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...
Current in Technology
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...
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...
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...
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...
Toy Story 5 comes for big tech, but does the moral lesson land?
The latest instalment in the beloved franchise tackles a new villain: the iPad. But what does ‘Toy Story 5’ get wrong about kids and screentime? Since the first film dropped way back in 1995, Toy Story has warmed hearts and raised minds with its ragtag group of friends. Each iteration...
HR teams are constantly battling AI generated grievances
HR teams are reporting being bogged down by overly lengthy grievances framed around legal precedents that don’t even exist. Rearing its head on a daily basis, the culprit is generative AI. Have you ever felt so aggrieved you couldn’t articulate yourself properly? Maybe you considered letting AI be angry for you? If the answer is yes, and your choice of battleground was email, you may be one of a growing number...
Why Elon Musk’s trillionaire status is unsettling
His exorbitant wealth reflects a broken economic system both funded and relied on by everyday people. There are milestones that tell us something profound about society. Like the first person to walk on the moon, or the invention of the internet. And then there’s the world’s first trillionaire – a title won by tech entrepreneur and far-right commentator Elon Musk. A trillion dollars is a figure so obscenely large that it defies...
Phones will soon have a ‘kill switch’ to deter muggers in the UK
Phone theft has been rife in London for over a decade, but Apple is planning on equipping iPhones with a ‘kill switch’ that will render them inoperable if stolen, effectively making them unsellable. The Metropolitan Police has struggled to get a grip on phone theft for years, and as a London resident, I should know. The capital has long had the unwanted reputation of being the world capital of phone...
The UK under-16 social media ban is now official
It’s official. As early as spring 2027, social media will be banned for under-16s in the UK. Keir Starmer is also planning online curfews for under-18s to be announced in July. Touching grass is now mandatory. As expected, the Prime Minister briefed on Monday morning that a social media ban will be in effect for under-16s in the UK by this time next year. There are 10 major platforms in question: TikTok,...
