The report highlighted the importance of establishing a system in the UK to track instances of misuse or failure of artificial intelligence. Without such a system, ministers could be unaware of alarming incidents related to AI.
The Centre for Long Term Resilience (CLTR) suggested that the next government should implement a mechanism to record AI-related incidents in public services and possibly create a centralized hub to compile such incidents nationwide.
CLTR emphasized the need for incident reporting systems, similar to those used by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB), to effectively leverage AI technology.
According to a database compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), there have been approximately 10,000 AI “safety incidents” reported by news outlets since 2014. These incidents encompass a wide range of harms, from physical to economic and psychological, as defined by the OECD.
The OECD’s AI Safety Incident Monitor also includes instances such as a deepfake of Labour leader Keir Starmer and incidents involving self-driving cars and a chatbot-influenced assassination plot.
Tommy Shafer-Shane, policy manager at CLTR and author of the report, noted the critical role incident reporting plays in managing risks in safety-critical sectors like aviation and healthcare. However, such reporting is currently lacking in the regulatory framework for AI in the UK.
CLTR urged the UK government to establish an accident reporting regime for AI, similar to those in aviation and healthcare, to address incidents that may not fall under existing regulatory oversight. Labour has promised to implement binding regulations for most AI incidents.
The think tank recommended the creation of a government system to report AI incidents in public services, identify gaps in AI incident reporting, and potentially establish a pilot AI incident database.
In a joint effort with other countries and the EU, the UK pledged to cooperate on AI security and monitor “AI Harm and Safety Incidents.”
CLTR stressed the importance of incident reporting to keep DSIT informed about emerging AI-related risks and urged the government to prioritize learning about such harms through established reporting processes.
IIn the vast white desert of Salinas Grandes, 45-year-old Antonio Carpanchay raises an axe and chips away at the earth. He has worked the land since he was 12, splitting and collecting salt, replenishing it for the next season and teaching his children to do the same.
“Our whole indigenous community works here, even the elders,” he says, shielding his sunburned face from the sun. “We’ve always done it. It’s our livelihood.”
As his son watches warily, Karpanchai points north, to a pile of black stones and mud that stands out from the stark whiteness of the plains. “They started mining for lithium in 2010,” he says. “We made them stop because they were destroying the environment and affecting the water quality. But now they’re coming back, and I’m scared. We could lose everything we have.”
Antonio Carpanchay and his son mine and sell salt in Salinas Grandes, Argentina.
The Salinas Grandes are the largest salt flats in Argentina, stretching over 200 miles and containing a biodiverse ecosystem. Sitting in the Lithium Triangle The same goes for parts of Chile and Bolivia.
Lithium is a silvery metal known as platinum and is a vital element in batteries for mobile phones and electric cars. By 2040, global demand is predicted to increase more than 40-fold. But that exploitation has also raised moral debates, pitting the transition to green energy against the rights of local and indigenous peoples.
The sign reads “No to Lithium.”
Thirty-three indigenous communities in the Atacama and Cola regions, fearful of losing or polluting their water resources and being forced off their lands, have banded together for 14 years to try to halt the mining operations. “Please respect our territory” and “No to lithium” are scrawled on dozens of road signs, abandoned buildings, and murals.
But now, with more than 30 global mining conglomerates moving into the region at the instigation of “anarcho-capitalist” President Javier Milley, the battle lines are being redrawn. Offers of jobs and investment are increasingly dividing communities, with some already reneging on agreements and more expected to follow.
“Businesses are moving in,” Karpanchai said. “I worry about my grandchildren’s future.”
TThe biggest concern for indigenous peoples is water. Approximately 2 million liters of evaporation is required per tonne of lithium. This threatens to dry up the region’s wetlands and already dry rivers and lakes. Industrial-scale pumping also threatens to contaminate fresh groundwater, endangering livestock and small-scale agriculture. The impacts will likely reach farther than the immediate source of the water: as locals say, “water knows no borders.”
Clemente Flores, a 59-year-old community leader, says water is the most important part of Pachamama, which means “Mother Earth.” “Water nourishes the air, the soil, the pastures for the animals and the food we eat,” he argues.
“If we used all the water for mining, the salt flats would dry up. We need water to grow salt. Without salt, there are no jobs,” said Karpanchai, who relies on the freshwater resources to raise llamas and sheep. “Chemicals from mining could pollute the water and pastures. We could lose everything.”
Flavia Lamas, 30, a tour guide on the salt flats, remembers when lithium companies began exploring around 2010. “They said mining lithium would not affect Mother Earth, but then water became a problem. Water was running off the salt flats and after just one month our land started to degrade,” she says.
Flavia Lamas, who guides tourists through the Salinas Grandes salt flats, compares the mining companies to the Spanish colonial army of the 1500s.
According to Pia Marchegiani, director of environmental policy at the NGO: Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (Fern) Environmental assessments leave gaps in understanding the full impact of large-scale development. “This region is a watershed. Water comes from everywhere, but nobody is looking at the whole picture,” Marchegiani says. “You have Australians, Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Koreans, but nobody is adding up their water use.”
Wildlife within the ecosystem may also be affected. A 2022 study found that flamingosLithium mining in Chile is slowly killing off coral reefs that feed on microorganisms in seawater.
Communities also fear their land will disappear. Indigenous people consider the land sacred and ancestral, and have lived on it for centuries, but they worry they will be forcibly removed. “We can’t sacrifice our community land. Do you think that’s going to save the planet? Instead, we’re destroying Mother Earth herself,” Flores says.
A painting welcoming visitors to the village of El Moreno features an anti-lithium message.
youUntil recently, the 33 communities fought together as one, but over the past year, cracks have appeared as mining companies have offered economic incentives. “Companies are approaching,” Karpanchai said. “They approach us alone, they come in disguise. People are feeling the pressure.”
Lamas says mining companies are descending on the region like conquistadors in the 1500s. “The Spanish brought mirrors as gifts. Now the miners come by truck,” she says. “We’ve been offered gifts, trucks, and houses in the city, but we don’t want to live there.”
Marchegiani accuses the companies of deploying “divide and conquer” tactics. Alicia Chalabet, an indigenous lawyer from Salinas Grandes, says the community is under “constant pressure” to agree to the demands. “We’re flooded with lithium companies here. It’s increased a lot in the last five years,” said Chalabet, who is currently handling 20 cases. “The community is just an obstacle.”
The community of Lipan was the first to agree to let mining company Rishon Energy explore the waters beneath the saltwater in exchange for promises of jobs and essential services, but some residents say the decision was controversial, and some community members claim not all residents were allowed to vote.
A facility set up by Rishon Energy to explore lithium potential near the village of Lipan. The company claims to employ staff from the local area and invest in their training.
Rishon denies that its decision to mine in Lipan was controversial and says it complied with all regulations that require it to seek local community support in lithium exploration. The company has previously told reporters that it has invested in 15 secondary school and 15 university scholarships, provided computers to local schools, and hired 12 workers from Lipan.
Anastasia Castillo, 38, grew up in Lipan and now lives in a nearby commune. She says neither she nor her parents, who remain in the village, agreed. “I’m very sad. My children’s future is ruined. We have 100 cows and 80 llamas in the area, which is my main job. I’m afraid they’ll die,” Castillo said. “Now we’re separated.”
IEven though it’s the next big game for the PlayStation 5 and it’s in Sony’s DNA, there’s still something Nintendo about Astro Bot. That’s because it’s perfectly designed for the controller it’s played on, taking advantage of all the features of the DualSense controller. The spacey aesthetic, with different planets representing different colorful worlds to jump into, is reminiscent of Super Mario Galaxy, and it’s just pure joy to play. On a console where the most well-known hits are pretty serious (like God of War and The Last of Us), Astro Bot prioritizes fun.
“I think Sony’s product design is about cool, but it also embraces playfulness,” says Nicolas Doucet, studio director at Team Asobi, the Japanese studio behind Astro Bot. “The two are not mutually exclusive or antagonistic… [PlayStation] The hardware team loved it and no one cared less about it. These are highly crafted products, so you can imagine that designers wouldn’t want them tampered with. But we were looking at PSVR and turning it into a mothership.”
The first Astro Bot game, Rescue Mission, was the best thing ever made for PlayStation’s VR headset, a clever platformer brimming with original ideas. Astro’s Playroom was a treat that came packaged with the PS5 when it launched in 2020, designed to show off the capabilities of Sony’s new console and its controller. It did so brilliantly, with levels themed around the PS5’s super-fast SSD hard drive and a singing GPU soundtrack, taking full advantage of every little gimmick in the PS5 controller, from the microphone to the haptic triggers. But Astro’s Playroom was also, unexpectedly, an interactive museum of Sony’s gaming hardware. As I played, I collected consoles, peripherals, and other knickknacks, gradually filling the lab with PlayStation history. It was fun.
A cheeky idea that will never come again… Astro Bots. Photo: Sony/Team Asobi
During the development of Astro’s Playroom, Team Asobi worked very closely with the people making the PS5 and the controller. They were even running around the building with prototypes in paper bags, Doucet said. “They gave us prototype controllers that were twice the size of a normal controller, or they put two controllers together because they needed more power. You can see how much work went into miniaturizing all that and making a controller that looks and feels good. They came up with features like adaptive triggers and haptics because they Feeling Our job is to generate as many ideas as possible about how it might be used, and then validate and sometimes deny those intuitions. After all, we’re not selling technology, we’re selling an experience, a magical experience. come “From technology.”
Now, Team Asobi was given the freedom to create a bigger, longer game (12 hours or so) as an extended tech demo, without being tied to a single piece of PlayStation hardware. That said, it’s still a clear tribute to all things Sony. It incorporates many ideas that didn’t make it into the 2020 game. Astro Bot now flies between levels in a controller-shaped spaceship whose exhaust gases are made up of PlayStation button symbols. Running around several levels as this adorable robot, I slid down a waterslide with a bunch of beach balls, jumped off a high board into a pool, took down an angry giant octopus by slingshotting myself in the face with a retractable frog-face boxing glove, used a magnet to gather pieces of metal into a ball big enough to smash things, and blew up Astro like a balloon before sending him flying with the gas that erupted.
It’s super cute, funny and full of playful details. We discovered that the flames spewing from Astro’s jetpack can cut through wooden logs, but only because it’s fun; Astro struck a confident surfing pose when he hopped onto a turtle to see if he could ride on its back; and when we tickled a sad-looking anemone to discover a secret room, we were greeted with a chorus of “Secret!” These details are inconsequential, but as Doucet points out, “They’re important, because all these little things become memories.”
The levels are like a solar system that slowly expands outwards as the challenge increases. There’s the safest one towards the middle, where a 5-year-old can have fun kicking a football, jumping through water, and punching the occasional bad guy. And then there are the hardest levels towards the edge. There are over 150 little tributes to PlayStation games, from PaRappa the Rapper to Journey, in the form of cosplay robots that you can rescue. The challenge levels will test your 90s childhood 3D platforming skills, including precision jumps across platforms suspended in time and a miniature ice rink floating in space. This is the simplest fun I’ve had playing a game in a long time.
Team Asobi is relatively small, with about 65 people, and relatively international. According to Doucet, three-quarters of the team is Japanese, and the rest are from 16 countries. Some of them have worked on past PlayStation projects, such as Shadow of the Colossus and Gravity Daze, but some are newcomers. They are all focused on making Astro Bot a true mascot for PlayStation, Doucet says. “We want to develop Astro into a really strong franchise. We want to develop this little character even more,” he says. “There are a lot of expectations to meet at PlayStation, but we never forget that we are the underdogs. That’s part of the mindset of a successful person, you always want to be in pursuit of something. If you become too satisfied, the game starts to lose its soul.”
Astro Bot certainly has a soul. It’s clear that the development team is having a lot of fun. “We’re geeky people, and I’m a PlayStation collector myself,” says Doucet. “It might sound a little corny, but it’s important that we’re happy so that our players are happy.”
Astro Bot will be available on PlayStation 5 on September 6th
TThe state of the art in AI just got a little bit further along: On Friday, Anthropic, an AI lab founded by a team of disgruntled OpenAI staffers, released the latest version of its Claude LLM. From Bloomberg:
The company announced on Thursday that a new model of the technology behind its popular chatbot, “Claude,” is twice as fast as its most powerful predecessor. In its evaluation, Anthropik said the model outperformed leading competitors such as OpenAI in several key intelligence capabilities, including coding and text-based reasoning.
Anthropik just released the previous version of Claude, 3.0, in March. This latest model is called 3.5, and it’s currently only available on the company’s mid-range model, “Sonnet.” The company says a faster, cheaper, less powerful “Haiku” version is coming soon, as well as a slower, more expensive, but most powerful “Opus.”
But even before Opus arrived, Anthropic claimed to have the best AI on the market. In a series of head-to-head comparisons posted on the company’s blog, 3.5 Sonnet outperformed OpenAI’s latest model, GPT-4o, in tasks like math quizzes, text comprehension, and undergraduate-level knowledge. It wasn’t a clean sweep, with GPT maintaining the lead in several benchmarks, but it was enough to justify the company’s claim that it’s on the cutting edge of what’s possible.
From a more qualitative perspective, AI seems to be a step forward. Anthropic states:
They have a significantly improved ability to understand nuance, humor, and complex instructions, and they excel at writing high-quality content in a natural, relatable tone.
They’re grading their own homework, and their explanation matches the changes I’ve noticed: No matter where the technical benchmarks are, I find talking to the latest version of Claude more enjoyable than any AI system I’ve used before.
But the company isn’t just selling power updates. Instead, in a way favored by smaller competitors around the world, Anthropic is focusing as much on cost as it is on features. The company claims that Claude 3.5 is not only smarter than its predecessor, but also cheaper.
There is concern among geologists regarding the development of the GeoGPT chatbot, supported by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). They worry about potential Chinese censorship or bias in the chatbot.
Targeting geoscientists and researchers, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, GeoGPT aims to enhance the understanding of geosciences by utilizing extensive data and research on the Earth’s history spanning billions of years.
This initiative is part of the Deeptime Digital Earth (DDE) program, established in 2019 and primarily funded by China to promote international scientific cooperation and help countries achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
One component of GeoGPT’s AI technology is Qwen, a large-scale language model created by Chinese tech company Alibaba. Geologist and computer scientist Professor Paul Cleverley, who tested a pre-release version of the chatbot, highlighted concerns raised in an article in Geoscientist journal.
In response, DDE principals stated that GeoGPT also incorporates another language model, Meta’s Llama, and disputed claims of state censorship, emphasizing the chatbot’s focus on geoscientific information.
Although issues with GeoGPT have been mostly resolved, further enhancements are underway as the system is not yet released to the public. Notably, geoscience data can include commercially valuable information crucial for the green transition.
The potential influence of Chinese narratives on geoscience-related questions raised concerns during testing of Qwen, a component of GeoGPT’s AI, prompting discussions on data transparency and biases.
Future responses of GeoGPT to sensitive queries, especially those with geopolitical implications, remain uncertain pending further development and scrutiny of the chatbot.
Assurances from DDE indicate that GeoGPT will not be subject to censorship from any nation state and users will have the option to select between Qwen and Llama models.
While the development of GeoGPT under international research collaboration adds layers of transparency, concerns persist about the potential filtering of information and strategic implications related to mineral exploration.
As GeoGPT’s database remains under review for governance standards, access to the training data upon public release will be open for scrutiny to ensure accountability and transparency.
Despite the significant funding and logistical support from China, the collaborative nature of the DDE aims to foster scientific discoveries and knowledge sharing for the benefit of global scientific communities.
Apple has been found to be in violation of new EU laws designed to promote competition among smaller companies and help consumers find more affordable alternative apps in tech companies’ app stores.
