Carmaker to have 25 electrified models on sale by 2023 as strict new EU rules loom
BMW is accelerating its push away from the internal combustion engine towards battery technology, as the German carmaker seeks to double the number of electric and hybrid vehicles it sells in the next two years.
The company will have 25 electrified models on sale in 2023, two years earlier than previously planned, it announced on Tuesday. More than half of the vehicles will be fully electric.
Continue reading...Stakeholders say unanswered questions remain over scale of Sidewalk Labs’ hi-tech redevelopment scheme for city’s waterfront
The Google sister company behind a controversial, hi-tech redevelopment scheme for a swath of Toronto’s waterfront has released the first detailed outline of an ambitious project, but stakeholders say that unanswered questions remain over data collection and the scale of the plan.
The 1,500-page plan unveiled in Toronto on Monday reveals that Sidewalk Labs intends to spend C$1.3bn (US$900m) on the project that will involve “raincoats for buildings”, heated and illuminated sidewalks, affordable housing, tall timber structures and innovations to support sustainability and environmentalism.
Continue reading...They started out as a joke – doctored videos of celebrities doing unlikely things, from a Nicolas Cage cameo in Friends to Mark Zuckerberg boasting about ‘stolen’ data. But as the technology improves, could deepfakes swing an election?
Continue reading...Marissa Fuchs posted photos of disbelief, but marketers were sent itinerary months before
A public proposal is a risky thing to attempt. For every couple whose love for each other is perfectly in tune, there is a partner who has woefully misjudged their lover’s desire for public attention, grand romantic gestures, or simply marriage full stop.
So Gabriel Grossman might have been taking a huge risk when he and his girlfriend, the Instagram influencer Marissa Casey Fuchs, embarked on not just a public proposal, but a 48-hour-long surprise holiday scavenger hunt, exhaustively documented by the couple on their respective Instagram accounts. What if she’d said no? Or decided that this precious moment was too personal to be shared with her audience of 193,000 people?
Continue reading...Company’s own upbeat figures thrown into doubt by business analytics firm Mixpanel
Facebook usage has plummeted over the last year, even as the company continues to insist that its use has stayed stable or even grown in the same period, according to data seen by the Guardian.
Since April 2018, the first full month after the news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in the Observer, actions on Facebook such as likes, shares and posts have dropped by almost 20%, according to the business analytics firm Mixpanel.
Continue reading...Apple says it is ‘deeply committed to responsible sourcing of materials’
Electronics companies, including Canon, Apple and Nokia, are re-evaluating their supply chains following reports they may be using gold extracted from a Tanzanian mine that has been criticised for environmental failures.
Over the past 10 years, at the North Mara goldmine – which is operated by London-listed Acacia Mining – there have been more than a dozen killings of intruding locals by security personnel.
Continue reading...Foreign involvement in Africa is far from unique to Russia (Leaked documents reveal Russia’s efforts to exert influence in Africa, 12 June). The new scramble for Africa involves more powers than the first round over a century ago. This time it’s in part about securing resources such as oil, gas and rare earth metals crucial for military and civilian digital technology, and denying these resources to rival powers.
The United States Africa Command (Africom) now has 7,500 American troops active in all but one African country, up from 6,000 in 2017. Apart from its huge base in Djibouti, controlling the narrow strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, a vital chokepoint through which all shipping using the Suez Canal has to pass – most importantly (for the Americans) Chinese shipping – the US has constructed small “lily pad” bases, whose presence gives the US a strong military capability.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Yana Peel co-owns NSO Group that licensed Pegasus software to authoritarian regimes
A leading human rights campaigner and head of a prestigious London art gallery is the co-owner of an Israeli cyberweapons company whose software has allegedly been used by authoritarian regimes to spy on dissidents, the Guardian can reveal.
Yana Peel, the chief executive of the Serpentine Galleries and a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, co-owns NSO Group, a $1bn (£790m) Israeli tech firm, according to corporate records in the US and Luxembourg.
Continue reading...Chrystia Freeland said move would set a dangerous precedent while Meng Wanzhou will challenge extradition request
Canada’s foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, has dismissed a suggestion that Ottawa block the extradition of a top executive from China’s Huawei to the US, saying it would set a dangerous precedent.
Huawei’s chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested on US fraud charges in Vancouver last December, will challenge Washington’s extradition request at hearings that are set to begin next January.
Continue reading...Firm has uncovered emails that appear to show chief executive’s connection to potentially problematic practices, WSJ reports
Facebook has uncovered emails that appear to show Mark Zuckerberg’s connection to potentially damaging privacy practices at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The emails were uncovered as part of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation that began after the Guardian reported that the personal data of 50 million Facebook users had been improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked on Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign.
Continue reading...Last month Facebook declined to remove a manipulated video of Nancy Pelosi even after it was viewed millions of times
A doctored video of Mark Zuckerberg delivering a foreboding speech has been posted to Instagram, in a stunt that put Facebook’s content moderation policies to the test.
Videos known as “deepfakes” use artificial intelligence to manipulate the appearance and voices of individuals, often celebrities, into theoretically real-looking footage. They are likely to become the next wave in the battles over disinformation online.
Continue reading...Thom Yorke describes hours of recordings from OK Computer sessions as ‘not v interesting’, while climate activists thank the band for ‘unprecedented support’
Radiohead have released a vast collection of unreleased tracks made during the sessions for 1997 album OK Computer, after a MiniDisc archive owned by frontman Thom Yorke was hacked last week by an unnamed person, who reportedly held the recordings to ransom for $150,000.
The band have now made the 18 MiniDisc recordings, most of them around an hour in length, available on Bandcamp for £18. Proceeds will go to climate activists Extinction Rebellion.
Continue reading...News Media Alliance says revenue was almost as much as that of entire online news industry, although some question methodology
Google made $4.7bn in advertising from news content last year, almost as much as the revenue of the entire online news industry, according to a study released on Monday.
According to the News Media Alliance, between 16% and 40% of Google search results are news content. Google’s revenue from its distribution of news content is only $400m less than the $5.1bn brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising last year.
Continue reading...The Trump administration’s acting budget chief is asking for a delay in restrictions against Huawei products, according to a letter to Vice-President Mike Pence and nine members of Congress.
Related: ‘All I have done, no credit!’ Enraged Trump defends US-Mexico migrant deal
Continue reading...Two military drones are crashing every month on average, according to research that raises questions about the safety of the technology, both in conflict zones and civilian environments.
Accidents Will Happen, a report published by the campaign group Drone Wars UK, reveals that there have been more than 250 crashes involving the large unmanned aircraft in the past decade. A Reaper drone has a maximum speed of 480kph, a range of 1,800km and is armed with up to four missiles and two 230kg bombs.
Continue reading...Censorship comes after bans on Washington Post, NBC, HuffPost and Wikipedia
The Guardian’s website has been blocked in China, amid a crackdown by the country’s authorities on international news websites to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
The Chinese government has regularly restricted coverage of the incident, where the military turned on protesters in Beijing who were taking part in nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations.
Continue reading...Human rights group calls on England and Wales to ban police use of AFR in public spaces
Automated facial recognition poses one of the greatest threats to individual freedom and should be banned from use in public spaces, according to the director of the campaign group Liberty.
Martha Spurrier, a human rights lawyer, said the technology had such fundamental problems that, despite police enthusiasm for the equipment, its use on the streets should not be permitted.
Continue reading...Neurologist says ‘metricising our lives’ is counterproductive when it comes to sleep
Smartphone sleep-tracking apps are making people so anxious and obsessed about their sleep that they are developing insomnia, a leading neurologist has said.
Speaking at the Cheltenham science festival, Dr Guy Leschziner, a sleep disorder specialist and consultant at Guy’s hospital in London, said a growing preoccupation with getting enough sleep was backfiring.
Continue reading...Idan Ofer allegedly hired Black Cube in 2014 but firm denies meeting and is suing TV show
An Israeli investigative TV show has claimed that one of the country’s richest men hired the Israeli intelligence firm Black Cube to dig up dirt on a cabinet minister. Black Cube denied the allegations.
Idan Ofer allegedly hired the firm in 2014 to investigate the then-finance minister Yair Lapid and other top officials, Uvda reported, as part of his efforts to influence tax policy on natural gas finds at the time.
Ofer, a billionaire with vast holdings in the shipping, drilling and mining industries, paid Black Cube to help him undermine an advisory panel appointed by Lapid that was aiming to raise taxes on his lucrative natural resources company, according to the TV investigation. The idea was to smear Lapid and the arbitrators in order to continue evading high taxes on his profits after Israel discovered a large offshore natural gas field.
Black Cube, a company of former Israeli intelligence agents, has drawn international attention for allegedly working to discredit officials within the former US president Barack Obama’s administration who helped negotiate the Iran nuclear agreement, as well as to protect the reputation of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Thursday’s investigation also explored Black Cube’s ties to former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila, who reportedly used the company’s services to suppress opposition activists.
Black Cube denied the allegations, saying it never met with Ofer or targeted politicians, judges or regulators. The company said it was suing the TV show and its anchor in a British court for £15m. A clerk at Britain’s Royal Courts of Justice confirmed that a lawsuit had been filed but said he was barred from providing further details.
A spokesman for Ofer confirmed he had contracted the agency for a brief period, but said Ofer ended up not using Black Cube’s intelligence. He stressed the company gathered evidence only from public sources.
Lapid, now co-leader of the opposition Blue and White party, said nothing influences his decisions and he would “keep working without fearing anyone”.
GCHQ technical director says he hasn’t seen anything that reassures him company is taking necessary security steps
China’s Huawei Technologies needs to raise its “shoddy” security standards which fall below rivals, a senior British cyber security official said on Thursday, as the company came under increasing pressure internationally.
The US has led allegations that Huawei’s equipment can be used by Beijing for espionage operations, with Washington urging allies to bar the company from 5G networks.
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