As emails loom omnipresent in our connected lives, is the quest for an empty inbox a noble pursuit or an unwinnable war?Last week, I asked my Twitter followers about their email inboxes.Author Mohammed Massoud Morsi likened his to a “Kalashnikov on semi-automatic…Nudge, Nudge, Nudge. Nudge. Nudge, Nudge.” Human rights lawyer Diana Sayed replied that hers functions as a to-do list that is emptied on the regular. And when editor Caitlin Chang revealed that her inbox is sitting at over 1,000 and counting (she says she only ever reads the ones at the top, as they’re probably the most important), someone’s response to her was, “I threw up a little in my mouth”. Continue reading...
Company suspended former president’s account in January following the attack on the US CapitolDonald Trump has asked a federal judge in Florida to force social media giant Twitter to restore his account, which the company suspended in January following the attack that month on the US Capitol in Washington DC.Trump’s use of the platform was a signature mark of his run for the presidency in 2016 and one he continued to use in office. He wielded it to attack enemies and dominate news cycles. Continue reading...
Police struggle to catch online fraudsters, often operating from overseas, but now a new breed of amateurs are taking matters into their own handsThree to four days a week, for one or two hours at a time, Rosie Okumura, 35, telephones thieves and messes with their minds. For the past two years, the LA-based voice actor has run a sort of reverse call centre, deliberately ringing the people most of us hang up on – scammers who pose as tax agencies or tech-support companies or inform you that you’ve recently been in a car accident you somehow don’t recall. When Okumura gets a scammer on the line, she will pretend to be an old lady, or a six-year-old girl, or do an uncanny impression of Apple’s virtual assistant Siri. Once, she successfully fooled a fake customer service representative into believing that she was Britney Spears. “I waste their time,” she explains, “and now they’re not stealing from someone’s grandma.”Okumura is a “scambaiter” – a type of vigilante who disrupts, exposes or even scams the world’s scammers. While scambaiting has a troubled 20-year online history, with early forum users employing extreme, often racist, humiliation tactics, a new breed of scambaiters are taking over TikTok and YouTube. Okumura has more than 1.5 million followers across both video platforms, where she likes to keep things “funny and light”. Continue reading...
Tests of natural language processing models show that the bigger they are, the bigger liars they are. Should we be worried?We are, as the critic George Steiner observed, “language animals”. Perhaps that’s why we are fascinated by other creatures that appear to have language – dolphins, whales, apes, birds and so on. In her fascinating book, Atlas of AI, Kate Crawford relates how, at the end of the 19th century, Europe was captivated by a horse called Hans that apparently could solve maths problems, tell the time, identify days on a calendar, differentiate musical tones and spell out words and sentences by tapping his hooves. Even the staid New York Times was captivated, calling him “Berlin’s wonderful horse; he can do almost everything but talk”.It was, of course, baloney: the horse was trained to pick up subtle signs of what his owner wanted him to do. But, as Crawford says, the story is compelling: “the relationship between desire, illusion and action; the business of spectacles, how we anthropomorphise the non-human, how biases emerge and the politics of intelligence”. When, in 1964, the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created Eliza, a computer program that could perform the speech acts of a Rogerian psychotherapist – ie someone who specialised in parroting back to patients what they had just said – lots of people fell for her/it. (And if you want to see why, there’s a neat implementation of her by Michael Wallace and George Dunlop on the web.) Continue reading...
Hundreds of listings on online marketplaces sell merchandise venerating disgraced CEO Elizabeth HolmesThere are posters, stickers and coffee mugs, flags, T-shirts and masks – all celebrating Silicon Valley “girl boss”, Elizabeth Holmes.The fraud case of the Theranos founder has given way to a burgeoning cottage industry for merchandise venerating the disgraced CEO. Continue reading...
Open letter by current and ex-staffers alleges ‘consistently inappropriate’ behaviour by Blue Origin leadersA group of current and former employees at Blue Origin, the space flight company owned by the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, has accused the business of operating a work environment that is “rife with sexism” and prefers “breakneck speed” to safety.An open letter written by Alexandra Abrams, the former head of employee communications at Blue Origin and 20 other current and former workers, says the company’s culture “reflects the worst of the world we live in now” and must change. Continue reading...