The European Commission, acting as both the EU’s antitrust and technology regulator, has informed Apple of preliminary findings after launching an investigation in March.
The Commission’s preliminary findings, which Apple can appeal, state that Apple’s conduct rules do not comply with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) as they restrict app developers from freely directing consumers to other platforms for offers and content.
The Commission has also initiated new non-compliance proceedings against Apple over concerns that its new contract terms for third-party app developers do not meet DMA requirements.
This marks the third non-compliance investigation launched by the Commission since the DMA took effect last year.
As part of the investigation, the committee is examining the “core technology fee,” a charge that Apple imposes on developers each time their app is installed on a phone.
The allegations against Apple for violating EU law represent the first case against a tech company under the DMA, significant legislation introduced last August to ensure fair competition among six designated “very large online platforms,” including Google, Amazon, Meta, and ByteDance (TikTok).
The investigation comes after the committee’s initial inquiry into Apple’s treatment of mobile app suppliers three months ago.
Previous findings from an earlier investigation reiterated that Apple must allow developers to inform customers about alternative, cheaper purchasing methods, guide them to these options, and enable them to make purchases free of charge, as required by new digital laws.
The investigation found that Apple’s terms of business did not allow developers to direct customers to more affordable alternatives or provide pricing information within the app.
Moreover, Apple made it challenging for customers to access pricing information and required links to external web pages for contract details.
Ultimately, the Commission determined that the fees charged by the App Store were excessive and not strictly necessary.
The Commission stated that if Apple’s alleged violations are confirmed, all three of its terms and conditions would violate Article 5(4) of the DMA, mandating gatekeepers to allow developers to direct consumers to external offers free of charge. A non-compliance decision will be issued within 12 months of the proceedings’ start on March 25, 2024.
Apple has responded by making several changes in recent months to comply with the DMA based on feedback from developers and the European Commission.
The company believes its adjustments align with the law and estimates that under the new terms, over 99% of developers will pay the same or lower fees to Apple.
All EU-based developers on the App Store now have access to features like directing app users to the web for purchases at competitive prices, reflecting Apple’s commitment to address the European Commission’s concerns.
PLaptops with multiple touchscreens have long been the stuff of science fiction movies, but in the real world, several manufacturers have tried to build dual-screen laptops without much success.
This usually happens because they try to do too much and end up compromising too much, and now Asus thinks it's solved that problem with its new dual-screen machine, which also has a full-size, detachable physical keyboard.
In theory, this means the 2024 version of the Zenbook Duo could be the best of both worlds: a regular laptop with a standard keyboard and trackpad, and a futuristic machine with two touchscreens.
But such advancements always come with a hefty price tag, and the new machine is available in a range of configurations and prices depending on the region, starting from £1,799 in the UK, all the way up to £2,000 for the Core Ultra 9 version we tested.
Windows Hello recognizes your face to log you into the laptop, and the keyboard and trackpad provide a great typing experience. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
It has two full 14″ touchscreen OLED displays hinged like a book in the middle, one in the lid and one where a regular laptop keyboard would be. The full-size laptop keyboard and trackpad attaches magnetically to pins in the screen at the bottom, completely covering the screen. It fits snugly and works so well that you might not even notice there's a display underneath. If you want to use it as a regular laptop, you don't have to compromise too much, but the keyboard can also be detached from the laptop and used via Bluetooth, which is very handy.
Detach the keyboard and you have two screens. The lower display houses a full-size touchscreen keyboard with a simulated trackpad, but it's fine for simple actions like search queries and AI prompts. The included stylus can be used to draw and write on either screen; how well it works depends on the app you're trying to use. Microsoft's handwriting recognition is better, while Asus' system isn't as good.
The kickstand and detachable keyboard allow the Zenbook Duo to be used in a variety of configurations. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
A kickstand on the back of the machine lets you prop up the Duo in a variety of configurations beyond the standard laptop L-shape. Stand the Duo upright, screen-top to screen-top, perfect for using two screens at your desk for a huge productivity boost, or prop it up like an open book, with the two screens side-by-side, perfect for documents.
The Core Ultra 9 version's 3K 120Hz OLED screen looks great, with very sharp blacks and vibrant colors, but it’s not particularly bright and struggled to overcome glare and reflections in direct sunlight, requiring a bit of adjustment to the screen angle in bright environments.
The kickstand is quite sturdy and can support the laptop at a variety of angles on a desk. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The Zenbook Duo is equipped with Intel's new Core Ultra chips, and in our testing, the Ultra 9 185H was the best performing, delivering impressive performance for a thin and light laptop. It handled everyday tasks with ease, including advanced photo manipulation and juggling three screens simultaneously (the laptop's two 3K displays and an external 4K monitor).
Benchmark tests show that its performance is on par with similar 14-inch PC laptops from Dell, Lenovo and others, as well as Apple's M1 Pro chip in the 14-inch MacBook Pro. However, the Zenbook does get quite warm, with the top quarter of the machine's lower half getting noticeably warm even under light loads.
Battery life varies greatly depending on how many screens you're using. Used as a standard laptop with the keyboard attached and screen brightness set to around 70%, it lasted just over seven hours with light work using Chrome, Evernote, a light text editor, and various messaging apps. Using both screens simultaneously halves that figure to less than four hours in similar circumstances. Of course, performing more demanding tasks will drain the battery much faster.
Windows 11 + some stuff
The touchscreen keyboard and trackpad are nearly the same size as the real thing. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Duo comes with Windows 11, which is designed to be great for computers with multiple screens. It remembers the position of apps on both screens, automatically adjusts the screen orientation when you rotate the screen, and lets you easily move windows between screens.
Asus also bundles software to help you take advantage of the dual-screen setup, including a utility that pops up quick controls for turning the bottom screen on or off, summoning a virtual keyboard, swapping windows, and more.
The Asus Dial and Control app lets you create a custom set of virtual dials, buttons and tools on the bottom screen for doing things like changing brush thickness in a paint app or altering the volume knob on Spotify, but in general I found it better to use the second screen as a full monitor rather than covering it with touchscreen controls.
However, please note that it is not accessible on the Zenbook Duo. Microsoft's new Copilot+ AI tool It's limited to certain new chips as part of a Windows 11 update.
sustainability
The Zenbook Duo is a little thicker than a standard laptop, and its speakers aren't the best. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Asus rates the battery to retain over 80% of its original capacity for at least 1,200 full charge cycles, and there's a care tool available to extend its lifespan by limiting charging to 80%. The device is repairable in the UK, and the SSD is upgradeable. The body is made from recycled magnesium-aluminium alloy, and Asus Free machine recycling.
price
The Asus Zenbook Duo (2024) is priced from £1,799 (€1,899.99/$1,499.99) with an Intel Ultra 7 chip and FHD display. £1,999.99 (€2,499.99/$1,699.99/A$3,999) with Intel Ultra 9 and 3K display.
By comparison, the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i Gen 9 dual-screen laptop is priced at £2,011.50, the Microsoft Surface Laptop starts at £1,049 and the Apple MacBook Air M3 at £1,099.
verdict
The Zenbook Duo is one of the most successful attempts to make a dual-screen laptop work in the real world. If you want to use it as a regular laptop, you get a great keyboard and trackpad. But once you’re at your desk, it takes just a few seconds to set up the two screens, which can make you much more productive. It also reduces the back and neck pain that can come from hunching over a laptop.
The middle ground between the touchscreen keyboard and widget-packed controls isn’t appealing, but those with artistic skills may be pleased to be able to draw with the included stylus.
There are four main compromises: it heats up more easily than a comparable standard laptop, has a slightly shorter battery life, is heavier and thicker, and is much more expensive. Despite being an all-new machine, the Duo runs on an Intel chip and can’t run the new Copilot+ feature that Microsoft is now adding to Windows. It remains to be seen whether these compromises will be a deciding factor.
This isn’t a laptop we’d recommend for everyone, but if you want a portable dual-screen setup, the Zenbook Duo
On Wednesday evening, I found myself seated at my kitchen table staring at my laptop screen with a mix of emotions. Testing out a new demo from a Manhattan-based startup called Hume, claiming to have the world’s first voice AI with emotional intelligence. According to Alan Cohen, CEO and chief scientist at Hume, the technology helps predict emotional patterns based on the tone of voice and text.
With the rise of emotional AI in the industry, companies like Hume are raising significant funding and predicting a booming market. However, there are concerns about how accurately AI can read and respond to human emotions. Will it be able to interpret subtle cues and non-verbal expressions? Professor Andrew McStay suggests that understanding emotions can have a far greater impact beyond monetary value.
My experience testing Hume’s Empathic Voice Interface (EVI) revealed interesting results. While the AI could analyze and display emotional patterns like love, adoration, and romance, there was a sense that voice tone was given more weight than the actual words spoken. Some critics argue that AI is limited in understanding subtle human emotions and behaviors that go beyond overt expressions.
On the ethical front, there are concerns about AI bias and the potential for misuse in areas like surveillance and emotional manipulation. Safeguards like the Hume Initiative aim to set guidelines and restrictions on the use of emotional AI in various sectors. However, the evolving nature of artificial intelligence poses challenges in regulating its applications.
As emotional AI continues to develop, researchers like Lisa Feldman Barrett highlight the complexities of defining and interpreting emotions accurately. Legal frameworks like the European Union AI law aim to curb the negative impacts of emotional recognition technology while allowing for certain applications.
While there are ongoing debates about the effectiveness and ethical implications of emotional AI, researchers like Lennart Hogman from Stockholm University are exploring innovative uses of the technology. By analyzing emotions in interactive settings like psychotherapy, AI tools could potentially enhance therapeutic outcomes and improve collaboration in various fields.
Ultimately, the future of emotional AI depends on how society navigates its potential benefits and risks. As we grapple with the implications of this technology, it’s crucial to prioritize ethical considerations and align user interests with the development of these systems. Embracing emotional AI requires a critical understanding of its capabilities and impact on individuals and society as a whole.
A cyber outage at a major retail software provider for auto dealerships entered its third day on Friday, causing delays in car sales across North America, the affected company said, with software provider CDK saying there is no end in sight.
“The CDK outage is affecting auto dealers across the United States and Canada, including some BMW Group dealers,” a BMW North America spokesman told Reuters.
CDK, which provides a range of software to auto dealerships, said it experienced another cyber incident on Wednesday that caused it to proactively shut down most of its systems, but that it is working to restore services and get dealers’ business back to normal soon. CDK sent a letter The company responded to customers by saying that it was unclear how long it would take to resolve the issue.
The company did not disclose in its statement how many dealerships would be affected. But according to its website, CDK works with more than 15,000 retailers in North America. Representatives from major automakers including Ford, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz said: Confirmed by Bloomberg They were working with dealers affected by the outage.
“Dealers are extremely committed to protecting customer information and are proactively receiving information from CDK to help determine the nature and scope of the cyber incident and respond appropriately,” the National Automobile Dealers Association said. Independently owned car dealer Holman also said the outage affected its phone system.
Investment firm Brookfield Business Partners acquired CDK in April 2022 for $6.41 billion in cash, taking private the last major publicly traded company that provides software to auto dealerships and manufacturers.
According to The Guardian, the government is contemplating a response to Russian hackers who obtained records of 300 million NHS patient interactions, including sensitive data like HIV and cancer blood test results.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) is exploring potential actions against the Russia-based ransomware group Qilin, who recently leaked the stolen NHS records in a cyber attack on June 3.
Healthcare leaders in London, where the attack occurred, set up a helpline to address concerns from worried patients about their data and advised against contacting hospitals or GP practices directly for information.
The NCA and the National Cyber Security Centre are discussing possible responses to the ransom demand of $50 million, which has so far been ignored, prompting concerns about the severity of the attack.
Experts from the NCA are working to remove the data leaked by Kirin on the messaging platform, but the extent of the damage and the potential impact of retrieving or deleting the data remain uncertain.
Authorities have dealt with similar ransomware gangs previously, including taking down the LockBit group with international cooperation, showcasing their commitment to combatting cyber threats.
The recent attack on the NHS reveals a major breach in patient data security, affecting multiple hospitals and healthcare facilities, leading to cancellations and disruptions in medical services.
Patients are cautioned to be vigilant against potential scams targeting them based on the leaked data and are advised to report any suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities immediately.
The NHS Helpline is available for patients seeking information or assistance related to the incident, and efforts are being made to minimize the impact of the data breach on patient care.
The release of private healthcare test records along with NHS data indicates a broader breach that could have far-reaching implications, underscoring the need for enhanced cybersecurity measures in the healthcare sector.
Despite ongoing challenges, healthcare providers are striving to maintain essential services for patients while addressing the fallout from the cyber attack on the NHS.
Cybersecurity experts stress the importance of swift action in response to data breaches, indicating that negotiations with ransomware groups typically end once data is leaked.
While the situation remains precarious, authorities and healthcare institutions are working diligently to mitigate the impact of the attack and prevent further breaches in the future.
Apple is delaying the launch of three new artificial intelligence features in Europe due to European Union competition rules. The features will be available in the US this fall, but not in Europe until 2025.
The delay is a result of regulatory uncertainty caused by the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA). Apple stated that phone mirroring, SharePlay screen sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence will not roll out to EU users this year.
Apple argues that complying with the EU regulations would compromise the security of its products, a claim that EU authorities have challenged in the past.
Apple stated in an email that they are concerned about the DMA’s interoperability requirements potentially compromising user privacy and data security.
The European Commission welcomes Apple in the EU as long as it complies with EU law, as stated in a Bloomberg article.
At its annual developers conference earlier this month, Apple announced Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI features that integrates ChatGPT with Siri for web searching and content generation.
The upcoming Apple mobile operating system will enable the assistant feature to search through emails, texts, and photos to find specific information as instructed by the user.
Apple assures that the new AI features, available on select Apple devices, will prioritize user privacy and safety. The company is working with the European Commission to address concerns and provide these features to EU customers securely.
CEO Tim Cook has reaffirmed that Apple’s AI features will respect personal privacy and context, aligning with the company’s commitment to user security.
ByteDance, a Chinese tech company, has filed new legal documents challenging the US government’s “unconstitutional discrimination against TikTok.” These documents also reveal details about failed negotiations regarding a ban on the platform.
A legislation signed by President Joe Biden in April requires ByteDance to sell TikTok’s U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a ban. ByteDance argues in its filing that such a sale is “technically, commercially, and legally impossible.” The company accuses the US government of not taking settlement negotiations seriously after 2022.
TikTok, in a lawsuit, states, “Never before has Congress silenced so much speech with a single act.”
The proposed ban reflects long-standing national security concerns from US lawmakers who fear China could exploit the app to access Americans’ data or spy on them. While the Biden administration prefers ByteDance to sell TikTok instead of an outright ban, the company claims it’s not a viable option.
The bill would prevent app stores like Apple and Google from featuring the app unless ByteDance sells it. It would also prohibit internet hosting services from supporting TikTok without a sale, effectively banning its use in the US.
In its filing, ByteDance’s lawyers outline the company’s negotiations with the US government, which abruptly ended in August 2022. The company also shared a redacted draft national security agreement aimed at protecting TikTok’s US user data.
The proposed agreement includes a “kill switch” for the US government to halt TikTok’s use in the US if it doesn’t comply. The US has also requested TikTok to move its source code out of China.
TikTok’s lawyers criticized the administration for favoring shutting down TikTok in the US instead of working on a practical solution to protect US users. The Justice Department defended the law, saying it addresses national security concerns while respecting constitutional constraints.
TikTok and ByteDance filed a lawsuit in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Sept. 16. The outcome of the case could influence the government’s use of new powers against foreign-owned apps.
