Non classé

In recent months, followers of influential liberal bloggers have been interviewed by police as China widens its net of online surveillance Late last year, Duan*, a university student in China, used a virtual private network to jump over China’s great firewall of internet censorship and download social media platform Discord. Overnight he entered a community …

How China’s internet police went from targeting bloggers to their followers Read More »

Two men flew between New York and London at three times the speed of sound. No other aircraft has since been as fast as the Blackbird SR-71, explains crew member Noel Widdifield On 1 September 1974 two men made the fastest ever journey between New York and London. The astonishing trip – at three times …

‘It’s just black sky up there’: 50 years on, the transatlantic flight speed record remains unbroken Read More »

Ahead of the publication of his book about leadership – definitely not aimed at Keir Starmer – the former prime minister talks about relinquishing power, why he’s not fazed about a second Trump term and being an AI evangelist Were you to board an aeroplane piloted by a man who has never previously sat in …

Tony Blair: ‘I would have stayed if I could, is the truth’ Read More »

A writer with no technical background recounts his incredible journey into the realm of coding and the invaluable lesson it taught him about the modern world One day in 2017 I had a realisation that seems obvious now but had the power to shock back then: almost everything I did was being mediated by computer …

I learned the language of computer programming in my 50s – here’s what I discovered Read More »

A list of book choices by the Silicon Valley titans offers little more than a blank page with respect to real insights into their mindset In August, a thoughtful blogger, Tanner Greer, posed an interesting question to the Silicon Valley crowd: “What are the contents of the ‘vague tech canon’? If we say it is …

Can you judge the tech bros by their bookshelves? | John Naughton Read More »

Millions of users shut out and 500,000 switch to rival platform Bluesky as providers enact supreme court ban One of the world’s most popular social networks, X, has gone offline in Brazil – the country with the fifth largest digital population – after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws saw it blocked by …

X goes offline in Brazil after Elon Musk’s refusal to comply with local laws Read More »

In isolation, Alexander Grothendieck seemed to have lost touch with reality, but some say his metaphysical theories could contain wonders One day in September 2014, in a hamlet in the French Pyrenean foothills, Jean-Claude, a landscape gardener in his late 50s, was surprised to see his neighbour at the gate. He hadn’t spoken to the …

‘He was in mystic delirium’: was this hermit mathematician a forgotten genius whose ideas could transform AI – or a lonely madman? Read More »

The photographer was drawn to the colours and the geometry at his hotel in a national park in southern Spain Antonio Heredia arrived at Hotel de la Naturaleza in south-east Spain while it was shrouded in darkness. It was past midnight, and Heredia and a colleague had spent the day filming a story about one …

‘It’s an image of how summer holidays should be’: Antonio Heredia’s best phone picture Read More »

This queer emancipation story is set in a cosy pixellated art world but all is not what it seems. You’ll tend your flock, pick some flowers – and also have to dethrone God The realm of Hus is a rural idyll, where happy villagers wander the marketplace and young shepherdess Ren tends to her flock …

Quantum Witch: where religious cults collide with 80s Spectrum games Read More »

The immersive theatrical experience, which sees your seat move, shake and often spray water, has seen a record summer During this long, hot, languishing summer, I have come to believe in one thing and one thing only: seeing Twisters in 4DX. The Oklahoma-set film, directed by Lee Isaac Chung, is about a 7/10 movie in …

‘You’re part of the tornado’: the summer of moviegoing game-changer 4DX Read More »