Congress calls for Match Group and others to do more to help victims like Mary, who lost $100,000 to app scammerMary met a man on the dating app Plenty of Fish in 2024. She told the Guardian she had been looking for a connection, but instead became the victim of a romance scam that cost her almost $100,000.“There was a lot of conversation, and then it started with the constant contact, pressure and repeated asks for money,” Mary, who asked that her last name be withheld, said in an interview on Tuesday. “It just escalated really, really quickly.” Continue reading...

14 Oct 2026 10:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Rapid AI adoption left workers cleaning up a flood of errors and low-quality workEmployers around the globe are grappling with the fallout from rushing to adopt fast-changing artificial intelligence tools.Meta has scaled back plans to axe staff and use more AI agents after the company found employees were spending more and more time cleaning up technical and security errors, Reuters reported. And after thinning its workforce, especially middle managers, in a 2023 efficiency push, the company is expanding its managerial ranks again, LinkedIn posts from workers show. Continue reading...

13 Oct 2026 15:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

The tech bros and their highly paid sock puppets are banking on us giving in to their ‘inevitability doctrine’. But in Australia, and around the world, resistance is risingOf all the drivers of the populist wave, one of the most powerful is the sense of inevitability that surrounds what we are told is the march of progress. In presenting the future as a fait accompli, it poisons the civic well by dealing us out of the game.While the US clings on to its status as the oldest constitutional democracy, the unholy alliance between the tech overlords and the White House is creating its own AI reality untethered to the will of the people. Continue reading...

13 Oct 2026 14:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Amid worries about children’s relationship to tech, the solution is often spending more time talking openly with each otherWe have become obsessed with the idea that screens are destroying human connection.The evidence seems to be everywhere. Each week headlines warn of teenagers addicted to phones, a loneliness epidemic and the dangers of AI. The release of The Social Reckoning leads us to ask, “How bad were those guys at Meta?” and then ultimately wonder, “How bad am I if I still use Instagram?” In our day-to-day, we observe workers eating lunch alone while scrolling and friends choosing online games over offline gatherings. Continue reading...

13 Oct 2026 11:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Kwon’s answers were provided in a helpful, quiet and calm manner, but his mea culpa left the audience not much the wiserOpen AI’s Jason Kwon flew 15 hours from San Francisco to Sydney to give the company’s first in-person mea culpa after it admitted – in an unsigned email, to a public departmental inbox – that one of its AI agents had accessed a Services Australia website without authorisation and grabbed data related to Medicare.Kwon – polite, friendly, even-toned – got through a potentially dicey parliamentary committee hearing unscathed, promising to do better and pledging assistance to Australia. No missteps, no viral moments, just delivering his answers helpfully, in a quiet and calm manner, sympathising with the questioner and the point they were making. Continue reading...

06 Oct 2026 11:12 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

A giant screen, big battery, rapid chip and top cameras push the great iPhone 18 Pro to the max with a price tag to matchApple’s largest Pro iPhone gets its biggest battery upgrade yet to make it a true two-day phone with new Siri AI and a variable aperture camera.The iPhone 18 Pro Max is the supersized sibling of the regular 18 Pro and, though it is no longer Apple’s most expensive phone thanks to the £2,000 iPhone Duo, it has a similarly large price tag to match costing from £1,299 (€1,599/$1,299/A$2,299).Screen: 6.9in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A20 ProRAM: 12GBStorage: 256, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: iOS 27Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 163.4 x 78 x 8.75mmWeight: 249g Continue reading...

12 Oct 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN

Longer battery life, better screen, upgraded Siri and new variable aperture camera in refreshed design from last year’s modelApple’s smaller Pro iPhone gets the best kind of spec bump for 2026: longer battery life, faster chips and a fancy new variable aperture for the main camera.The iPhone 18 Pro is one of a pair of slab phones launched alongside Apple’s first folding phone, the iPhone Duo, and is the cheapest of the new phones, with a regular iPhone 18 yet to be announced.Screen: 6.3in Super Retina XDR (120Hz OLED) (460ppi)Processor: Apple A20 ProRAM: 12GBStorage: 256GB, 512GB or 1TBOperating system: iOS 27Camera: 48MP + 48MP UW + 48MP 4x, 18MP front-facingConnectivity: 5G, wifi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6, Thread, USB-C, Satellite, UWB and GNSSWater resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)Dimensions: 150 x 71.9 x 8.75mmWeight: 211g Continue reading...

05 Oct 2026 06:00 ✍️ RSS THE GUARDIAN