TikTok argues that separating businesses is not feasible and claims the law violates free speech rights. The platform’s content creators maintain that there is no imminent national security threat, as the law allows TikTok to operate for the remainder of the year.
MaA lot has changed for Hidetaka Miyazaki in the past decade. In May 2014, he became president of FromSoftware, the Japanese game developer known for the dark fantasy blockbusters Demon’s Souls (2009), Dark Souls (2011), and Bloodborne (2015), all of which he directed himself. At the time, FromSoftware’s games were critically acclaimed and had a devoted following, but they sold poorly, only selling a few million copies each. But in 2022, the company released the gloriously imposing Elden Ring, a collaboration with fantasy author George R.R. Martin. Not only is it Miyazaki’s best work, it’s also his most popular to date, having sold 25 million copies to date. FromSoftware is no longer a niche company that produces cult hits; it’s now a company that produces bona fide blockbusters.
Has this changed Miyazaki’s thinking? Given how unforgiving and ruthless his game world is, it may not be surprising that he’s not the most optimistic person you’ll ever meet. “Elden Ring was in a league of its own in terms of success and critical acclaim, but what we try to do as a company is to never assume that it’s going to happen again in future games,” he told me in an interview in Los Angeles. “We never make decisions based on the assumption that because we did it once, it’s going to happen again. Allowing for this fairly conservative prediction gives us room to fail, which ultimately leads to better games and better decisions. Indirectly, I think that the assumption that we’re not going to make hits anymore, that conservative outlook, inspires and helps our game design.”
Miyazaki and the From Software team Comfortable. And even if they did, it’s hard to imagine they would have made a game as demanding, ambitious, and at times brutal.
Shadow of the Eldtree, a major expansion for Elden Ring, is released today. It takes players to a terrifying land of shadows, filled with amber skies, fearsomely grotesque monsters, and vengeful, forgotten warriors. From Software’s games are notoriously difficult, demanding extraordinary grit, determination, and drive from the player. Shadow of the Eldtree may be the hardest yet. Shadow of the Eldtree will put even those with 100 hours of Eldtree experience on the back foot. But it handsomely rewards persistence with a complex, fascinatingly opaque storyline and memorable battles against fearsome entities, from ghostly, leaf-adorned dragons to giant walking cages of human ash. The sense of accomplishment you feel when you finally conquer the unconquerable in a Miyazaki work remains unmatched.
The harsh nature of Eld Tree feels like a dump of cold water on me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing this game for 15 years, but Elden Ring feels just a little more approachable than other FromSoftware games. If you get stuck somewhere, you can move somewhere else, rather than charging at the same near-impossible boss over and over again. There are more options, and you can always try a different approach. It doesn’t feel like you’re having your face shoved in the dirt, as I said to Miyazaki. all At the time. Does he think this is part of the reason Elden Ring has garnered more fans than Dark Souls or the 2019 ninja fantasy Sekiro?
Miyazaki: “I’ve always felt that the world is a really harsh place.” Photo: FromSoftware/Sony
“That’s certainly part of the intention. Elden Ring gives players a lot more freedom because of its open-world nature and game design,” he muses. “At no point in the game did we want players to feel boxed in or overly limited in the scope of what they can do and experience in that world. It’s not a very gloomy, dark fantasy that we’ve become accustomed to in past FromSoftware games… The same starkness and coldness is still there, but we wanted to create beautiful moments. Conceptually, there’s a bit of high fantasy in there. It feels like you have a break, both in terms of the difficulty and the learning curve, but also in the world setting.”
Every new FromSoftware release brings up a bit of a discussion about difficulty and accessibility in modern games. Some developers choose to offer easier modes for less experienced or time-poor players. Sometimes they even remove enemies from the game entirely.
But this doesn’t suit a game like Elden Ring – difficulty is what the game is about, and reducing the difficulty stifles creativity.
“If you really want people all over the world to play your game, you can just make the difficulty lower and lower, but that wasn’t the right approach,” Miyazaki said. “If we had taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have turned out the way it did, because the sense of accomplishment that players get from overcoming these hurdles is a very fundamental part of the gaming experience. If you lower the difficulty, you take away that joy. I think it ruins the game itself.”
For Miyazaki, improving through failure isn’t just a game design principle, it’s something of a personal philosophy. As president, he creates a work environment where developers can experiment and ideas don’t get bogged down. No one project dictates a developer’s entire future. His big break came in 2006, when he was put in charge of managing a struggling fantasy project at FromSoftware. The game would become Demon’s Souls. “I thought if I could figure out how to manage the game, I could turn it into whatever I wanted,” he told The Guardian’s Simon Parkin in 2015. “The best part was that if my idea failed, nobody cared. It was already a failure.”
“To be honest, I don’t think it’s that different now than it was 15 years ago when we were making Demon’s Souls,” he laughs when I remind him of this. “What I try to foster in our environment is to make sure that young directors and game designers have the same kind of experience that I had when I was working on Demon’s Souls, that if this game fails, it’s not the end of the world. I think that mentality and attitude helps people grow.”
Mr. Miyazaki is different. The first time I met him In 2011“I’ve always been a big fan of the game,” he said at Tokyo Game Show, just before the release of Dark Souls, the game that would thrust him into the spotlight. Quiet and soft-spoken, his eyes glued to the carpet, he says he used to shy away from being the center of attention. But now he’s much more confident and comfortable talking about both business and game design. When he thinks, he looks up at the ceiling, not down at the floor. He’s now a father to a young daughter and leads a company. And like players of Dark Souls and Elden Ring, he’s emerged as a more capable person.
However, he remains as hands-on as ever as a game designer. “Regardless of my title or position in the company, there is always the joy and satisfaction I get from making games,” he says. “I enjoy helping to nurture and develop young directors who will take the company to the next level. But sitting in an administrative office all day is not my style. I want to really get my hands dirty and continue to make games together, and through that, pass on my process to other generations of talent. I’ve held the title of president for almost 10 years now, but I’d say about 95% of my work and time at the company is devoted to game making and game direction. In this ratio, I’d say I’ve only had about 6 months of actual experience as an executive!”
The world is also very different from when Demon’s Souls was a big hit. I think the reason why more people are resonating with the work of Hayao Miyazaki and From Software is because we’ve become accustomed to a feeling of helplessness. For those who have lived through the last 15 years of pandemics, political turmoil, and looming climate disaster, bleak situations are not so foreign. What Elden Ring gives us is a glimmer of hope that, perhaps, if we are strong and persistent enough, we can triumph against all odds.
“A lot of From Software’s games throw you into this barren wasteland and make it a very harsh, harsh, cold experience… I don’t think what we’ve done in the game has changed, but maybe the world will change. Have “The last few years have been exceptional in terms of what’s going on around us, but even before that I felt the world was a very harsh place. I’ve always lived with that worldview, that value system. So this idea of being cast out into the wilderness and planting the seeds of growth feels almost universal to me. Maybe more people are discovering that now.”
I think what a lot of people miss in From Software’s games is a sense of hope. First Interview In a 2010 email exchange with Miyazaki, he told me about the origins of Demon’s Souls’ unusual multiplayer, in which players can summon anonymous helpers to help them get through a particularly frightening area or boss encounter. He was driving up a hill in the winter when everyone got stuck. It wasn’t until everyone in the back started helping by pushing the car in front to the top of the hill that someone finally made it. He called it a “connection of mutual aid between fickle people,” adding, “Oddly enough, that event will probably stick in my mind for a long time. It sticks for a long time precisely because it was so fleeting.”
Elden Ring is filled with these fleeting moments of beauty and friendship, and they’re all the more meaningful because they’re so rare. In a harsh world, moments of respite are precious.
“If I look deeply into my history, there are definitely experiences that have influenced my identity, the worldview that drives me to make games,” Miyazaki said. “I’ve never taken a step back and thought about what triggered it, but there’s definitely something that’s the reason these are the types of games I want to see and make. If I looked in the mirror and took a hard look at myself… if I went on a soul-searching journey to find out why, I might be disappointed in myself. It would force me to face how boring and ordinary I am. Maybe I’m intentionally avoiding that. That’s what keeps the creativity flowing.”
It backfired Audible, weekly episodes Slow Burn, Think Twice, Fiasco – Leon Neyfakh has produced several high-quality podcasts in the past. Currently, he is focusing on e-cigarettes and his struggles to quit smoking. These podcasts narrate the journey of finding a cigarette that is less harmful. It’s interesting to note the difference in approach between the UK, where e-cigarettes are promoted as a tool to quit smoking, and the US, where there are efforts to ban flavored e-cigarettes. Hannah Verdier
A better paradise Widely available, with weekly episodes An atmospheric near-future podcast from the creators of Grand Theft Auto. Featuring a talented cast, Andrew Lincoln plays Dr. Mark Tyburn who tries to create an addictive video game but abandons the project halfway. Years later, when he is rediscovered, will the game finally see the light of day? HV
Leon Neyfakh’s “Backfired” explores the rise of e-cigarettes. Photo: Nicholas T Ansell/PA
Because the boss is ours Widely available, with weekly episodes Bruce Springsteen may not be the first person you think of when it comes to queer pop idols, but hosts Jesse Lawson and Holly Cascio, “two queer nerds” who are fans of the Boss, delve into this fun and insightful podcast to explore Springsteen’s status as a queer icon. Holly Richardson
Pulling the Thread: Wild Life Widely available, with weekly episodes This captivating series from Drake’s production company follows investigative journalist Lunako Serena and the spy known as “Wolf” as they uncover the truth about Africa’s largest wildlife trafficking ring. The journey takes them from an environmental conference in The Shard in London to infiltrating criminal networks involved in the ivory trade in Uganda. Alexi Duggins
Festival Hall Widely available, with weekly episodes A new series from the creators of the confessional-based X Account, featuring a range of content from ranking secrets of the week to insightful interviews with Philippa Perry about the psychology behind anonymous sharing of secrets. advertisement
There is a podcast
Afua Hirsch, host of “We Need to Talk About the British Empire.” Photo: Suki Dhanda/Observer
this week, Rachel Aroesti Pick the top 5 PodcastsUnited KingdomFrom Armando Iannucci’s irreverent take on Westminster to Afua Hirsch’s reflections on the complex legacy of the British Empire London Grad London is clearly a cosmopolitan city, but there are moments in this darkly fascinating podcast from Tortoise Media’s Paul Caruana Galizia that make you wonder which country has the most influence over our capital. The first series of the show focused on Russian money flowing into London through real estate and, in the case of the Lebedev family, the purchasing power of its ultra-rich investors in multiple newspapers, while in series two the focus shifted to Iran and the government-mandated “death squads” that have repeatedly attempted to assassinate London-based critics of the regime on British soil.
We need to talk about the British Empire Afua Hirsch’s 2018 book, Brit(ish), is both a deeply personal memoir and an insightful analysis of British history, making it essential reading for anyone wanting to gain a deeper understanding of black history and politics in the country. In this podcast series, the author broadens the perspective even further, using her guests’ personal stories to illuminate the legacy of colonialism from different angles. Anita Rani offers insight into Partition, the late Benjamin Zephaniah talks about the Windrush, Diana Rigg talks about growing up at the end of the British colonial era, and musician Emma Lee Moss (formerly Emmy the Great) reminisces about her childhood in Hong Kong under British rule.
Rethinking Westminster Armando Iannucci is one of Britain’s leading satirists, and he’s spent his career lampooning the country’s follies and weaknesses, from the chaos of government with The Thick of It to the banality of mid-level broadcasting via Alan Partridge. In this podcast series for the New Statesman, he and the magazine’s UK editor Anoush Chakerian (who also hosts the magazine’s flagship podcast) take a slightly less-than-modest look at Britain’s most pressing political issues. Topics range from Britain’s “ramshackle” constitution and the old, machismo energy of party politics to the shortcomings of lobby journalism and the deterioration of our supposedly special relationship with the US.
Northern News Edinburgh Award-nominated stand-up comedians Ian Smith and Amy Gledhill are northerners who moved to London but are still keen to hear news from their home town – Gledhill is originally from Hull, Smith from nearby Goole. For Northern News, the pair combine easy-going chatter with local newspaper readings, focusing on the weirdest, most ridiculous and sentimental news they can find. They also host a host of guest comedians who share their own quirky local anecdotes.
The rise and fall of Britpop The story of Britpop is much more than the tabloid-shattering rivalry between Oasis and Blur. It’s a story that has much to say about the traditions and history of British pop culture from the 1960s to the present day. Steve Lamacq and Joe Whiley, co-hosts of Radio 1’s hip show The Evening Sessions when the scene first took off 30 years ago, are perfectly suited to tell the tale. With help from guests including Stuart McOnie and Alex James, the pair take a trip down memory lane to trace Britpop’s journey from an unpopular alternative to trendy US grunge to a cultural force that redefined our national identity.
Please try…
Alexander Skarsgård’s new pod explores startups taking innovative approaches to environmental and social issues How to solve this.
From remote work to immigration, The Atlantic Good on Paper It raises the big questions behind the inevitable topics.
If you’d like to read the full newsletter, sign up to receive Hear Here in your inbox every Thursday.
a A few months ago, I wrote about the consulting firm Sweet Baby Inc., which was at the center of a conspiracy theory: disgruntled gamers on the Steam forums wrongly concluded that the small company was somehow mandating that its games include more diverse characters. The sad but predictable result was a massive amount of targeted harassment against the people who worked at Sweet Baby and all journalists (especially women) who wrote about the company. It was a disturbing echo of Gamergate, the online harassment campaign from a decade ago that initially began with the extreme accusations of a vengeful ex-boyfriend of a game developer.
The lingo has changed a bit over the past decade. Whereas before we were pissed off at “SJWs,” or social justice warriors, now we quibble over a different acronym: DEI (Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion), or just good old fashioned “woke.” But the sentiment of this group is the same: games are for us, and only us, and if you want games to change, or tell stories other than the simplistic male-centric power fantasies we grew up with, well, that’s not going to be allowed. We won’t tolerate it. In fact, we’ll actively harass you to try and kick you out of this space altogether.
Unfortunately, the anti-woke “campaign” has shown little to no let up in the months since. Led by the usual crew of charlatans, they have covered issues such as, in no particular order, the fact that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, isn’t attractive enough in Supergiant’s Hades II, the fact that all the female characters in recent game trailers have “square” jaws and “masculine” body types, and the fact that a journalist gave the recent PS5 game Stellar Blade (pictured below) a bad review because the female characters were not attractive. Too Hot (Note: It’s not, the game has Metacritic Score
81) There are way too many games featuring the “DEI haircut” (fun to interpret) And Ubisoft for some reason
The dark forces of Awakening are trying to make the protagonist of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed game (pictured above) a black samurai. Historical evidence
This last claim was backed up by the king of nasty posters himself, Elon Musk, who responded to a tweet about this manufactured outrage with, “DEI kills the arts.”
Assassin’s Creed: Shadows executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté spoke about Musk’s tweet in an interview. Stephen Totilo from Game Files
Last week, Elon Musk tweeted, “Elon Musk is just stoking hatred. A bunch of 3-word replies came to mind. First thing I wanted to do was go back to the X I deleted and just tweet it back… What Elon is talking about is not the game we’re making. People need to play the game for themselves. And if you don’t agree with what we’re doing within the first 11 minutes and 47 seconds, debate.” Incidentally, the game’s depiction of Yasuke, a black samurai, has ample historical basis.
Shortly after the end of Summer Game Fest, anti-woke gamers found a new target. IGN Report
has credibly and comprehensively uncovered the history of sexism at the development of Black Myth: Wukong, the upcoming Planet of the Apes-meets-Sekiro action game. Amazingly, the response has been to attack the woman who wrote the game and spark ridiculous conspiracy theories about IGN blackmailing the developer. You could immerse yourself in the astounding nastiness of any one of these manufactured controversies, but in my opinion, it’s just not worth it.
