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Technology | The Guardian
Opt out: how to stop tech companies spying on your phone as Trump promises mass deportations

There are no federal privacy regulations to protect your information – here’s how you can do it yourself

Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. The last column covered how to talk to your family about not posting your baby’s photos on the internet.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to execute the largest mass deportation of undocumented immigrants in American history, and many rights groups are concerned he’ll also introduce or reinstate rules that target broader immigrant communities as well – even if they’ve come through legal pathways or have been naturalized. If his prior administration is any indication, that can include people from certain Muslim-majority countries, asylum seekers and refugees.
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Technology | The Guardian
From Astro Bot to Balatro, the 2024 ‘game of the year’ race is too close to call

In this week’s newsletter: The shortlist for December’s Game Awards is out, and the top contenders are neck and neck

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Much like Christmas is a lot less enjoyable for the person who has to organise all the presents and cook the dinner, game-of-the-year season is rather intimidating for the people who have to put together the shortlists. Every November, I tot up all of the year’s acclaimed games I’ve yet to play, the underground recommendations I’ve yet to follow up on and the games I loved back in February but forgot about. I feel a mounting panic. And when all of the year-end lists come out, I inevitably find I’ve missed something anyway.

The Game Awards have just announced the nominations for this year’s ceremony, taking place on 12 December in Los Angeles. (Disclosure: the Guardian is one of 130 voting outlets for the awards, but my knowledge and involvement with them is limited to sending Geoff Keighley our ballots every year, usually a day or two late. Sorry, Geoff.) There are few surprises in the nominations, but I am pleased that one of the top two most nominated games is Astro Bot, with seven nominations, a game that cannot get enough praise as far as I’m concerned. (The other is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, up for six awards, which our critic dubbed a miracle of fan service; alas, I remain immune to the charms of Final Fantasy despite many attempts over the years to get into it).
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Technology | The Guardian
Saudi dissident pursues X legal case amid fears of transnational repression

Omar Abdulaziz, critic of crown prince now living in Canada, targeted by Saudi agents in 2014 security breach

A prominent Saudi dissident who worked closely with Jamal Khashoggi said he will pursue further legal action against X after a US appeals court said that a 2014 security breach of the company – then known as Twitter – by agents of Saudi Arabia caused him injury.

Private identifying information about Omar Abdulaziz, who lives in Canada and has been an outspoken critic of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, was obtained by the Saudi government after Riyadh recruited two Twitter employees to access information about dissidents – including those who used anonymous accounts to criticize the kingdom.
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Technology | The Guardian
MPs to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in UK summer riots

Commons inquiry into rise of harmful content on social media also expected to call Meta and TikTok executives

MPs are to summon Elon Musk to testify about X’s role in spreading disinformation, in a parliamentary inquiry into the UK riots and the rise of false and harmful AI content, the Guardian has learned.

Senior executives from Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok are also expected to be called for questioning as part of a Commons science and technology select committee social media inquiry.
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Technology | The Guardian
Donald Trump joins Elon Musk for SpaceX Starship rocket launch

The launch was Starship’s sixth experimental flight following first successful test in June

Donald Trump joined Elon Musk in Texas on Tuesday to watch a successful test launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, a demonstration of the unprecedented closeness between the world’s richest man and the newly chosen president of the United States.

Trump tweeted in advance of the launch: “I’m heading to the Great State of Texas to watch the launch of the largest object ever to be elevated, not only to Space, but simply by lifting off the ground. Good luck to @ElonMusk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project!”
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Technology | The Guardian
US justice department plans to push Google to sell off Chrome browser

Authorities seek to dismantle monopoly on search market and also want action related to AI and Android

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US justice department officials plan to ask a judge to force Google to sell off its Chrome browser to dismantle the monopoly it has over the internet search market, in a major intervention against one of the world’s biggest tech companies.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) last month filed court papers saying it was considering enforcing “structural remedies” to prevent Google from using some its products.
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Technology | The Guardian
Minecraft enters real world with $110m global theme park deal

Exclusive: Block-building game to appear in theme parks, hotels and stores, starting in UK and US

The global gaming phenomenon Minecraft is coming to the real world for the first time in a global deal to open themed rides, attractions, hotel rooms and retail outlets, starting with the UK and US.

