| 1. Google parent Alphabet hits $2tn valuation as it announces first dividendПт, 26 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Tech company’s shares rise as it plans to reward investors after strong quarterly results Google’s parent company has hit a stock market value of $2tn (GBP1.6tn) as investors reacted to a declaration of its first ever dividend alongside strong results on Thursday. Shares in Alphabet rose 10% in early Wall Street trading on Friday to give the tech group a stock market capitalisation – a measure of a corporation’s value – of more than $2tn. Alphabet last hit that level in intraday trading in 2021, but has yet to close above that benchmark after a day’s trading. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
2. Tesla among electric carmakers forced to cut prices as market stallsПт, 26 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) EV sales have plateaued across the world but the newfound glut of vehicles may just be temporary Elon Musk became the world’s richest man by evangelising about electric cars – and delivering them by the million. Yet in recent months his company, Tesla, has struggled to maintain its momentum: sales have dropped this year, and so has its share price. Those struggles have become emblematic of a broader reckoning facing the electric vehicle (EV) industry. After the soaring demand and valuations of the coronavirus pandemic years, the pace of sales growth has slowed. The industry has entered a new phase, with questions over whether the switch from petrol and diesel to cleaner electric is facing a troublesome stall or a temporary speed bump. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
3. My undying love for the painfully uncool AmigaПт, 26 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) It may have looked like something you’d see a bank teller use, but it withstood heavy battering. And it ran the coolest games I have told my wife that I want a Mini Amiga for Christmas. I know it’s only April, but I do this with things I want in the hope that when it suddenly appears in the house next week, my wife will think she bought it for me. I have slipped the purchase of seven games machines, a stuffed tarantula and an air fryer under the radar this way. In an inconsistent world, I like the way this institution of marriage works. I read the reviews and was surprised at the appearance of two words I never associated with the original Amiga: cool, and love. It might seem strange to say the Amiga wasn’t loved, because a lot of people bought and used one. But people use things every day that they don’t love: electric shavers, patience, door handles, the train. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
7. ‘Must love dogs and rude roommates’: the scramble to get around New York’s Airbnb crackdownЧт, 25 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Strict rules have led to a wild west of rentals, with visitors choosing between huge hotel bills or word-of-mouth deals Until recently, visitors to New York basically had two options: hotel rooms or short-term rental platforms like Airbnb. But in September 2023, the city started enforcing a 2022 law that banned people from renting their homes for fewer than 30 days (unless the host stayed in the home with guests). Now the only legit option for people visiting the city is hotel rooms – and they’re unaffordable for many. Most of the Times Square hotels don’t have rooms for less than $300 a night. A search for Thursday 2 May found the Muse at $356, Hampton Inn at $323 and the Hard Rock at $459 (although, because of dynamic pricing, these are subject to regular change). They’re getting more expensive still. Hotel rates have increased between the first quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2023 at twice the rate of inflation, said Jan Freitag, an analyst at the real-estate data firm CoStar Group. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
9. ‘Can you steal back something that’s already stolen?’: how radical art duo Looty repatriated the Rosetta StoneЧт, 25 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Tired of colonial artefacts being hoarded, Chidi Nwaubani and Ahmed Abokor use tech to redistribute them from museums in audacious digital heists In March last year, two men in tracksuits, wearing hockey masks and carrying matching laundry bags, headed for the British Museum. Just outside, patrolling police asked the two strange-looking men where they were going. “We’re going to the British Museum to loot back stolen goods,” one of them said. “Well, we’ll see you in there then!” the policewoman answered. But no arrests were made, as nothing incriminating happened. What did take place was a “digital heist” of one of the most famous objects in the British Museum, an artefact that is, according to Egyptologist Monica Hanna, “a symbol of western cultural power” and “of British imperialism”: the Rosetta Stone. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
10. What's behind the fight between Elon Musk's X and Australia's eSafety commissioner? – videoЧт, 25 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Elon Musk is at war with Australia — in particular Australia's online safety regulator — due to videos that were circulating on his platform after an alleged stabbing at a church in Sydney last week. After the eSafety commissioner requested all social media platforms to remove video of the stabbing from their platforms, X made the videos unavailable to view within Australia, but they're still available to watch both outside of Australia. Now, X and the eSafety commissioner are fighting it out in court, while X's owner Elon Musk continues to fight it out online. Guardian Australia's Josh Taylor explains what's going on behind the tweets Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
