From holding space to a baby pygmy hippo, there’s much to be learned about the world through the memes and trends that dominated our social media feeds this year “Brain rot” has been named Oxford’s word of the year, meaning “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result …
Brain rot 2024: the best and funniest viral moments of the year Read More »
Female athlete power on social media became ever more strident in 2024 – but the backlash also damaged careers and wellbeing Lina Nielsen remembers the moment she had the idea. She was sitting around the Olympic Village in Paris with her sprinting teammates – and she was bored. “I said to Yemi Mary John: ‘I’m …
Generation TikTok: how sportswomen set the bar higher than the men Read More »
Suchir Balaji, listed in court filing as having ‘relevant documents’ about copyright violation, died on 26 November Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He …
OpenAI whistleblower who died was being considered as witness against company Read More »
Jorge Rivera-Herrans’s musical sensation Epic is just one of a series of works making a splash on the online platform When Jorge Rivera-Herrans released part of Epic: the Musical last Christmas, he managed to push Taylor Swift off the top of the US iTunes album charts. So there is a lot at stake when the …
Although politicians have called to shoot them down, experts say the lights are likely legal drones, planes – or stars At first, in mid-November, the mysterious lights were seen blinking across the night skies of New Jersey. Then, they spread. Reports of incandescent flying objects were logged in New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland. Bystanders in …
It’s probably just a plane: drone experts advise calm over New Jersey sightings Read More »
Experts explain the pontiff’s appeal as the most recent AI images of Francis, with the singer Madonna, go viral For the pope, it was the wrong kind of madonna. The pop legend, she of the 80’s anthem Like a Prayer, has stirred controversy in recent weeks by posting deepfake images on social media which show …
The god illusion: why the pope is so popular as a deepfake image Read More »
The shift from live TV to video platforms has made toy makers and sellers rethink products and where to sell them Letters to Santa used to be filled with ideas from the Argos catalogue or adverts on children’s telly, but for today’s kids raised on “swiping and streaming” YouTube is their shop window – which …
How YouTube (and Skibidi Toilet) changed the Christmas toys market Read More »
Spatial memory is a use-it-or-lose it commodity, so I gave life without Google Maps a try Taxi and ambulance drivers are less likely than other workers to die of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a Harvard study published in the British Medical Journal. On the one hand, it makes total sense, navigation and spatial memory belonging …
Can I survive for 24 hours without GPS navigation? Read More »
WhatsApp celebrates victory as judge finds Israeli company NSO Group violated state and federal US hacking laws WhatsApp claimed legal victory over the maker of Pegasus spyware late on Friday. The Israeli company, NSO Group Technologies, was accused in a lawsuit by Meta’s messaging app of infecting and surveilling the phones of 1,400 people over …
US judge finds Pegasus spyware maker liable over WhatsApp hack Read More »
Thirty-three of 44 current and former contract workers who paid large recruiting fees say they didn’t receive refunds after working within the company’s Saudi operations In February, one of the world’s richest employers, Amazon, announced it had refunded nearly $2m to more than 700 overseas workers who had been forced to pay big recruiting fees …