Minecraft has struck a deal with UK-headquartered Merlin Entertainments – Europe’s largest theme park operator and the second biggest globally after Disney – which runs more than 135 attractions in 23 countries including Alton Towers, Legoland, Sea Life, Madame Tussauds and the London Eye.
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Technology | The Guardian
TechScape: Betting markets come for everything – and the FBI comes for a betting market

This week in tech news, online predictors are riding high after a slew of accurate US election wagers. Plus, Trump and Musk try to weaponize the communications regulator

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Gambling on the outcome of the presidential election became legal in the US at the start of October after decades of prohibition, becoming a new type of pre-election poll. Online prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket accepted billions of dollars in wagers on the outcome, with their users favoring Donald Trump with a 70% chance of beating Kamala Harris, out of sync with mainstream polls. Trump’s camp trumpeted the predictions.

In the UK, election gambling is legal and takes a very different form. Traditional bookmakers and betting firms take players’ wagers and set prices and odds. The bets are not as similar to prediction markets as they are to horse racing. These markets are prone to their own scandals. Kalshi and Polymarket offer an online vision of betting that encompasses a wider range of subjects, algorithmically sets prices and relies on cryptocurrency.

“We’re just getting started,” said Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour. Kalshi is adding “close to 100” new markets to its platform every day and plans to launch combination-based markets, allowing users to bet on a bundle of different outcomes, and conditional markets (for example, “if Trump wins, where will GDP be?”) within weeks. “I think that just accelerates from here …

Only “terrorism, assassination and violence” are off limits for Kalshi. What about Ukraine? While the conflict falls into the platform’s banned category, Russia’s invasion and the ensuing war have certainly moved stocks and commodities since February 2022. “We’ll see over time,” said Mansour.
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Technology | The Guardian
Meta pushes AI bid for UK public sector forward with technology aimed at NHS

Tech giant awards funding to project to shorten waits in A&E, after ‘hackathon’ on using Llama system in Britain

Meta’s push to deploy its artificial intelligence system inside Britain’s public sector has taken a step forward after the tech giant awarded development funding to technology aimed at shortening NHS A&E waiting times.

Amid rival efforts by Silicon Valley tech companies to work with national and local government, Meta ran its first “hackathon” in Europe asking more than 200 programmers to devise ways to use its Llama AI system in UK public services and, one senior Meta executive said, “focused on the priorities of the Labour party”.
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Technology | The Guardian
AI cloning of celebrity voices outpacing the law, experts warn

David Attenborough among famous people whose voices have been exploited by fraudsters

It’s the new badge of celebrity status that nobody wants. Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey and Kylie Jenner have all had their voices cloned by fraudsters. Online blaggers used artificial intelligence to fake the Tiggerish tones of Martin Lewis, the TV financial adviser. And this weekend David Attenborough described himself as “profoundly disturbed” to have discovered that his cloned voice had been used to deliver partisan US news bulletins.

Now experts have warned that voice-cloning is outpacing the law as technologists hone previously clunky voice generators into models capable of emulating the subtlest pauses and breathing of human intonation.
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Technology | The Guardian
John Oliver on potential US TikTok ban: ‘May not be necessary, but it isn’t sufficient’

Last Week Tonight host looks into looming US ban over privacy concerns and fear of its Chinese parent company

On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver looked into the looming US ban of TikTok, the “social media app many are addicted to thanks to its cooking tutorials and dances that are impossible for anyone born before 1985 to look cool doing”.

TikTok has 170 million active users in the US – a third of US adults, and the majority of people under 30, use the app. “All of which makes it pretty remarkable that it may be on the brink of going away,” said Oliver. In April of this year, the Senate passed a bill giving the app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and ultimatum: sell TikTok or face a ban in the US over national security risks.
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Technology | The Guardian
Lend me your ears: great Shakespearean actors given hi-tech talking portraits

A radical new exhibition celebrates stars including Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart by combining subtly moving artworks with their own voices. The results are uncanny
Great actors have always attracted artists. I think of Edmund Kean looking wild-eyed and demonic as Sir Giles Overreach painted by George Clint; Ellen Terry as a green-gowned Lady Macbeth preserved by John Singer Sargent; and Ruskin Spear’s study in oils of Laurence Olivier as a tormented, guilt-haunted Macbeth. For well over a century, it has also been possible to record the voices of our leading actors. But what would happen if image and sound were combined?

