Landmark losses for Meta and YouTube as big tech misses the point

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor for the Guardian. I’m hoping futilely for warm spring weather in New York City, but while it’s still cold, I’m sitting inside and reading The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr. Published in 2010 and a finalist for the Pulitzer prize, the book is a fascinating record of our anxieties about technology at a time when the iPhone was just three years old and Facebook was just six. Google Chrome had debuted two years prior, and I think I was using Mozilla Firefox as my main browser

Teenager died after asking ChatGPT for ‘most successful’ way to take his life, inquest told

A 16-year-old boy killed himself after asking ChatGPT for the “most successful” way to take your own life, an inquest has been told.Luca Cella Walker, a private school pupil from Yateley, Hampshire, died on 4 May last year.An inquest at Winchester coroner’s court heard on Tuesday that, hours before his death, Walker had asked the generative AI chatbot for the “most successful” way for someone to kill themself on a railway line.At the time of his death, he was studying at Sixth Form College Farnborough. He had recently graduated from Lord Wandsworth College near Hook, Hampshire

Head of NHS England ‘really worried’ about medicine supplies

The head of the NHS in England has said he is “really worried” about medicine supply issues.A number of experts have raised concerns about cost implications and supply disruption linked to the war in Iran.The NHS England chief executive, Jim Mackey, was asked during a phone-in on LBC Radio on Tuesday what contingency planning was in place because “the UK imports 75% of its medicine”. He said: “We are really worried about this. We’ve already had a couple of supply shocks in the last 12 to 18 months of key supplies

Nigel Farage’s biggest problem? Donald Trump

By day 31 of the war in the Middle East, Nigel Farage had become somewhat less vocal about the closeness of his relationship with Donald Trump.“Trying to read what’s really in the minds of people in the White House right at the moment is a mug’s game,” said the MP, as he unveiled his party’s latest “pledge” to cut the cost of living on Tuesday.Perched on a stool against the backdrop of departing flights, Farage had come to Heathrow airport to promote a plan to scrap taxes on short-haul journeys.Yet when the questions inevitably came about the conflict’s potentially catastrophic impact on Britain’s economy, the Reform leader was forced to grapple with what has suddenly become the primary barrier to people voting for his party: Donald Trump.The US president is now underwater in terms of his favourability even with Reform voters, who were previously the only set of UK party supporters who saw him positively, according to polling by More in Common

King’s state visit to US will take place in April despite calls to delay amid Iran war – UK politics live

The king’s state visit to the US is to go ahead next month as planned, Buckingham Palace has finally confirmed. The Press Association says:double quotation markCharles and the queen’s long-expected historic trip to see Donald Trump will take place in late April despite calls for it to be postponed because of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.It will be the king’s first visit to the US as monarch and the first state visit by a British sovereign to America for nearly 20 years, since Queen Elizabeth II’s tour in 2007.Charles and Camilla will commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence, attend a glittering state dinner at the White House, and the king will address Congress, the Palace confirmed.But exact dates and details have yet to be disclosed

Australian supermarket Easter eggs taste test: ‘The quality of Easter chocolate is simply worse’

Nicholas Jordan goes on the hunt for good Easter eggs. After nibbling through 29 products, he is glad the ovum ordeal is overGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailIf you value our independent journalism, we hope you’ll consider supporting us todayWhen I was a kid, chocolate usually came with some kind of regulatory statement: “you can have some if you finish your dinner”, or “don’t eat it all at once”. But at Easter, that went out the window. The amount of chocolate I ate then is barely believable.Now that adult me is making the decisions, I can eat chocolate whenever I want, with the fervour of an unaccompanied labrador in a pet food shop