What’s going on with Meta glasses?
In the UK, Meta’s AI smart glasses have been banned in courts, restaurants, and pubs, largely due to privacy concerns and reports of wearers secretly filming others without their knowledge. What might it mean for the tech’s future? As of last week, Meta’s AI smart glasses have been banned in...
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Microdramas are fuelling exploitation in the entertainment industry
The booming world of rapid, vertical mini dramas has generated a multi-million dollar mobile entertainment industry. It’s also fuelled worker exploitation, low wages, and suffocating schedules. Is TV getting dumber? In today’s post-literate society – an era Rose Horowitch deftly explores in a recent piece for The Atlantic – how...
AI can now create custom viruses to fight superbugs
With antibiotic resistant infections on the rise, this new breakthrough paves the way for scalable AI-driven phage therapy, while simultaneously creating ethical concerns over biosecurity. Antibiotics is just one of those discoveries that ended up being fundamental to human history. It turned fatal infections into treatable conditions. In doing...
Why is Netflix paying for six hours of GTA 6 exclusivity?
Streaming giant Netflix has apparently paid an eye-watering amount to exclusively showcase GTA 6’s ‘extended look’ trailer for only six hours. Why has it coughed up so much cash for seemingly so little? Rockstar’s GTA 6 is the most anticipated video game of all time, with experts predicting it could...
How TikTok failed to take down Perez Hilton’s livestream
The celebrity blogger was hospitalised after allegedly harming himself on a TikTok livestream. Now the platform is reckoning with the consequences. Last Tuesday, celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton (born Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.) appeared on a TikTok livestream naked, covered in a red substance that appeared to be blood, and...
EA acquisition by Saudi-led group finalised
Popular gaming publisher Electronic Arts (EA) is about to be purchased by a group of buyers, including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). It is likely to be the largest leveraged buyout in history. The $55 billion USD purchase of gaming giant EA has reportedly been finalised. The company will now...
How research says Gen Z is redefining friendship online
Online friendships have long been viewed as less ‘real’ than those formed through face-to-face interaction. However, research indicates that for Gen Z, whose social lives are increasingly shaped by digital spaces, that assumption is outdated. In a world of 8.3 billion people, how realistic is it to assume that the right people for us are all within a 10km radius? More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle defined friendship as a reciprocal...
AI detection is coming to Substack
Substack is rolling out a new AI detection feature able to scan posts, notes, replies, and comments. Substack is one of the last safe havens for organic human-written content, right? This week, the beloved writing platform announced its imminent integration with AI detection software Pangram. It will allow users to instantly scan a post, comment, note, or reply – anything over 100 characters – for the presence of text generated...
Does V.A.R suggest the future of super technology isn’t so black-and-white?
The intense backlash against digital interventions in sport proves we’re still slow to trust the tech designed to help us. For all the promises made about Video Assistant Referee (V.A.R) technology, if this World Cup has proved one thing it’s that people don't want perfect decisions. They’d rather have decisions they truly believe in. V.A.R has, over the course of this summer, become football’s most controversial player. Recent flashpoints involving Argentina...
Is loneliness the latest Gen Z status symbol?
A pivot on singledom, the rise of ‘lonely influencers’, and a crackdown on self-optimisation have more and more of us romanticising the lonely life. I’ve grown up feeling that loneliness is something to hide, or at least feel negative about. My earliest visualisation of adult loneliness was probably Bridget Jones singing ‘All By Myself’ in her pyjamas, and as I evolved through school, university, and my first jobs, I came to...
