The European Union is targeting Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Facebook owner Meta and TikTok parent ByteDance under new digital rules aimed at reining in the market power of online companies

Most of Reddit has now gone “dark” in protest against the management of the online forum. The controversy began when Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API, the technology that allows other developers access to its data. Some of those developers immediately announced that the pricing was so high that it would make their apps unsustainable – and one, widely-respected client Apollo, has since said it will have to shut down. That set off outrage across Reddit. While that initially focused on the decision to start charging for access to its data, it has since grown, with many users suggesting that they are generally dissatisfied with the way the site is being managed. What has happened to Reddit? On June 12, many of the world’s biggest subreddits went “dark”. That meant setting their privacy settings to private, so that only anyone who is already a member can see them. For anyone who tries to visit those forums and is not a member – which includes most of those on Reddit, including many of its biggest – they will see a message that it has gone private and is therefore not available. In a widely circulated message explaining the outage, users explained that it was intended as a protest. Some will return on 14 June, after 48 hours of darkness, it says, but others might opt to never come back again if the problem is not addressed. That is because “many moderators aren’t able to put in the work they do with the poor tools available through the official app” the message reads. “This isn’t something any of us do lightly: we do what we do because we love Reddit, and we truly believe this change will make it impossible to keep doing what we love.” Why did Reddit change its policy? All of this began because Reddit announced that it would start charging for access to its API. Many of its users – including Christian Selig, the developer of the Apollo app that is at the centre of much of the controversy – say that this is reasonable. Reddit’s data is used by sites such as Google and to train artificial intelligence systems, for instance. And at the moment, Reddit is not paid for that usage, despite the fact that it costs the company (which is not profitable) to host that data. But it was the pricing and the way it was rolled out that caused such controversy. Mr Selig said that the pricing would cost his app $2 million per month, which is much more than storing the user data is thought to cost Reddit, and he and others were given only 30 days to respond. Which Reddit forums are part of the blackout? Almost all of them. The latest numbers suggest that 7259, out of 7806, of the site’s subreddits are currently unavailable to the public. Of the seven subreddits that have more than 30 million subscribers, all but one – r/pics – have been made private. A full, live list that shows both the subreddits that are down and the overall impact of the protest can be found on this tracking page. How can this happen? Reddit is unusual among social networks in that it depends heavily on its users, who administer the forums and moderate the content that appear on them. That saves it a lot of money – Meta, for instance, spends vast sums on ensuring that problematic content does not appear on Facebook and Instagram – and means that those users feel as if they should be listened to when it comes to such issues. It also means that they are able to take decisions that the management of Reddit might not like them to, including turning those subreddits private. Some 30,000 moderators are thought to be running the subreddits that are involved in the protest, and working together has given them considerable power to grind the site to a halt. Read More Reddit is in chaos – and it’s CEO has finally responded Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely Reddit down amid major protest Popular Reddit app Apollo shuts down as site’s users revolt against it Millions of Reddit users face a blackout over pricing revolt Scientists reveal the ‘violent, catastrophic’ origin of Geminids meteor shower

Google Earth has brought attention to some of the weirdest things we’ve ever seen on the internet – and that’s really saying something. But at times, it really helps to shine a light on truly awe inspiring places that most people would otherwise never even hear about. That’s certainly the case with Vostok island, which people on the internet have been focusing on recently. The uninhabited island is found in the Pacific Ocean and it’s become the subject of much speculation over recent times. But why are people suddenly obsessed with this random island in the middle of nowhere? Well, it’s because the way it’s presented on Google Earth, it looks like the island is “hollow”. Taking an initial look on there, it does look like the island could contain a deep lake or another unusual landform. However, it’s pretty common for areas to be blocked out on Google Earth for a number of reasons. Sometimes, the site just doesn’t have access to different places, or people have requested places to be removed. In the years since it first appeared on Google Earth, there have been all kinds of conspiracies surrounding the Island. Over more recent times, though, it’s become more and more clear that there’s nothing that mysterious about Vostok – and no, it’s not hollow. In fact, it’s part of the Republic of Kiribati, and it’s a remote haven for nature lovers. It’s still a relatively obscure island, given its location, but one National Geographic video does show a diver discussing the idyllic conditions among the island’s coral reefs. Strange things do, though, continue to fascinate people on Google Earth. From mysterious "pyramids” in Antarctica to a "UFO" near the home of Harry and Meghan, there's plenty for conspiracy theorists to get excited about. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings

Scientists have invented a type of electronic skin that can “talk directly to the brain”, allowing amputees to feel a human-like sense of touch through prosthetic limbs. The ground-breaking artificial skin is embedded with sensors for temperature, pressure and strain, which are converted into electrical signals – similar to how nerve impulses communicate with the brain. The wearable electronic circuit, known as a monolithic e-skin, was developed by a team from Stanford University, who detailed their breakthrough in a study published in the journal Science. Stanford University’s Zhenan Bao, who was a senior author of the study, told The Independent that the next-generation technology could also be used to feel objects and sensations while controlling a robotic limb remotely. “We’ve been working on a monolithic e-skin for some time,” Professor Bao said. “The hurdle was not so much finding mechanisms to mimic the remarkable sensory abilities of human touch, but bringing them together using only skin-like materials.” Weichen Wang, a doctoral candidate in Bao’s lab, added: “Much of that challenge came down to advancing the skin-like electronic materials so that they can be incorporated into integrated circuits with sufficient complexity to generate nerve-like pulse trains and low enough operating voltage to be used safely on the human body.” A prototype of the e-skin, which is about the thickness of a piece of paper, is the first to combine all the desired electrical and mechanical features of human skin in a soft and durable form. The team now plans to increase the scalability of the technology and develop an implantable chip to allow wireless communication through the body’s peripheral nerve. Other recent research into electronic skin has focussed on robotics, aiming to provide robots with sensory feedback and physical self-awareness. A team from the University of Edinburgh unveiled a device earlier this year that offered perceptive senses “similar to those of people and animals”. A separate study in 2023 from engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) outlined a type of artificial skin capable of sensing toxic chemicals, which could allow robots to detect anything from pollution in rivers to nerve agents and biohazards. Read More AI robots figure out how to play football in shambolic footage Scientists develop device that allows amputees to feel warmth in phantom hand Charting the controversial rise of the world’s most popular app Montana TikTok ban ‘unconstitutional’ and ‘impossible to enforce’

What did Trainwrecks specifically mention about these upcoming streamers? Did he disclose any names?

Artificial intelligence often induces fear, awe or some panicked combination of both for its impressive ability to generate unique human-like text in seconds. But its implications for cheating in the classroom — and its sometimes comically wrong answers to basic questions — have left some in academia discouraging its use in school or outright banning AI tools like ChatGPT.

BRUSSELS EU antitrust regulators are asking Microsoft's rivals and customers whether they are affected by the U.S. tech

This year's Apple WWDC live stream clocked in at just over two hours long, and

Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal marketing executive, is preparing to take over the CEO role at Twitter from Elon Musk, weeks after the billionaire announced hiring her for the top spot at the social media company.

Google’s decision to delete millions of inactive Gmail accounts could erase millions of photos and other irretrievable memories, users have warned. The purge, which comes into effect next month and will hit any account that has not been used for more than two years, could impact parents who have set up email addresses for young children in order to share and mark milestones with them. It could also inadvertently affect people who continue to manage the online accounts of deceased relatives. Googleannounced the policy in a blog post earlier this year, claiming that the move aims to protect active users from security threats like phishing scams and account hijacking. The mass closure will also free up significant amounts of server space, which will also save the US tech giant money and resources. Google warned that the new policy applied to personal Google accounts, which includes content within Google Photos and Google Workspace tools like Docs, Drive, Gmail, Meet and Calendar. Nicholas Worley, founder and chief executive of digital archiving platform Inalife, urged people to take action immediately in order to risk losing access to the accounts. “If you have a Google account set up for your kids and have been emailing them, or if you manage the account of a deceased loved one... Login, save or backup any important memories and stories,” he wrote on LinkedIn. Mr Worley told The Independent that he began recording memories when he learnt he was having his first child in 2019. “I have friends and now Inalife users who had set up emails for their kids and hadn’t known about the deletion issue before being told,” he said. The Independent has reached out to Google for further information about whether any impacted accounts will be retrievable once the purge has taken place, and the exact number of accounts potentially impacted. In its May blog post, Google’s vice president of product management Ruth Kricheli said that users would be able to keep their account active by reading or sending an email, using Google Drive, watching a YouTube video while logged in, downloading an app on the Google Play Store, or using Google Search. “[The] update helps us continue our advancements in account security, and helps reinforce our commitment to keep your private information private,” she wrote. “This update aligns our policy with industry standards around retention and account deletion and also limits the amount of time Google retains your unused personal information.” Google has already begun sending notifications to both the main email addresses and recovery emails of any accounts at risk of deletion. Read More Google is about to ditch passwords forever Google issues three-week warning to Gmail account holders One of the world’s most hyped tech products just launched – and made a big mistake ‘Is AI dangerous?’ UK’s most Googled questions about artificial intelligence

Charli D'amelio once questioned how she can rectify her height on Google search as it showed she was 5 ft 7 in

TL;DR: As of Aug. 30, you can get a refurbished Lenovo 2-in-1 Touchscreen Chromebook for