New Mexico attorney general accuses Meta of failing to safeguard children against trafficking and sexual abuse

Meta’s second major trial of 2026 over alleged harms to children begins on Monday.

The landmark jury trial in Santa Fe pits the N

OpenClaw is billed as ‘the AI that actually does things’ and needs almost no input to potentially wreak havoc

A new viral AI personal assistant will handle your email inbox, trade away your entire stock portfolio and text your wife “good morning”

A bit like Reddit for artificial intelligence, Moltbook allows AI agents – bots built by humans – to post and interact with each other. People are allowed as observers only

On social media, people often accuse each other of being bots, but what h

The rise in real estate tech means renters often hand over huge amounts of revealing information to digital third parties – at great risk

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Would you trade your dat

Social media platform says there are still ‘real technical limitations to accurate and dependable age verification’

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Some users are stepping away from the app after it made a deal to create a US entity and updated terms and conditions

Many TikTok users across the US say they’re rethinking their relationship with the platform since its ownership and terms and co

In-person interactions break down barriers in east London, as AI startups also try to bridge communication divide

Wesley Hartwell raised his fists to the barista and shook them next to his ears. He then lowered his fists, extended his thumbs and

App endured a major outage and user backlash over perceived censorship. Now it’s facing an inquiry by the California governor and an ascendant competitor

A little more than one week ago, TikTok stepped on to US shores as a naturalized citizen. Ev

The march of wearable tech is coming to the aid of women in what some say is a long underserved market

For any bodily function you want to measure these days there is a gadget – a wristband for step-counting, a watch to track your heart rate or a

In the final part of this series, we look at how infighting has ripped the left apart online while the right has flourished – and how some progressives are turning the tide

• Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkb

A lawsuit filed last week alleges tech firm ‘can access virtually all’ private communications, a claim the company has denied

US authorities have reportedly investigated claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats on the WhatsApp messaging p

TUC urges ministers to bring forward changes to protect workers amid concerns over apps such as Temper

The fashion retailer Urban Outfitters, the bed specialist Dreams and the operator of several Royal Parks cafes have been criticised for the use

Hundreds of parents, teens and school districts have claimed social media is intentionally addictive and harmful

Social media companies will have to answer to a jury – for the first time – for allegations that their products are intentionally add

In the second part of our series on digital politics, we look at how online provocateurs have advanced extreme political ideas – and watched them seep into the mainstream

• Robert Topinka is a reader in digital media and rhetoric at Birkbec

A wave of affordable Chinese-made EVs is accelerating the shift away from petrol cars, challenging long‑held assumptions about how transport decarbonisation unfolds

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Last year,

My use of mobile phones has been compulsive – has it been for better or for worse?

• From a priest to a pensioner, a teenager to a tech CEO: can you guess our screen time?

In 2003, the Stanford social scientist BJ Fogg published an e

From the person who scrolls on the toilet to the one without any social media, what do their digital habits tell us?

• Will Storr: we have lost so much of ourselves to smartphones – can we get it back?

Dayeon, 16: the teenager

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days

Newly released files from DoJ show the pair making plans in 2012 and 2013 for the Tesla CEO to visit Epstein’s island

• Epstein files latest: updates as more files released

Elon Musk had more extensive – and more friendly –

With Donald Trump tearing up the world order, governments across Europe are having to confront the fact that most of the technology they rely on comes from US companies. French officials have taken a step this week to reduce their dependence on US digi

At a family gathering over Christmas, I took on my 76-year-old mother once again at virtual bowling. Could I finally best her?

My mother bore me. My mother nurtured me. My mother educated me. She has a resilience unmatched, a love all-forgiving.

Exclusive: Smartwatches, Oura rings, smart home devices and Fitbits being weaponised, says Refuge

Domestic abusers are increasingly using AI, smartwatches and other technology to attack and control their victims, a domestic abuse charity says.…

The Institute for Public Policy Research also argues that tech companies must pay publishers for content they use

AI-generated news should carry “nutrition” labels and tech companies must pay publishers for the content they use, according to a le

Meta wowed Wall Street with improvements in ad targeting fueled by AI alongside huge investment. Microsoft had less to show for its billions spent

Big tech earnings so far this week have sent a clear warning: investors are willing to overlook soa

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; The Game Bakers
A punishing, beautiful survival game that turns mountaineering into an intimate test of endurance, fixation and emotional resolve – you’ll be in tears by the end

Mountaineers and clim

Analysis finds at least 150 channels on messaging app that have distributed AI-generated images and video

Millions of people around the world have created and shared deepfake nudes on the secure messaging app Telegram, a Guardian analysis has sho

