Technology | The Guardian

The departure of two members of the tech firm’s ethical artificial intelligence team exposes the conflict at the heart of its business modelIf I told you that an academic paper entitled “On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots” had caused an epochal row involving one of the most powerful companies in the world, you’d have asked what I’d been smoking. And well you might: but stay tuned.The paper has four co-authors, two from the University of Washington, and two from Google – Dr Timnit Gebru and Dr Margaret Mitchell. It provides a useful critical review of machine-learning language models (LMs) like GPT-3, which are trained on enormous amounts of text and are capable of producing plausible-looking prose. The amount of computation (and associated carbon emissions) involved in their construction has ballooned to insane levels, and so at some point it’s sensible to ask the question that is never asked in the tech industry: how much is enough? Continue reading...

Artists have been dismayed to find their work ending up in the ‘control’ of othersWhen the virtual auction bell rang at Christie’s on Thursday, Mike Winkelmann, a digital artist better known as Beeple, made history: he had sold a “non-fungible token” representing his piece Everydays: The First 5,000 Days, for $69.4m.But while the new cryptocurrency craze may have brought the high-end art market into the 21st century, it’s also modernising another aspect of the industry: art thieves. Continue reading...

A suicide and a strange bitcoin bequest have opened a window on to the new frontier of extremist online mediaOn 8 December last year, a Frenchman called Laurent Bachelier gave away a total of 28.5 bitcoins – worth $556,000 – to 22 people. On the same day, he killed himself.In suicide notes written in French and English, he explained that the burden of illness (he suffered from a neurological pain disorder) and his loss of hope for the future had led him to despair. After railing against the decline of western civilization and attacks on free speech, he wrote that he had decided to “leave his modest wealth to certain causes and people”. Continue reading...

Great screen, performance and battery let down by lack of long zoom camera and only two years of software supportChinese smartphone brand Oppo is looking to cement itself as Samsung’s big challenger – filling the vacuum left by Huawei – but as nice as the Find X3 Pro is to look at, it is just not good value.Far from a household name in the UK, Oppo is part of BKK Electronics, which is one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world and operates brands OnePlus, Vivo and RealMe among others. Continue reading...

Naomi Shimada hosts The Beauty Fix, featuring guests including Queer Eye’s Tan France. Plus: cautionary tales, and diverse stories from the Arab worldThe Beauty Fix

Drawing on her own cathartic relationship with role-playing games, Leilani uses gaming as a narrative device and an inspiration in her acclaimed debutThere is an extraordinary and telling moment in Raven Leilani’s acclaimed novel Luster, about a young black woman who has an affair with a middle-aged white man and ends up living with his family. The woman, Edie, is heading back to her lover’s house with his adopted black daughter, Akila, when the pair are stopped and questioned by two police officers. Although Edie is compliant, Akila – younger and much less worldly – challenges the cops and gets thrust to the ground and restrained. The confrontation is rife with fear and tension, and when it’s over (diffused when Akila’s white mother intervenes), the first thing Edie and Akila do is go inside, sit down and play a video game.Much of the fervid discussion around Luster has focused on Leilani’s astute and witty analysis of sexual politics and racial power structures in the 21st-century US. But a key part of her acutely realised portrayal of a millennial protagonist coping with crappy jobs and crappier love affairs is Edie’s natural relationship with digital culture and technology. At a time in which video game references are still mostly consigned to YA and sci-fi books, Leilani has made them a central component of a literary novel. Continue reading...

Pandemic has prompted some people to confront their insecurities about venturing onlineBefore the pandemic struck, 79-year-old Jim Whelan barely used his computer. The online world was a mystery and an irrelevance to him. A year on, however, Whelan can give computer geeks half his age a run for their money.“Although I had been online before the pandemic, it was just the occasional answering of emails. Now I’m a past master at all sorts of amazing things,” said Whelan, a former Coronation Street actor who before the pandemic used to travel around local community groups to give talks about his 50 years in the acting profession. Continue reading...

In March 1891, the laying of a cross-Channel subsea cable enabled the first international telephone service between Britain and France. See how the Guardian reported events10 March 1891 Continue reading...

