Senate hearing was called in response to how the companies’ platforms handled a New York Post article about Joe Biden
The chief executive officers of Twitter and Facebook are taking the stand Tuesday to testify, again, about allegations of anti-conservative bias on their platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey were subpoenaed in October to appear at Tuesday’s hearing with the Senate judiciary committee in order to “review the companies’ handling of the 2020 election”.
Continue reading...Tech firm told Northern Ireland resident who wanted to watch rugby that he didn’t live in UK
It was an unlikely statement from one of the world’s biggest companies, but for a brief period on Saturday afternoon it appeared that Amazon had pledged its backing to a united Ireland.
The tech company has now apologised after telling a resident of Northern Ireland that he could not watch its rugby union coverage because he didn’t live in the UK.
Continue reading...Apple’s big update adds colour, iPhone-like icons, settings and apps, ready for new and old Macs alike
Apple has just released Big Sur as a free update, marking the biggest redesign for macOS in years. The core system of every Mac computer is now equal parts traditional desktop computer and features many will be used to seeing from the iPad and iPhone.
Big Sur marks the end of an era for the Mac’s software in more ways than one. For years Apple has been slowly blending the design and operation of its desktop and mobile software, bringing features from the iPhone or iPad to the Mac and vice versa. With Big Sur comes a significant step toward the goal of merging the two.
Continue reading...CEO told staffers Bannon had not violated enough policies to justify ban when he called for beheading of Anthony Fauci
Mark Zuckerberg told Facebook staffers on Thursday that former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company’s policies to justify his suspension from the platform when he called for the beheading of two US officials and the posting of their heads outside the White House as a “warning”.
Continue reading...Frantic stock sell-offs across sector anticipating ‘monopoly’ rules, with Alibaba shopping site shares falling 9.8%
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been wiped off the value of China’s biggest internet companies following two days of frenetic selling with investors fearing Beijing plans to curb the power of homegrown tech firms.
Shares in Alibaba, a Chinese version of Amazon, dropped by 9.8% on Wednesday, while its rivals, Tencent, and JD.com, fell by 7.4% and 9.2% respectively.
Continue reading...Platform says it’s received ‘no clarity’ from government about status of proposal to place app under control of US companies
The popular video-sharing app TikTok says its future has been in limbo since Donald Trump tried to shut it down earlier this fall and is asking a federal court to intervene.
Continue reading...As the Xbox Series X and Series S are released, Microsoft gaming chief Phil Spencer says the next games generation is all about how many players you have, not how many consoles you shift
The launch of the Xbox Series X this week marked the start of a new video game console generation – historically a super-exciting time for players, as better technology unlocks new dimensions for games. But despite the usual competitive crowing about teraflops, frame rates and resolutions, there’s a different dimension to the console wars this time around. The looming Netflix-ification of video games threatens to upend the whole idea of video game consoles. Amazon and Google are both working on game streaming services that let people play cutting-edge games without paying for a box that sits under the TV. And Microsoft has spent the past five years spending billions on game developers to shore up its star service: Xbox Game Pass, a monthly subscription that lets you play hundreds of games for a monthly fee.
It’s been clear for a while that Microsoft sees the future of gaming in subscriptions, streaming and services. Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox since 2014, is known to players as the guy who shows up on stage at press conferences in video-game T-shirts. Under his leadership, Microsoft has massively broadened its stable of game developers, started selling Xbox games on PC, and engineered its own streaming service to let people play on any screen, known in prototype as Project xCloud. Subs and streaming have already transformed other creative industries, with varying effects on artists – Spotify has been a disaster for musicians, where Netflix has arguably been good news for TV producers. With Microsoft already clearly committed to this direction of travel, what will its effect be on the games industry?
Continue reading...Special rapporteur on racism and xenophobia believes there is a misconception that biosurveillance technology is without bias
Robotic lie detector tests at European airports, eye scans for refugees and voice-imprinting software for use in asylum applications are among new technologies flagged as “troubling” in a UN report.
The UN’s special rapporteur on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, Prof Tendayi Achiume, said digital technologies can be unfair and regularly breach human rights. In her new report, she has called for a moratorium on the use of certain surveillance technologies.
Continue reading...The coronavirus pandemic has left us living more and more of our lives online. But the place where we chat with friends, get our news and form our opinions is full of vile and dangerous conspiracy theories. Is the world’s biggest social network doing enough to combat them?
As with many others in Britain, lockdown hit Rachel and her husband, Philip, hard. Almost overnight, the couple, both in their early 50s, found themselves cut off from friends, family and colleagues. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, they had both been working every day; now Philip found himself furloughed, while Rachel was put on rotation with other essential staff, working fewer shifts at odd hours. They were unable to meet up with their four adult sons and daughters. They had to attend a family funeral while remaining socially distanced.
Initially, Rachel coped in the way many others did. She played more video games than normal, and felt stressed at work, but as far as possible she managed. Her husband didn’t. For him, it seemed there must be more to it than the authorities struggling to cope with a novel virus and evolving expert advice. “The regularly changing and conflicting information that was coming from the government added to the feeling in him that they were making things up or covering something up,” Rachel says now.
Continue reading...US tech firm accused by Brussels of using data it collects on retailers
Amazon has been charged by the European commission with using the sales data of independent retailers selling through its site to illegally gain an advantage in the European market place.
The US tech firm and online retailer was accused by Brussels of using the information it collects on retailers to focus its own efforts on the bestselling products with the biggest profit margins.
Continue reading...Artificial intelligence is being used to create new songs seemingly performed by Frank Sinatra and other dead stars. ‘Deepfakes’ are cute tricks – but they could change pop for ever
‘It’s Christmas time! It’s hot tub time!” sings Frank Sinatra. At least, it sounds like him. With an easy swing, cheery bonhomie, and understated brass and string flourishes, this could just about pass as some long lost Sinatra demo. Even the voice – that rich tone once described as “all legato and regrets” – is eerily familiar, even if it does lurch between keys and, at times, sounds as if it was recorded at the bottom of a swimming pool.
The song in question not a genuine track, but a convincing fake created by “research and deployment company” OpenAI, whose Jukebox project uses artificial intelligence to generate music, complete with lyrics, in a variety of genres and artist styles. Along with Sinatra, they’ve done what are known as “deepfakes” of Katy Perry, Elvis, Simon and Garfunkel, 2Pac, Céline Dion and more. Having trained the model using 1.2m songs scraped from the web, complete with the corresponding lyrics and metadata, it can output raw audio several minutes long based on whatever you feed it. Input, say, Queen or Dolly Parton or Mozart, and you’ll get an approximation out the other end.
Continue reading...The controversial messaging app has moved huge crowds on the streets of Belarus. But who is its secretive puppet master?
One Sunday in August, two weeks after Belarus’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko declared an implausibly decisive victory in presidential elections, I joined a crowd of around 100,000 people as it moved through central Minsk. Protest in Belarus was no longer the domain of a few hundred hardy opposition figures, and the homemade placards many people carried illustrated how broad the coalition had become: “Let’s drink to love, from the bartenders of Belarus”; “Teachers against violence”; “Working class, go on strike!”
The previous fortnight had been a time of national awakening, as the country united around the goal of ending Lukashenko’s 26 years in charge. As grim footage of police violence circulated on the messenger app Telegram, large numbers came out to demand that their voices be heard.
Continue reading...DoJ is suing for formal forfeiture of funds after tracking down the person holding them
The US government has seized more than $1bn worth of bitcoins connected to the shuttered darknet marketplace Silk Road and is suing for formal forfeiture of the funds.
The case is the biggest cryptocurrency seizure in history, and explains why the bitcoins changed hands this week. Analysts had noticed the transfer on the public blockchain and speculated that it was either due to an unknown Silk Road co-conspirator attempting to cash out, or because the funds had been stolen by hackers.
Continue reading...Former Trump adviser falls foul of Twitter rules with ‘heads on pikes’ comments
Twitter has banned the account of the former Donald Trump adviser and surrogate Steve Bannon after he called for the beheading of Dr Anthony Fauci and the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and the posting of their heads outside the White House as a “warning”.
Speaking on his podcast, the War Room, which was distributed in video form on a number of social media outlets, the far-right provocateur appeared to endorse violence against Wray and the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert.
Continue reading...They’re superfast, they’re frictionless and you get access to Xbox Game Pass. But not much else, from the controller to the interface, has changed – and launching without a single new game is just bizarre
The world was a different place in 2013, when Microsoft launched the Xbox One. Back then, the company was pitching consoles as living-room entertainment centres, with picture-in-picture display and built-in Skype and TV integration. The new Xbox models – the Series X and Series S – are comparatively no-nonsense. They’re powerful, fast, home to the good-value Xbox Game Pass subscription, and make playing games as frictionless as possible. Rather than making a statement, the new Xboxes want to get out of your way.
The Series X, the more powerful model, is a black monolith with green detailing on the top vent. (It won’t win any design awards.) The more eye-catching Series S is a slimmer white machine with a contrasting round black vent. The X has a disc drive, 1TB of storage for downloaded games and the ability to output in true 4K resolution on cutting-edge TVs; the S has no disc drive, 512GB of storage and is optimised for 1440p resolution. You would need a cutting edge 4K television to benefit from the X’s superior visual prowess. On the TVs that most people own, there won’t be much of a difference in what you see on screen.
Continue reading...First air taxis to fly in Catalan capital and Santiago de Compostela in 2022, says Enaire
When Spain’s much-missed tourists and pilgrims finally return, they may be offered a novel way to rise above the crowds and appreciate some of the country’s most dramatic urban architecture.
Enaire, Spain’s air navigation authority, has announced plans to begin demonstrating flying taxis in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela in 2022.
Continue reading...Richard Browning is pursuing the stuff of a million childhood dreams. But having built a working jetpack, will anybody use it?
On a gloomy afternoon in a Sussex wood, a 21st-century superhero appears. Dressed in black, helmeted, a pack on his back and jets on his arms, he rises to a couple of metres above the ground, accelerates up above a grassy bank and then hovers in a swirling cloud of autumn leaves.
No matter how many times you’ve watched a video on YouTube, nothing can quite prepare you for the sight of a human being in flight. It is the embodiment of a thousand myths, from Hermes and Peter Pan to Iron Man, as well as a million childhood dreams, and is the only correct answer to that old conundrum: which superpower would you choose, invisibility or flying? If it wasn’t for the roar of the jet engines and the smell of fuel, you would assume it was just a dream.
Continue reading...Secure messaging app pivotal to organisation of protests and spreading of news about repressions
In a small Minsk apartment one evening last week, a group of people gathered to discuss plans for a Halloween party with a twist. There would be costumes, drinks and games, but the main event was a ceremonial funeral. The plan: to bury Alexander Lukashenko’s dictatorship.
“Maybe we should bury a pumpkin with a moustache,” suggested one young woman.
Continue reading...Latest move in an ongoing saga comes after CEO Jack Dorsey was grilled by Republican lawmakers during a Senate hearing on Wednesday
Twitter said on Friday it had changed its policy and lifted a freeze it placed on the account of the New York Post after the newspaper published controversial articles about Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
It is the latest move in an ongoing saga that called into question the moderation policies of social media platforms. Both Twitter and Facebook took measures to limit the spread of an article published by the New York Post on 14 October, which claimed to be based on documents gleaned from an abandoned computer belonging to the Democratic candidate’s son.
Continue reading...Judge declines to dismiss case against Huawei CEO but says assertion that US misrepresented evidence for extradition has ‘air of reality’
A judge has blocked an attempt by Canada’s attorney general to dismiss parts of the extradition case against Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, according to a ruling released on Thursday.
However, the judge sided with the attorney general in agreeing that Meng’s arguments were not strong enough to warrant an immediate dismissal of the case to extradite to the US for trial on fraud charges.
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