An investigation revealed that companies use enough energy to power Houston, and contribute to growing carbon emissionsThe largest US cryptomining companies have the capacity to use as much electricity as nearly every home in Houston, Texas; energy use that is contributing to rising utility bills, according to an investigation by Democratic lawmakers.Cryptomining is a highly energy intensive process involving the use of specialized computers running constantly to solve complex math problems in order to create new virtual coins. Continue reading...
Lawyers for the billionaire oppose company’s request that the trial begin in SeptemberElon Musk has filed a motion opposing Twitter’s request to fast-track a trial over his plan to terminate his $44bn deal for the social media company.Musk’s lawyers, in papers filed with the Delaware Chancery court on Friday, said Twitter’s “unjustifiable request” to rush the merger case to trial in two months should be rejected. Continue reading...
Company says it was faced with ‘run on the bank’ amid ‘cryptopocalypse’ as investors raced to withdraw assetsThe cryptocurrency platform Celsius Network was left with a $1.2bn (£1bn) deficit after suffering from a digital version of an old-fashioned “run on the bank”, according to its bankruptcy filing in the US.Blaming a combination of its own poor decisions, a global “cryptopocalypse” and unfavourable media coverage, the company filed for Chapter 11 – a US process that allows companies to trade while restructuring their finances. Continue reading...
US company says recruitment drive will take permanent workforce in Britain to 75,000Amazon is creating more than 4,000 permanent jobs across the UK this year, the company has announced.It said the recruitment drive would bring its permanent workforce in the UK to 75,000, having created 40,000 new jobs in the past three years. Continue reading...
by Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson on (#61D7F)
In this week’s newsletter: Explore the shocking murder of the Maltese journalist, with input from her son – and the man who confessed to her killing – in Who Killed Daphne? Plus: five of the best podcasts for book-lovers
by Hannah Devlin Science correspondent on (#61BDX)
Royal Academy of Engineering MacRobert award-winner could transform lives of kidney disease patients, say expertsA home dialysis machine inspired by technology used in fruit juice dispensers has won the UK’s most prestigious engineering prize.The device, made by Quanta, is currently used by about 50 patients in the UK, but more than a dozen NHS trusts are planning to offer the technology to patients this year and experts say it could transform the lives of kidney disease patients. Continue reading...
World’s richest man posts series of memes after legal team confirmed plans to pull plug on Twitter takeoverElon Musk broke his silence on Monday over his attempt to bail out on buying Twitter for $44bn, mocking the company before the firm hit back with a statement of its own that called his attempted termination “invalid and wrongful”.Early on Monday, the world’s richest man went on the social media platform he claims he is no longer trying to buy and fired off a series of tweets suggesting he is gearing up for a likely legal battle. Continue reading...
‘Buy now, pay later’ firm, once Europe’s most valuable private tech company, valued at less than $7bnKlarna, the “buy now, pay later” fintech darling that was once Europe’s most valuable private tech company, has seen its value slashed by 85% to less than $7bn in its latest round of fundraising.The company, which enjoyed stellar growth while also being criticised for potentially leading shoppers into unsustainable debt, announced the valuation after the conclusion of a difficult $800m funding round as investors continued to question the true worth of many tech businesses. Continue reading...
by Paul Lewis, Harry Davies, Lisa O'Carroll, Simon Go on (#619KM)
Exclusive: Mark MacGann says he has decided to speak out about firm to ‘right some fundamental wrongs’Mark MacGann, a career lobbyist who led Uber’s efforts to win over governments across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has come forward to identify himself as the source who leaked more than 124,000 company files to the Guardian.MacGann decided to speak out, he says, because he believes Uber knowingly flouted laws in dozens of countries and misled people about the benefits to drivers of the company’s gig-economy model. Continue reading...
