The Guardian

Tech billionaires have raised more than $340m to defeat Prop 40, a one-time 5% wealth tax that will fund healthcare and education Tech billionaires have been dumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the fight against a wealth tax in California. They’ve raised more than $340m, and the campaign they’re funding is spending more than $1m a day to defeat the measure, according to state financial d…

The Tesla Roadster 2 drove up a curved ramp before using SpaceX rocket thrusters to fly, flip and land Elon Musk has revealed Tesla’s latest model, which he claims will be the world’s first flying car, using technology from his aerospace company SpaceX to “basically fly like a rocket”. The billionaire, who hosted a demonstration of the Tesla Roadster 2 at the SpaceX rocket development and testing…

Campaigners welcome legislation which follows recommendations by 2025 review into pornography regulation Pornography that depicts strangulation and incestuous relationships will be banned in England and Wales from early November, the government has announced. The content will be outlawed from 6 November after cross-party pressure prompted ministers to announce new legislation earlier this year. C…

Protest planned at Wayve HQ as Uber drivers fear for their future and city’s politicians demand TfL should have power over licences For passengers in Britain who want to try the latest ride, robotaxis are eagerly awaited: more than 100,000 are on Uber’s waitlist in London after the first UK services started in September. Others view them with trepidation. “I think we should all be worried,” said …

Meta says Muse excels at ‘multi-step reasoning’ and ‘complex software engineering’ as it races to catch up to Chinese rivals Meta on Thursday launched a new open-weight AI model which it claims rivals, and in some cases outperforms, similar products from leading Chinese developers. Muse Spark Open “is the most capable US open-weight model to date,” Meta’s chief of AI Alexandr Wang wrote on X. Con…

From chat-up lines to social coaching, we’d like to hear from people who use AI to assist them navigating the online dating world We’d like to understand more about the different ways that people are using AI to assist with online dating. Perhaps you have used an AI assistant to help with chat-up lines? Or you may have turned to one for some social coaching? However you have used AI for online da…

Susan Lyall worked with actor Jeremy Strong to research the Meta CEO’s favorite Nikes and luxury sweaters The first Aaron Sorkin Facebook movie, 2010’s The Social Network, helped cement the early aughts image of Mark Zuckerberg rebelling against corporate norms in rumpled hoodies and T-shirts. The follow-up, The Social Reckoning, is carbon-dated from 2019 to 2021. This is “post-hoodie”, as the mo…

Venues across Birmingham As Britain’s longest-running live art festival returns, get ready for late-night artist dinners, a show in a swimming pool and Faye Driscoll’s incredible rotating disintegration The phrase “two things can be true” is a frequent refrain in popular psychology and it’s also a frequent response, I find, to witnessing the farther reaches of live art. Hmm, is this performance c…

PC; Origame Digital This odd but absorbing adventure sends you waddling across Antarctica in search of an eldritch entity – uncovering a world far stranger than it first appears A Nazi kneels down on frozen snow, staring at an endless Antarctic horizon. Another holds a gun to his head, ready to end his own life. I direct a small waddling penguin up to them, trying to imagine what it could be thin…

International delegates agree leap second no longer tenable, but first leap hour not likely to happen for thousands of years After decades of discussion, quibbling and worrying about clocks in computer systems, the world’s official timekeepers have voted to replace what many viewed as a tiresome correction: the leap second. It’s time, they say, for the leap hour. Delegates from 69 countries cast …

In the final part of our series on the country, Poles tell how wages have soared – along with the cost of living Will military spending help or hinder Poland’s growth story? Poland’s push for EU energy resilience amid Russian aggression Above the rain-soaked streets of Warsaw, the observation deck of the Varso tower overlooks Joseph Stalin’s gift to Poland that has divided opinion for decades. Fo…

Discover-Tech’s Controlium software lets clients mass-profile internet users then covertly hack targets, say researchers at University of Toronto An Israeli advertising agency has been serving millions of online adverts that allow “zero-click” spyware to be used against targets, researchers at a Canadian university have said . Citizen Lab, a digital investigations research unit at the University …

Article in Atlantic claims The Blue Fighter was artificially generated, days after it won Caine prize for African writers The Zimbabwean writer Simbarashe Kundizeza has denied using AI to write a prize-winning short story after an article in the Atlantic said software had flagged it as almost completely AI-generated. Kundizeza’s story The Blue Fighter was announced as the winner of the prestigiou…

Chip makers and tech investors such as Samsung and SoftBank plunge as global investors fret over potential interest rate hikes Business news – live updates Larry Elliott: the global economy is muddling through. But a storm is coming An accelerating sell-off of AI-linked shares has hit global markets, as fears over rising inflation and future interest rate hikes spooked traders already wary of the…

The studio is swapping the Mushroom Kingdom’s vivid palette for the blood-soaked grit of military action series Where do you go after Mario? It’s a question the team at Ubisoft Paris found itself pondering three years ago after wrapping up work on the charming turn-based tactics adventure, Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope , sequel to its unexpected crossover hit, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. B…