section
Tech
Industry, products, and the wires that hold it all together.
546 stories archived
Quantum error correction goes well beyond breakeven
A demo of error-corrected qubits shows big reductions in errors as they grow.
Meta tries to scapegoat staff who downloaded torrents to spare execs
Meta argues nobody “decided” to pirate books to train AI.
DHS Said They Searched Man Who Wiped GrapheneOS Phone for Child Abuse Material. They Lied
Officials said they wanted to search the phone of Samuel Tunick, a Stop Cop City activist, for child abuse material. It was actually because he was suspected of “terrorist activities.”
US judge dismisses sexual abuse lawsuit from Sam Altman’s sister
Ann Altman, the Open AI CEO’s sister, accused her brother of repeatedly sexually abusing her over two decades ago A judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Sam Altman’s sister against him on Tuesday. Ann Altman accused the OpenAI CEO of repeatedly sexually abusing her more than two decades ago, which he has denied. In dismissing Ann Altman’s lawsuit, the US district judge Zachary Bluestone wrote that she had refused to appear for an independent medical examination despite warnings that failure to do so would result in the case’s dismissal. Continue reading...
Could this be a Deep Blue moment for the cryptic crossword?
A computer program has finally oudone humans at solving cryptic crosswords. Plus, more from around the puzzleverse • Don’t get Cluesletter, our weekly puzzles newsletter, delivered to your inbox? Sign up here When the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov at chess in 1997, it was an early victory for artificial intelligence over the human mind, and the culmination of decades of attempts. Almost 30 years later, a computer program has finally outdone humans at solving cryptic crosswords. Earlier this month, a model called Darmok solved the final puzzle of the Times’s annual cryptic crossword competition about three minutes faster than Liam Hughes, 29, who became the contest’s youngest (human) winner . Wolf trap missing its lowest crosspiece? (5)” Proportion of inspiration and perspiration? It’s roughly 45% and 42% (5) Kick-off leads to decisive early goal for PSG (5) To read the complete version of this newsletter including the exclusive Letter Adder game, subscribe to receive Cluesletter in your inbox every Tuesday. Continue reading...
Polestar tries to quantify what it’s like to drive a performance car
Drivers had electrodes strapped to their heads as they tested EVs on track.
‘It was so satisfying when I threw a rock through the screen’: the people sick of being spied on by their smart TV
Is your television listening to every conversation? Filling your home with highly invasive ads? Some viewers have had enough of tech violating their privacy When Dan had had enough of his television, he threw a rock straight through the screen. The offence? His smart TV was downloading its third update in three days. “It drove me crazy with what seemed like daily software updates that never fixed anything and ‘features’ that never seemed to work,” says the 71-year-old from Illinois. “And of course, constantly trying to push me to subscribe to paid-for services when all I wanted to do was watch over-the-air TV, play a DVD or stream something from my computer.” Some may accuse Dan of being a luddite, but his master’s degree in computer science and decades of experience in telecommunications would suggest otherwise. “The tech is not intimidating,” he explains, “just increasingly enshittified .” Continue reading...
The dangers of letting tech billionaires shape our world
As SpaceX impacts Ukraine and AI-generated music divides artists and fans, critics are asking what happens when technology has too much control over our lives This was originally published in TechScape, a newsletter about how technology shapes our lives. Sign up to receive it here Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you while sitting in front of Roy Lichtenstein’s monumental Drowning Girl, on view in New York City . Today in tech, we’re discussing the perils of Elon Musk’s one-man global infrastructure, AI-generated music, and a Guardian AI conference in Paris. Continue reading...
Labor and the Coalition are poised to take a reckless gamble on AI. Haven’t they realised community support has collapsed? | Edward Santow and Sarah Sacher
Australian workers expect the government to act to protect them from AI harms. There is a clear reform solution at hand Get our new political email , free app or daily news podcast Australia’s major political parties are edging towards rare consensus. Labor and the Coalition increasingly want to take a major bet on artificial intelligence. Yet, just as the parties are coming together, the Australian community is running the other way. Last year, only 30% of Australians believed the benefits of AI outweighed the risks. In 2026, community trust in AI appears to be falling even further. Continue reading...
People Are Using 'AI Decompiling' to Hack Their Things
A gang of hackers targets Staples, but not to buy things from Staples.
‘Reverse-Engineer Anything’ Is the New Wild West of AI
Decompiled, cloned, and modified software is going viral and might slopify everything.
Meta Muse exposes users' personal and business secrets when they share conversations
A single query is all that's required to find thousands of conversations listed by title.
Scientists Discover A Strange Particle Explains the Origin of Reality
Why is the universe the way it is? A long-overlooked particle might have given matter an edge over antimatter in the split-seconds after the Big Bang, which researchers say “could transform our understanding of cosmic evolution and the fundamental laws of physics.”
Visiting Slate’s first showroom as its $25,000 electric truck nears production
Slate's first showroom sells the promise. Mass production will determine the rest.
Google Cloud outage: Revolut suffers service disruption as bank customers report problems – business live
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news The pound has rallied after Britain’s unemployment rate fell unexpectedly this morning to 4.7%. Sterling has gained half a cent against the US dollar to $1.3352, as the City welcomes the news that employment rose in the last quarter. “This data has caught the market on the hop, with traders scrambling to respond and boost exposure to the pound. Good news has been a touch more prevalent for the UK of late, which is just the kind of framing the government needs heading into the budget, though signs of more resilience in the labour market do of course mean the BoE has more room to respond to higher inflation.” “The labour market remains relatively flat overall. This resilience in the face of headwinds driven by global events is welcome. But underlying problems remain, with around one million young people not in education, employment or training and overall employment more than two million short of the Government’s 80% employment rate target. To fix those challenges we need to change the benefit system so it offers active help to all who need it, but also make it easier for employers to create jobs. “ Continue reading...
Hollywood AI-listers: is the technology ready to rival flesh-and-blood film stars?
As a freaky Val Kilmer doppelganger stars in a new western and faux starlet Tilly Norwood is set for her feature debut, experts are split on whether mainstream adoption is a long way down the line – or just around the corner ‘Don’t fear the dead – and don’t fear me.” An exact facsimile of a young Val Kilmer, not quite dead and not quite alive, utters that baiting line in the trailer for the new western As Deep as the Grave. Director Coerte Voorhees knows exactly what he is doing – this is an AI-created version of the late actor, approved by his family but bringing with it a heap of controversy about whether such technology could make flesh-and-blood thespians redundant. Not just yet, judging by the extended glimpse of the film released earlier this year : it looks like a thirtysomething Kilmer, if a robot version had been sent back to the 1920s American wilderness by Skynet and, as well as being strangely rigid, had forgotten to download his voice, let alone his signature air of spacey shrewdness. Kilmer’s estate signed off on it, citing his enthusiasm for new technology that expands storytelling, but surely he would have been dismayed by this freaky doppelganger. Continue reading...
Googlebook review: Google’s new laptops are woefully underbaked
Great hardware let down by software flaws on these pricey machines that combine ChromeOS with Android Google’s attempt to create a new type of laptop to compete with Windows and macOS machines is finally here, combining the best of ChromeOS and Android into the new Googlebook. With advanced links to Android phones and the best of Google built in, can these Googlebooks really compete with a MacBook Air or Surface Laptop? I took two for a spin to find out. For years, Chromebooks have been the boss of budget laptops, but Googlebooks take a different, far more premium approach. Made by a range of traditional PC makers, including Acer, Asus, Dell, HP and Lenovo, they start at £999 (€1,099/ $899 / A$2,299 ) – a far cry from the £160 Chromebooks. Continue reading...
Japan launches mission to bring home a piece of the Martian moon Phobos
The climax for MMX will come in 2029, when the spacecraft will attempt up to two landings on Phobos.
‘These risks are real’: the threat of AI bioweapons – podcast
In his annual speech on threats to the nation, Sir Ken McCallum, the head of the UK’s intelligence service, MI5 , warned that AI had the potential to ‘change the stakes’ on existing and even new bioweapons. To find out why, and how, Ian Sample speaks to Dr Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He explains what has governments so worried and what measures could be put in place to reduce the risks Could AI ‘change the stakes’ in the development of bioweapons? Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod Continue reading...
Is this the beginning of the end of the AI stock market boom?
After a wobble on the tech-heavy Nasdaq, some AI market observers think a reassessment of the potential value of various businesses may be under way Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The world is holding its breath as it waits to find out whether this year’s estimated $US1tn investment in artificial intelligence is resting on a castle made of sand. Last week, the Nasdaq 100 – an index of the 100 biggest non-financial stocks on the American tech-heavy Nasdaq exchange – dropped by 5.5%, triggering the usual angst that the AI boom is about to go bust. Continue reading...
Pennsylvania issues alert on congenital measles—something US hasn't seen for decades
Congenital measles can be fatal, and survivors require monitoring for years.
New AI tool can predict cancer survival by a single patient selfie, study suggests
System can estimate a person’s biological age and predict chances of cancer survival from a single photograph Doctors have developed an artificial intelligence tool that can predict a cancer patient’s chances of survival from a single photograph of their face. The AI system was custom-built by experts at Mass General Brigham, a nonprofit, integrated academic healthcare system in Massachusetts, to estimate biological age and directly predict survival outcomes in patients diagnosed with cancer. Continue reading...
'It Ain't Right:' Texas Said It Would Halt Data Center Permits. The State is Pushing Ahead Anyway
“The Caldwell Technology Park [...] the Stargate facility, and a bunch of other very large hyperscale facilities have gotten regulatory approvals [...] so it's not like a real pause."
Russian spacecraft maneuvers in "extreme proximity" to satellite used by Ukraine
"Kosmos 2612 closed from hundreds of kilometers away to extreme proximity to ICEYE-X36."