Apple is about to launch a ChatGPT-powered version of Siri as part of a suite of AI features in iOS 18. Will this change the way you use your phone – and how does it affect your privacy?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is coming to your iPhone soon and, according to Apple, it’s going to transform the way you use your device. Launching under the brand name “ Apple Intelligence ” the iPhone maker’s AI tools include a turbocharged version of its voice assistant, Siri, backed by a partnership with ChatGPT owner OpenAI .

Apple isn’t the first smartphone maker to launch AI. The technology is already available on smartphones including Google’s latest Pixel and Samsung’s Galaxy range.

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Gig economy workers for Deliveroo and Uber Eats in the city are living in appalling conditions, while putting in long hours, earning low pay and facing mental health problems

Two lines of dirt-encrusted, ramshackle caravans stretch along both sides of a road close to the motorway that winds its way into the heart of Bristol. Rats dart between water-filled concrete sluices to rubbish-flecked mounds of vegetation. Drug users stumble out of the nearby underpass while lorries thunder overhead.

This is the grim encampment where about 30 Brazilian delivery riders working for large companies such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats are forced to live to make ends meet.

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Forget Hollywood depictions of gun-toting robots running wild in the streets – the reality of artificial intelligence is far more dangerous, warns the historian and author in an exclusive extract from his new book

Throughout history many traditions have believed that some fatal flaw in human nature tempts us to pursue powers we don’t know how to handle. The Greek myth of Phaethon told of a boy who discovers that he is the son of Helios, the sun god. Wishing to prove his divine origin, Phaethon demands the privilege of driving the chariot of the sun. Helios warns Phaethon that no human can control the celestial horses that pull the solar chariot. But Phaethon insists, until the sun god relents. After rising proudly in the sky, Phaethon indeed loses control of the chariot. The sun veers off course, scorching all vegetation, killing numerous beings and threatening to burn the Earth itself. Zeus intervenes and strikes Phaethon with a thunderbolt. The conceited human drops from the sky like a falling star, himself on fire. The gods reassert control of the sky and save the world.

Two thousand years later, when the Industrial Revolution was making its first steps and machines began replacing humans in numerous tasks, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published a similar cautionary tale titled The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Goethe’s poem (later popularised as a Walt Disney animation starring Mickey Mouse) tells of an old sorcerer who leaves a young apprentice in charge of his workshop and gives him some chores to tend to while he is gone, such as fetching water from the river. The apprentice decides to make things easier for himself and, using one of the sorcerer’s spells, enchants a broom to fetch the water for him. But the apprentice doesn’t know how to stop the broom, which relentlessly fetches more and more water, threatening to flood the workshop. In panic, the apprentice cuts the enchanted broom in two with an axe, only to see each half become another broom. Now two enchanted brooms are inundating the workshop with water. When the old sorcerer returns, the apprentice pleads for help: “The spirits that I summoned, I now cannot rid myself of again.” The sorcerer immediately breaks the spell and stops the flood. The lesson to the apprentice – and to humanity – is clear: never summon powers you cannot control.

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Exclusive: Some fellows fear tech billionaire could bring institution into disrepute with incendiary comments

The Royal Society is facing calls to expel Elon Musk from its fellowship over concerns about the the tech billionaire’s conduct.

The Guardian understands Musk, who owns the social media site X, was elected as a fellow of the UK’s national academy of sciences in 2018 in recognition of his work and impact in the space and electric vehicle industries, with some considering him a “modern Brunel”.

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In 2021, Germany joined a growing list of countries that have an institutionalized pirate site blocking scheme in place.

Several large ISPs teamed up with copyright holders and launched the “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet” ( CUII ), which is responsible for handing down blocking ‘orders’.

While CUII doesn’t rely on court judgments, there is some form of oversight. When copyright holders report a pirate site, a review committee first checks whether the domain is indeed linked to a website that structurally infringes copyrights.

What Sites are Blocked?

If a website overwhelmingly hosts or links to pirated material, the site can be nominated for a blocklist entry. This can apply to torrent sites, streaming portals, and direct download hubs, as long as piracy is front and center.

