Category: Technology

Here’s how to spot a genuinely good laptop deal, plus the best discounts we’ve seen so far on everything from MacBooks to gaming laptops • Do you really need to buy a new laptop?• How to shop smart this Black Friday Black Friday deals have started, and if you’ve been on the lookout for a good price on a new laptop, then this could be your lucky day. But with so many websites being shouty about their Black Friday offers, the best buys aren’t always easy to spot. So before you splash the cash, it might pay to do…

Gaming platform to use facial age estimation to limit chats to similar age groups, as allegations of grooming grow The online games platform Roblox is to start blocking children from talking to adult and much older teen strangers from next month as it faces fresh lawsuits alleging it has been exploited by predators to groom children as young as seven. Roblox has reached 150 million daily players of games including viral hits Grow a Garden and Steal a Brainrot but has been hit by legal claims alleging the system’s design has made “children easy prey for paedophiles”. Continue reading……

From Apple AirPods to VR headsets and the ultimate travel backpack for hauling gadgets, these are the tech gifts they’ll still be using years from now The 18 best Black Friday deals – plus picks for travel, home and kitchen Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things Tech enthusiasts can be notoriously picky to buy for: they have strong opinions about brands, operating systems, even standards like surround-sound formats. And the tech world moves fast. As a tech reviewer, many products that I pick up to evaluate are put back down…

The hot spot seemed the perfect place for Yuletide-loving royalists. But, as with the Eiffel Tower in Beijing and some of the most picturesque windmills in the Netherlands, there was much less to it than first met the eye … Name: Buckingham Palace Christmas market. Age: Brand new this year. Continue reading… Source link

The use of AI in the surprise game-of-the-year contender has sparked a heated cultural and ethical debate, and raised existential questions for artists, writers and voice actors • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Arc Raiders is, by all accounts, a late game-of-the-year contender. Dropped into a multiplayer world overrun with hostile drones and military robots, every human player is at the mercy of the machines – and each other. Can you trust the other raider you’ve spotted on your way back to humanity’s safe haven underground, or will they shoot you and take…

From phones to TVs, smart-home cameras and headphones, now’s the time to buy the gadgets you’ve been patiently waiting all year for sales on Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things The very best US Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, curated and vetted Black Friday started off as a way to score some great deals on gifts, but let’s be honest: it’s also a chance to pick up some nice, deeply discounted goodies for yourself. This is especially true in the world of tech, where high prices and personal taste…

Jensen Huang opens earnings call with attempt to dispel concerns after his $5tn firm beat Wall Street expectations Global share markets rose after Nvidia posted third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates, assuaging for now concerns about whether the high-flying valuations of AI firms had peaked. On Wednesday, all eyes were on Nvidia, the bellwether for the AI industry and the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, with analysts and investors hoping the chipmaker’s third-quarter earnings would dampen fears that a bubble was forming in the sector. Continue reading… Source link

X chatbot suggested gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau were ‘designed for disinfection’ not mass executions Europe live – latest updates French public prosecutors are investigating allegations by government ministers and human rights groups that Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, made statements denying the Holocaust. The Paris public prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday night it was expanding an existing inquiry into Musk’s social media platform, X, to include the “Holocaust-denying comments”, which remained online for three days. Continue reading… Source link

First new design in ages, upgraded camera, serious performance and longer battery life make it a standout year The 17 Pro is Apple’s biggest redesign of the iPhone in years, chucking out the old titanium sides and all-glass backs for a new aluminium unibody design, a huge full-width camera lump on the back and some bolder colours. That alone will make the iPhone 17 Pro popular for those looking to upgrade and be seen with the newest model. But with the change comes an increase in price to £1,099 (€1,299/$1,099/A$1,999), crossing the £1,000 barrier for the first time for…

Ultra-slim and light smartphone feels special, but cuts to camera and battery may be too hard to ignore for most The iPhone Air is a technical and design marvel that asks: how much are you willing to give up for a lightweight and ultra-slender profile? Beyond the obvious engineering effort that has gone into creating one of the slimmest phones ever made, the Air is a reductive exercise that boils down the iPhone into the absolute essentials in a premium body. Continue reading… Source link

