Technology | The Guardian

FEC investigation failed to uncover link to Rally Forge, a firm with close ties to Turning Point USAA digital marketing firm closely linked to the pro-Trump youth group Turning Point USA was responsible for a series of deceptive Facebook ads promoting Green party candidates during the 2018 US midterm elections, the Guardian can reveal.In an apparent attempt to split the Democratic vote in a number of close races, the ads purported to come from an organization called America Progress Now (APN) and used socialist memes and rhetoric to urge leftwing voters to support Green party candidates. Continue reading...

Gimlet’s smash hit podcast returns from an enforced hiatus this week ... minus one of its hosts. But its future, and that of other shows blighted by controversy, is now precariousLast summer, Reply All’s reputation was at an all-time high. The long-running internet-themed podcast had recently released an episode about a man with a 90s pop song stuck in his head – a piece of music, it seemed, that nobody else on Earth could remember. The show’s hosts, PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman, gamely investigated, leaving no stone unturned and roping in some music heavyweights to help out. Expertly paced and impossible to second-guess, it combined a tantalising conceit with an incredible payoff. The Case of the Missing Hit was heralded by critics as one of the greatest podcast episodes of all time.Mere months later, Reply All was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. At the start of 2021, it launched a spin-off miniseries called The Test Kitchen, which focused on the allegedly toxic and racist workplace culture at the food magazine Bon Appétit. However, after only two episodes had been released, a former colleague accused the team behind The Test Kitchen of promulgating a similar environment at Gimlet Media, the company that makes Reply All. Continue reading...

A new French project ‘inspired’ by the Hitchcock classic could point the way to video games that riff off a film-maker’s wider aesthetic

iOS, PC, Switch; Inkle

Could using digital tags to track fish reduce seafood fraud, help conservation and hold everyone in the supply chain to account?In recent weeks, a new $50m (£35m) hybrid vessel set sail from Mauritius and headed out into the Southern Ocean where the crew will spend three months longline fishing for the Patagonian toothfish. By the time the fish are brought back, processed and sent to customers, consumers will know where and when that specific fish was caught, which boat landed it, who processed it and which certifications have been met. The technology enabling this is blockchain.“From the day it’s landed to when it ends up on someone’s plate, blockchain gives toothfish traceability right from the start,” says Steve Paku, captain of the Cape Arkona. “People can just scan the barcode and the whole story is right there in front of them.” Continue reading...

It is not clear if UK government had alternative that would have allowed services to be back online promptlyTuesday morning’s 45-minute internet outage, which knocked out the Gov.uk domain as well as a string of publishers and other websites, cannot easily be dismissed as an isolated event. It demonstrates a lack of resilience at the heart of critical government services.Anybody wanting to book a Covid test in the late morning on Gov.uk would have struggled. There is an alternative method, by phone, but who knows the number to call: 119? Government services that once delivered by form and post, then call centres, now only really exist through online connections. Continue reading...

The average household has more than £300 worth of unused cookery kit. Here, experts offer tips on how to make bread, ice-cream and other delicious foods without fancy contraptionsJacob Kenedy’s home kitchen is full of things he rarely uses: a sushi mat, a coconut grater, a pestle and mortar, even a borrowed turbotière (a kite-shaped pan specifically for poaching turbot). “I’m the worst,” confesses the chef-owner at Bocca di Lupo in central London. “I buy gadgets all the time. I’m a kleptomaniac of other cuisines; I’ve an enormous kitchen island full of crap.”Kenedy is not alone. In a survey last year, tapwarehouse.com found that 41% of tagine owners had never used theirs. Spiralizers, waffle-irons and juicers are all gathering dust, too, with the average household home to £311 of unused kitchen equipment. Continue reading...

Voice assistant will no longer send audio recordings to firm’s servers, instead processing requests ‘on device’Apple will no longer send Siri requests to its servers, the company has announced, in a move to substantially speed up the voice assistant’s operation and address privacy concerns.The new feature comes two years after the Guardian revealed that Apple staff regularly heard confidential details while carrying out quality control for the feature. Continue reading...

Videos uploaded by Apple-approved team falsely appeared to have been shared by Oregon woman herself, filing says

Tech giant will pay £189m after settlement found it unfairly favoured its own tools for buying and selling adsGoogle has been fined €220m (£189m) by French competition regulators for abusing its dominance in the online advertising market in a landmark settlement that could rebalance the relationship between tech giants and digital publishers.The settlement with the French competition authority, which found that Google unfairly favoured its own tools for buying and selling adverts online over those of rivals, marks the first time the Silicon Valley company has agreed to make changes to its practices as a result of the investigation. Continue reading...

Reforms force multinationals to pay tax in all countries they operate in, but Amazon could evade new rulesThe G7 group of wealthy nations signed a historic tax agreement to tackle tax abuses by multinationals and online technology companies on Saturday, agreeing to a minimum global corporate tax rate for the first time.Although broadly welcomed by tax campaigners and labelled a moment that would “change the world” by G7 finance ministers, months and possibly years of talks still need to take place before the rules come into force. Continue reading...

Amazon founder’s brother, Mark, and one other person will join Bezos onboard Blue Origin vessel on 20 JulyJeff Bezos will no longer be the richest person on Earth on 20 July because the Amazon founder will be blasting off into space on the first crewed flight of his New Shepard rocket ship.Joining Bezos on the flight will be his younger brother, Mark, a former advertising executive and volunteer firefighter. The third member of the crew is being decided by a charity auction, with the seat currently priced at $2.8m (£2m) five days ahead of the deadline for bids. Continue reading...

Apps such as Hinge and Bumble will offer benefits to vaccinated users amid fears of low take-up

Exclusive: communique from ministers suggests deal only applies to ‘profit exceeding a 10% margin’, which could rule out AmazonExperts have raised concerns that Amazon may escape paying significantly more tax in some of its biggest markets unless world leaders close a large loophole in a historic global deal.Finance ministers in London from the G7 group of wealthy nations, including representatives of the UK, US and EU, on Saturday agreed the landmark deal aimed at making the biggest companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook pay more tax. Continue reading...

The AI researcher on how natural resources and human labour drive machine learning and the regressive stereotypes that are baked into its algorithmsKate Crawford studies the social and political implications of artificial intelligence. She is a research professor of communication and science and technology studies at the University of Southern California and a senior principal researcher at Microsoft Research. Her new book, Atlas of AI, looks at what it takes to make AI and what’s at stake as it reshapes our world.You’ve written a book critical of AI but you work for a company that is among the leaders in its deployment. How do you square that circle?

The fashion resale app and its young users represents the likely future of retail: more online, more sustainable, and more socialDepop, the fashion resale app, has joined fellow British tech companies such as Arm Holdings and DeepMind in heading to a deep pool of investment outside its homeland.London-based Depop’s acquisition by Brooklyn-based Etsy for $1.6bn (£1.1bn) last week came just days after Oxford-based WaveOptics, a maker of displays used in augmented-reality glasses, was bought up by the Santa Monica-headquartered owner of Snapchat for $500m. Continue reading...

Brad Stone’s second book on the world’s richest person is another portrait of great power – and the great damage it does

Wise Bank of England heads are pondering the case for a state-run digital currency this week. But do we really need one?When Google announced that bitcoin traders would be allowed to buy advertising space on its pages from August, central banks were alerted to the next likely surge in publicity for cryptocurrencies.The increasing activity around digital currencies has not gone unnoticed at the Bank of England, and on 7 June Threadneedle Street’s brightest will publish a consultation document, setting out how a publicly operated electronic coinage system – one that would rival bitcoin – might work. Continue reading...

Whether single, curious or just plain horny, many people are planning to make the most of life after lockdowns. Are we ready to get up close and personal?

Christopher Wray also revealed that the agency is investigating about 100 kinds of ransomware cyber-attacksThe FBI has compared a recent string of cyber-attacks on US government and corporate entities to defense difficulties presented by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.Christopher Wray, the FBI director, also revealed that the agency is investigating about 100 kinds of ransomware, with many tracing back to criminal operators in Russia. Continue reading...

Twitter Blue, launched in Australia and Canada, also allows users to manage bookmarks and tweak coloursTwitter has launched its first paid subscription service, offering users the ability to undo tweets, manage their bookmarks and change the colour of their app icon for a monthly fee.The service, Twitter Blue, launched on Thursday in Canada and Australia for CA$3.49 and AU$4.49 a month respectively, offering a smattering of new features for those willing to pay for the premium tier. It is the first consumer-focused subscription product from a leading social network and comes amid growing pressure on app-based advertising. Continue reading...

Over lockdown, comedian, mother of two and former games journalist Ellie Gibson took up livestreaming, loved the community – and learned to love playing againLike so many things in my life, it began as a daft experiment. I love learning new stuff, and over the course of my 43 years I’ve tried all sorts. Some things have stuck, like comedy, running, and having kids. Some haven’t, like kung fu, olives and holidays in Germany. To be honest, I thought that livestreaming games on Twitch would fall into the latter category.For those who aren’t familiar (I wasn’t until this year), Twitch involves playing video games live on the internet while providing a running commentary. People watch you, and chat to you via a message window, and sometimes give you money. It’s sort of like exotic dancing, but with fewer breasts. Continue reading...

Firm says it will help users more safely put computers to work making money – though gains may be negligibleMillions of people will soon be able to mine cryptocurrencies without installing any extra programs after the antivirus company Norton announced plans to add the feature to its LifeLock security software.The company says the new feature, Norton Crypto, is intended to allow users to put their computers to work mining cryptocurrency – and eventually earning real money – without needing to risk using unvetted software. Continue reading...

Up to 50 companies dealing in digital assets such as bitcoin could be forced to stop trading immediatelyUp to 50 companies dealing in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin may be forced to close after failing to meet the UK’s anti-money laundering rules.The Financial Conduct Authority, the City regulator, announced on Thursday that an “unprecedented number” of companies had withdrawn applications from a temporary permit scheme that allowed firms to continue trading until the regulator could green-light or formally reject their operations. Continue reading...

Tesla CEO and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s 2019 deal stipulated that Musk would vet any public communicationsThe US securities watchdog told Tesla last year that Elon Musk had twice violated a settlement requiring his tweets to be pre-approved by company lawyers, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.Musk and the US Securities and Exchange Commission agreed in 2019 that the electric car maker would vet any material public communications Musk made regarding Tesla. Continue reading...

PC, Xbox Series S/X; Strange Scaffold

Structural engineer who had a big hand in the creation of the Severn, Forth and Humber road bridgesMichael Parsons, who has died aged 92, played a key role in the design of Britain’s three major suspension bridges, over the Forth, Severn and Humber estuaries – and was closely involved in the design of the first two suspension bridges over the Bosphorus in Turkey.Working for the consultants Freeman Fox and Partners throughout his career, he was the originator of the streamlined box girder concept first adopted for the suspended deck of the Severn Bridge and taken up on most suspension bridges thereafter. Continue reading...

Working for the app, which feeds users local crime information, ‘is very traumatic’ and the managers ‘don’t appear to care’Susan, a former employee for the crime app Citizen, applied for a job curating the platform’s content and notifications in 2019 “in a pinch”. She had a writing background, was having trouble finding work in New York City, and thought she could make some money while looking for a better fit.By the time she left less than a year later, Susan said, she was drinking to excess because of work stress, had trouble sleeping, and had, at one point, cracked her tooth clenching her jaw while listening to hours of talking on the police scanner. As her mental health declined, her bosses at Citizen were not supportive, Susan said. Continue reading...

After a pandemic-hit slowdown on new content, the PS5 finally has a family game to match its capabilitiesIt’s been six months since the PlayStation 5 launched, and they still fly out of stock minutes after appearing in stores. But anyone still waiting to pick one up can be comforted by the knowledge that as yet, there haven’t been many games to show off what it can do. The only one that has felt strikingly next-generation is the superb horror-sci-fi-shooter Returnal, which is like Groundhog Day on an alien planet where everything is trying to kill you.Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, out 11 June, is also science-fiction, but unlike Returnal, it is more cuddly and approachable. Part of a long-running series about a furry big-eared alien and his unflappable robot companion having adventures in space with a wacky arsenal of weapons, it’s made by Insomniac Games in California, the developer behind PS5 launch game Spider-Man: Miles Morales. And like Miles Morales, it is a bit of a technical showcase. Continue reading...

Its repair policy seems to fly in the face of Bill Gates’s work to combat climate change

The ransomware attack on JBS, probably by a Russia-based group, has disrupted meat production in North America and AustraliaA ransomware attack against the world’s largest meatpacking company that has disrupted meat production in North America and Australia originated from a criminal organization probably based in Russia, the White House was informed on Tuesday.The attack on Brazil’s JBS caused its Australian operations to shut down on Monday and has stopped livestock slaughter at its plants in several US states. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of photographing the moonWhen a full moon rises, many people will pull out their mobile phones to try and get an Instagram-worthy photograph, 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...

Device prices may rise, as Acer’s chief operating officer says that on any given day the firm can only fill half of worldwide demandOne of the biggest laptop makers in the world, Acer, has said the worldwide global chip shortage will continue to have a “severe” impact on its production capabilities until at least the first or second quarter of next year.The shortage of semi-conductors across the globe has resulted in supply issues for everything from computers, phones and gaming consoles to new cars. Continue reading...

From live streams of new plays to classics from the archive, here are some of the top shows online now or coming soonThe stage on screen: our guide to films about theatrePaul Miller, artistic director of Richmond’s Orange Tree theatre, continues his fine run of George Bernard Shaw productions with this pair of one-act plays about desire, How He Lied to Her Husband (1904) and Overruled (1912). The 70-minute double bill runs at the Orange Tree until 26 June but will be livestreamed on 3 and 4 June. Read the full review. Continue reading...

Study claims firms paid $96bn less in tax between 2011 and 2020 than the notional figures cited in their annual reportsThe giant US tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of inflating their stated tax payments by almost $100bn (£70bn) over the past decade.As Chancellor Rishi Sunak called on world leaders to back a new tech tax ahead of next week’s G7 summit in the UK, a report by the campaign group Fair Tax Foundation singled out Amazon, Facebook, Google’s owner, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft. Continue reading...

Gaming is task-driven, repetitive and often frustrating – just like having a job. Childhood isn’t supposed to be so seriousThere are currently three computer games occupying the house: the 13-year-old (M), sometimes in conjunction with the 11-year-old (F), plays Fortnite, a game mainly about shooting people; the 13-year-old (F), also sometimes with the collaboration of the 11-year-old, plays Genshin Impact, a whimsical, open-world environment game, whatever the hell that means. Avatars dressed as pirates or fairies wander about the place, doing chores, occasionally fighting giant warthogs. Mr Z plays Hitman, another shooting game with very densely layered storylines, though he always skips them so never knows what’s going on beyond that; the aim is to leave everyone else dead in a laundry hamper.Observing all this, I feel like the manager of a hi-tech sweat shop. Everyone is locked in concentration, shouting over headphones at other people who may or may not be in the same house, a cross between high-intensity data inputting and horribly frazzled air traffic control. I know what I should be worrying about – are they getting enough fresh air? Will they become addicted? Is this a useful life lesson, to find meaning through shooting others? Continue reading...

Doctors say NHS Digital’s proposals could erode the relationship between them and their patientsDoctors have warned that plans to pool medical records on to a database and share them with third parties could erode the relationship between them and patients.The warning came as the Royal College of GPs wrote to NHS Digital urging it to better communicate with the public about the plans and their options for opting out. Continue reading...

Instead of paying musicians properly, the likes of Spotify have set up ‘donation’ buttons – thus passing the buck to fans

Our reliance on technology means ever more devices and apps and ever less interoperability – and the ubiquity of Apple hasn’t helpedIn 2001, if you listened to digital music, you did it with a large folder of MP3 files. How you acquired them is probably best left between you and a priest, but you may have ripped them from a CD, downloaded them from a file sharing service, or bought them from one of a few nascent download sites.Whichever option you picked, you’d play them on your computer with a program built for the task. And if you were lucky enough to have an early standalone MP3 player, it was probably made by another company again. Continue reading...

The pay-TV giant has the chance to turn popular films into ‘universes’ of stories – and steal a march in the content-hungry streaming warsAmazon’s $8.5bn deal to buy MGM, the Hollywood studio behind James Bond, The Handmaid’s Tale and Gone With the Wind, has secured it the rights to a century’s worth of TV and film titles that the streaming giant intends to exploit with a wave of remakes, reimaginings and spin-offs.The deal to buy the 97-year-old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which has an immense library of 4,000 film titles and 17,000 hours of TV programming, is designed to supercharge Amazon’s content pipeline, which is the lifeblood of any competitor in the global battle for streaming supremacy. Continue reading...

Attempt to tackle racial bias long overdue say practitioners, but it’s not just about the equipment

AmaZen, a small box for employees’ ‘mental wellbeing’, came under fire as critics called out the company’s problematic working conditionsAmazon was lampooned on social media Thursday after sharing a video highlighting “AmaZen”, a small enclosed booth installed in an Amazon warehouse where employees can go to “focus on their mental wellbeing”.Related: Amazon must ‘do a better job’ for its workers, says Jeff Bezos Continue reading...

Button-bashing arcade sports vied with the thrill of urban planning, Pac-Man ate up everything, and Super Mario Bros smashed gaming into the mainstreamThe 1980s were crammed with wonderful adventure games – The Hobbit, King’s Quest, Leather Goddesses of Phobos – but the first point-and-click title to be designed by comic genius Ron Gilbert using the SCUMM scripting language is the classic that busted out of the genre ghetto. Filled with great jokes and B-movie cliches, the game made brilliant use of its accessible and intuitive interface, as well as seamlessly integrating cutscenes and non-sequential puzzles. The start of a weird and special era. Continue reading...

We asked our favourite funny people for their favourite links. For the Kates, it’s sketches, news fails and a silly amount of raccoonsKates McLennan and McCartney – of Get Krack!n and The Katering Show – have a new comedy podcast out, titled Slushy: eight episodes of a workplace sitcom, set on an Antarctic research station.To celebrate, they supplied this list of other funny online things. Continue reading...

Labor is set to question executives in an estimates hearing after data reveals employees were paid $77.5m in cash bonuses in 2020Hundreds of NBN Co staff on $200,000 and above a year were paid an average bonus of almost $50,000 last year, according to new data.Earlier this year – while everyone was talking about the $20,000 worth of Cartier watches purchased for Australia Post executives as bonuses – it was revealed staff and executives at the government-owned business enterprise NBN Co were paid $77.5m in cash bonuses in 2020. Continue reading...

Cumberbatch and McKellen among big names to appears in live-recorded stage shows to feature on PrimeAmazon has partnered with the National Theatre to stream four high-profile live-recorded stage shows, including Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag.The shows, which include Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller in 2011’s Frankenstein, will be made available to Amazon’s Prime Video customers in the UK and Ireland from 11 June. Continue reading...

Ofgem to build infrastructure for 3,550 new ultra-rapid charging points on motorways and in townsBritain’s energy regulator has approved a £300m investment spree to help triple the number of ultra-rapid electric car charge points across the country, as part of efforts to accelerate the UK’s shift to clean energy.Ofgem has given the green light for energy network companies to invest in more than 200 low-carbon projects across the country over the next two years, including the installation of 1,800 new ultra-rapid car charge points for motorway service stations and a further 1,750 charge points in towns and cities. Continue reading...

Investors are betting the big chains won’t be able to compete with startups that bring your shopping within minutesOver the past year, you may have noticed the rapid growth in all kinds of app-based delivery services. For a while, supermarkets weren’t involved: traditionally, the industry does not grow very much. The margins are small, but predictable.But something strange has happened: interest and investment in app-based delivery has exploded, with various fast-track services offering to have groceries at your door within a specified number of minutes. Weezy is the market leader in the UK, but you may also have heard of Fresh Direct or Sainsbury’s 60-minute delivery option, Chop Chop. Grocery is a multibillion-pound industry that appears to be in the midst of a massive disruption. Continue reading...

Historians are aghast that the National Archives have had to resort to crowdfunding to protect irreplaceable historical recordsHistorians are calling it an international embarrassment for Australia and saying it is “inconceivable that it has come to this”, as they preemptively mourn the loss of “irreplaceable national history”.The National Archives of Australia doesn’t often make headlines, but when it does, it’s rarely good news. Continue reading...