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Solid sound, 50 hours of battery life, spatial audio and cross-platform features elevate fourth-gen BeatsThe Solo 4 headphones are a revamp of the fan favourite that helped make Beats a household name, upgraded with longer battery life, better sound and modern Apple and Android-loving features.The original Solo HD launched in 2009 and was most recently updated as the Solo 3 in 2016 after Apple's purchase of Beats. Now in their fourth generation, the Solo are the company's smallest and lightest headphones, costing 200 (230/$200/A$330), and sit below the 350 Studio Pro.Weight: 217gDimensions: 177 x 158 x 68mmDrivers: 40mmConnectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, 3.5mm, USB-C audio and chargingBluetooth codecs: SBC, AACBattery life: 50 hours Continue reading...

The social media star on performing to silent audiences, turning spite into success and still having to prove herself as a proper' comedianCan you recall a gig so bad, it's now funny?

New features and deal with OpenAI presented at conference marks change in focus for tech giant, which is under pressure to catch up with rival firms' AI pushTim Cook, the Apple CEO, announced a series of generative artificial intelligence products and services on Monday during his keynote speech at the company's annual developer conference, WWDC, including Apple Intelligence" and a deal with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.The new tools mark a major shift toward AI for Apple, which has seen slowing global sales over the past year and integrated fewer AI features into its consumer-facing products than competitors. Continue reading...

Preview of this autumn's new edition promises fresh missions in the service of US power and a ground floor' rebuild of the gaming monster truckMicrosoft wasn't messing about with its Xbox showcase this year. After a raft of announcements about job losses and studio closures, the company looked to give gamers what they wanted in its Sunday night Summer Game Fest slot, ending with a full 40-minute preview of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, a game so large it will require a 300GB download, as well as continual online access even for the single-player mode, due to the amount of textures it's going to be streaming from remote servers. As expected, the Xbox version will be available day one on GamePass, but there will be no platform exclusivity - the PlayStation version will arrive the same day: 25 October.The game itself is set during the geopolitical tumult of the early 1990s, taking in the fall of the Soviet Union, the Gulf war and the transition of the US presidency from George Bush to Bill Clinton. As ever, the Campaign story is an airport novel spy thriller taking in deniable CIA ops, clandestine power struggles and conspiracies that go to the very top, dammit. Series regular Frank Woods has been gravely injured and withdrawn from active duty, giving way to reckless spec ops squad leader Troy Marshall and smart CIA handler Jane Harrow. When a mission screws up, they're forced to go rogue, recruiting a ragtag team of tech nerds and glamorous assassins. It is almost definitely going to be your ass on the line here, sir. Continue reading...

In the middle of a troubled year for Xbox, Microsoft showed a packed slate of games for its Game Pass subscription service in 2024 and 2025Xbox has not had the best year, so far. In January and February, a leaked announcement that formerly Xbox-exclusive games were about to make their way on to rival consoles the PlayStation and Nintendo Switch sent the most vociferous portion of its fanbase into a tailspin, convincing themselves that Microsoft was about to give up on Xbox exclusivity altogether. (In the end it was only four games, but Xbox's leadership took their time clarifying.) In May, Xbox closed two well-loved studios that it had acquired in a spending spree a few years ago: Tango Gameworks (Hi-Fi Rush, The Evil Within) and Arkane Austin (Prey, Dishonored). All this comes on the back of flagging sales for its Xbox Series X/S consoles; analysts have estimated that the PlayStation 5 is outselling them lately by a factor of 5:1.Microsoft will have been hoping to rescue the narrative with its Xbox games showcase, which was broadcast live on Sunday and screened at an event in Los Angeles for media, games industry and a coterie of Xbox fans. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, a new Indiana Jones game and the return of brutal action-game series Gears of War led the pack in blockbuster games, but there were also plenty of smaller-scale announcements. With its Game Pass service, which offers an ever-changing library of games for a monthly fee, Microsoft has made a billion-dollar bet on Netflix-style streaming as the future of video games - and after its recent merger with Activision Blizzard, it now has a huge number of game studios making games for it. Continue reading...