Top adventure watch upgraded with 4G calls, messages, live tracking, satellite texts and SOS for going off the grid The latest update to Garmin’s class-leading Fenix adventure watch adds something that could save your life: phone-free communications and emergency messaging on 4G or via satellite. The Fenix 8 Pro takes the already fantastic Fenix 8 and adds in the new cellular tech, plus the option of a cutting-edge microLED screen in a special edition of the watch. It is Garmin’s top model and designed to be the only tool you need to more-or-less go anywhere and track anything. Continue…

Standard iPhone levels up to Pro models with big screen upgrade, double the storage and more top features than ever It may not look as different as the redesigned Pro models this year or be as wafer thin as the new iPhone Air, but the iPhone 17 marks a big year for the standard Apple smartphone. That’s because Apple has finally brought one of the best features of modern smartphones to its base-model flagship phone: a super-smooth 120Hz screen. Screen: 6.3in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi) Processor: Apple A19 RAM: 8GB Storage: 256 or 512GB Operating system: iOS…

Third-gen watch adds 5G, satellite SOS and messaging, a bigger screen and longer battery life in same rugged design The biggest, baddest and boldest Apple Watch is back for its third generation, adding a bigger screen, longer battery life and satellite messaging for when lost in the wilderness. The Ultra 3 is Apple’s answer to adventure watches such as Garmin’s Fenix 8 Pro while being a full smartwatch for the iPhone with all the trimmings. As such, it is not cheap, costing from £749 (€899/$799/A$1,399) – £50 less than 2023’s model – sitting above the £369-plus Series 11 and…

Book-style Android with cutting-edge AI, good cameras and great tablet screen for media and multitasking on the go Google’s third-generation folding phone promises to be more durable than all others as the first with full water and dust resistance while also packing lots of advanced AI and an adaptable set of cameras. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold builds on last year’s excellent 9 Pro Fold by doing away with gears in the hinge along its spine allowing it to deal with dust, which has been the achilles heel of all foldable phones until now, gumming up the works in…

Camera-equipped sports shades have secure fit, open-ear speakers, mics and advanced Garmin and Strava integration The Oakley Meta Vanguard are new displayless AI glasses designed for running, cycling and action sports with deep Garmin and Strava integration, which may make them the first smart glasses for sport that actually work. They are a replacement for running glasses, open-ear headphones and a head-mounted action cam all in one, and are the latest product of Meta’s partnership with the sunglasses conglomerate EssilorLuxottica, the owner of Ray-Ban, Oakley and many other top brands. Continue reading… Source link

Cut-price watch offers most of what makes the Series 11 great, including an always-on screen, watchOS 26 and wrist-flick gesture Apple’s entry level Watch SE has been updated with almost everything from its excellent mid-range Series 11 but costs about 40% less, making it the bargain of iPhone smartwatches. The new Watch SE 3 costs from £219 (€269/$249/A$399), making it one of the cheapest brand-new fully fledged smartwatches available for the iPhone and undercutting the £369 Series 11 and the top-of-the-line £749 Apple Watch Ultra 3. Continue reading… Source link

Announced in 2020 by the Game Awards as an inclusive programme for the industry’s next generation, the Future Class initiative has now been discontinued. Inductees describe clashes with organisers and a lack of support from the beginning Video games have long struggled with diversification and inclusivity, so it was no surprise when the Game Awards host and producer Geoff Keighley announced the Future Class programme in 2020. Its purpose was to highlight a cohort of individuals working in video games as the “bright, bold and inclusive future” of the industry. Considering the widespread reach of the annual Keighley-led show,…

From Demon Souls to Baby Steps, challenging games keep a certain type of player coming back for more. I wonder why we are such suckers for punishment • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Most people who really love video games have the capacity to be obsessive. Losing weeks of your life to Civilization, World of Warcraft or Football Manager is something so many of us have experienced. Sometimes, it’s the numbers-go-up dopamine hit that hooks people: playing something such as Diablo or Destiny and gradually improving your character while picking up shiny loot…

