section
Tech
Industry, products, and the wires that hold it all together.
481 stories archived
Disney agreed to $50M settlement over claims it made live-TV streaming expensive
Lawsuit alleged Disney inflated market prices by making carriers include ESPN.
Experimental wine bottle tracks oxygen moving through the cork
The small bit of air in the bottle sees oxygen and other chemicals move in and out.
Elon Musk loses trillionaire status as SpaceX and Tesla stock drops
Falling shares push tech mogul back down to billionaire ranks after SpaceX IPO made him world’s first trillionaire Elon Musk was no longer a trillionaire by the time markets closed on Wednesday. Plunging shares in Tesla and SpaceX dragged the tech magnate down to billionaire status. As of 4pm ET, Forbes listed Musk’s net worth as $970.2bn. Musk reached trillionaire status on 12 June after SpaceX’s historic initial public offering. The rocket, satellite and AI company’s debut on the stock market made Musk the first person with a net worth of more than $1tn. His fortune continued to hover around that gigantic figure in the weeks following the initial public offering (IPO). Continue reading...
FCC plans ID mandate that could block anonymous use of prepaid burner phones
Privacy advocates and domestic violence groups say ID mandate is a big mistake.
Formula E reveals first calendar for GEN4 with lots of real race tracks
Brands Hatch, COTA, and Zandvoort will all hold an e-Prix in 2027.
Google starts lowering Play Store fees, making good on Epic Games settlement
A few additional markets will get the lower fees this year ahead of a global rollout in 2027.
Elon Musk denies Tesla’s Autopilot caused crash that killed grandmother
Tesla, accused of failing to fix design flaws, blames driver pressing accelerator.
Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan review: I’ve never tested a handheld fan this powerful – or this loud
The first portable fan from Dyson is stylish, easy to use and powerful. Did someone mention a 55mph top speed? Perhaps, but it’s so noisy you may not have heard them • The best handheld fans Two things will strike you when you pick up the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan for the first time. The first is that flesh-pink (stone/blush) is a bold colour choice for a product that already looks like it’s escaped from a certain NSFW section of the Filter . However, once you’ve retrieved your mind from the gutter, you’ll notice that the different form of pleasure the HushJet Mini offers – impressively powerful wind speeds to keep you cool in heatwaves – comes at a price. This thing is loud with a capital L, and becomes even more so as you progress through its five settings. More “jet” than “hush”. Continue reading...
Labor tax critic deletes anti-immigration AI video reposted from rightwing nationalist account
Fund manager Geoff Wilson says he did not watch full video and deleted it after ‘inappropriate associations were identified’ Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The fund manager Geoff Wilson, a prominent public critic of the government’s tax changes, has deleted an inflammatory AI-generated video he reposted from a rightwing nationalist account portraying Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers taking money from white Australians and giving it to recently arrived migrants wearing Islamic face coverings. Wilson said he had not watched the full video before sharing it or examined other accounts, some of whose content he reposted on Wednesday morning – which included content relating to the QAnon conspiracy theory – and deleted his posts after being contacted by Guardian Australia. Continue reading...
Vast ‘Structures’ In Space Reveal the Universe Isn't What We Thought
Physicists have discovered that the dark matter structures that scaffold the universe—known as the “cosmic web”—are far larger and more persistent than expected, challenging a core assumption about the universe.
Military branches restore flu shot requirement after virus swept through base
Branches received exceptions to Hegseth's policy that made the shot optional.
Shun Amazon with the 23 best anti-Prime Day deals from Best Buy, REI and more
Besides Amazon, plenty of other retailers are also lowering prices on great products our shopping experts can vouch for The best Prime Day deals on things our editors actually tested and love Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things Every summer, Amazon entices sweaty consumers with steep discounts on everything from slushie machines to tower fans in a tradition appropriately known as Prime Day. But you don’t need to sit out the savings if you don’t have a Prime membership (or just prefer not to shop at Amazon). To compete with Prime Day, many of Amazon’s biggest competitors now dial their own prices to the lowest of the year during the same week. From Walmart to boutique brands including Cozy Earth and Caraway , everyone wants to lure you away from the Jeff Bezos-founded mega-retailer. And they’re willing to offer impressive discounts to do it. Best kitchen deal: Anyday Glass Round Dish Set and Cookbook Bundle Best home deal: Cozy Earth Waffle Bath Towels Continue reading...
These are the 40 best Prime Day deals our editors are texting their friends about
Our experts found and vetted the best Prime Day deals and sales. Here are our picks for nontoxic cookware, bedding, tower fans and more The best anti-Prime Day deals for Amazon skeptics The best wireless earbuds for iPhone owners are on sale Our favorite nontoxic, nonstick pans is now on sale Prime Day is the wild west of online shopping. For every genuinely great deal, there are about seven duds dressed up in “best of” graphics. To prevent you from wasting your money (or time), our editors have cut through the chaos to find Prime Day 2026’s good stuff. Every item in this roundup has been personally tested, vetted and loved by the Filter team. We’ve also factchecked the price history on each pick to spot “list prices” that never existed and fake markdowns. It may be overkill for a list of deals, but we take your wallet seriously. Best kitchen deal: Our Place Titanium Always Pan Pro Best home deal: Levoit Tower Fan Continue reading...
The Trump Administration’s New Census Data Rules Are a Policy Disaster
The new policy, which forbids "noise infusion" as a technique for anonymizing data, will "handcuff" the Census Bureau and limit what information becomes public, data experts say.
Slate Auto's truck builder goes live for its $25k electric pickup
From a bare-bones pickup to a loaded, wrapped SUV, here's what some Slates will cost.
Every Apple Watch is at the lowest price we’ve ever seen thanks to Prime Day
A guide to the Prime Day deals on Apple’s top-rated smartwatch and how to choose the right model for you The best Prime Day deals in the US on things our editors actually tested and love Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things The Apple Watch has been around for a decade, so it’s safe to say you’ve already heard the evangelism from fawning owners: fitness tracking for everything from running to rowing, phone alerts on your wrist, a limitless variety of watch faces for every occasion. The latest versions have even added the ability to take an electrocardiogram, 5G connectivity and off-grid satellite messaging. It’s no wonder the Apple Watch Series 11 earned a five-star review from our consumer tech editor and regularly pops up in our gift guides for pretty much everyone. The Apple Watch is beloved by moms , customized by dads and requested by tweens . Continue reading...
November launch set for space shuttle Endeavour's towering display
"It is an incredible exhibit and incredible sight."
The history of brilliantly terrible World Cup video games
As football fans revel in the real world tournament, its digital counterparts continue to stumble in capturing the hyped up atmosphere Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here I come with a warning to all football fans: if you’ve been enjoying the World Cup enough to think, “I’d like to re-enact this on a football video game”, do not go to Netflix and play Fifa World Cup: Launch Edition, the officially licensed game of the tournament, which streams via your smart TV or computer. Developed by the virtually unknown Delphi Interactive, it’s a juddering, dated calamity, with sluggish controls (via your phone, once you’ve downloaded the app) and commentary courtesy of Clive Tyldesley that delivers all the excitement of a robotic train station announcement. Until this, it was largely agreed that the worst World Cup football game in history was World Cup Carnival, the first official Fifa tie-in, which was released on various home computers in 1986. Publisher US Gold thought it had a deal with the Manchester studio Ocean Software to repurpose its acclaimed title Match Day, but the agreement fell through. With three months to go before Mexico 86, US Gold was forced to effectively rebadge a dire 1984 sim, World Cup Football, by the fading developer Artic. To add some value to the package, the game was released in a fancy big box complete with a fixtures chart, a World Cup facts poster and some flag stickers. Nobody was fooled – the World Cup Carnival was a critical and commercial disaster. Continue reading...
White House app auto-downloads to government phones, can't be uninstalled
“It’s shooting pure unadulterated propaganda into our veins,” says one worker.
Snap's AI Specs: LOL
Snap's AR Specs glasses are indeed very heavy, very dorky.
Podcast: If AI Is Sentient Then So Is ‘Age of Empires II
A surreal but compelling LLM experiment with Age of Empires II; how a Texas city sold land meant for a park to a data center company; and the Madison Square Garden hack.
How Hackers Broke into Madison Square Garden
Hackers stole more than 45GB of data from Madison Square Garden, including data related to “talent” and the Knicks. Clues in the data point to how the hackers got in.
The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AI
Leaked audio from Accenture says a big source of AI token ‘chewing’ is people just converting PDFs to presentation slides.
‘You can’t make billions without hurting people’: Cory Doctorow on Elon Musk, the AI bubble and bosses’ cruel fantasies
The writer who coined the word ‘enshittification’ tells us why AI will never deliver what it promises – and why it still appeals so much to those in power A “centaur”, in automation theory, is a person assisted by a machine, and a “reverse centaur”, hero of Cory Doctorow’s new book, The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI , is a “human who is conscripted into acting as an assistant to a machine”. Every warehouse worker who ever had to urinate in a water bottle because they couldn’t otherwise meet the fulfilment targets set by an algorithm is a reverse centaur. Reaching into the future, everyone who has to sit in a self-driving truck to make sure it doesn’t crash, presumably on minimum rather than truck-driver wages, is a reverse centaur; as is every lawyer no longer on lawyer’s money checking Gemini’s command of precedent, every indie band scraping a living doing covers of AI-generated hits, and so on. That, anyway, is the promise: AI is coming for your job, and it is coming for your kids’ jobs, and there is no point fighting it because the future’s already here. Wiping out the world of work, and with it our ability to sustain ourselves and live autonomous lives, is only the beginning, if you listen to AI’s architects. Elon Musk has called it the single greatest threat to human civilisation , Sam Altman has said it will “most likely lead to the end of the world” and Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic , memorably forecast that AI would come to see us the way we see animals : cute to have around but ultimately a resource to be exploited. “AI people claim they’re about to create God, by teaching words to a word-guessing programme,” Doctorow says. “It’s grandiose.” Continue reading...