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Tech
Industry, products, and the wires that hold it all together.
744 stories archived
Petlibro accused of “gaslighting” users over smart pet feeder outage
Petlibro says feeders perform scheduled feedings offline. Users report otherwise.
Hidden Airtag reveals Amazon is trashing rare books to train AI
Amazon’s team uses a T. rex preparing to devour a book as its logo.
Claude to start watermarking AI-generated text – but will it make quality worse?
Anthropic says it will change way chatbot makes small, random choices, to comply with EU regulation The world is familiar by now with the usual tropes of machine-generated text: overuse of the word “delve”, an excess of em dashes, and the chirpy, relentless construction of “it’s not X but Y” . But is it about to get even worse? Continue reading...
This sub-$7,000 sportscar might be just what the future needs
The Gasolini AR1 uses 2-cylinder Honda bike engine, and an EV is underway, too.
The Sinking City 2 review – Ukrainian cosmic horror, come hell or high water
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, PC; Frogwares Frogwares’ Lovecraftian action-horror is full of grim tenacity and pulp paperback charm, despite a few frayed edges I’m standing in the prosthetics lab of a campy horror hospital, hunting for a preacher’s flayed face to wear so I can trick the world’s grisliest smart doorbell. Pinned to a board in the corner of the room are a dozen X-rays: shattered bones and metal splints in sepia negative, each with a note attached. It’s a stark, clinical intrusion on the theatrical gore elsewhere. It takes a beat to realise that I’m reading the stories of injuries sustained by soldiers fighting for Frogwares’ native Ukraine. Fingers amputated after severe burns. Limbs lost in mine explosions. Toes torn off by shell fire. Like so many of my favourite PS3-era seven-out-of-tens, The Sinking City 2 is a pulpy action horror. It’s fuelled by scrappy ambition, Lovecraft fan fiction and wonderfully unhinged scenario design. A puzzle that has you determine which talking jarred brain is telling porkies. A scavenger hunt to fix a crane to move a rotting whale carcass. A gunfight amid the grisly results of a siren pop star’s fan meet-up turned battle royale. Continue reading...
‘Show How 3M Is 0% at Fault:’ Expert Witness Used ChatGPT to Write Report Defending Company in Deadly Explosion Lawsuit
ChatGPT prompts show how an expert witness report was created in a $61 million lawsuit over an explosion that killed three people.
Nvidia discloses $21B stake in SpaceX
Filing comes after Elon Musk announced exclusive arrangement to kit out its data centers.
The Future of Deepfakes and the Decline of Reality (With Hany Farid)
The past, present, and future of deepfakes, as seen by the world’s leading expert on synthetic media.
Meet the only known trebuchet casualty in history
"It highlights the brutality of medieval warfare," said paleopathologist Jo Buckberry.
‘Humiliated’: Sainsbury’s store pauses AI scanning after false shoplifting accusation
Supermarket chain says ‘human error’, not its Facewatch technology, to blame for ejecting a customer Sainsbury’s has paused the use of AI face scanning in one of its stores after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter and ejected from the shop. “I was embarrassed, mortified even, and felt quite humiliated and powerless,” Matt Arnold, 46, said of his ordeal. Continue reading...
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
Ithaca: a scintillating eco-thriller RPG that aims to confront our violent moment
The latest game from ‘reality-inspired’ studio the Pixel Hunt sees you transporting precious human cargo – and deciding what to do with it Ithaca has one hell of an opening: Penelope, a disillusioned environmental lawyer, stops her car at a petrol station. But upon returning, she discovers something shocking: the unconscious body of an oil company CEO in her boot, his hands hog-tied together, dangling limply towards the vehicle’s number plate. This tantalising eco-thriller setup is a long way off the typical knights-and-castles fantasy fare of most role-playing games, more How To Blow Up a Pipeline than Dragon Quest . But road-trip RPG Ithaca arrives via refreshingly original developer the Pixel Hunt, a French outfit that specialises in what it calls “reality-inspired” games. The studio has made a number of arresting works in recent years. One was about a Syrian refugee couple making a perilous migrant journey across Europe; another tackled the life-shattering effects of child sexual abuse. The climate crisis was always in the back of Pixel Hunt founder and Ithaca writer Florent Maurin’s mind. After all, he says, it is the uber problem of our day, the problem that touches all others. It was just a case of when, and, more importantly: “What do we say about it?” Continue reading...
Satellite operators are in panic mode due to a worsening launch crisis
What happens if the Falcon rockets stop flying?
Temperatures to fall across Europe as substantial rain heading for parts of UK
Temperatures could drop by more than 15C compared with last Thursday as cold front moves arrives from Monday Relief from the unrelenting heat is finally arriving this week across western Europe, with more unsettled conditions bringing the chance of rain. Temperatures are expected to fall back towards the seasonal norm, with some parts of the UK even falling about 3C below normal by Thursday. After such a scorching summer, and with a temperature drop of more than 15C compared with last Thursday’s heat, it may feel surprisingly chilly. There are signs that some substantial rain could be on the cards for the south of the UK this week as a cold front moves in from the Atlantic on Monday night into Tuesday. As of Monday, parts of southern England had endured 62 consecutive days of no rainfall – this is observed at a Met Office weather station in Wisley, Surrey. Even the last recorded rainfall here on 16 June amounted to just 0.4mm. Continue reading...
Are Microsoft’s AI plans being held back by a shortage of chips?
Guardian investigation finds apparent discrepancy between what tech company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced chips it has in operation The chips are quite small and some can be held in the palm of a hand. They are fundamental to the development of artificial intelligence models – and the world’s biggest technology companies need vast numbers of them to keep ahead. Microsoft is one of them. And, on paper, it seems to have a problem. A Guardian investigation has found an apparent discrepancy between what the company has said about its AI capacity – and the number of advanced AI chips it has in operation. Continue reading...
Report supporting Australia’s teen social media ban appears to contain AI hallucinations, Senate hears
Exclusive: Guardian analysis finds one section of report includes links to academic articles that do not exist, but authors deny the references were made up by AI Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The authors of a report testing the technology underpinning Australia’s social media ban have conceded ChatGPT was used in editing, but denied a number of citation errors in the report were due to AI hallucinations. The $3.48m age assurance technology trial , run by the UK-based Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS) last year, tested various types of technology that could be used by social media platforms as part of Australia’s under-16 social media ban. Continue reading...
‘The kids were right’: 30 years of Pokémon, from school-wide bans to multimillion-dollar trading cards
Pokémon outlived the moral panic of its early days in Australia and its staying power has proved that simple joy can cross borders There’s a generation of Australians for whom Cheez TV was a religion. Every morning before school, I’d sit in my little white plastic chair about three feet from our big wooden television and watch 90 minutes of cartoons “curated” by the show’s teenage hosts, Jade and Ryan. Premiering in 1995, Cheez TV dominated the children’s breakfast market by 1998, stealing the crown from Channel Seven’s bogan-muppet icon Agro . A daily dose of Cheez TV was such an important ritual to me that I remember feeling active resentment towards Princess Diana’s death because the news coverage bumped Earthworm Jim. Continue reading...
Deepfake Anthony Albanese used in celebrity scams duping Australians out of $7.4m, Asic warns
Australia’s corporate watchdog says PM is the figure most commonly used in deepfakes to promote phony investment opportunities Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast There has been a steep rise in scammers luring victims into phony investment opportunities using deepfakes of celebrities and politicians, Australia’s corporate watchdog has warned. And Anthony Albanese is the figure most commonly co-opted. Continue reading...
‘I see the incredible promise’: on set of an AI film shoot as new studios embrace controversial tech
Amid fears for jobs, some film-makers say AI could enable them bypass studio giants and take more creative risks Near the collonaded entrance to Sony Pictures’ historic Culver City film studio, a tech-powered rival has sprung up this summer. The artists at Promise, a new studio feeding off the potential of AI, can glimpse the lots where Singin’ in the Rain and Men in Black were shot, but no longer do they need to get beyond the studio’s high walls to make their visions come true. From far more modest premises, they are making movies with rapidly accelerating AI models that create backgrounds, special effects and even “synthetic performers” – using US models but also driven by market-leading Chinese AI. Continue reading...
Wildfire smoke now bigger prenatal threat than human sources of air pollution
Regulations reduced prenatal exposure to harmful emissions, but wildfire smoke is erasing gains.
The first anti-AI protester to be jailed has a message for OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta: ‘Regain your humanity’
Wynd Kaufman, 69, chained and locked the front doors of OpenAI’s headquarters last year with members of StopAI An activist who blocked the entrance to one of the world’s biggest AI companies is believed to have become the first person jailed for protesting against artificial intelligence as supporters dub her the “Rosa Parks of AI risk”. Wynd Kaufman, 69, surrendered herself on Friday to authorities in San Francisco. She was found guilty by a jury for her role in an action last year that saw members of the group StopAI chain and lock the front doors of OpenAI’s headquarters in protest against the pursuit of artificial superintelligence. Continue reading...
AI cheating, leaked papers and marking errors: how exam protests went global
Student unrest sweeps India, Portugal and Mexico as grievances and pressure for good grades in tough job market collide Families with teenagers in education know the private, hidden pain of exam season. But this year, what might have been a summer of quiet family anxiety has erupted in several countries into public unrest. Exam-related turmoil has led to mass student protests in Mexico after nearly 60,000 university applicants were forced to resit tests amid suspected cheating , while Portugal’s disastrous attempt to digitise school exam marking sparked the country’s worst education crisis in decades. Continue reading...
VisionQuest trailer kicks off Disney's D23 fan event
Also: Ahsoka S2 teaser, Doomsday trailer, news about MCU's X-Men and Star Wars: Starfighter
Ukraine strikes major Russian rocket factory with cruise missiles
"Flamingo missiles were used. A good achievement."