Found-footage horror about YouTube pranksters turns into an online phenomenon, giving its star and creator a Hollywood inroad

2024 is already becoming something of a banner year for horror , with Longlegs making over $100m and Late Night with the Devil earning a whopping 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And yet the breakout horror of the year might just be an $800 project currently available to watch free on YouTube.

Milk & Serial is a 62-minute, found-footage horror by YouTuber Curry Barker, and it manages to be at once ruthlessly effective and wonderfully authentic. Racking up 348,000 views in the two weeks since its release, its popularity has been supercharged by raves on Reddit that have since crossed over into traditional media. Bloody Disgusting called it “one of the year’s best-kept secrets” and this week Barker found himself being interviewed by no less than Variety .

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New running headphones combine bone conduction and open-air speakers for more rounded sound

So-called bone conduction headphones are a runner’s best friend, allowing you to be fully aware of the outside world while you listen to your motivational tunes. But the technology simply can’t generate decent bass – a problem that the open-ear headphone firm Shokz thinks it has solved with its latest OpenRun Pro 2.

The follow-up to the popular OpenRun Pro and OpenSwim lines, the OpenRun Pro 2 cost £169 (€199/$175/A$299) and resemble most competitors, with bone conduction pods held in place in front of the ear by two loops and a band that runs behind your head.

Water resistance: IP55 (spray resistant)

Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3 (SBC)

Battery life: 12h

Dimensions: 30.9 x 21.7 x 24.3mm

Weight: 30.3g

Drivers: Air and bone conduction

Charging: USB-C

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One Telegram channel had 220,000 members creating and sharing doctored images and videos, with the president saying many of the victims and perpetrators are minors

South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has ordered a crackdown on an epidemic of digital sex crimes targeting women and girls who become the unwitting victims of deepfake pornography.

Yoon’s criticism of the use, recently reported in South Korean media, of the Telegram messaging app to create and share fake, sexually explicit images and videos came amid warnings that all women were potential victims.

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Revisited: Guardian journalist Michael Safi delves into the world of artificial intelligence, exploring the dangers and promises it holds for society

This week we are revisiting the Black Box series. This episode was first broadcast on 11 March 2024.

When Eugenia Kuyda created Replika, an AI companion app, she had no idea it would be downloaded millions of times all around the world. The results were more powerful than she could ever have predicted. But so was the backlash

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Special access granted to DfE resources to train AI models to generate workbooks and lesson plans

Tech companies are being urged to create better AI tools for reducing teachers’ workloads, as ministers announced they would give AI models special access to the Department for Education’s (DfE) bank of resources.

The education minister Stephen Morgan said the move was “a huge step forward for AI in the classroom”, with the government spending £3m to create a “content bank” of official assessments, curriculum guidance and teaching materials.

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A man in Washington state has trademarked the phrase – but all isn’t lost for Jools LeBron, legal experts say

The creator behind TikTok’s “demure” catchphrase has become more mindful of US trademark law.

Jools Lebron, an influencer with over 2 million followers on the app, became an overnight sensation after advising on how to be “demure”, “mindful” and “cutesy” at work and in life. The trend picked up steam, with brands like Verizon and Netflix working with Lebron on sponsored content, and celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Olivia Rodrigo and Gillian Anderson using the phrase in their own videos.

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‘Digital pause’ experiment at 200 secondary schools could be extended nationwide in January

France is to trial a ban on mobile phones at school for pupils up to the age of 15, seeking to give children a “digital pause” that, if judged successful, could be rolled out nationwide from January.

Just under 200 secondary schools will take place in the experiment that will require youngsters to hand over phones on arrival at reception. It takes the prohibition on the devices further than a 2018 law that banned pupils at primary and secondary schools from using their phones on the premises but allowed them to keep possession of them.

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Journalists are using artificial intelligence avatars to combat Maduro’s media crackdown since disputed election

The Colombian Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez, who spent some of his happiest years chronicling life in Caracas, once declared journalism “the best job in the world”.

Not so if you are reporting on today’s Venezuela, where journalists are feeling the heat as the South American country lurches towards full-blown dictatorship under President Nicolás Maduro.

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Meta boss regrets bowing to government power and says he would not make the same choices today

The Meta boss, Mark Zuckerberg, has said he regrets bowing to what he claims was pressure from the US government to censor posts about Covid on Facebook and Instagram during the pandemic.

Zuckerberg said senior White House officials in Joe Biden’s administration “repeatedly pressured” Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to “censor certain Covid-19 content” during the pandemic.

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