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The tech billionaire set spending record as he poured $446m into campaigns for failed Republican candidates Elon Musk set a record for election spending this year after pouring nearly half a billion dollars into backing Republicans in the US midterm elections. It turned out to be a poor investment. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO contributed at least $446m to Republican-aligned Super Pacs and groups over the course of the elections, specifically targeting several key Senate races in an effort to help the Trump administration retain Republican control of Congress. He outdid his own 2024 spending of nearly $290m. Yet as Democrats swept to power across the country on Tuesday night, it became clear that Musk would get nearly nothing in return for his hundreds of millions in spending. Continue reading...

Apple will start checking iCloud items that are accessible to anyone who has the link for "harmful content" starting with iOS 27.3 and other 27.3 updates, the company says. "When you share an item that can be accessed by Anyone with the Link in version 27.3 or later of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS, that […]

Voters approved nearly every datacenter moratorium that was on the ballot, dozens in total in Tuesday’s elections Track live results from all 50 states Send us your questions about the US midterms results and Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ There were three big losers in Tuesday’s midterm elections in the US: Donald Trump, Elon Musk and datacenters. Datacenters, the facilities full of semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence and a host of other online products, were on the ballot in elections in at least 40 jurisdictions across 10 states. Voters responded with a strong rebuke of the giant buildings, which have has become a symbol of the tech industry and AI. Continue reading...

All-round upgrades fit a bigger OLED screen in a smaller and lighter body with water resistance for first time The new iPad mini takes Apple’s fan-favourite tiny tablet and upgrades just about everything about it, including giving it a new OLED screen, serious performance, speakers embedded into the display and even water resistance, all with a big new price tag. The eighth-generation iPad mini costs from £699 (€749/$699/A$1,099), which is £200 or equivalent more than the original price of its predecessor as RAMageddon continues to bite. That makes it uncomfortably expensive, costing £270 more than the base model iPad (A16) and only £50 cheaper than the bigger 11in iPad Air M4. Continue reading...

The fact our TVs are gathering our information isn't new, but what and how they're tracking - and if we can stop it - is hard to figure out. Researchers at Northeastern University monitored 12 TVs from 10 manufacturers to test whether opting out of automatic content recognition (ACR) actually works. While opting out was […]

ChatGPT can now create GIFs using a prompt or a photo uploaded to the AI chatbot. The update, which is rolling out alongside OpenAI's new Images 2.6 model, allows you to adjust the GIF's animation speed, edit individual frames, and share it with others. Before this change, ChatGPT couldn't natively generate GIFs in a single […]

Apple has reportedly delayed the launch of its rumored smart home robot until next year at the earliest or possibly even 2028, according to The Information. It says the robot's hardware "has been finished for around two years," but that the software isn't ready. The device's software team has reportedly pushed to delay the launch […]

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) that oversees the wireless standard has formally adopted Bluetooth High Data Throughput (HDT) as an optional feature of the Bluetooth Core 7.0. It's an upgrade the Bluetooth SIG has been previewing over the past year that increases Bluetooth LE's maximum supported bit rate from 2 Mbps to 7.5 Mbps. […]

A truce has cooled the trade conflict, but neither country has done anything to limit the outbreak of new hostilities Donald Trump’s trade wars have largely fallen off the headlines. Fears of new tariffs flare up from time to time when the US president goes off the rails – for instance, threatening to end US trade with countries with which it has a deficit unless the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates. But the sense that the world’s two largest economies are plowing ahead into an overt economic conflagration has taken a back seat to other, more salient fears, about Trump ending American democracy, AI killing us all and stuff like that. The sense of calm is misleading. Under the radar, the world is marching toward an economic war of potentially epic proportions, one that, history suggests, could well spill over into the real thing. Continue reading...

As companies from Amazon to JPMorgan block AI personal agents like Meta's Muse, retail experts warn that technology that removes customer friction usually wins.

Full-back believes comeback also shows players do care United were booed off by supporters at half-time Diogo Dalot believes Manchester United’s comeback win against Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday can transform their troubled season and, as importantly, showed unhappy supporters that the players care. The Glazer family, who have owned United since 2005 and loaded £1.2bn of debt onto the club, continue to be the focus for fan anger and there was yet another protest against them before kick-off at Old Trafford, with thousands of green and gold balloons released from the Stretford End. The home crowd sang anti-Glazer songs and threw tennis balls onto the pitch when the clock showed 20 minutes and five seconds, to symbolise the year 2005. The team have seven points from their opening nine games of the Premier League season; their worst start since 1987-88. Continue reading...

Another away day, another victory for Arsenal. This time, the much-maligned Viktor Gyökeres stole the show as poor Slavia Prague matched the longest winless streak in European Cup and Champions League history despite a spirited late comeback. That now stands at 23, equalling the mark set by AEK Athens and FCSB – formerly known as Steaua Bucharest – while Arsenal are now unbeaten in their last 10 away European trips. After last week’s wobble against Fleetwood, there was no prospect of Arsenal making the same mistake again as soon as Noni Madueke fired them ahead early on after being superbly set up by Gyökeres. That was his third assist in his last five appearances, although Mikel Arteta will have been even more encouraged by the emphatic finish that had seemed to put the game beyond Slavia’s reach just before the break. While Kai Havertz remains his undoubted first choice, having another striker in form will only boost Arsenal’s challenge and it was noticeable that there was an extra spring in the 28-year-old’s step after his goal. Continue reading...

Forget speculation over how a Parker-led side would fare in the Premier League and let the man who has taken three clubs up do his work again It has taken West Ham six months to come to their senses and sack Nuno Espírito Santo, but at least the decision has arrived early enough to revive their hopes of automatic promotion. Dithering was no longer an option after the dismal performance against West Brom last Saturday. Continue reading...

Is Apple’s top smartwatch as reliable as my go-to sports watch for tracking a marathon? I compared the Apple Watch Ultra 4 to the Coros Pace 4 Pro at the Frankfurt Marathon.

Nintendo is about to lose a major memory supplier for its Switch cartridges. The supplier, Macronix, announced during a recent quarterly earnings call that it would be gradually phasing out ROM production and is instead focusing on NOR flash memory for data centers, Taipei Times reports. Macronix's ROM revenue fell 39 percent compared to last […]

EXCLUSIVE: Oscar winner Nicolas Cage (Longlegs), Alexander Ludwig (Bad Boys franchise), Gabriel Basso (The Night Agent), and Oscar nominee Maria Bakalova (The Apprentice) are aboard to star in true crime movie The Brand, based on the investigative New Yorker article by bestselling author and acclaimed journalist David Grann, whose stories have served as source material […]

AT&T's smart home security system now integrates with Gemini for Home. The company says its Connected Life system is the "first" home security product to integrate with Google Home Premium, enabling a bunch of Gemini-powered features that can summarize home events, search your video history, and more. With the update, Gemini for Home can provide […]

From a drone carrying traffic lights to a remotely operated robot, exhibitors at Milipol Qatar demonstrate equipment designed for emergency response, surveillance and work in dangerous places.