Government to force firms to make spare parts available and create products that are cheaper to runTougher rules are being introduced to make appliances such as fridges, washing machines and TVs cheaper to run and last longer, the government has said.New legislation aims to tackle “premature obsolescence” in electrical goods – short lifespans built into appliances by manufacturers so that customers have to buy new ones sooner – and make them more energy efficient. Continue reading...

Recommendations feature also pushed anti-vaccination and antisemitic material, watchdog says

A Banksy just fetched $382,000 despite going up in smoke, while a cat cartoon bagged twice that. And it’s all thanks to NFTs, an offshoot of crypto currency bitcoin. But is this a bubble about to burst?Last week masked men set fire to a Banksy screenprint called Morons (White) at a secret location in Brooklyn, livestreaming the destruction via the Twitter account @BurntBanksy. The men worked for a company called Injective Protocol, which bought the print for $95,000 in order to destroy it and replace it with a unique digital facsimile. This is called crypto art and, if you want to know the extent to which it’s booming, well, the new work just went for $382,336, more than four times the original price.From Ai Weiwei smashing a 2,000-year-old vase to the Chapman brothers defacing Goya prints, artists are no strangers to creative destruction. But this is different. The burning of Morons (White) is thought to be the first time a physical artwork has been replaced by a unique digital asset. “We view this burning event as an expression of art itself,” Injective Protocol executive Mirza Uddin said. “We specifically chose a Banksy piece since he has previously shredded one of his own artworks at an auction.” Continue reading...

With the help of botanists, Daan Roosegaarde has created a ‘light recipe’ for a field of leeks to help the plants grow betterBy day, the field of leeks looks like any other. But, as the sun sets, blue and red light, mixed with invisible ultraviolet (UV) radiation, transforms the scene into a multicoloured landscape.This LED light show is not just for effect. For a couple of hours every evening the lights are shone across the 20,000sq metre field in Lelystad in the Netherlands in a bid to make the leeks grow better. In a light installation that brings art and science together, four solar-powered units emit a tailor-made spectrum across the leafy vegetables. Continue reading...

Till-free convenience is all very well until the bill eventually arrives at homeI may be a retail misanthrope, but are the till-free Amazon Fresh shops a depersonalised step too far? At first sight, the basic concept (wander in, wander out, get charged later) looks tailor-made for me.I already don’t need much shopping “face time”. I was never one for going 1950s-walkabout with a wicker basket collecting items from different artisan shops, served by smiling central-casting shopkeepers, straight out of a Happy Families card deck. Each to their own: if people get their kicks cosplaying Camberwick Green, then good luck to them. Though you have to wonder if this nostalgia is their own or, rather, a borrowed memory from parents or grandparents. Continue reading...

Stoking panic about China’s dominance is just another way for western technology giants to avoid scrutiny and gain powerThis week the American National Security Commission on artificial intelligence released its final report. Cursory inspection of its 756 pages suggests that it’s just another standard product of the military-industrial complex that so worried President Eisenhower at the end of his term of office. On closer examination, however, it turns out to be a set of case notes on a tragic case of what we psychologists call “hegemonic anxiety” – the fear of losing global dominance.The report is the work of 15 bigwigs, led by Dr Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Alphabet (and before that the adult supervisor imposed by venture capitalists on the young co-founders of Google). Of the 15 members of the commission only four are female. Eight are from the tech industry (including Andy Jassy, Jeff Bezos’s anointed heir at Amazon); two are former senior Pentagon officials; and the tech sector of the national intelligence community is represented by at least three commissioners. Given these establishment credentials, the only surprising thing is that the inquiry seems to have been set up during Trump’s presidency, which suggests that it was organised by the “deep state” during the hours of one to four AM, when Trump was generally asleep. Continue reading...

(Graceful Decay; Annapurna Interactive; PC, PS4/5)

In Beat Saber, you slice away at big squares that come rushing at you – it’s like colouring in and partying at the same timeWhen somebody suggested Beat Saber to me, I wasn’t interested. First, it looks rather intimidating from the demo videos: you’re inside a virtual reality headset, with a controller in each hand, which resembles a swishing lightsaber on your screen. You have to slice through bright blue and red blocks as they come rushing towards you, having first noticed which way their arrows point. Plus there’s music. If you can imagine being in an arcade with a hangover, that’s the dread that went through me.Second, you have to invest in a headset. There are about six that people recommend – including a thrifty Hamswan one (£19.99) – but only one that’s a stand-alone, in that you don’t need to already have a PC to connect it to. I borrowed one, the Oculus. It’s expensive (£299) and I didn’t want to buy one. Except then I did, because I didn’t want to give it back. Continue reading...

PC; Q-Games

Microwaves are not just for poaching eggs. You can make a vast array of gourmet meals in minutes – from steamed fish to vegetarian chilli and sponge puddingsThey were once regarded as technological miracles – machines that allowed you to travel back in time to a moment when your cup of tea was still hot. But the microwave oven was destined to become a tool of convenience rather than necessity. That said, you don’t really notice how much you use a microwave until you don’t have one. When ours broke and my wife suddenly decided that the two extra square feet of worktop space was more valuable than a big electric box that softens butter, I was bereft.This was partly because, unlike other common kitchen appliances, the microwave positively invites rash experimentation. You think: I wonder what would happen if I put this in there? One imagines many microwave hacks were invented in just this spirit: yes, it can melt chocolate, but it also dries out fresh breadcrumbs, ekes a bit more juice out of lemons and limes, and sterilises kitchen sponges, jam jars and garden soil. Continue reading...

Researchers say Spanish-language content is less often and less quickly moderated for misinformation than English contentIn the last year, Facebook adjusted some of the most fundamental rules about what gets posted on its platform, halting algorithmic recommendations of political groups, banning lies about vaccines and removing a number of high-profile figures for spreading misinformation and hate – including Donald Trump.Related: Twitter targets Covid vaccine misinformation with labels and 'strike' system Continue reading...

Feature-packed health and fitness-tracking smartwatch has advanced sensors but failure to address screen and battery repairs is poorFitbit is attempting to challenge the dominance of the Apple Watch with the Sense: a smartwatch packed with advanced health sensors for stress, heart rate and ECG wrapped up in a neat and tidy package. But be careful, because if you damage the watch, it appears you can’t even pay Fitbit to fix it.It costs £300 and is Fitbit’s top model above the £200 Versa 3, which is essentially the same smartwatch without the advanced sensors, plus a cheaper line of fitness trackers. Continue reading...

Streaming company says it will start directing money from subscribers to the artists they actually listen toSoundCloud announced on Tuesday it would become the first major streaming service to start directing subscribers’ fees only to the artists they listen to, a move welcomed by musicians campaigning for fairer pay.Current practice for streaming services including Spotify, Deezer and Apple is to pool royalty payments and dish them out based on which artists have the most global plays. Continue reading...

As platforms pivot towards greater encryption, analysts are rushing to finesse child abuse prevention technology

Nearly 1.6m Facebook users to receive at least $345 after network allegedly used face photo-tagging without permissionA federal judge has approved a $650m settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users.US district judge James Donato approved the deal in a class-action lawsuit that was filed in Illinois in 2015. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in Illinois who submitted claims will be affected. Continue reading...

Hit songs can be a better investment than gold – and by snapping up the rights, Merck Mercuriadis has become the most disruptive force in musicMerck Mercuriadis had a good Christmas. On Christmas Day, the No 1 song in the UK was LadBaby’s Don’t Stop Me Eatin’, a novelty cover version of Journey’s 1981 soft-rock anthem Don’t Stop Believin’. It replaced Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, which had topped the chart 26 years after its original release. Both songs are unkillable, evergreen hits, which are closing in on 1 billion Spotify streams apiece. Both songs are among the 61,000 owned, in whole or in part, by Mercuriadis’s investment company, Hipgnosis Songs Fund, and epitomise the thesis that has made the 57-year-old Canadian, in less than three years, the most disruptive force in the music business.Put simply, Hipgnosis raises money from investors and spends it on acquiring the intellectual property rights to popular songs by people like Mark Ronson, Timbaland, Barry Manilow and Blondie. In a fast-growing market, what sets Hipgnosis apart from competitors is its founder’s bona fides as a veteran A&R man, manager and record label CEO. Like an old-school music mogul, Mercuriadis sells his brand by selling himself. Unlike those moguls, he’s a buff, teetotal vegan with spartan tastes. “The only material thing that I really care about is vinyl,” he says. “And Arsenal football club.” He looks rather like a rock-concert security guard: shaven head, burly torso, plain black T-shirt, hawkish gaze. Mark Ronson calls him “the smartest guy in the room”. Continue reading...

Comedian’s work ethic on celebrity shout-out app takes him to 10,000 videos and £300,000 - leaving global A-listers in his wakeSarah Jessica Parker will wish you a happy birthday. Jack Nicklaus will tell you golf stories. John Cleese will read out your poem. Of the thousands of stars who signed up for the celebrity shout-out app Cameo last year, though, only one was popular and industrious enough to make 10,000 videos. For a very reasonable fee, the man behind them will enthusiastically call you a “briefcase wanker”.The most prolific performer in the world on Cameo in 2020 was James Buckley, the catchphrase-happy British actor and comedian beloved by a generation for his performance as Jay Cartwright in the Inbetweeners, new figures shared with the Guardian reveal. Continue reading...

Exits of Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell sparked backlash from inside and outside the companyGoogle will change procedures before July for reviewing its scientists’ work, according to a town hall recording heard by Reuters, part of an effort to quell internal tumult over the integrity of its artificial intelligence (AI) research.In remarks at a staff meeting last Friday, Google Research executives said they were working to regain trust after the company ousted two prominent women and rejected their work, according to an hour-long recording, the content of which was confirmed by two sources. Continue reading...

My wife was in hospital and couldn’t monitor her spending on in-app purchasesMy 11-year-old daughter made more than 300 in-app purchases over five days on Roblox, the online games platform, resulting in a £2,400 bill on my wife’s PayPal account.At the time, my wife was in ICU recovering from a 15-hour operation to remove a brain tumour. Incapacitated, and without access to her phone, she was unable to authorise or monitor this spending. Continue reading...

Noodlecake Games, iOS (version tested)/PC/Nintendo Switch

In a year, bitcoin uses around the same about of electricity as the entire country of Norway.The digital currency is one that allows people to bypass banks and traditional payment methods. It is the most prominent among thousands of so-called cryptocurrencies and has been repeatedly reaching new records - but is it sustainable?The Guardian's UK technology editor Alex Hern examines how exactly bitcoin uses electricity and if the environmental cost is too high

Online cheating has become an infestation – but the idea of bending the rules has been part of gaming culture from the startFall Guys had only been online for two days when it started. This bright, silly multiplayer game, in which rotund Day-Glo bean people race toward a finishing line avoiding giant tumbling fruit pieces – a sort of digital equivalent of a school sports day, albeit a slightly hallucinogenic one – had tens of thousands of players, but it didn’t seem like it would attract cheaters. Surely it was too frivolous, too much about the shared joy of slapstick comedy? Yet in they came: players using speed hacks (a type of cheat that increases the speed your avatar can run at) to win races against other Day-Glo bean people. A totally meaningless, seemingly reward-free victory. Why?For many, cheating utterly ruins the experience of a multiplayer video game. Even if you are not directly affected, it breaks the social contract. “When people play a competitive game together, they conjure the world of that game into existence through mutual agreement: this is the aim, these are the restrictions on how we can achieve that aim,” says game designer Holly Gramazio. “When you realise that someone is cheating, it can disrupt that mutual agreement and call the whole experience into question.” Continue reading...

News media bargaining code passes Senate after government reaches 11th-hour agreement with FacebookIf smaller and regional publishers don’t get a deal under the news media code, the government retains the “trigger” to force Google and Facebook to the negotiating table, competition tsar Rod Sims says.The code passed the Senate on Wednesday evening with amendments, a day after the Morrison government struck a deal with Facebook that will see them pay publishers for their news content. The amended legislation will return to the House of Representatives for final approval before it becomes law. Continue reading...

