iPhone 16e review: Apple’s cheapest new phone

Apple’s cheapest new smartphone is the iPhone 16e, which offers the basic modern iPhone experience including the latest chips and AI features but for a little less than its other models.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The iPhone 16e costs £599 (€699/$599/A$999) and is the spiritual successor to the iPhone SE line

Elon Musk claims ‘massive cyber-attack’ caused X outages

Elon Musk claimed on Monday afternoon that X was targeted in a “massive cyber-attack” that resulted in the intermittent service outages that had brought down his social network throughout the day. The platform, formerly known as Twitter, had been unresponsive for many users as posts failed to load.“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” the platform’s CEO posted. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved.”Downdetector, a website that monitors outages on various sites and platforms, showed thousands of reports of outages that initially spiked at about 5

The making of Elon Musk: how did his childhood in apartheid South Africa shape him?

The billionaire and now Trump adviser grew up amid the collapse of white rule, attending an all-white school and then a more liberal oneWith an imposing double-winged redbrick main building, and school songs lifted directly from Harrow’s songbook, Pretoria boys high school is every inch the South African mirror of the English private schools it was founded in 1901 to imitate.Elon Musk, who has rapidly become one of the most powerful people in US politics, spent his final school years in the 1980s as a day pupil on the lush, tree-filled campus in South Africa’s capital, close to his father’s large detached home in Waterkloof, a wealthy Pretoria suburb shaded by purple jacaranda blossoms in spring.South Africa was rocked by uprisings as apartheid entered its dying years. In 1984, black townships across the country revolted. By 1986, the white minority government had imposed a state of emergency

Skype shutdown surfaces sweet memories: ‘I proposed marriage’

Microsoft announced on the last day of February that it would sunset Skype. By the time the death knell tolled, the video chatting software that once revolutionized communications had become a ghost of its former self. Experts chimed in with half-hearted eulogies for the platform that Microsoft spent years neglecting, yet few were surprised, and even fewer shed tears.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link

Who bought this smoked salmon? How ‘AI agents’ will change the internet (and shopping lists)

Autonomous digital assistants are being developed that can carry out tasks on behalf of the user – including ordering the groceries. But if you don’t keep an eye on them, dinner might not be quite what you expect …I’m watching artificial intelligence order my groceries. Armed with my shopping list, it types each item into the search bar of a supermarket website, then uses its cursor to click. Watching what appears to be a digital ghost do this usually mundane task is strangely transfixing. “Are you sure it’s not just a person in India?” my husband asks, peering over my shoulder

Internet shutdowns at record high in Africa as access ‘weaponised’

Digital blackouts reached a record high in 2024 in Africa as more governments sought to keep millions of citizens off the internet than in any other period over the last decade.A report released by the internet rights group Access Now and #KeepItOn, a coalition of hundreds of civil society organisations worldwide, found there were 21 shutdowns in 15 African countries, surpassing the existing record of 19 shutdowns in 2020 and 2021.Authorities in Comoros, Guinea-Bissau and Mauritius joined repeat offenders such as Burundi, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea and Kenya. Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania were also on the list. But perpetrators also included militias and other non-state actors