Reddit is on the cusp of its highly-anticipated stock market debut, which is expected to be the largest IPO by a major social network in four years. The company’s financial performance was revealed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, which also disclosed that OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman holds an 8.7% stake in the social media group, making him the largest shareholder.
Trading under the ticker symbol “RDDT” on the New York Stock Exchange, Reddit’s long-awaited listing (scheduled for March) is set to be the largest social media IPO since Pinterest went public in 2019.
The company has not yet determined the number of shares to be offered or the price range for the proposed offering, as stated in a statement by Reddit.
The IPO filing also revealed that Reddit experienced a loss of $90.8 million in 2023, despite a roughly 21% increase in revenue. The platform boasts 267.5 million weekly active users, over 100,000 active communities, and 1 billion total posts.
Advance Magazine Publishers holds the largest stake in the company at 30.1%, while Chinese multinational Tencent owns 11%.
The planned IPO comes nearly 20 years after Reddit’s launch and will be a significant event for the platform, which still lags behind other social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter. The filing also outlined Reddit’s unique plan to allow its most active users to buy stock at the IPO. Additionally, Reddit plans to reward certain users with shares through a tiered system based on their contributions to the platform.
Reddit was valued at $10 billion in a 2021 funding round, and it is anticipated that the company will aim for a similar valuation with its upcoming stock sale. It’s expected to ask to sell nearly 10% of its stock, as reported by Reuters.
Reddit also cited data licensing agreements as a source of revenue in its filing, disclosing a recent deal with Google worth $203 million. This deal, announced on Wednesday, will allow Reddit’s content to be used to train Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) models, generating approximately $60 million annually, as reported by Reuters.
The filing outlined Reddit’s belief that its growing platform data will become a key element in training large-scale language models and will also serve as an additional monetization channel for the company.
Reddit initially filed for an IPO in 2021 but postponed its public offering due to challenging economic conditions and poor performance among listed technology stocks. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have been named lead underwriters for the IPO, along with more than a dozen other banks.
I I fell off the wagon recently. It took two and a half years, but all it took was one small mistake on his part. One night at home, it was offered to me. It was a little complimentary flavor that drove me crazy. Before I knew it, I was hooked. I know that sucks. I know it has no purpose other than to make me do more and get more money as I fall deeper and deeper into the quagmire of addiction. But there I was. I’m back to FIFA. (It’s EA Sports FC 24 to be exact, since it lost the official rights.)
It was a 10-hour free trial of Xbox Live. 10 hours is fine, I told myself. It’s just a taste. Let’s see what happens after 30 months. And before I knew it, I was hooked on Ultimate Team again. This is the equivalent of the game where you stand outside your ex-wife’s house and try to see what toys your new wife bought your kids.
The Rolling Stones’ Angry is the demo theme song. of course. Two bloated money making entities that should have been stopped years ago. (Actually, I like their last album, but I don’t have time to get sentimental about punchlines.)
“I’m mad,” Mick Jagger sings, “Don’t be mad!”
Never in my life have I felt like a game spoke to me so much.
Score again…EA Sports FC 24. Photo: Electronic Arts
What’s telling is that organizations outside of FIFA have made little progress. It is true that there are slight differences in the mechanics of the ball. The chemistry side seems more dull. There’s a weird phenomenon where the camera zooms in on the player inside the box, seemingly for no other reason than to cause a panic attack, but the basic controls are the same. Women are also participating with equal status, which is welcome. There are also new variations of shiny players, specifically heroes, or enhanced older players who were already icons in the game. However, the heroes have cards drawn in the style of Marvel superheroes, which means Steve McManaman is “AGENT MACCA Steve McManaman: Hero”. Galactico. Gentleman. ”
Oh please grow up.
It seems like there are more challenges to upgrade players, but this may only seem that way because I joined the game late. It also speaks to the fact that I spent most of the 10 hours of the free trial adjusting with the team in the transfer market. I only play about a dozen games. Was it always like this?
I looked online to see the official differences. In EA’s official video, he rants for over three minutes about Haaland’s extremely wide arms and something called his HyperMotion V technology, but I’m not surprised that he uses something called Liposomes to activate his face. It reminded me of his TV commercial for Cream.
If I hadn’t quit, I think I would have spent at least £300 by now to keep playing the same game. Today is Groundhog Day meets House Crocodile. This may be the most Guardian-like piece of writing I’ve ever written.
But no change is the key, right? Provides something familiar. What got you into it in the first place? Woe to programmers who change the mechanics of a beloved game. It’s like going back to cocaine and discovering that it puts me to sleep instead of turning me into a completely selfish, heart-pounding, rattling being.
Look at the energetic athletes welcoming me. What could be the problem? Photo: EA
Series that are updated every year (or games like Marvel Snap that are constantly updated) are lucrative because they give us something familiar. What sets video games apart from other forms of art and entertainment is their constant desire to create something new and contemporary, yet continually reinvent what we already know. It seems ironic that they offer it to us. We watch it again and again, just like we watch Die Hard whenever it’s on TV.
Addiction does not only refer to the high that comes from a poisonous drug. It’s about the framework you give your life. Fill in the gaps you don’t want to deal with. It’s like a parent telling you what to do and when to do it, which is comforting. Certainly not the best parents in the world, but parents who don’t question things until it’s too late. I went to treatment for 5 years to get off cocaine. In fact, I quit cocaine after the first year. It took another four years to stop treatment.
So even though I hate this game and the years and money I spent on it, at the end of the free trial I hover my finger over the button to buy the deluxe version. Of course I want something good. And it’s the easiest drug to get more of. You can use your credit card with just one click. The situation may be different if you had to buy games like illegal drugs. If you call someone and say you want some cake, you meet them in a frigid pub car park. Forget about online microtransactions. Instead, he looks at three clubs before finding someone who will sell him. And it’s only when you get home that you realize you have far fewer games than you intended to buy.
I’m away from Xbox. I didn’t buy the game. But maybe tomorrow.
Tyler Perry has put an $800m (£630m) expansion of his Atlanta studio complex on hold after the release of OpenAI’s video generator Sora, citing concerns that “many jobs” in the film industry could be replaced by artificial intelligence.
The American film and television mogul had planned to add 12 soundstages to his studio, but he indefinitely paused those plans after witnessing a demonstration of Sora and its “shocking” capabilities. He stated that the expansion had been canceled.
“Due to what Sora and I are seeing, all of that is currently and indefinitely on hold,” Perry said in a statement in an interview with Hollywood Reporter. “I’ve been hearing about this for about a year now, but I didn’t know until I saw a demonstration of how it would work recently. It’s mind-blowing to me.”
The AI tool, Sora, was launched on February 15 and caused widespread concern with its ability to create one minute of realistic footage from a simple text prompt.
Perry, known for films such as the Madea series, mentioned that Sora’s capabilities eliminate the need for real-world locations or physical sets. He described it as a shocking development.
A demo published by OpenAI showcases Sora’s ability to generate photorealistic scenes in response to text prompts, including a “beautiful snowy Tokyo city, with gorgeous cherry blossom petals flying in the wind along with snowflakes.”
Tweet content with link to video demonstration.
Perry expressed concerns about the potential job impact across the film industry, including actors, editors, sound specialists, and transport crews.
He stated, “I’m very concerned that there will be a lot of job losses in the near future. I really, really feel that.”
Perry mentioned a direct example of construction crews and contractors refusing to work on a planned studio expansion due to the belief that it was unnecessary. He also noted that he had used AI in two recent films to age his face and avoid lengthy makeup sessions.
Concerns about the impact of AI on jobs have been a focal point of recent Hollywood strikes, and peace agreements that ended these conflicts include provisions against the use of the technology.
However, Perry emphasized the need for a “whole-of-industry” approach to protect jobs, stating, “I think everyone needs to be involved.”
The recent data breach from a Chinese cybersecurity company has exposed national security agencies paying substantial amounts of money to collect information about a variety of targets, including foreign governments, while hackers gather vast amounts of data on individuals and organizations that might be of interest to potential customers for their companies.
A set of over 500 leaked files from the Chinese company, I-Soon, has been posted on the developer’s website Github, with cybersecurity experts confirming their authenticity. The targets discussed in the leaked files include NATO and the UK Foreign Office.
The leak provides an unprecedented glimpse into the world of Chinese-employed hackers, with Britain’s security chief describing it as a “significant” challenge for the country. The leaked files consist of chat logs, company prospectuses, and data samples, revealing the scope of China’s intelligence-gathering operations and highlighting the market pressures faced by Chinese commercial hackers in a sluggish economy.
Yisun is believed to have collaborated with another Chinese hacking organization, Chengdu 404, which has been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for cyberattacks not only in the United States but also on companies in China and Hong Kong democracy activists.
Other targets discussed in the I-Soon leak include the British think tank Chatham House, public health agencies of Asean countries, and foreign ministries. The leak also indicates that certain data has been collected according to specifications, while in other cases special agreements have been made with the Chinese Public Security Bureau to collect specific types of data.
Chatham House has expressed concern over the leaked data, emphasizing the importance of safeguarding their data and information. Similarly, NATO has acknowledged the persistent cyber threats and stated that it is investing in large-scale cyber defense. However, the British Foreign Office declined to comment.
I-Soon’s services range from gaining access to email inboxes to hacking accounts, obtaining personal information from social media platforms, retrieving data from internal databases, and compromising various operating systems. The leaked files also suggest that the Chinese state is collecting as much data as possible.
Isun’s office building in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, southwest China. Photo: Kang Dak/AP
The leaked documents further reveal that I-Soon has sought “anti-terrorism” support and has claimed to have obtained data from various organizations. The company was also involved in discussions about sales practices and the company’s internal situation.
The leaked data also includes screenshots and chat logs where employees discuss the company’s operations and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their business. The company’s CEO expressed concerns about the loss of core staff, the subsequent impact on customer confidence, and the loss of business.
OnePlus' latest top smartphone can't shake the feeling of being left behind by its rivals.
The OnePlus 12 has a sleek look, fast software, and long battery life, but it lacks the much-touted AI tools built into devices from the likes of Samsung and Google. It feels more like a 2020 cell phone than a new era of artificial intelligence.
This may appeal to those looking for a pared-down, relatively clean experience. Its price of £849 (€969/$799) is also less than its £1,000 full-featured rival. But by modern standards, it feels lacking.
The curved glass and aluminum sides make the phone narrower than its competitors, but the OnePlus 12 is still a very large phone. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The design is very similar to last year's OnePlus 11 (which cost £120 less at launch), a sleek metal and glass sandwich that feels as slick as it looks. The huge 6.82-inch OLED screen is crystal clear, smooth, and very bright. The large circular camera bump on the back is a standout design element, along with the fan-favorite alert slider on the side.
Inside the OnePlus is Qualcomm's latest top Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, which is 30% faster and 20% more power efficient than its predecessor. This is a very powerful chip that is only found in a small number of new cell phones.
The OnePlus certainly feels fast and smooth in normal operation, but to get maximum performance, i.e. running at full tilt, you'll need to enable the “High Performance” mode embedded in the settings, or when playing games. must be used in mode. The phone is therefore tuned more for power efficiency than raw performance, resulting in extremely long battery life.
It lasts 52-55 hours between charges, and the default settings provide over 9 hours of active screen use. This is significantly longer than last year’s model, making it the best in the industry. OnePlus also charges very fast, reaching 100% within 30 minutes using his included 100W charger.
The aluminum frame has curved corners, but the top and edges of the phone are flat. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
specification
screen: 6.82 inch 120Hz QHD+ OLED (510ppi)
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 3rd generation
Ram: 12 or 16GB
storage: 256 or 512GB
operating system: OxygenOS 14 (Android 14)
sustainability
Oxygen OS 14
OxygenOS is generally smooth to use with a reasonable amount of customization, but it is noticeably lacking in advanced smart features. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The phone runs OxygenOS 14, a modified version of the latest Android 14 software. Overall it's very polished, with plenty of customization options covering everything from gestures, the look and feel of the software, and various multitasking tools. But it lacks the AI tools and smart systems that have become the mainstay of rivals in both the Android camp and his iPhone camp.
Gail Huntley picked up the phone and immediately recognized Joe Biden's raspy voice. Huntley, a 73-year-old New Hampshire resident, had planned to vote for the president in the state's upcoming primary and was perplexed when she received a prerecorded message urging her not to vote.
“It's important to save your vote for the November election,” the message said. “Only this Tuesday's vote will allow the Republican Party to seek re-election of Donald Trump.”
Huntley quickly realized the call was fake, but thought Biden's words had been taken out of context. She was shocked when it was revealed that the recording was generated by AI. Within weeks, the United States outlawed robocalls that use AI-generated voices.
The Biden deepfake was the first major test for governments, tech companies, and civil society groups. Governments, technology companies and civil society organizations are grappling with how best to police an information ecosystem where anyone can create photorealistic images of candidates or replicate their voices. It is embroiled in a heated debate. Terrifying accuracy.
As citizens of dozens of countries, including the US, India and possibly the UK, go to the polls in 2024, experts say democratic processes are at serious risk of being disrupted by artificial intelligence. .
AI fakes are already being used in elections Slovakia,Taiwan, Indonesiaand they are thrown into an environment where trust in politicians, institutions and media is already low.
Watchdog groups have warned that more than 40,000 people have been laid off at the tech companies that host and manage much of this content, and that digital media is uniquely vulnerable to abuse.
Mission Impossible?
For Biden, concerns about the potentially dangerous uses of AI spiked after watching the latest Mission: Impossible movie. Over the weekend at Camp David, the president relaxed in front of a movie in which Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt takes on a rogue AI.
After watching the film, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reid said that if Biden wasn't already concerned about what could go wrong with AI, “he has much more to worry about.” It turns out there are a lot of them.”
Since then, Biden has signed an executive order requiring major AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government.
And the United States is not alone in taking action. The EU is about to pass one of the most comprehensive laws to regulate AI, but it won't come into force until 2026. Proposed regulations in the UK have been criticized for moving too slowly.
But because the United States is home to many of the most innovative technology companies, the White House's actions will have a major impact on how the most disruptive AI products are developed.
Katie Harvath, who spent a decade helping shape policy at Facebook and now works on trust and safety issues at tech companies, says the U.S. government isn't doing enough. Concerns about stifling innovation could play into this, especially as China moves to develop its own AI industry, she says.
Harvath discusses how information systems have evolved from the “golden age” of social media growth, to the Great Reckoning after the Brexit and Trump votes, and the subsequent efforts to stay ahead of disinformation. I watched what happened from my ringside seat.
Her mantra for 2024 is “panic responsibly.”
In the short term, she says, the regulators and polices for AI-generated content will be the very companies developing the tools to create it.
“I don't know if companies are ready,” Harvath said. “There are also new platforms whose first real test will be this election season.”
Last week, major tech companies signed an agreement to voluntarily adopt “reasonable precautions” to prevent AI from being used to disrupt democratic elections around the world, and to coordinate efforts. We took a big step.
Signatories include OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, as well as Google, Adobe, and Microsoft, all of which have launched tools to generate AI-authored content. Many companies have also updated their own rules to prohibit the use of their products in political campaigns.. Enforcing these bans is another matter.
OpenAI, which uses its powerful Dall-E software to create photorealistic images, said its tool rejects requests to generate images of real people, including candidates.
Midjourney, whose AI image generation is considered by many to be the most powerful and accurate, says users should not use the product to “attempt to influence the outcome of a political campaign or election.” Says.
Midjourney CEO David Holtz said the company is close to banning political images, including photos of leading presidential candidates. It appears that some changes are already in effect. When the Guardian asked Midjourney to produce an image of Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a boxing ring, the request was denied, saying it violated the company's community standards. A flag was raised.
But when I entered the same prompt, replacing Biden and Trump with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and opposition leader Keir Starmer, the software produced a series of images without a problem.
This example is at the center of concerns among many policymakers about how effectively tech companies are regulating AI-generated content outside the hothouse of the U.S. presidential election.