Environmental concerns and tech boom have conjured ‘perfect storm’ for master’s course in fashion and gaming, says professorThe seemingly sci-fi world of digital couture – in which social media users can buy virtual clothing to be worn online, while gamers can dress avatars in flamboyant “skins” – is increasingly being hailed as the next big thing in the industry.Now, virtual clothes designers can take a master’s on the subject, the first of its kind in the UK, at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham. Continue reading...

Electric carmaker’s CEO falls behind Amazon founder Jeff Bezos after tweet saying bitcoin price ‘seems high’Elon Musk, the maverick boss of Tesla, is no longer the world’s richest person after shares in the electric car company dropped 8.6% on Monday, wiping $15.2bn (£10.8bn) off his fortune.Musk, who last month leapfrogged Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to take the title of the world’s wealthiest person, dropped back into second place with a $183bn estimated fortune behind Bezos’ $186.3bn. Continue reading...

Incident prompts fears for latest Silicon Valley craze’s ability to guarantee users’ security and privacyClubhouse, the audio-chatroom app that has emerged as the latest craze to consume Silicon Valley, has shut down a site that was rebroadcasting the platform’s content, renewing concerns over the service’s ability to provide security and privacy for its users.The app, currently available only on iPhones, allows users to quickly and easily set up and discover panel-style discussions, with a small group of speakers and potentially thousands of listeners in each room. It has been strictly limited since its launch in April, with users requiring an invitation before they can create an account. It initially gained popularity in the tech and venture capitalist community of the San Francisco Bay area. Continue reading...

Campaign groups say blocking access to reliable news sources leaves a void to be filled by misinformation and hate speechMembers of Facebook’s oversight board, which some have likened to an internal “supreme court”, have been called on to speak out or step down after the platform shut down swathes of media and key public information sites during a battle with the Australian government.The social media giant suspended pages – including those of government bodies and state health departments before the national coronavirus vaccine rollout – as part of a showdown with officials over a new law that would force it and other platforms to pay for links to news content. Continue reading...

The startup’s invitation-only model gives it a sheen of exclusivity, but privacy horrors lurk behind the buzzSo, are you on Clubhouse, the social-media sensation du jour? No? Me neither. But – I hasten to add, lest there should be any doubt about my social status – that’s not because I wasn’t invited to join. A generous friend had a few invitations to extend, and she offered me one. After that, she had an attack of what one can only describe as donor’s remorse, because in order to be able to extend the invitation to me she had to grant Clubhouse access to all her contacts!When I opened the app it asked me if I would like to grant it access to my contacts, an invitation I declined – as I always do. At which point it was made clear to me that I would not be able to invite anyone else to join. As Vox’s Sara Morrison succinctly put it: I had been invited to join Clubhouse, but my privacy wasn’t welcome. At which point I deleted the app – on the Groucho Marx principle that I wouldn’t join a club that would have such a schmuck as a member. (There was also the thought that Clubhouse’s behaviour, rules and operation seem to make it illegal under the GDPR – not that a small matter like that will trouble a US-based data-hoovering startup.) Continue reading...

Companies splash out on new tech and office design to cut commuting and usher in the new dawn of post-lockdown hybrid workingStaff at accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers have been holding meetings in odd places: the top of skyscrapers, inside swanky penthouse apartments and even luxury ski chalets. All without leaving the comfort of their own homes.That is the new normal for a growing number of workers at PwC, which is buying thousands of virtual reality headsets to help battle Zoom fatigue and level the playing field for employees barred from entering the same room during the Covid outbreak. Continue reading...

The dismissal comes after prominent Black researcher Timnit Gebru was fired in December; both had called for more diversity among research staffGoogle has fired one of its top artificial intelligence researchers, Margaret Mitchell, escalating internal turmoil at the company following the departure of Timnit Gebru, another leading figure on Google’s AI ethics team.

