The Guardian

Sick of doomscrolling? From venues with smartphone swear jars to cabins with absolutely no signal, here are the fun and freeing ways to ditch your device There’s a ritual at the start of every event hosted by the Offline Project . Run by Pelé Zachariah, the activities vary – it could be a group walk, a collage‑making class or a supper club – but each one begins in the same way, *with an invitatio…

New AI models, advanced robots and specialty computer chips are unsettling markets and the US tech industry Over the past month, a series of advancements in China’s artificial intelligence, chip manufacturing and robotics technologies have rattled financial markets, caused divisions among US tech moguls and left the Trump administration scrambling to respond. Silicon Valley has long pointed to Ch…

Agents withdraw Jerry Falade’s hotly anticipated debut after saying they can no longer authenticate ‘how the manuscript evolved’ A high-profile publishing deal for a debut crime novel has collapsed after doubts emerged over whether artificial intelligence played a role in writing it. The hotly anticipated manuscript Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body, by Jerry Falade, was withdrawn from sale by its agen…

Pre-programmed flights gather data at different altitudes then return to bases to recharge and download Weather happens in the boundary layer, the atmosphere from ground level to a few thousand metres, but this can be difficult to study in detail: weather stations are too low, and aircraft are expensive. Instrumented weather balloons are the traditional solution, and thousands are released every …

Playing as recent arrival Lena, your challenges include learning a new language and uncovering family secrets – its developer hopes it will spread ‘a little more compassion’ The cosy house-sorting sim has become a much-loved staple of the PC indie scene. Titles such as Unpacking , A Little to the Left and Momento charm players with their detailed interiors and quiet narratives of lives lived and …

Companies must ensure people know when they are interacting with artificially generated images, audio and text designed to look real From apparently conspiring to steal elections to abusing staff or performing embarrassing dance moves, the last few years have seen plenty of fake content made about politicians intended to malign its targets and mislead the public. Now EU rules aim to stem the floo…

I wanted our last family games night to be the best fun we’ve ever had. Maybe we should have stuck with Mario Kart … It is the end of an era for the Diamond family. For 20 years, there have been five of us living together. It has not been easy. Militant vegan daughters, sons who have inherited Scottish tempers, and a youngest child who attracts trouble like an industrial magnet, have meant our ho…

Across the country, workers are fearful about the impact of AI on their livelihoods in an increasingly fragile labour market On the tree-lined streets of Wuhan, where cars jostle for space with mopeds and cargo trucks, the malfunctioning of a new type of vehicle has recently been causing chaos on the city’s roads. In March, several cars from a fleet of driverless taxis stopped abruptly in the str…

Hidden gems can be unearthed, but you have to dig deep into the bargain bins of countless outdated Fifas, Wii Fits without the controllers and partially finished quizshow games As an eternally optimistic charity shop fan, I hold on to the fantasy that one day I’ll walk into my local Oxfam and find a pristine copy of the Sega Saturn shooter Burning Rangers for £1.50. Or perhaps a box full of old N…

Live, rolling coverage as British oil company looks for buyer amid political dispute over future drilling licences Economic uncertainty dampened UK house price growth in July as prospective house buyers remained cautious about interest rates amid the ongoing US war with Iran in what should be peak housebuying season. House prices rose by just 0.1% in July from a month earlier, according to lender…

Company says it discovered unauthorized access during ‘proactive review’ after rival OpenAI revealed rogue agent Anthropic ⁠said on Thursday its AI Claude model hacked ⁠systems of ⁠three ​organizations during testing, days after rival OpenAI ⁠revealed a rogue agent had gone on a days-long ⁠hacking spree at AI ​firm Hugging ‌Face. Claude gained ‌unauthorized access to the ‌systems during cybersecu…

Officials raided homes and businesses and seized laptops, phones and paperwork in clampdown on nuisance firms Laptops, mobile phones and documents have been seized after officials carried out search warrants in a crackdown on claims companies plaguing people with spam text messages about the car finance mis-selling scandal. On Wednesday the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) executed wa…

With his popularity at historic lows, Friedrich Merz seeks spiritual guidance from Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI Europe live – latest updates Summer is normally thought of as the time for pacy potboilers and brain-soothing pageturners – airport reads that wind up sandy and sunscreen-stained. Not so for Friedrich Merz ’s holiday reading list. Germany ’s embattled chancellor, who has faced one rough …

Roadside safety advocates say some automated license plate readers may not meet highway safety standards Flock Safety cameras have been pilloried for facilitating the AI -powered surveillance of private citizens and for targeting immigrants for years. But now safety advocates are also claiming that their physical location can pose potential roadside hazards. At the bottom of a tree-lined hill on …

Deep underground the player joins a colony of ruthlessly exploited pit workers who could be taking on the bosses. How things play out will depend on you It is rare for video games to feature industrial action as a key theme, but it does happen. There’s the shady Dockworker’s Union in Disco Elysium and the Orbital Workers Union in space adventure Tacoma; then there is Lynx, the evil union-bashing …