Lord Stockwood says people in government ‘definitely’ talking about idea as technology disrupts industries

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The UK could introduce a universal basic income (UBI) to protect workers in industr

Under Donald Trump, the White House has filled its social media with memes, wishcasting, nostalgia and deepfakes. Here’s what you need to know to navigate the trolling

It started with an image of Trump as a king mocked up on a fake Time magazine

Parents, teachers and young people share their views on whether social media restrictions would work in the UK

Pressure is mounting on the UK government to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s, after a decisive vote in House of Lords in

Decisions outsourced, chatbots for friends, the natural world an afterthought: Silicon Valley is giving us life void of connection. There is a way out – but it’s going to take collective effort

Summer after summer, I used to descend into a creek

Had I received any suspicious text messages claiming to be from my bank, the fraud team asked. Had I clicked on the links? My stomach dropped

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The scariest part ab

The laws have been criticised by tech startups, which say they go too far, and civil society groups, which say they don’t go far enough

South Korea has embarked on a foray into the regulation of AI, launching what has been billed as the most comp

Starmer’s team is wary of spies but such fears are not new – with Theresa May once warned to get dressed under a duvet

When prime ministers travel to China, heightened security arrangements are a given – as is the quiet game of cat and mouse that

AlphaGenome can analyse up to 1m letters of DNA code at once and could pave way for new treatments

Researchers at Google DeepMind have unveiled their latest artificial intelligence tool and claimed it will help scientists identify the genetic dri

World’s richest person targeting symbolic date in June for flotation of rocket company

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is considering a flotation valuing the rocket company at $1.5tn (£1.1tn) that will reportedly be timed for early summer to coincide with a p

Beijing’s AI policy is focused on real-life applications but Chinese companies are beginning to articulate their own grand visions

Standing on stage in the eastern China tech hub of Hangzhou, Alibaba’s normally media-shy CEO made an attention-gra

Owner Google moves to block Barb data access months after allowing 200 channels to be monitored

YouTube has been criticised by the TV and advertising industry after suspending its participation in a key measurement system that compares viewership

Founder of the world wide web says commercialisation means the net has been ‘optimised for nastiness’, but collaboration and compassion can prevail

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When Sir Tim B

​In the fiercely competitive market ​of the online multiplayer game, Highguard​’s rocky start means it now has a lot to prove

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In the fast-paced, almost psych

Workers informed after message erroneously said affected employees in US, Canada and Costa Rica had already been told

Amazon has told workers it is cutting 16,000 jobs around the world to streamline its operations, hours after sending out a messa

We need an honest reckoning with other factors that threaten young people’s wellbeing, from poverty to academic stress

Our children’s feelings are not for sale, and nor are they to be manipulated.

So said Emmanuel Macron this week, after Fr

Popularity of EVs in country is part of global trend of emerging markets spurning fossil fuel cars at surprising speeds

When Berke Astarcıoğlu bought a BMW i3 in 2016, he was one of just 44 people in a country of 80 million to buy a battery elect

The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, co-directed by Daniel Roher, delves into the world of AI through the lens of personal anxiety

Are we barreling toward AI catastrophe? Is AI an existential threat, or an epochal opportunity? Those are

Filing by New Mexico’s attorney general includes Meta staff emails objecting to AI companion policy

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, approved allowing minors to access artificial intelligence chatbot companions that safety staffers warned

Company cites impact of mandatory age checks introduced in summer 2025 under the Online Safety Act

Pornhub is to stop new users accessing its site in the UK from next week, citing the impact of mandatory age checks that were introduced last summe

From rhino-sized Rhyhorns to worm-like Diglett, visitors to PokéPark Kanto will roam a forest populated by lifelike Pokémon statues when the attraction opens next week

In Japan, February is normally a period of quiet reflection, a month defined b

Mobile Fortify app being used to scan faces of citizens and immigrants – but its use has prompted a severe backlash

Immigration enforcement agents across the US are increasingly relying on a new smartphone app with facial recognition technology.

Campaigners decry ties with ‘Trump-supporting’ tech firms after funding is accepted to develop state AI systems

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Ministers have accepted $1m (£728,000) from Meta, the US tech and social med

Tech chiefs waxed poetic about AI to delegates at Davos. Plus, the ‘human’ drama of AI startups and why Tesla is thriving in Texas

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. This week’s edition is a team effort: my colleague Heather Stewart reports on the

Dario Amodei questions if human systems are ready to handle the ‘almost unimaginable power’ that is ‘potentially imminent’

• Quarter of Britons fear losing jobs to AI in next five years

Humanity is entering a phase of artifi