Whether you’re after news, community engagement or both, there are workaroundsBy now you will know that Facebook has responded to the Australian government’s proposed news media bargaining code by removing the ability for any Australian or international news content to be published or shared in Australia.Mark Zuckerburg’s social network has been a vital platform to community and subculture groups for news sharing and discussion. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency heading for a weekly gain of 14% and up by 60% in FebruaryBitcoin hit a new high on Friday, giving it a market value of more than $1tn for the first time.Bitcoin rose 6.4% during trading on Friday to reach an all-time high above $55,000, and was on track for a weekly gain of about 14%. Continue reading...

Decision means drivers should receive minimum wage and paid holidays, say lawyersThe UK supreme court has dismissed Uber’s appeal against a landmark employment tribunal ruling that its drivers should be classed as workers with access to the minimum wage and paid holidays.Six justices handed down a unanimous decision backing the October 2016 employment tribunal ruling that could land Uber with a big compensation pay out and lead to better terms for millions of workers in the gig economy. Continue reading...

Artificial constraint highlights struggle to keep up with demand from cryptocurrency miners

Viral video app has been a popular source of quick, no-nonsense recipes for teenagers in lockdownAnna Spearing started baking when she was about eight or nine, making ginger biscuits in the family kitchen in Southampton and watching endless YouTube videos full of “really yummy ingredients”, in a period she refers to as “the simpler times”.Now 15, she is still baking, though the recipes have become more diverse, and the videos snappier and much shorter. Having discovered TikTok, the social video-sharing platform used by all her friends, she now frequently cooks dishes based on its 60-second viral videos, soundtracked by earworm songs and edited at rat-a-tat speed. Continue reading...

Complaint in US says children being manipulated into paying $100 a year for Prodigy membership perksA mobile game used by schools to teach maths through a fantasy role-playing world has been accused of unfairly manipulating children into paying more than $100 a year for premium items.Prodigy, which offers versions for in-school and at-home play, is the centre of a complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission submitted by a coalition of children’s rights groups led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (CCFC). Continue reading...

From a treadmill and a puppy to 19th-century curtains, here are the purchases that have helped cheer people up in the past year

As Nintendo’s classic video game series comes up on its 35th anniversary, it’s time to put all the main entries in their place Continue reading...

Stopping Trump, reforming Facebook and risking his life to make a Borat sequel. In an exclusive interview, the actor unveils his plans for a revolution – and reveals how it feels to come out as himselfSeven months ago, Sacha Baron Cohen was in the back of a speeding ambulance. It was an escape car, and he was fleeing a gun rally. The Borat producers had chosen the ambulance as it could blend in, accommodate a small film crew and, if necessary, hasten a trip to hospital.Baron Cohen – dressed as Borat, himself disguised as a country singer – had just led the crowd of far-right conspiracy theorists in a singalong. At first, they happily joined in: “Obama, what we gonna do? / Inject him with the Wuhan flu.” Then one or two smelled a rat. Then they all stormed the stage. Continue reading...

The Bias Diagnosis examines the disparity in outcomes between white and minority ethic patients. Plus: Ian Wright meets ordinary people with extraordinary storiesThe Bias Diagnosis

‘I am manifesting abundance on all platforms,’ I find scrawled in my notebook when my week on Clubhouse is overWhat to make of Clubhouse – the invitation-only, social media, audio app that’s hit the zeitgeist this month?It’s like a LinkedIn that talks to you. It’s like attending a conference that never ends. Its spirit animal is the old-style chatrooms of the early internet where you could swap ideas and soak up expertise. It will chew up hours and hours and hours of your day that are not already chewed up by the other apps. Continue reading...

Writers and artists including Róisín Murphy, Tiffany Calver and Sigala on the art that transports them to the dancefloor during lockdownThere have been many notable nightclubs in film history. The Blue Angel in the Marlene Dietrich movie; the Copacabana in Goodfellas, accessible to privileged wiseguys via the kitchen; the Slow Club in Blue Velvet, with the emotionally damaged star turn Isabella Rossellini singing the song of the same name. Continue reading...