Moscow warns of retaliation against video-sharing platform after RT channels blocked over Covid disinformationRussia on Wednesday threatened to block YouTube and take other retaliatory measures, after the US video-sharing platform blocked the German-language channels of state broadcaster RT.Moscow has recently been ramping up pressure on foreign tech giants as it seeks greater control over content available online to its domestic audience. Continue reading...
Streaming site cracks down on harmful content about all approved Covid jabsYouTube is to remove videos that spread misinformation about all vaccines, as it steps up a crackdown on harmful content posted during the coronavirus pandemic.From Wednesday, the video streaming site, which has already banned Covid jab falsehoods, will take down content that contains misinformation such as claiming any approved vaccine is dangerous, causes chronic health defects or does not reduce spread of disease. Continue reading...
Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: ‘Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud’ … Impersonating a YouTube exec … and how refugees are driving AI at big tech firms• Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWe’re one month in to the blockbuster trial of Elizabeth Holmes, founder of blood testing startup Theranos, and it shows no sign of releasing its grip on the public imagination. Dozens of members of the media, myself included, have lined up each week since 31 August outside a crowded courthouse in San Jose, California, to bear witness to the justice process surrounding the company and its downfall – which has been called “Silicon Valley’s biggest fraud”. Continue reading...
Russian state-backed broadcaster was found to have breached YouTube’s rules on coronavirus coverageYouTube has deleted Russian state-backed broadcaster RT’s German-language channels, saying they had breached its Covid misinformation policy.“YouTube has always had clear community guidelines that outline what is allowed on the platform,” said a spokesperson. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5Q3NE)
Robot that can check on loved ones and pets is one of plethora of devices announced at big launch eventAmazon has launched its long-awaited home robot, named Astro, that can autonomously drive around your home packed with cameras and a screen. Astro can map your home’s layout, recognise objects and check on loved ones and pets remotely using a series of cameras and a display on its front, featuring a set of expressive animated eyes.The robot can handle video calls, recognising you and coming to find you when someone calls, and provides all the features of Alexa on wheels. But Dave Limp, head of Amazon’s devices and services, said “customers don’t just want Alexa on wheels so we’ve embodied it with a unique persona that’s all its own”. Continue reading...
For a niche but passionate corner of the internet, video games are not simply things to play, but structures to be torn down and rebuilt – togetherIn the summer of 2017, the gamer Beck Abney sat in his room playing Mario Kart 64. What happened next has been described as one of the greatest achievements in gaming history. Many doubted it could even be done at all.He was trying to perform one of gaming’s hardest glitches: the Weathertenko, a trick that if done correctly can finish a full lap of the stage Choco Mountain in just a handful of seconds. To do it once requires immense skill, but Abney wanted to do three in a row, a feat never before achieved in recorded history. And he wanted to do it incredibly quickly.
Ofcom hopes One Touch Switch process will encourage people to seek out better dealsThe UK media regulator, Ofcom, has introduced a new service to make it easier for customers to switch broadband supplier to get a better deal.Ofcom hopes that the new process, One Touch Switch, will encourage people to seek out better deals after research found that more than two-fifths of people were put off switching broadband suppliers because of the hassle. Continue reading...
Deep sea mining firms claim their rare metals are necessary to power clean tech – but with even major electric car firms now backing a moratorium, critics say there is an alternativeMore in this series
Mike Pompeo and officials requested ‘options’ for killing Assange following WikiLeaks’ publication of CIA hacking tools, report saysSenior CIA officials during the Trump administration discussed abducting and even assassinating WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, according to a US report citing former officials.The discussions on kidnapping or killing Assange took place in 2017, Yahoo News reported, when the fugitive Australian activist was entering his fifth year sheltering in the Ecuadorian embassy. The then CIA director, Mike Pompeo, and his top officials were furious about WikiLeaks’ publication of “Vault 7”, a set of CIA hacking tools, a breach which the agency deemed to be the biggest data loss in its history. Continue reading...
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are advising visitors to their Archewell website to take regular screen breaks. How does this approach line up with the evidence?Name: Screen time.Age: It’s less about how old, more about how long. Continue reading...
Move follows WSJ revelations that Facebook-commissioned research showed Instagram could affect girls’ mental healthFacebook has halted work on its Instagram Kids project after revelations about the photo-sharing app’s impact on teen mental health.Instagram said it was “pausing” work to address concerns raised by parents, experts and regulators. The move follows revelations in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Facebook had commissioned research showing Instagram could affect girls’ mental health on issues such as body image and self-esteem. Continue reading...