It didn't work after it switched his landline to digital without warningMy 101-year-old father was left without a landline and a functioning panic button after BT switched his phone service from analogue to digital without warning us. BT had informed us that the contract was about to finish, and asked me to contact them about renewing. I duly called and was, at no time, advised to contact the panic button provider, or told of the possible need for adaptors to connect analogue phones to the new service. After four hours on the phone to BT when the service failed, I was informed that digital adaptors were required to ensure our phones worked. Four days later, these had still not arrived and BT said it was unable to expedite the delivery. My father, who is registered blind and has only 30% hearing, was without his panic button for five days until the care line team attended and got it working.

Worried she was missing out, Ella Glover took off her headphones for a month and rediscovered the soundscape of humanity, made space to listen to friends - and tuned in to her own thoughtsUntil about a month ago, the thought of leaving my flat without my headphones connected to my smartphone filled me with anxiety. Any length of time, whether a two-minute walk to the shop or a two-hour commute, with nothing but my own thoughts and the racket of the city to listen to, was enough to send me into a mild frenzy.This borderline compulsive relationship with my headphones wasn't something I was even aware of until earlier this year, when my friend, the environmental sound artist Lance Laoyan, noted how headphones not only disconnect us from the reality of noise pollution, but also keep us distracted under the guise of helping us to focus. This conversation sent me down a bit of a thought spiral, of which I am prone, and I became acutely aware of the ubiquity of headphones in our culture and how little attention we pay to it. Continue reading...

The proliferation of Quick Response codes has created a cybersecurity nightmare, but public vigilance can helpHere's a familiar scenario. You're going to a meeting in an unfamiliar part of town. You're running late and it's raining. And there isn't a car park in sight. Ah, but here's some on-street parking and you gratefully pull into the empty bay. Now all you have to do is pay for a couple of hours and then scuttle along to your meeting. But the parking meter (of course) no longer takes coins. This is the 21st century, after all.No worries - you can pay by phone. There are notices plastered all over the meter on how to pay using an app that - of course - you have not yet downloaded. The rain is getting heavier and there's no mobile signal. You're getting increasingly flustered. And then you spot that there's a Quick Response (QR) code - a nice (if incomprehensible) square with lots of funny squares and spaces - on one side of the meter. Phew! All you have to do is scan it and you'll be through to a website in no time. So you do and you are. Job done. Relax. Continue reading...

Billy Basso; Bigmode; PC, PlayStation, Switch

The Italian photographer on capturing a moment of peace on the Rimini riviera during a difficult timeAs a portraitist and wedding photographer, Matteo Fagiolino likes to reflect his subjects' personalities in his work. This photograph was taken after the first Covid lockdown ended, at the beach at Torre Pedrera, a town on the Rimini riviera in Italy.It was a summer afternoon after months of social distancing," he says. It had been so long since my whole family had spent the day together, it was a breath of fresh air for everyone." Continue reading...

After plans to make St Albans the first smartphone-free city for children under 14, our panellists discuss potential benefits and drawbacksI wouldn't mind if it was only in St Albans that headteachers want to create a smartphone-free city for under-14s. I can take reasonable steps not to live there. But banning phones for young people is raised all the time, and it's the lazy way out. There are noticeable negative effects of extensive internet use: I'm 16, and in the middle of GCSEs - if I could get back all the revision time I've lost on TikTok, believe me, I would. Continue reading...

Users are 31% more likely to vote left than people of the same age and background who do not use it, poll findsThis might be the first TikTok general election, but it probably won't be the first election decided by it for one simple reason: the video app's British users are already likely to vote Labour.The problem is that almost everyone on TikTok is already on our side," said one Labour campaign source. We need to reach swing voters." Continue reading...

