Cybercriminals have attacked solar power firms, water treatment plants and police departments in attempts to extort moneyThe wider American public was afforded an unwanted glimpse into the wild west world of ransomware this week, after a cyber-attack crippled Colonial Pipeline, causing fuel shortages across the eastern seaboard and states of emergency to be declared in four states.But experts warn that ransomware attacks – which are part-ransom, part-blackmail, part-invocation of squatters’ rights – are becoming more frequent, while the mostly Russia-based hackers are growing more sophisticated with their methods. Continue reading...
Tech industry struggles to keep up with demand brought on by the reopening of the world economyThe shortage of computer chips plaguing industries around the world and helping to fuel inflation could last another two years, the boss of IBM has said.With the global car industry estimated to lose $110bn this year thanks to the chip shortage, IBM’s president, Jim Whitehurst, told the BBC on Friday that the tech industry was struggling to keep up with demand brought on by the reopening of the world economy. Continue reading...
From the simplicity of Pong’s two bats and a ball to Space Invaders’ advancing ranks of aliens, the 70s saw the rise of a phenomenon that mesmerised the world15. Pong (1972, Atari)
But at least the person harassing me know they’re using the wrong pronouns!Instagram has unveiled a new feature that lets users display their gender pronouns in their account’s bio without having to manually enter said pronouns themselves. Which is cool! And also something untold numbers of people are already doing, in case you haven’t kept up with social media since the heavy-banged days of MySpace.“Add pronouns to your profile,” the social media platform said when announcing the news via Twitter on Tuesday. “The new field is available in a few countries, with plans for more.” Continue reading...
Digital currency, which is made with an energy-intensive process, falls 17% after the tweetTesla has suspended customers’ use of bitcoin to purchase its vehicles, Elon Musk said on Wednesday, citing concerns about the use of fossil fuel for bitcoin mining.Related: Dogecoin’s record-breaking rise shoots ‘joke’ cryptocurrency to wider attention Continue reading...
Announcement comes amid fuel shortages in south-east, with panicked drivers filling up their tanksThe largest fuel pipeline in the US has restarted operations nearly a week after a cyber-attack forced its shutdown, prompting distribution problems and panic-buying that drained supplies at thousands of gas stations.Colonial Pipeline initiated the restart of operations late Wednesday, saying in a statement: “All lines, including those lateral lines that have been running manually, will return to normal operations.” Continue reading...
A pre-approved list of pronouns are offered, but users can fill out a form to add more, which can be shared with followers only or publiclyInstagram users will now be able to more easily specify their gender identity, after the platform launched a dedicated section on account profiles to share pronouns.The new feature, announced on Tuesday, allows users to share up to four pronouns selected from a pre-approved list of common pronouns including she, he, they, ze and others. Continue reading...
Despite defeat in Alabama, workers are fighting to form and run unions at the tech giant on several frontsIn the wake of a defeated attempt to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, workers are continuing to fight to form and run unions at the tech giant on several fronts.Related: Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020 but paid no corporation tax Continue reading...
You might be surprised how much Google’s email service – and others – know about you. Here’s how to set some boundariesMost people are aware of the cookies that track them across the web, and the privacy-invading practices of Google search, but did you know Google’s email service, Gmail, collects large amounts of data too?This was recently put into stark focus for iPhone users when Gmail published its app “privacy label” – a self-declared breakdown of the data it collects and shares with advertisers as part of a new stipulation on the Apple App Store. Continue reading...
by Vanessa Thorpe Arts and media correspondent on (#5HMA2)
London’s first international festival for movies made on mobiles will celebrate innovation, diversity and accessSmartphone films are no longer just a fun experiment: they are the next step towards a new age of cinema, already attracting top performers and influential directors, believe the two award-winning film-makers behind Smart, next month’s first London International Smartphone Film Festival.“Anyone can now make an amazing film,” said producer Adam Gee, who has set up the festival with director Victoria Mapplebeck. “All you need is the vision and the talent. It is not a question any more of being able to afford the right equipment or securing a big distribution deal.” Continue reading...
The billionaire made the comment during opening monologue in much-anticipated debut hosting the comedy showElon Musk has told viewers of Saturday Night Live that he “is the first person with Asperger’s” to host the US sketch show, before joking about his son’s name and smoking cannabis on a podcast for the first global livestream of the programme.During the opening, the billionaire entrepreneur spoke of how he sometimes posted strange comments on his social media, saying: “To anyone I’ve offended, I just want to say ‘I reinvented electric cars and I’m sending people to Mars in a rocket ship, did you also think I was going to be a chill, normal dude?”’ Continue reading...