Stellar Blade. Photo: Public Relations
This reactionary underbelly of gaming enthusiast media, mostly based on X and YouTube, doesn’t actually have the slightest influence on how games are made, or what games are made. Look at GamerGate. What has it actually accomplished? There is more diversity in games than there was 10 years ago, not less. In the flurry of trailers and demos at this year’s Summer Game Fest, I saw more non-white male faces and characters than I’ve ever seen in the nearly 20 years I’ve covered games. But they can still make people’s online lives hell for a while. I know that much, because I’ve been there many times.
When Gamergate began, I was running Kotaku’s UK branch, so I had a front row seat to their harassment tactics, which included sending the most nasty threats imaginable through every online channel available to them, emailing game publishers and my bosses with a record of my professional misconduct and journalistic failures (i.e. writing about video games from a feminist perspective) in an attempt to get me fired, trying to find my and my colleagues’ real addresses, phone numbers and family (and, once found, posting the details on their subreddits), and creating insane Google docs that drew connections between “SJW” journalists and developers. One of these insane documents featured briefly in a recent Netflix documentary about 4chan, with a couple of friends texting me screenshots and asking if I knew I was some old “alt-right” conspiracy figure. Unfortunately, I did.
It’s happened several times since then, for a variety of reasons. Dealing with online mobs is unfortunately part of the job for many journalists these days, and for game developers too. As a woman covering video games, I’ve dealt with a variety of harassment over the years, and still wish I didn’t have to write about politics. But I know how awful it feels when they rally against you, especially if it’s the first time. They search Google Images for the most unflattering image of you, use it as a cutout for a YouTube thumbnail image, and rant for 10 minutes over screenshots of your article. They tweet big names in the games industry to get them to publicly discredit you. They turn their followers on you. You can’t help but respond to their manufactured anger with your own authentic anger.
It’s tempting to attack these people endlessly, but anger breeds anger, especially now that you can literally make money posting inflammatory nonsense on X or YouTube. If GamerGate has proven anything, it’s that you don’t have to pander to or listen to toxic gamers who stoke your anger. That said, I don’t think there has been enough public backlash against this online harassment over the past few months, even as major publishers in the gaming industry have been caught in an online storm over the consultancies they work with, the journalists and pundits who cover them, and even their own developers. Take my word for it, a voice goes a long way.
What to Play
This thing on an oil rig in the North Sea…still waking up the deep sea. Photo: Incognito mode
Chinese Room, whose previous game, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, became a creepy British classic, is taking a more horror-thriller direction with their latest game. Awaken the Abyss (Pictured above.) It’s basically The Thing, but set on a creaky, dark, dank rig in the desolate waters of the North Sea, where a band of workers encounters something much worse while drilling for oil.
I’ve played the first few hours and the attention to detail in depicting life on a rig in 1970s Scotland is exceptional, right down to the faded tartan carpets and lived-in feel of the crew’s dormitories (one guy has National Front leaflets pinned to the wall), and I also love the delightfully authentic Scottish dialogue. that It’s scary, which to me is its advantage, but it’s atmospheric and incredibly well-made, so you really feel like you’re there – it’s worth playing just for that feeling of being there.
Available on: PC, Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 5 Estimated play time: Six hours
Privacy Notice: The newsletter may contain information about charities, online advertising and externally funded content. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect your privacy on our website and Google. privacy policy and terms of service Apply.
After newsletter promotion
What to Read
HiFi Rush by Tango Gameworks. Photo: Tango Gameworks
Developer Tango Game Works Takeo Kido (the creator of Hi-Fi Rush pictured above) Very sad photo From the studio’s final day. It was acquired by Microsoft in March 2021 and closed down.
Kotaku’s Kenneth Shepherd talks about the ongoing debate over how to portray it Romance in Video Games: Should characters be “playersexual” and do what the player wants? Or does depicting the queer experience in particular lead to two-dimensional characterization? There’s a lot more that could be said on this topic, but this article is pretty comprehensive, so be sure to read it.
Yesterday’s big news Nintendo Direct It was the announcement of a new Zelda title that would actually let you play as Princess Zelda for the first time (no doubt to the delight of those aforementioned online crowds). Also announced There was the release of the Marvel vs. Capcom bundle, Mario Party Jamboree, the Romancing SaGa 2 remake, and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which is due for release in 2025.
What to click on
Question Block
Subnautica: Sub-Zero. Photo: Unknown World
Today’s question comes from reader Diana.
“When making a game, to what extent should developers listen to player feedback? People who paid for access to the pre-alpha version on Kickstarter can give their feedback. Should their feedback fundamentally change the game, or should it just improve the game as the developer intended?”
From what I’ve heard from developers working on Kickstarter and Early Access projects, where players are welcomed into the game long before it’s actually finished, their input is absolutely essential – as long as it’s in good faith. Developers can learn so much by seeing how people actually play – whether that’s finding out where people get stuck and smoothing out the difficulty curve, seeing which elements and ideas players respond most favorably to, or balancing online multiplayer gameplay. Sometimes, players just don’t get the idea. do It changes the game, and usually for the better. Games like Kerbal Space Program, Subnautica (pictured above), and even Baldur’s Gate 3 have benefited greatly from releasing in Early Access.
But should developers change their games so much for the players that they compromise their original creative vision? Only if that vision doesn’t work in reality. Especially in games, where players never Really You won’t know if things are going well until quite late in development. Generally, if the developer is smart, the game is pretty finished by the time it enters Early Access or public alpha/beta testing. At that point, player data and feedback become an opportunity for the developer to better realize their vision.
If you have a question for Question Block, or anything else you’d like to say about the newsletter, please click “Reply” or email us at pushingbuttons@theguardian.com.
Nvidia surpassed Microsoft on Tuesday to become the world’s most valuable company, driven by its essential role in the competition for artificial intelligence dominance.
With a 3.5% increase in its shares to $135.58, Nvidia now has a market capitalization of $3.34 trillion, following its recent surpassing of Apple to become the second-most valuable company.
Originally known for making video-game chips, Nvidia has evolved into a global powerhouse, benefiting from the industry’s shift towards artificial intelligence and becoming a go-to supplier for tech giants.
Outperforming industry giants like Google and Apple, Nvidia’s growth has spurred investment and market interest.
The company’s success has contributed to record highs on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 closing at 5,487.03 on Tuesday.
Nvidia’s shares have soared by approximately 180% this year, significantly outperforming Microsoft’s 19% increase, driven by high demand for its cutting-edge processors.
Tech leaders like Microsoft, Meta Platforms Inc., and Alphabet Inc. are in a race to bolster AI computing capabilities and dominate emerging technologies.
The surge in Nvidia’s stock price has pushed its market capitalization to new heights, adding over $103 billion on Tuesday alone.
By splitting its stock 10-for-1 on June 7, Nvidia aimed to make its highly-valued stock more accessible to retail investors.
Nvidia’s chips, utilized in crucial AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, have driven its revenue and stock price up, arousing increased investor interest in Silicon Valley.
As Nvidia solidifies its presence in the tech sector, CEO Jensen Huang, aged 61, has ascended to the ranks of the world’s wealthiest individuals, with a net worth exceeding $100 billion.
In less than two years, Nvidia’s market capitalization has jumped from $1 trillion to $3 trillion, marking a remarkable growth trajectory.
Apple’s latest Beats-branded earphones offer the sound, fit, and Android compatibility of the popular Studio Buds but in a smaller, cheaper, and longer-lasting package.
The Solo Buds follow in the footsteps of last year’s Buds+, offering full integration with a range of Apple’s devices and Google’s Android, providing the best of both platforms.
However, Beats has trimmed some features and lowered the price to £80 (€90 / $80 / AU$130), half the price of the brand’s other truly wireless earphones.
The appearance is very similar to the Studio Buds and Buds+, and while the compact pill shape remains, the shape has been slightly improved for increased comfort. They are light, fit well, and come with four different sizes of earphone tips.
The tops of the earbuds protrude slightly from the ears, making them easier to grip. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
A hidden button just above the “b” logo allows you to control playback, access your phone’s voice assistant, adjust the volume, and more, although it doesn’t pause your music when taken out of your ears like AirPods do.
Unlike most earbuds, the Solo Buds do not have a battery inside the case to charge them when not in use. Instead, each earbud has a powerful built-in battery that provides 18 hours of playback on a single charge.
The case charges the earbuds when connected to a USB-C cable, but with no built-in battery, they are 40% smaller, 55% lighter, and easier to fit in your pocket. The earbuds also emit a chime when charging or in pairing mode instead of an indicator light on the case.
specification
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3, SBC, AAC
Battery life: 18 hr
water resistance: none
driver: 8.2mm
Earphone Weight: 5.7g each
Earphone Dimensions: 16.7 x 18.5 x 18.9mm
Case Weight: 22 g
Case Dimensions: 34.7 x 66.1 x 23.7mm
charging: USB-C
Perfect for Android or iPhone
It takes 80 minutes to fully charge the earbuds via USB-C. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Like the more recent Studio Buds+ and Solo 4, the Beats’ big advantage is their broad cross-compatibility with Android and iOS.
It integrates better with iPhone than the competition, with controls accessible in Quick Settings, instant pairing you only need to do once to use with your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and other Apple products, and an Audio Sharing option so you can use two sets of headphones with one device.
If you have an Android or Google device, many of the same features are supported, including instant pairing, syncing and switching between Google devices, and spatial audio with compatible Pixel devices. The Beats Android app provides controls, a battery widget, settings, and other features.
The earbuds are also integrated with Apple and Google’s Find My systems, meaning you can locate them if you lose them, regardless of platform.
Good sound quality but no noise cancelling
The Solo Buds have good sound quality but lack noise cancellation. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
One big feature that was cut to achieve the lower price point was noise cancellation, so the Solo Buds rely entirely on silicone earbud tips to block out the outside world. They perform reasonably well when playing music, but they can’t completely block out the noise of your commute like the Buds+ can.
However, they are equipped with the same drivers as Beats’ more expensive earphones, so the sound quality is worth the price. They produce great, easy-to-listen-to sound with a decent amount of bass balanced with the highs. The earphones sound great across a range of genres and never sound shrill or cheap. Sound separation is solid, but they lack a bit of detail and aren’t quite on par with the best in the business.
There’s no equalizer or other adjustments available, and they lack the spatial audio tech found in the company’s more expensive earbuds, making movies and TV shows less immersive when watching them on Apple devices, though the Solo Buds are compatible with Google’s spatial audio system in Pixel devices.
Call quality was very good in both quiet environments and noisy city streets, and although my voice sounded slightly compressed, it did a good job of blocking out background noise during calls.
sustainability
The case is much smaller and does not contain a battery but does contain some electrical components visible in a transparent red color. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Apple does not disclose the expected lifespan of the battery but should last for more than 500 full charge cycles while retaining at least 80% of its original capacity.
Apple offers out-of-warranty repairs “Battery Service”. The company has not released environmental impact statements for its headphones and other accessories, but it offers trade-ins and free recycling for products, including non-Apple products.
In comparison, Beats Studio Buds are £160, Studio Buds+ are £180, Apple AirPods 3 are £169, and Fairphone Fairbuds are £189. £129Nothing Ear (a) is priced at £89.
verdict
The Solo Buds are a great set of budget earphones that straddle the line between Android and Apple platforms better than the competition.
For just £80, you get more than the basics: great sound quality, extremely long battery life, a small case, and a very comfortable fit. Perfect integration into the iPhone is something only Apple can offer, and Android offers much the same functionality with the Beats app.
There are some shortcomings compared to the brand’s more expensive earbuds and competitors, the biggest of which is the lack of noise cancellation, which may be a turn-off for some, as well as the lack of hands-free Siri support, water resistance rating, and Apple spatial audio, but these may be negligible given the price.
The battery is not replaceable and the earbuds are not repairable, so they are ultimately disposable, which will cost them a star.
Strong Points: Great sound quality, cross-platform compatibility with enhanced features for iPhone and Android, great battery life, small case, compact and comfortable for long periods of use, stable button control, low cost.
Cons: No noise cancellation, no Apple spatial audio, music doesn’t pause when removed, not repairable.
The Solo Buds are great, affordable earbuds that fit in your pocket. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
GMB officials recently visited Amazon UK’s Coventry site, initiating a month-long balloting process that brings workers closer to gaining union recognition for the first time.
This move follows Amazon’s rejection of voluntary recognition, leading to an independent central arbitration panel granting GMB the right to hold a legally binding vote.
If employees vote in favor of recognition, GMB will represent them in negotiations regarding pay and working conditions, a historic first for Amazon in the UK.
Over 2,000 employees will participate in meetings with union representatives and company officials, presenting their cases starting Wednesday. The voting process will take place in workplaces from July 8th, with results announced after July 15th.
Amanda Gearing, senior GMB organiser, noted Amazon’s resistance to unionization efforts but highlighted the determination of Coventry workers to improve their conditions.
The ongoing struggle includes union members in Coventry facing challenges like QR codes revoking their union membership and strikes demanding higher wages and a seat at the negotiation table.
Black Friday actions last year saw union members from the US and Europe supporting Coventry workers, showcasing international solidarity in the fight for workers’ rights.
GMB’s success at Amazon’s New York site serves as a model for Coventry workers as they strive for recognition and fair representation.
The GMB aims to secure a majority vote in favor of recognition with at least 40% of frontline workers supporting the decision.
The Labour Party’s commitment to empowering trade unions reflects a broader push for worker rights and representation.
The TUC’s general secretary, Paul Nowak, emphasized the importance of workers securing better pay and conditions through unionization, countering Amazon’s anti-union tactics.
In response, an Amazon spokesperson highlighted the company’s minimum wage increase and emphasized employees’ choice in joining a union.
Meredith Whittaker practices what she preaches: As president of the Signal Foundation, she’s a vocal advocate for privacy for all. But she doesn’t just spout empty words.
In 2018, she came to the public’s attention as one of the organizers of the Google walkouts, mobilizing 20,000 employees at the search giant in a dual protest against state-sponsored surveillance and sexual misconduct misconduct.
Whitaker remains passionate about privacy after five years in the public eye, including as a congressional testifier, a university professor, and an adviser to federal agencies.
For example, it’s not uncommon for business leaders to politely respond when asked about salary on the resumes accompanying these interviews. Flat-out refusal to answer questions about age or family is less common. “As a privacy advocate, Whitaker won’t answer personal questions that could lead to guessing passwords or bank authentication ‘secret answers,'” a staffer told me after the interview. “And she encourages others to do the same!”
When she left Google, Whitaker issued a memo to the company announcing her commitment to the ethical adoption of artificial intelligence and to organizing for a “responsible tech industry.” “It’s clear to me that Google is not the place for me to continue doing this work,” she said. That clarity and refusal to compromise sent a signal.
The Signal Foundation was founded in 2017 with $50 million in funding from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton, and its mission is to “protect freedom of expression and enable secure global communications through open source privacy technology.”
The company took over development of messaging app Signal in 2018, and Whitaker took on the newly created role of president in 2022. The timing was just right to start defending Signal, and encryption in general, against a wave of attacks from nation states and corporations around the world.
While laws such as the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) and the EU’s Child Sexual Abuse Regulation contain language that can be used to block or decrypt private communications, Meta’s proposal to introduce end-to-end encryption on Facebook and Instagram drew strong backlash from politicians such as Priti Patel, who, as UK Home Secretary, called the plans “devastating”.