The latest title in the long-running strategy series was the biggest reveal at an event that celebrated small indie titles as much as big hittersIn a two-hour presentation that was short on major announcements, but big on independent titles, this year's Summer Game Fest was dominated by one reveal - Civilization 7 is coming out in 2025.The legendary strategy simulation series, which debuted back in 1991, hasn't seen a fresh instalment for eight years. Although it seems publisher 2K accidentally leaked the announcement earlier in the day, it was still a treat for fans to see designer Sid Meier on video, introducing the new project standing in front of a table filled with Bafta awards. Continue reading...

After three years of silence, Keith Gill resurfaces in bizarre live stream while GameStop shares tumble 40%Can y'all hear me right now?" Keith Gill began his broadcast. I kinda forget how to do this."Back in 2021, the influencer better known as Roaring Kitty led a crusade by retail traders which triggered the extraordinary surge in GameStop, an embattled video games chain - and left Wall Street scrambling. Gill became an internet star, and even testified to Congress about his bullish stance on the stock. Continue reading...

Minneapolis struck a deal with the companies, but it preserves integral parts of their model, allowing the firms to undermine the compromise laterWho came out ahead when the Minneapolis city council announced a deal with Uber and Lyft to increase driver pay and improve working conditions last month?On 20 May, the city council heralded a compromise with the ride-hailing companies. Uber and Lyft would agree to an inflation-pegged wage floor matching Minnesota's minimum wage of $15 an hour after expenses. Some lawmakers have hailed this as a 20% raise for drivers - however, the deal's pay rates are lower than almost every proposal made over the past two years amid a bitter fight between Uber, Lyft, their drivers and lawmakers. Continue reading...

About 35,000 sellers argue that online giant misuses their data to launch rival products that are sold more cheaply

Robyn Denholm says electric carmaker's CEO could spend his time elsewhere if biggest pay deal in US corporate history isn't approved

Siwei Lyu of the DeepFake-o-meter explains how to tell when photos, videos and audio aren't realYou - a human, presumably - are a crucial part of detecting whether a photo or video is made by artificial intelligence.There are detection tools, made both commercially and in research labs, that can help. To use these deepfake detectors, you upload or link a piece of media that you suspect could be fake, and the detector will give a percent likelihood that it was AI-generated. Continue reading...

A jury of Californians acquitted the Autonomy founder, who on trial tried to show that life is nuanced and messy'This is a momentous day in Autonomy's history," Mike Lynch declared in a press release on 18 August 2011. He was announcing the sale Autonomy, his software firm, to Hewlett-Packard for $11bn.For Lynch 6 June 2024 would prove more significant. Continue reading...

Tech firm earlier committed to storing less data about individuals in response to privacy concernsGoogle will delete everything it knows about users' previously visited locations, the company has said, a year after it committed to reducing the amount of personal data it stores about users.The company's timeline" feature - previously known as Location History - will still work for those who choose to use it, letting them scroll back through potentially decades of travel history to check where they were at a specific time. Continue reading...

Measures will impact more than 13,000 pupils in Southwark, and include confiscating phones used at schoolA group of schools in London have announced they will go smartphone-free, in a sign of the growing public concern over phone-based childhoods.Headteachers at 17 of the 20 state secondary schools in Southwark, south London, have taken the collective action to shift their pupils away from smartphones, in the hope of also addressing the downsides of their use outside the school gates. Continue reading...

Children can view internet unrestricted by entering a certain nonsense phrase into Safari address barApple has promised to fix a years-old bug in its parental controls that allows children to bypass restrictions and view adult content online.The bug, by which a child could get around controls by simply entering a certain nonsense phrase into the address bar on Safari, was first reported to the company in 2021. Continue reading...