Colonial Pipeline said it shut down 5,500 miles of pipeline, which carries 45% of the east coast’s fuel suppliesOne of the largest pipelines in the US has been shut down after an apparent cyber-attack, its operator has said.Colonial Pipeline said it had shut down its 5,500 miles of pipeline, which carries 45% of the east coast’s fuel supplies and travels through 14 southern and eastern US states, after the breach of its computer networks. Continue reading...
A culture war between founders and employees at the software firm is a reminder that new industries aren’t any more caring than oldBasecamp is a plucky little (57-person) tech company that makes useful and imaginative project-management software and innovative email software. Or, rather, it was until a fortnight ago, when it suddenly became embroiled in a traumatic internal row between its employees and its two cofounders, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, a row that has transformed Basecamp into a much smaller company bearing the scars of collateral damage from a firefight in the culture wars.Although Basecamp is a minnow in the world of tech giants, what happened there reflects what is already commonplace in its bigger counterparts. This is because, at base, the company’s internal dissension highlighted that the conflict was actually between the sociopathic imperatives of a corporation and the feelings of skilled employees concerned about the racism and sexism that is endemic in both US society and in an industry that for decades pretended that it was above such sordid concerns. Continue reading...
Few of us will be back in the office full time – but does that have to mean endless video calls? Meet the weird and wonderful newcomers hoping to take a piece of the actionI’m playing online Pictionary while chatting with five people I’ve never met. This is not at all how I usually spend my Thursdays. We’ve all dropped into a virtual meeting space on a site called gather.town, which provides free customisable spaces for anyone who wants to organise a get-together without using Zoom. Gather is a virtual world and you choose an avatar before entering it: imagine a mid-80s Super Mario game in which, instead of jumping over his enemies, Mario has to go to the office. There are pixelated potted palms dotted about my screen, a couple of banks of desks and a sofa area, all rendered in that very specific 2D map style common to early computer games. I’m represented by a tiny, blocky avatar: a collection of dots arranged to look a bit like a person. As I move it around with keyboard keys, I can enter and leave conversations – when I do so, a small live video of whoever I’m talking to appears above the main screen.It might all sound mad, but Gather is 18 months old, has 4 million users, and recently raised $26m in investment. Universities use it to create virtual campuses; individuals use it to host games nights; groups of friends throw parties on it – and workers are collaborating on it. It is trying, like hundreds of other new platforms, sites and apps, to provide us all with a solution to a very 2021 problem: despite being ubiquitous since early 2020, video calls aren’t necessarily helping us work or stay connected effectively. Continue reading...
After punching below its weight for years, firm is building new tech and experimenting with charging usersBy any objective measure, Reddit is an internet giant. The social news site is one of the top 20 sites in the world, with more users than Twitter. They move markets, break news and source most of the viral images that float across your Facebook page a month later. Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian is tech royalty, not to mention Mr Serena Williams.But for years, the site has punched below its weight. As a business, its valuation is a fraction of its peers, and so too is its income; as a cultural phenomenon, it’s sidelined as a geeky pursuit. But now the company has a plan to turn that around, says Jen Wong, Reddit’s chief operating officer. Continue reading...
The company I founded in my 20s exploited vulnerable people for profit. I was a merchant of death, and a charlatanA few years ago I sat on the phone, as a first-time CEO of a funeral startup in my 20s, trying to convince a woman to buy a $1,799 necklace filled with her mother’s ashes.“Well, Katherine. It’s really beautiful.” I paused for dramatic effect. “We take a charm that you like, let’s say a dove, or a cross – or maybe something that meant something to Marcella. And then we fill it with some of her ashes. Whenever you wear it, it’s like Marcella is with you … right next to your heart.” Continue reading...
by Hannah Verdier, Hannah J Davies and Danielle Steph on (#5HHZD)
Badlands considers crime, history and legends bubbling beneath the surface of Tinseltown. Plus: a look at the “unseen forces” around us, and just who is Matthew MaGill?Badlands: Hollywoodland
A silly and dated new attempt to transport the classic fighting game to the big screen is a late-night drunk watch at bestConfiguring one’s expectations before settling down to watch the latest big (and small) screen adaptation of Mortal Kombat is something of a process. The largely wretched game-to-movie subgenre carries with it little-to-no hope at this stage, even the so-called “best” examples are seen as just about tolerable, and the last two attempts to translate Midway’s long-running fighting game failed to justify why watching these characters battle it out would be preferable to playing as them instead. As popular as the game still is (the most recent iteration has sold over 8m copies worldwide), transporting it to film is still a rather dated prospect, almost 25 years after the last version, the result of a torturous period in development hell.Related: Stowaway review – a devastating dilemma drives tense Netflix sci-fi Continue reading...
