Historians are aghast that the National Archives have had to resort to crowdfunding to protect irreplaceable historical records
Historians are calling it an international embarrassment for Australia and saying it is “inconceivable that it has come to this”, as they preemptively mourn the loss of “irreplaceable national history”.
The National Archives of Australia doesn’t often make headlines, but when it does, it’s rarely good news.
Continue reading...Analysis: political undercurrents cannot be ignored as Zhang Yiming stands down to ‘daydream’
In the latest retreat by a leading figure in China’s booming tech sector, the chief executive of TikTok’s parent company has said he will step down to focus on long-term strategy, saying he prefers “reading and daydreaming” to the challenge of running a multinational firm.
Zhang Yiming, the 38-year-old boss of Bytedance, set out the reasons for the move in an unusually candid memo addressed to the company’s staff. “The truth is, I lack some of the skills that make an ideal manager,” he confessed.
Continue reading...The Fortnite maker, the most popular game in the world, claims the way Apple runs its App Store amounts to a monopoly
Tim Cook, the chief executive of Apple, is set to testify on Friday as the star witness in a high-stakes case against Epic Games that could upend Apple’s business model.
The trial stems from an antitrust lawsuit filed last year by Epic Games, the maker of the wildly popular video game Fortnite. The game became the most popular in the world in recent years, generating more than $9bn total for Epic in 2018 and 2019.
Continue reading...Digital currency under pressure from payment crackdown and tweets from Elon Musk
The price of bitcoin fell by almost 30% on Wednesday, after a Chinese government crackdown on banks’ use of cryptocurrencies accelerated a long-predicted sell-off, in a day of chaotic trading.
The world’s largest digital currency tumbled to about $30,000 (£21,000) amid frenzied trading, a drop of more than 50% since it hit record highs of more than $64,000 in mid-April. However, by 10pm UK time, the bitcoin price had risen back to about $38,500, still down 11% on the day, according to Refinitiv data.
Continue reading...Super-premium tablet has TV-beating display, M1 chip from the Mac and smart camera for video calls
Apple’s latest iPad Pro gets upgraded with the game-changing M1 processor and a new screen that rivals the very best TVs, let alone tablets and laptops.
The fifth-generation iPad Pro comes in two versions, one costing £749 with an 11in screen and the top dog with a 12.9in screen costing £999. Both have the new M1 chip, but only the larger model – reviewed here – has the stunning new screen.
Continue reading...First big redesign since 2012 gives all-in-one Mac super-thin design, 4.5K display and top M1 chip performance
Apple’s iMac has had its first big redesign since 2012 with a bigger screen, bold colours, remarkably thin body and the power of the M1 chip.
The 24in iMac costs from £1,249 and replaces the outgoing 21.5in Intel iMac model, which remains on sale in the short term.
Continue reading...The Nobel-winning psychologist on applying his ideas to organisations, why we’re not equipped to grasp the spread of a virus, and the massive disruption that’s just round the corner
Daniel Kahneman, 87, was awarded the Nobel prize in economics in 2002 for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making. His first book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, a worldwide bestseller, set out his revolutionary ideas about human error and bias and how those traits might be recognised and mitigated. A new book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, written with Olivier Sibony and Cass R Sunstein, applies those ideas to organisations. This interview took place last week by Zoom with Kahneman at his home in New York.
I guess the pandemic is quite a good place to start. In one way it has been the biggest ever hour-by-hour experiment in global political decision-making. Do you think it’s a watershed moment in the understanding that we need to “listen to science”?
Yes and no, because clearly, not listening to science is bad. On the other hand, it took science quite a while to get its act together.
Nurgul Sawut, who has been named on a Chinese blacklist, says she’s experienced online trolling, nasty messages and malware
A Uyghur activist in Australia who has been the target of cyber-attacks by hacker groups in China says the Australian government needs to do more to educate the Uyghur community in Australia to protect themselves online.
Uyghur activists outside of China are frequently the target of hackers based in China.
Continue reading...The driver of a Tesla car in a fatal crash that California highway authorities said may have been operating on autopilot posted social media videos of himself riding in the vehicle without his hands on the wheel or foot on the pedal.
The 5 May crash in Fontana, a city 50 miles east of Los Angeles, is also under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It is the 29th case involving a Tesla the federal agency has investigated.
Continue reading...Venmo accounts for Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden were removed on Friday after BuzzFeed News said it easily found the US president on the payment app – a discovery it said raised national security questions.
Related: Venmo: how the payment app exposes our private lives
Continue reading...Those who communicate online alongside traditional methods show less of a decline in episodic memory
Defiant in the face of Covid isolation, older people across the country ventured online, often for the first time, and mastered technology: reading bedtime stories to grandchildren over Zoom and holding book clubs on Microsoft Teams.
Now a UK study has shown that their determination to access and enjoy the internet’s social possibilities could have had another advantage: protecting them against dementia.
Continue reading...Annalena Baerbock faces social media onslaught after voicing opposition to Nord Stream 2 project
Fears are growing in Berlin of a Russian-led cyber campaign against the leader of Germany’s Green party after she pledged to block a gas pipeline project between Russia and Europe.
Annalena Baerbock, who is running to succeed Angela Merkel as chancellor in September’s election, has been targeted in recent days by an increasingly vicious campaign across social media.
Continue reading...Digital currency, which is made with an energy-intensive process, falls 17% after the tweet
Tesla has suspended customers’ use of bitcoin to purchase its vehicles, Elon Musk said on Wednesday, citing concerns about the use of fossil fuel for bitcoin mining.
Related: Dogecoin’s record-breaking rise shoots ‘joke’ cryptocurrency to wider attention
Continue reading...Demi Skipper would like a new house, but she’s not buying one. Instead she’s planning a daring strategy of trades – and millions are following her journey
While many of us were still finding novelty in group Zoom calls last May, Demi Skipper decided she was going to get a house. But not using money. Instead, she was going to trade items.
Now the owner of one of only a few Chipotle celebrity cards in the world, and hoping to reach a house by the end of summer, the 29-year-old’s journey started where many voyages do: in a YouTube hole.
Continue reading...The crypto asset is down more than 30% this week but is still up by more than 1,000% from the start of 2021
A senior manager at Goldman Sachs in London has quit the US investment bank after making millions from investing in Dogecoin, the joke crypto asset which has risen by more than 1,000% in value this year.
City sources said Aziz McMahon, a managing director and head of emerging market sales, had resigned from the bank after making money from investing in the digital currency based on the Doge internet meme.
Continue reading...Messaging app will begin to turn off features until users agree to Facebook’s updated terms of service
If you have not agreed to WhatsApp’s controversial new terms of service by 15 May, the app will begin to turn off features until you do, Facebook announced in an update to its FAQ page.
At that point, the screen asking users to accept the terms of service set by Facebook, WhatsApp’s parent company, will become permanent, with users needing to click through to directly use WhatsApp at all. Users will still be able to interact with the app in other ways for “a few weeks”, however, such as receiving calls, replying to messages, or responding to missed calls.
Continue reading...A UCL study has found people around the world feel the same about their devices as they do about their homes
Smartphone users have become “human snails carrying our homes in our pockets”, with a tendency to ignore friends and family in favour of their device, according to a landmark study.
A team of anthropologists from UCL spent more than a year documenting smartphone use in nine countries around the world, from Ireland to Cameroon, and found that far from being trivial toys, people felt the same way about their devices as they did about their homes.
Continue reading...While enjoying an idyllic lockdown in France, the 83-year-old artist has created perhaps his most important exhibition ever – offering hope to an injured world
‘I think it looks terrific,” says David Hockney. “It’s all on one theme, isn’t it? And there’s not many exhibitions like that, really, a show all about the spring.” The 83-year-old artist is taking a look around his new exhibition at the Royal Academy in London for the first time. He seems happy with it – and rightly so, for it is hypnotic and ravishing. But while I am getting a sneak preview in person, Hockney is here only virtually, his face appearing on two screens, one a giant TV, the other a small laptop.
He is at home, at what he calls his “seven dwarves house” in Normandy, wearing a red, black and white check jacket, a checkerboard tie, a blue-green pullover and round, gold-framed glasses. His kaleidoscopic choice of clothing, challenging the very limits of the video call’s bandwidth, is as vibrant and beguiling as the canvases hanging around us. Hockney has not just painted spring; he has come dressed as it.
Continue reading...Eib is now in its seventh season, fearlessly tackling subjects from Beirut’s drag queen scene to Jordanian widows’ rights
Rude, fault or blemish; flaw, disgrace or shame. The word has many shades, but nearly every woman who grows up in Arabic-speaking households knows its singular weight. “Anything related to women is eib,” says Tala El-Issa, from her home in Cairo. “If they want to talk about their bodies, it’s eib, their problems – eib. Just being a woman is almost eib.”
When the team at Sowt, an Arabic podcasting network based across the Middle East, wanted to create a show that charged fearlessly into the region’s taboos around sex and gender, the title was obvious. “Eib” is now in its seventh season, the company’s longest-lasting podcast and its most popular.
Continue reading...You might be surprised how much Google’s email service – and others – know about you. Here’s how to set some boundaries
Most people are aware of the cookies that track them across the web, and the privacy-invading practices of Google search, but did you know Google’s email service, Gmail, collects large amounts of data too?
This was recently put into stark focus for iPhone users when Gmail published its app “privacy label” – a self-declared breakdown of the data it collects and shares with advertisers as part of a new stipulation on the Apple App Store.
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