Whitaker said these attacks are not new. Observer “Going back to 1976, [Whitfield] Diffie and [Martin] Hellman was about to publish a paper introducing public key cryptography, a technology that would allow encrypted communication over the Internet, and intelligence agencies were trying to stop him.
“Throughout the ’80s, the N.S.A. [US National Security Agency] So GCHQ lost its monopoly on encryption and by the ’90s it was all governed under military treaties. This was the ‘code wars’. You couldn’t mail code to someone in Europe, it was considered a munitions export.”
But the larger push towards commercializing the internet forced a degree of softening: “It allowed transactions to be encrypted, allowing big companies to choose exactly what to encrypt. At the same time, the Clinton administration endorsed surveillance advertising as a business model, creating incentives to collect data on customers in order to sell it to them.”
Surveillance, she says, has been a “disease” since the dawn of the internet, and encryption poses “a serious threat to the type of power that shapes itself through these information asymmetries.” In other words, she doesn’t see the fight ending anytime soon: “I don’t think these arguments are honest. There are deeper tensions here, because in the 20 years since this metastatic tech industry developed, we’ve seen every aspect of our lives subject to mass surveillance by a small number of companies that, in partnership with the US government and other ‘Five Eyes’ agencies, collect more surveillance data than any organization in the history of humanity has ever had.”
“So if we continue to defend these little pockets of privacy and don’t eventually expand them, and we have to fight back a little bit to get a little bit more space, I think we’re going to have a much darker future than if we defended our position and were able to expand the space for privacy and free communication.”
Criticisms of encrypted communications are as old as the technology itself: allowing everyone to talk without nation states being able to eavesdrop on the conversation is a godsend for criminals, terrorists, and pedophiles around the world.
But Whittaker argues that some of Signal’s strongest critics seem inconsistent about what they care about: “If they are really interested in helping children, why are Britain’s schools collapsing? Why have social services been funded with just 7% of the amount proposed to fully fund agencies on the front line of preventing abuse?”
Sometimes the criticism is unexpected. Signal was recently drawn into the US culture wars after a right-wing campaign to unseat National Public Radio’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, was expanded to include Signal, where Maher serves as a director, after failing. Elon Musk joined in, and the Signal app… He once promoted it In response to claims that the app was “potentially compromised,” the company noted that the app had “known vulnerabilities.”
Whitaker said the allegations are “a weapon in the propaganda war to spread disinformation. We are seeing similar disinformation related to the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine that appears to be designed to move people away from Signal. We believe these campaigns are designed to direct people to less secure alternatives that are more susceptible to hacking and interception.”
The same technology that has drawn criticism for the foundation is also popular among governments and militaries around the world who need to protect their communications from the prying eyes of nation-state hackers and others.
Whittaker sees this as a leveller: Signal is for everyone.
“Signal is either for everyone or it’s for no one. Every military in the world uses Signal, every politician I know uses Signal, every CEO I know uses Signal, because anybody who has to do really sensitive communication knows that storing it in plaintext in a Meta database or on a Google server is not a good practice.”
Whittaker’s vision is singular and not one to be distracted: Despite her interest in AI, she is cautious about combining it with Signal and has been critical of apps like Meta’s WhatsApp that have introduced AI-enabled features.
“I’m really proud that we don’t have an AI strategy. We have to look at ourselves and say, where is the data coming from to train our models, where is the input data coming from? How do we have an AI strategy when our focus is on protecting privacy, not surveilling people?”
Whatever the future holds in terms of technology and political attitudes towards privacy, Whittaker is adamant that the principle is an existential issue.
“We will do the right thing. We would rather go bankrupt to stay in business than undermine or backdoor the privacy guarantees that we promise people.”
resume
Year No Comment. family No Comment. education I studied Literature and Rhetoric at Berkeley, then joined Google in 2006 and learned the rest of my education there. pay No Comment.
TThere's a reason why many websites devote huge virtual pages to the question of whether and when a new movie is on Netflix. For many casual viewers, the biggest streaming sites are almost synonymous with streaming itself, with even big brands like Disney+, no longer HBO Max, Peacock, and Paramount+ essentially battling for second place. But at some point, you might have to admit that this is, at best, a battle for third place: last month, all of the aforementioned glitzy non-Netflix services lost out to Tubi in viewership numbers.
While premium streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video are experimenting with ad-supported versions to boost revenue (either by lowering the price of their ad-supported subscriptions, hoping that customers will pay more to avoid the ads, or by making revenue from the ads themselves), Tubi offers a rotating lineup of ad-supported movies and TV shows at an unbeatable price. It's a free service that doesn't even require you to sign in (I know this firsthand: I've been a regular Tubi user for years, but I've yet to create an actual account). Tubi combines the thrilling browsing experience of an old-school video store, the instant gratification of Netflix, and the old-school channel flipping of cable (when everyone embraced the built-in ad breaks that came with watching a movie). Apparently, viewers don't mind a little retro in their streaming experience. Tubi is still growing viewership and ad revenue; in the most recent quarter, the latter increased by 22% (the CEO says the service is growing viewership and ad revenue by 22%). There is no profit yetBut growth in such a competitive and fickle industry is still remarkable.
Even before those numbers were released, Tubi was no longer a timid upstart. The part of the media conglomerate that wasn't sold to Disney, Fox Corporation, which owns the various Fox-branded TV stations, acquired the service in 2020. But its basic approach seems to be much the same: offering viewers a wide range of ad-supported choices (even shows that might have been offered recently or at the same time on other, more premium streaming services) without pumping too much money into flagship originals aimed at subscribers. Tubi's original programming is indeed plentiful, but it also has a retro feel, more in keeping with what you'd expect from cable or direct-to-video exploitation movies of the '90s or early 2000s than, say, HBO. The company has begun experimenting with star-studded, high-profile originals, such as a new series starring TV mainstay Lauren Graham, but they're unlikely to outweigh the appeal of a virtual video store.
In fact, a secret weapon that sometimes goes unmentioned when describing Tubi's rise is the fact that it has a ton of movies older than 30 years ago, which is relatively uncommon for many paid streaming services. At the moment, Netflix has about two dozen movies from before 1990, which is up from the last few months thanks to a recent anniversary effort that promoted movies from 1974 and 1984 together. Max does a little better on average because it owns Turner Classic Movies, but it doesn't have the depth or variety of actual TCM (or a good streaming app that's exclusive to cable TV subscribers). For other services, it's easy to find what's on offer by searching for genres that are less common today, like westerns or musicals. For example, Peacock has one musical from before 1990. Tubi's choices in this department include the original West Side Story, Seven Brides, The Royal Wedding, The Pajama Game, The Jazz Singer, Fiddler on the Roof, Yentl, The Music Man, and High Society. Of course, it won't tell you everything you need to know about the genre, but it's a better start than what more expensive services offer.
That makes Tubi seem like an option for older people who want to complement their MeTV viewing and take a peek into the past. But the company says Tubi has the youngest average age of TV viewers, at 39. The “TV” moniker probably rules out TikTok and YouTube, which are attractive to the youngest media consumers, but Tubi CEO Anjali Sood said: Recent Interviews The company is eyeing a younger audience and sees itself competing with major alternatives to traditional movies and TV, rather than as a future version of cable channels with particularly rich content.
YouTube’s reach (and creators’ endless supply of attractive, algorithmically refined thumbnails) will likely be hard to beat, but for now at least, the two services are impressive contenders. While YouTube lets you rent movies and shows, the platform owes its explosive growth to its original content and creators, who aren’t always immersed in anything more than other YouTube videos and the fickle whims of the algorithms that serve them. This material can combine in many ways: sketch comedy, talk shows, reality TV, visual essays, animated shorts, and more, but much of it has its own parameters and genres, and to outsiders it often seems untethered from history. Tubi, on the other hand, can offer a surprisingly decent crash course in classic movies, if you’re willing to endure a few ad breaks (again, most of us who grew up on cable TV in the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s were). Even in months when a particular “classics” section is on the wane (or when a particular public domain title's transition is less than optimal), there's an eclecticism that stretches beyond the very recent past and can actually satisfy your curiosity on a tight budget. If streaming is rotting our brains and keeping us indoors, maybe streaming can offer at least a little breadth.
Maybe it's a middle-aged fantasy. The culture would return to a richer sense of history that actually makes entertainment from different eras more enjoyable to connect. But now the brand that streaming stands for is hostile to theatrical releases, funding writer-driven projects, and churning out shows that are increasingly removed from the craft of TV production. Netflix has inadvertently created a new, worse kind of monoculture, one where choice is scarce and binge-watching is encouraged, insatiable and unsatisfying. Imagine a future where you lounge on Tubi instead.
TThe film’s premise is a classic of the genre: one day, workers on the oil rig Beira D hit something with their drill, and soon a nameless monster descends on the vessel, killing the crew one by one. At the same time, Glaswegian electrician Cameron “Caz” McCreary is already on the verge of leaving the rig, having been fired from his remote workplace where he took refuge from the police after a huge bar fight. It is in his work boots that we step on as he desperately searches for a way out.
The team behind Still Wakes the Deep is hardly the same as The Chinese Room, the developer behind previous hits Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, both of which share the same trademark high visual fidelity, realistic soundwork, and emotive acting. Still Wakes the Deep is set on perhaps the most realistic oil rig ever seen in media, down to the hundreds of tiny hissing valves and labyrinthine metal staircases that groan dangerously. This wouldn’t be the place for health and safety talk, even without the terror looming from the deep, and the rig is by far the game’s most prominent character.
Still Wakes the Deep is also probably the most Scottish game you’ll ever play, and there’s a surprising amount of it. Each snippet of dialogue is a great example of how natural conversation should be, whether Kaz is talking to his few remaining colleagues or reflecting on the events that led him to Beira D. But at around six hours, the game is short, and there isn’t enough time for character development beyond a perfunctory introduction, which makes it hard to empathize with the characters, and isn’t helped by the clumsy device of having several characters call you in succession only to die over the phone.
The most realistic oil rig ever made in media…and yet it awakens the deep sea. Photo: Incognito mode
This is one of The Chinese Room’s most interactive games, doing more than just walking around and looking at things. But its gameplay design has one big problem: me, the savvy player. All of Still Wakes’ gameplay devices are used in so many games that I couldn’t help but groan the first time I saw yellow paint splattered on a ledge to grab onto. After that, yellow is everywhere: yellow tarps showing you where to climb, yellow edges on targets you can jump through, etc. Beira D goes from an interesting maze to a smooth parkour course.
When enemies appear, Caz can’t fight them; instead, he must sneak through them. Areas are littered with crouching spaces and items you can throw as distractions, and they’re often in rooms that you’ll need to cross multiple times before you can take cover. Ideally, this should be a source of tension, but as with navigation, the game makes it very clear what’s coming (and what’s going: at one point a rig worker literally shouts across a loud, echoing room that a monster is actually leaving), so there’s little you can do as the player other than follow the path.
Still awaken the abyss. Photo: Incognito mode
I was frustrated when I found the light from my headlamp didn’t bother the monsters, making it incredibly easy to sneak around. Or I’d fail a jump for purely camera-related reasons and have to listen to McCreary swear as he falls to his death multiple times, and I felt the tension melt away. The ever-present desire to help the player contrasts with horror games’ need to leave us in the dark sometimes. Every time the illusion crumbled, I left the game to put up with just to see what would happen to a character I wasn’t particularly attached to.
Still Wakes the Deep manages to create an atmospheric portrait of an ordinary person with no special skills simply trying to survive in the harshest environment imaginable, but there aren’t enough real scares or compelling moments to make it memorable beyond that.
AI is a concern for Apple as it consumes a lot of power.
During its global developers conference, Apple unveiled its strategy to integrate AI into daily life, primarily focusing on the latest iPhone users.
Apple’s latest AI models are compatible with the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the only devices featuring the A17 processor. Additionally, Macs up to three years old with M1, 2, or 3 chips, as well as iPad Pros with similar internal hardware, can benefit from the upgrade.
The more affordable iPhone 15 models come with the A16 Bionic chip introduced in 2022 and 6GB of memory, compared to 8GB in the pricier Pro models. This difference is crucial because the M1 chip powering Macs is equivalent to the A14 processor in 2020 iPhones.
Numerous model numbers highlight that advanced AI features won’t function on just any phone, as many require high-performance devices. If Apple aims to deliver AI technology, it must do so through its data centers—an endeavor that poses challenges, as stated by Kari Paul:
At the core of Apple’s AI privacy measures is its new private cloud computing technology, where most of the computing is done in-house for Apple Intelligence features on devices. However, for tasks exceeding device capabilities, processing is outsourced to the cloud while safeguarding user data.
To uphold privacy, Apple only exports necessary data for each request, implements additional security measures at endpoints, avoids indefinite data storage, and offers tools and software related to its private cloud for third-party validation.
When it comes to AI queries, complete privacy—offered by online backup or messaging services—remains challenging due to server requirements for accurate responses. Apple has long stressed its commitment to privacy, setting itself apart from competitors like Facebook and Google with its “what happens on iPhone stays on iPhone” pledge.
Apple CEO Tim Cook attending an event in Cupertino, California in September 2023.
Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Apple’s solution involves running user data-free data centers designed in-house to validate the integrity of the software. Security researchers are provided with tools to verify the software’s authenticity running on Apple’s servers.
Yet, the question remains: Can Apple be trusted? Huawei’s similar efforts failed to prove its independence from the Chinese government. Trust in Apple’s commitment to privacy is growing, but accommodating AI’s rise forces Apple to compromise its foundational principles.
While Apple emphasizes privacy, the implementation of AI features like Apple Intelligence may necessitate data transfer to ensure functionality, blurring the lines of privacy assurances.
Considering a transition from smartphone to a light phone?
The Light Phone III, a device enticing those seeking freedom from distractions.
Photo: LightPhone
Exploring products outside the conventional smartphone market reveals devices like Humane and Rabbit, showcasing the expanding realm of hardware addressing users’ varying needs.
Anti-phones, exemplified by devices like the Light Phone III, cater to individuals desiring a balance between digital detox and modern conveniences, offering customizable tools optimized for an unobtrusive experience.
The Light Phone III provides a range of optional tools tailored for LightOS, including alarms, calculators, calendars, directories, and more, designed for a thoughtful user experience.
The device’s intentional limitations, such as omitting a web browser, restrict access to streaming services and encrypted messaging platforms, aligning with the anti-distraction philosophy.
Navigating the transition to an anti-phone involves weighing the desire for reduced digital demands against the practicalities of work and personal life, posing a contemplative dilemma.
Exploring the broader technological landscape
A captivating portrayal of “AI” by Miles Astley.
Photo: Miles Astley
McDonald’s has terminated its trial of an artificial intelligence chatbot in its drive-thrus, sparking concerns about the fast-food industry’s hasty adoption of this technology.
The largest burger chain in the world is removing its AI-based automated ordering system from over 100 restaurants throughout the US.
This system, capable of responding to customer orders using AI voice, was undergoing testing under a contract between McDonald’s and IBM that began in 2021.
McDonald’s has not specified the reasons for ending the trial. As reported by Restaurant Business, the company informed franchisees that the technology would be discontinued on July 26th.
A McDonald’s spokesperson mentioned to the publication that a decision regarding automated ordering plans would be made by year-end, emphasizing that “voice ordering solutions at the drive-thru are part of our restaurants’ future.”
Fast-food chains have displayed considerable interest in incorporating generative AI into their operations in recent years. Apart from McDonald’s, various companies such as Wendy’s, Hardee’s, Carl’s Jr., and Del Taco have implemented this technology in their drive-thrus. Yum! Brands, the owner of Taco Bell and KFC, also declared its adoption of AI earlier this year. “AI First Mindset” at a fast food restaurant.
The fast-food industry is increasingly receptive to AI as a substitute for human workers, aiding in reducing escalating labor costs. Following California’s enactment of a new minimum wage regulation for fast-food employees, companies are hastening the integration of AI technology to handle tasks like taking customer orders.
While companies promote AI as the future of the fast-food industry, these technologies have been featured in viral videos and covered in the media when orders go awry. McDonald’s drive-thru AI blunder became viral last year after several TikTok videos showcased the system incorrectly adding items, such as butter packs, or doubling the order quantities.
In one video, two women were captured laughing and requesting the system to cease adding items to their order, as it appeared to tally hundreds of dollars’ worth of McNuggets to their bill.
Automated systems have faced criticism for misinterpreting customer orders, as well as for depending on outsourced human labor for their operation. Presto Automation, which supplies AI services to fast-food chains, disclosed in an SEC filing last year that it employs customer-facing staff in countries like the Philippines, who spend around 70% of their time there.
In addition to drive-thru ordering, companies are exploring leveraging generative AI for creating digital chatbots on their apps or utilizing image recognition for estimating wait times.
In December, McDonald’s partnered with Google to develop a chatbot named “Ask Pickles” for guiding employees on tasks like cleaning restaurant equipment. The collaboration also encompasses exploring other potential applications of generative AI. As per Bloomberg’s report.
BYD’s innovative electric cars and advantageous pricing strategy hint at its potential for growth in the European auto market.
The company’s success as a major player in the electric vehicle market is contributing significantly to the global shift away from traditional gasoline and diesel vehicles.
Battery Advantage
BYD’s expertise in battery manufacturing, particularly its use of low-cost lithium iron phosphate chemistry, positions it as a key player in the clean energy vehicle market.
Some analysts argue that BYD’s low-cost electric cars are helping to drive a greener future. Photo: Toya Sarno Jordan/Reuters
By focusing on clean energy technologies, BYD is making significant contributions to the global transition towards sustainable mobility.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) suggests that governments dealing with economic challenges brought about by artificial intelligence (AI) should look into implementing fiscal policies such as taxes on excessive profits or environmental taxes to offset the carbon emissions linked to AI.
The IMF highlights generative AI, which enables computer systems like ChatGPT to create human-like text, voice, and images from basic prompts, as a technology advancing rapidly and spreading at a swift pace compared to past innovations like the steam engine.
To address the impact on jobs due to AI, the IMF proposes policies like a carbon tax considering the environmental effects of operating AI servers. The IMF emphasizes the importance of taxing carbon emissions from AI servers to incorporate environmental costs into the technology’s price.
The IMF report released on Monday highlights the significance of taxing carbon emissions associated with AI servers due to their high energy consumption and the potential to impact data centers’ electricity use. Data centers, servers, and networks currently contribute up to 1.5% of global emissions, according to a recent report.
In addition, the report cautions that introducing AI could reduce wages, widen inequality, and empower tech giants to strengthen their market dominance and financial gains. It recommends higher taxes on capital income, including corporate taxes and personal income on dividends, interest, and capital gains, to address these challenges.
Furthermore, the report stresses the need for governments to prepare for the impact of AI on various job sectors, both white-collar and blue-collar, and suggests measures like extending unemployment insurance, targeted Social Security payments, and tailored education and training to equip workers with necessary skills.
To overhaul the tax system and introduce new taxes reflecting real-time market values, the IMF recommends leveraging AI’s analytical capabilities. While cautioning against universal basic income due to its high cost, the IMF suggests considering it if AI disrupts jobs significantly in the future.
Ella Dabra Norris, deputy director of the IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department and co-author of the report, encourages countries to explore the design and implementation of systems like UBI if AI disruption intensifies.
TTen years ago, Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom Super IntelligenceThe book explores how superintelligent machines might be built and the implications of such technology, one of which is that such machines, if built, would be difficult to control and might even take over the world to achieve their goals (in Bostrom's famous thought experiment, this was to make paperclips).
The book was a huge hit, generated lively debate, but also attracted a fair amount of opposition. Critics complained that it was based on an overly simplistic view of “intelligence,” that it overestimated the likelihood of the imminent emergence of superintelligent machines, and that it offered no credible solutions to the problems it raised. But the book had the great merit of forcing people to think about possibilities that had previously been confined to academia or the fringes of science fiction.
Ten years later, he takes on the same target again. This time, instead of a book, he makes a film titled “Situational Awareness: The Next DecadeThe author is Leopold Aschenbrenner, a young man of German origin who now lives in San Francisco and hangs out with Silicon Valley's intellectual elite. On paper, he sounds like a Sam Bankman Freed-type whiz kid: a math genius who graduated from a prestigious US university as a teenager, spent time at Oxford with his colleagues at the Future of Humanity Institute, and worked on the OpenAI “superalignment” team.Currently disbandedAfter working at Yahoo! Auctions for $1.2 billion in 2017, he founded an investment firm focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI) with funding from Stripe founders Patrick and John Collison. These are two smart guys who don't play for losers.
So this Aschenbrenner is clever, but at the same time, he's playing the game.The second point may be relevant, since the gist of his lengthy essay is essentially that superintelligence is coming (with AGI as a stepping stone), but the world isn't yet ready to accept it.
The essay is divided into five sections. The first section lays out the path from GPT-4 (its current state) to AGI (which the author believes could arrive as soon as 2027). The second follows a hypothetical path from AGI to true superintelligence. The third describes four “challenges” that superintelligent machines would pose to the world. The fourth section outlines what the author calls the “projects” necessary to manage a world with (or dominated by) superintelligent machines. The fifth section is Aschenbrenner's message to humanity in the form of three “tenets” of “AGI realism.”
In his view of how AI will progress in the near future, Aschenbrenner is fundamentally an optimistic determinist, i.e., he extrapolates the recent past under the assumption that trends will continue. To see an upward curve, he has to extend it. He grades LLMs (large-scale language models) by their capabilities. Thus, GPT-2 is at the “preschooler” level, GPT-3 at the “elementary school student” level, and GPT-4 at the “smart high school student” level, and it seems that with the massive increase in computing power, by 2028 “models as smart as PhDs and experts will be able to work next to us as colleagues.” By the way, why do AI advocates always consider PhDs to be the epitome of human perfection?
After 2028 comes the big leap from AGI to superintelligence. In Aschenbrenner's world, AI won't stop at human-level capabilities. “Hundreds of millions of AGIs will automate AI research, compressing a decade's worth of algorithmic progress into a year. We will rapidly evolve from human-level to superhuman AI systems. The powers and dangers of superintelligence will be dramatic.”
The third section of the essay explores what such a world might be like, focusing on four aspects of it: the unimaginable (and environmentally catastrophic) computational requirements needed to run it, the difficulty of maintaining the security of an AI lab in such a world, the problem of aligning machines with human purposes (which Aschenbrenner believes is difficult but not impossible), and the military implications of a world of superintelligent machines.
It is not until the fourth topic that Aschenbrenner's analysis really begins to disintegrate thematically. Like the message in the Blackpool stone pole, the nuclear weapons analogy runs through his thinking. He sees the US as being at a stage in AI after J. Robert Oppenheimer's original Trinity experiment in New Mexico, ahead of the USSR, but not for long. And of course, China fills the role of the Soviet empire in this analogy.
Suddenly, superintelligence has gone from being a human problem to being a US national security imperative. “The US has a lead,” he writes. “We must maintain that lead. And now we're screwing it. Above all, we must lock down AI labs quickly and thoroughly before major AGI breakthroughs leak out in the next 12 to 24 months. … Computer clusters must be built in the US, not in the dictatorships that fund them. And US AI labs have an obligation to cooperate with intelligence agencies and the military. A US lead in AGI cannot ensure peace and freedom by simply building the best AI girlfriend app. It's ugly, but we must build AI for US defense.”
All we need is a new Manhattan Project and the AGI Industrial Complex.
What I'm Reading
The dictator is shot Former Eastern Bloc countries fear Trump It's an interesting piece. New Republic About people who know something about life under oppression.
Lawful interference Monopoly Recap: The Harvey Weinstein of Antitrust This is a blog post by Matt Stoller about Joshua Wright, the lawyer who has had a devastating impact on U.S. antitrust enforcement for many years.
G7 leaders have raised concerns about China’s support for Russia in the Ukraine war and the production of cheap goods causing “harmful overcapacity,” despite German apprehensions.
During the annual summit held in Puglia under the Italian presidency, a 36-page report by the U.S. condemned Chinese subsidies on products like solar panels and electric vehicles, attributing them to global distortions, market disruptions, and overcapacity that threaten worker resilience, industry security, and economic stability.
Specifically, U.S. officials pointed out China as a major supplier of materials used by Russia against Ukraine, expressing concern over the long-term security implications. Despite Ukrainian President Zelensky’s assurance that Chinese leaders vowed not to provide weapons to Moscow, U.S. President Joe Biden highlighted China’s arms supply to Russia.
The U.S., Japan, and the EU, along with an informal eighth partner at the G7 summit, have expressed worries over Beijing’s heavy subsidies in green energy and technology sectors flooding global markets with unfairly priced products, creating stiff competition for Western companies, especially in the green technology space.
The National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, mentioned plans to address China’s non-market policies having detrimental global effects. China’s top official, First Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, is set to visit Brussels to discuss EU plans for increased tariffs on Chinese-made electric cars.
In a bid for diversity at the summit, global leaders from countries like India, Turkey, UAE, Brazil, and Mauritania were invited to participate. The G7 emphasized the importance of cooperation to address collective challenges, as expressed by Italian Prime Minister and G7 President Giorgia Meloni.
Russia faced stiff consequences at the summit, including wider sanctions, loss of control over state assets, and a new 10-year US-Ukraine security pact. A proposed $50 billion loan to Ukraine funded by interest profits from Russian state assets marked the beginning of economic pressure on Russia.
The final statement from the summit demanded Russia to cease its illegal aggression in Ukraine, pay reparations for inflicted damage, and explore legal options to enforce compliance. Russia dismissed the security pact as a nominal agreement and criticized the appropriation of frozen asset proceeds.
While Zelensky addressed Indian Prime Minister Modi on revising India’s reliance on Russian oil, discussions focused on the rising oil prices set by Russia and India’s growing purchases of Russian offshore crude.
The U.S. and EU impose price restrictions on Russian crude sales to prevent Western involvement unless sold below a certain cap. India, currently the largest buyer of Russian offshore crude, has not joined this ban, prompting calls for stricter price caps and actions against transportation exceeding the imposed price limit.
Ren Shelburne was tired of listening to episodes of popular podcasts that friends had recommended to her. The photographer, who has partial hearing loss and an auditory processing disorder, remembers struggling to get through one particular episode. It was a unique type of show: too many speakers, complex overlapping conversations, and, until recently, no transcripts. “There's so much going on at once, it's impossible to understand,” Shelburne says. She couldn’t keep up with the shows or discuss them with friends. “Podcasts are now a big part of pop culture and media, and I want to be able to be a part of that conversation.”
Weekly podcast listenership in the U.S. has more than quadrupled in the past decade. Pew Research But for some, the medium still feels inaccessible.
“Because of my hearing loss, sometimes I miss things,” says Alexandra Wong, a Rhodes Scholar studying digital accessibility, “and then I have to rewind five or six times to understand what’s going on.”
Shelburne and Wong are among about 15% of U.S. adults, or about 37.5 million people, who are ill. Difficulties in reporting Many people who are deaf or hard of hearing rely on subtitles or transcriptions to follow music, movies, and podcasts without assistive devices. Video streaming companies like Netflix, Peacock, and Hulu offer subtitles for nearly all of their programming, and time-synchronized lyric subtitles are increasingly standard for music streaming. The popularity of video subtitles has also been embraced by audiences outside the disability community, with 80% of Netflix viewers turning on subtitles at least once a month.
(Remaining content is not displayed for brevity, but all HTML tags are maintained)
Tesla shareholders have given their approval to a contentious referendum regarding CEO Elon Musk’s leadership, resulting in an agreement to pay him $45bn (£35.3bn).
The results, which were released on Thursday, reflect a struggle for the billionaire tycoon to retain the largest compensation package ever awarded to an executive at a publicly traded U.S. company.
“First of all, I want to say I love you guys so much!” said Musk, expressing his elation as he took the stage after the vote.
The vote followed a ruling by a Delaware judge in January that invalidated a previous payment to Musk, which was then valued at about $56bn (£439m), citing lack of board independence from Musk’s influence and an unlawful process in reaching the amount.
The outcome is seen as a win for Musk and the Tesla board, who actively lobbied shareholders to support the deal. It could potentially challenge the judge’s decision to nullify the payment and aid in demonstrating that shareholders were adequately informed about the payment and directors’ relationships with Musk prior to voting.
Tesla’s board cautioned that Musk may sever ties with the company if the package was not approved, but Musk asserted he had substantial backing from investors.
Despite opposition from major shareholders like Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and the California State Teachers Retirement System, as well as proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, the vote does not automatically guarantee the release of the funds, and further legal debates are expected.
The vote may trigger additional litigation that could prolong legal proceedings, and the approval of relocating Tesla’s legal headquarters from Delaware to Texas could complicate the matter further.
Tesla initially introduced Musk’s compensation package in 2017, which included stock options based on meeting specific company goals. The package was approved by shareholders in 2018 but faced legal challenges alleging board deception and unfairness.
Judge Katherine McCormick of the Delaware Chancery Court criticized Tesla’s board process for determining Musk’s compensation, highlighting conflicts of interest and close relationships with Musk’s associates. Despite this, the board aims to challenge Judge McCormick’s ruling.
My daughter is one of the kids the U.S. Surgeon General has warned about. Our nation’s children have become “unwitting participants” in a “decades-long experiment.” Social media use poses mental health risks to young people. Young people’s “near-constant” use of social media leads to poor sleep, depression, and anxiety.
Before sixth grade, my daughter saved up her dog-walking money to buy a phone. She found a used iPhone 13 Mini on Craigslist. I set high expectations for her to get good grades, keep her room clean, take out the trash, etc. Little did I know then that the iPhone would systematically undermine her ability to accomplish these tasks and so much more.
When my daughter walked under an inflatable arch into her classroom on her first day of middle school, I took comfort in the fact that I could reach her. Like most parents, I associated my cell phone with safety, not danger. I didn’t know that social media developers were controlling her next swipe, or that her “human future” was being sold to the highest bidder, enriching the richest corporation in the history of mankind.
I learned the hard way through my daughter’s lies, manipulation, failing grades, through the “zebra stripes” scars painted on her arms.
Her school photo from sixth grade captures my daughter in her “emo” phase: feather earrings, Pink Floyd T-shirt, crooked smile. The innocence of the photo was quickly replaced by selfies: selfies with pursed lips making a peace sign; selfies with her head tilted to one side, half-face, full-body; selfies in bed. Her camera roll records her degradation: selfies of her crying, selfies with swollen eyes, selfies of her unable to leave her bedroom.
By spring semester, my daughter’s grades were slipping. I assumed she had ADHD, so I took her to a psychiatrist for a psychiatric evaluation. The afternoon sun filtered through the faux-wood blinds, casting strips of light on the black hoodie she always wore. The doctor’s questions started out predictably: Can’t concentrate in class? Can’t finish your homework? Can’t sleep? Then the interview took a scary turn. Do you feel like your life isn’t worth living? Have you ever hurt yourself? Have you ever wanted to die?
I widened my eyes at the child’s profile and answered, “Yes.”Tearing out my guts.
Doctors diagnosed her with depression and anxiety. Further testing revealed that she spent 80% of her attention on gaining the approval of her peers. No wonder she was failing math. It was a miracle she was passing her classes when only 20% of her brain was dedicated to school.
