Heavy spending on driver incentives pushes Uber to bigger-than-forecast loss

Revenues double as demand for rides increases, but ride-hailing company has to spend moreHeavy spending to encourage drivers back to the road has pushed ride-hailing firm Uber into a larger-than-expected loss, despite the company than doubling its revenues as demand for its services increased.Uber’s “take rate”, or its share of the fare, dropped in...

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Move over, space. Tech billionaires have a new utopian boondoggle: the ‘metaverse’ | Jessa Crispin

Imagine a massive, invisible world that surrounds you but which you cannot see or engage unless you own the correct – expensive – technologyLook at all of our tech billionaires trying to leave the world to evade responsibility for their malevolent influence on it. Anything to avoid being confronted by the workers they exploit or the victims of the ethnic...

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Facebook let fossil-fuel industry push climate misinformation, report finds

Thinktank InfluenceMap accuses petroleum giants of gaming Facebook to promote oil and gas as part of climate-crisis solutionFacebook failed to enforce its own rules to curb an oil and gas industry misinformation campaign over the climate crisis during last year’s presidential election, according to a new analysis released on Thursday.The report, by...

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Taylor Wimpey profits show what a waste Sunak’s stamp duty giveaway was | Nils Pratley

The housebuilder and its rivals did not need help from the taxpayer to get through the pandemicFrom where Rishi Sunak sits, he might regard Taylor Wimpey’s bumper set of first-half figures as a triumph of policymaking. The chancellor threw subsidies at the housing market during the pandemic in the form of stamp duty holidays and probably hoped to see...

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TechScape: Why ‘hacker summer camp’ and pandemics don’t mix

Up for discussion in the Guardian tech newsletter: DEF CON hit by Covid concerns … Zuckerberg enters the Metaverse … and the impact of Final Fantasy VIIIn a normal year, I would be getting on a plane today and travelling to Las Vegas for the loose conglomeration of events informally known as “Hacker Summer Camp”. Centred around DEF CON and its stuffy...

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Sony profits soar as it benefits from home entertainment boom

Semiconductor shortage means production volumes of PlayStation 5 fall short of demandCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageProfits at Sony Corporation have climbed by more than a quarter as demand for the PlayStation 5 games console, which boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic, continues to outpace supplies.The Japanese entertainment...

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Let us regulate ‘wild west’ of cryptocurrency, SEC chair urges

Gary Gensler seeks more authority from Congress to oversee a market ‘rife with fraud, scams and abuse’The chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has called on Congress to give the agency more authority to police cryptocurrency trading, lending and platforms, a “wild west” he said was riddled with fraud and investor risk.Gary Gensler...

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Twitter admits it verified fake account of author Cormac McCarthy

Reclusive US novelist’s agent confirms he did not share his opinions about kombucha and SoundCloudCormac McCarthy is known for his sparse punctuation and distinctive writing style, the violent and pessimistic themes of his work, and his reclusive public persona. So it was surprising to see the novelist on Twitter, sharing bons mots about kombucha and...

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A moment that changed me: I realised I had become a masochist – and quit Twitter

Social media brought me better jobs, close friends and love. But I was ignoring the ways in which the constant criticism and approval were shaping my lifeIn March 2009, I type in “twitter.com” and sign up for the next 12 years of my life. I am 20, in my first year of uni. I have three friends and hate it here. But, on Twitter, I can talk to real music...

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Sky News Australia purges several videos from YouTube after ban over Covid misinformation

The newly deleted videos include hosts and MP Craig Kelly discussing unproven treatment hydroxychloroquineSky News Australia has purged several videos promoting unproven Covid-19 treatments from its YouTube page ahead of the scheduled lifting of its suspension from the platform.Sky News was on Thursday banned for a week from uploading any new content...

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