Nick Clegg will on Monday set out the tech giant’s vision of a virtual world where you can work, shop and ‘live’. But the move is prompting new fears over privacyThe concept of the “metaverse” first came from the 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash as a place that people flee to escape a dangerous corporation-dominated world. It has since come to refer to a range of virtual experiences that have gained popularity during the pandemic – including video games such as Fortnite, non-fungible tokens or even online meetings and events.But in recent weeks the term has gained new traction – and concern over its potential ethical and societal implications – after Mark Zuckerberg said that in five years, Facebook would be a “metaverse company” and declared it the “successor to the mobile internet”. Continue reading...
‘That the young girl in the foreground was a soldier with a gun on her knee is an integral part of that moment’Dina Alfasi has often said that her favourite place to shoot is on the train. It’s not only a mobile studio with, as she puts it, great natural light and interesting subjects; it also lends itself to contemplation, to being in the moment.The Israeli photographer was on her way to work in Haifa, Israel when this baby started laughing. It was 8am, on a June morning. The child was seated on the table: the rolling landscape beyond the window and the young women on the seats opposite vying for her attention. When they got her to laugh, the whole coach joined in. “There was a dreamy sense of joy,” Alfasi says, “a pure moment of unity and innocence.” It is that feeling she sought to retain with any image adjustments – the gentle colour, the Magritte clouds, the painterly highlights along chin and cheek. That the young woman in the foreground was a soldier with a gun on her knee is an integral part of that moment. Continue reading...
From town hall meetings to QR codes and crowdfunding, three environmental campaigners share the practical tips that helped make their work effectiveIf you’ve ever signed a petition, written a cranky letter to your local MP or joined a protest there’s a good chance you’ve been part of an grassroots campaign, but what does it take to actually start one? How do you bring people together to solve a common problem and how do you increase your chances of success?We asked some of the people behind three successful campaigns for the practical advice they learned along the way. Continue reading...
Country steps up its campaign to block use of unofficial digital moneyChina’s central bank has intensified its clampdown on cryptocurrencies by making all transactions in the virtual assets illegal, triggering a drop in the price of bitcoin on Friday.The move signals the latest attempt to rein in cryptocurrency use in China, where regulators fear it might weaken the Communist party’s control over the financial system and promote criminal activity. Continue reading...
by Nadia Khomami Arts and culture correspondent on (#5PYDW)
Partnership with new platform LaCollection aims to inspire next generation of art collectorsThe British Museum is venturing into the emerging world of non-fungible tokens by partnering with a new platform to launch digital postcards of the work of Katsushika Hokusai.NFTs – unique digital assets stored on the blockchain – have gripped the arts sector since the digital artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, made history in March by selling an NFT for $69.4m. Continue reading...
Contracted workers doing the same jobs for less pay and no job security are exposing the tech company’s workplace inequalitiesBen Gwin works for Google Shopping in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Though he is technically a temporary worker at the tech giant, Gwin and 65 of his colleagues are now represented by the United Steelworkers union.The group of workers ratified their first union contract in July after two years at the bargaining table with their contractor, HCL America Inc. The contract victory was historic in an industry that has aggressively opposed union drives, especially among temp and contracted employees. Continue reading...
The escapades of the famously Italian brothers will be portrayed by a non-Italian voice cast in an upcoming animated filmThirty years since his first appearance in a video game, Mario is facing his biggest battle yet: on Twitter.The cast of an upcoming feature film based on the escapades of Mario and his motley crew has been pilloried for its bizarre assemblage of A-list actors. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5PY21)
Faster chip, more storage and huge video call camera upgrade keep Apple’s cheapest tablet in frontApple’s updated low-end iPad looks set to continue its dominance of the market with newer chips, twice the storage and a brilliant new video-calling camera.The 10.2in iPad costs £319 ($329/A$499) – £300 for students – making it Apple’s best-value tablet, sitting below the £479 iPad mini and £579 iPad Air. Continue reading...
by Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier, Phil Harrison and on (#5PY0M)
There’s double-crossing intrigue in Smoke Screen. Plus: the return of Sorted with the Dyers, eclectic album chats in 33 1/3, and an ambitious look at the history of AfghanistanSmoke Screen
Ride hailing company calls on rival operators to create a cross-industry pension schemeUber is to pay out millions of pounds in missed pension payments to UK drivers dating back as far as 2017 under a deal with the retirement savings watchdog.The ride hailing company was forced to guarantee its 70,000 UK drivers a minimum hourly wage, holiday pay and pensions in March this year after a landmark supreme court ruling over their employment status. Couriers for the group’s UberEats food delivery service are not included in the deal. Continue reading...
by Jon Henley and Stephanie Kirchgaessner on (#5PXNN)
Mediapart claims indicate that devices were targeted by NSO’s Pegasus spywareTraces of Pegasus spyware were found on the mobile phones of at least five current French cabinet ministers, the investigative website Mediapart has reported, citing multiple anonymous sources and a confidential intelligence dossier.The allegation comes two months after the Pegasus Project, a media consortium that included the Guardian, revealed that the phone numbers of top French officials, including French president Emmanuel Macron and most of his 20-strong cabinet, appeared in a leaked database at the heart of the investigative project. Continue reading...
In an ambitious new installation, artist Refik Anadol used a 17,000 square-foot gallery to mount an immersive exhibit asking questions about online privacyThe trick of Refik Anadol’s Machine Hallucinations, a three-day public art installation at The Shed in New York City, is to transform the processing of data into surreal hypnosis. The immersive audiovisual exhibit towers over a cavernous 17,000 sq ft gallery in Hudson Yards, an outer ring of screens features a shimmering and chameleonic display of what looks like pixelated sand. But each square is a narrative of data: a familiar image – tree, building, lamppost, over 130m publicly available images of New York City searched and collected by Anadol and his team’s algorithms – morphed into a single-colored square and then silenced by a single question: what would you do if you owned your data?Related: ‘Some people feel threatened’: face to face with Ai-Da the robot artist Continue reading...
Jimmy Wales says social media companies should follow the digital encyclopedia’s approachFacebook and Twitter should adopt Wikipedia’s approach to battling online abuse and misinformation by deploying thousands of volunteer moderators to monitor controversial posts, according to the digital encyclopedia’s founder.Jimmy Wales said the scale of the problem facing social media companies was underlined when he had to personally ask Twitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, to deal with a particularly vicious online troll, after the company’s initial response was to do nothing. Continue reading...
Epic CEO condemns ‘extraordinary anticompetitive move by Apple’ in case that could take yearsApple has blacklisted Fortnite from the App Store until appeals in its legal battle with the game’s maker, Epic, are completed, Epic Games’ CEO, Tim Sweeney, said on Wednesday – a process that could take years.On Twitter on Wednesday, Sweeney called out Apple’s move and said his company would continue to fight. Continue reading...
We asked comedians to point us to the best online laughs. Henry Stone has served up the comedy stars before they were starsI write comedy and I direct comedy, and all of the money I make is from making comedy. However not all of the comedy I make is for making money. I like making things that are borne of nothing other than my fancy being tickled. I’m biased because I’m me and me is a perfect boy, but I’m pretty sure that this is the exactly correct way to approach your craft; one for you, one for them.Ira Glass likes to talk about the taste gap and I like to talk about Ira Glass talking about the taste gap. It’s the mental chasm you find yourself in when you’re really into your chosen creative pursuit but you haven’t flexed your own muscle enough yet and you KNOW IT and it hurts cos you know you suck. I want to half-hijack my own funniest things list to celebrate the taste-gap-closing creative phase because I feel like its necessity is slowly being ignored. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5PVSA)
Windows 11 maker unveils hybrid PC products and accessibility kit for people with disabilitiesMicrosoft has announced a range of computers, laptops, and a dual-screen smartphone as part of its big Surface Windows 11 event.The unveiled devices include brand new computer types and updated models in existing lines, as well as new accessibility options. Each of the machines will be some of the first to ship with Windows 11. Continue reading...
Square Enix’s take on the squabbling, Avengers-adjacent crew is a winning mix of action-adventure and character-led drama – and beautifully renderedIt’s fair to say that Square Enix didn’t have the smoothest entry into the Marvel Universe. The company’s Avengers-themed online action game has had problems with bugs, matchmaking and endgame repetition, and is struggling to retain an audience. But most critics agreed that its story and characterisation were strong; they just didn’t belong in a live game. Guardians of the Galaxy, due out next month, is the developer’s chance to redress the balance and remind Deus Ex and Tomb Raider veterans about its skill with single-player, cinematic stories.The story is classic Guardians, in that it’s based around a minor misdemeanour that quickly transforms into a colossal cosmic drama. A demo of the game, set in its fifth chapter, has the squad arriving at a police station to pay an overdue fine. Before touching down, you can explore the Guardians’ spacecraft, the Milano, a beautifully rendered mess with scratched floors, junk strewn everywhere and a 1980s boombox perched on a shelf. It looks lived-in and chaotic, like a slightly dysfunctional family home, which is very much the vibe Square Enix is going with for the whole game. This is an action-adventure, but it’s also a sort of soap opera – a character-led drama. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5PVFA)
Compact in size but not in price, speed and iPadOS 15 puts mini in class of its ownApple’s iPad mini gets its first total overhaul with an all-new modern design, bigger screen, brilliant video call camera and lots of power for 2021.But being Apple’s smallest doesn’t make it the cheapest. The iPad mini starts at £479 ($499/$A749), sitting above the standard £319 iPad and below the £579 iPad Air. Continue reading...
Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: How traditional media are copying their online challengers … Netflix buys Roald Dahl … and Nicky Minaj’s balls upI don’t know what you were doing between 1.45pm and 3pm on Saturday afternoon. But I can be pretty certain you weren’t watching GB News, the UK’s newish rightwing television news channel.That’s not because I think you’d have any particular issue with the show that was on at that time, which was a programme hosted by the former ITN news anchor Alastair Stewart. Or because of any assumptions about the political leanings of someone reading a newsletter published by the Guardian. Continue reading...
World’s most high-profile video game companies says it is complying with subpoena sent to employees and executivesActivision Blizzard has confirmed an investigation by US regulators following allegations of sexual misconduct and discrimination at one of the world’s most high-profile video game companies.Related: Activision Blizzard scandal a ‘watershed moment’ for women in the gaming industry Continue reading...
It featured an erect penis, and could be bought on the high street. The groundbreaking film changed attitudes to sex and censorship – paving the way to the Pornhub era
Tech companies poured $65m into lobbying in 2020 – but only 6% of their lobbying activity is targeted at climate policyThe world’s biggest tech companies are coming out with bold commitments to tackle their climate impact but when it comes to using their corporate muscle to advocate for stronger climate policies, their engagement is almost nonexistent, according to a new report.Apple, Amazon, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Facebook and Microsoft poured about $65m into lobbying in 2020, but an average of only 6% of their lobbying activity between July 2020 and June 2021 was related to climate policy, according to an analysis from the thinktank InfluenceMap, which tracked companies’ self-reported lobbying on federal legislation. Continue reading...
The architects of the proposed 150,000-acre project are scouting the American south-west. They’re already predicting the first residents can move in by 2030Welcome to Telosa, a $400bn “city of the future,” according to its founder, the billionaire Marc Lore. The city doesn’t exist yet, nor is it clear which state will house the experiment, but the architects of the proposed 150,000-acre project are scouting the American south-west. They’re already predicting the first residents can move in by 2030.Telosa will eventually house 5 million people, according to its website, and benefit from a halo of utopian promises: avant-garde architecture, drought resistance, minimal environmental impact, communal resources. This hypothetical metropolis promises to take some of the most cutting-edge ideas about sustainability and urban design and make them reality. Continue reading...
Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of taking pictures of tonight’s full moonWith the September 2021 full moon rising, also known as the harvest moon, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try and take an Instagram-worthy picture, but unfortunately the moon is really challenging to get a great photo of.Two reasons: it is very far away and unless you have a telephoto lens (which makes the moon appear closer than it is) it will always appear as a very small glowing dot in the frame. Continue reading...
The company’s vice-president of global affairs said the paper had not presented the whole picture on the ‘difficult issues’Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice-president of global affairs, has slammed the Wall Street Journal for reporting that the social media giant was aware of negative impacts of some of its products.Related: Teenage girls, body image and Instagram’s ‘perfect storm’ Continue reading...
