Month: May 2021

A view to a killing: how Amazon will exploit Bond and other MGM classics

The pay-TV giant has the chance to turn popular films into ‘universes’ of stories – and steal a march in the content-hungry streaming wars Amazon’s $8.5bn deal to buy MGM, the Hollywood studio behind James Bond, The Handmaid’s Tale and Gone With the Wind, has secured it the rights to a century’s worth of TV …

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Data isn’t oil, whatever tech commentators tell you: it’s people’s lives | John Naughton

The pervasive metaphor likening information to crude obscures the reality of surveillance capitalism The phrase “data is the new oil” is the cliche du jour of the tech industry. It was coined by Clive Humby, the genius behind Tesco’s loyalty card, who argued that data was “just like crude. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it …

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‘Without books, we would not have made it’: Valeria Luiselli on the power of fiction

The Mexican author won the Dublin literary award last week for Lost Children Archive. She reflects on how reading and writing have helped her through the pandemic I read an article the other day about a computer program that writes fiction. You feed it a few lines, tell it the genre – science fiction, horror …

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‘It’s like a rocket ship’: videos show petrolheads behind the wheel of an electric car

An Australian engineer-turned climate activist hosts Coal Miners Driving Teslas, a YouTube and Twitter channel heavily spiced with unbridled swearing What happens when you take an electric car into a town full of petrolheads and coalminers, and film them planting their steel-capped boots on the accelerator? “Fuck me … it’s like a rocket ship,” says …

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Police find bitcoin mine using stolen electricity in West Midlands

Officers expected to discover a cannabis farm when they raided building on industrial estate Police have discovered a cryptocurrency operation that used stolen electricity to mine bitcoin in the West Midlands. Officers from West Midlands police raided a building in an industrial estate on 18 May expecting to find a cannabis farm, but instead stumbled …

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Skin in the frame: black photographers welcome Google initiative

Attempt to tackle racial bias long overdue say practitioners, but it’s not just about the equipment Christina Ebenezer first started taking photos with a group of friends when she was a 17-year-old student. Even then, she noticed the difference in how her camera captured people of different skin tones. “I didn’t think much about this …

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Russian SolarWinds hackers launch email attack on government agencies

Microsoft says group targeted more than 15o American and foreign organisations using USAid account The state-backed Russian cyber spies behind the SolarWinds hacking campaign launched a targeted phishing assault on US and foreign government agencies and thinktanks this week using an email marketing account of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), Microsoft has said. …

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Twitter lists paid-for ‘Blue’ subscription service on app stores

Appearance in Apple and Android stores signals long-rumoured launch may be imminent Twitter has listed a new paid-for “Twitter Blue” service on app stores, suggesting the social media company may launch its long-rumoured subscription service soon. Mobile phone app stores showed the service, although its expected features did not yet appear to be available. Continue …

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