The doctor prescribed therapy and Lexapro. These helped, but he didn’t inform me of the epidemic of cell phones among middle schoolers. I later learned that my daughter is the first generation of 10-14-year-olds to actively use social media. These girls have a 151% increase in suicide rates and a 182% increase in self-harm. Her treatment assumed that her suffering was personal, not structural. In our country, we prescribe drugs to solve this societal crisis.
At the time, I was unaware of this and allowed my daughter to continue using social media. One day, I got a text message from another mother. I stared at the screen, wondering why this mother was sending me such a revealing selfie. Then I noticed a mole on the woman’s chest. It was my daughter’s.
When I showed the photo to my daughter, she gasped. She handed over her phone. I discovered she had circumvented screen limits and been on social media until the early hours of the morning. She had sent the image on Snapchat to someone named PJ. He claimed to be a 16-year-old boy, but his responses were so graphic I suspected he was older. I was horrified to learn that a cell phone is a two-way street and a platform that adults can use to abduct and traffic children.
I had a family meeting with my daughter, her father, and my mother-in-law. We agreed that my daughter would delete her social media accounts and get rid of her phone until the new school year started. After a summer of traveling, relaxing in person, and spending time with family, my daughter’s energy returned. The bags under her eyes faded, and she stopped sighing, shrugging, and rolling her eyes. She woke up and laughed. Sometimes she even wanted me to hug her.
It was hard to give my daughter’s phone back before seventh grade, but we had made a commitment. I wanted to reinforce her good behavior. I created new rules: no social media, no devices in the bedroom, turn off the phone at 8 p.m. Charge the phone on the kitchen counter. I bought an alarm clock and a sound machine. We endured a digital detox. My daughter started playing soccer. My insomnia was cured. We joined a gym and worked out together.
But within a few months, my daughter had relapsed again. Little lies, big lies. A friend’s mother sent me an email with selfies of her daughters vaping and hanging out at the mall with boys they’d never met. We had another family meeting.
“This might seem weird, but maybe my daughter doesn’t need a cell phone,” her mother-in-law said.
The words rippled through my mind. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Cell phones were destroying my daughter, but I couldn’t imagine life without them. I stayed true to the idea of the cell phone, its ideals. I had a cell phone again.
When I told her my daughter had lost her cell phone until she was in high school, she threw a tantrum. that She was the only child in her class without a cell phone, but once the tantrum subsided, she began to regain her composure. Then, within a few weeks, signs of her addictive behavior began to reappear.
I found an iPhone charger in the outlet next to her bed. She said it was to charge her AirPods. She threw herself on the ground to stop me from searching under the bed. One night, I was lying in bed thinking and it occurred to me. My daughter two Phone. I accidentally broke my Mini on a weight training machine while working out, so I bought her a new iPhone 13. I confiscated the 13, but I was able to give the Mini to her.
When I asked her the next morning, she said, “I sold it to a friend at school.” She couldn’t tell me who she sold it to or how much she paid for it.
“I’ll find it,” I said. I see you Gestures. I was distraught, but with calm confidence and a little humor, I went through backpacks and drawers, rifled through pockets, entered rooms unannounced, and tried to catch her in the act. My daughter remained calm the whole time I searched. I began to wonder if I had gone completely crazy. I bought a metal detector.
Then one night, I walked into my daughter’s room. She jumped up and pulled back the comforter. I ran to the bed and reached under the covers. The charging cord! My fingers traced its length to the plugged-in phone.
We stared at the Mini in my hands, the Snapchat app glowing beneath the cracked screen, and she looked at me, her eyes wide and filling with tears.
That night, my heart pounded against the pillow as I scrolled through her social media. Her communications were urgent and earnest. She begged one boy in particular, Damien, to get back to her. When he didn’t respond, she said she was depressed and began sexting him and sending him pictures of her breasts.
Through my sister, I found the answer in Johan Hari’s Stolen Focus. The book explores why and how our attention span is declining: “The phones we own and the programs that run on them have been purposefully designed by the smartest people in the world to capture and hold the most of our attention.” Of course. My daughter was young and vulnerable to this manipulation. She measured her self-worth within a system that was both attention-addicted and attention-starved at the same time. She had internalized an algorithm where provocative content wins. “The more outrageous something is, the more attractive it is,” Hari writes.
Our social experiment is being replicated in homes across the country. As parents, we want our kids to be safe. We want them to contact us if a shooter comes to school. But the biggest danger is At the inner Make phone calls on your cell phone, not outside.
One of the reasons our kids are addicted to their phones is because we are. My friends complain of insomnia, but they can’t imagine leaving their phones outside of their bedrooms. Addressing my kids’ phone use means addressing my own. I have to restrain myself from texting while driving. I’ve also stopped rushing to the charging station each morning to check if I’ve missed any messages.
After the seventh grade, my daughter that A child. Without a phone, she’s the kid who dribbles a soccer ball in her living room, races down the street on her skateboard, becomes an honor student and joins the track team. The kid who wags her hands while chatting with friends, braids her hair, falls asleep reading a book.
These days, we use my phone to plan outings together, listen to audiobooks, and sing along to her songs and mine (Shakira, Sade, Ice Cube, Fugees). Last weekend, we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to visit family. As the June gloom settled over the shoreline, my daughter and I bodysurfed into the crashing waves. “Again!” she said, jumping up, enthralled by the feeling of the waves rolling under her belly.
My daughter is not the only child like this. A woman I met recently confiscated her 11-year-old son’s phone after she discovered him sexting. Since schools were required to wrap their phones in rubber bands, the sick middle-schooler has built community and focused in class. The trend is spreading fast. UK children have been learning mostly in “no-phone environments” since the Department for Education ordered it.
Individuals and and Changes to the system to check cell phone usage. I’m interested to see what happens with this change when my daughter reaches high school.
IThere's been a lot of speculation regarding the outlook for the games industry in 2024. Following a surge of investment during the pandemic, the industry experienced a temporary boost in growth as people sought entertainment and social interaction while adhering to safety measures at home. However, this year has seen a correction, with studios and companies that expanded too rapidly now scaling back, leading to layoffs and studio closures. Job opportunities for developers have decreased, and games that faced delays due to the pandemic are taking longer to release, resulting in fewer titles compared to the previous year.
The Summer Game Fest, which has taken the place of E3 in Los Angeles, reflects this industry slowdown. What was once a grand trade show is now a more modest event held in smaller venues away from the main convention center. The shift from elaborate press conferences to online livestreams signifies a change in the industry landscape. However, amidst this decline, there is a bright spot in the success of indie games.
Indie games like Palworld, Helldivers 2, and Hades II have emerged as top sellers on platforms like Steam, showcasing the creativity and innovation present in the indie gaming scene. In contrast, big-budget blockbusters from major publishers are facing challenges, with titles like Redfall and Suicide Squad receiving mixed reactions. The industry’s focus on franchised games and live service models is leading to a lack of fresh ideas and risks being taken.
UFO 50, a collection of 50 games. Photo: Mossmouth
However, the indie gaming scene is thriving, with a multitude of creative and unique games being showcased at events like the Summer Game Fest. Titles like UFO 50, Tales of the Shire, and Fear the Spotlight offer players fresh experiences and showcase the diversity of the indie game market. As the industry shifts towards more indie success stories, there is hope for a resurgence of innovative and original content.
While the gaming industry’s major players continue to rely on established franchises and blockbuster titles, it is the indie developers who are driving forward with new ideas and creative approaches. With initiatives like Outersloth supporting indie developers and new entrants like Blumhouse entering the gaming space, there is a sense of revitalization and excitement surrounding indie games.
As the industry evolves, it is clear that the future of gaming lies beyond the traditional giants. With a global community of players and creators, the possibilities for innovation and growth are endless. While the big names may dominate headlines, it is the indie scene that is truly pushing boundaries and shaping the future of gaming.
What to Play
Star Wars: Hunters. Photo: LucasFilm Games/Zynga
For a fresh gaming experience, try out Star Wars: Hunters on platforms like the Nintendo Switch and smartphones. This team-based arena shooter offers diverse characters from the Star Wars universe and engaging gameplay mechanics. With a focus on intuitive controls and immersive visuals, this game is a must-try for Star Wars fans and gamers alike.
Available on: Nintendo Switch, iPhone, Android Estimated play time: 20+ hours
What to Read
No guns in sight… Catto's Post Office is one of the cosy titles featured on Wholesome Direct. Photo: Inn Shambles Studios
What to click on
Question Block
Elden Ring…can't swim. Photo: Bandai Namco
This week's Question Block explores the dilemma of how video games handle water-related challenges and the consequences of immersion versus gameplay mechanics. The debate over drowning animations and failure states in games highlights the complexities of creating authentic yet engaging gaming experiences.
Whether a game opts for realism or streamlined gameplay, the approach to water mechanics can shape the player’s experience and immersion in the virtual world. As the industry evolves, designers face the challenge of balancing authenticity with player engagement to deliver memorable and enjoyable gaming experiences.
For more insights into game design and industry trends, stay tuned to Question Block and other engaging content related to the evolving world of video games.
Helldivers 2, reminiscent of the sci-fi military satire and hyper-grotesque brutality of Starship Troopers, took the gaming world by storm upon its release in February. This cooperative action game offers immersive and hilarious gameplay, pitting players against terrifying insects and crazed robots in various desolate landscapes. Each battle feels like a part of a grander narrative, amplified by Arrowhead Game Studios’ adept use of social media channels.
Our Review: “Everything about this game is incredible, including the incredible things it sets out to do.” Read the full review
Animal Well
An ethereal joy…Animal Well. Photos: Shared Memories
Animal Well may seem like a niche game where players control a blob trapped in a well, but it surprises with its twisty puzzle-platform mechanics. This atmospheric and dreamy adventure features visuals reminiscent of a lost 1980s arcade game peeked through a window. Navigate the well, acquire new skills, and encounter charming creatures in this unique experience.
Our Review: “In an age where major video game companies are focusing on developing video games that are designed to function like sports, what a treat to see a game this complex and restrained on offer.” Read the full review
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown
A skilled warrior…Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Photo: Ubisoft
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown marks the return to the roots of Ubisoft’s iconic adventure series. Straying away from modern 3D exploration, this game offers precise 2D platforming as players embody the skilled warrior Sargon on a mission to rescue Prince Ghassan. Traverse labyrinthine fortresses, master jumps and dodges, and engage in intense boss battles in this new classic of the “Metroidvania” genre.
Our Review: “It’s been 13 years since the last all-new Prince of Persia game, so if this is a new direction, I’m excited to see what the results are.” Read the full review
Dragon’s Dogma 2
Capcom’s epic role-playing adventure, Dragon’s Dogma 2, may seem like a standard genre offering at first glance. However, this quirky and sometimes awkward game is filled with unique lore and quirky characters, offering a fun and hilarious experience reminiscent of a 1980s fantasy film.
Our Review: “To sum up this game in one sentence, it prioritizes fun over functionality. What you need to understand is that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a very silly game.” Read the full review
Crow Country
Horror ride…Crow Country. Photo: SFB Games
Embark on a creepy survival horror adventure in Crow Country, where something sinister lurks in an abandoned theme park near Atlanta. This game takes inspiration from classic horror titles of the mid-90s, offering a spine-chilling experience reminiscent of games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.
Our Review: “Crow Country is more than a collection of PS1-era classics; it’s a true triumph in itself.” Read the full review
Lorelei and the Laser Eye
Immerse yourself in a mysterious and bizarre adventure with Lorelei and the Laser Eye. Navigate through an abandoned hotel, unraveling a twisted mystery that intertwines art, film, and perhaps even murder. Each room presents a new puzzle to solve, offering hours of cerebral and stylish gameplay.
Our Review: “An engaging puzzle game that uses creepy visuals and a puzzling storyline as an essential part of the experience, not just a design gimmick.” Read the full review
Cinematic…Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. Photo: Xbox Game Studios
Embark on a dark and chilling journey with Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, as troubled warrior Senua navigates through the frozen and terrifying landscapes of ancient Iceland. Dive into Viking legend and explore themes of pain and determination in this extraordinary cinematic experience.
Our Review: “Hellblade II is a work to be cherished. Who knows how many more intelligent masterpieces this risk-averse industry will produce in the future?” Read the full review
Baratoro
A fascinating card game…Balatro. Photo: LocalThunk/Playstack
Balatro is an indie gem that combines poker, solitaire, and deck-building gameplay into an addictively fun experience. This roguelike card game features special abilities and a challenging gameplay loop that keeps players coming back for more.
Our Review: “A trippy take on poker that seamlessly blends different game elements. Read the full review
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Enter the world of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the middle installment in Square Enix’s revered Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy. Join eco-hero Cloud on a quest to defeat his nemesis Sephiroth after recovering from a climactic battle with the malevolent Shinra Corporation. Immerse yourself in detailed storytelling, strategic combat, and a captivating RPG experience.
Our Review: “Longtime fans will devour every morsel of sweet fan service here and savor every moment spent with this much-loved cast.” Read the full review
Tekken 8
The technique that shakes the monitor…Tekken 8. Photo: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Tekken 8 emerges as the preeminent fighting game among a resurgence of iconic titles like Street Fighter 6 and Mortal Kombat 1. With a diverse roster, powerful moves, and innovative fighting mechanics, Tekken 8 captures the essence of classic PlayStation 1 fighting games, delivering an exhilarating combat experience.
Our Review: “Familiar yet innovative, quirky yet intuitive, Tekken 8 provides a satisfying gameplay experience with its dynamic fighting system.” Read the full review
Honorable Mention
Hauntii, Sea of Thieves (PS5 version), Botany Manor, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, and Supermarket Times.
TerraForm Labs has agreed to a $4.47 billion civil settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. They were found liable by a jury for misleading cryptocurrency investors who suffered losses of an estimated $40 billion when their TerraUSD and Luna tokens crashed in 2022, causing a widespread downturn in the cryptocurrency industry.
A final sentence against Terraform and its founder Do Kwon was filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday. The sentence is still pending approval from U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who presided over the trial that concluded on April 5.
TerraForm’s judgment includes $4.05 billion in disgorgement and interest, as well as a civil penalty of $420 million. Due to TerraForm’s bankruptcy filing in January, it is unlikely that most of this amount will be paid and will be treated as an unsecured claim in the ongoing Chapter 11 liquidation process.
The total judgment amounts to $4.55 billion, which includes an $80 million civil penalty against Kwon. Kwon is also required to agree to a ban from cryptocurrency transactions and transfer $204.3 million to TerraForm’s bankruptcy estate.
The SEC stated in a court filing that, “If entered, this judgment would ensure maximum recovery for harmed investors and permanently shut down TerraForm. Accordingly, the proposed judgment is fair, reasonable, and in the public interest.”
Both Terraform and Kwon have agreed to the sentence. No immediate comments were provided by the men’s lawyers. Kwon was previously found guilty of fraud in an early April civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan.
The SEC alleged that TerraForm and Kwon misled investors regarding the stability of TerraUSD, which was meant to maintain a constant value of $1. They were also accused of falsely claiming that TerraForm’s blockchain was utilized in a popular mobile payment application in South Korea.
Luna, a more traditional token created by Kwon and closely linked to TerraUSD, plummeted in May 2022 when TerraUSD failed to uphold its peg to the dollar.
Kwon has been detained in Montenegro since March 2023, with the United States and South Korea seeking his extradition for criminal prosecution, although he has not yet appeared in court. Kwon maintains his innocence.
