Month: April 2025

Dame Rachel de Souza says parents should look to their own smartphone use and not try to be their children’s friend Parents should be prepared to make difficult decisions over their child’s smartphone usage rather than trying to be their friend, the children’s commissioner for England has said. Dame Rachel de Souza said this should …

Parents must make tough choices on smartphones, says children’s commissioner for England Read More »

Recent research suggests our brain power is in decline. Is offloading our cognitive work to AI driving this trend? Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: “Write, for no more than a quarter …

‘Don’t ask what AI can do for us, ask what it is doing to us’: are ChatGPT and co harming human intelligence? Read More »

iPhones and Google Maps are out – and you can keep your existing friends from across the pond, but don’t go making any new ones I really wish I had a Tesla. Ideally it would be a Cybertruck but any Tesla would do. Then I could plaster it with those “I bought this before Elon …

This unAmerican life: can you really divest yourself of everything from the US? Read More »

Statistics can help assess a potential recruit’s emotional control and leadership, while highlighting red flags “The players didn’t show enough fight.” Listen to any pundit’s post-match reaction and you will hear variations of that soundbite. But can you analyse an athlete’s state of mind, based on their on-pitch body language? In an era when football …

‘It’s a new world’: the analysts using AI to psychologically profile elite players Read More »

Bad customer service | Binary answer to the ultimate question | MPs’ mobiles | Crossword gold Anna Tims’ feature on appalling customer service (17 April) omits to mention two of the most common, disingenuous and irritating recorded responses to telephone inquiries, which are “Please hold, your call is very important to us” (it clearly isn’t) …

When we’re left hanging on the telephone | Brief letters Read More »

Prof Rory Collins, CEO of UK Biobank, responds to concerns about access to UK patient information, highlighting the safeguards and research benefits Your report (Revealed: Chinese researchers can access half a million UK GP records, 15 April) fails to recognise the importance of data in advancing health research, when shared safely, securely and on a …

UK Biobank is safely sharing health data to drive medical research | Letter Read More »

Stars and their high-quality content enable streamers and others to pull in younger audiences From MrBeast creating the world’s most expensive reality TV show and Jake Paul’s record-breaking clash with Mike Tyson to the British supergroup Sidemen’s Netflix deal, YouTube’s superstar creators are taking over mainstream television. Last month Netflix launched the second series of …

From Sidemen to MrBeast: how YouTube and its creator economy took over TV Read More »

Our expert puts the best power washers through their paces on the toughest – and muckiest – outdoor chores, from grimy paving slabs to dirty decking • How to get your garden ready for summer The trouble with the great outdoors is that it gets a bit untidy. Your lawnmower might do a good job …

The best pressure washers: eight expert picks for cleaning garden furniture and patios Read More »

PC, PS5, XBox; Don’t NodThe concluding half of this two-parter may be lacking in interactive challenges, but is profound, sensitively structured and emotionally resonant One thing you realise as you get older is that memories are plastic and that the stories you tell about your life change with every recollection, depending on who you are …

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (Tape Two) review – love, grief and self-recrimination as the girls reunite Read More »

Matteo Salvini’s League party have disseminated the images on social media, which centre-left parties have called ‘racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic’ Opposition parties in Italy have complained to the communications watchdog about a series of AI-generated images published on social media by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right party, calling them “racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic”, the …

Italian opposition file complaint over far-right deputy PM party’s use of ‘racist’ AI images Read More »