Category Archives: Technology

‘We expect them to act’: Biden presses Putin on ransomware groups, hints at retaliation

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Joe Biden’s hour-long phone call with the Russian leader suggests growing impatience over attacks disrupting US sectors

Joe Biden has increased pressure on Vladimir Putin to move against ransomware groups operating from Russia, warning the United States is prepared to respond if cyberhacks are not stopped.

The two leaders held an hour-long phone call on Friday, their first since they discussed ransomware attacks at a summit in Geneva on 16 June. Biden’s message to Putin in the call was direct, suggesting a growing impatience over attacks that have disrupted key US sectors.

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Currency and control: why China wants to undermine bitcoin

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Beijing’s crackdown on cryptocurrencies has captured headlines, while behind the scenes its reserve bank set up its own digital currency

Few would dispute that China’s recent crackdown on cryptocurrency trading and mining has contributed to the recent plunge in the value of bitcoin and other cryptos.

But while the argument rages about whether the volatility of cryptos is a sign of fundamental weakness or merely a bump along the road, the initiatives coming out of Beijing are being seen by experts as a sign of China’s attempts to incubate its own fledgling e-currency and reboot the international financial system.

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Will Trump’s big tech lawsuits succeed? Experts say chances are slim

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Legal scholars suggest former president’s complaint may bring the attention he craves but doesn’t present a serious legal argument

Donald Trump may have filed lawsuits against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, claiming he and other conservatives have been censored – but legal scholars say his case is likely doomed to fail.

The former president was suspended from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube after the 6 January Capitol attack over fears he would incite further violence. Trump on Wednesday filed class-action lawsuits in federal court in Miami against the three companies, arguing these suspensions violated the first amendment, despite the fact that the companies are private and therefore subject to different rules.

“Trump has the first amendment argument exactly wrong,” said Paul Barrett, the deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights. “The first amendment applies to government censorship or speech regulation. It does not stop private sector corporations from regulating content on their platforms.”

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Chinese-owned firm acquires UK’s largest semiconductor manufacturer

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Tory MP Tom Tugendhat raises concerns about deal in light of global computer chip shortage

The UK’s largest producer of semiconductors has been acquired by the Chinese-owned manufacturer Nexperia, prompting a senior Tory MP to call for the government to review the sale to a foreign owner during an increasingly severe global shortage of computer chips.

Nexperia, a Dutch firm owned by China’s Wingtech, said on Monday that it had taken full control of Newport Wafer Fab (NWF), the UK’s largest producer of silicon chips, which are vital in products from TVs and mobile phones to cars and games consoles.

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Biden announces investigation into international ransomware attack

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President addresses hack of Kaseya software that has affected hundreds of US businesses and shut down Swedish shops

Joe Biden said on Saturday he had directed US intelligence agencies to investigate a sophisticated ransomware attack that hit hundreds of American businesses as the Fourth of July holiday weekend began and aroused suspicions of Russian gang involvement.

Related: Joe Biden cherry-picks audience to promote bipartisan infrastructure deal

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Flying car makes successful test run between airports in Slovakia – video

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A flying car is seen completing its first intercity flight in Slovakia. The prototype, called AirCar, takes off from Nitra airport and lands in Bratislava 35 minutes later. Using wings that fold away in less than three minutes and a propeller at its rear, the dual-transportation vehicle has now completed more than 40 hours of test flight

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Tim Berners-Lee’s NFT of world wide web source code sold for $5.4m

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Crypto asset represents ownership of various digital items from when Berners-Lee invented the web in 1989

An NFT of the original source code for the world wide web, written by its inventor Tim Berners-Lee, has sold for $5.4m at Sotheby’s in an online auction, the auction house said on Wednesday.

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a kind of crypto asset that records ownership of digital items, and has recently become a major asset in the creative world, with NFTs of artwork, music and internet memes selling for millions of dollars.