Leak shows how the former Labour minister used his access to pro-Kremlin oligarchs, including some now under sanctionsEven before Uber’s top executives arrived in Davos in January 2016, its bosses were trying to secure invitations to the exclusive party hosted by the billionaire Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska. Famous for its free-flowing vodka, the event was an invitation-only, after-hours fixture of the world economic forum, the annual gathering of corporate leaders and politicians in the Swiss Alps.Fortunately for Uber, it had hired someone who could pull strings. “Put them on list at door,” ordered Peter Mandelson, according to messages in the Uber files data leak. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#6191C)
Greater accuracy, longer battery and full support for triathlons makes the best running watch even betterGarmin’s latest running watch has been upgraded in almost every way, bringing multisport tracking, more advanced GPS and a bunch of high-end features down to a more affordable price with the Forerunner 255.The longstanding series is available in two sizes for the first time with the 255 – a small 41mm-wide case and a larger 46mm model, which means it should fit comfortably on a wider range of runners’ wrists. But it has very big shoes to fill, replacing the well-regarded Forerunner 245 from 2019. Continue reading...
Four creators share their Dall-E-generated images – and their hopes and fears about AI in artYou type in words – however nonsensical or disjointed – and the algorithm creates a unique image based on your search. This is Dall-E 2, a startlingly advanced, image-generating AI trained on 250 million images, named after the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and Pixar’s Wall-E.While use of Dall-E 2 is currently limited to a narrow pool of people, Dall-E mini (or Craiyon) is a free, unrelated version that is open to the public. Drawing on 15m images, Dall-E mini’s algorithm offers a smorgasbord of surreal images, complete with absurd compositions and blurred human forms. Continue reading...
Striking a balance between protecting your data, ensuring your personal security and getting the most out of dating apps can be tricky. Here’ some advice on the dos and don’tsIn an online wild west populated by scammers and hackers, dating apps pose challenges beyond just finding a partner. It’s getting harder to tell if your date is who they say they are, and that’s before you consider the data security and privacy implications of using the apps on your smartphone.It’s difficult to maintain privacy when apps such as Hinge, Tinder and Bumble need to collect data to match you with potential dates. Then there’s the data you share with other users – including your sexual orientation, age and social media information – that could put you at risk if it gets into the wrong hands. Continue reading...
Billionaire avoids talking of collapse of $44bn deal but talks about colonizing Mars and boosting Earth’s birthrates at conferenceElon Musk reportedly talked about the colonization of Mars and boosting Earth’s birthrates during his keynote address at Allen & Co’s Sun Valley conference on Saturday, but he avoided discussing his attempt to withdraw from his $44bn bid to buy Twitter.Musk’s talk to close out this year’s edition of the Idaho conference which annually draws tech, media and finance gurus became one of the hottest tickets after lawyers for the Tesla boss filed notice Friday that he was terminating his bid to acquire Twitter. The billionaire accused the social media firm of failing to provide information on bot accounts, among other things, making observers wonder whether he would address such complaints at his speech scheduled for the next day. Continue reading...
Venture capitalist Matthew Ball’s new book explores the three-dimensional virtual world that is set to supersede the net. What might this alternative digital reality have in store for users?Venture capitalist Matthew Ball first wrote about the metaverse in 2018 and his essays have become essential reading for entrepreneurs and tech watchers who are attempting to understand or profit from the network Mark Zuckerberg and many others are anticipating will supersede the internet. Ball is former head of strategy at Amazon Studios and his first book, The Metaverse: How It Will Revolutionize Everything, is published later in July.What is the metaverse?
Scientists alarmed at claims of releasing 10m frogs and 100m ladybugs to rack up viewers as relocating species can have ‘extremely negative consequences’A TikTok “frog army” has racked up millions of likes – but the potential consequences of the bizarre stunt are no joke, experts say.In February of this year, a young TikTok user who claims to be based in the UK started building out a “frog army” after noticing “some type of eggs in a shallow pond near his home”. In recent videos, he claimed to have gathered more than 1.4m eggs that have hatched into tadpoles in a backyard pool he built. “I wanted to create the largest frog army in history,” he said in one video. “Next year I will create a giant pond for 10 million frogs.” Continue reading...