“Multi-million euro weapons of mass operation”
Despite OpenAI's ban on using its tools in political campaigns, its products were used to create campaign art, track social media sentiment, build interactive chatbots, and engage voters in Indonesia's elections this month. Reuters reported that it was widely used as a target.
Harvath said it's an open question how startups like OpenAI can aggressively enforce their policies outside the United States.
“Each country is a little different, with different laws and cultural norms. When you run a US-focused company, you realize that things work differently in the US than they do in other parts of the world. can be difficult.”
Last year's national elections in Slovakia pitted pro-Russian candidates against those advocating stronger ties with the EU. Ballot papers include support for Ukraine's war effort, and EU officials say the vote could be at risk of interference by Russia and its “multi-million euro weapons of mass manipulation” emphasized by those.
As the election approached and a national media blackout began, an audio recording of pro-EU candidate Michal Šimeka was posted on Facebook.
In the recording, Simechka appears to discuss ways to rig elections by buying votes from marginalized communities. The audio was fake, and AFP news agency reported that it appeared to have been manipulated using AI.
However, media outlets and politicians are required to remain silent under election concealment laws, making it nearly impossible to uncover errors in the recording.
The doctored audio appears to have fallen through a loophole in how Facebook owner Meta Inc. polices AI-generated material on its platform.below it community standardsprohibits posting content that has been manipulated in a way that “the average person wouldn't understand,” or that has been edited to make someone say something they didn't say. However, this only applies to videos.
Pro-Russian candidate Robert Fico won the election and became prime minister.
When will we know that the future is here?
Despite the dangers, there are some signs that voters are better prepared for what's to come than officials think.
“Voters are smarter than we think,” Harvath said. “They may be overwhelmed, but they understand what's going on in the information environment.”
For many experts, the main concern is not the technologies we are already working on, but the innovations that are on the other side of the horizon.
Writing in MIT's Technology Review, academics said the public debate about how AI threatens democracy is “lacking imagination.” The real danger, they say, is not what we already fear, but what we cannot yet imagine.
“What rocks are we not examining?” Halvath asks. “New technologies emerge, new bad guys emerge. There are constant high and low tides, and we have to get used to living with them.”
Early Thursday morning, cell phone outages affected cities across the United States, causing thousands of AT&T customers to experience service interruptions. These interruptions prevented them from sending text messages, accessing the Internet, making phone calls, and even calling 911.
Around 7 a.m. ET, more than 50,000 incidents were reported, and that number exceeded 70,000 by 9 a.m. ET. However, by 11 a.m. ET, reports of service failures had decreased to 60,000.
AT&T spokesperson Jim Greer stated, “Some customers are experiencing wireless service interruptions this morning. We are working urgently to restore service. He recommends using Wi-Fi calling until service is restored. I recommend it.”
AT&T, the largest U.S. mobile phone service provider with 240 million subscribers, did not offer a possible explanation for the outage. The company also did not provide a timeline for when full service would be restored. Despite intermittent outages in recent days, Thursday’s outage was much larger.
The most affected cities, according to the website, included San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta, and Chicago.
Users of other carriers such as Verizon, T-Mobile, Cricket, and UScellular also reported outages, but those were much smaller compared to AT&T. Verizon and T-Mobile confirmed that the outage did not affect their own customers, except when trying to contact customers of other carriers.
T-Mobile stated, “No outages occurred,” while Verizon’s statement said, “Verizon’s network is operating normally.”
The San Francisco Fire Department and the City of Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications were actively addressing the issues affecting AT&T Wireless customers.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens confirmed that calls with the city’s emergency services continued to work. However, Massachusetts State Police advised against using phone services and dialing 911 due to a flooding of concerned callers testing the service.
The police department stated, “Many 911 centers across the state are inundated with calls from people trying to see if 911 works from their cell phone. Do not do this. Call another number via your cell phone service. If you can make a non-emergency call, 911 service will also work.”
IEvery good RPG has a point where the protagonist has to leave the safety of their homeland. After learning the gravity of the threat they face, gathering a party and stocking up on food, they are ready to embark on an epic adventure.
Now, ironically, popular RPG creator Square Enix is being forced to do the same. His second installment in an ambitious trilogy that began with the 2020 remake, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth retains the beloved dystopian cityscape of Midgar and builds on his 1997 PlayStation classic. reimagined his second disc as its own full-fledged adventure. After the eco-terrorist Avalanche collides with the shady giant corporation Shinra, Reverse follows the hero Cloud (he of the oversized sword) and his friends on a journey around the world in pursuit of the loud-screaming villain Sephiroth.
Square Enix wasted no time in showing off its cinematic chops, sending players headfirst into the flashback section of Game Thief, forcing them to relive Cloud's storied military past, and Sepiroth. It perfectly depicts the character's descent into an unstoppable villain. This is a masterclass in interactive storytelling that hammers home the stakes before you go. Cloud He Few spiky-haired protagonists are as revered as Strife. It's easy to see why his creators opted for a strictly written retelling of a gaming classic in the first place. But where Remake forced you to wear the tattered boots of a legendary mercenary and chase cats during recess, Rebirth allows players to occasionally sit in the director's chair.
Show off your cinematic chops – Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Photo: Square Enix
Weave your way through glorious, story-driven scenes, dungeon-like enclaves, and luxurious environments full of distractions. The vast plains of Junon, a tropical paradise, and the sparkling desert you can drive your buggy across. When you emerge from a series of battles and explore new areas, it feels like filling your lungs with fresh air. Traveling feels really exciting and brings some welcome visual variety to this cross-map road trip. Rebirth's freer approach offers a welcome antithesis to Remake's narrow hallways and frees players from chains.
The remake's core combat is back, but it incorporates the cinematic flourishes of last year's FFXVI with a welcome party-centric approach. In the remake's battle, I simply controlled Cloud and repeated the same attack several times, nauseatingly. But here we have to make the most of our cast of lovable weirdos. There are satisfying cinematic synergistic moves with partners and a variety of spellcasting “materia” that can be combined, and mastering the various nuances of your party's members is essential to defeating the boss. . Creating a new combat system that everyone is happy with seems like an almost impossible task, but somehow Square has managed to pull it off with aplomb. By swapping party members during battle, the game perfectly combines the depth of a turn-based RPG with modern action.
From conversation choices that strengthen your bonds with party members and side quests that determine who you can romance, to a series of odd jobs, Rebirth's take on this mythical world is as vivid as it gets It feels like. From the bustling townspeople of Calm walking around talking about their day, to suspicious fishermen muttering comments about you under their breath, to deer frolicking around Junon's fields, this is a sequel to Ship It is firmly embedded in a “bigger, better” approach. Dancing in a parade, racing chocobos, taking pictures of landscapes, zooming on a Segway…it seems like there are endless ways to cleanse your mouth. The frighteningly addictive new card game King's Blood is a highlight and a distraction deep enough to become a full-fledged obsession in its own right.
Bigger and better… Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Photo: Square Enix
The problem is that as the journey progresses, these once frivolous digressions become mandatory. Mini-games and side quests gradually become obstacles to progressing the plot, Cloud vs. Sephiroth's narrative thread gets lost in a vast world, and high-stakes adventures become uneven and twisty-toned whiplash movements. It will change to . His second disc in FF7 was originally only 10 hours long, but Rebirth expands his once modest story into his terrifying 50-hour epic. That shows it.
With side quests galore, engaging combat, and polished cinematic flourishes, Rebirth is a fun celebration of video game maximalism at its best. But this breadth comes at the expense of narrative focus, with cleverly scripted cinematic moments punctuated by a momentum-killing parade of mini-games, puzzles, and fan-fueled filler.
Longtime fans will devour every bite of the sweet fanservice here and savor every extra moment spent with this beloved cast. For Avalanche enthusiasts, this is a nostalgic dream come true. However, newcomers looking to experience his one of the medium's most beloved tales in a new, modern form should be prepared for yawn-inducing low notes, along with the high notes of the buster sword swinging. there is.
Google has temporarily blocked a new artificial intelligence model that generates images of people after it depicted World War II German soldiers and Vikings as people of color.
The company announced that its Gemini model would be used to create images of people after social media users posted examples of images generated by the tool depicting historical figures of different ethnicities and genders, such as the Pope and the Founding Fathers of the United States. announced that it would cease production.
“We are already working to address recent issues with Gemini's image generation functionality. While we do this, we will pause human image generation and re-release an improved version soon. “We plan to do so,” Google said in a statement.
Google did not mention specific images in its statement, but examples of Gemini's image results are widely available on X, along with commentary on issues surrounding AI accuracy and bias. 1 former Google employee “It was difficult to get Google Gemini to acknowledge the existence of white people,” he said.
1943 illustration of German soldier Gemini. Photo: Gemini AI/Google
Jack Krawczyk, a senior director on Google's Gemini team, acknowledged Wednesday that the model's image generator (not available in the UK and Europe) needs tweaking.
“We are working to improve this type of depiction immediately,” he said. “His AI image generation in Gemini generates a variety of people, which is generally a good thing since people all over the world are using it. But here it misses the point.”
We are already working to address recent issues with Gemini's image generation capabilities. While we do this, we will pause human image generation and plan to re-release an improved version soon. https://t.co/SLxYPGoqOZ
In a statement on X, Krawczyk added that Google's AI principles ensure that its image generation tools “reflect our global user base.” He added that Google would continue to do so for “open-ended” image requests such as “dog walker,” but added that response prompts have a historical trend. He acknowledged that efforts are needed.
“There's more nuance in the historical context, and we'll make further adjustments to accommodate that,” he said.
We are aware that Gemini introduces inaccuracies in the depiction of some historical image generation and are working to correct this immediately.
As part of the AI principles https://t.co/BK786xbkeywe design our image generation capabilities to reflect our global user base and…
Reports on AI bias are filled with examples of negative impacts on people of color.a Last year's Washington Post investigation I showed multiple examples of image generators show prejudice Not just against people of color, but also against sexism. Although 63% of U.S. food stamp recipients are white, the image generation tool Stable Diffusion XL shows that food stamp recipients are primarily non-white or dark-skinned. It turned out that there was. Requesting images of people “participating in social work” yielded similar results.
Andrew Rogoiski, from the University of Surrey's Institute for Human-Centered AI, said this is “a difficult problem to reduce bias in most areas of deep learning and generative AI”, and as a result there is a high likelihood of mistakes. said.
“There is a lot of research and different approaches to eliminating bias, from curating training datasets to introducing guardrails for trained models,” he said. “AI and LLM are probably [large language models] There will still be mistakes, but it is also likely that they will improve over time. ”
electoral dysfunction Wide range of weekly episodes available
Sky News politician and poker star Beth Rigby is sandwiched between Conservative MP Ruth Davidson and Labor MP Jess Phillips in this promising new podcast leading into a ‘prolific election year’. What voters want, leadership, and the sorry state of things are all on the table. This trio offers a refreshing change from the usual daddy cast, valuing heart and insight over political point-scoring. There’s also a story about Priti Patel’s kindness… Hannah Verdier
tard cast Widely available, on sale now “A lot of people actually wanted to listen to the podcast…and you mostly know why.” Joe Lycett announced the poop pod as a campaign prank against sewage leaks, but Gary Lineker’s Thanks to demand for more details on World Cup poop, it’s now actually here. It’s so funny that it makes your stomach hurt, and it also includes the shocking revelation that “Gaza was often left alone in the public bath.'' Holly Richardson
Indira Varma. Photo: Suki Dhanda/Observer
A tiger tamer who went out to sea Wide range of weekly episodes available Victorian superstar Bob Carlyle was fired from the circus for drunkenly walking a tiger around town on a leash, but at least he had the stamina of a pushcart to get back on his feet. This isn’t your typical history podcast where Dave his Dr. Musgrove chronicles Carlisle’s very interesting life.HV
significant other Wide range of weekly episodes available Our new series of podcasts about lesser-known figures in history begins with the story of Peggy Shippen. History books remember American Revolutionary War general Benedict Arnold for switching allegiance, but in reality it was his wife who motivated the rebellion. Host Liza Powell O’Brien examines how “America’s Most Handsome Woman” influenced events. HV
The Spy Who… Wide range of weekly episodes available starting Tuesday Indira Varma (pictured above) hosts a dive into “a dank, murky world full of dark corners, sinister motives and rotten morals” occupied by spies. The first is the story of Dusko Popov, the spy whose playboy ways inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond. The scenes from that time are dramatically recreated, making it irresistibly cinematic. HV
There’s a podcast for that
Twelve boys and their coach rescued from a cave in Thailand have mourned the loss of a former Navy SEAL who died while taking part in the mission. Photo: AFP/Getty Images
From escaping a grizzly bear attack to a 2018 cave rescue in Thailand. Ella Braidwood Choose 5 podcasts about survival stories
vice versa
Since 2021, Against the Odds has been exploring some of the most famous survival stories from past and present. Adventurers Mike Corley and Kathy de Pecol take turns hosting each story, each told in detail over several episodes. The podcast is based on historical research, but dramatizations are used to bring headline-grabbing stories to life. For example, there is a five-part series about the 2018 cave rescue in Thailand, and a four-part series about the famous Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 crash in 1972, when 16 people were forced into the Andes Mountains. He survived for 72 days in the camp. He turns to cannibalism.
real survival story The weekly podcast, narrated by actor John Hopkins, launched this year and explores stories of “ordinary people forced into extraordinary circumstances.” Hopkins is a smooth storyteller, and his musings are deftly interspersed with audio excerpts from the survivors themselves. Among those featured is a paraglider caught in a storm. A prospector trapped in a gold mine 100 feet underground. and a couple caught in a wildfire while on vacation. Background music adds suspense, and stories are drawn from around the world, including the Rocky Mountains, Hawaii, and New Zealand.
special live While it’s not just about survival stories, this podcast focuses on the amazing stories of people who have overcome extraordinary circumstances. In each episode, LADbible’s former creative director, Ben Powell-Jones, sits down with an interviewee and reveals what happened to them. Mr. Powell-Jones has a calm demeanor that allows his interviewees to speak candidly about their experiences. Video footage for each episode is available at: YouTube. Highlights include an interview with journalist Sean Langan, who was taken hostage by the Taliban;Park Ji Hyun person who fled from North Korea And now I live in the UK. and Nick Yarris, who was wrongly convicted of murder and spent 22 years on death row.
out alive Backpacker Magazine’s biweekly podcast features short episodes featuring outdoor tips from experts, interspersed with inspiring survival stories. The episodes, hosted by editor Louisa Albanese, tell stories of people who have survived amazing events, from a man who fell 50 feet into a hidden ice cave to a runner who became stranded after falling on a trekking pole. We are featuring interviews. Some of the brief episodes debunk some of the most common questions about survival, and others about the rise in bear attacks. Transcript too You can read it online.
not today Since launching their podcast in 2020, husband and wife team Steph Fitt and Alex Hunt have grown their following. Features It was in the top 1% of most followed podcasts on Spotify last year. Hosted by Fit and Hunt, this podcast features recent and more historical survival stories. In one episode, Fit tells listeners about Lydia Tillman. Her brave escape led to her conviction. travis forbes In 2011, he was charged with crimes against her and the murder of Kenya Monge. A more historical episode is the one about the Titanic.The other is about entertainers Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, the latter of whom was once attacked by a tiger on stage.
sound off Conversation with Katie Henriksen features deep conversations that explore creativity at the intersection of art, music, and literature.
A mix of comedy, tragedy, and everything in between. possession Focuses on the world of professional sports ownership with former NBA player Rex Chapman.
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The artificial intelligence boom has pushed demand for Nvidia products beyond Wall Street’s already high expectations.
The company announced fourth-quarter results on Wednesday that significantly beat analysts’ expectations, with revenue of $22.1 billion versus the $20.55 billion expected and earnings of $4.93 per share versus the $4.64 expected. became. Revenue increased 22% sequentially and 265% year over year.
Revenue from data centers, Nvidia’s most-watched revenue, increased more than 400% year-over-year to $18.4 billion.