11. Pushing Buttons: readers’ memories of the game-changing Game Boy at 35Ср, 24 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) The little grey box – 35 years old this month – has kept you going, helped you through grief and long journeys, and been your companion through childhood • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Not to make anyone feel old, but the Game Boy turned 35 at the weekend. That small grey box was millions of people’s first introduction to video games. It was shared among families, played with equal enthusiasm by girls, boys, men and women. When I asked people for their most cherished Game Boy memories last week, almost a hundred people got in touch to share their reminiscences of playing it on the commute to work, on long car journeys, on family holidays and under the covers after bedtime (with a torch for the screen, naturally). The Game Boy liberated games from the TV and brought them into those pockets of free time in everyday life. It felt more intimate, and despite its rubbish screen and rather rudimentary tech, it acted as a private portal to other worlds. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
12. TopSpin 2K25 review – game, set and match to an engrossing tennis simСр, 24 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) PC, PS4/5, Xbox; 2K Games Whether you’re playing as a real-life pro or your own wacky avatar, this subtly calibrated title will have you perfecting your lobs and dropshots for hours Tennis is one of those sports that has only been intermittently well served by video games. The odd major series comes along, such as Pete Sampras, Virtua Tennis or Smash Court, but often we’re left relying on old favourites (take a bow, Super Tennis). It’s been 13 years since TopSpin 4 was released, and that title is considered such an authentic simulation of the sport that people are still seeking out copies to this day. But perhaps no longer: 2K Games has at last produced a follow-up, and it’s a true championship contender. From the opening, TopSpin 2K25 has all the detail you’d expect from a modern licensed sports sim. All the key stadiums and championships are here – though the play environments are only adequately detailed, rather than the stunning theatres of photorealism we’ve come to expect from EA Sports. There are 25 star players in the opening roster, from Emma Raducanu to Andre Agassi. It’s not a huge selection and the quality of the likenesses varies, but it’s good enough and 2K says it will add more in the future. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
13. ‘Games are more important to Apple than ever’: what’s next for Apple Arcade?Вт, 23 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) The head of the company’s gaming subscription service explains its priorities as it anticipates the Vision Pro revolution, and tries to bring originality to a market still dominated by free to play mobile titles When Apple launched its games subscription service, Arcade, in September 2019, it drew a huge amount of attention – as with everything the company does. Offering 100 premium (ie, not ad-infested) mobile games for a monthly subscription fee of GBP4.99/$4.99 (now GBP6.99), and the promise of more titles to come, it was an attempt to bring the Netflix business model to gaming. It offered an alternative in a mobile gaming market in which free-to-play and ad-supported games were dominant. The dominance of behemoths such as Genshin Impact, Clash of Clans and Candy Crush previously made it difficult for the makers of paid-for, premium games to find an audience, but Arcade offered a range of curated titles that could run across Apple’s devices – iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV – with no ads or in-app purchases. Games also worked offline, eliminating the annoyance of being kicked out of a game on the London Underground. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
14. The Game Boy at 35: a portal to other magical worldsВс, 21 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) The handheld console introduced millions to the joy of video games, and remains one of the best-selling consoles ever On April 21, 1989, Nintendo released a chunky grey game-playing rectangle to stores in Japan. It’s fair to say that nobody expected much of it. Internally, at Nintendo’s Kyoto HQ, the portable console was reportedly not a well-loved project. But within two weeks, it had sold out its entire 300,000-unit initial run. The Game Boy would arrive later that year in the US, and across the rest of the world over the next couple of years. Everywhere it went, it proved just as popular. Thirty-five years and almost 120m sales later, it is still the fourth best-selling games console in history. Like Sony’s Walkman, the Game Boy is a tech design icon of its time, still instantly recognisable from its silhouette alone. Developed by a team led by Satoru Okada and Gunpei Yokoi in Kyoto, the Game Boy is perhaps the preeminent example of Yokoi’s “lateral thinking with withered technology” maxim, a do-more-with-less technological principle that endures at Nintendo to this day. It’s so simply designed – with four buttons and a cross-shaped directional pad – that you already know how to use it as soon as you look at it. Thanks to its greyscale screen, the battery lasted for days of play. And most importantly for accident-prone kids of the 90s (and their parents), you could throw it off a bridge and it would probably still work. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
15. ‘I was trying to create the sound of a really warm hug’: the poignant story behind Monument Valley 2’s musicПт, 19 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Todd Baker composed the soundtrack for the indie puzzler as he was living through the loss of his mother. On the series’ 10th anniversary, he reflects on the experience ‘The part where the mother and child are separated on a red mountain, in a level quite early on in the game where you have to get back to the mother and find her … I was completing the sound design and music for that in a hospital, right beside my mum when she was sleeping, recovering from open heart surgery.” Todd Baker pauses for a second. He is recalling the development process of 2017’s Monument Valley 2, an indie puzzler, the highly anticipated follow-up to the one of the biggest success stories in mobile game history. The second game is more experimental than the first; it has more of a story, which in turn changed its feel. Whereas the first title is all optical illusions and impossible objects, the sequel moves away from MC Escher-inspired towers and spires and towards non-Euclidean geometry and brutalism. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