Where everyone knows your name Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson ( sometimes) Widely available, with weekly episodes
The two Cheers stars reunite and rekindle their friendship while chatting with their interviewees, and as you’d expect, there’s plenty of laughs. Starting with Will Arnett, the host is questioned about his comedic prowess just as much as his guests, including a great anecdote about Harrelson and Arnett playfully upsetting Bono at a celebrity dinner party. Alexi Duggins
Steve Fishman was an intern at a local Connecticut newspaper in the ’70s when he was hitchhiking with a man named Robert Carr III. While writing his story, he discovered that the man was the murderer of three people. Fishman uses confession tapes and interviews with detectives to recount what happened. Holly Richardson
New podcast “Animal” features stories of hamsters, puffins and more. Photo: Irina Vasilevskaya/Getty Images
animal Widely available, all episodes available now
A warm and personal look at the beauty of the animal kingdom, the show is full of magic, from helping a baby puffin escape a cliff and back into the sea to the charming tale of a dog rescuing a lost hamster. Come see the adorable animals and hear their amazing stories. advertisement
Sam Smith’s new podcast is named after their childhood bedroom, the haven they retreated to after so many hard days. Now they’re sharing those feelings with celebrity guests. The first guest is Elliot Page, who gives a moving talk about coming out, the joy (and anger) of being trans, and not feeling shame. Hannah Verdier
American satirist Jon Stewart is releasing a news-heavy podcast to coincide with the turmoil of the US election. The first episode is about corruption, which naturally brings up Donald Trump, and Stewart hosts thoughtful monologues with knowledgeable guests about the dysfunction of democracy, economic reform and challenging conventional wisdom. HV
There is a podcast
Coco Khan and Nish Kumar, hosts of the pod “Save the UK”. Photo: Lucy North/PA
this week, Hannah Verdier 5 best podcasts election From open-minded analysis of the US elections unfolding on both sides of the Atlantic to Nish Kumar and Koko Khan asking the all-important questions in the UK
Election dysfunction Just in time for an election-packed year, Beth Rigby guides Conservative MP Ruth Davidson and Labour’s Jess Phillips (with special guests on the campaign trail). With their feet firmly in the thick of British politics, the trio can offer real insight into the US and UK election campaigns. With an informed, gossipy approach, they share perks like theories on why Rishi Sunak chose the 4th of July, how leaders are preparing for TV debates, and a chat with Angela Rayner.
Run Up On all things related to the US election, host Astead W. Herndon takes a measured approach and covers a wide range of opinions in this New York Times show. Some of the opinions may surprise you. Is Donald Trump “over-prosecuted”? Yes, that’s the accusation that Conway made when Herndon asked Kellyanne Conway and Serinda Lake what women voters really want. What do the youngest voters think of the oldest president? Can celebrities help swing the election? And what’s next? If you want to catch up on all the dramatic developments in the election campaign in a 30-minute episode, this podcast is for you.
Oh God, what’s next? Every Tuesday and Friday, the political podcast modestly promises to “make the unbearable bearable with the highest quality guests, analysis and bad jokes” (“Gloomy people on the dance floor,” “What’s the story? Conservatives in mourning,” and “Things are only getting wetter, anyone?). There will also be bonus episodes in which the team will respond quickly to the latest election campaign gaffes and surprises, starting with Rishi Sunak’s pesky national service scheme for lazy young people. Additional panel shows are scheduled during election week, ensuring lively debate.
Pods will save the UK Crooked Media’s Save America features four former Barack Obama aides offering insider insight, while Nish Kumar and Koko Khan (above) provide laughs in the UK version. If you’re into the left, the hosts are relentless, with Khan especially delivering some scathing criticism in his heavyweight interviews. Important questions are asked, like “Would you kiss a Conservative?” With the countdown to the election on, a thoughtful episode addresses the human side of policy, asking what trans and non-binary people need now.
Politics Weekly UK Could Sunak lose his seat in the election? That’s just one of the questions posed by John Harris on The Guardian’s politics podcast as the election looms. Harris cleverly describes the election as “the political equivalent of a 12-hour wait at the emergency room” and asks why Sunak’s campaign is so chaotic and bleak. The conversation is candid and features quality guests from across the political spectrum, so the show doesn’t have to rely on comedy to make the election fun. Guests include reporters in the middle of the election, such as The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar and The Spectator’s Katie Bowles. The Guardian also has short election episodes every weekday on its Today in Focus feed.
Please try…
New series from former Invisibilia presenter Yowei Show ProxyIt’s about honest, human conversations with strangers.
Comedian Chloe Petts delves into the big history of small rooms in a Radio 4 series. Toilet Humor.
Tesla shareholders are set to approve Elon Musk’s $56 billion remuneration package by a significant margin before the company’s important annual general meeting later today. The compensation package, the largest ever granted to a CEO of a U.S. company, will be subject to an investor vote after being previously rejected by a U.S. court this year. Shareholders will also vote on Musk’s proposal to relocate Tesla’s legal base to Texas.
Several investors, including Norway’s sovereign wealth fund and the California State Teachers Retirement System, have indicated their intent to oppose the compensation package. Proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services have also advised shareholders to reject the pay.
On the eve of the meeting, Musk suggested on X (formerly Twitter) that investors overwhelmingly supported both the compensation package and the Texas relocation: “Both Tesla shareholder resolutions have now passed by large margins! Thank you for your support!!”
The results will be disclosed at Tesla’s headquarters in Texas at 4:30pm ET (9:30pm UK time).
Even if the remuneration package is approved, Musk may encounter further obstacles, including potential litigation. Legal experts doubt that the Delaware court that rejected the initial package would accept a new, nonbinding vote to reinstate it.
Originally approved by Tesla’s board in 2018, the compensation has faced legal challenges from shareholders. Judge Kathleen McCormick of Delaware raised concerns about the size and necessity of the package in her January ruling.
In her ruling, McCormick questioned the necessity of the compensation plan, stating, “Perhaps swayed by the ‘all-positive’ rhetoric or enthralled by Musk’s superstardom, the board never asked the $55.8 billion question: Was this plan truly necessary for Tesla to retain Musk and achieve its goals?”
During its annual developers conference on Monday, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, an eagerly anticipated artificial intelligence system designed to personalize user experiences, automate tasks, and, as CEO Tim Cook assured, set “a new standard of privacy in AI.”
Although Apple emphasizes that its AI prioritizes security, its collaboration with OpenAI has faced criticism. The service, launched in November 2022, has raised privacy concerns by collecting user data for model training without explicit consent. Users will have the option to opt out of this data collection starting in April 2023.
Apple has assured that its collaboration with ChatGPT will be limited to specific tasks with explicit user consent, but security experts remain vigilant about how these concerns will be addressed.
Late to the game in generative AI, Apple has trailed behind competitors like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, whose AI ventures have boosted their stock prices. Apple has refrained from integrating generative AI into its main consumer products.
Apple aims to apply AI technology responsibly, building Apple Intelligence products over several years using proprietary technology to minimize user data leakage from the Apple ecosystem.
AI, which requires vast data to train language models, poses a challenge to Apple’s focus on privacy. Critics like Elon Musk argue that it’s impossible to balance AI integration and user privacy. However, some experts disagree.
“By pursuing privacy-focused strategies, Apple is leading the way for businesses to reconcile data privacy with innovation,” said Gar Ringel, CEO of a data privacy software company.
Many recent AI releases have been criticized for being dysfunctional or risky, reflecting Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” culture. Apple seems to be taking a more cautious approach.
According to Steinhauer, “Historically, platforms release products first and address issues later. Apple is proactively tackling common concerns. This illustrates the difference between designing security measures upfront versus addressing them reactively, which is always less effective.”
Central to Apple’s AI privacy measures is its new private cloud computing technology. Apple intends to conduct most computing internally for Apple Intelligence features on devices. For tasks requiring more processing power, the company will outsource to the cloud while safeguarding user data.
To achieve this, Apple will only share the data necessary for each request, implement additional security measures at endpoints, and avoid long-term data storage. Apple will also open tools and software related to its private cloud for third-party verification.
Private cloud computing represents a significant advancement in AI privacy and security, according to Krishna Visnubotra, VP of product strategy at Zimperium. The independent audit component is particularly noteworthy.
Elon Musk has submitted a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against ChatGPT developer OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman, claiming that the startup has deviated from its original goal of developing artificial intelligence for the betterment of humanity.
Musk filed the lawsuit against Altman in February, and the legal process has been progressing slowly in a California court. Up until Tuesday, Musk had not shown any intention of dropping the case. Just a month ago, his legal team filed an objection, leading to the presiding judge stepping down.
Musk’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit did not provide any rationale. A San Francisco Superior Court judge was set to consider arguments from Altman and OpenAI on Wednesday to have the lawsuit thrown out.
The dismissal brought an abrupt end to the legal dispute between two influential figures in the tech realm. Musk and Altman co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but Musk resigned from the board three years later following disagreements over the company’s governance and direction. Their relationship has become increasingly strained as Altman’s prominence has grown in recent years.
Musk’s lawsuit centered on his assertion that Altman and OpenAI breached the company’s “foundation agreement” by collaborating with Microsoft, transforming OpenAI into a predominantly profit-driven entity, and withholding its technology from the public.
OpenAI and Altman contested the existence of such an agreement, citing messages that appeared to show Musk supporting the shift towards a for-profit model. They vehemently denied any wrongdoing and published a blog post in March suggesting Musk’s motivations were rooted in jealousy, expressing regret that a respected figure had taken this course of action.
Musk’s lawsuit raised eyebrows among legal experts, who pointed out that certain claims, such as OpenAI achieving artificial intelligence equivalent to human intelligence, lacked credibility.
ohThe rational view on the Elon Musk compensation issue is that Tesla shareholders should stick to their guns and re-approve his astronomical $56 billion compensation, sending a message to the interventionist Delaware judge who struck down the 2018 plan that they are more than capable of making their own decisions.
Broadly speaking, that’s the stance taken by Baillie Gifford, an early and large investor in electric-car companies. “When we agreed the compensation package with Tesla in 2018, we were doing it because we had set ambitious targets that, if met, would deliver huge returns for shareholders,” says Tom Slater, manager of FTSE 100 Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust. He told the Financial Times “Since we agreed to this, we believe we should pay it,” he said last month. Certainly, this statement has the virtue of consistency: we know what we voted for, and a deal is a deal.
Similarly, no one is likely to complain that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund will vote in opposition on Thursday, just as it did in 2018. The fund opposed the plan then, and sees no reason to change its view just because Tesla’s shares have since soared, triggering a record payout to Musk before a Delaware court stepped in.
So the reapproval vote would produce a similar result to the original 73% majority. The shareholder register has changed over the years, but not by much. If anything, retail investors, who make up almost 40% of the stock, seem to have become even more enamoured with Musk lately. And if the majority is indeed secured, that would be the end of the matter and we wouldn’t have to go to court again.
But before this furor fades from the headlines, there’s the small matter of what Delaware Judge Katherine McCormick actually said. Her 200-page ruling January. Read in its entirety, the impression one gets is that Tesla’s 2018 board is a collection of casualties too subservient to its boss to even implement a semi-robust process for setting his incentives.
No one disputes that Tesla’s stock price would have needed to undergo a minor miracle to realize Musk’s full prize money, which had to top $650 billion by 2028, compared with a valuation of around $50 billion (it actually took just three years to achieve that goal). Rather, the problem was the people Tesla appointed to negotiate with Musk and determine a fair prize.
As the judge noted, lead director Ira Ellen Price had a 15-year business relationship with Musk. Another member of the working group, Antonio Gracias, vacationed with Musk’s family. A third, Musk’s former divorce lawyer and company general counsel Todd Maron, “broke down in tears in praise of Musk during testimony.” McCormick concluded that the adjudication process was “deeply flawed” and that the terms were “not entirely fair” to all shareholders. In short, Musk said what he wanted and received minimal backlash.
In theory, Tesla’s board had some powerful cards to play. At the time, Musk owned just over a fifth of Tesla’s stock (before he sold some to fund his Twitter antics), so he couldn’t have lacked the appetite to pursue a goal of “transformative” growth. Even without a plan, every $50 billion increase in Tesla’s market cap was worth $10 billion to Musk. This negotiating point appears to have been ignored.
If Musk asked for a larger stake to keep him focused on Tesla and not on his personal company, would the supposedly independent directors go along with it? Probably.
So even if we accept that contracts, even the obvious excesses, should be honored, the lack of soul-searching in Tesla’s boardroom is astonishing. The lesson to be learned from this is that this is a public company, and the job involves more than being a cheerleader for Elon Musk’s fan club.
Bee found herself in a moment of realization when she caught herself mindlessly scrolling through the news on her phone while sitting on the toilet. This made her see the need to reconsider her phone habits.
Tired of the constant intrusion of notification sounds and the compulsive need to check her phone, the 37-year-old Londoner decided to switch to a device that would allow her to stay connected while reducing distractions. When her iPhone broke down a year ago, she opted for the Nokia 2720 Flip, a modern take on the classic flip phone.
As a mother of two young children, she made this choice after learning about the impact of screen time on kids. She realized that her own behavior contradicted the rules she set for her children and wanted to set a better example for them.
Discovering the addictive nature of smartphones and social media further fueled her decision to make a change. Feeling frustrated that tech companies were dictating her daily life, she sought a more mindful approach to using technology.
The emergence of low-tech devices in response to the dominance of smartphones has gained momentum in recent years. Switching to a “dumb phone” or a device like the BoringPhone has become a trend, driven by a desire to disconnect from excessive screen time and embrace a more offline lifestyle.
Jess Perriam, 39, turned to PostCrossing, a platform for sending and receiving postcards from strangers worldwide, to maintain a connection with others without being bombarded by aggressive advertising. She values the reading recommendations and cultural insights she has gained through this more traditional form of communication.
The resurgence of analog media, such as cassettes, vinyl records, and postcards, reflects a broader shift towards reconnecting with physical experiences. David Sacks emphasizes the importance of tactile interactions and sensory engagement in an increasingly digital world.
P In a feminist bookstore in Madrid, 17 women gathered in the back room, engrossed in their laptops, sharing snacks, chatting, and laughing. The room was filled with the sounds of typing, periodically interrupted by enthusiastic applause marking milestones in the group’s mission to close one of the world’s most persistent gender gaps.
Only about 15 percent of Wikipedia’s content, including biographies, focuses on women, explains Patricia Horrillo, who has dedicated the past decade to cultivating a community of Wikipedia editors committed to creating content that highlights women.
Groups like Spain’s WikiSfera, Italy’s Wikidonne, and Switzerland’s Les Sans Pages have emerged globally to address this gender gap issue on Wikipedia.
The Wikimedia Foundation acknowledges the historical biases within Wikipedia and the need for more diverse contributions to address these gaps. Organizations like Horrillo’s Wikiesfera have received support to help bridge this divide and give visibility to women’s achievements.
Encina Villanueva participated in a Wikipedia content creation workshop at La Fabulosa bookstore, where she emphasized the importance of recognizing women’s accomplishments beyond their appearances or associations. She has seen the impact of her work reverberate across the internet, amplifying women’s stories.
Celia Hernandez-Garcia, a middle school teacher, joined Wikiesfera to highlight women’s achievements often overlooked in textbooks. With no prior tech skills, she embraced the opportunity to elevate women’s narratives through Wikipedia, impacting her students’ understanding of history.
Horrillo’s vision for Wikiesfera began a decade ago, aiming to empower individuals to contribute to Wikipedia by addressing barriers beyond technical knowledge. Despite challenges, the group continues its efforts to increase female representation on the platform.
Though obstacles such as a lack of sources documenting women’s achievements persist, Wikiesfera remains committed to bridging the gender gap on Wikipedia. Each article added during their sessions represents a step towards rectifying the systemic invisibility of women in historical narratives.
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
