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The social network is changing how it works with third parties - but some argue that a push for profit could bring a wave of misinformation Don't get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article hereWelcome back to TechScape, where I - along with a rotating cast of tech writers - will help fill Alex Hern's shoes while he's on parental leave. He'll make the first of some occasional appearances in the newsletter in a few weeks, but what might not return any time soon are some of Reddit's most popular communities.Last week, the pages of Reddit went dark - with thousands taking their forums offline to protest against a decision by the platform to impose fees on third-party tools many rely on to make the site more efficient. Continue reading...

The US novelist shaped the modern idea of the post-apocalypse. Without him, games such as The Last of Us and Red Dead Redemption would not be the sameCormac McCarthy, one of the most significant figures in modern American literature, died last week aged 89. While the tributes have mostly come from within the literary world, he had a huge impact upon modern culture as a whole - including video games. McCarthy's work reshaped the way that the world looks at the post-apocalyptic genre, a flavour of fiction that video games have long called home. And Rockstar's western opus Red Dead Redemption vividly recalls the Border Trilogy - particularly the twisted figure of Dutch van der Linde.The developers of The Last of Us have specifically cited The Road as a key influence, and it's easy to see why Naughty Dog drew upon McCarthy's parent-child journey across a post-apocalyptic America to inform their own. While the main thrust of the game's story fits neatly into Joseph Campbell's monomyth, it is the nihilism and bleakness of The Road that determines its mood. Both feature ruined worlds, full of marauders and cannibals, and Joel's sickness parallels the Man's fading condition in the novel. Both endings are bleak, the horrors of the world swallowing characters up bodily and mentally. Continue reading...

Magnetic charging speaker dock makes this tablet useful when idle, while software and app improvements are paying offGoogle's long-awaited Pixel Tablet has finally landed to try to tempt users away from Apple's dominant iPad and make the large-screen devices useful in the home by becoming a smart display when not in active use - a feature that seems so obvious it's a wonder why no one has tried it before.The Android tablet costs 599 ($499/A$899) and comes with a magnetic charging speaker dock to enable its dual function super power. It is Google's first Android tablet in eight years and marks the company's attempt to reignite the category following up on its recent software efforts. Continue reading...

At the start of 2023, the UK postal service Royal Mail was hit with an ultimatum: pay $80m (67m) or continue to have international shipments blocked. The demand came from Russian-linked hackers the LockBit group, who had infiltrated Royal Mail's software. Royal Mail refused to pay and eventually reinstated its overseas deliveries, but the cyber-attack came at a huge cost to the company and others that depend on its service.Ransomware attacks like this one are on the rise. So too are phishing attempts, emails and texts that try to fool recipients into clicking on links that contain malware or ask for personal information. Ian Sample speaks to the Yale law professor and author Scott Shapiro about cybercrime, how attacks hack into our psychology and what individuals and governments could do to stop itClips: Today, ABC News, BBC News,Scott J Shapiro's book Fancy Bear Goes Phishing is available here. Continue reading...

Petting pups and cleaning up digital dog poo makes me happy. What does that say about my headspace right now?Not long ago, I was interviewing someone over the phone when I suddenly became transfixed by a soft bark that emitted from my iPad. The bark came with a tantalising notification: Your new rustic lantern is ready to decorate your sanctuary!"My hands instinctively moved to swipe before I managed to contain myself. The lantern wasn't real. The lantern could wait. I have a job. Continue reading...

The suction-padded joystick was once the games controller sans pareil until it was usurped by the multi-button joypad - but with the return of retro gaming, it's making a comebackFor home computer gamers in the 1980s, your choice of joystick was a matter of intense importance and debate. Unlike buying a console, you didn't get a controller with your machine, so every player had this vital input decision to make from the offset. Most of my friends went for the ubiquitous Quickshot II, a great hulking giant of a controller, designed to resemble a fighter jet joystick, complete with multiple fire buttons and an autofire switch so that you could cheat on R-Type. It was reasonably delicate, though, so a session with a joystic-waggling sports game such as Daley Thompson's Decathlon could see over-enthusiastic players wrenching the shaft clean off - surely the most Freudian mishap ever to befall a schoolboy.When I asked Twitter users for their favourite ever joysticks, the Quickshot got many mentions but so did the Super Pro Zip Stik and the pastel-coloured Powerplay Cruiser, both rugged, dependable stars of the Amiga era. More eccentric designs were also recalled - the squat little Cheetah Bug, the Konix Speedking (also known as the Epyx 500XJ), an ergonomic oddity designed to sit in the palm with the fire buttons on the side. Continue reading...

