Month: June 2022

Social network uses algorithm to spot posts that appear aggressive, and asks users to be more considerate Asking people to be nice on Twitter makes people nicer on Twitter, the company has announced, hailing the success of an experiment that prompts users to reconsider tweets that might be hurtful or offensive. Since 2020, the social …

‘Want to review this?’: Twitter’s niceness prompts do alter behaviour, study finds Read More »

This Dutch novel takes aim at the depersonalising corrosiveness of the internet, but becomes laboured When he launched his takeover of Twitter earlier this year, Elon Musk sparked consternation by declaring he would loosen the social media platform’s content moderation policies – a move that could set Twitter on a collision course with the EU’s …

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets review – confessions of a content moderator Read More »

In this week’s newsletter: The show fan favourite plays wing-woman for listeners seeking the ‘Bone Zone’ in Queen of Hearts. Plus: five scandal podcasts we couldn’t switch off Don’t get Hear Here delivered to your inbox? Sign up for the full article here Queen of HeartsAll episodes widely available from Tuesday“Dating is a drag, but …

Best podcasts of the week: Drag Race’s Jujubee helps fans win the dating game Read More »

Bitcoin requires vast amounts of electricity to facilitate its transactions around the globe. More than twice the energy usage per year of Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Amazon combined. This demand has led cryptocurrency mining companies to seek out the cheapest electricity possible, and it doesn’t get much cheaper than coal. New bitcoin server farms …

Why bitcoin is reviving fossil fuel plants – video Read More »

The story of the modern web is often told through the stories of Google, Facebook, Amazon. But eBay was the first conqueror One weekend in September 1995, a software engineer made a website. It wasn’t his first. At 28, Pierre Omidyar had followed the standard accelerated trajectory of Silicon Valley: he had learned to code …

‘Wallets and eyeballs’: how eBay turned the internet into a marketplace Read More »

Last week an engineer at Google claimed that an AI chatbot he worked with, known as LaMDA, had become ‘sentient’. Blake Lemoine published a transcript of his conversations with LaMDA that included responses about having feelings and fearing death. But could it really be conscious? AI researcher and author Kate Crawford speaks to Ian Sample …

How Google’s chatbot works – and why it isn’t sentient – podcast Read More »

Consumer champion Justin Gutmann alleges older iPhones made slower to cope with software updates A consumer champion has launched a more than £750m legal claim against Apple, linked to an incident in 2017 relating to a power management tool on older iPhones. Justin Gutmann has accused the tech giant of slowing down the performance of …

Claim for £750m against Apple launched alleging battery ‘throttling’ Read More »

The comedian shares his favourite online laughs, including an Instagram account dedicated to terrible real estate agents and a rooster attacking a weatherman Read more funniest internet things here Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email and listen to our podcast I used to work at a skimpy bar in Perth. One of the bar …

Brett Blake: the 10 funniest things I have ever seen (on the internet) Read More »

Three Arrows Capital founder takes to Twitter to assuage fears after 25% drop in price of bitcoin in a single day The “bloodbath” in the cryptocurrency sector may claim another victim, with the co-founder of multibillion dollar hedge fund Three Arrows Capital using Twitter in an attempt to battle rumours that the company is insolvent …

Cryptocurrency ‘bloodbath’ threatens multibillion-dollar hedge fund Read More »

A researcher says Google has created an AI being with smarts and soul, but my own attempt reveals the truth behind those claims. Plus, the latest crypto crash Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Blake Lemoine, an AI researcher at Google, is convinced the company has created intelligence. Others disagree. From …

TechScape: why you shouldn’t worry about sentient AI … yet Read More »