Readers are in demand on dating sites, with one focused entirely on bringing book-lovers together. But is our taste in literature truly a good indication of compatibility?“He mentioned in his bio that he liked Virginia Woolf and I was like, ‘Ah! The dream boy,” says Francesca, 34, who met her boyfriend Andy on Tinder. They spent two years as friends, exchanging books and chatting about Mrs Dalloway, until one day Francesca had a revelation during lockdown: “I was like, I miss you so much – I think I love you,” she says.Andy gave her an illustrated collection of love letters between Woolf and her lover Vita Sackville-West: “If there’s anything that inspired our relationship it would be a lesbian love story from the 1930s,” she says. Last year, they went to Hampton Court for “a Vita and Virginia date,” she says. “We joke we’ll get some fish named after them, too.” Continue reading...
I am a member of Facebook’s oversight board. Here’s why we decided to continue his suspension from FacebookAs so often is the case, Donald Trump gets to the heart of the problem. On 6 January, he was the president of the United States: probably the most powerful man in the world. He should be free to speak his mind, and voters should be free to listen. But he was also a habitual liar who, by the end of his term, had edged into repudiating the very democracy that had elevated him.And then came his inflammatory words on that day, uttered even as rioters were breaking their way into the heart of US democracy. His words had a veneer of restraint – “We have to have peace, so go home.” But his statements were laced with lies, along with praise for the mob who terrorised lawmakers as they sought to confirm Biden as Trump’s successor – “We love you, you’re very special … great patriots … remember this day for ever.” Continue reading...
Jerry Lawson led the invention of cartridges, Ed Smith made a hybrid console/PC, and designer Muriel Tramis won France’s highest honour for bringing history into play. How many more names are forgotten?In the 1970s, in the fledgling days of the video games industry, an engineer named Gerald “Jerry” Lawson designed one of the earliest game consoles, the Channel F, and also led the team that invented the game cartridge, a defining innovation in how games were made and sold. His son, Andersen Lawson, recalls that he was often working on gaming projects in the garage of their family home in Santa Clara, California. “There have been conversations recently about the struggles he might have had that were related to his colour,” he says. “Was it difficult [for him]? Yes, I’m quite certain. But I never heard any grumblings from him. And I’m also certain that he earned his respect … My father was a person of colour and I think that would inspire young people today to jump in and help move the industry along.”Black people, and especially black women, are still underrepresented in the video games industry. The Independent Game Developers’ Association records that only 2% of US game developers identify as black; in the UK, meanwhile, according to UKIE’s 2020 census of the entire industry, 10% of its workers are black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME). But black innovators such as Jerry Lawson have been present and influential since the earliest days of the video games industry – and there is not enough recognition for their achievements. Continue reading...
Lack of prenuptial agreement with Bill Gates could herald $73bn divorce settlement as fears focus on future of couple’s charityMelinda Gates, a philanthropist and campaigner for female empowerment, could be about to become the world’s second-richest woman, with a fortune estimated at $73bn.In her divorce petition filed on Monday at King County superior court in Seattle, Washington, Melinda Gates stated that her marriage to multibillionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, one of the richest men on the planet, had “irretrievably broken” and called on the courts to divide up the couple’s combined $146bn (£105bn) fortune Continue reading...
Keep checking your smartphone without knowing why? You may be unconsciously copying those around you, according to Italian research into the ‘chameleon effect’
Revelations that information can be falsified on Cellebrite’s devices throws into question its reliability in court rulingsCriminal lawyers could soon begin challenging a tool Australian police routinely rely on to extract messages, photos and other information from mobile phones for investigations after the discovery of security flaws that meant data could be falsified.Last week Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of encrypted messaging app Signal, published a blog post outlining a series of vulnerabilities in Israeli company Cellebrite’s surveillance devices. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#5H8M4)
Novel motorised smart screen tracks your movements to keep facing you for media and video callsAmazon’s latest top-of-the-range Alexa smart display has a trick up its sleeve like no other: it can follow you around a room.The third-generation Echo Show 10 costs £239.99 and is Amazon’s largest smart display, sitting above the smaller £100 Echo Show 8 with an 8in screen and £80 Echo Show 5 with a 5.5in screen. Continue reading...
by Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier and Elena Morresi on (#5H8JY)
Josie Bevan considers her own family’s story and societal flaws in Prison Break. Plus: more nuanced takes on black lives and racism from ResistancePrison Break
A Dutch couple have become Europe’s first tenants of a fully 3D printed house the first completed home of five for 'Project Milestone', in suburb of Bosrijk in Eindhoven.
