35 h. ago Tech execs are paying top dollar to breed smarter babies, report claims

Silicon Valley tech execs are reportedly paying up to $50,000 for a new genetic-testing service that promises to screen embryos for IQ

Politics

60 h. ago 22 of Scotland’s smartest tech founders head to Silicon Valley and Singapore

“These international opportunities are not just about scaling businesses, but about building lasting relationships that showcase Scotland’s entrepreneurial talent on the world stage” – Kate Forbes

Politics

7 d. ago Catastrophe! Heroism! Paranoia! The dangerous romance of survivalist stories

Authors have been imagining societal collapse for decades – but could the reality be as dreadful as they think?The man who claimed to have coined the word “survivalist” called himself Kurt Saxon. The sinister godfather of survivalism was actually born Donald Eugene Sisco, a former journalist who spent the 1960s floating between far-right groups in California before deciding that none of them were serious enough. Sisco’s passion for making his own bombs, which he advocated using on student demonstrators, cost him the fingers of his left hand. He liked to say that he was the reincarnation of a soul whose previous lives included a Roman legionary, a Nazi stormtrooper and the revolutionary philosopher Thomas Paine.Survivalism, or prepping, is experiencing a boom, from Silicon Valley billionaires to users of the Reddit board r/collapse. Elon Musk’s entire career, for example, has been partly driven by apocalypse anxieties and his conviction that he alone can save the human race (details ...

Events

9 d. ago Can’t Look Away review – a harrowing, heartbreaking indictment of social media’s ruthlessness

Bloomberg journalist Olivia Carville follows a small legal outfit as it takes Silicon Valley’s most powerful companies to task for endangering young users“Tweens are herd animals” and have “an addicts’ narrative”, according to internal documents revealed by a Facebook whistleblower to congress, making clear the levels of cynicism and obfuscation the company operates with in its quest to hook young people to its platform. Bad though that is, it’s not the worst example in this lucidly laid out and often harrowing indictment of social media’s ruthlessness; that would be the proliferation of drug dealers on Snapchat, which the company seems to have to some extent turned a blind eye to in the scramble to expand its user base.Based on the investigative work of Bloomberg journalist Olivia Carville, this film covers the attempts of minnow legal outfit Social Media Victims Law Center to net the sharks of Silicon Valley. It represents a host of families who have suffered heartbreaking losses ...

Politics

1 week ago Ninety laptops, millions of dollars: US woman jailed over North Korea remote

Christine Chapman apologizes for role in identity fraud that amassed millions to allegedly aid nuclear weapons programIn March 2020, about the time the Covid pandemic started, Christina Chapman, a woman who lived in Arizona and Minnesota, received a message on LinkedIn asking her to “be the US face” of a company and help overseas IT workers gain remote employment.As working from home became the norm for many people, Chapman was able to find jobs for the foreign workers at hundreds of US companies, including some in the Fortune 500, such as Nike; “a premier Silicon Valley technology company”; and one of the “most recognizable media and entertainment companies in the world”. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Wall St and Silicon Valley ride high as tariffs hit Main Street

Banks and Big Tech are booming but slowing US growth is hurting other companies across the board

Events

3 w. ago How to get a £150 million job — inside Silicon Valley’s backstabbing AI talent war

Billions of pounds and shameless bonuses — the cut throat battle for artificial intelligence pros has gone berserk

Economics

4 w. ago Man who sent Facebook message about committing a campus sexual assault pleads guilty

A man accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and later sending her a Facebook message that said “So I raped you” has pleaded guilty

Events