holiday somewhere, she suggests, that represented a robust spirit of hope. She had always regretted missing out on perhaps the greatest good news story of our lives: the release of Nelson Mandela from 27 years in prison and his subsequent rise to power. I was covering all the really bad stories, the Rwanda genocide, the Bosnia war," she says. And I've always felt a little sad I missed that, because I do strongly believe that good things happen in this world. I don't ever want to only focus on the bad. South Africa is obviously still a huge work in progress, but it was just phenomenal to see it, even as a holiday." Continue reading...

Tycoon tells 4,500 people at campaign event in Halle to be proud of German culture in speech via video linkElon Musk made a surprise appearance during Germany's Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) election campaign event in Halle in eastern Germany on Saturday, speaking publicly in support of the far-right party for the second time in as many weeks.Addressing a hall of 4,500 people alongside the party's co-leader, Alice Weidel, Musk spoke live via video link about preserving German culture and protecting the German people. Continue reading...

Some say recent suspected sabotage of transatlantic cables serving Europe and UK means Ireland must be able to defend itselfThey are the bedrock of the internet, keeping everything from TikTok to emergency services, business, banking systems and political and military communications running smoothly.But deep under the sea, the network of cables around British and Irish shores are being considered as increasingly attractive targets for military, terrorist or criminal actors after several incidents in the Baltics where internet cables were severed and internet communications were disrupted. Continue reading...

As Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg gathered for Trump's inauguration, crypto diehards and members of the Paypal Mafia celebrated a new era for the MagaverseOn Inauguration Day, fans of the All-In Podcast gathered in a billiards room in Washington DC to watch Donald Trump's swearing-in - and a few miles away, the podcast co-host and PayPal Mafia alum David Sacks prepared to ascend to his role as Trump's AI and crypto czar.Very popular in Silicon Valley, All-In is fiercely pro-capitalism and enthusiastic about the world of tech start-ups and investments. Last summer, its co-hosts, Sacks and Jason Calacanis in particular, became vocal in their support for Trump and attempted to rally other tech leaders, including their listeners, behind the candidate. Continue reading...

Experts suspect X owner's interest in UK is to put pressure on authorities working to codify a new online safety lawFor those wondering why Elon Musk, the tycoon newly infamous for his stiff-arm salutes, developed a sudden ferocious interest in the UK this month, the answer may lie in an arcane piece of online media legislation working its way gradually towards fruition.In a ferocious flurry of tweets of his X platform this month, days before formally joining the Trump administration, the world's richest man portrayed Britain as a dystopian police state" run by a tyrannical government" in which young working-class women are routinely kidnapped off the streets by gangs of immigrants. Continue reading...

Former Beatles member says government should protect creative workers as consultation on copyright continuesSir Paul McCartney has warned artificial intelligence could rip off" artists if a proposed overhaul of copyright law goes ahead.The proposals could remove the incentive for writers and artists and result in a loss of creativity", he told the BBC. Continue reading...

Tech company will issue warning' alerts on profiles of firms that manipulate star ratings, says CMA

A fascinating insight into a Chinese telecoms giant and its detractorsHuawei is not exactly ahousehold name. If you've heard of it, you either follow the smartphone market closely - itisthe main China-based manufacturerof high-end phones - or else consume a lot of news, because the company isat the centre of an ongoing US-China trade war.But this enormous business is one of the world's biggest producers of behind-the-scenes equipment that enables fibre broadband, 4G and 5G phone networks. Its hardware is insidecommunications systems acrosstheworld. Continue reading...

People shared their frustrations on social media after being unable to make or receive phone callsThousands of people in the UK have been left unable to make or receive phone calls due to outages across the Three network.Downdetector, a website that tracks outages, showed more than 10,000 reports of issues across the mobile network on Thursday. Continue reading...