Dance groups urge amateur dancers to seek formal training before attempting advanced TikTok movesAspiring dancers are risking injury by copying advanced moves and taking part in viral challenges on TikTok, leading dance organisations have warned.The Royal Academy of Dance says young people should be careful when attempting to recreate moves by professional dancers, or taking part in challenges on social media. Continue reading...
The photographer on capturing a private moment in India’s pink cityPrarthna Singh describes the nationwide oxygen and bed shortages during India’s second wave of Covid, in April 2021, as a “traumatic time for everyone. People were carrying their loved ones from city to city. We all felt helpless.”At the time, the photographer was living with her parents in Jaipur, Rajasthan, the “pink city”. The maharajah had most buildings painted this colour – which indicates hospitality – to welcome the Prince of Wales in 1876. Singh’s portrait, of her mother meditating and stretching in her garden, echoes this history. Continue reading...
Senegalese-Italian has enjoyed a meteoric rise, becoming the most followed creator on video appLike many of us, Khaby Lame turned to TikTok in the early days of the pandemic. The Senegalese-Italian had just lost his job working in a factory in Chivasso, a suburb of Turin 12 miles north-east of the city centre, thanks to Covid and was at a loss for what to do.Just as countless others did, he began posting videos – at first, videos in subtitled Italian, but later silent, up-close reactions to absurd events. Unlike most of us, Lame’s dalliance with the short-form video-sharing app turned serious. After an astronomical two years, the 22-year-old is now the king of TikTok. Continue reading...
Analysis: billionaire could be fined $1bn for walking away – and he risks new lawsuits and even his job, experts sayElon Musk withdrew his $44bn bid to buy Twitter on Friday after a months-long saga that rankled investors and shook the market, kicking off what may be a long legal battle with the company.The Twitter chair, Bret Taylor, said on Friday that the social media firm would sue in a Delaware court to enforce the deal. The deal included a “specific performance” clause, a provision that may force Musk to buy the company as long as he has financing in place. Musk in May said he had secured financing to complete the deal. Continue reading...
by Kari Paul in San Francisco and Johana Bhuiyan and on (#617FZ)
Walking away will not be easy for the world’s richest man, as Twitter says it will sue to keep deal aliveElon Musk has withdrawn his $44bn bid to buy Twitter after a dramatic few weeks of speculation that his deal to take over the company was falling apart.“Mr Musk is terminating the merger agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement, appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the merger agreement, and is likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect,” wrote lawyers for Musk to Twitter. Continue reading...
From Platform 9¾ in Harry Potter to Bill and Ted’s phone booth, a new exhibition about portals explores the ways we’ll soon be moving around the metaverseWith its hidden doors, folding walls and clever optical tricks with mirrors and light-wells, Sir John Soane’s Museum feels like just the kind of place you might stumble across a portal to another dimension. Moving from one room to the next in this wildly reimagined London townhouse is never as straightforward as stepping through a simple doorway. The eponymous neoclassical architect and collector saw to it that the thresholds between the different parts of his house-museum were elaborate spaces in themselves, topped with lanterns and lined with mirrors and windows, offering views up, down and through his multi-levelled maze of antique treasures.
Washington Post says Musk team has stopped certain funding discussions as Tesla CEO questions spam account figuresThe planned takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk is in “serious jeopardy”, according to a report, sending shares in the company 4% lower in after-hours trading on Wall Street.Musk’s team has stopped certain discussions around funding for the $44bn deal, according to a report in the Washington Post, citing three people familiar with the matter. The report said Musk had concluded that Twitter’s figures on spam accounts – a bone of contention in the deal – were not verifiable. Continue reading...