Cybersecurity firm says Anonymous Sudan is unlikely to be authentic hacktivist group, as initially believedThe hackers believed to be behind a recent attack that took some of Microsoft's services offline are likely to be a Russian-linked group rather than a grassroots pro-Islam collective operating out of Sudan, experts say.Anonymous Sudan, which surfaced in January 2023, has also claimed responsibility for at least 24 distributed denial-of-service attacks on Australian companies, including healthcare, aviation and education organisations. Continue reading...

Next-gen heart rate sensor, clearer screen, epic battery life and new metrics upgrade top multisport smartwatchGarmin has been on a roll recently, upgrading various versions of its most popular sports smartwatches. Now it is the turn of its top adventure watch to be enhanced with next-gen tech and new tools in the new Fenix 7 Pro.The new torch-equipped, go-anywhere watch costs 750, putting it very much in the luxury category alongside Apple's 849 Watch Ultra and the 800 and up Epix line. That's also 150 more than the cheapest Fenix 7 but roughly in line with the cost of the previous solar-charging models. So what more do you get for your money? Continue reading...

Campaigners say bill in serious peril' of passing without powers to make platforms more transparentOnline safety experts will struggle to sound the alarm about harmful content if landmark legislation does not allow independent researchers to access data from social media platforms, campaigners have warned.The government is being urged to adopt amendments to the online safety bill enabling researchers to access platform data in order to monitor harmful material. Access would be overseen by Ofcom, the communications watchdog, and would protect user privacy. Continue reading...

Ted Kaczynski's prescient' views have been praised by Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson - and continue to draw misguided new followersThe bomb was disguised as a tangle of wooden planks and protruding nails, and when he encountered it in the car park behind his computer-repair store, Gary Wright thought nothing of pushing it from his path.I put my thumb and middle finger on the end and moved it," he recalls. In this way alone, he was lucky. Had he reached over the top, he says, I'd have no hand." Continue reading...

Keyhole surgery using robotic arms has transformed medicine. But the next generation of advanced robotics might be able to surpass the skills of surgeonsNeil Thomas wished he could have been awake during the operation to remove a 6cm cancerous tumour from his colon. He was one of the first people to go under the scalpel of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board's new robotic systems in June 2022. And, as the founder of a software company, the technology interested him.Thomas's surgeon, James Ansell, would once have stooped over his patient's body to perform the operation. Instead, he stood behind a console on another side of the theatre wearing 3D glasses. His hands grasped two joysticks, which controlled the four robotic arms that huddled around Thomas's unconscious body. Continue reading...

CEO Steve Huffman says tech giants should not be able to trawl Reddit's huge store of data for free. But that information came from users, not the companyLike Wikipedia, Reddit is one of the wonders of the online world. Its founders once described it as the front page of the internet", which is perhaps a bit hyperbolic but not entirely wide of the mark. It is, after all, the 11th most visited website in the world (and the sixth most visited in the US). Many of my friends, colleagues, acquaintances and contacts use it every day, and for some it is their favourite online site.If this comes as a surprise to you, then here's what you need to know. Reddit is basically a bulletin board on steroids. It's a news-aggregation, content and discussion website. Continue reading...