Activision; PlayStation 4/5, Xbox, PCWith a deafening onslaught of massive shootout set-pieces in exotic locations, an evolving campaign mode and excellent multiplayer offerings, this maximalist instalment of crazed carnage is a hoot It seems like an anachronism now, in this age of live service “forever games”, that the annual release of a new Call of Duty title is still considered a major event. But here is Black Ops 7, a year after its direct predecessor, and another breathless bombard of military shooting action. This time it is set in a dystopian 2035 where a global arms manufacturer named the…

As GenAI becomes the primary way to find information, local and traditional wisdom is being lost. And we are only beginning to realise what we’re missing This article was originally published as ‘Holes in the web’ on Aeon.co A few years back, my dad was diagnosed with a tumour on his tongue – which meant we had some choices to weigh up. My family has an interesting dynamic when it comes to medical decisions. While my older sister is a trained doctor in western allopathic medicine, my parents are big believers in traditional remedies. Having grown up in a…

His company is potentially creating the ultimate state surveillance tool, and Karp has recently been on a striking political and philosophical journey. His biographer reveals what makes him tick In a recent interview, Alex Karp said that his company Palantir was “the most important software company in America and therefore in the world”. He may well be right. To some, Palantir is also the scariest company in the world, what with its involvement in the Trump administration’s authoritarian agenda. The potential end point of Palantir’s tech is an all-powerful government system amalgamating citizens’ tax records, biometric data and other…

Forty years ago, the Nintendo Entertainment System dominated the markets in Japan and the US. But in Europe, a technologically superior rival was making it look like an ancient relic There’s an old maxim that history is written by the victors, and that’s as true in video games as it is anywhere else. Nowadays you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Nintendo Entertainment System was the only console available in the mid-to-late 1980s. If you were brought up in Nintendo’s target markets of Japan and North America, this chunky contraption essentially was the only game in town – the…

Bitcoin price at lowest level since April while FTSE 100 falls as Google boss warns there is ‘irrationality’ in AI boom Business live – latest updates More than $1tn (£760bn) has been wiped off the value of the cryptocurrency market in the past six weeks amid fears of a tech bubble and fading expectations for a US rate cut next month. Tracking more than 18,500 coins, the value of the crypto market has fallen by a quarter since a high in early October, according to the data company CoinGecko. Continue reading… Source link

Online gaming company says voluntary age assurance technology will limit teens and children messaging users outside their own age groups Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast As Roblox rolls out new age assurance features to prevent teens and kids from chatting with adults they do not know, it has insisted Australia’s upcoming under-16s social media ban should not apply to its services. The company, which is releasing the new features in Australia first, said that from Wednesday users will be able to voluntarily have their…

A lawsuit over automated shopping reveals a deeper struggle over who will control the next generation of AI and what happens when autonomous agents start acting on our behalf Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery. Lies, damned lies and AI: the newest way to influence elections may be here to stay Elon Musk’s Grok AI briefly says Trump won 2020 presidential election AI is guzzling energy for slop content – could it be reimagined to help the climate? How Google’s DeepMind tool is ‘more quickly’ forecasting hurricane behavior Anthropic announces $50bn plan for datacenter construction…

US company that defends millions of websites against malicious attacks says it believes issue ‘is now resolved’ Explainer: What is Cloudflare? A key piece of the internet’s usually hidden infrastructure suffered a global outage on Tuesday, causing error messages to flash up across websites. Cloudflare, a US company whose services include defending millions of websites against malicious attacks, experienced an unidentified problem that meant internet users could not access some of its customers’ websites. Continue reading… Source link

Don’t splash out just yet! From a system update to better room lighting, a little fine-tuning could save you hundreds • Do you really need to buy a new laptop? Do you really need to buy a new TV? While the latest specs and outrageous screen sizes may well be a temptation, perhaps you can save money (and the environment) by holding off a little longer. With some simple tips and tricks, you can level up your TV experience. Of course, the Fomo is real. Back in the day, the only reason to buy a new TV was when…