16. Success of Fallout proves video game adaptations have gone mainstreamПт, 19 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) As the show becomes a global hit and is renewed for a second season, experts say game adaptations are the new superhero movies In the first few days of its release, Fallout – the Prime Video adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game franchise – has become a hit with global audiences, shooting to the top of the UK chart and ranking among Prime’s top three most-watched titles ever. On Friday, just a week after the show debuted in more than 240 countries and territories, Amazon announced it had renewed it for a second season. “The bar was high for lovers of this iconic video game and so far we seem to have exceeded their expectations, while bringing in millions of new fans to the franchise,” the streamer said. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
17. Nothing Ear (a) review: cheaper, smaller, longer-lasting earbudsЧт, 18 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Funky transparent design backed by good sound and noise cancelling make these budget buds winners The tech firm Nothing’s latest set of cut-price Bluetooth earbuds offer great sound and noise cancelling for an even more competitive price, while continuing to stand out from the crowd through cool design. The London-based firm has launched the budget Ear (a), which keep almost everything that was great about previous Nothing earbuds and cost GBP99 (€99/$99). That is GBP30 less than its previous offering and the new GBP129 (€149/$149) Ear, which offer a few more customisations for sound and other features. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
19. Fairphone Fairbuds review: ethically made earbuds with replaceable batteriesЧт, 11 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Repairable electronics pioneer shows noise-cancelling Bluetooth earbuds do not have to be disposable Fairphone, the repairable and ethical electronics pioneer, is back with a pair of some of the first Bluetooth earbuds to make it so easy and cheap to replace their batteries that you can do it at home in minutes. Bluetooth earbuds have become a ubiquitous part of life, driven by the success of Apple’s AirPods. Until now they have all compromised on sustainability by being very difficult to repair, in effect making them disposable. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
20. Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4 review: best-sounding noise-cancelling earbudsВт, 09 апр[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Quality earbuds with improved Bluetooth, great battery life, good controls and future-proofed tech Sennheiser’s latest high-end earbuds aim to retake the crown as the best-sounding noise-cancelling earbuds you can buy, with cutting-edge chips, tricks and future-proofed tech. The Momentum True Wireless 4 earbuds cost GBP259.90 (€299.90/$299.95), pitting them directly against the best from Bose and Sony. Water resistance: IP54 (splash) Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4, SBC, AAC, aptX adaptive, LC3 Battery life: Seven hours; up to 28 hours with case Earbud weight: 6.2g each Driver size: 7mm Charging case weight: 66.4g Case charging: USB-C, Qi wireless charging Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
23. Nothing Phone 2a review: a standout budget AndroidВт, 05 мар[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Funky design, fun software, decent performance and long battery life provide a lot of phone for the money London-based tech firm Nothing’s latest Android attempts to shake up the budget phone market with something a little more interesting. Costing from GBP319 (€329/A$529) the Phone 2a aims to take the cool design and intrigue that made its higher-end models stand out and package it up into something cheaper but still novel, sits alongside the full-fat Phone 2 costing GBP579. Screen: 6.7in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (394ppi) Processor: MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro RAM: 8 or 12GB Storage: 128 or 256GB Operating system: Nothing OS 2.5 (Android 14) Camera: 50MP main and ultrawide, 32MP selfie Connectivity: 5G, eSIM, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and GNSS Water resistance: IP54 (splash resistant) Dimensions: 162 x 76.3 x 8.9mm Weight: 190g Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
24. OnePlus 12 review: smartphone left behind by top rivalsПт, 23 фев[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) A slick screen, top chip and long battery life are let down by lack of advanced AI and short support life OnePlus’s latest top phone can’t shake the feeling of being left behind by rivals. Even with a sleek appearance, speedy software and longer battery life the OnePlus 12 is devoid of the much-hyped AI tools packed into handsets from Samsung, Google and others. It feels more like a phone from 2020 than from the new era of artificial intelligence. Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
25. Honor Magic V2 review: exquisite hardware let down by softwareПн, 12 фев[-/+]Категория(?) Автор(?) Super-premium phone-tablet is the thinnest and lightest ‘folder’ yet – but compromises on camera Honor’s Magic V2 is the best designed folding phone-tablet yet. It feels just like a regular phone when closed but then opens up like a book to reveal a large, plush screen. Launched in China last year, the Magic V2 has now made it to Europe but not at a price that could be considered affordable. At GBP1,700 (€2,000), it is placed between the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and OnePlus’s slightly cheaper Open. Main screen: 7.92in (402ppi) 120Hz OLED flexible display Cover screen: 6.43in (404ppi) 120Hz OLED Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 RAM: 16GB Storage: 512GB Operating system: MagicOS 7.2 (Android 13) Camera: 50MP + 50MP ultrawide + 20MP 2.5x tele; 2x 16MP selfie Connectivity: 5G, dual sim + esim, USB-C, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, GNSS Water resistance: none Dimensions folded: 156.7 x 74 x 10.1mm Dimensions unfolded: 156.7 x 145.4 x 4.8mm Weight: 237g Continue reading...Медиа:1. image / jpg 2. image / jpg | ↑ |
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