Intrigued by skimpily dressed mannequins outside a suburban house, the Australian photographer knocked on the door to find out moreIt was approaching Christmas last year and Australian photographer Glenn Homann was exploring Brisbane’s heritage-rich satellite city of Ipswich with his iPhone. “I tend to go out looking for locations and objects to shoot. But occasionally, for whatever reason, a person appears on the scene,” says Homann, who lives about a half-hour’s drive away in the suburb of Inala. “I passed this green house with skimpily dressed mannequins propped up outside – an unusual take on Christmas decorations. I knocked on the door to find out more. Ron answered.”The pair chatted and developed an easy rapport, and an unlikely friendship was born. A few weeks later Homann returned, hoping to shoot inside Ron’s shed. “He has two old motorbikes, a go-kart, model airplanes, more mannequins and these crazy paintings he’s created up on the walls. We stepped into his kitchen and he mentioned something about having a couple of kilts in his cupboard. He had grandparents from Scotland and Ireland, and is very proud of his heritage, so he pulled out his Irish one. I had intended to find some moodier lighting out in the shed, but it was such a hot day, the air-conditioning unit was right there, and this picture happened, with his dog, Teddy Bear, at his feet.” Continue reading...

Streamer and couple said it was a mutual decision but a PR expert says it looks bad for their brandWhen the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their $20m, multi-year deal with Spotify in 2020, it was hailed as the centrepiece of the couple’s growing business empire.So when news broke that the deal had come to an end after just one series, questions arose over why the partnership had broken down so quickly and what it meant for the Harry and Meghan brand. Continue reading...

The task of radically reducing our greenhouse gas emissions is daunting, the former chief scientist says. But it’s also a huge opportunity“It won’t be easy getting to zero, Kathleen.”We were at a dinner party soon after the May 2022 Australian election, which saw the Labor party, led by Anthony Albanese, form government, with an unprecedented number of seats won by the Greens and by climate-focused independents. Rolling her eyes, Kathleen pressed on in a triumphal tone. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Calls for Meta to curb rise in scams on its platforms, which will cost UK households £250m this year

Guardian investigation reveals the human stories behind the scams on Meta’s social media platforms

Nintendo’s new record-setting Zelda game allows players to get creative and make madcap vehicles and contraptions. Readers share their favourite experiences so farThe best thing is doing something random in the game – climbing up something, fighting something big and boss-like – before you’re actually supposed to in the story. I have been playing games since I was four, and I’ve always loved Zelda games for the freedom you get and the feeling you’ve done something you’re not supposed to that isn’t found in many other titles. I’d say so far – and I’m only a few hours in – there are two favourite moments for me. One is when cooking and hearing Link humming music from the series. The other was climbing a Skyview Tower, assuming I had to so I could see the world map, and reaching the top only to find ... nothing. Then moving along in the story and finding out what it was actually for! As always, pre-empting what I’m supposed to do in a Zelda game. Tom Fogden, 43, France Continue reading...

Company says its AI programs will include watermarks and metadata identifying AI-generated content as ChatGPT rival rolls out in more than 180 countries

Company says ‘next generation language model’ will outperform other artificial intelligence systems on some tasksGoogle is attempting to reclaim its crown as the leader in artificial intelligence with PaLM 2, a “next-generation language model” that the company says outperforms other leading systems on some tasks.Revealing the cutting-edge AI at its annual I/O conference, alongside a foldable Pixel phone and a new tablet, Google said it would be built in to 25 new products and features, as the company races to catch up with competitors after years of producing AI research but few products. Continue reading...

British cybersecurity firm also finds UK ransom payments even higher than global averageRansomware payments have nearly doubled to $1.5m (£1.2m) over the past year, with the highest-earning organisations the most likely to pay attackers, according to a survey.Sophos, a British cybersecurity firm, found that the average ransomware payment rose from $812,000 the previous year. The average payment by UK organisations in 2023 was even higher than the global average, at $2.1m. Continue reading...

Thursday’s vote in EU parliament seen as key test in formation of world’s first artificial intelligence lawsMoves to ban live “Big Brother” real time facial recognition technology from being deployed across the streets of the EU or by border officials will be tested in a key vote at the European parliament on Thursday.The amendment is part of a package of proposals for the world’s first artificial intelligence laws, which could result in firms being fined up to €10m (£8.7m) or removed from trading within the EU for breaches of the rules. Continue reading...