Sam Kuffel's departure comes after far-right radio host slams her condemnation of X owner's apparent Nazi saluteA Milwaukee meteorologist has been fired from her TV station after she criticized Elon Musk's apparent fascist salutes during Donald Trump's inaugural celebrations.On Wednesday, staff members at the CBS affiliate Channel 58 were notified of the meteorologist Sam Kuffel's departure from the news station, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Continue reading...

The historical action series has taken us to Baghdad, ancient Greece and the pyramids of Egypt. As it moves to feudal Japan, the stakes for its developer have never been higherIt's no secret that the video game industry is struggling. The last two years have seen more than 25,000 redundancies and more than 40 studio closures. Thanks to game development's spiralling costs (blockbuster titles now cost hundreds of millions to make), overinvestment during the Covid-19 pandemic, and a series of failed bets to create the next money-printing forever game", the pressure for blockbuster games to succeed is now higher than ever.It's a predicament that feels especially pertinent for Ubisoft. Employing in the region of 20,000 people across 45 studios in 30 countries, its most recent big licensed games Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Star Wars Outlaws underperformed commercially. It has had two expensive, failed live-service experiments in the past year, Skull and Bones and X-Defiant. With Ubisoft share prices plummeting and investment partners circling like sharks, rarely have the fortunes of a massive games company relied so heavily on a single release. It has already been delayed multiple times, to ensure its quality. Continue reading...

CMA examining impact of tech firms' operating systems, app stores and browsers on consumers and businessesThe UK's competition watchdog has launched investigations into the impact of Apple and Google's mobile platforms on consumers and businesses, days after the government faced criticism for installing a former tech executive as the organisation's new chair.The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) will investigate the tech firms' mobile operating systems, app stores and browsers to determine whether both companies require tailor-made guidelines to regulate their behaviour. Continue reading...

Francis calls for close oversight of technology that raises critical concerns' about humanity's future Business live - latest updatesPope Francis has warned global leaders in Davos that artificial intelligence raises critical concerns" about humanity's future and it could exacerbate a growing crisis of truth".Francis said governments and businesses must exercise due diligence and vigilance" to navigate the complexities of AI. Continue reading...

Leaked documents shed light on how Israel integrated the US tech giant into its war effort to meet growing demand for cloud and AI toolsThe Israeli military's reliance on Microsoft's cloud technology and artificial intelligence systems surged during the most intensive phase of its bombardment of Gaza, leaked documents reveal.The files offer an inside view of how Microsoft deepened its relationship with Israel's defence establishment after 7 October 2023, supplying the military with greater computing and storage services and striking at least $10m in deals to provide thousands of hours of technical support. Continue reading...

Xbox, PC; Megagon Industries

Washington looks happy for the video app to harvest users' data - as long as China does not reap the rewardsIf the Chinese-owned TikTok is deemed definitively by the US to be a national security threat, it is hard to see how the UK or other western countries could conclude differently.But the fact that Donald Trump has walked into the White House talking of a reprieve for the video-sharing network, which restored its service in the US after going dark for a day, suggests something simpler is at work - Trumpian geopolitics. Continue reading...

Technology secretary Peter Kyle expresses fear of app being propaganda vehicle' but says it can deliver exhilaration' to usersTikTok's power to deliver exhilaration" and the UK's relationship with China are shaping the UK government's acceptance of the short video app despite genuine concerns" about how the data of millions of Britons may be used, the technology secretary has said.After the US courts upheld a law that could lead to the platform being banned or sold in the US, Peter Kyle told the Guardian: I am genuinely concerned about the ownership model of TikTok. I'm genuinely concerned about their use of data, linked to the ownership model." Continue reading...

After unveiling of Stargate, Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Satya Nadella of Tesla, OpenAI and Microsoft trade barbsMajor tech moguls had their claws out for each other on Wednesday, hissing at their rivals over enormous pledges to invest in AI that had been announced by Donald Trump the day before.Trump announced Stargate, a $500bn project to be funded jointly by OpenAI, Oracle and Softbank, on Tuesday. During the announcement, the president was flanked by the leaders of those companies: Sam Altman, Larry Ellison and Masayoshi Son, respectively. Son is slated to be the chair of the project. All three are multibillionaires. Absent from the photo op was a representative from MGX, Abu Dhabi's state AI fund, another principal investor. Continue reading...