A large team of tech nostalgia enthusiasts have made a PiDP-10, a replica of the PDP-10 mainframe computer first launched by the Digital Equipment Corporation in 1966On my desk right now, sitting beside my ultra-modern gaming PC, there is a strange device resembling the spaceship control panel from a 1970s sci-fi movie. It has no keyboard, no monitor, just several neat lines of coloured switches below a cascade of flashing lights. If you thought the recent spate of retro video game consoles such as the Mini SNES and the Mega Drive Mini was a surprising development in tech nostalgia, meet the PiDP-10, a 2:3 scale replica of the PDP-10 mainframe computer first launched by the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in 1966. Designed and built by an international group of computer enthusiasts known as Obsolescence Guaranteed, it is a thing of beauty.The origins of the project go back to 2015. Oscar Vermeulen, a Dutch economist and lifelong computer collector, wanted to build a single replica of a PDP-8 minicomputer, a machine he had been obsessed with since childhood. I had a Commodore 64 and proudly showed it to a friend of my father's," he says. He just sniffed and said the Commodore was a toy. A real computer was a PDP, specifically a PDP-8. So I started looking for discarded PDP-8 computers, but never found one. They are collectors' items now, extremely expensive and almost always broken. So I decided to make a replica for myself." Continue reading...

US regulators open inquiry into AI firms over antitrust laws that oversee fair competitionMicrosoft, OpenAI and Nvidia face increased antitrust scrutiny of their roles in the artificial intelligence industry after US regulators reportedly reached an agreement on investigating the companies.The US Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have struck a deal on investigations into the main protagonists in the AI market, the New York Times reported, with the agreement expected to be completed in the coming days. Continue reading...

Come By Chance tells the story of two 52-year-old Newfoundland men who realised their lives should have been so different. Plus: five of the best Euro 2024 podcasts Don't get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereEverything to Play For

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AI chipmaker's stock has surged 147% so far in 2024, underscoring shift in tech world as demand for its processors far outstrip supplyShares of Nvidia rallied to record highs on Wednesday, with the artificial-intelligence chipmaker's stock market valuation hitting the $3tn mark and overtaking Apple to become the world's second most valuable company.The chipmaker's stock was up 5.16% at $1,224.40, giving Nvidia a market value of $3.01tn at market close. Apple's market capitalization was at $3.00tn at market close as its stock climbed 0.78%. Continue reading...

Ferras Hamad claims in lawsuit that Meta fired him for trying to fix bugs causing the suppression of Palestinians' Instagram postsA former Meta engineer on Tuesday accused the company of discrimination in its handling of content related to the war in Gaza, claiming in a lawsuit that Meta fired him for trying to help fix bugs causing the suppression of Palestinian Instagram posts.Ferras Hamad, a Palestinian-American engineer who had been on Meta's machine learning team since 2021, sued the social media giant in a California state court for discrimination, wrongful termination and other wrongdoing over his February dismissal. Continue reading...

Disruption has affected wider range of health providers than first thought, including GPs and community and mental health servicesA cyber-attack thought to have been carried out by a Russian group has forced London NHS hospitals to resurrect long-discarded paper records systems in which porters hand-deliver blood test results because IT networks are disrupted.Guy's and St Thomas' trust (GSTT) has gone back to using paper, rather than computers, to receive the outcome of patients' blood tests. Continue reading...

Generation P | Photobombing in the Musee d'Orsay | Clamping down on HMRC | Fit and leftwing | 650 Mhairi BlacksYou say that young Russians are often referred to as GenerationP' for having lived only under Putin's presidency" (He couldn't wait to join': thousands of young Russians die in Ukraine war, 29 May). However, the phrase was coined in the title of a Russian novel published in 1999 - a year before Vladimir Putin first became president. Its author, Victor Pelevin, says the P referred to Pizdets, sometimes translated as the generation who were screwed".

Ex-head of National Cyber Security Centre says group has two-year history of attacking organisations across the world'A group of Russian cybercriminals is behind the ransomware attack that halted operations and tests in major London NHS hospitals, the former chief executive of the National Cyber Security Centre has said.Ciaran Martin said the attack on the pathology services firm Synnovis had led to a severe reduction in capacity" and was a very, very serious incident". Continue reading...

