Month: November 2021

Elon Musk asks Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of Tesla stock

Entrepreneur refers to US proposal for ‘billionaires tax’ Nearly 56% of respondents say Musk should sell shares Elon Musk on Saturday asked his 62.5 million followers on Twitter if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock. “Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% …

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‘Our notion of privacy will be useless’: what happens if technology learns to read our minds?

The promise of neurotechnology to make lives better is growing. But do we need a new set of rights to protect the integrity of our minds? “The skull acts as a bastion of privacy; the brain is the last private part of ourselves,” Australian neurosurgeon Tom Oxley says from New York. Oxley is the CEO …

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‘I went from having to borrow money to making $4m in a day’: how NFTs are shaking up the art world

Digital art is a billion-dollar business, with everyone from Paris Hilton to Damien Hirst trading in ‘non-fungible tokens’. But are NFTs just a get-rich-quick scheme masquerading as culture? “It’s actually a lot simpler than you think.” It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and somewhat to my surprise, I’m on the phone to Paris Hilton, who is graciously …

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Mark Zuckerberg and the tech bros are still on top – but their grip is loosening | Jane Martinson

Facebook’s woes cast a long shadow at a European tech summit this week, and it will take more than rebranding to mend them It has been a bruising time for Facebook. The company is still absurdly profitable – Meta, its renamed parent company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, generated $86bn (£63bn) in revenues last …

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Upgrade or wait? Getting your gaming PC ready for Halo Infinite and more

Does your machine need an upgrade to get the most out of 2021’s games? Here’s what to consider With the autumn video game release schedule now in full swing, the thoughts of many PC owners are turning to hardware upgrades. Blockbusters such as Halo Infinite, Battlefield 1942 and Forza Horizon 5 will all support demanding …

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Best podcasts of the week: Slow Burn shines a light on the LA riots

Joel Anderson takes us back to 1992, unpicking the events leading up to Rodney King’s brutal beating and historic unrest. Plus: Hugh Hefner’s rise and fall, and northern writers tell the stories of their home counties Slow BurnThe sixth run of Slate’s podcast on pivotal moments in history focuses on the LA riots of 1992. …

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Twitter says any move by Australia to ban anonymous accounts would not reduce abuse

Company’s public policy director says crackdown would stifle speech for vulnerable people who need to remain unidentified Get our free news app; get our morning email briefing Any move by the Australian government to crack down on anonymous accounts on Twitter would be ineffective and fail to reduce the amount of abuse on the platform, …

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When side hustles go wrong: real-estate site Zillow loses $300m in a few months

Zillow reportedly has about 7,000 homes that it now needs to unload – many for prices lower than it originally paid Online shopping can be dangerous, as the US property website Zillow has belatedly come to realize. While many of us wasted countless hours during the pandemic clicking through real estate listings on Zillow and …

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BT scraps hunt for Openreach partner as fibre rollout costs fall

Company says cost of adding homes to new network has dropped 15%, and ‘we can fund it ourselves’ BT has scrapped plans to find a joint venture partner to help fund the rollout of its next-generation broadband network to an extra 5 million homes, ahead of a potential takeover move by billionaire investor Patrick Drahi …

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