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Cameo founder on why celebrities offer video shoutouts: ‘Not all talent are motivated by cash’

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Earlier this year, shoutout service Cameo earned itself a $1bn valuation by connecting fans with their favourite celebrities. Its founder, Steven Galanis, discusses modern fandom

What do Ghostface Killa, James Van Der Beek and Carole Baskin of Tiger King fame have in common? They’re all available through Cameo, an online “shoutout” service where subscribers can book a personalised video message from a growing army of actors, athletes, entertainers and more.

The brainchild of founder Steven Galanis, Chicago-based Cameo has been around since 2017, but it was during the pandemic that it struck gold. Providing a much-needed revenue stream for performing artists hit hard by lockdown, and offering users a safe and memorable way to send some love, it boomed. Right now there are over 40,000 celebrities ready to say happy birthday to your mom, or give your boyfriend a pep talk, with roughly 1.3m messages sent last year alone.

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OpenStreetMap looks to relocate to EU due to Brexit limitations

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Open-source UK tech company cites copyright issues, rising costs and prospect of more influence in EU

OpenStreetMap, the Wikipedia-for-maps organisation that seeks to create a free and open-source map of the globe, is considering relocating to the EU, almost 20 years after it was founded in the UK by the British entrepreneur Steve Coast.

OpenStreetMap Foundation, which was formally registered in 2006, two years after the project began, is a limited company registered in England and Wales. Following Brexit, the organisation says the lack of agreement between the UK and EU could render its continued operation in Britain untenable.

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Huawei lawyers claim emails prove US has no grounds to extradite CFO from Canada

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Lawyers will try to persuade Canadian court to permit new documents to be introduced as evidence to clear Meng Wanzhou

US justice department’s battle to extradite Meng Wanzhou from Canada has taken a fresh turn as lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer claimed that internal emails and bank documents prove there is no grounds to extradite her to the US.

Meng, 48, was arrested on a US warrant at Vancouver airport in late 2018, and has been battling extradition to the US. Her detention infuriated the Chinese government and has helped drag relations between Beijing and Ottawa to their lowest point in years.

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Flying cars will be a reality by 2030, says Hyundai’s Europe chief

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Michael Cole says urban air mobility could free up congestion and help with emissions in cities

Flying cars will be a reality in cities around the globe by the end of this decade, according to a leading car manufacturer, and will help to reduce congestion and cut vehicle emissions.

Michael Cole, the chief executive of the European operations of South Korean carmarker Hyundai, said the firm had made some “very significant investments” in urban air mobility, adding: “We believe it really is part of the future”.

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Dominic Raab’s mobile number freely available online for last decade

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Exclusive: Finding raises questions for security services weeks after similar revelations about PM’s number

The private mobile number of Dominic Raab, the UK foreign secretary, has been online for at least 11 years, raising questions for the security services weeks after the prime minister’s number was also revealed to be accessible to anyone.

Raab’s number was discovered by a Guardian reader using a Google search. It appears to have been online since before he became an MP in 2010, and remained after he became foreign secretary and first secretary of state – de facto deputy prime minister – in 2019.

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I spy: are smart doorbells creating a global surveillance network?

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They were sold as gadgets that meant you would never miss a delivery. But now doorbell cameras – from Amazon’s Ring to Google’s Nest – are recording our every move

I have got a new doorbell. It’s brilliant. It should be; it cost £89. It’s a Ring video doorbell; you’ll have seen them around. There are others available, made by other companies, with other four-letter names such as Nest and Arlo. When someone rings my doorbell, I’m alerted on my smartphone. I can see who is there, and speak to them.

My phone is ringing! C major first inversion chord, arpeggiated, repeated, for the musically trained – you’ll recognise it if you’ve heard it. It’s a delivery. Amazon, as it happens; Amazon acquired Ring in 2018, reportedly for more than $1bn.

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The rise of BookTok: meet the teen influencers pushing books up the charts

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Young TikTok users are sharing their passion for books with millions – bringing titles they love to life online and reshaping the publishing world, all in under a minute

In August 2020, Kate Wilson, a 16-year-old from Shrewsbury, posted on the social media video platform TikTok a series of quotes from books she had read, “that say I love you, without actually saying I love you”. Set to a melancholy soundtrack, the short video plays out as Wilson, an A-level student, holds up copies of the books with the quotes superimposed over them. “You have been the last dream of my soul,” from A Tale of Two Cities. “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” from Wuthering Heights. “Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own,” from Jane Eyre. It has been viewed more than 1.2m times.

Wilson’s TikTok handle, @kateslibrary, is among the increasingly popular accounts posting on #BookTok, a corner of TikTok devoted to reading, which has clocked up 9.6bn views and counting, and has been described as the last wholesome place on the internet. Here, users – predominantly young women – post short videos inspired by the books they love. Those that do best are fun, snappy takes on literature and the experience of reading. “Books where the main character was sent to kill someone but they end up falling in love,” from @kateslibrary. “Things that bookworms do,” from @abbysbooks. “When you were 12 and your parents caught you crying over a book,” from @emilymiahreads.

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Mystery of the wheelie suitcase: how gender stereotypes held back the history of invention

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Why have some brilliant innovations – from rolling luggage to electric cars – taken so long to come to market? Macho culture has a lot to answer for

In 1972 an American luggage executive unscrewed four castors from a wardrobe and fixed them to a suitcase. Then he put a strap on his contraption and trotted it gleefully around his house.

This was how Bernard Sadow invented the world’s first rolling suitcase. It happened roughly 5,000 years after the invention of the wheel and barely one year after Nasa managed to put two men on the surface of the moon using the largest rocket ever built. We had driven an electric rover with wheels on a foreign heavenly body and even invented the hamster wheel. So why did it take us so long to put wheels on suitcases? This has become something of a classic mystery of innovation.

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John McAfee: antivirus entrepreneur found dead in Spanish prison

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McAfee’s extradition to the US on tax charges had been approved hours earlier

The antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell in Spain, hours after the country’s highest court approved his extradition to the United States, where he was wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to 30 years.

Catalan’s regional police force, the Mossos d’Esquadra, confirmed a report in El País that McAfee, 75, had been found dead in the Brians 2 prison near Barcelona, late on Wednesday.

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Cloud spraying and hurricane slaying: could geoengineering fix the climate crisis?

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Around the world, dozens of ingenious projects are trying to ‘trick’ the ocean into absorbing more CO2. But critics warn of unforeseen consequences

Tom Green has a plan to tackle climate change. The British biologist and director of the charity Project Vesta wants to turn a trillion tonnes of CO2 into rock, and sink it to the bottom of the sea.

Green admits the idea is “audacious”. It would involve locking away atmospheric carbon by dropping pea-coloured sand into the ocean. The sand is made of ground olivine – an abundant volcanic rock, known to jewellers as peridot – and, if Green’s calculations are correct, depositing it offshore on 2% of the world’s coastlines would capture 100% of total global annual carbon emissions.

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NFTs and me: meet the people trying to sell their memes for millions

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Once, people who owned viral photos made little money from them. Now, the ‘original’ can potentially sell for an enormous sum. But are buyers savvy investors – or unwitting dupes?

The photographer Jeff McCurry’s favourite Harambe memes are the ones where the dead gorilla is in heaven, Photoshopped alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, Tupac and Muhammad Ali. “It’s like: wow,” says McCurry. “What greater spot can you be placed in? Harambe’s at the top of the hill, waiting to meet you there.”

McCurry took the photograph of the 17-year-old western lowland gorilla that went on to become a meme. In it, Harambe kneels, projecting a fearsome aura of strength, nobility and calm. A former volunteer photographer at Cincinnati zoo, McCurry was there on 28 May 2016, the fateful day a three-year-old boy climbed into the gorilla’s enclosure, forcing zookeepers to shoot Harambe dead. “It didn’t seem real at first,” says McCurry, who was a regular visitor to the zoo. “When any of your friends die, it’s hard to process. I was in shock.”

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App maps shady spots to guide Barcelona walkers along cooler routes

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Cool Walks aims to help pedestrians avoid dangerous heat and find public drinking fountains

A new app promises to help Barcelona residents find the shadiest route between two places to avoid extreme heat.

Cool Walks, a routing tool for pedestrians first developed at a data visualisation contest, aims to show users a variety of walking routes to take for their intended destinations.

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