Maintaining a feelgood atmosphere is now a job aimed at keeping prospective investors interested – and distracting holders from a troubled marketDon’t call it a collapse – it’s just a vibe shift.Since January, the market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has been locked in a downward spiral, with sales on one popular platform falling to less than one-seventh of their January peak, and the buyer of the so-called “Mona Lisa of the digital world” – a $2.9m NFT of Jack Dorsey’s first tweet – being forced to sell for just $6,800. Continue reading...
The decision by California jurors brings to close a 13-week trial of Elizabeth Holmes’s former lover and business partnerThe former Theranos executive Sunny Balwani has been convicted on all 12 fraud charges brought against him for his role at the now-defunct blood testing company.The decision closes the final chapter of Theranos’s legal saga, nearly eight years after serious concerns were raised about the startup’s blood testing technology. The conviction of Balwani, who at one point oversaw the Theranos lab and put millions of his own fortune into the company, also marks a more severe judgment than that of his former lover and business partner Elizabeth Holmes, who was convicted of only four of 11 of the same charges in January. Continue reading...
World’s richest man has threatened to drop acquisition of firm in dispute over fake accountsTwitter has revealed that it is suspending more than 1m spam accounts a day, as Elon Musk threatens to walk away from buying the business in a dispute over fake users.The new figure, confirmed by the social media platform on Thursday, represents a doubling of its previous update. Its chief executive, Parag Agrawal, said in May that spam account suspensions were running at 500,000 a day. Continue reading...
Change to online safety bill will stop sites such as YouTube barring content instantly, following TalkRadio debacleTech platforms will be barred from taking down news content in the UK until an appeal has been heard against the decision, ministers have said.A change to the online safety bill means that articles in breach of a service’s terms and conditions cannot be removed or hidden until the publisher has been notified and has received the verdict of any appeal to the platform. Continue reading...
How realistic is Peter Kosminsky’s Channel 4 drama about an IT attack on the UK? Very, according to one of the UK’s top digital intelligence expertsWhen I heard there was going to be a TV drama about cybersecurity, my initial reaction was that it was a brave thing to attempt. Trying to make what we do televisual is notoriously difficult. There is very little to see – just people tapping at keyboards and staring at screens, with most of the action going on inside their heads. So I have been pleasantly surprised by Peter Kosminsky’s Channel 4 series The Undeclared War (whose second episode airs tonight). I binge-watched the entire thing in a weekend.The cyber-attack on the UK in episode one was all too credible. I initially thought they were going to be vague and melodramatic – “The internet’s gone down!” – but the script went on to explain how the BT infrastructure, which does run a huge chunk of web traffic in the UK, had been taken offline. They specified how 55% of web access had been lost and it was cleverly timed to be a disruptive attack, rather than a disastrous one with planes falling out of the sky. You can cause a lot of chaos by taking out any of these “Tier 1 networks”. We’ve seen it happen by accident – last October, Facebook managed to wipe itself by mistake – so it’s perfectly plausible an attacker could do the same. Continue reading...
Christopher Wray joins Ken McCallum in London, calling Beijing the ‘biggest long-term threat to economic security’The head of the FBI and the leader of Britain’s domestic intelligence agency have delivered an unprecedented joint address raising fresh alarm about the Chinese government, warning business leaders that Beijing is determined to steal their technology for competitive gain.In a speech at MI5’s London headquarters intended as a show of western solidarity, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, stood alongside the MI5 director general, Ken McCallum. Wray reaffirmed longstanding concerns about economic espionage and hacking operations by China, as well as the Chinese government’s efforts to stifle dissent abroad. Continue reading...
Musk’s nine children include pair born to Shivon Zilis, who works at his artificial intelligence company NeuralinkElon Musk fathered two children last year with Shivon Zilis, a top executive at his artificial intelligence company Neuralink, new court documents show.The world’s wealthiest man now has nine known children, including five children with his first wife, Justine Musk, and two with the singer Claire Boucher, known professionally as Grimes. Continue reading...