Germany doesn’t publish an official overview of the domain names subject to blocking. The decisions are public and often mention the target ‘site’ by name; domain names, URLs, and even the requesting rightsholders’ names are all redacted.

This ‘secrecy’ is not an oversight but a feature that’s codified in the agreement between rightsholders and Internet providers.

“The domains of the blocked [pirate sites], other domains and mirror domains, the applicants and their violated rights, as well as the names of the auditors are not mentioned,” it reads .

Transparency ‘Leak’

Secrecy surrounding blocked domains is frustrating for journalists and others who have a watchdog function. After all, without knowing which domains are blocked, it’s impossible to check for errors and overreach.

While there haven’t been any obvious errors that we’re aware of, access to information related to blocking would provide much needed transparency. With no information available from official sources, Damian, a 17-year-old German student, got together with some friends and embarked on a mission to fill in the blanks.

After sifting through the data and running domains though extensive DNS resolver tests, Damian launched CUIIliste.de , effectively lifting the blocking veil by exposing all URLs without redactions.

“The CUII blocks domains. Which ones exactly? The CUII does not reveal this. But don’t worry – that’s why we’re here. We’ll do our best to collect and publish all blocked domains,” the site explains.

275 (sub)Domains Blocked

Thus far, CUII has published 21 blocking recommendations on its official website, without disclosing any domains. According to CUIIliste, this resulted in 275 blocked domains, including subdomains.

The blocking transparency portal offers a searchable list of the domain names, which will be updated after new blocks are discovered. For the shadow library Sci-Hub, for example, all main domains (sci-hub.se, sci-hub.st and sci-hub.ru) are off-limits.

The 275 number is a bit inflated, however, as it includes many subdomains such as ww11.kinox.to. ww14.kinoz.to and ww15.kinos.to, which likely exist to counter blocking measures. If we delete all duplicates, we end up with a list of 104 domain names .

Transparency & No Censorship

According to CUII, the blocking efforts don’t amount to censorship, as they only target structurally infringing domain names. However, without transparency, that claim is difficult to verify.

Damian and his friends make this task easier and their goal doesn’t stop there. In addition to providing transparency, they also advocate against censorship and for freedom of expression. The German blocking efforts go against this, they argue.

“CUII is a private organization that blocks websites that it believes violate copyright law – without any court orders. In addition, their approach seems very non-transparent in my opinion,” Damian writes.

To address the alleged censorship part, the site also links to various options available to the public to circumvent the blocking efforts. This includes switching to third party DNS resolvers.

Netzpolitik reports that Damian spent his summer holiday working on the site. While this was a fun project, it has a serious undertone and is regularly disregarded by the mainstream press.

While it’s understandable that CUII doesn’t want to offer a portal with clickable hyperlinks to pirate sites, keeping the URLs secret is far from ideal. Or as the German news site Tarnkappe puts it: ‘It’s only metadata’.

When it comes to transparency, Germany and many other countries can learn a thing or two from Uruguay, which offers dedicated and complete transparency when it comes to pirate site blocking.

—

The full list of all unique domain names blocked by German ISPs, as reported by CUIIListe, is available below.