In this week's newsletter: The pandemic finally killed E3, but a cluster of loosely affiliated and competing events has risen up in its place

Social video app taking steps to tackle cyber-attack on well-known brands and celebritiesTikTok has said it is taking measures to tackle a cyber-attack that targeted several celebrities and brand accounts, including Paris Hilton and CNN.The social video app confirmed CNN's feed was one of a small number of high-profile accounts that had been affected after its security team was alerted to malicious actors targeting the US news outlet. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Scientists at MIT hope talking to 60-year-old self will shift thinking on health, money and workIf your carefully crafted life plan has been scuppered by sofa time, bingeing on fast food, drinking too much and failing to contribute to the company pension, it may be time for a chat with your future self.Without ready access to a time machine, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have built an AI-powered chatbot that simulates a user's older self and dishes out observations and pearls of wisdom. The aim is to encourage people to give more thought today to the person they want to be tomorrow. Continue reading...

Taiwan is the target of more disinformation from abroad than any other democracy, according to University of Gothenburg studyCharles Yeh's battle with disinformation in Taiwan began with a bowl of beef noodles. Nine years ago, the Taiwanese engineer was at a restaurant with his family when his mother-in-law started picking the green onions out of her food. Asked what she was doing, she explained that onions can harm your liver. She knew this, she said, because she had received text messages telling her so.Yeh was puzzled by this. His family had always happily eaten green onions. So he decided to set the record straight.

Changes in multiple neural networks can result in further addictive tendencies and negative behaviours, researchers sayYoung people with internet addiction experience changes in their brain chemistry which could lead to more addictive behaviours, research suggests.The study, published in PLOS Mental Health, reviewed previous research using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how regions of the brain interact in people with internet addiction. Continue reading...

Current and former workers sign letter warning of lack of safety oversight and calling for more protections for whistleblowersA group of current and former employees at prominent artificial intelligence companies issued an open letter on Tuesday that warned of a lack of safety oversight within the industry and called for increased protections for whistleblowers.The letter, which calls for a right to warn about artificial intelligence", is one of the most public statements about the dangers of AI from employees within what is generally a secretive industry. Eleven current and former OpenAI workers signed the letter, along with two current or former Google DeepMind employees - one of whom previously worked at Anthropic. Continue reading...

EU commissioner Vera Jourova says tech firms must hire staff versed in legal and historical context of free speech in Europe

In this week's newsletter: All-powerful microtargeting' swaying the masses into voting a certain way was always overblown, but these days social media has moved on - and so have the partiesYou've heard the one about the drunk man looking for his keys under the streetlamp? After an age pacing back and forth, scouring the floor for them, his friend asks him where he thinks he dropped them. He points across the road, to a patch of darkness. Why aren't you looking there, then," he friend asks. He shrugs. Because this is where the light is." Good joke. Everybody laughs.Let's talk about online political adverts.Don't expect to see Cambridge Analytica-style microtargeted political adverts driven by personal data during this general election: the tactic is now considered by many to be an ineffective red herring" and is increasingly being blocked by social media platforms. The digital strategist Tom Edmonds said Facebook had banned political campaigns from using many of the tactics deployed in past contests. Running a campaign aimed at 500 people didn't earn them much money and just got them loads of shit," he said.The strategy is known within the party as the 80/20" approach, in which it focuses all its spending on the 80 seats it came closest to losing in 2019 and the 20 seats it came closest to winning.Ad spending reports on Facebook show that these constituencies are exactly where the party is funnelling its money. More than half of the party's spending on the social network since January has gone to its 80 tightest seats, or to seats it does not hold at all.TikTok is free - it does not allow paid-for advertising by politicians or parties - but not easy: the social media teams need to work harder to persuade the app's notoriously opaque algorithm to organically float their content on to users' phones, which becomes more likely as more people like, share, comment or re-post videos. For smaller, agile parties with low budgets, TikTok will feel like there is everything to win: views, engagement and people who finally find out who they are. Creators who know how it's done believe Labour has had a better start. Continue reading...

Neurodivergent people can struggle with timekeeping. Don't rely on your phone, try one of these to kickstart your dayCheap and cheerful, basic distraction-free alarm clocks cost about 10 and come in analogue or tick-free digital versions, such as Acctim's Remi Analogue clock with beep alarm, 10 from Argos. Continue reading...

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...