New function part of firm’s ambition to create ‘seamless door-to-door travel solution’Uber customers in the UK will soon be able to reserve flights through the ride-booking app, as the company aims to offer multiple forms of transport.The new feature allowing consumers to book domestic and international flights is being rolled out on Uber’s UK app and will be available to all British users by the summer. Continue reading...

In this week’s newsletter: Consoles are plug-and-play, but starting from scratch gave me new appreciation for everything that goes into making games

I was stopped from using a recycled toner product: it’s going to cost me an extra 30%I bought my usual recycled toner cartridge for my HP LaserJet printer. When I installed it I got a message telling me that printing was blocked as it was not an HP cartridge. It turns out that, in the last few weeks, HP has updated the printer firmware (without asking) to stop the use of non-HP cartridges. This means I will have to pay an extra 30% for my toner cartridges. What’s going on?

Joseph James O’Connor was extradited from Spain to the US last month to face charges over the hack of a number of organisations and celebritiesA British man has pleaded guilty over his role in schemes to hack the Twitter accounts of celebrities including Joe Biden and Elon Musk, as well as stealing $794,000 in cryptocurrency.Joseph James O’Connor, 23, entered his guilty plea in a New York court after being extradited from Spain on 26 April. Continue reading...

Host was fired by the news network last month in the aftermath of its $787.5m settlement with Dominion over election liesTucker Carlson will be reviving his show on Twitter, after being abruptly dismissed from Fox News last month.In a tweet captioned “We’re back,” Carlson on Tuesday shared a video discussing his next moves. The former host said he would be taking his show to Twitter, which he described as “the last remaining platform in the world” to allow free speech. Continue reading...

Some systems at Defra are so old they have no protection from cyber-attacks, says public accounts committeeUK politics live – latest updatesFood security and air quality in the UK are being put at risk by outdated IT systems at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), a parliamentary committee has found.MPs have said the situation “cannot continue” as officials are having to use paper forms rather than digital systems to track fast-moving animal disease and keep food, air and water safe. Continue reading...

While kids will love throwing themselves into caring for their new virtual pet, older players looking for a next-gen AR-led Pokémon Go may be disappointedFrom the unlikely return of Gladiators to the resurgence of the layered blowout hairstyle beloved of Rachel from Friends, 90s nostalgia is in rude health. It was only a matter of time, then, until we witnessed the return of the era’s most baffling toy – the Tamagotchi.Created by Akihiro Yokoi and Aki Maita in 1996, these keychain-sized gaming devices became an instant playground phenomenon, seeing millions of children neglect their real-life pets in favour of cleaning pixelated poop. Then, just as quickly as they arrived, these pocket playthings disappeared. While Nintendo channelled the Tamagotchi spirit into the hugely successful Nintendogs series, the rise of increasingly complex life sims, such as … well, The Sims, saw the pet and play genre die an untimely death – until now. Continue reading...

The Theranos founder and convicted fraudster used a New York Times profile as a shameless PR exercise. If only other female convicts were given a first chance – let alone a secondMeet Liz Holmes. She is a devoted mother of two little kids who loves nothing more than family outings to the zoo, walking her dog, and talking to her husband in a very normal voice that is absolutely nothing like the weird baritone her evil alter ego, Elizabeth, affected.You remember Elizabeth Holmes, don’t you? Unlike nice, sweet Liz, Elizabeth was a bit of a schemer. Last year Holmes was convicted on four counts of defrauding investors, by pretending that her blood-testing startup, Theranos, was functional when it wasn’t, and given more than 11 years in prison. She was due to start her sentence on 27 April, but filed a last-minute appeal, buying her a little more time at home. How did she decide to spend those last precious moments of freedom? Taking her kids to the zoo and doing a photoshoot for the New York Times. After almost seven years of media silence, Holmes recently spent several days opening up to a Times writer over berries and Mexican food. The result is a 5,000-word profile introducing her new persona to the world. Continue reading...