One answer is to be found in a radical new exhibition called The Shakespeare Portraits on view at the Red Eight Gallery, which can be found in the City of London’s Cornhill alongside the Royal Exchange. The show consists of 10 digital portraits of living actors accompanied by speeches from Shakespeare plays. I can best explain by example. I sat beneath a large, framed image of Ian McKellen and as I spoke to the exhibition’s creative director, Arsalan Sattari-Hicks, I realised that Sir Ian’s head was occasionally moving, that his gaze was subtly shifting and his features expressing a variety of emotions. At one point I even heard him speaking a fragment of “All the world’s a stage” from As You Like It with characteristic virtuosity. Richard Brierley, the gallery’s director, put it succinctly when he told me: “Normally the portrait is passive and you are the active one. In this case the portrait is active and you are passive.”
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Technology | The Guardian
Roblox to give parents more control over children’s activity after warnings over grooming

Parents will be able to see who children interact with and ensure they cannot play games with graphic violence as report accuses company of lax safety controls

* What is Roblox? Everything you need to know about the online game platform

The fast-growing children’s gaming platform Roblox is to hand parents greater oversight of their children’s activity and restrict the youngest users from the more violent, crude and scary content after warnings about child grooming, exploitation and sharing of indecent images.

From Monday, Roblox will grant parents access to a dashboard on their own phone showing who their child is interacting with, how long they are spending on Roblox each day and to make sure they are accurately recording their age.
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Technology | The Guardian
Australian parliamentary inquiry stops short of backing social media ban for under-16s

Joint committee supports giving users the power to alter, reset or turn off algorithms but hedges on key question of age bar

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A parliamentary committee examining the impact of social media on Australian society has recommended users be given the power to alter, reset or turn off algorithms, as well as be provided with greater privacy protection, but has stopped short of recommending a ban on under-16s accessing social media.

The wide-ranging inquiry, which was predominantly focused on the impact of social media on young people came as both the Coalition opposition and the federal government adopted a policy to ban under-16s from social media pending legislation to be introduced into parliament before the end of the year.

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Technology | The Guardian
Hi-tech recreation of Richard III’s voice has a Yorkshire accent

A digital avatar of the king’s head, complete with ‘meticulously researched’ voice, is on display in York

Technology has been used to recreate the voice of the medieval king Richard III, complete with a distinctive Yorkshire accent.

A digital avatar of the monarch went on display at York Theatre Royal on Sunday after experts helped to generate a replica of his voice.
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Technology | The Guardian
AI could cause ‘social ruptures’ between people who disagree on its sentience

Leading philosopher says issue is ‘no longer one for sci-fi’ as dawn of AI consciousness is predicted for 2035

Significant “social ruptures” between people who think artificial intelligence systems are conscious and those who insist the technology feels nothing are looming, a leading philosopher has said.

The comments, from Jonathan Birch, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, come as governments prepare to gather this week in San Francisco to accelerate the creation of guardrails to tackle the most severe risks of AI.
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Technology | The Guardian
China’s ‘mind-blowingly’ cheap shopping app Temu hits roadblocks in south-east Asia

Known for its deep discounts and viral marketing, the online marketplace has fallen afoul of regulators for threatening the livelihoods of local vendors

Chinese online marketplace Temu has enjoyed explosive international growth off the back of an eye-catching and often absurdly cheap range of products, but those cut-price tactics have met increasing roadblocks as it seeks to conquer new markets in south-east Asia.

Indonesia ordered Temu to be taken down from app stores in October, a move it said would protect the country’s smaller merchants. Last week, Vietnam threatened to ban Temu and fellow Chinese-owned fast-fashion outlet Shein by the end of the month, saying they had not been approved to do business in the country.
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Technology | The Guardian
My child is at camp and my phone pings nonstop with photos. Does anyone really want this? | Celina Ribeiro

Streams of images sent to parents not only threaten children’s privacy – they can damage their sense of self

At 7am on a Wednesday I drop my child off for a two-night school camp. The first big school camp. Children carry their pillows under their arms and drag behind them suitcases whose wheels and weight they can barely manage. They’re nervous. Excited. Some cry. By 7.45am they have loaded their bags. Through the coach’s tinted windows I can see that my daughter has settled in next to her friend so I wave goodbye and head to work.

Before 10am my phone pings. Parents had been asked to download an app so the school can communicate during the days away. There are 10 pictures of the class packed on a ferry and arriving at camp in a post on the app. I feel relief. I had been anxious about the bus arriving safely – even though I knew it to be irrational – and it is comforting to see my child buffeted by friends, smiling at the camera.

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