New national security legislation used to allow more time to scrutinise £63m deal for Newport Wafer FabThe British government has delayed the decision on whether the UK’s largest producer of semiconductors can be bought by a Chinese-owned manufacturer by another month and a half.The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, had been expected to make a decision by Tuesday on the purchase of Newport Wafer Fab by Nexperia, a Dutch firm wholly owned by China’s Wingtech. Continue reading...
Coinbase’s former chief technology officer wants to use social networks to create states. What doesn’t fit into his vision are things like poverty, illness and ageingIn The Network State, a buzzy new book by Balaji Srinivasan, the former chief technology officer of Coinbase, poses a devious question: how do you Larp a country into existence?Released provocatively this 4 July, the book presents Srinivasan’s case for a new model of digital statehood run and managed in the cloud. A network state, as he describes it, is basically a group of people who get together on the internet and decide that they’re going to start a country. With a social network to connect them, a leader to unite them, and a cryptocurrency to protect their assets, Srinivasan says a country can be born with laws, social services and all. A network state is a country that “anyone can start from your computer, beginning by building a following” – not unlike companies, cryptocurrencies, or decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs). In a world where billionaires can run companies larger than countries, Srinivasan asks, could such a state achieve recognition from the United Nations?Sam Venis is a writer based in New York Continue reading...
From cyberspace to AI, Steven Lisberger’s 1982 sci-fi classic was way ahead of its time. The team behind it explain how they made a game-changerBack in 1982, computers meant one of two things in the popular imagination. Either they were room-sized machines used by the military-industrial complex to crunch data on stuff like nuclear wars and stock markets, or they were fridge-sized arcade games such as Space Invaders and Pac-Man. Kraftwerk were singing about home computers, but if you owned one at all, it was probably a Sinclair ZX81, which was only marginally more sophisticated than a calculator.And yet, that summer, cinemagoers were catapulted into the digital future. Few appreciated it at the time but with 40 years’ hindsight, Steven Lisberger’s sci-fi adventure Tron was the shape of things to come: in cinema, in real life, and in virtual life. As a piece of entertainment, it is admittedly no classic, but thematically, Tron anticipates issues we are still grappling with today: artificial intelligence, digital identity, privacy, personal data, the dominance of big tech. Tron was also the first attempt to visualise the digital realm itself – what was then called “cyberspace” but might now be termed “the metaverse”. Tron’s cyber-world looks quaintly low-res by today’s standards – a minimalist, angular, black-and-neon environment resembling a 1980s nightclub – but its distinctive retro chic is still much cherished and mimicked. Continue reading...
A reader writes that their 79-year-old relative can’t access her tablet or iCloud accountMy 79-year-old mother has found herself locked out of her Apple iCloud account and denied access to many years’ worth of family photos saved on her original iPad.She has had long periods in hospital and her iPad is very precious. The device concerned is a old model and she neglected to update the software. Continue reading...
by Denis Campbell Health policy editor on (#612HR)
Trial will take treatments from Portsmouth to St Mary’s hospital and health service plans similar drops elsewhere in EnglandThe NHS plans to use drones to fly chemotherapy drugs to cancer patients in England to avoid the need for long journeys to collect them.The devices will transport doses from Portsmouth to the Isle of Wight in a trial that, if successful, will lead to drones being used for similar drops elsewhere. Continue reading...
Changes to online safety bill require tech firms to minimise people’s exposure to ‘hostile online warfare’Tech firms will be required to shield internet users from state-sponsored disinformation posing a threat to UK society and democracy, under changes to a landmark online safety bill.The legislation will require social media platforms, video streaming services and search engines to take action to minimise people’s exposure to foreign state-backed disinformation aimed at interfering with the UK. Such content would, for instance, include incidents such as the video of Ben Wallace being prank-called earlier this year by Russian hoaxers pretending to be the Ukrainian prime minister. Continue reading...