Anticipation is sky-high for the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom this week. Fans explain why the sequel to Breath of the Wild is so eagerly awaitedThis Friday, after years of feverish anticipation, Nintendo is finally set to release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – the much-hyped sequel to its acclaimed 2017 epic, Breath of the Wild. Six years in the making, Tears of the Kingdom is set to be one of the biggest instalments in an already iconic, generationally beloved franchise, building on a predecessor that radically reshaped the conventions of the series and introduced scores of new fans to the fantasy world of Hyrule.Befitting a tentpole release, Tears of the Kingdom has already been subject not only to swathes of online discussion, but also to two leaks: first of the game’s art book, a few months ago, and then of the full game itself, late last month. Still, anticipation for the release is at fever pitch, thanks to its predecessor’s reputation as both one of the best games in the Zelda franchise and one of the best video games of all time. Continue reading...

Too much discourse focuses on whether AIs are the end of society or the end of human suffering – I’m more interested in the middle ground

As dozens of countries debate adopting greater regulation, the tech giants are growing aggressiveOn Monday, 1 May, Brazilians were surprised when they went to the Google homepage. Under the familiar search field, a link said: “The fake news bill can make your internet worse.” Whoever clicked on the link was taken to a Google blog that criticized draft law 2630, which was to be voted on Brazilian Congress the next day.The search homepage, used by more than 90% of 160 million internet users in Brazil, also claimed in another link that “the fake news bill can create confusion about what is true and what is a lie in Brazil”.Natalia Viana is an executive director of the Brazilian investigative journalism outlet Agência Pública. She has worked on investigations as part of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and her work has been featured in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Nation and the BBC Continue reading...

Steve Wozniak says content created with artificial intelligence should be labelled and calls for regulationApple co-founder Steve Wozniak has warned that artificial intelligence could be used by “bad actors” and make it harder to spot scams and misinformation.Wozniak, who was one of Apple’s co-founders with the late Steve Jobs and invented the company’s first computer, said AI content should be clearly labelled, and called for regulation for the sector. Continue reading...

Bulgaria in the 1980s became known as the ‘virus factory’, where hundreds of malicious computer programs were unleashed to wreak havoc. But who was writing them, and why?In the 1980s, there was no better place than Bulgaria for virus lovers. The socialist country – plagued by hyperinflation, crumbling infrastructure, food and petrol rationing, daily blackouts and packs of wild dogs in its streets – had become one of the hottest hi-tech zones on the planet. Legions of young Bulgarian programmers were tinkering on their pirated IBM PC clones, pumping out computer viruses that managed to travel to the gleaming and prosperous west.In 1989, an article appeared in Bulgaria’s leading computer magazine saying the media’s treatment of computer viruses was sensationalist and inaccurate. The article, in the January issue of Bulgaria’s Computer for You magazine, titled The Truth About Computer Viruses, was written by Vesselin Bontchev, a 29-year-old researcher at the Institute of Industrial Cybernetics and Robotics at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia. Fear of computer viruses, Bontchev wrote, was turning into “mass psychosis”. Continue reading...

Tech billionaire, 38, surprises onlookers by winning gold and silver medal at tournament in Redwood City, California

Ben Smith was BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief when it was at its peak. He explains how the groundbreaking site and its rivals changed the media – and sowed the seeds for their own demiseIn any technological advance there is a golden age in which, for pioneers and believers, remaking the world seems within their grasp. For social media, that moment was just over 20 years ago, when to digital evangelists it felt like a new generation of “citizen journalists” – bloggers – might create a connected utopia of transparency, sweeping away those crusty media “gatekeepers” who had – the theory went – so long kept us all in the dark. This imagined paradise was a place in which no one had yet heard of cat memes and dick pics and Andrew Tate; where anti-vaxxers and anonymous “patriots” still just wrote furious letters to editors in green ink in their bedsits; where likes and follows and trolls and gifs and pile-ons were not yet the stuff of life.Ben Smith was in his mid-20s when the first wave of that revolution was breaking – “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!” – making his way as a political journalist in Washington and feeling the media landscape shift beneath his feet. Having been political blogger at the website Politico in the early days of that turmoil, he launched the newsroom of BuzzFeed in 2011 and established it as a credible and groundbreaking source of internet-only news, before leaving in 2020 to take up a role as media columnist of the New York Times. In April, having gone through successive waves of cuts and redundancies, BuzzFeed finally shut down its news operation. It felt like the end of an era. Continue reading...