Trump's choice shows how his friends and their business interests benefit from policy positions in his administrationWhat deeply interests me is the interests of America."Howard Lutnick, chairman and CEO of the Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and Donald Trump's nominee to become the next secretary of commerce, was speaking to an audience of cryptocurrency enthusiasts last April. Continue reading...

Business minister denies government in pocket of big tech' after hiring Doug Gurr to chair CMAThe appointment of a former Amazon boss to lead the UK's competition watchdog as it begins investigations into technology firms has been called a slap in the face to workers" by trade unions and Trumpian by consumer activists.The business minister Justin Madders was forced on Wednesday to deny the government was in the pocket of big tech" after it hired Doug Gurr, a former country manager of Amazon UK and president of Amazon China, to chair the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Continue reading...

The newly announced console enters a crowded market making some wonder that without a radical rehaul will loyal customers feel the need to get the new one?Well, it happened: Nintendo announced the Switch 2 the day after last week's newsletter went out. And a strange announcement it was.The short trailer (which you can watch here) tells you everything we know at this point: everything about the machine except for its appearance remains a mystery. Nintendo has scheduled a reveal event for April that will presumably be more fulsome. This was likely Nintendo's plan all along, and the trailer was released early following a flood of leaked information about the console. They provided no release date, no details - and no games. Continue reading...

Video posted by top gamer shows what he says is X conversation in which billionaire admits account boosting'Elon Musk admitted he cheated at video games to get high scores, a transcript of a private online conversation he had shows, seemingly concluding a fiery scandal over the billionaire's outlandish claims to be a globally-ranked player.Musk has regularly bragged about his gaming rankings. He told the podcaster Joe Rogan last year that he was in the top 20 players in the world for the fiendishly difficult action role-playing game Diablo IV. Continue reading...

Executive tells WEF in Davos the sites will still have the industry's most sophisticated community standards'

Creator links up with Jesse Tinsley as Donald Trump says he is open to Elon Musk and Larry Ellison buying site

Joint venture aims to construct data centers and infrastructure needed to power AI developmentDonald Trump has unveiled what he called the largest AI infrastructure project in history" - a $500bn joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank that aims to build a network of data centres across the US.The new partnership, dubbed Stargate, aims to construct essential data centers and computing infrastructure needed to power artificial intelligence development and, according to Trump, create more than 100,000 American jobs almost immediately". Continue reading...

Some say it was an unambiguous Nazi salute but others are unsure and say focus should be on Musk's stated support for far-right

The app announced by Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for technology, will launch in June with driving licences and veteran cards the first available IDsUK citizens could soon be able to carry their passports in a digital wallet on their phones along with their driving licence, universal credit account and marriage and birth certificates.The plan was announced by Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, as part of a new smartphone app to simplify interactions with government services. He said it meant the overflowing drawer rammed with letters from the government and hours spent on hold to get a basic appointment will soon be consigned to history". Continue reading...

From electronic shelf labels to more self-service checkouts, automation is coming to your local supermarketElectronic shelf labels, returns machines, robot bag packers and yet more self-service tills - just some of the many technologies that UK retailers are embracing as they try to solve the problem of rising labour costs.Investment in automation was a constant drumbeat amid the flurry of festive trading updates from big retailers in the past few weeks, as they face higher staffing bills from April after the rise in the national minimum wage and employers' national insurance contributions (NICs). Continue reading...

President's order says temporary pause would give opportunity to determine appropriate course forward'

Parlex is one of several artificial intelligence systems being developed within the governmentA new artificial intelligence tool can warn ministers whether policies are likely to be very unpopular with their party's MPs, using a search described as a parliamentary vibe check".Parlex is one of a suite of AI tools- called Humphrey, after the Yes Minister character - being developed for ministers and civil servants which allow them to predict which topics might cause them difficulty with their own backbenchers, and pinpoint specific MPs who feel passionately about a given subject. Continue reading...