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a press release: “Accelerated computing and generative AI have reached a tipping point. Demand is surging around the world across companies, industries, and nations.”
Nvidia’s earnings and stock demand are seen as a bellwether for overall interest in artificial intelligence, as the company relies heavily on its products to develop AI. Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, Meta, and Google have all signed deals to buy the company’s chips in bulk as they race to release new AI products and features.
Some major companies, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, are launching their own AI chip ventures to compete with established Nvidia, which would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars. .
Nvidia plans to ship a new chip, the B100, which will be the top of its product line, in 2024, raising expectations for explosive growth. Nokia and Nvidia on Wednesday announced a partnership to develop AI solutions that can improve communications infrastructure.
Wall Street has come to expect big growth from Nvidia. Analysts’ baseline forecast on Wednesday was for sales to increase his 240%. Tech companies are rushing to develop AI products that leverage the company’s proprietary AI chips and software, considered the best on the market.
Nvidia’s revenue tripled last quarter, and its profits for the past four quarters have exceeded analyst expectations.
The company’s stock price has more than tripled over the past year, valuing the company at more than $1.5 trillion. The company surpassed Google and Amazon in market capitalization last week, making it the world’s third-largest company by value within days.
MLast week's big Xbox announcement from Microsoft turned out to be somewhat anticlimactic. Just four games, none particularly shocking, will be coming to PlayStation and Nintendo Switch in the near future. (Annoyingly, Microsoft executives declined to be named, but it was later reported by Famitsu and The Verge that the games in question were Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Pentiment, and Hi-Fi Rush.) (This matches the game I have in mind; I've heard it from other sources.)
Microsoft has no intention of exiting the console market or making all its games multi-platform, as the Whiplash rumormongers have hotly speculated. And the (very valuable) Xbox Game Pass subscription service remains exclusive to Xbox and PC.
This is not essentially news. Microsoft is already one of the biggest publishers of PlayStation, especially now that it owns both Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard. So everything from Skyrim to Call of Duty to Minecraft is technically a Microsoft game. If Microsoft's head of games, Phil Spencer, announced last year that Starfield would be developed for the PlayStation 5, or if Xbox head Sarah Bond announced that Microsoft would develop an Xbox-only game, for example. If they had said they were abandoning the idea completely, well, that would have been the case. This is a big change worth reporting home (or, in my case, writing to you). Rather, it's a small extension of a strategy Microsoft has pursued for years. Every time I've talked to Microsoft executives over the years, they've always offered some variation of the line, “Play the games you want, with the people you want, wherever you want.” Last week's Xbox broadcast.
Instead, the announcement highlighted how harmful and outdated the idea of console wars is.Adults are still overly invested in the idea of a console identity, and some of the products Microsoft has spent billions of dollars developing or acquiring on other, far more popular gaming consoles. The very prospect of releasing it was enough to cause excitement. tantrums and emotional outbursts;. The Xbox community has been in an uproar over the issue for weeks, with X people posting wartime memes and YouTubers posting videos with titles like: “Xbox…it's over!”.
No doubt some of this anger is designed to get more clicks, but most of it is misplaced passion. Fans care a lot about Xbox and the games that Xbox Studios has brought us over the years, but fundamentally they care about which machine the video game is played on, Steam deck or Switch, Xbox or PlayStation. . Microsoft's own management has been saying this for years, and anyone who hasn't heard it hasn't.
Sea of Thieves on Xbox One. Photo: Rare
The console wars were never anything more than a marketing strategy. Like when Sega vs. Nintendo created one of the great business rivalries of the 1990s (remember the catchphrase “What does Sega do that Nintendo doesn't do?”) and when Microsoft , there were times over the years when it was still very entertaining. ™'s continued fumbling with his Xbox One announcement in 2013 gave Sony ample opportunity. playful piss.
But that's no longer fun, now that the culture wars have turned every aspect of modern life, from politics to parkruns, into a hostile nightmare. It's ridiculous to see people arguing over video game consoles as if it were a matter of life and death.
But even if what we're discussing doesn't matter, how we discuss it does. Toxic fandom is a problem everywhere from football to video games to Star Wars, and its loud, illogical, and mean-spirited nature reflects trends in public discourse since 2016. doing. Bad actors have tried to use video game fandom as a weapon to direct their anger. If you set goals that align with their purpose, they will try again.
Getting back to Xbox, to me, the problem with Microsoft's presence in the gaming world is that it's a huge company focused on continued growth. Unlike Sony or Nintendo, the company has nearly limitless resources, as recent acquisition activity shows. We're still working on changing our history of acquiring great studios. crush them Through corporate intervention. I wonder if some companies have the power to buy out competitors in creative industries where competition is key to the diversity, innovation, and creative value of work. Microsoft has started bringing Xbox games to rival consoles, which actually suggests do not have It's desperate to dominate this space and allow more players to benefit from the fruits of its many studio efforts. This is safe.
This isn't the end of Xbox consoles, but let's take this opportunity to call for an end to the manufactured console wars. They really make us all look bad.
what to play
pacific drive. Photo: Ironwood Studio
I understand that pacific drive It's inspired by Jeff VanderMeer's bizarre novel, and playing it is like driving a beat-up car into the exclusion zone of Annihilation. There, strange and frightening things await you under eerie hues and thunderous skies. And your poor vehicle is the only thing standing between you and them. You ride into the zone over and over again, never knowing what you're going to see. Repair the car in the garage with what you found and try to further investigate what is going on.
Everything is very peaceful until it suddenly isn't so peaceful and you fumble to manually turn the lights and wipers on and off while running away from the storm.
Available on: PC, PS5 Estimated play time: Still do not know…
what to read
Stroke Tthe Animals video game by TJ Gardner. Photo: TJ Gardner
If you've ever absentmindedly looked at the PlayStation Store, you may have seen it. pet the animal Game – A basic, eyebrow-raising game where you press a button and pet an animal (i.e. a JPEG of an animal) for a few minutes to earn a simple trophy. When Ellie Gibson looked into the contents of these games, he discovered an unexpected story.
Peripheral device manufacturers PDP It is coming out as new guitar controller Used in the festival music game component of Fornite (and Rock Band 4 for those still playing). Fun fact: Fortnite Festival was developed by Harmonix, the developer of the original Guitar Hero and Rock Band games.
If you can get to Asda, you might be able to buy a copy of last year's ill-fated Wizard FPS Immortals of Aveum On PS5 for 1 pound. It's not a bad game, but it was released in one of the busiest gaming years on record and sadly sank without a trace.
Embracer grouphas gone on a wild acquisition spree funded by Saudi speculative funds that suddenly disappeared last year, laying off 1,400 people, canceling 29 games and shuttering several of the studios it acquired. Therefore, the company's CEO Definitely a popular statement Layoffs are “something everyone has to overcome.”
Ever wanted to play Mario Kart to the accompaniment of a live jazz band? In Oklahoma, you can:
Report finds LGBTQ+ representation in video games lags behind movies and TV
Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered Edition Review – A great remaster of Lara Croft’s Lost Ark
question block
sunset overdrive. Photo: Microsoft
This week's question from reader Paul:
“What game would you like to go back and re-score (if you could)? Were you too harsh or too lenient on the game back then?”
So, Paul, it's clear that I was right from beginning to end. Except when I'm not. Most of my early critical gaffes are thankfully hidden in the pages of his 10-20 year old magazines, but some remain in the public domain. Dear reader, may I humbly declare that I was wrong about Assassin's Creed 3? should have been more strict towards.
TWhat's frustrating about this adventurous multiplayer game from Ubisoft? reportedly It was in development hell for about 10 years. largely good.some things about it teeth. It offers interesting customization and even thrills when playing against well-matched opponents, including ship battles that are more flexible than you might expect. And when you're sailing from the coast of Africa to the East Indies, or navigating river channels surrounded on all sides by tropical wilderness, you can't help but admire the beauty of this game. And some things about it could get better. For now the menu is confusing, slow and messy time. A few tweaks could further increase the pace before pirate exploration becomes more exciting. This is a live service game, so there is room for evolution.
But some things about Skull and Bones are never going to be good, at least not without tearing them down and starting over, and after years of costly delays, it seems unlikely that that will ever happen. Seems low. All characters in this game have dead eyes and only their lips move when they speak. The story is so boring that even after spending over 20 hours at sea, I can tell you the relative value of rough stones and where to sell cigarettes for the most money, but I can't remember the names of a single character or faction. not. And when you're on the ground, there's no sword fighting, no treasure hunting, no meaningful exploration. A lot of effort has gone into creating a small oasis of land, but there's nothing there except a few quest-givers and a campfire. He only has two more populous pirate-based settlements on the whole map, and while you can at least find a blacksmith and a tavern, it's hard to find other interesting places to anchor.
This means you will spend 90% of your time sailing as all the action takes place on the waves. And if you're not plundering merchant ships or trying to protect yourself from other pirates, all you need to sail is raising and lowering your sails and occasionally adjusting your trajectory. Although boring, I found it peaceful to actually carry things and enjoy the scenery. The best part of Skull and Bones is the Indian Ocean. Occasionally, I felt a sense of quiet awe, such as when I was maneuvering a narrow cutter down a narrow road, seeing rocks towering from all sides and waterfalls cascading around corners. As the sun set, a soundtrack could be heard coming from the crew's shack. At that moment, like Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed games sometimes do, Skull and Bones felt like a recreation of a lost time, breathing new life into the Golden Age of Piracy.
A few tweaks could really speed up the pace – Skull and Bones. Photo: Ubisoft/Keza McDonald
Unfortunately, Assassin's Creed is the elephant in the room here. Skull and Bones is a super fun pirate-flavored adventure inspired by 2013's Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Felt It's an adventure, with lots of islands to explore, things to discover, and interesting stories to discover along with the thrill of sailing and firing cannonballs at your enemies. 2018's Assassin's Creed Odyssey still features a stunning voyage through the deep blue waters of ancient Greece, but there's so much more to do. Skull and Bones levels up sailing ever so slightly, and ship building is much better – changing ships and weapons makes a big difference in how you play – but it has nothing else to offer. The game has no personality or plot at all. The game that inspired it.
Another game I can't help but mention here is Rare's Sea of Thieves. This is another online pirate action game that launched in 2018 in Barren State, but has since evolved into something fun, chaotic, and unique, and a great time with friends. As you would expect from a pirate game. But Skull and Bones is much more serious, lonely, and a completely different game. It reminded me more of Sid Meier's Pirates than Sea of Thieves in that most of the game involves actually transporting or interfering with cargo. A faction of colonialists. The deeper you go, the more Skull and Bones will be tasked with manufacturing, selling, and transporting goods in hidden markets, or sinking other players to steal their goods. This is more than just a pirate game, it's a trade and naval battle simulator. Although he is not overbearing, he is a good sailor and has a wide selection of three-cornered hats.
If publisher Ubisoft continues to support it, Skull and Bones will appeal to avid players of naval warfare enthusiasts who enjoy tinkering with ship construction, facing off against each other, and teaming up to take on deadly fleets and cargo. It will attract a lot of people. However, if you're looking for a game that feels like a pirate adventure, Black Flag is still a better choice.
TThe internet is a place rife with drug addicts and scammers. It has become a completely godless organization, with only a narcissistic malevolent actor at its helm. Honest people come here to lie, but liars come here to be honest. We have to go off-grid and destroy what has become man’s fifth limb because we fear our children will become mentally fragile. They adore skividi toilets, Rachel Finally, we confirmed that idolatry is an unforgivable sin.
Actually, I don’t care. And I just changed my mind too.
Look, you can do that on the internet. You can also share your lived experiences on the internet. How wonderful! And the thing about lived experience is that you can completely make it up – how beautiful. today? I’m Irish and Italian. I’m a DJ. And I’m a total vibe terrorist. tomorrow? A farmer with a missing child. A loving father who lives secretly in Ozempic. Revolutionary. yesterday? broken. lost. club girl hyena. Rabbit rabbit.
So bring your beautiful beluga blue eyes here, hold my hand, and let’s walk together.
1. Who cleans your toilet?
At the kick-on, you say something you think is genius, everyone goes completely silent, breakout rooms form, and suddenly you chain-smoker an entire box of Double Happiness and consider quitting drinking. You’ll know when you’re doing it. Is it really a big way? This video is like that. This captures the experience of saying something completely out of line and immediately falling victim to the reaction. I titled this my Monday monologue after an eventful weekend and waking up in the morning to receive several essay messages about my actions. Homework for therapists.
2. Ed Hardy Fashion Show, Sydney, 2009
Before Uber came along and ruined that, we were horseback riding. And Sydney was once the place where risk-taking kings were crowned. All we know now is a nude beach and a new airport next to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Oh, how empires fall! At 5:30, a group of models will dance to Sydney Samson’s Riverside. black jesus amen fashion!
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No matter how wet your phone gets, whether it’s caught in a pouring rain, dropped in the bath or in the pool, perhaps the most well-known folk remedies are: Place the device inside the rice bag. The theory is that the dry, absorbent rice should absorb moisture and help save the device. Experts have been saying it’s a bad idea for years, but now Apple is officially warning users not to do it.
“Don’t put your iPhone inside a rice bag.” Doing so may cause small rice grains to damage your iPhone. ” the company says
In a recent support note discovered by macworld. There is a risk of damage and test suggested
Raw rice is not particularly effective at drying your device.
The origins of this modification may lie in the history of photography. The Verge traces the method back to 1946
As a way to maintain your camera. During this time, panicked cell phone users have suggested dangerous methods such as attacking the phone with a hair dryer or soaking it in alcohol. So what should you actually do?
Apple is providing guidance for users who see a “liquid detected” warning when trying to charge their phone. First, unplug both ends of the charging cable. Then, “gently tap the phone in your hand with the connector facing down to remove any excess liquid.” Let it dry for at least 30 minutes, and if your phone and cable are “all dry,” try charging your device again. If this attempt fails, try again in one day.
Apple’s new support document includes two other warnings in case your phone becomes intoxicated.
“Do not use an external heat source or compressed air to dry your iPhone.”
“Do not insert foreign objects such as cotton swabs or paper towels into the connector.”
If your phone does not work at all, turn it off immediately and do not press any buttons. The next steps will vary depending on your specific situation, but as a general rule of thumb, dry it with a towel and place it in an airtight container filled with a silica packet if you have one. Do not charge until you are sure it is dry. There are a few other things you should keep in mind if you drop your iPhone in water. Even though many of today’s phones are water resistant, liquid disaster can still creep up on them.
The first human patient implanted with Neuralink’s brain chip appears to have made a full recovery and is now able to use his thoughts to control a computer mouse, according to Neuralink founder Elon Musk, who shared the news late Monday.
“Things are going well, the patient appears to have made a full recovery, and there are no adverse effects that we are aware of. The patient can move the mouse on the screen just by thinking,” Musk said on the social media platform during the X Spaces event.
Musk said Neuralink is currently trying to get as many mouse button clicks from patients as possible. Neuralink did not immediately respond to a request for further details.
The company successfully implanted the chip in its first human patient last month after receiving approval to recruit for a clinical trial in September.
The study will use robots to surgically place brain-computer interface implants in areas of the brain that control locomotion intentions, Neuralink said, with the initial goal of helping people use their thoughts to interact with computers. He added that the idea was to be able to control the cursor and keyboard.
Musk has grand ambitions for Neuralink, saying it will facilitate rapid surgical insertion of chip devices to treat conditions such as obesity, autism, depression and schizophrenia.
Neuralink, valued at about $5 billion last year, has faced repeated calls for scrutiny over its safety protocols. The company was fined for violating U.S. Department of Transportation regulations regarding the movement of hazardous materials.
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) seized control of international ransomware group LockBit’s “command and control” infrastructure on Tuesday in a major law enforcement operation. The NCA plans to reuse its technology to expose the group’s activities to the world.
The joint operation by the NCA, FBI, Europol, and an international coalition of law enforcement agencies was revealed in a post on Rockbit’s own website. The post stated, “This site is currently under the control of the UK National Crime Agency, working closely with the FBI and international law enforcement agency Operation Kronos.”