Apple has just unveiled the latest all-singing, all-dancing iteration of its handset, but perhaps you should resist the hypeOn Tuesday, Apple released its latest phone – the iPhone 13. Naturally, it was presented with the customary breathless excitement. It has a smaller notch (eh?), a redesigned camera, Apple’s latest A15 “bionic” chipset and a brighter, sharper screen. And, since we’re surfing the superlative wave, the A15 has nearly 15bn transistors and a “six-core CPU design with two high-performance and four high-efficiency cores”.Wow! But just one question: why would I buy this Wundermaschine? After all, two years ago I got an iPhone 11, which has been more than adequate for my purposes. That replaced the iPhone 6 I bought in 2014 and that replaced the iPhone 4 I got in 2010. And all of those phones are still working fine. The oldest one serves as a family backup in case someone loses or breaks a phone, the iPhone 6 has become a hardworking video camera and my present phone may well see me out. Continue reading...
Inventor who brought pocket calculators and the earliest accessible computers into British homesSir Clive Sinclair, who has died aged 81 from cancer, was the inventor who brought pocket calculators and the earliest cheap and accessible miniature computers into British homes in the 1980s.For a few years he seemed to be the epitome of the new hi-tech, go-ahead Britain the Tory government was striving to promote. He was made businessman of the year, knighted, championed by Margaret Thatcher and became, briefly, a multimillionaire. But, proving a better inventor and self-publicist than an entrepreneur, his reputation came a cropper in 1985 with the invention of the C5, his prototype electric car. Continue reading...
Exclusive: privacy concerns ‘must not delay use of neuralMatch algorithm to protect victims of abuse’Child protection experts from across the world have called on Apple to implement new scanning technologies urgently to detect images of child abuse.In August, Apple announced plans to use a tool called neuralMatch to scan photos being uploaded to iCloud online storage and compare them to a database of known images of child abuse. Continue reading...
The affordability of Sinclair’s revolutionary 1982 home computer let a generation of young bedroom coders make anarchic, punky games, and its hardware limitations merely fostered extra creativity• Clive Sinclair dies aged 81 – reportOne day, in the bitterly cold autumn of 1981, my dad brought something home with him which he said was a sort of present for the whole family. It was a ZX81 home computer. I’d seen them advertised on TV and in comics but I never imagined we’d own one; we didn’t even have a video recorder. I remember seeing the instruction manual for the first time, with its beautiful illustration of a gigantic starship, and I understood straightaway that the thing my dad was at that moment plugging into the TV was the future. My whole family sat around the screen and took it in turns to type in one of the BASIC program listings from that weighty booklet. The result was a game in which you had to input coordinates to throw a ball into a waste-paper basket. I can’t even begin to describe how exciting that was. There was something on the TV that we’d made, and that we could interact with. It was a revelation.For families all over Britain, Clive Sinclair – who has died aged 81 – brought computers home. The hobbyist computer market, which introduced the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak to programming, was not as well-developed in this country and required some engineering expertise – you built computers such as the Altair 8800 yourself. The ZX81, you could buy in Boots or WH Smiths or from the Argos catalogue, and it was all there for you. For £70. A lot of money for my family at the time, but not too much. Continue reading...
Navalny’s supporters say companies deleted tactical voting app from stores after pressure from KremlinSupporters of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have accused Google and Apple of capitulating to Kremlin pressure after the two tech companies deleted his tactical voting app from their online stores.Both companies had come under significant pressure from Russian regulators in the days before the courntry’s parliamentary elections to block access to Navalny’s Smart Voting initiative, which tries to channel opposition votes toward the strongest opponents of the ruling party, United Russia. Continue reading...
Study highlights vast churn in computer hardware that the cryptocurrency incentivisesA single bitcoin transaction generates the same amount of electronic waste as throwing two iPhones in the bin, according to a new analysis by economists from the Dutch central bank and MIT.While the carbon footprint of bitcoin is well studied, less attention has been paid to the vast churn in computer hardware that the cryptocurrency incentivises. Specialised computer chips called ASICs are sold with no other purpose than to run the algorithms that secure the bitcoin network, a process called mining that rewards those who partake with bitcoin payouts. But because only the newest chips are power-efficient enough to mine profitably, effective miners need to constantly replace their ASICs with newer, more powerful ones. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian