US chip factory workers say it’s a ‘struggle to survive’ on their wages as industry booms

Companies stand to gain billions in federal funds and tax breaks as employees suffer in poor working conditions

As chip manufacturers grapple for billions of dollars in federal funds and tax breaks designed to boost the US semiconductor industry, they face growing calls from inside their factories to improve working conditions and pay.

Workers and labour unions are urging key companies in the sector to “do the right thing” and prioritize the wellbeing of employees over the wealth of their shareholders.

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Neuralink has implanted second trial patient with brain chip, Elon Musk says

Founder says procedure, aimed at helping paralyzed people use digital devices by thinking alone, went ‘extremely well’

Neuralink has successfully implanted in a second patient its device designed to give paralyzed patients the ability to use digital devices by thinking alone, according to the startup’s owner Elon Musk.

Neuralink is in the process of testing its device, which is intended to help people with spinal cord injuries. The device has allowed the first patient to play video games, browse the internet, post on social media and move a cursor on his laptop.

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The far right has moved online, where its voice is more dangerous than ever

Social media such as X are fuelling the growth of extremism by allowing its figureheads a platform to direct violence

The resurgence of far-right violence in the UK is in part due to Elon Musk’s decision to allow figures such as Tommy Robinson back on to the social media platform X, researchers say.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and those of his ilk are not leaders in the traditional sense and the far right has no central organisation capable of directing the disorder and violence that has been seen, experts say.

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‘We have to adapt or die’: Daniel Bedingfield says AI is music’s future

Exclusive: Gotta Get Thru This singer argues that ‘neo-luddites’ risk being left behind as technology develops

The growing use of artificial intelligence in the creative industries has been described as an existential threat to jobs and artistic integrity. Earlier this year artists including Billie Eilish and Katy Perry signed an open letter urging tech companies not to “sabotage creativity”, while Nick Cave has called lyrics written by ChatGPT “a grotesque mockery of what it is to be human”. But according to the musician Daniel Bedingfield, AI is music’s future, and anyone who fights against it faces being left behind.

“AI is now here for ever,” he told the Guardian. “And so I think that there will be two paths: there’ll be the neo-luddite path, and then there’ll be everyone else, most of the planet, who thinks the music’s really good and enjoys it.”

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Starmer’s live facial recognition plan would usher in national ID, campaigners say

PM accused of ignoring civil rights and aping autocracies as he proposes new powers after far-right unrest

Civil liberties campaigners have said that a proposal made by Keir Starmer on Thursday to expand the use of live facial recognition technology would amount to the effective introduction of a national ID card system based on people’s faces.

Silkie Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said it was ironic the new prime minister was suggesting a greater use of facial matching on the same day that an EU-wide law largely banning real-time surveillance technology came into force.

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Anger mounts over environmental cost of Google datacentre in Uruguay

Protesters say recently approved tax-free datacentre will ‘provide nothing except toxic waste and greenhouse gases’

Google’s plans to build a datacentre in Uruguay have angered environmentalists, who say the project will release thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and hazardous waste.

Uruguay’s environmental authorities recently approved the datacentre, which will use air conditioning to cool its servers. The company initially proposed using millions of litres of fresh water to cool its infrastructure, but this caused an outcry in a country that suffered its worst drought since 1950 last year, causing its capital city to run short of drinking water.

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Argentina will use AI to ‘predict future crimes’ but experts worry for citizens’ rights

President Javier Milei creates security unit as some say certain groups may be overly scrutinized by the technology

Argentina’s security forces have announced plans to use artificial intelligence to “predict future crimes” in a move experts have warned could threaten citizens’ rights.

The country’s far-right president Javier Milei this week created the Artificial Intelligence Applied to Security Unit, which the legislation says will use “machine-learning algorithms to analyse historical crime data to predict future crimes”. It is also expected to deploy facial recognition software to identify “wanted persons”, patrol social media, and analyse real-time security camera footage to detect suspicious activities.

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Chip designer Arm Holdings reports 39% surge in revenue but shares fall

Even as shares fall about 9%, chief financial officer says firm is seeing ‘more investment’ in AI than ‘even 90 days ago’

Chip designer Arm Holdings on Wednesday reported a stronger-than-expected 39% surge in quarterly revenue, and forecast fiscal second-quarter sales broadly in line with Wall Street estimates, yet its shares fell about 9% in extended trading.

For the current fiscal second quarter, Arm forecast revenue in a range between $780m and $830m, compared with an average analyst estimate of $804.1m, according to LSEG data.

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Strong earnings report pushes Meta shares up amid heavy AI spending

Stock price grew around 5%, which revealed the company outperformed analysts’ expectations for its second quarter

Meta’s shares rose in after-hours trading on Wednesday off the back of a strong earnings report that comes as the company is spending heavily on AI tools.

The company’s stock price grew around 5% following the report, which revealed the company outperformed analysts’ expectations for its second quarter.

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Chinese firms win record 11% EV share in Europe as buyers rush to beat tariffs

State-owned SAIC, parent of the British brand MG, was responsible for biggest jump in sales in June

Chinese carmakers secured a record 11% of the European electric vehicle market in June, as buyers raced to beat EU tariffs on imported EVs that came into force this month.

The figures, which include the UK, show that about 23,000 battery electric vehicles were registered in June, up 72% on the previous month as consumers raced to beat the price hike in the EU.

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Elon Musk accused of spreading lies over doctored Kamala Harris video

Doctored campaign video featuring US vice-president reposted by Tesla chief executive watched 128m times

Kamala Harris’s election campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading “manipulated lies” after the Tesla chief executive posted a doctored video featuring the vice-president on his X account.

Musk reposted a manipulated Harris campaign video on Friday evening in which a fake Harris voiceover says: “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” and that anyone who criticises her is “both sexist and racist”.

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Wong announces new digital cable centre to limit China’s influence in Indo-Pacific

The new centre, staffed by Australians, will enable sharing of information and help Pacific island governments regulate important undersea cables

Australia is stepping up its attempts to limit China’s influence in the Pacific, with the establishment of a new “cable connectivity and resilience centre” designed to boost connectivity for Pacific nations.

The foreign Minister, Penny Wong, will announce the centre while in Japan for the Quad foreign ministers’ meeting alongside counterparts from the United States, Japan and India.

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‘High quality, low price and dizzying variety’: how the Chinese switched to electric cars

The country has long been the world’s biggest market – but the government’s interest is more geopolitical than environmental

When Kenzi, an advertising worker in Shanghai, bought an electric vehicle in November she wasn’t even thinking about the environmental benefits. She had read Elon Musk’s biography and thought the Tesla 3 looked good. She also knew that if she bought an EV she could bypass the long wait and cost of getting licence plates, which are rationed by the government.

“It’s not easy to get a licence plate in Shanghai, but you get a licence for free when you buy an EV,” she said.

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Tesla earnings nearly halved as price cuts put pressure on profits

CEO Elon Musk blames ‘bit of a hangover’ from rivals’ discounting but insists challenges are ‘fairly short-term’

Earnings at Tesla almost halved as discounts and price cuts pile pressure on the electric carmaker’s profit margins.

Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, blamed “a bit of a hangover” after rivals cut prices “very substantially, which has made it a bit more difficult for Tesla”.

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Elon Musk claims Tesla will start using humanoid robots next year

Billionaire says Optimus will start performing tasks for carmaker in 2025 and could be ready for sale in 2026

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has claimed the company will produce “genuinely useful” humanoid robots to start working in its factories next year.

The world’s richest person, who has a penchant for making overambitious claims on social media, posted on his platform X, formerly Twitter, that he also hoped to expand into “high production” mode to make robots with a humanlike form available sell to other companies in 2026.

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Cybersecurity firm Wiz rejects $23bn bid from Google parent Alphabet

Israeli company aims for stock market flotation after spurning biggest deal in tech group’s history

The cybersecurity firm Wiz has turned down a $23bn (£18bn) takeover bid from Google’s parent, Alphabet, spurning what would have been the tech company’s biggest ever acquisition and seeking a stock market flotation instead.

Alphabet had been in talks with Wiz, founded by alumni of Israel’s cyberintelligence unit, as it seeks to catch rivals Microsoft and Amazon in the hyper-competitive cloud services market.

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Ballot measure to build billionaire-funded city in California withdrawn

Firm behind ‘California Forever’, a proposed green city for up to 400,000 people on farmland, pulls back from vote

The company behind the highly criticized “California Forever” project, a plan backed by Silicon Valley billionaires to build a green city for up to 400,000 people on California farmland, withdrew the ballot measure for the election in November, according to a letter released Monday.

The decision followed a discussion between Mitch Mashburn, chair of the board of supervisors in Solano county, and Jan Sramek, a former Goldman Sachs trader and chief executive of California Forever.

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Key Democratic donors back Harris but others warn against ‘coronation’

Some top backers throw weight behind Harris amid flood of grassroots donations but others pointedly decline to do so

Top Democratic donors helped end Joe Biden’s re-election bid in the past weeks by publicly and privately calling on him to stand aside, and threatening to pull their funds.

In the hours after he withdrew from the campaign, some of the party’s highest-profile backers promptly threw their weight behind Kamala Harris. Others pointedly did not.

Joe Biden drops out and endorses Kamala Harris

Democrats praise Biden and Republicans go on the offense

Who will replace Biden? How does the process work?

A look back at Joe Biden’s life in politics

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NHS England warns of disruption next week as global IT outage wreaks havoc

Flights continue to be cancelled while GP surgeries and hospitals will be dealing with impact of backlogs

The aftershocks of the Microsoft IT outage continued to ripple across the UK on Saturday as holidaymakers and patients suffered the brunt of the computer systems failure.

Customers experienced flight cancellations, faulty train ticket machines and failures in GPs’ prescription and appointment systems after a flawed security update from CrowdStrike, a US cybersecurity firm, crashed 8.5 million devices across the world running the Windows operating system.

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Holidaymakers warned of more airport delays after global Windows outage

Flyers advised to check with providers for ‘extra steps’, with at least 45 UK flights cancelled on Saturday

Holidaymakers have been warned that travel disruption may continue this weekend as airlines recover from being hit by one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years.

Passengers had their travel plans ruined on Friday as thousands of flights were cancelled internationally after a botched software upgrade hit Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The incident caused havoc across a number of services, with hospital appointments cancelled, payroll systems seized up and TV channels going off air due to the outage.

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