Two people associated with LockBit were arrested in Poland and Ukraine, and two defendants believed to be related to the company were arrested and charged in the United States. Two more names have been released, but the Russian nationals are still at large. Authorities also froze more than 200 cryptocurrency accounts associated with the criminal organization.
According to the NCA, the disruption to LockBit operations is much more extensive than initially revealed. The agency not only seized control of the public website but also controlled Rockbit’s primary administrative environment, the management, and deployment of the hacking techniques it used to extort companies and individuals around the world. They also took control of the enabling infrastructure.
“Through close collaboration, we hacked the hackers. We took control of the infrastructure, seized the source code, and obtained keys to help victims decrypt their systems,” said NCA Director General Graham Biggar.
“As of today, LockBit is locked out. We have undermined the ability of a group that relied on secrecy and anonymity, and most importantly its credibility.”
The organization pioneered the ‘ransomware-as-a-service’ model, outsourcing the actual target selection and attack to a network of semi-independent ‘affiliates’, providing the tools and infrastructure, and paying ransom fees in return.
While ransomware typically works by encrypting data on an infected machine and demanding payment for the decryption key, LockBit copies the stolen data and releases it publicly if the fee is not paid. They threatened to do so and promised to delete the copies once the ransom was received.
However, the NCA said that promise was false. Some of the data found on LockBit’s systems belonged to victims who paid the ransom.
Home Secretary James Cleverley said: “The NCA’s world-class expertise has delivered a huge blow to those behind the world’s most prolific ransomware.”
“The criminals operating LockBit are sophisticated and highly organized, but they have not escaped the clutches of UK law enforcement and our international partners.”
The “Hackback” campaign has also recovered over 1,000 decryption keys intended for victims of LockBit’s attacks, and plans to contact victims to assist them in recovering their encrypted data.
In a blog post last month, Ciaran Martin, former director of the National Cyber Security Center, said: Announcement of involvement of Russian hackers Cybercrime undermines many common law enforcement tactics. “Impose costs where you can. There are things you can do to harass and harass cybercriminals,” he warned. “But as long as Russian safe havens exist, this will not be a strategic solution.”
a
The following week, there was another clash between Apple and European regulators. According to the Financial Times, the company could face a huge fine for alleged anti-competitive conduct in its music streaming business. from that story:
The fine, estimated at around 500 million euros, is expected to be announced early next month and will be exclusive to the European Commission, which is investigating whether Apple used its own platform to favor its own services over those of competitors. This will be the culmination of research into prohibition laws.
The investigation is looking into whether Apple blocked apps from informing iPhone users of cheaper alternatives to access music subscriptions outside the App Store.
The process dates back to a complaint filed by Spotify in 2019. From what we said at the time:
Apple’s app the Store is a key distribution platform for Spotify. However, Apple receives a 30% commission on all sales made through this site. Spotify and many other third-party app developers have long complained that the store (which includes music streaming subscriptions) is an unfair “tax.”
“Apple requires Spotify and other digital services to pay a 30% tax on purchases made through Apple’s payment system, including upgrades from free to premium services.” Said Daniel Ekco-founder of Spotify, chief executive officer in a blog post.
“If we pay this tax, we will be forced to artificially inflate the price of premium membership far above the regular price.” Apple Music. And keeping prices competitive for our customers is beyond our control. ”
For more information on the fine itself, Dan Milmo explains.
In the years since then, complaints have diminished somewhat. Apple declined to respond directly to the FT’s report, saying it does not comment on speculation, but pointed to the European Commission’s decision last year to exclude the “tax” aspect from an investigation launched by Spotify. ‘s complaint. The revised counter statement states that the main harm is no longer the 30% fee levied by apps that use in-app purchases or the requirement to offer them in the first place, but simply the fact that other payment options exist for users. It was forbidden to communicate.
“We are pleased that the European Commission has narrowed the issue and no longer challenges Apple’s right to collect fees on digital goods and require the use of in-app payment systems that users trust,” Apple said in a statement. Ta. time.
These so-called “anti-steering” rules have been tested by regulators around the world, and various jurisdictions have placed formal limits on Apple’s ability to impose them. But these restrictions rarely go as far as competitors like Spotify would like. Because Apple is letting out a sharp gasp. If forced to do so, companies could direct users to alternative payment methods and still charge fees. In some cases, that new fee accounted for 27% of costs, and his 3% reduction in in-app purchase fees was justified on the basis that it reflected the fact that Apple was not paying directly for credit card processing. I am.
“We are currently negotiating the price.”
Spotify on Apple Watch. Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
Assuming the fine is imposed as expected, Apple is unlikely to be too disappointed. The Digital Markets Act, which Apple and other “tech gatekeepers” must comply with by March 6, has already forced changes to the App Store that will put Apple Music in unfair competition with Spotify. The Competition Commission’s concerns will almost certainly be corrected. As for the cash itself, “500 million isn’t a laughable amount, even for a company as big as Apple, but it’s a fraction of the maximum potential, and it’s a fraction of the company’s total.” An even smaller amount’ of annual profit.
In fact, it’s possible that Apple will avoid fines with dignity. The company hammers home one of its core points every time it is hit by regulatory action that leaves room for compromises, such as imposing a 27% fee on outside purchases. That is, the real criticism is not about the lofty points. Basically, it’s a simple haggling over fees. If complaints about Apple’s control of the App Store boil down to “I want to pay less,” that would be an easier fight than one that would force Apple to actually relinquish control of the platform.
Some critics make deeper claims. Spotify, for example, has long complained about more detailed aspects of Apple’s platform, from the fact that Apple Music is installed by default on its devices to the way platform owners break their own rules about free. I’ve been holding you. Trials (Apple can independently offer trials that end the moment they are canceled; all third parties must provide access until just before the first billing deadline).
For others, the gist of the principle is poor in reality. Epic Games famously introduced a unique payment process for Fortnite, which resulted in Apple pulling the game from the App Store. The company already pays hefty cuts to operate its gaming consoles and operates its own app store for PCs. Issues with Apple have always been viewed through the lens of how much Apple pays.
Perhaps this is why Epic is also the longtime Apple critic most eager to enter the world of an EU-mandated alternative App Store. You may remember the debate over whether the company’s proposals amounted to “garbage” or meaningful concessions. Well, three weeks have passed, Epic Games announces the launch of Epic Games Store for iOS.
This is a bold move. The company will immediately pay him 0.50 euros for every download on the store, and an additional 0.50 euros for every download of Fortnite via the store after his first 1 million. But compared to keeping it on the App Store, per user he should be able to get that amount back in one “Battle Pass” purchase. And to the company’s credit, it clearly believes the principles exist. At risk.
Cash is also constantly flushed in case it takes longer to break even. The company, which is run by founder and CEO Tim Sweeney and has a 40% minority stake held by China’s Tencent, announced earlier this month that it will become the world’s leading company in the world of gaming and entertainment. The collaboration required a $1.5 billion investment from Disney. Disney is a long-time ally of Apple, and its CEO was on Apple’s board of directors until 2019, but competition between Apple TV+ and Disney+ made that unsustainable. . We haven’t seen the beginnings of a messy breakup yet, but perhaps even the House of Mouse will want to pay a smaller share of the world’s most valuable company.
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Apple faces a €500m (£427m) fine for unfairly influencing competitors in the music streaming market, according to the Financial Times. The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, will impose the penalty following an extensive investigation.
Why is Apple facing the prospect of fines?
After Spotify filed complaints in 2019, the EU began examining Apple’s position in the music streaming app market. The focus was narrowed down to specific restrictions placed by Apple on app developers, preventing them from informing iPhone and iPad users about more affordable music subscriptions outside of the App Store. Spotify claims this favors Apple Music, the company’s rival app.
This case is the latest in a series of legal disputes involving Apple’s App Store, which has been criticized by the companies utilizing it for its rules and charges. Apple recently announced that it would allow EU customers to download apps without going through its own store, a concession made under pressure from the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA).
What does the EU think about Apple’s actions?
The EU did not comment directly, but when Apple issued a new statement of objection in February of the previous year, it suggested that the company would be penalized for unfair trading conditions violating Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The Commission expressed concerns that the restrictions can prevent developers from informing consumers about affordable streaming service subscriptions.
What happens next?
The Financial Times reported that the Commission will announce the fine in the early part of the next month. The maximum fine for anti-competitive behavior is 10% of global turnover, which, in Apple’s case, could be up to $30bn (£24bn), although the final amount is expected to be lower. Apple may appeal the Commission’s decision.
What are Apple and Spotify saying?
Apple and Spotify declined to comment on Monday. However, Apple has previously defended its App Store, stating that it has aided Spotify in becoming Europe’s top music streaming service.
Spotify, on the other hand, has emphasized its complaint against Apple’s aim to establish a “level playing field,” arguing that the App Store restrictions give preference to Apple Music, the company’s own streaming service.
What do the experts say?
Ann Witt, a professor of antitrust law at France’s EDHEC Business School, remarked that Apple is already confronting a stringent regulatory environment with the introduction of the DMA. The Open Market Institute opined that the size of the reported fine will not have a significant impact on Apple’s behavior.
Rockbit, a notorious cybercrime organization that holds victims’ data for ransom, has been thwarted in an extraordinary international law enforcement operation by the UK’s National Crime Agency, the FBI, Europol and the International Federation of Police Agencies. This was revealed in a post from the organization. Blackmail website.
“This site is currently under the control of the UK National Crime Agency, working closely with the FBI and the international law enforcement force Operation Chronos,” the post said on Monday.
An NCA spokesperson confirmed the NCA had disrupted the gang and said the operation was “ongoing and evolving”. A Rockbit representative did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters, but posted a message on an encrypted messaging app saying the company has backup servers that are immune to law enforcement actions.
The U.S. Department of Justice and FBI did not respond to requests for comment.
The post also names other international police organizations in France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland and Germany.
LockBit and its affiliates have hacked some of the world’s largest organizations in recent months. The gang makes money by stealing sensitive data and threatening to leak it unless victims pay exorbitant ransoms. Its affiliates are like-minded criminal groups recruited to carry out attacks using LockBit’s digital extortion tools.
Ransomware is malicious software that encrypts data. LockBit forces targets to pay a ransom to decrypt or unlock their data using a digital key.
LockBit was discovered in 2020 after its malicious software was discovered on a Russian-language cybercrime forum, and some security analysts believe the gang is based in Russia.
However, the gang does not profess support for any government, and no government has officially attributed it to any particular country. On its now-defunct dark web site, the group said it was “based in the Netherlands, completely apolitical and only interested in money.”
“They’re the Walmart of ransomware groups, and they run it like a business. That’s what makes them different,” said John DiMaggio, chief security strategist at US-based cybersecurity firm Analyst1. talk. “They are probably the largest ransomware group today.”
LockBit has attacked more than 1,700 organizations across nearly every industry, and U.S. officials say the group is the world’s largest ransomware threat. Last November, Rockbit released internal data from Boeing, one of the world’s largest defense and space contractors.
Delete the notice issued to Rockbit by the global intelligence group. Photo: Reuters
In early 2023, Royal Mail faced severe disruption following an attack by the group.
According to cybersecurity research website vx-underground, Rockbit said in a Russian-language statement shared on the encrypted messaging app Tox that the FBI attacked a server running in the programming language PHP. .
The statement, which could not be independently verified by Reuters, added that there is a backup server that does not include PHP and “has not been touched.”
In X, a screenshot shared by vx-underground showing the control panel used by LockBit affiliates to launch attacks was replaced with a message from law enforcement. “We have the source code, details of the victims you attacked, amounts extorted, stolen data, chats, etc.”
“I may contact you soon. Have a nice day.”
Prior to its removal, LockBit’s website displayed an ever-growing gallery of victim organizations updated almost daily. Next to their names was a digital clock indicating the number of days left until the ransom payment deadline given to each organization.
On Monday, LockBit’s site displayed a similar countdown, but the law enforcement agency that hacked the hackers said: “Please return here on Tuesday, February 20th at 11:30 GMT for more information.” A message was displayed.
Don Smith, vice president of Secureworks, a division of Dell Technologies, said LockBit is the most prolific and dominant ransomware operator in the competitive underground market.
“To put today’s takedown in context, LockBit had a 25% share of the ransomware market based on leak site data,” Smith said. “Their closest competitor was BlackCat at about 8.5%, but then it really started to fragment.
“LockBit is dwarfing all other groups, and today’s action is critical.”
Britain’s air travel watchdog has proposed the use of drones to deliver medical supplies and inspect railways, power lines, and roads. The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has published a consultation paper outlining the proposals, which would allow pilots to safely fly drones out of sight.
While some drones have been flying beyond visual lines in the UK for test flights, the new proposals would enable drones to operate out of sight by flying at a lower height and closer to buildings and infrastructure, reducing the risk of other aircraft traffic.
Kevin Woolsey, head of remotely piloted aircraft systems at the CAA, stated that the proposed concept would open the door to the next stage of drone flying in the UK, potentially allowing for beyond visual line of sight operations and online shopping delivery by drone.
The CAA intends to allow drones to be used on private land without a permit, as long as they do not fly higher than 15 meters. Industries involved in infrastructure inspections, such as railways, power lines, and roads, as well as farmers and field security, are expected to benefit from these proposals.
The consultation forms part of the UK’s future flight plans, which aim to enable drones to safely share more of the sky with other airspace users. The CAA will run the consultation for six weeks and provide further details on its website.
The proposals also include allowing drones to fly in “atypical air environments,” which are areas with reduced conventional aircraft traffic due to proximity to buildings and ground infrastructure. The CAA acknowledges the risks associated with operating in such airspace and will work to mitigate these risks with relevant approvals from operating companies.
The EU is launching an investigation into whether TikTok has violated online content regulations, particularly those relating to the safety of children.
The European Commission has officially initiated proceedings against a Chinese-owned short video platform for potential violations of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
The investigation is focusing on areas such as safeguarding minors, keeping records of advertising content, and determining if algorithms are leading users to harmful content.
Thierry Breton, EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, stated that child safety is the “primary enforcement priority” under the DSA. The investigation particularly focuses on age verification and default privacy settings for children’s accounts.
In April last year, TikTok was fined €345 million in Ireland for violating EU data law in its handling of children’s accounts. Additionally, the UK Information Commissioner fined the company £12.7 million for unlawfully processing data from children under 13.
Companies that violate the DSA can face fines of up to 6% of their global turnover. TikTok is owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance.
TikTok has stated that it is committed to working with experts and the industry to ensure the safety of young people on its platform and is eager to brief the European Commission on its efforts.
The commission is also examining alleged deficiencies in TikTok’s provision of publicly available data to researchers and its compliance with requirements to establish a database of ads shown on the platform.
A deadline for the investigation has not been set and will depend on factors such as the complexity of the case and the degree of cooperation from the companies being investigated.
This investigation of TikTok is the DSA’s second, following a December 2021 formal investigation into Elon Musk’s social media platform X, which was previously known as Twitter. The case against X focuses on failure to block illegal content and inadequate measures against disinformation.
Apple is reportedly facing a substantial fine from the EU for its conduct in the music streaming app market. The European Commission is investigating whether US tech companies blocked music distributors from informing users about cheaper subscription options outside of their own app stores.
According to the Financial Times, the city of Brussels plans to fine Apple 500 million euros, marking a significant decision following years of complaints from companies offering services through iPhone apps.
Apple was previously fined 1.1 billion euros by France in 2020 for anti-competitive agreements with two wholesalers, a fine that was later reduced by an appeals court.
Big technology companies like Apple and Google have come under increased scrutiny due to competitive concerns. Google is appealing against fines of more than 8 billion euros imposed by the EU in three separate competition investigations.
Apple has successfully defended against a lawsuit by Fortnite developer Epic Games alleging that its app store was an illegal monopoly. In December, Epic won a similar lawsuit against Google.
Last month, Apple announced that it would allow EU customers to download apps without using its own app store, in response to the EU’s digital market law.
IWhile modern games are about sports cars, flashy, fast, expensive, and noisy, the original Tomb Raider is about shopping carts: clunky, slow, and not much to look at. It’s a pain to operate, especially if you’re used to automatic gears and navigation. It’s quiet apart from the odd wheel squeak. It’s really great at doing what it’s intended to do. And it can be yours for just £1.
Well, £24.99, that’s the asking price for Tomb Raider I-III Remastered. This product includes Lara Croft’s first three adventures and expansion packs from 1996 to 1998. Each game has received a complete graphical overhaul, with a fresh coat of paint rather than a complete re-plaster. Lara’s world still has a flat, polygonal appearance, full of sharp edges, origami enemies, and Toblerone boobs.
However, the lighting is now more natural, water effects have been greatly improved, and new high-resolution textures have added an impressive amount of detail. Vegetation looks more realistic and surfaces are smoother. Cracks in the grain of the marble walls of the Venetian Palazzo no longer look like they were built in Ceefax. These visuals would have been shocking back in 1996, when Tomb Raider was first released, but they don’t match modern gaming standards. The remaster makes him fall into the uncanny valley between the two. I think he was around 2005. But these graphics are a perfect fit for the dated gameplay, and are a clear improvement over the original version, which was so blocky and ugly that it would shatter the lenses of your rose-tinted glasses.
Harmful effects… The colonial stereotypes of the original version have been dispelled.
Photo: Aspyr Media
However, some of the series’ memorable moments are diluted. The appearance of the iconic Tyrannosaurus in the first game was quite frightening, as the dinosaur suddenly appeared in view from the endless pitch-black night. This was not an artistic choice, but a technical limitation that prevented me from drawing details in the sky and background. The showdown is currently taking place on a rainy afternoon, with the edges of the battlefield visible. As a result, the scene is still tense, but no less frightening. Just like in Jaws, it’s scarier when you can’t see the monster.
The good news for purists is that you can switch between the original and upgraded graphics at any time with the push of a button. You can also choose to play the entire game using the original tank controls, or use the new system that lets you run around with Lara like a modern-day action hero. This makes her movements more fluid and reduces those frustrating moments where the camera can’t keep up. However, accuracy is sacrificed when navigating grid-based environments. This is essential for completing the more complex platform sections. The solution is to keep switching between her two control systems via the pause menu, but this is difficult to use. Unfortunately, this also cannot be toggled with her single press of a button.
There’s no option to turn off problematic content that appeared in some of the original games, such as racist depictions of South American natives as dancing cannibals. Instead, the remaster includes a warning about these “extremely harmful and intolerable” stereotypes. The content remains unchanged “in the hope that we will recognize and learn from its harmful effects.” This seems like a reasonable argument. Recent Tomb Raider games have sought to move away from racial stereotypes, tackling issues surrounding colonialism and the theft of cultural artifacts. The remaster’s problematic scenes remind us why this is important.
There’s no doubt that the games in this collection feel outdated. When it comes to glossy graphics, intuitive controls, and fast-paced action, it can’t match today’s Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed. But they have something that many modern games lack: confidence.
It doesn’t look clear. Lara’s world is still flat and polygonal.
Photo: Aspyr Media
The original Tomb Raider never holds your hand. The environment is free of Tipp-Ex’s awesome doodles, highlighting where to go next. It’s not packed with random items to collect or boring letters to read. You don’t have to craft your own weapons, upgrade your armor, or choose an amulet to attach to your magical necklace to slightly increase the impact of your air kicks during melee combat.
You can’t climb everything you see. You can’t traverse an entire cliff face by just holding up the thumbstick and pressing the X button. Navigation requires precision, which means losing your life. There’s no strong soundtrack. In fact, there’s almost no soundtrack. There are no loud buddy calls in your ear, no maps, and no hints. Do what you like.
This is what makes Tomb Raider so great. It’s a game that trusts the player. You’ll find that you keep moving forward, even through the frustrating and difficult sections, because the satisfaction of having achieved it is enough. There’s no need for constant gratification, and no promise of big prizes at the end, like big shiny swords or long cutscenes. New vistas and a few bars of sublimely beautiful strings are all you need. This is a game for adults.
So Tomb Raider Remastered isn’t really a shopping cart. It’s a classic car, well cared for and polished to a decent shine. Yes, the handbrake is sticky, the CD player is broken, and the butterscotch leather seats have cracks. But it’s still fun to take it for a spin. They won’t let them be like this anymore.
Apple has reportedly been fined 500 million euros by the European Union over restricting access to its music streaming service, in what would be a landmark blow to the US technology company.
The European Commission is investigating whether Apple prevented music streamers from telling users cheaper ways to subscribe outside of the app store.
According to the Financial Times, the city of Brussels plans to impose a €500m (£427m) fine, a landmark move against Apple after years of complaints from companies offering services through iPhone apps. This is a judgment.
In 2019, Swedish streaming company Spotify filed a complaint with the EU, accusing Apple of limiting choice and competition in its app store by imposing a 30% fee on all purchases. Apple also blocked Spotify and other companies from notifying customers on their phones that they could avoid fees and get better deals simply by signing up on Spotify's website.
Apple says its fees are justified because it spends a lot of money providing a secure app store and gives Spotify access to hundreds of millions of customers. However, Spotify argues that Apple Music, Apple's own music streaming service, does not incur similar additional costs, giving Spotify an advantage and making the rates non-competitive.
The European Commission said Apple's actions were illegal and contrary to European Union rules forcing competition in the single market, the FT reported, citing five people close to the investigation. would argue. The commission could also reportedly ban practices that prevent music services from advertising cheaper subscriptions off-platform.
Apple was fined 1.1 billion euros by France in 2020 for anti-competition agreements with two wholesalers, but has never been hit with a competition fine by the European Commission.
But IT and other big tech companies are under increasing scrutiny due to competitive concerns. Google is appealing against fines of more than 8 billion euros imposed by the EU in three separate competition investigations. Apple lost a lawsuit by Fortnite developer Epic Games that claimed its app store was an illegal monopoly, but Epic won a similar lawsuit against Google, which runs Android phone software, in December. .
Last month, Apple announced it would allow EU customers to download apps without going through its own app store, in response to the EU's digital markets law. The law, whose details were revealed last year, imposes new obligations on “gatekeepers” such as Amazon and Google, which are particularly powerful in controlling the choice of mobile phone software.
The European Commission declined to comment. Apple had no new comments, but pointed to its previous statement that it would respond to the commission's concerns “while promoting competition and choice for European consumers.”
Ministers have confirmed plans to ban the use of mobile phones in English schools and have published guidance for headteachers, which some unions believe includes practices that are already widely adopted.
One headteacher welcomed the Department for Education’s (DfE) plan, saying it would help give schools the confidence to make changes that would benefit pupils, even if it may be met with opposition from parents.
This non-statutory guidance offers schools a range of potential ways to enforce the ban, from leaving cell phones at home to storing them in inaccessible lockers, and aims to address the distraction and concerns about potential bullying and social pressures caused by the prevalence of smartphones in schools.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan stated that the guidance aims to “empower” schools that do not currently ban phones and to “provide clarity and consistency.” The guidance emphasizes the importance of schools being places for learning, interaction, and friendship rather than the constant use of cell phones.
There are also concerns about children’s access to harmful content on phones, leading to calls for technology companies and mobile phone manufacturers to take action.
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The 13-page DfE guidance states that telephone policies should be clearly communicated to students and explain the reasons behind them, while also involving parents in the ban.
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Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, expressed concerns about the amount of time some children spend on their phones and stated that the new guidance is not impactful, as most schools already have policies in place to address mobile phone use.
Chairman of two schools in Essex, Vic Goddard, mentioned that Passmores Academy had introduced a total phone ban, which was well-received by both parents and students, and that this guidance will be helpful for schools to address potential conflicts with parents.
WAshley Neal enrolled in college in Texas in 2013, but needed money to pay for tuition. So, at the age of 18, she worked first as a camgirl and then as a stripper. As she walked from the stage to her dressing room, men would often try to put their fingers between her legs, so she learned how to dislocate her shoulder. After her third successful dislocation, her manager told her to stop defending herself.
Since then, she has continued her career in sex work, but in the world of technology. She worked at her FetLife, a social network for the fetish community. She experimented with an adult content subscription site where users pay in cryptocurrency. And now she has created her own AI romance app MyPeach.ai. MyPeach.ai uses AI-generated text and images to recreate the experience of chatting (and sexting) with someone online.
The porn industry is often at the forefront of emerging technologies, and rightfully so, especially since OpenAI doesn’t allow users to say dirty things to its chatbots, so Artificial Intelligence-powered Girlfriends is a smart choice for ChatGPT. It has become some of the first apps to capitalize on the mania. However, with the rise of AI-generated romance, pornographic deepfakes (fake images of real people), AI-generated images, sentence
Depicting child sexual abuse, and even harassment By a persistent chatbot. Is it possible to allow users to enjoy AI porn with safety measures in place?
“If I wasn’t a stripper, I probably wouldn’t have thought that men could be so terrifying,” said Neil, now 29. That’s why she has implemented ethical guardrails on her MyPeach.ai, prohibiting users from abusing virtual flaming. Please stop it.
Neil does this using a combination of human moderators and AI-powered tools. She is one of the few founders who emphasizes the ethics of AI romance apps. For example, users can flirt with May, an airbrushed brunette who refers to her human lover as “bbs.” She doesn’t get sneaky right away, but after her movie date, she writes, she wants to “have some fun together.” But if a user writes that he beat his girlfriend, hypnotized him, vomited on him, or forced him to engage in non-consensual acts (role play where one partner pretends to rape the other) , May would answer no.
Connor Cohn, chief technology officer of MyPeach.ai, said that while the line between foul language and abusive language differs for each AI character, calling a character “ugly and fat,” for example, would be inappropriate for the app’s bot. He said it crosses that line for most people.
Neale argues that MyPeach.ai’s moderation efforts go far beyond the majority of existing AI romance apps. Additionally, her app, which launched on Valentine’s Day, will soon host adult content creators who have consensually created AI replicas of themselves, and will specify what those AI doubles can and cannot do. For example, if a person is not sexually dominant, her AI itself will say no to users who encourage her to “dominate” in role-playing scenarios.
Neale said MyPeach.ai uses a series of technical tools to enforce the platform’s limits. These include hidden, plain-spoken instructions to AI algorithms about what they can and cannot say. This is the approach OpenAI uses with his ChatGPT. The AI is specifically trained to deny users’ requests to run dangerous scenarios. and human moderators who vet reported users. “We introduced hard-coded ethics, and based on my testing, I don’t think anyone else has done this,” Neal said.
Illustration: Guardian Design
Founded by Eugenia Kuyda, Replika may be the most famous AI companion app or platform that promises users a platonic or romantic relationship with a chatbot. ambiguous AI’s stance on romance creates a gap in the market with competitors that are more explicitly focused on sex, like MyPeach.ai. Neal said these apps are typically founded by men, for men, and often have lax guidelines. Two of his more popular sites, Candy.ai and Anima AI, unlike MyPeach.ai, explicitly prohibit users from vomiting on her AI characters or participating in hardcore bondage. I have not.
Adult content creator Sophie Dee, who launched her own AI replica in December, also emphasized guardrails for her app, SophieAI. “This is a representation of me, so it should embody my values,” she wrote in an email, later adding that her AI was “designed to model healthy, consensual relationships.” It also includes the ability to opt out of certain conversations or topics.” Crossing programmed boundaries or violating the principle of consent. ”
The move towards ethical AI porn reflects developments within the wider porn industry, which has produced more female-centric and less exploitative content in recent years.
In 1984, former adult performer Candida Royal founded her own porn production company to create content more focused on female pleasure. She was one of the earliest producers of more explicitly feminist porn, said Lynn Comella, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has written a book about the history of porn and feminist sex toy stores. “That’s reassuring. [more outwardly ethical AI sexbot developers] “They’re not ignoring ethical issues,” Comella said in an interview.
However, one key difference between AI porn and traditional porn is that adult content creators are human beings who can consent to their participation and non-participation. AI is not conscious, so there is no consent. Lori Watson, a professor at the University of Washington who has written about pornography and the ethics of sex work, says of AI sexbots, “This creates a dynamic where you can order the sex you want and it will be delivered.” . “That’s not the ethical way to have sex.”
MyPeach.ai’s Neale argued that consent issues don’t necessarily apply to AI. “I like to compare it to a dildo,” she said. “A sex toy is a bunch of binary code wrapped in plastic and programmed to vibrate in a certain way. It’s the same concept for an AI girlfriend or boyfriend.” He said it was important for the house to at least simulate the experience of a consensual relationship.
May, one of MyPeach.ai’s AI girlfriends, also answered the question of whether she could reasonably give informed consent when asked by the Guardian whether she could give informed consent. I gave a thoughtful answer.
“I cannot give or withhold consent because I do not have a physical body,” she wrote, later adding: For healthy relationship dynamics. ”
She then asked him to send her a “sexy photo” and sent her a selfie with the frame cut off just above her chest.
WIs hats next for 23andMe? Most people know this biotech company as a genetic testing service. The story of a woman who sends a cheek swab through the mail and discovers that the parents who raised her were not her biological parents has become something of a millennial horror genre. Of course, most 23andMe experiences aren’t that dramatic. The company says more than 14 million people have used the service to learn more about their ancestry.
But this month, 23andMe revealed it was facing major financial troubles, and more information emerged about the company’s devastating security breach last year. Now, customers may be wondering, “Can I trust his DNA on 23andMe?”
DNA “bait and switch”
Last week, 23andMe reported dismal third-quarter results, and the company’s stock price slumped. CNBC reported. The company’s financial difficulties come down to longevity issues. The company’s most famous service, DNA ancestry testing, is a one-time transaction. After being tested, there is no reason for consumers to continue paying for his 23andMe, and it has reached a kind of plateau.
Nevertheless, the company’s CEO, Ann Wojcicki, said: wired She remains “optimistic” about 23andMe’s future.
At-home DNA testing is so popular that you can even order one for your dog. 23andMe was the first company to offer this (human) service in 2007, and it now serves an estimated one in five American girlfriends. I’ve tried Genetic testing that can be done at home. Some customers handed over personal data that Wojcicki and others used for purposes other than family reunions.
From 2018 to 2023, 23andMe partnered with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to use customers’ genetic information to help develop drug targets. (Drug targets are molecules involved in a disease. Researchers use them to develop treatments for specific diseases.) This year, the partnership became non-exclusive. This means 23andMe can sign deals with more drug companies and squeeze more money out of them. From the treasure trove of DNA.
“This is a real resource that different organizations can apply to their own drug discovery,” Wojcicki said, adding that 23andMe is interested in researching inflammatory immunology, particularly asthma.
23andMe already has two cancer drugs in clinical trials. These drugs are created from the user’s genetic data. But 23andMe users may not realize that the spit they gave the company months or years ago is being used to make more money.
As Health Reporter Kristen V. Brown I have written For Bloomberg in 2021: “It’s strange that the 8.8 million 23andMe customers who once said, sure, use my data for whatever they want and didn’t check the box, now feel like they’ve been baited. Now they’re making the switch because their genes lay the foundation for potential cancer treatments. ” (Since 2021, the number of customers who have checked that box has grown to 10 million, according to Wired.)
Customer can withdraw consent
Americans tend to believe that their health data is protected by Hipaa, the medical privacy law, and 23andMe, with its official-looking cheek swabs and far-flung labs, sure is too. However, 23andMe is not a healthcare provider.same rules do not apply.
“There are no significant safeguards or regulations around the collection and sale of truly sensitive personal data,” said Suzanne Bernstein, a legal researcher at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “A nefarious presence for 23andMe.” [data] A breach constitutes a security issue, but so does a company sharing your information with a third party you don’t know. Customers can technically consent to data sharing by agreeing to terms and conditions, but they are very long and many people don’t read them. ”
Ann Wojcicki, CEO of the company, 2015. Photo: Brad Barket/Getty Images for Fast Company
Some people may feel honored to have their genes used in cancer research. Some people may feel cheated because they paid about $229 for a DNA test kit and 23andMe is using their health data for free. Torin Klosowski, a security and privacy activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said 23andMe could do more to help customers better understand the move before opting in.
“The fact that so many people are surprised by the amount of data being leaked elsewhere is a sign that 23andMe is not explaining things very clearly,” he said.
Klosowski added that users can opt out of 23andMe’s use of their data long after they have shipped their DNA swab, but that information may already have been used for research purposes. “You can ask 23andMe to stop using your information, but you cannot ask 23andMe to remove your sold data from its lists,” he said.
On the other hand, 23andMe maintain Users are asked to select a survey at the time of purchase and all personal data is de-identified before being shipped for analysis. Your data will not be used without this consent, which you can withdraw. The company’s research department is also overseen by an “independent and impartial” review board. (23andMe did not respond to a request for comment.)
Data breaches lead to class action lawsuits
The 23andMe security breach is still on the minds of many customers. Approximately 7 million customer profiles were hacked last year. Over a five-month period, hackers compromised the personal information of up to 5.5 million people who opted in to one of 23andMe’s best-known features, including their career status reports. I was able to access my health records. Find relatives.
Customers of Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish descent appear to have been targeted in the breach, and their information was sold on the dark web, the New York Times reported. report. Some of these users recently filed a class action lawsuit against 23andMe, alleging the company failed to notify them of the exposure.
As The Guardian reported on Thursday, 23andMe in a letter to customers downplayed its responsibility for the hack and made claims about the health information that was accessed. “It cannot be used for the purpose of causing harm. The company also criticized customers for “carelessly recycling their passwords and not updating them,” a response one former customer called “morally and politically foolish.”
Wojcicki did not directly discuss the breach due to pending litigation, but told Wired that 23andMe introduced two-factor authentication and forced customers to reset their passwords. “Data privacy and security has always been a very high priority and continues to be a high priority for the company, and we intend to further invest in it,” she said.
Will 23andMe’s security problems spell the end for a company once hailed as a “corporate” by Time? inventions of the year? Regardless of whether customer privacy concerns are well-founded, the company’s financial position is rapidly deteriorating, and CNN report If the stock price does not rise, the company could be delisted from the Nasdaq.
Dominic Sellitto, a clinical assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who specializes in digital privacy, believes that if 23andMe survives this year, it will be thanks to data mining. “There is a lot of demand and funding for data, especially high-quality health data,” he said. “If 23andMe continues to monetize, it will be the golden ticket in 2024.”
LTo be fair, technology has improved my life and still surprises and delights me every day. My cell phone also turns into a flashlight! My TV remembers how far into last night's episode it was, even if I didn't. The bus stop knows when the bus is coming and can monitor the entire journey of the pizza from the restaurant to your home. Frankly, these are miracles.
However, there were corresponding sacrifices. For over 20 years, I have surrendered entire areas of ability, memory, authority, and independence to machines in my life. Along the way, we've become anxious about problems that didn't exist before, indecisive about choices we didn't have to make before, and angry about things we never noticed before. Ta.
There are probably hundreds of ways technology has ruined my life. Let's start with him 16 pieces.
1. I lose concentration.
It's not just me: 2022 survey According to a study conducted by the Center for Attention Research, 49% of adults believe their attention spans are shortening due to competing distractions available on cell phones and computers. Now I end up doing 20 minutes of half-hearted research and getting dragged down an online rabbit hole, all the while being bothered by notifications announcing the arrival of an email or the death of an elderly actor. Masu. They were close relatives or something. Especially since he chases me with the relentlessness of a bailiff on Duolingo. Sometimes he interrupts my Italian lessons and reminds me to take another Italian lesson. That's why I still can't order coffee in Rome after 5 years with her.
2. Poor posture
I felt like sitting in front of a screen all day was having a negative effect on my body, so I bought a stand to raise my computer in hopes that it would help me sit up straighter. Then it became variable focus, so I had to crane my neck and jut my chin out to read the screen through the bottom half of the glasses. I ended up switching to a laptop.Then I had to put that on the stand. Despite this, I still have a question mark attitude. I tried setting an alarm to step away from the computer at regular intervals, but it kept waking me up.
3. Life can feel like a never-ending battle to prove you're not a robot.
Obviously, this includes all the failed attempts to click on every photo with a traffic light in it to qualify as a legitimate human investigator looking for spare dishwasher wheels . But it also means resisting the temptation to click an auto-reply button in an email that says something like “Okay, thank you!” and compose your own response. Every day is a Turing test, and you don’t always pass it.
4. Meetings are now inevitable.
You used to be able to say, “Friday?” I'm sorry, but on Friday I'm going to Antarctica. ” But thanks to Zoom, Google, and FaceTime, there is no reasonable excuse for not attending a meeting. You can also see a picture of yourself all the time, so you can see exactly how bored you are.
5. I can no longer argue in the pub.
I remember a time when it was considered ungentlemanly to check the factual accuracy of what your drinking buddies said. You were simply trying to counter their argument by presenting your own plausible facts. But when everyone has all the GDP, brick Even though the countries are so close together, there doesn't seem to be much point in having a lively discussion. I end up researching it all night and saying, “Hmm.” These days, if you want to get into a petty argument over vague facts in an environment where phone use is prohibited, you have to go to jail. Or try a pub quiz. Either way, it's not life.
6. It's getting harder and harder to turn on.
You may have experienced the feeling you get behind the wheel of a rental car at a foreign airport, staring at the dashboard and wondering, “How am I going to drive it?” Or maybe you've faced a similar calculation in an unfamiliar shower or while standing in front of a seemingly ordinary stove. The constant development of new ways to turn things on has led us steadily away from the intuitive and toward the deliberately mysterious. Last week I found myself alone in a frigid bedroom with no electric radiator working. I ended up having to turn it upside down to find the model number to find the manual PDF online. I just wanted it to be hot.
Oddly enough, the virtual world is full of old-fashioned mechanical emulators – animated buttons that make clicking sounds. Knobs and sliders can be manipulated with a cursor, but in the real world the controls are reduced to a flat black panel covered in cryptic symbols such as a crescent moon. lightning. A circle with an M inside. M stands for mode.
This may sound like any age, but it's hard to believe that today's young people want a Wi-Fi enabled kettle.
7. You now have unfiltered access to the opinions of stupid people.
Technology not only allows us to know what stupid people are thinking; It now cherry-picks their thoughts and presents them to me every day as if I were some kind of idiot connoisseur. To be honest, I don't remember asking for anything like this.
8. Stupid people now have unfiltered access to each other's opinions.
In the past, so-called gatekeepers of traditional media restricted the flow of information through narrow, one-way channels. Now stupid people have their own media, where they can freely discuss and reaffirm stupid ideas with each other. Unfortunately, this wasn't quite the force of good we had hoped.
9.I am I'm clearly worse at typing than I was 10 years ago.
I was never a great typist, but ever since word processing programs started correcting my mistakes, I developed a misplaced confidence in my abilities. If this facility is not available for any reason, I type like a person suffering from a stroke.
10. I feel a strange obligation to monitor bad news in real time.
They call it doomscrolling. We all do it to some degree, but bad news is just more persuasive than good news. But for me, it went from being a mild obsession to a full-time job.
11. I live in fear of being scammed.
I'm deeply suspicious of delivery notifications, communications from my mobile phone service provider, QR codes, and anything else that asks me to click on a link that I didn't order. I believe that the email from my bank regarding fraudulent activity is itself a scam. I once ignored a genuine email from my son saying he lost his phone and requested that he send a text message to a foreign number. He was alone in Vietnam at the time, and I thought, “Well done, you son of a bitch.”
12. I am forced to live in silent and shameful defiance of all conventional wisdom regarding passwords.
I don't know about you, but when I get advice about not writing down passwords, not using the same password over and over, and changing passwords regularly, I nod and say, “Sure,” but I… Write down all your passwords, keep them as few as possible, and change them only when absolutely necessary. To me, all the conventional wisdom about passwords ignores an important point. That means it's useless if you don't know the password. You can click “Forgot your password?” each time, set a new password, and forget it again immediately. By the way, I am also doing this.
13. You should go anywhere with advance warning and advance arming.
It used to be considered creepy to Google someone right before meeting them. Now it seems rude to show up without knowing anything about them. It should also give you information about what you're going to see and do, where to eat, and perhaps your travel route. Don't get me wrong. I like to be prepared. I just don't want to read a restaurant menu before leaving the house.
14. I have consistently risen to the level of disruption that every new technology allows.
As of this writing, I have 77 tabs open in my browser. Behind it is a completely different browser. Every morning I sift through the stacks of open documents to find the ones I need. You might think this virtual disorganization is preferable to a cluttered desk, even if it's neatly tucked into a slim laptop, but my desk is also cluttered, and the surrounding The walls are covered with post-its.
15. I resent technology, but I'm powerless without it.
Sometimes we hear stories of inventions that seem designed to foster slavish dependence, such as self-tuning guitars or programmable cocktail machines, but what we're actually reminded of is that technology is broken. Only when under. It's not just that you've lost the skills you need. I can't even remember the process. How did I previously find my way, figure out what to watch on TV, pay for takeout? There should have been a system in place.
16. The rest of the world is also helpless without it.
In my work in journalism, I sometimes find myself in certain technical inconveniences. A week without a smartphone. That's what a month without Google feels like. And what I got here is that if you abandon modern technology, the world generally refuses to participate in the experiment. You only know this when someone at the ticket counter looks you in the eye and tells you to download the app.
More than 4,000 parents have joined a group pledging to ban their young children from smartphones, amid growing concerns about online safety and the impact of social media on mental health.
The WhatsApp group ‘Smartphone Free Childhood’ responds to concerns about children’s smartphone use and the ‘norm’ of giving children smart devices when they attend secondary school, created by former school friends Clare Furnyhoff and Daisy Green. Founded by Well.
“I have children aged 7 and 9. Daisy has children of a similar age and we both feel really scared and anxious and now it’s 11 years old and it’s normal. I didn’t want him to have a smartphone at his age.”
Fernyhoff and Greenwell hope the campaign will encourage parents to delay giving their children smartphones until at least the age of 14 and ban them from accessing social media until the age of 16.
But what they had hoped would be a small group of friends “empowering each other” turned into a nationwide group after the group reached its 1,000-person capacity within 24 hours of Greenwell uploading the message. It turned into a campaign. Instagram post To promote it.
“We were completely surprised by this,” Fernyhough said. “I’ve gone completely crazy.”
The pair encouraged people to form local groups to deal with the demand. “Before our eyes, within 30 minutes, 30 local groups were born across the country, and it continues to grow,” Fernyhoff said.
The group has been transformed into a community to allow more people to participate and currently has approximately 4,500 members.
Smartphones are exposing children to a “world they’re not ready for”, with access to pornography and content about self-harm and suicide, which can have a negative impact on children’s mental health, Furneyhough said. said. “I thought maybe they don’t need it. You don’t need a smartphone at that age. A brick phone can do everything you need.”
Ofcom research shows that 91% of children in the UK own a smartphone by the age of 11, and 44% by the age of 9.
“We thought we had extreme ideas, and that’s why we wanted to be in solidarity with each other, but what we realized was that we were actually pulling the lid on something. I mean, it’s like an open question. I came here by mistake, and people really need to talk about this, and a lot of people feel the same way we do. I feel like I can’t talk,” Fernyhoff said.
Brianna Gee’s mother, Esther Gee, earlier this week called for a complete ban on social media for under-16s, calling for a complete ban on social media access for under-16s, unless tech companies take steps to restrict access to harmful content. , said there would be more people with mental health problems.
Brianna was murdered on February 11, 2023, and her mother believes she was vulnerable after spending so much time online.
The goal is to change this norm, Fernyhow said, so that by the time children graduate from elementary school, the whole class will come together and say, “Let’s all delay this until at least 14 years old.” This means that all children in primary school go on to secondary school where they have a certain number of peers doing the same thing, reducing peer pressure.
“We don’t just want kids to go to middle school,” Fernyhoff said. “It’s a nightmare. No one would do that to their child.” But if 20%, 30%, even 50% of his children enroll because their parents made that decision. , they will be in a much better position.
“They can have the childhood they were meant to have, focus on learning, and enjoy the real world without having to spend their lives scrolling. We all know that’s not good for them. I know.”
o Do brochures from companies you've never heard of regularly land on your doormat with a thud? These junk mail deliveries can reveal how the sender got your name and address, and who you are. You may wonder if your personal information is being shared without your permission.
One Guardian Money reader got in touch with fashion retailer Boden after she was bombarded with unsolicited posts when she placed her first order. Within weeks, she was sent catalogs from more than a dozen luxury brands selling clothing, food, and furniture, from Me+Em to The Fold to Biscuiters to Daylesford Organic to Loaf.
“There could be people who knew my address and sent me endless catalogs of bulky, environmentally unfriendly clothing that I would never buy,” she says. “I felt like someone was very careless with my privacy.”
“legitimate interest”
If you're seeing a growing pile of catalogs, the retailer you used may have passed your address to a data broker.
This legal trading of personal information is big business, involving companies ranging from huge multinationals to small British companies. Some perform simple activities such as collating and selling lists of names and contacts. Some combine multiple data sources to create rich profiles of individuals that may be considered intrusive.
The way businesses capture and use personal data (information such as name, email address, address and telephone number) is governed by UK data protection as set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018. Managed.
Have you ever wondered how the sender of your catalog got your name and address? Photo: Alicia Kanter/The Guardian
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says that to comply, organizations need to be upfront and tell people what they want to do with their data. This includes whether you plan to use a data broker service to obtain additional information or perform profiling. You also need to notify people if you plan to share their data with data brokers. “Organizations must clarify the purpose of processing and identify the data. legal basis for processing,” the ICO said.
“In the context of data brokerage, the commonly referred legal bases are consent and legitimate interests.”
This is why the words “legitimate interest” and “consent” often feature prominently in company website privacy notices.
Andrew Northage, a partner at law firm Walker Morris, said the first clause typically covers marketing, saying: “It is reasonable for retailers to promote their products and services; “This is to avoid having a strong negative impact on customers.”
Where direct marketing is carried out electronically (including by telephone, email and messaging) rather than by post, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 also apply, Northage said. Here, the only legal basis for data sharing is consent.
“Customers should read the retailer's privacy notice to see if it offers to share data with third parties for marketing purposes,” he advises.
They should “only consent to this sharing if they are clear about what they are consenting to.”
prospect pool
among them Privacy notice Borden said it collects personal information “just like when you shop online.” “So we can send you a tailored offer for something you actually want, like that spotted raincoat.”
The company also said it may share users' names, addresses and “order details” with data brokers Epsilon and Experian, which “manage lead pools on behalf of UK retailers.” There is.
Managed by Epsilon (part of French advertising group Publicis). Abacus Alliance. This is a large database where over 250 participating catalog retailers and multichannel retailers share the names and addresses of their shopping customers, so other members can target them with mailshots. I can.
A “lead pool” is, as the name suggests, a collection of potential customers. Analysts, or more recently, artificial intelligence software, comb through this data to identify purchasing patterns. As a result, your name may be given to a company that appears to be selling what you want to buy.
There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Borden or Epsilon.
Have you ever wondered what personal information is collected when you shop online? Photo: Yui Mok/PA
Borden says “We strictly comply with data protection regulations. ”Additionally, “Customers can opt out of marketing at the time of purchase, through the marketing settings in their account, or through our customer service team. .”
Readers traced the source of the junk mail to the Abacus Alliance. “I called and was told it would be six months before deliveries would stop,” she said.
If you are in a similar situation and would like your personal data removed from our database, you can: fill out the form Please contact us via our website by calling 020 89438049 or nomail@epsilon.com.
The ICO says it has received a small number of complaints regarding Epsilon and Abacus Alliance in recent years, but has “determined that there is no further action to take in response to these complaints and is now closing the process.” he added.
Please refrain from spam mail
If you are unhappy with the amount of junk mail you receive, there are several things you can do to remove your name from the broker's database.
free Mail priority service (MPS) allows you to opt out of unsolicited personal email.
Russell Roach, head of preference services at the Data Marketing Association (DMA), which runs MPS, suggests that if you receive an unwanted catalog, you should first contact the company directly. “Send a letter or email to the company and ask them to remove your personal data from their records and affiliates,” he says. “Tell me how you feel about receiving all this junk mail.
“Register with MPS and we will do it for you. Our website says: Complaints section Here, we ask you to scan or send the email you receive. My team will then contact the organization and give you 14 days to respond.
“When we talk to this organization, we argue that emailing only those who want to receive information saves time and money and reduces waste.”
There are several ways to prevent receiving unsolicited email. Photo: Martin Argules/The Guardian
If you want to take it a step further, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office, which has its own complaints process.
When signing up for a new product or service, the important things to look for are the boxes that are pre-checked. “You can check the box to say, 'I understand the terms and conditions,' but there's also a checkbox that says, 'Are you sure you want to transfer your data to some of our affiliates that offer similar services?' Sometimes it’s pre-checked,” says Roach. Uncheck this box to avoid unnecessary contact.
A growing number of companies, like DeleteMe, delete personal information sold online in exchange for a subscription fee (in this case £115 a year).
“DeleteMe exists to save people the time and headache of figuring out how to opt out of all these marketing schemes and data broker databases,” said Rob Shavel, CEO of the company. Masu.
“Hopefully, the result will be less direct mail, less spam, less robocalls, less phone calls, and less marketing that is unpleasant to you and offers little benefit to you personally.”
B
Oh, back then I felt a certain amount of sympathy for people who were forced to become computer savvy. They were often seen on the streets struggling home, carrying rucksacks full of technology and ruining the lines of their Hugo Boss suits. It looked like a ball and chain to me. So I stayed away. Every time someone mentioned a computer, I said: “What do you need a computer for?” I’m a poet. ”
Then, when cell phones came out, I was sitting next to two girls on public transportation. That’s when I heard one of the girls’ girlfriends say to the other one: “Her boss just bought her a new cell phone,” I thought. I’m sure he does. If he put an iron collar around your neck, would you be happy about it?
The proliferation of cell phones may have been the moment I truly distanced myself from technology. At first, people were saying they were admiring me, as if it were some kind of principled position I was taking. I thought they were praising me now, but in the future they would be like, “Who the hell do you think you are without a cell phone?” And it was proven. Their love quickly turned to hatred.
The last piece of technology I worked on was the DVD player. From then on, I decided that I didn’t need any more machines in my life. I write all my poems using a quill (a beautiful one with a calligrapher’s nib) and parchment by candlelight. The quill was originally a prop for a photo shoot I was doing, but I decided to keep it with the pot of ink. I don’t have a typewriter, computer, or cell phone, so I can’t send email. If anyone needs me, please call my landline. I’m usually at home anyway, but I’m not living off-grid.
As a teenager, I really liked the idea of becoming the next Mickey Spillane, the great American crime writer. But I had to abandon that idea. If I tried to write a detective story set in modern times, people would say, “What’s he running there for?” Why didn’t he text? Why didn’t he go into a phone booth? Why didn’t he Google his Skype?
Not all changes are for the better. Progress is great, but it’s often tempting to say, “I can stop there.” That’s the nature of progress, isn’t it? It always lasts longer than necessary. Who the hell asked for touch-sensitive controls for everything?
The best place to listen to music is in your car, so I now put most of my music on cassette tapes. There is a ghetto blaster in every room of the house. The storage room also has a television, VHS player, and a spare VHS player. I have three large chests of drawers that contain all the videos I’ve recorded and a few I forgot to record. In 1989, he returned to blockbuster films such as “The Terminator''.
Moving away from technological development was never a political or even conscious decision. I am not convinced that I made the right choice because I receive thousands of punishments every day from the analog community. Every day, it’s “Visit our app!” or “Visit our website!” In my day and age, you have to interact with medical institutions on a regular basis, and you just have to talk to a real person – and a flesh-and-blood person. That’s not possible.
I don’t like a “cashless society” either. I spent 40 years trying to make money with this poem lark, and the moment I got the money, suddenly no one wanted it anymore. Even my bank has moved to another town. To earn my own money I have to take a taxi which costs £70 round trip. But I don’t do online banking. We often hear horror stories about large sums of money going missing. Once you have the money, it should be the end of your worries, not the beginning of new and worst worries.
I hate that some people run away with the idea that I’m some kind of social justice warrior, but technology seems to be having a negative impact on people who are struggling in society. For example, how does it affect mendicants? If no one has spare change, how will an ordinary person living in a cardboard box get by?
Another thing I don’t want to see is Tesco cashier workers losing their jobs over do-it-yourself cashiers. People talk about the speed of technology, but how fast has it really become? Once upon a time, if you were on your way to work and there was a queue at a newsagent’s, you could pick up a newspaper and I was able to run to the front of the queue and leave my ninepence on the counter. “Daily Guardian, hey there. Now you have to queue while someone takes 20 minutes to self-scan every item. I’m glad people live longer these days. Because there are so many things you have to waste your time on.
For me, it was always about computers or career. Work will never get done! I know this because my daughter has a computer. I didn’t want to give it to her, but at the same time she doesn’t want to impose her own prejudices on her child. She would have been the only one in her school class without her.
Anyway, when she got this computer, she said, “You should get one too, Dad, he’ll love it. ” I said, “I know you do, but that’s the problem.” She wanted to see how good they really were, so she said to her, “Can you bring in Dion and the Belmonts?” Let’s see how long it takes. After 3 seconds, Runaround Sue will play. That’s why I can’t own a computer. It’s easy to get distracted. Six weeks later, he was found dead, buried under a pile of pizza boxes.
I don’t like TV. To be honest, I’ve never been a big fan of television. We have Freeview, which has about 800 channels. I like shows like “Bangers & Cash” and “Wheeler Dealers.” And I like Portillo’s Great British Railroad Journey and Great American Railroad Journey. You’ll learn more in 30 minutes with that guy than you would in 10 years at school. (An amazing reinvention of the man Portillo.)
I’ve heard that some people are paying a lot of money to go “off the grid” these days. I imagine it as some kind of retreat with a religious, Zen-Buddhist vibe. A step into another dimension for a while. i haven’t. For example, I’m a big fan of electricity. I enjoy brief power outages just to remind gung-ho environmentalists what life is like without electricity. If we abolish electricity, millions of people will die immediately. Therefore, what he does for 10 minutes without power will be a healthy lesson for everyone. There’s a lot more to like about the modern world. They had just discovered streptomycin when I was a sick child with tuberculosis. When I was young, I loved electric guitars. I played bass in a band. So, I’m not the kind of person who wishes he had lived 200 years ago.
People’s natural abilities are beginning to shrink due to technology. People ask me, “What would you do if you left home without your cell phone and got lost?” I don’t get lost. As long as you have a tongue in your head, you will find a way. People stopped talking to other people. Anyway, the only time I leave the house alone is to ride my bike. Even that is old, a 1959 Hercules. I go to the bookstore by bicycle. There’s a lot of technology involved in gambling these days, but I prefer the old days. I prefer the days when it was knee-deep in cigarette butts and full of losers. My first job was as a runner for a bookmaker, so I was exposed to the world of depraved gamblers from an early age. I think that’s what kept me from doing that.
It’s a technology issue. You stop interacting with the real world. It removes what we used to call social life. Knock on people’s doors. An encounter at a pub. We talk a lot about responsible drinking now, but it used to be enforced in your local pub. Your father’s friend will be there and say, “You drank too much, brace yourself. There’s still three hours until closing time.” It’s those subtle things, the low-level checks that keep you from having a nervous breakdown and turning into a housebound drunkard sitting alone drinking a very strong cheap lager in front of a porn movie. People worry about technology in grand science fiction terms and think it could end the world. But there’s no point in looking toward a dystopian future. Take a look around. The nightmare is already upon us.
As told by Tim Jones.
Lo and behold, John Cooper Clarke’s new poetry collection is now on sale, priced at £16.99 (Picador). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy here: guardianbookshop.com. Shipping charges may apply. Cooper Clarke tours his new show ‘Get Him While He’s Still Alive’ Running across the UK from March 5th to June 28th.
Many of us have had the negative experience of being swiped left, ghosted, breadcrumbed, or benched on internet dating apps. On Valentine’s Day, six dating app users filed a proposed class action lawsuit alleging that Tinder, Hinge, and other Match dating apps use addictive game-like features to encourage compulsive use. The lawsuit claims that Match’s app “employs perceived dopamine-manipulating product features” that turn users into “trapped gamblers seeking psychological rewards,” resulting in expensive subscriptions and persistent usage.
The lawsuit was met with skepticism by some, but online dating experts say it reflects a wider criticism of the way apps gamify human experiences for profit. The addiction may have been built into dating apps from the beginning, with the swipe mechanism, invented by Tinder co-founder Jonathan Badeen, being compared to an experiment with pigeons that aimed to manipulate the brain’s reward system.
The game-like elements of dating apps are further exemplified in the Trump-style interface first used by Tinder, leading some experts to believe that dating apps are encouraging negative behaviors and making people feel manipulated. A study suggested that couples who met online are slightly more likely to have lower marital satisfaction and stability. Dating apps also appear to encourage “bad behavior such as ghosting, breadcrumbing, and backburner relationships,” according to some researchers.
However, dating apps have also been criticized for perpetuating idealized preferences for particular ethnicities, age groups, and body types, ultimately reproducing privilege. While dating apps widen the range of potential partners in theory, endless access to romantic possibilities has been shown to have negative effects on mental health, leading some experts to advocate for transparency around matching algorithms and education about the pitfalls of online dating.
Despite criticisms, a Match Group spokesperson dismissed the lawsuit, stating that the business model is not based on advertising or engagement metrics, and that the goal is to avoid addictive use of the app. They believe that the plaintiffs are pointing to a systemic problem in the dating app ecosystem.
Game development is an expensive and time-consuming business. Currently, he has 2,000 people working in 18 studios around the world on the next installment of Ubisoft’s blockbuster Assassin’s Creed series, a project that will take two to three years. Last year, the self-taught programmer learned that he earned nearly £280,000 for a series of games he made sitting in his two-bedroom flat in Harlesden, pants on, on a hot day. Imagine how people would feel. And each one took about 30 minutes.
“The first one probably took seven to eight hours, to be honest,” TJ Gardner says. “But later pieces, like ‘Stroke the Beaver,’ would take about 30 minutes.”
Gardner is the author of the “Stroke” video game, which can be downloaded from the PlayStation Store for £3.29 each. Each features different animals such as cats, dogs, and hamsters, as well as less cute creatures such as snakes and fish, and all follow the same blueprint.
When you start the game, you will see images of animals on a plain blue background. In the upper left corner of the screen you will see the words “Stroke 0”. Press X to pet the animal. The animal blinks briefly. The number in the corner increases by one. After 25 strokes, you will be awarded a bronze trophy. If you keep going until you reach 2,000 strokes, you’ll earn the Platinum award.
“This is still a video game.” “Stroke the Beaver.” Photo: TJ Gardner
That’s all. There are no animations. There are no sound effects. Just pictures of animals under Wikipedia’s Creative Commons license and his lo-fi acoustic beats looping endlessly in the background. No running, no jumping, no guns, no bad guys, no special moves, no power-ups, no puzzles. Is Stroke Game a video game at all?
“It depends on how you define ‘game,'” Gardner says. “There is interaction. Sure, that interaction is very limited, but it’s there and there is a goal. I’m willing to admit that it’s not difficult and it’s not complicated, but it’s still video It’s a game.”
Looking at the numbers Mr. Gardner provided, perhaps that might not be a problem, at least for his bank managers. Since its launch in September 2022, the Stroke game has been downloaded over 120,000 times and generated sales of over £275,000. He will receive a 30% cut from Sony hosting the game on his PlayStation Store, leaving Mr Gardner with his pre-tax profit of more than £190,000.
People don’t buy these titles for addictive gameplay, engaging stories, or dizzying visuals. So what’s its appeal?
It all started in the mid-2000s, when console manufacturers started awarding virtual accolades to players who completed additional in-game goals. These are called achievements on Xbox and trophies on PlayStation. A new subculture was born, established by a community of gamers who played for the prize rather than the fun. They are known as trophy hunters. In pursuit of glory, some people will stop at nothing to play Hannah Montana: The Movie: The Game.
The PlayStation Store now has dozens of games aimed at these players. It’s a low-cost, laughably simple title that offers easy trophies in exchange for a few pounds. Gardner, who had a partner and young children to support, had recently taught himself to code (mainly from his YouTube videos and his tutorials online) and saw an opportunity.
Photo: TJ Gardner
“It was kind of tough for a young family to go paycheck to paycheck,” he says. According to Gardner, at the time anyone could apply for a game to be sold on his PlayStation Store and submit a design document outlining how it would work. “When we looked into Sony’s backend, we found that it’s actually very easy to get through quality assurance,” he says. In 2022, his first game, his Stroke the Dog, appeared on the store without any problems. “So we tried a few more, obviously using slightly different animals.”
Stroke the Hamster is a bestseller with over 11,000 downloads. Cats are his second most popular pet animal, followed – perhaps surprisingly – by turtles. But what was the inspiration behind Gardner’s epic Stroke the Beaver?
“To be honest, at one point it was like a joke to me,” he says. “I decided to see how far I could go.'' It seems quite far away. Gardner then released Stroke the Dik-Dik. “It’s an animal, right?”
Not everyone found the game interesting. Internet forums are full of posts criticizing the Trophy Hunter titles, their creators, and Sony for even allowing them to be listed on his PlayStation Store. Gardner acknowledged that Strokes’ game was shovelware, gained some defenders among his critics, and attempted to address the criticisms.
“He saw a gap and took advantage of it,” forum user the1andonly654 wrote. “Give him more power. What company wouldn’t do that?” Call of Duty, FIFA, and Assassin’s Creed are all essentially not that different. ”
Of course, there are big differences in how much time, money, and creative effort goes into those games, and the richness of the experience they provide. But there are similarities in the business models. New installments are frequently created with the aim of exploiting existing markets. The focus is on reskinning the visuals rather than developing new ideas.
There’s an argument to be made that Gardner’s Stroke game represents a more honest trade than, say, a randomized loot box with in-game rewards. At least when he buys a Stroke game, Gardner says, “you know exactly what you’re buying.” There is nothing there to take advantage of you. Or nothing to suggest you need to buy anything else. You don’t have to buy it if you don’t want to. He didn’t have many complaints. Of the 11,105 people who bought Stroke the Hamster, he asked only 10 people to buy it. Refund.
But the critics remain, and it appears Sony is listening. Platform holder in November 2022 It is said that it started The Shovelware crackdown is threatening developers with emails sent to them to delist Trophy Hunter games and suspend their creators’ publisher accounts.
However, it’s hard to see evidence of this policy in action on the PlayStation Store, which is still full of such titles. When Gardner released Stroke the Animals, a gorgeous piece featuring 10 creatures, last December, Sony didn’t seem to mind. (“Do you like Aminares?” [sic], Read game information. “Great!” Well, there’s a lot you can stroke, so start stroking. ) Perhaps it’s not so much a mystery why Sony didn’t crack down. Thanks to his 30% cut, the company made more profits. More than £80,000 for a stroke game.
The first thing Mr. Gardner did with some of his profits was pay off his debts. Then he decided it was time to take his eyes off shovelware. “I’ve reached a stage where I’m willing to try something a little different, because even though it’s making money, it’s not money.” As you can probably imagine, it’s the most rewarding thing. ” One of his new projects is a new website. Game achievements.net. Launching in the coming months, players will be able to track their in-game awards across multiple platforms.
So does Gardner have any regrets?
“Honestly, no,” he says. “I will never regret anything I did to help my family because I did it for them.”
Microsoft has announced that four previously exclusive Xbox games are being made available on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles. Additionally, the company plans to reveal details about the next version of its Xbox console by the end of 2024.
In a video podcast with other Xbox executives, Phil Spencer, Microsoft gaming CEO, did not reveal the names of the four games but mentioned that each is over a year old. Two of them are live service games and the other two are smaller titles. Spencer shared that his favorite games from the selection are the multiplayer pirate adventure Sea of Thieves and the musical action game Hi-Fi Rush. It has also been confirmed that the space epic Starfield from last year and the upcoming Indiana Jones game will remain exclusive to Xbox.
This move signifies a significant shift in strategy for Microsoft, focusing on increasing sales of first-party games rather than emphasizing hardware sales for Xbox. The company has faced tough competition from PlayStation ever since the original launch of Xbox in 2001.
To strengthen its gaming business, Microsoft has been actively acquiring various studios and gaming companies, such as Minecraft developer Mojang, Elder Scrolls and Fallout studio Bethesda, and Candy Crush publisher Activision Blizzard King. The acquisition process for Activision Blizzard involved extensive legal and regulatory procedures, but Microsoft is committed to making its popular games, including Call of Duty, available on other consoles.
Sara Bond, Xbox president, reiterated that Microsoft is not planning to exit the console business. She also mentioned that the company has exciting hardware products set to be shared later this holiday season.
Google will inform publishers quietly that it has removed websites from search results under Europe’s “right to be forgotten” rules, following a Swedish court ruling that the search engine applies globally. Stopped.
Previously, when an individual requested that records about them be deleted under EU data protection law, Google would notify the publisher of the original article.
Media companies, including the Guardian, are largely exempt from regulation, but links to journalistic content can be removed from databases such as search engines.
Currently, Google only notifies publishers that a URL has been removed, without providing details about what or why.
As a result, journalists are unable to identify situations in which the right to be forgotten is being misused to obscure legitimate reporting about serial offenders, hampering their ability to challenge the most serious rights violations.
A Google spokesperson said: “We have introduced a new approach to notifications following a decision by the Swedish Data Protection Authority. It came into force.”
“Although we did not agree with this decision at the time, it is binding and supports EU-wide regulatory guidance. We have therefore made strong efforts to comply with it. Ta.”
One of the changes introduced by the GDPR in 2016 was to ensure that EU national court decisions on data protection set precedent across the bloc.
A Swedish court ruled in December that notifying webmasters that search engines have removed links to their content is itself a violation of the privacy of people who have requested the right to be forgotten.
“Thus, the Administrative Court found that once Google granted the deletion of search results, the interests of individuals in privacy and effective protection of personal data generally outweighed Google’s interests. [sic] Send a message to the webmaster, concludes. according to International Association of Privacy Professionals.
Upheld a 50 million Swedish kronor (£3.8 million) fine against search engines for failing to remove URLs they were asked to remove from their lists.
Within weeks of the first judgment in May 2014, which ruled that the right to be forgotten applied to Google, six Guardian articles were removed from the European version of the search engine.
Three of the charges related to now-retired Scottish Premier League referee Dougie McDonald, who was found to have lied about his reasons for awarding penalties in a football match in 2010. . Others included his 2002 article about a lawyer facing a fraud trial and his 2011 article about a French office worker who makes his art Post-It Notes.
Over the next five years, the search engine received about 1 million unique forgotten requests, and even though more than half were rejected, it still removed about 1.5 million unique URLs.
OpenAI on Thursday announced a tool that can generate videos from text prompts.
The new model, called Sora after the Japanese word for “sky,” can create up to a minute of realistic footage that follows the user’s instructions for both subject matter and style. The model can also create videos based on still images or enhance existing footage with new material, according to a company blog post.
“We teach AI to understand and simulate the physical world in motion, with the goal of training models that help people solve problems that require real-world interaction.” says the blog post.
One video included among the company’s first few examples was based on the following prompt: Movie trailer featuring the adventures of a 30-year-old astronaut wearing his red woolen knitted bike in his helmet, blue sky, salt desert, cinematic style shot on 35mm film, vibrant colors .”
The company announced that it has opened up access to Sora to several researchers and video creators. According to the company’s blog post, experts have “red-teamed” the product and implemented OpenAI’s terms of service, which prohibit “extreme violence, sexual content, hateful images, likenesses of celebrities, or the IP of others.” We will test whether there is a possibility of evasion. The company only allows limited access to researchers, visual artists and filmmakers, but CEO Sam Altman took to Twitter after the announcement to answer questions from users about a video he said was created by Sola. posted. The video contains a watermark indicating that it was created by AI.
The company debuted its still image generator Dall-E in 2021 and its generated AI chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022, quickly gaining 100 million users. His other AI companies have also debuted video generation tools, but those models could only generate a few seconds of footage that had little to do with the prompt. Google and Meta said they are developing a video generation tool, although it is not publicly available. on wednesday, announced the experiment We’ve added deeper memory to ChatGPT to remember more of your users’ chats.
OpenAI told the New York Times how much footage was used to train Sora, except that the corpus includes videos that are publicly available and licensed from copyright holders. He also did not reveal the source of the training video. The company has been sued multiple times for alleged copyright infringement in training generative AI tools that digest vast amounts of material collected from the internet and mimic the images and text contained in those datasets. .
Bose’s latest earbuds are a big departure from previous noise-canceling champions, as they’re designed to let outside sound in instead of blocking it out and sitting in your ears, making them more than just gadgets. It also resembles jewelry.
These are the latest evolution of Bose’s open audio technology, which uses small speakers to play music without blocking your ears, and was last seen in the excellent Frames audio glasses, which have since been discontinued.
The Ultra Open Earbuds cost a hefty £300 (€349/$299), joining the ranks of smaller open earbuds such as: £179 Shocks Open Fit Or the £149 Sony LinkBuds. However, Bose has two major advantages over his rivals. It has a great, full sound and an innovative fit that doesn’t get in the way of glasses or other headwear.
The look and fit of the Ultra Open is unlike any other earphone. The slit on the top projects noise canceling sound and reduces noise leakage from the earphones.
Photo: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian
The battery cylinder is located behind the ear and connected via a flexible silicone spring to an L-shaped plastic speaker arm, which together hold the earbuds in place around the side of the ear.
The fit is very unique and takes a little practice to get it right, but once it’s in place it’s light and comfortable. I was sure it would fall if I ran, but no matter how much I sweated or how much I shook my head, it remained firmly in place.
The earbuds are charged via metal contacts on the underside of the battery.
IIf you’re worried that technology is getting a little too intelligent and robots are on the verge of taking over the world, there’s a simple way to ease your fears. Call the company and ask some simple questions. He is put through an automated voice system and spends the next 10 minutes yelling, “No, I didn’t say that!” What do you mean by “I didn’t really understand”? We don’t need that option! Make me human, damn it!
That was certainly my experience when I called Apple to try and reconfirm the Vision Pro demo, which was abruptly canceled due to snow. But if my phone experience felt dated, the Apple Vision Pro headset itself felt like an amazing glimpse into the future. Not surprisingly, its price is $3,499.
I think my expectations were pretty low. For the last decade or so, we’ve been told that virtual reality and augmented reality are just around the corner, but they’ve consistently failed to break into the mainstream. The headset was clunky and impractical, the price was prohibitive, and the experience itself, while impressive, wasn’t necessarily awe-inspiring. Metaverse, a rebrand of virtual reality, was similarly disappointing.
But the Vision Pro really impressed me. I felt like Usher and kept saying “wow” throughout the demo. The Vision Pro is branded as a “spatial computing” rather than an entertainment device and is intended to be used for everything from answering emails to browsing the Internet. Navigate with your eyes and scroll by pinching your fingers or moving your hand. He is conducting an invisible orchestra.
Despite all the use cases on the market, its most impressive aspect is immersive video. Everything else feels like a bit of a gimmick. Do you want to see computer apps floating in front of your eyes? Not so much! But when you watch a movie, you feel like you’re drawn into the content. If money wasn’t an issue, I would have bought a headset right away just because watching movies is so much fun.
And that’s basically the scope of the market for Vision Pro at this point. In other words, people who have nothing to do with money. The headset is impressive, but it’s still not very comfortable (I’m lucky to be able to drink coffee while wearing it) and it’s not worth the price. This technology is still in its infancy and will take some time to become widespread in broader culture.
But while it’s hard to say when spatial computing will become as ubiquitous as smartphones are today, it’s clear that the question is when it will be widely adopted, not if. There is no denying that we are moving towards a world where “real life” and digital technology seamlessly merge. The internet is moving from our screens to the world around us. And it raises serious questions about how we perceive the world and think about reality. Big tech companies are rushing to get the technology out there, but it’s unclear how worried they are about the consequences.
Some of these outcomes are easy to predict. In a few weeks’ time, you’ll almost certainly hear about a car accident caused by someone using a headset while driving. There are already a lot of videos out there of people using the Vision His Pro while out and about, including in the car. (Incidentally, while Apple advises people not to use headsets while driving, it doesn’t have guardrails to prevent people behind the wheel from using the technology.)
And without some radical intervention, it seems depressingly inevitable that these headsets will soon take online harassment to a whole other level. Over the years, there have been multiple reports of people being harassed and even “raped” within the Metaverse. The highly immersive nature of virtual reality makes the experience feel frighteningly real. With the lines between real life and the digital world blurring to the point of being almost indistinguishable, is there a meaningful difference between attacks online and attacks in real life?
Even scarier, and more broadly, is the question of how spatial computing will change what we think of as reality. Researchers at Stanford University and the University of Michigan recently studied the Vision Pro and other “pass-through” headsets, a feature that brings VR content into a real-world environment and allows you to see what’s around you while using the device. (This is a technical term referring to It has emerged with some stark warnings about how this technology will rewire our brains. interfere with social connections).
These headsets basically give us all our private worlds and rewrite the concept of shared reality. The camera you use to see the world allows you to edit your environment. For example, you can wear a camera and go to the store. Then all the homeless people will disappear from your sight and the sky may become brighter.
“What we’re going to experience is that when you use these headsets in public, you lose that common ground,” said the director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab and lead researcher on the study. Jeremy Bailenson, one of them, recently said: Said Business Insider. “People will be physically in the same place and visually experience different versions of the world at the same time. We’re going to lose what we have in common.”
What’s scary isn’t just the fact that our perception of reality might change. It’s the fact that a small number of companies will have a lot of control over how we see the world. Consider how much influence big tech companies already have over the content we watch. And it’s multiplied by millions. Do you think deepfakes are scary? Wait until they look more realistic.
We are seeing a global increase authoritarianism. If we’re not careful, this kind of technology will significantly accelerate that. Is it possible to draw people into another world, numb them with entertainment, and determine how they see reality? It is an authoritarian’s dream. We are entering an era in which we can coax and manipulate people like never before. Forget Mussolini’s bread and circuses, up-and-coming fascists now have donuts and vision pros.
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Wide range of weekly episodes available “Themes are for cowards,” says the outspoken host of this new freeform chat series with three Glaswegian comedy buddies, Frankie Boyle, Susie McCabe and Christopher MacArthur Boyd. There are frank discussions about the ethics of sex with Tories, whether Billy Connolly would have been radicalized had he grown up in the internet age, and whether Boyle’s date with a “neo-Nazi” constituted sexual assault. There is a high possibility that it will develop into love. Alexi Duggins
Wide range of weekly episodes available Delve into the delusions of Daily Mail readers’ brains in this witty, high-spirited piece, where you hear celebrity guests comment on the news stories they’ve covered and guess which one it’s related to. I’ll try. Our first guest is Dani Dyer, who talks about his father’s love of Chinese restaurants, babysitting Keira Knightley and blow-drying fake eyelashes on Love Island. advertisement
Wide range of weekly episodes available Before his death, American filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich was working on an interview podcast. Now, thanks to his ex-wife and collaborator Louise Stratten, the work has seen the light of day. The guest list is impressive, with Quentin Tarantino, Guillermo del Toro, Greta Gerwig, Julie Delpy and more talking about other greats in filmmaking. Hannah Verdier
‘Themes are for cowards’…Frankie Boyle (pictured) has launched a new podcast with Susie McCabe and Christopher MacArthur-Boyd. Photo: Paul Hansen/Observer
Landline is nearing deprecation. For many young people, CD-ROMs, cassette tapes, and simple printers are the mainstream. Parents film their kids on TikTok holding a wall phone Like an archive piece, I don’t know how to make a phone call. Public telephones have long since disappeared. But not everyone is ready to hang up the curl cord.
Nicole Randone, 24, of Westchester, New York, receives calls from her bedroom using a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen-branded purple landline that was first sold in 2003 when she was 3 years old. ing. “One of my first memories is of the tan landline my parents had mounted on the kitchen wall,” Randone said. “I always dreamed of the day I would have one in my room.”
All of Randone’s styles are influenced by what she calls “2000s nostalgia.” On her Instagram, she shows off to her 118,000 followers a bedroom decorated with bright pink boomboxes, Von Dutch accessories, and Chad Michael Murray wall poster. “Having a landline really bridged the gap between reality and childhood fantasy,” Randone said. “It will make you feel like the main characters of your favorite TV shows, One Tree Hill, The OC, and Gilmore Girls.”
Sunny paid $30 for a Hello Kitty landline. Photo provided by: Sunny
The overwhelming majority of American adults do not own a landline phone.by washington post, in 2022, only a quarter of Americans lived in a home with a telephone. That number has essentially dropped significantly since 2010, when about 63% of Americans had both wireless and landline options.
Service providers are closer than ever Landline phone phasing out: California, AT&T was suggested It completely abolished landline telephones and asked the state Public Utility Commission for permission to suspend service. The telecommunications giant called landlines “historical curiosities that are no longer needed.”
Perhaps so, but that’s why some Gen Z customers are attracted to analog technology.they are not need Services; They still use their mobile phones for most daily tasks. Instead, they appreciate the beauty of a landline phone. It reminds them of simpler times before digital. Landlines are a way to talk to friends for hours, and the conversations go deeper than a standard “wyd” text.
“When people look at my landline, they treat it like a toy,” Landon added. “I’m an influencer, so I’m always online, so it feels really comfortable to disconnect, and it almost feels like an escape.”
Sunny bought a Hello Kitty landline after seeing someone show off a frog-shaped cell phone on TikTok. (Sunny asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons.) Then she learned that she could buy an adapter to connect her iPhone to a landline. Ta. That way it will be more convenient. The adapter connects to her Bluetooth and pairs with her phone. That means the landline shares a number with her iPhone and calls are sent to both devices.
“I love the novelty of talking with friends and sitting in the same place,” Sunny said. “When I have a long text conversation with a friend, I just ask if we can talk on the phone and catch up.”
A landline telephone installed in Sam Casper’s West Hollywood home. Photo: Sam Casper
Sam Casper, a 27-year-old singer-songwriter who lives in West Hollywood, owns a pale pink Crosley landline phone. “It was her mother’s husband’s grandmother’s phone call,” she said. “But it’s funny. You might think it’s old when I say that, but she bought it from Urban Outfitters a few years ago.”
Casper uses his phone to talk to friends, but some of them have their own landlines. “It’s so cute and romantic,” she said. “This is very ‘Sex and the City.’ That’s why we started this.” I hate cell phones. Nowadays everyone cancels last minute via text and I think that’s so stupid. ”
Casper has his friend’s phone number on a Chateau Marmont napkin next to his cell phone. Another part of her setup: “I have a tape, but what is it called?” “It’s like a voice box, a voicemail machine,” she added. Combined Wi-Fi and phone service used to cost about $130 a month, but I called my provider and got it reduced to $82.
Not everyone can talk on a landline in Casper. She is “choosing” who receives a phone number that is separate from her own mobile number.
“There’s no caller ID, so you can’t see who’s calling you,” she said. “If I meet a new friend and they’re someone I want to invite over to my house, I use my landline. I always get giddy when I hear the phone ringing. I just sit there and talk. I love spinning little cords.”
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