The move follows changes across the EU that made it simpler for users to quit the subscription serviceQuitting an Amazon Prime membership is a confusing business that can often feel like it takes longer than the next-day delivery the service promises. By the end of next month, however, UK subscribers will be able to leave with just two simple clicks.The change will be implemented after complaints from consumer groups succeeded in bringing changes to the subscription service across the EU last week. Continue reading...
Personal information allegedly taken from Shanghai police database would be one of biggest data breaches in historyA hacker has claimed to have stolen the personal information of 1 billion Chinese citizens from a Shanghai police database, in what would amount to one of the biggest data breaches in history if found to be true.The anonymous hacker, identified only as “ChinaDan”, posted on hacker forum Breach Forums last week offering to sell the more than 23 terabytes (TB) of data for 10 bitcoin, equivalent to about $200,000 (£165,000). Continue reading...
Online retailer opening ‘micromobility’ hub in Hackney as part of efforts to cut carbon emissionsAmazon is launching a fleet of e-cargo bikes and a team of on-foot delivery staff to replace thousands of van deliveries on London’s roads.The online retailer is opening its first “micromobility” hub in Hackney, east London, which – along with an existing fleet of electric vehicles – will contribute to 5m deliveries a year across about a 10th of the capital’s ultra low emission zone postcode districts. The bikes will be operated by a variety of partner businesses, not directly by Amazon, it is understood. Continue reading...
Tissue-regrowing implants, which will enter human trials next week, could provide comfortable and accessible alternatives to siliconeHaving an ice pack strapped to your chest – that’s how some describe the experience of taking a walk in cold weather when you have breast implants. Silicone only slowly reaches body temperature once out of the cold, so that icy feeling can persist for hours. As well as being uncomfortable, for breast cancer survivors it can be an unwelcome reminder of a disease they would rather put behind them.Every year, 2 million people worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer and the treatment often involves removing at least one breast. But most choose not to have their breasts reconstructed; in the UK, it is only about 30%. Now a handful of startups want to change that, armed with 3D-printed implants that grow new breast tissue before breaking down without a trace. “The whole implant is fully degradable,” says Julien Payen, CEO of the startup Lattice Medical, “so after 18 months you don’t have any product in your body.” Continue reading...
‘I can’t remember anything’ is a common complaint these days. But is it because we rely so heavily on our smartphones? And do the endless alerts and distractions stop us forming new memories?Last week, I missed a real-life meeting because I hadn’t set a reminder on my smartphone, leaving someone I’d never met before alone in a café. But on the same day, I remembered the name of the actor who played Will Smith’s aunt in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1991 (Janet Hubert). Memory is weird, unpredictable and, neuroscientifically, not yet entirely understood. When memory lapses like mine happen (which they do, a lot), it feels both easy and logical to blame the technology we’ve so recently adopted. Does having more memory in our pockets mean there’s less in our heads? Am I losing my ability to remember things – from appointments to what I was about to do next – because I expect my phone to do it for me? Before smartphones, our heads would have held a cache of phone numbers and our memories would contain a cognitive map, built up over time, which would allow us to navigate – for smartphone users, that is no longer true.Our brains and our smartphones form a complex web of interactions: the smartphonification of life has been rising since the mid 2000s, but was accelerated by the pandemic, as was internet use in general. Prolonged periods of stress, isolation and exhaustion – common themes since March 2020 – are well known for their impact on memory. Of those surveyed by memory researcher Catherine Loveday in 2021, 80% felt that their memories were worse than before the pandemic. We are – still – shattered, not just by Covid-19, but also by the miserable national and global news cycle. Many of us self-soothe with distractions like social media. Meanwhile, endless scrolling can, at times, create its own distress, and phone notifications and self interrupting to check for them, also seem to affect what, how and if we remember. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian