Month: March 2021

The 300-page document for moderators defines which phrases are ethically unacceptable They run to more than 300 pages, envisaging and exemplifying some of the most borderline and ethically challenging uses of the world’s biggest social network by its 2.8 billion monthly users. Secret Facebook guidelines seen by the Guardian show how the company controls its …

Decoding emojis and defining ‘support’: Facebook’s rules for content revealed Read More »

Owner will be able to take virtual reality tour of ‘Mars house’, their new living quarters In what might be most easily understood as the most expensive game of the Sims to ever be played, a “digital home” set within a Mars-like landscape has sold for $500,000 (£360,000) or 288 Ether, a cryptocurrency, in the …

‘Digital home’ sells for $500,000 in latest NFT sale Read More »

Comedians went virtual, Ai Weiwei went to Portugal – and Bake Off pledged the show would go on. In the first of a two-part series, cultural figures look back on a year that shook their industry ‘I’m optimistic – hell, yeah’: Part 2 of culture’s year of Covid Continue reading… Comedians went virtual, Ai Weiwei …

‘We needed to rescue the nation from despair’: culture’s year of Covid Read More »

This year non-fungible tokens burst into the mainstream after several digital images and animations sold for absurd amounts – so I entered the world of NFTs myself For years, I’ve kept an ever-growing record of interesting pictures I discover online in a folder entitled Images on my desktop: a fox sauntering through an art gallery; …

Can anyone become an NFT collector? I tried it to find out Read More »

Federal court to decide whether Fortnite maker’s case can be heard while legal action under way in US Apple has argued that Epic Games’ case against the tech giant’s in-app purchase system is not altruistically trying to secure a better deal for Australian customers and app developers in the app store, but the “self-serving” act …

‘Two Goliaths’: Apple labels Epic’s Australian challenge to in-app purchases ‘self-serving’ Read More »

Abandoned homes, lurking enemies, approaching footsteps … Warzone’s grim details are straight out of the horror rulebook, summoning dread from players’ ultimate need to survive I’m lying on the roof of a bombed-out shopping arcade, watching tracer fire igniting the cool evening air about 500m from my position. Whoever wins that shootout will come my …

Why Call of Duty: Warzone is an all-time great horror game Read More »

The acclaimed writer on technology and its effect on our mental health talks about her memoir and the insights Covid has given her Sherry Turkle, 72, is professor of the social studies of science and technology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was one of the first academics to examine the impact of technology on …

Sherry Turkle: ‘The pandemic has shown us that people need relationships’ Read More »

The effort has received several high profile endorsements, including from President Joe Biden and other labor unions Organizers and workers are making the final push in the first Amazon warehouse union election in the US in Bessemer, Alabama which, if successful, would mark one of the biggest labor victories in the US over the past …

Amazon warehouse workers in Alabama make the final push toward unionizing Read More »

Ipswich is an ideal place to trial technology to bring fully self-driving cars to Australian cities. But the project has had to overcome a lot of road bumps As the traffic lights turn from amber to red, Miranda Blogg accelerates towards them. “Here we go,” she says. Continue reading… Ipswich is an ideal place to …

‘A long road’: the Australian city aiming to give self-driving cars the green light Read More »

The tale of online payment firm Stripe, founded by John and Patrick Collison, shows the value of spotting a gap in the market The most valuable private company in Silicon Valley is an outfit most people have never heard of – unless they are a) Irish or b) tech investors. It’s called Stripe, and this …

How two Irish brothers started a £70bn company you’ve probably never heard of Read More »