astrotheque.net
bs.to
buffsports.me
buffstreams.sx
burningseries.ac
burningseries.tw
canna-power.to
canna.to
cine.to
filmfans.org
filmpalast.to
harleyquinnwidget.com
harleyquinnwidget.live
harleyquinnwidget.net
israbox-music.com
israbox-music.org
israbox.com
isrbx.com
isrbx.me
isrbx.net
jokerguide.com
jokerlivestream.net
jokerlivestream.org
jokerlivestream.vip
kinos.to
kinox.am
kinox.bz
kinox.click
kinox.cloud
kinox.club
kinox.digital
kinox.direct
kinox.express
kinox.fun
kinox.fyi
kinox.gratis
kinox.io
kinox.lol
kinox.me
kinox.mobi
kinox.pub
kinox.sh
kinox.space
kinox.sx
kinox.to
kinox.tube
kinox.tv
kinox.wtf
kinoz.co
kinoz.to
megakino.biz
megakino.cab
megakino.co
megakino.ink
megakino.com
megakino.vin
megakino.ws
newalbumreleases.net
newalbumreleases.unblocked.co
newalbumreleases.unblockit.app
newalbumreleases.unblockit.bet
newalbumreleases.unblockit.blue
newalbumreleases.unblockit.buzz
newalbumreleases.unblockit.cam
newalbumreleases.unblockit.cat
newalbumreleases.unblockit.ch
newalbumreleases.unblockit.club
newalbumreleases.unblockit.day
newalbumreleases.unblockit.dev
newalbumreleases.unblockit.how
newalbumreleases.unblockit.ink
newalbumreleases.unblockit.is
newalbumreleases.unblockit.kim
newalbumreleases.unblockit.li
newalbumreleases.unblockit.link
newalbumreleases.unblockit.ltd
newalbumreleases.unblockit.me
newalbumreleases.unblockit.name
newalbumreleases.unblockit.nz
newalbumreleases.unblockit.onl
newalbumreleases.unblockit.uno
newerastreams.com
nsw2u.com
nsw2u.in
nsw2u.net
nsw2u.xyz
nswgame.com
romslab.com
s.to
sci-hub.ru
sci-hub.se
sci-hub.st
serienfans.org
serienjunkies.biz
serienjunkies.eu
serienjunkies.info
serienjunkies.org
serienjunkies.us
serienstream.to
streamkiste.tv
taodung.com
tazz.tv
tennis.stream
ziperto.com

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Researchers say their creation has memory, which it can use to perform better by gaining experience

Researchers have found a soft and squidgy water-rich gel is not only able to play the video game Pong, but gets better at it over time.

The findings come almost two years after brain cells in a dish were taught how to play the 1970s classic, a result the researchers involved said showed “something that resembles intelligence”.

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Olympic hero Michael Johnson and archer Matt Stutzman interview stars including Kadeena Cox in Rising Phoenix. Plus: five of the best podcasts about classic movies

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If there’s one thing you should know about me, it’s that I am really, really interested in drugs. I read Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain earlier this year after it spent way too long on my “to read” pile, and found its tale of the rise and rise of the Sackler opioid dynasty genuinely terrifying (though isn’t artist turned Oxy campaigner Nan Goldin a total hero ?).

Naturally, I got stuck into Scripts this week – a new miniseries from the Atlantic – about “the pills we take for our brains and the stories we tell ourselves about them”. It’s sensitively made, but scary, as much of this stuff is; the tale of two siblings who found themselves on the same treatment for heroin addiction, but whose lives took very different paths, will stay with me for a while. As with Dan Taberski’s recent series Hysterical , about a group of young girls who developed Tourettes-like symptoms in tandem, there are real characters in here dealing with some very difficult ailments, but we’re also never far away from bigger questions about how we think about mental health and selfhood.

Read on for our picks of the week, from scammer dads to a gritty Paralympics pod, and five of the best podcasts for fans of classic movies – from old Hollywood hits to Hammer horror history.

Hannah J Davies
Deputy editor, newsletters

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Serbian green campaigner who co-drafted declaration against lithium exploitation now fears for his safety

When Aleksandar Matković received the first message threatening his life, he thought it was a prank. The text, sent to his Telegram account just after midnight on 14 August read: “We will follow you until you disappear, scum.”

Matković is one of the campaigners who have been at the forefront of widespread protests against plans to develop a massive lithium mine in Serbia. He said: “At first I thought someone was joking but during the morning I got another message, saying ‘how is the struggle against Rio Tinto going?’ from another profile I didn’t know, and the app displayed the sender’s distance as just 500 [metres] away.”

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Top-class camera, huge screen, long battery life, Add Me photo trick and advanced Gemini Live are impressive

Google’s new superphone goes all out on battery, camera and smarts, leading a new line of Android devices that can run the company’s Gemini AI system with a next-generation conversational voice assistant that is a huge leap forward.

The Pixel 9 Pro XL is the biggest normal phone Google makes, costing from £1,099 (€1,199/$1,099/A$1,849) and is joined for the first time this year by a smaller 9 Pro model with the same specs and camera costing £999 (€1,099/$999/A$1,699). The XL is therefore for people who want a huge screen and big battery.

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