New home in shape of boulder is first legally habitable property with load-bearing walls made using 3D-printing technologyA Dutch couple have become Europe’s first tenants of a fully 3D printed house in a development that its backers believe will open up a world of choice in the shape and style of the homes of the future.Elize Lutz, 70, and Harrie Dekkers, 67, retired shopkeepers from Amsterdam, received their digital key – an app allowing them to open the front door of their two-bedroom bungalow at the press of a button – on Thursday. Continue reading...
Users based in India noted on Twitter that the #ResignModi hashtag had been blocked from view on FacebookA hashtag calling for the resignation of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was briefly blocked on Facebook on Wednesday, hiding more than 12,000 posts critical of the Indian government as the coronavirus pandemic spirals out of control in the country.Facebook users based in India noted on Twitter that the hashtag #ResignModi had been blocked from view on Facebook. Continue reading...
The company’s revenue rose to $26.17bn as it continues to blast Apple for a policy that will make it more difficult to target ads to usersFacebook earnings beat analyst expectations Wednesday, but the company warned growth later this year could “significantly” decline as new Apple privacy policies will make it more difficult for the social media giant to target ads to its users.The positive earnings report for Facebook was bolstered by pandemic-driven traffic and ad sales and comes despite a number of roadblocks for the company in previous months. Those include the Apple operating system update that threatens its advertising revenue, a slew of antitrust hearings in the US Congress, and reports of a 2019 data leak that had affected millions of users. Continue reading...
Proposals come days after two men in a Tesla were killed in a crash near HoustonUS automakers have outlined principles designed to encourage drivers to pay attention to the road while driving partially automated vehicles as political scrutiny of the technology intensifies following a series of fatal crashes.The proposals, published yesterday before a Senate subcommittee hearing on the future of automotive safety and technology, come days after two men reportedly using Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assist system were killed in a crash near Houston. Local police say no-one was in the driving seat, though Tesla disputes this. The incident is being investigated by two federal agencies. Continue reading...
Relatives of Lee Kun-hee to donate 23,000 artworks to South Korean national museumsThe family of the late Samsung Electronics chair Lee Kun-hee have said they will pay more than 12tn won (£7.8bn) in inheritance tax and donate his collection of more than 23,000 artworks – including pieces by Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and one of Claude Monet’s water lilies paintings – to South Korean national museums.Lee, who is credited with transforming Samsung into the world’s largest smartphone and memory chip maker, died in October 2020 aged 78 with an estate worth an estimated 26tn won. His family had until Friday to figure out how to pay the inheritance tax bill. Continue reading...
Tensions between Facebook and Apple have been growing, but is it just an attempt to get ahead of US antitrust regulators?A longstanding feud between Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook could come to a head this week, as a highly anticipated Apple operating system update will for the first time allow users to opt out of cross-platform tracking.Tensions between Facebook and Apple have been growing for some time, but the new operating system threatens to kneecap Facebook’s business model, and has turned up the heat, said Ari Lightman, a professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. Continue reading...
Social media giant gave organisation behind a page for Australian 13- to 17-year-olds option to run alcohol, smoking and gambling ads for as little as $3Facebook is allowing businesses to advertise to children as young as 13 who express an interest in smoking, extreme weight loss and gambling for as little as $3, research by the lobby group Reset Australia has found.The organisation, which is critical of digital platforms, set up a Facebook page and advertising account under the name “Ozzie news network” to see what ad options Facebook would provide through its Ads Manager platform. Continue reading...
by Gwyn Topham Transport correspondent on (#5H537)
Automated lane-keeping systems likely to be allowed only when traffic is moving slowlyMotorists could legally allow their cars to “self-drive” on British motorways later this year – but only slowly, the government has announced.Drivers could soon be allowed to read a newspaper or watch a film via the car’s built-in screen in periods of slow-moving traffic, using automated lane-keeping system (Alks) technology that makes the car stay in lane and a safe distance from other vehicles. Continue reading...