In an important new book, US economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson propose ways in which digital technology can be repurposed for human flourishing as well as private profit“Those who cannot remember the past,” wrote the American philosopher George Santayana in 1905, “are condemned to repeat it.” And now, 118 years later, here come two American economists with the same message, only with added salience, for they are addressing a world in which a small number of giant corporations are busy peddling a narrative that says, basically, that what is good for them is also good for the world.That this narrative is self-serving is obvious, as is its implied message: that they should be allowed to get on with their habits of “creative destruction” (to use Joseph Schumpeter’s famous phrase) without being troubled by regulation. Accordingly, any government that flirts with the idea of reining in corporate power should remember that it would then be standing in the way of “progress”: for it is technology that drives history and anything that obstructs it is doomed to be roadkill.Power and Progress: Our Thousand Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson is published by John Murray Press (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply Continue reading...

With above-inflation increases, tips and tricks to find the right plan are even more importantThere’s a dizzying array of mobile phone tariffs, and with many providers recently imposing above-inflation increases, it is even more important to choose the right deal. So how can you navigate the networks to get a plan that is right for you? What are the top tips for saving money? Continue reading...

Scientists are warning machine learning will soon outsmart humans – maybe it’s time for us to take noteLast Monday an eminent, elderly British scientist lobbed a grenade into the febrile anthill of researchers and corporations currently obsessed with artificial intelligence or AI (aka, for the most part, a technology called machine learning). The scientist was Geoffrey Hinton, and the bombshell was the news that he was leaving Google, where he had been doing great work on machine learning for the last 10 years, because he wanted to be free to express his fears about where the technology he had played a seminal role in founding was heading.To say that this was big news would be an epic understatement. The tech industry is a huge, excitable beast that is occasionally prone to outbreaks of “irrational exuberance”, ie madness. One recent bout of it involved cryptocurrencies and a vision of the future of the internet called “Web3”, which an astute young blogger and critic, Molly White, memorably describes as “an enormous grift that’s pouring lighter fluid on our already smoldering planet”. Continue reading...

Employees at Lithuanian freight operator Girteka complain of hard conditions on the road, including one who says he fell seriously ill but co-drove his truck 800 miles after emerging from hospitalDrivers for one of Europe’s biggest delivery firms, which works for Amazon, Ikea and DHL, claim they are being left with no option but to sleep in their trucks for months and are earning well below the minimum wage in most of the countries they visit, according to an Observer investigation.In a series of interviews conducted in Belgium in March, drivers at the Lithuanian haulier Girteka, which says it employs 19,000 people across Europe, said they had spent weeks at a time sleeping in cramped cabs, often sharing a bunk with a co-driver. Continue reading...

Jürgen Schmidhuber believes AI will progress to the point where it surpasses human intelligence and will pay no attention to people

Stalking can be an all-encompassing trauma, but our lack of understanding about it undermines victim-survivorsMy husband and I had only been dating a few months when a stalker changed our lives. The moment remains crystalised in my mind. We’d spent the day with family and friends, and were encompassed by the sort of dopamine-fuelled joy new love brings. We were almost ready to call it a night when I heard a Facebook message request come through.Absentmindedly, I glanced at my phone, and saw there was a message request. Immediately the account didn’t ring true – there was no profile photo, the name clearly fake. Reading the cruel and vulgar words, I reeled. Profane and crass, the sender’s rage was unmistakable. Within minutes, three more messages came through. All similar in nature. Continue reading...