Tech billionaire Elon Musk appeared to give a fascist-style salute during the celebration of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration. The major Trump donor, who is the richest man in the world, thanked Trump supporters for 'making it happen' at the Capital One Arena in Washington DC

Tech billionaire wades into controversy after shooting right arm on upwards diagonal during celebrations of Trump

App has resumed operations after saying it received assurance over de facto ban, but its future remains uncertain

Musk desperately wants to appropriate gamer credibility, but he may be faking it - and doing exactly what toxic nerds have been accusing women of doing for decadesLast year on Joe Rogan's podcast, Elon Musk claimed to be one of the world's best Diablo IV players - and surprisingly, the leaderboards backed him up. For those that haven't had the pleasure, Diablo is one of the most mercilessly time-intensive video games out there; you build a character and carve through armies of demons, spending hundreds of hours refining skills and equipment for maximum hellspawn-cleansing efficiency. I played it for maybe five hours last year and immediately quit, for fear that it would consume my life. Most of the people who play it are young, often male, and have plenty of time to themselves to spend on the internet and playing games - so, the exact demographic of many Musk stans.It suited these hardcore gamer guys to believe that someone who tweets all day and runs several businesses was also an elite player who poured hundreds of hours into Diablo. This made him relatable. It fed into his preferred image of being the hardest-working man alive. But then Elon made the mistake of actually playing a game live on X, and it became clear very quickly that something was amiss. It seems Elon Musk might be a fake gamer.

President-elect's $Trump coin more than halved in value before steadily recovering on Sunday before inauguration

Takaya Imamura worked at Nintendo for 32 years before leaving to create his own game, Omega Six. He shares anecdotes from those pivotal years at the creative giantIn 1889 in Kyoto, craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi founded a hanafuda playing card company. He called it Nintendo - a phrase whose meaning is lost to time according to Nintendo's own historians, but which can be translated as leave luck up to heaven". In the 1970s, Nintendo eventually transitioned from paper games to electronic ones, making its own luck in the process. It has been a permanent fixture in living rooms across the world ever since.For budding artist Takaya Imamura, an art student who had been captivated by Metroid and Super Mario Bros 3 in the 1980s, working at Nintendo was a dream. Back in 1985 when Super Mario came out in Japan, everybody was playing it," he recalls. I was at an art university, studying design at the time. Back then, game design wasn't a thing ... people didn't even know what game creators were." Continue reading...

President-elect says order would give company extra 90 days to find buyer and suggests that US take a 50% stakeTikTok said on Sunday that it was restoring services in the US after Donald Trump pledged earlier in the day to give the video app a reprieve on its US ban.Trump wrote on Truth Social that after taking office on Monday he would sign an executive order allowing the Chinese-owned video app additional time to find a buyer before facing a total shutdown, and proposing that the US or an American firm take a 50% ownership stake. Continue reading...

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Claiming a threat from a foreign adversary', the US has yet to prove China shared propaganda or collected US user dataThe United States of America deleted TikTok early on the morning of 19 January. A government formed by the people, for the people", in the words of Abraham Lincoln, has made scant evidence available to those people as to why. As those in power at the 11th hour realize how unpopular such a paternalistic move might be, each is doing their best to lay blame with the others.Why did the US ban an app used and beloved by some 170 million Americans? For fear of China's propaganda and data collection. It's a far-reaching, unprecedented move. The text of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed in April and signed by Joe Biden, reads: This bill prohibits distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services for a foreign adversary controlled application (eg, TikTok)." Both a federal appeals court and the US supreme court have affirmed that rationale as sufficient. Continue reading...

Our writer explores the possibilities, with surprising results...My friend walks into the village hall, scene of my son's third birthday party, a mixture of panic and incredulity creeping across his face. I didn't realise we were dressing up," he says, taking in my outfit. I feel myself blush. I'm wearing a mint-green tulle midi dress with sheer sleeves that balloon precociously and a tiered skirt that puffs out in such a way as to give me the appearance of either a Quality Street or a three-year-old at her own birthday party. It's not, if I'm entirely honest, the most practical of outfits for serving chocolate cake to 18 sticky-handed toddlers but, as I blurt out to my friend, keen to dispel any confusion, the avant-garde look wasn't actually my choice: it was AI's.I love quirky clothes. Different cuts, unusual fabrics, bold colours, exciting textures. My wardrobe is my identity, my refuge, my hobby, my happy place. Or, at least, it was. Recently - since having my second baby - I've struggled to get dressed. Paralysed by choice, I am beset by decision fatigue every time I approach my (admittedly groaning) closet. With a three-year-old and a six-month-old to wrangle into clobber, too, the overwhelm has joined forces with lack of time. This morning I was hurling clothes at my body while the youngest screamed for his nap. The steady spoliation of my personal style continues apace, now stained with breast milk and squashed banana. Continue reading...

As US users mourn their Chinese spy' being taken away, my algorithm is busy serving me queer chickens and pastry contentAs the US TikTok ban looms, users of the app there have been posting farewell messages for their Chinese spy", satirising the security concerns behind the ban as they offer up heartfelt appreciations of the ultra-targeted content on their For You pages.There is a lot, they claim, to be grateful for: their Chinese spies" have soothed and amused them, steered them towards splitting with unsuitable partners and toxic workplaces, helped them recover from divorce, changed their political perspectives and sometimes their entire lives. My Chinese spy' was brave enough to tell me I'm an autistic lesbian and I should leave my husband. And I don't know if anyone will care about me that much ever again," reads a typical post, over dramatic footage of the grieving author. A commenter below claims the algorithm knew they were gay four years before they knew themselves; another says the app accurately diagnosed them with a skin condition that two dermatologists missed. Other people are just grateful for pizza recipes and hotel room hacks. Continue reading...

Amazon's Beast Games reflects the greed, narcissism and worship of aggro-capitalism that has brought us our second helping of TrumpThe YouTube superstar Jimmy MrBeast" Donaldson vowed to make his Amazon TV series Beast Games the biggest reality competition show ever", and by most metrics, he succeeded.A little over halfway through its run, Beast Games has hit No 1 on Amazon in over 80 countries and is now the streamer's No 1 unscripted show ever, with over 50 million viewers in just 25 days on the platform. Continue reading...

Observer analysis finds unregulated products being promoted as contraception despite concerns about their accuracyApps promising to help women take control" of their sex lives by predicting the days when they are fertile are putting users at risk of unplanned pregnancy by making misleadingclaims.Millions of women in the UK - including 69% of 18-24-year-olds - have used smartphone apps that track their periods. Many also tell them their fertile window": the days when they are most and least likely to get pregnant. Continue reading...

To realise his dream for economic growth, Keir Starmer must seize the reins of technological powerSir Keir Starmer doesn't do visions. But last Monday he broke the habit of a lifetime in a speech delivered at University College London. It was about AI, which he sees as the defining opportunity of our generation". The UK, he declared is the nation of Babbage, Lovelace and Turing", not to mention the country that gave birth to the modern computer and the world wide web. So mark my words - Britain will be one of the great AI superpowers."Stirring stuff, eh. Within days of taking office, the PM had invited Matt Clifford, a smart tech bro from central casting, to think about how we seize the opportunities of AI". Clifford came up with a 50-point AI Opportunities Action Plan that Starmer accepted in its entirety, saying that he would put the full weight of the British state" behind it. He also appointed Clifford as his AI Opportunities Adviser to oversee implementation of the plan and report directly to him. It's only a matter of time before the Sun dubs him the UK's AI tsar". Continue reading...