Month: June 2026

Don’t wait for Prime Day. We found the 31 best early deals from Amazon and its competitors

Love or hate Amazon, its 23-26 June Prime Day event is a good time to snag discounts on tech, fashion and more, including much-loved brands such as Anyday and Caraway Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things You don’t have the wait until after Turkey Day: early …

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The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales review – a playable love letter to Zelda

PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Team Asano/Square EnixUpbeat, charmingly retro RPG full of treasure-hunting, temple-roaming, monster-slaying and princess-saving is an absolute blast to play You can’t help but wonder if developer Team Asano is in a private competition with itself to come up with the most ridiculous name for a video game. Following …

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Gig workers are endlessly exploited. AI could make more of us share their fate

As companies integrate AI and hire fewer employees, a shift toward a ‘gig economy’ will commence In 2024, the buy-now-pay-later company Klarna announced that it would cut hundreds of customer service roles and begin using an artificial intelligence chatbot instead. The move was expected to save the company millions. But a year later, after customers …

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UK critical infrastructure hit by 200 cyber incidents in a year, agency says

Head of National Cyber Security Centre says UK in ‘ongoing contest with capable adversaries’ and AI could add to threat The UK’s critical national infrastructure has been hit by more than 200 cyber incidents over the past year and state-linked assailants were behind three-quarters of the attacks, according to the state cybersecurity body. Richard Horne, …

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Inspired by Ukraine, and worried by China: Taiwan teaches its citizens how to fly drones

Ordinary Taiwanese, young and old, are joining courses to learn how to fly drones amid looming China military threat In a small, crowded room in Taipei, Pan Chien-chin is trying to keep a drone hovering steadily. Imagining himself flying a plane, he gently nudges controller joysticks to guide the insect-like device as it hums through …

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Taliban order ban on smartphones as officials shown destroying devices

Directive aimed at government workers, but reports of wider implementation spark warnings of future Afghanistan-wide prohibition The Taliban have ordered a sweeping ban on the use of smartphones by government officials – in what some analysts say could foreshadow broader, population-level restrictions. In a directive issued by the Taliban’s military courts and reviewed by the …

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Fears for Xbox as it puts its developers on the chopping block once again

After the billion-dollar company’s leaders sent staff a memo saying the brand had ‘over-extended’, game studios may be in the firing line Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here In March 2000, Bill Gates stood onstage at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and, to a packed crowd, officially announced …

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‘A neoliberal nightmare’: my ride on the Vegas Loop – Elon Musk’s answer to traffic jams

Ten years ago, after complaining that traffic was ‘driving him nuts’, Musk’s Boring Company began building underground tunnels to ease congestion on the roads. Did he overpromise and underdeliver? It’s another blindingly bright day in Las Vegas but I’m 30ft underground and strapped in for a rocket ride to the future. Actually, it’s a Tesla …

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Will it take a ‘Chernobyl-scale disaster’ for us to regulate cyber weapons of mass destruction? | Stuart Russell

Unrestrained development of unsafe AI systems is leading to intolerable risks Stuart Russell is a computer scientist known for his contributions to AI and a new Guardian US columnist The AI company Anthropic has been making major headlines recently. Its trillion-dollar IPO plan and its blood feud with secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have attracted …

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UFC 6 review: a bloody, brilliant MMA fighting game

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S; EA Vancouver/Electronic ArtsMicromanaging your fighter is a little tedious, but the action is thrilling in this authentically detailed sporting simulation Becoming a professional fighter takes years of repetition, drilling techniques and training footwork until everything is instinctual. Your body needs an automatic answer for every limb, from every angle. In …

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