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The New York Times Company is in talks"exclusive negotations" to acquire Letterboxd, the social network for film lovers, for around $330 million, The New York Times reports. The Times Company, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and A24 were all recently rumored to be among those interested in buying Letterboxd. The negotiations with the Times Company have included […]

Despite global iPad shipments dropping 27.5% year-over-year in the third calendar quarter, Apple maintained its lead in the tablet market, according to a new report released today. Here are the details. more…

Amazon and Uber are teaming up to make Uber Eats the official restaurant delivery partner for Prime subscribers in the US. The news comes as Uber faces a drastically reshaped competitive landscape with the merging of rivals DoorDash and Instacart. Under the new partnership, Amazon Prime subscribers will get $0 delivery fees on restaurant orders […]

Centre for Public Integrity report says mandatory audit and public register of all automated decision-making needed Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The federal government is “sleepwalking its way into another robodebt” scandal amid a lack of transparency and legislation around use of algorithms and artificial intelligence in decisions, the chief executive of independent thinktank the Centre for Public Integrity said. Dr Catherine Williams launched the centre’s “Computer Says No” report on Thursday, which examines the use of automated decision-making (ADM) tools by the government and calls for urgent reform. Continue reading...

North Korea is said to be behind the theft from the crypto exchange Binance. How did they pull it off and what will they do with the money? Kalyeena Makortoff and Jean H Lee report It was 8pm last Thursday when the panic alarms went off across the crypto world. Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, had been hacked. The cryptocurrency revolution promised to take power from the fusty old central banks and put it in the hands of the people. But the hack exposed just how vulnerable crypto can be. The Guardian’s banking correspondent, Kayleena Makortoff, tells Helen Pidd how Binance was hacked and how the news has shaken the crypto world. Almost immediately, the finger of blame was pointed squarely in one direction: North Korea. The journalist Jean H Lee explains why one of the poorest and most isolated countries in the world is believed to have pulled off the audacious heist, and what it might do with the money. Archive sources: CBC News, CNN, YouTube Continue reading...

Chains in seven countries say cooling unit temperatures rose overnight in incident similar to hack of French shops Who is hacking Europe’s supermarket fridges and freezers, and why? Supermarket chains in at least seven European countries have said the temperatures of refrigerators and freezers in some of their shops soared overnight to as high as 50C (122F), echoing a cyber-attack last month that caused millions of euros of damage in France. Retailers in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden reported problems with their refrigeration systems on Monday, and several companies confirmed they had been hacked. Continue reading...

Google says one of its Android manufacturing partners secretly built a backdoor in 1.3 million devices and turned them into a botnet. The company says it has now dismantled the backdoor and "cut ties" with the manufacturer, the Shenzhen, China-based Videostrong Technology Co., which has been banned from building or selling certified Android devices or […]

Apple will now let Siri AI perform actions across third-party apps. As part of the iOS 27.3 update rolling out on Tuesday, Apple announced developers can now integrate Siri AI's new features in "all apps," allowing the voice assistant to draw on a user's personal context, process natural language prompts, and use on-screen awareness to […]

The New York Times and a group of other publications have filed lawsuits against the company that makes the Brave web browser over alleged unlawful scraping to train AI and also letting users bypass their paywalls, as reported by Reuters. According to a complaint filed by the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, and […]

Bowen Wan was on anti-seizure medication, and chatbot provided her with a tapering schedule to reduce dosage A woman’s death from an epileptic seizure after she received dangerous advice from a chatbot has prompted her parents to sue OpenAI earlier this week. The legal action is the latest lawsuit that in which plaintiffs allege that a bot provided counsel to a user that ultimately led to their death. Continue reading...

Search queries are growing at their fastest rate in five years, Google parent Alphabet said in its earnings report last week. However, Google's Search revenue growth slowed to 12 percent year over year in the third quarter, down from roughly 17 percent in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, growth in paid clicks - clicks on ads […]

Tech CEO hearings. Tougher AI and data center guardrails. Investigations of Elon Musk's DOGE cuts. The gates are open for Democrats once they regain control of committee gavels come January after a historic win of majorities in both the House and Senate on Tuesday. "LAWYER UP," the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee wrote […]

After four of the biggest competitors in the AI race held quarterly earnings calls late last month, two things are clear: Big Tech is not done spending record amounts on the AI data center buildout, and the AI data center buildout is not any closer to yielding its promised returns. A third thing is also […]

With smartphone sales tanking by around 20 percent compared to 2025, Qualcomm is looking to data centers to help boost its bottom line. During its Q4 2026 earnings call, the company laid out its plans to make a splash in the AI data center business, through partnerships with companies like Amazon and Meta announced earlier […]

This week on “Uncanny Valley,” we discuss the historic blue wave that swept the midterms and delivered a rebuke to the Trump administration, Big Tech, and data centers.

Google made Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, its AI video model, generally available. It makes 15-second clips, up from 10, lets users edit them over several chat turns and costs 30% less, at about $0.07 a second for 720p video. Google has made Gemini Omni 1.2 Flash, the latest version of its AI video model, generally […] This story continues at The Next Web

Prospect to hold workplace sessions and recruit members under agreement with tech company Trade unions are expected to make further inroads into big tech companies in the UK after new rights for unions to access workplaces came into force, with Google UK signing an agreement on Monday. The Prospect union has reached an agreement with Google to begin organising among about 7,000 workers across its UK operations, including YouTube but excluding DeepMind. Continue reading...