First, you’ve got to drive a long way before you overcome your EV’s embedded carbon debt. And then there’s the trouble with the minerals in its battery…So you’ve finally taken the plunge and bought an electric vehicle (EV)? Me too. You’re basking in the warm glow that comes from doing one’s bit to save the planet, right? And now you know that smug feeling when you are stuck in a motorway tailback behind a hideous diesel SUV that’s pumping out particulates and noxious gases, but you’re sitting there in peace and quiet and emitting none of the above. And when the traffic finally starts to move again you notice that the fast lane is clear and you want to get ahead of that dratted SUV. So you put your foot down and – whoosh! – you get that pressure in the small of your back that only owners of Porsche 911s used to get. Life’s good, n’est-ce pas?Er, up to a point. True, there’s nothing noxious coming out of your exhaust pipe, because you don’t have one; and the electric motors that power your wheels certainly don’t burn any fossil fuel. But that doesn’t mean that your carbon footprint is zero. First of all, where did the electricity that charged that big battery of yours come from? If it came from renewable sources, then that’s definitely good for the planet. But in most countries, at least some of that electricity came from non-renewable sources, maybe even – shock, horror! – coal-burning generating stations.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...

Feature allows users to set a list of friends and post tweets that only they are supposed to be able to readA privacy breach at Twitter published tweets that were never supposed to be seen by anyone but the poster’s closest friends to the site at large, the company has admitted after weeks of stonewalling reports.The site’s Circles feature allows users to set an exclusive list of friends and post tweets that only they can read. Similar to Instagram’s Close Friends setting, it allows users to share private thoughts, explicit images or unprofessional statements without risking sharing them with their wider network. Continue reading...

A software engineer who takes photographs as a hobby spotted this early one morning – and stood on the boat’s railing to get the shotAround 10pm the night before this photo was taken, Samsul, a watermelon farmer, had boarded his boat in Barishal, a district of Bangladesh. He’d sailed through the night to Dhaka, mooring in the capital’s Sadarghat port, on the Buriganga River.Around 5am, his trawler had taken its spot alongside another, selling pumpkins, and the farmer turned sailor transformed once again – this time into an auctioneer, selling off his produce at wholesale prices to local market sellers. Continue reading...

Commonly available software poses threat to tech company and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, leaked document saysGoogle has been warned by one of its engineers that the company is not in a position to win the artificial intelligence race and could lose out to commonly available AI technology.A document from a Google engineer leaked online said the company had done “a lot of looking over our shoulders at OpenAI”, referring to the developer of the ChatGPT chatbot. Continue reading...

Geoffrey Hinton recently quit Google warning of the dangers of artificial intelligence. Is AI really going to destroy us? And how long do we have to prevent it?The first thing Geoffrey Hinton says when we start talking, and the last thing he repeats before I turn off my recorder, is that he left Google, his employer of the past decade, on good terms. “I have no objection to what Google has done or is doing, but obviously the media would love to spin me as ‘a disgruntled Google employee’. It’s not like that.”It’s an important clarification to make, because it’s easy to conclude the opposite. After all, when most people calmly describe their former employer as being one of a small group of companies charting a course that is alarmingly likely to wipe out humanity itself, they do so with a sense of opprobrium. But to listen to Hinton, we’re about to sleepwalk towards an existential threat to civilisation without anyone involved acting maliciously at all. Continue reading...

Era of lofty valuations for upstart youth media appears to be over, with Vice ‘heading for bankruptcy’ and BuzzFeed News shutting down

Sections of industry back synthetic alternatives to fossil fuels, but case is much stronger for aviationMost bright red sports cars do not make much of their green credentials. Yet a test run in Bicester, Oxfordshire, by the startup Zero Petroleum last month gave a glimpse of a future in which combustion engines did not add new carbon to the atmosphere. The car was running on e-fuel: petrol made using electricity, hydrogen from water, and carbon captured from the air.The automotive industry is steadily moving away from fossil fuels, and a firm global consensus has emerged that battery electric vehicles are the way forward. Yet that consensus took a knock in March when the EU – to the shock of energy experts, environmental campaigners and much of the car industry – opened a small back door to e-fuels. Continue reading...