Designer living in Buenos Aires says he snapped up google.com.ar after noticing it available in registryGoogle’s entire web presence in Argentina was last week briefly redirected to the website of a 30-year-old designer who bought the company’s domain name for just £2.Nicolas Kuroña, a resident of Buenos Aires, says he noticed that the company’s services were down when he began receiving messages from friends on WhatsApp. But rather than doing what many would have, and shrugging before returning to work – or taking the outage as a sign to have a tea break – he headed to the Argentinian domain name registry, NIC Argentina, to see if he could work out the cause. Continue reading...
Researchers are going on a bear hunt, using AI and radar to spot dens and track the threatened Arctic predatorsGenghis Khan got his dying wish: despite attempts by archaeologists and scientists to find the Mongolian ruler’s final resting place, the location remains a secret 800 years after his death. The search for his tomb, though, has inspired an innovative project that could help protect polar bears.“I randomly tuned into the radio one night and heard an expert talking about the use of synthetic aperture radar [SAR] to look for Genghis Khan’s tomb,” says Tom Smith, associate professor in plant and wildlife sciences at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah. “They were using SAR to penetrate layers of forest canopy in upper Mongolia, looking for the ruins of a burial structure.” Continue reading...
How am I supposed to wean my children off screens when they know I’m addicted too?It started, last March, as an act of necessity – sticking the kids on iPads all day so I could make a hard deadline that fell six weeks into lockdown. There was no way around this; at five years old, my kids couldn’t manage their Zoom schedules or self-entertain for long without fighting, and I couldn’t break off every two minutes to help them. Overnight, kindergarten and after-school disappeared, to be replaced with the sedative of kids YouTube, and when the appeal of that started to wane, the more addictive and ruinous content on TikTok. If it was hideous, I told myself, it was an emergency. It wouldn’t be like this for ever.A year later and in New York, at least, we’re in a radically different place. Next week my kids’ elementary school goes back full-time and although it lets out early – at 2pm – half of the city is now at least partially vaccinated, so most parents are comfortable hiring a sitter. (If they can find one, that is; indoor after-school programmes still seem risky to many, so the scramble is on for that already mythical creature, the 22-year-old sitter only looking for two hours work a day.) Things are, on the surface, starting to look vaguely like normal. Continue reading...
The bosses of Tesla and Amazon want to take humans to Mars and beyond – but won’t show basic humanity on EarthElon Musk’s SpaceX just won a $2.9bn Nasa contract to land astronauts on the moon, beating out Jeff Bezos.Related: Revive the US space program? How about not | Nicholas Russell Continue reading...
Tech boss ‘proud’ to be working with space agencies as astronauts begin six-month missionFour astronauts on board Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft have successfully docked at the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month mission.Frenchman Thomas Pesquet is the first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut to fly in the billionaire tech entrepreneur’s space capsule, alongside Nasa’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, and Jaxa’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Akihiko Hoshide, who is on his second mission to the space station. Continue reading...
37m people use the gaming platform every day in search of adventure – and for teenagers exploring their gender identity, it is also a place of liberation
Why not applaud the explosion of literacy in texts and posts? Better to welcome rather than vilify a tool that can play a part in learningI heard you on the radio the other day, explaining why you thought the proposed European Super League was a bad idea. I must say I was surprised, as I thought your hands were full with the matter of this summer’s GCSE and A-level assessments.How’s that going? If my youngest is anyone to go by, the situation is as clear as mud – not the school’s fault by any means. I have a sense the education department has been dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the inevitable – that you will have to trust teachers to assess students. Even so, you and your department are so annoyed at having to let go of your usual control-freakery, you’ve inserted exam-like tests into the process. Right now, I have a sense this is the lull before the storm. Come August and the publication of the exam results, a mighty furore will break out. Again. And you can not resign. Again. Continue reading...
Readers on the row over text messages between James Dyson and Boris Johnson about a tax waiver for people coming to Britain to work on ventilatorsGaby Hinsliff jokes about patriotism moving “in mysterious ways”, with the “great British patriot” James Dyson taking his “clean out of the country” (A lot of people pitched in during Covid, but only Dyson got a tax waiver for it, 22 April), but there is nothing remotely funny about the way patriotism is being distorted in No 10. Making arrangements for people to avoid paying taxes suggests that Boris Johnson’s brand of patriotism is measured by the amount of union jacks on show, rather than fairness and justice for all individuals, businesses and regions of the country.What patriotism is demonstrated by governments which, as Rafael Behr wrote a few months ago, force the people to pay the penalty for their “neglect of public health infrastructure” (Covid is teaching the Tories basic social democracy – but they won’t learn, 26 January), or waste billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on contracts for firms noted for their tax avoidance schemes? Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian