What is it like to go without a partner when you long for one – and when even a fleeting sexual connection feels impossible? When a woman named Alana coined the term “incel” in the late 90s, she couldn’t have predicted the outcome. What started as a harmless website to connect lonely, “involuntary celibate” men […]
BT took an age to install our community centre’s superfast broadband
After six months and 15 visits by Openreach technicians BT still left us without a working connection Back in March I placed an order with BT for “superfast enhanced” broadband for the community centre which I help run as a volunteer in Hastings. It is now almost six months on and we are no nearer […]
Michael Caine on Brexit, Boris Johnson and big breaks: ‘I’ve done 150 movies. I think that’s enough’
He blew the doors off in the 60s as part of an upstart generation of actors. As he releases a new film and tries his hand at novel-writing, is he about to make a clean getaway from the movie business? Michael Caine is 88 and walks with a stick. He has a gammy leg and […]
China economy slows as power cuts, property woes and Covid take toll
GDP grew 4.9% in the quarter to September, the lowest for a year, as the post-pandemic recovery loses steam and Evergrande problems persist China’s economy grew slower than expected in the third quarter, official data showed on Monday, thanks to power outages, supply bottlenecks, Covid outbreaks, and concerns about the struggling property sector. Although China’s […]
Cameron Norrie claims biggest win of his career to collect Indian Wells title
New world No 16 beats Nikoloz Basilashvili 3-6, 6-4, 6-1 in final Norrie the first British man to win title in Californian desert After an imperious breakthrough week at the BNP Paribas Open in which the heightened stakes of each new round brought out a greater level of play from Cameron Norrie, the best men’s […]
‘At once intolerable and addictive’: five wellbeing courses and apps, road-tested
From bibliotherapy to burpees, gratitude journals to cathartic workouts, Nadine von Cohen logs into Australia’s new crop of wellbeing apps Australians are the world’s biggest consumers of health and wellness apps, punching well above our per capita weight in our quest for peak physical and mental condition, according to research from telecommunications company Uswitch. In […]
Small firms’ fury as Amazon offers £3,000 sign-up bonus to attract Christmas staff
Warning that online giant’s move will lead to higher prices and empty shelves in shops Amazon is offering signing-up bonuses of up to £3,000 in areas of Britain with labour shortages, to attract workers in time for the Christmas surge in demand. The Food and Drink Federation says there is a “battle for labour” in […]
Facebook’s policing of vitriol is even more lackluster outside the US, critics say
Digital activists around the world are urging Facebook to take seriously how its algorithm incites misinformation and ethnic violence On a cloudy evening in Nairobi, Berhan Taye is scrolling through a spreadsheet in which she has helped document more than 140 Facebook posts from Ethiopia that contain hate speech. There are videos of child abuse, […]
Apple’s plan to scan images will allow governments into smartphones | John Naughton
Client-side scanning, as the technology is called, should really be treated like wiretapping and regulated accordingly For centuries, cryptography was the exclusive preserve of the state. Then, in 1976, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman came up with a practical method for establishing a shared secret key over an authenticated (but not confidential) communications channel without […]
Eco-friendly, lab-grown coffee is on the way, but it comes with a catch
Beanless brews can cut deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions dramatically – but what will happen to workers in traditional coffee-growing regions? Heiko Rischer isn’t quite sure how to describe the taste of lab-grown coffee. This summer he sampled one of the first batches in the world produced from cell cultures rather than coffee beans. “To […]