A lot of things in the chaos that is life have sparked comparisons to Netflix’s dark anthology series Black Mirror over the years. Its very first episode back in 2011 - “The National Anthem” – resurfaced in 2015 amid ‘Piggate’ and David Cameron, Apple’s Animojis drew parallels with the titular animated bear in “The Waldo Moment”, and just this week people thought Apple’s first AR headset looked particularly dystopian. Now, as both tech experts and political advisers warn of the threat of artificial intelligence (AI), and the AI chatbot ChatGPT continues to generate memes and news stories online, Black Mirror’s creator Charlie Brooker has revealed he’s had a go with the software – albeit with underwhelming results. He told Empire: “I’ve toyed around with ChatGPT a bit. The first thing I did was type ‘generate Black Mirror episode’ and it comes up with something that, at first glance, reads plausibly, but on second glance, is s***. “Because all it’s done is look up all the synopses of Black Mirror episodes, and sort of mush them together. Then if you dig a bit more deeply you go, ‘oh, there’s not actually any real original thought here.’” Shame – that would have been suitably meta. Brooker did, however, note some learnings from his experience with the chatbot, adding: “I was aware that I had written lots of episodes where someone goes, ‘oh, I was inside a computer the whole time!’ So I thought, ‘I’m just going to chuck out any sense of what I think a Black Mirror episode is.’ Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “There’s no point in having an anthology show if you can’t break your own rules. Just a sort of nice, cold glass of water in the face.” Although an AI-produced episode of Black Mirror is off the cards for now, fans of the show do have five new ones to look forward to when the hotly anticipated season six drops on Netflix on 15 June. Opening episode “Joan Is Awful” features a Netflix parody known as Streamberry in scenes akin to The Truman Show (and stars Scott Pilgrim actor Michael Cera and comedian Rob Delaney), episode two titled “Loch Henry” is reported to have elements of past episode “White Bear” in it, and Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul is up in space in “Beyond The Sea”. Meanwhile the penultimate episode “Mazey Day” appears to follow the scandal-hit celebrity in its title, and stage stars Anjana Vasan and Paapa Essiedu round off the series with “Demon 76” – a story which is reportedly about a sales assistant forced to do awful things. Yeah, that sounds about right. 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.

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Elon Musk is “purging” old accounts on Twitter, he has said, in yet another controversial change to the service. He said that accounts with “no activity at all for several years” would be removed from the platform. He noted that the result is likely to be a decrease in people’s follower account. But the move has already led to widespread criticism from users who say that it could remove important personal and social history from the site, as well as being yet another ill-explained move from Mr Musk. Much remains unclear about the plan. Mr Musk did not clarify what would mark an active account, for instance – whether it would need its owner to sign in, or if they might have to post – and gave no information about the timescale of the “purging”. But here’s everything we do know about what will be happening to those old Twitter accounts. Why would Elon Musk do this? Mr Musk suggested that the focus is on “free[ing] up abandoned handles”. Many Twitter users who joined the site in its early years were able to claim much-desired usernames – such as those with only three characters – and have not used them since. Even before the purge, people have gone to considerable lengths in order to get those accounts. Those holding particularly valuable handles have spoken about being subject both to hacking attacks and considerable monetary offers to get access to them. It also has the benefit of giving an indication that staying as an active member of Twitter is valuable – or, at least, that it might be problematic not to use an account at all. That in turn could mean that more people log in to more Twitter accounts more regularly, which is a key metric at advertising-driven companies such as Twitter. Why is it being criticised? Many users have suggested that getting rid of those old, inactive accounts will mean deleting history. That might mean deleting accounts that were run by dead loved ones, or simply removing posts that have had a substantial impact on the world. In response, Mr Musk has indicated that the accounts will be “archived”, in a tweet replying to one such critic. He did not give any information about what this might mean, but other comments suggested that the posts may stay available on Twitter but not at the old handle. Many also suggested that the plan had not been fully thought through when it was announced, noting that Mr Musk had given no information to those who might have accounts removed, such as those that use them only to follow developments on Twitter and not post their own tweets. Read More Elon Musk threatens to reassign inactive Twitter accounts Elon Musk says Twitter will let media outlets charge users per article view Jack Dorsey says Twitter ‘went south’ after its sale to Elon Musk Bluesky might be the hottest and most controversial app in the world Apple finally launches two professional apps on the iPad AI robots figure out how to play football in shambolic footage

One of the quests in 'Starfield' took inspiration from crime drama 'Donnie Brascao'.

Apple is holding what is set to be a “scary” event next week, in which it will introduce mystery products. The “Scary Fast” event is unusual in a number of ways. It begins very late, at midnight UK time; it is also unusually late in the month, on 30 October and just a day before Hallowe’en; and Apple also announced it late, inviting the world less than a week before it actually started. But it is also unusual in that it is very hard to predict what might actually be announced. It seems clear that it will involved the Mac in some way – the invitation included strong hints, such as a reference to the logo of the Finder app that is on all of Apple’s computers – but the event remains largely mysterious beyond that. Here are the best guesses at what might be coming in Apple’s unexpected, potentially spooky launch live stream. New chips Apple started designing its own Mac processors in 2020, in a programme it called Apple Silicon. Since then, Macs have been updated around their processors, rather than the other way around. The Apple processors began with the M1, which was put into a host of computers that were released in November of 2020. It then introduced different variations: the M1 Pro, Max and Ultra, which are used in the higher-end computers. Last June, Apple revealed the M2, which has gradually replaced the M1. And at the beginning of this year it revealed updates to those higher-end versions: an M2 and M2 Max in January, and an Ultra in June. If Apple is to reveal an M3, and maybe even M3 Pro and Max, then it would be doing so much more quickly than the previous update cycle, and much sooner than most expected. But Apple Silicon is so young that there is no sense of how its cycle goes. What’s more, it seems unlikely that Apple would hold an event of this kind without a big update to announce – and the obvious big update that’s waiting is the M3. If it is coming, then expect it to bring speed improvements. The M2 ran a little more hot than the previous version, so Apple might address that too. New iMac The most widely expected new computer is an updated version of the 24-inch iMac. That was first introduced in April 2021, and hasn’t been updated at all since. The original computer was released to widespread acclaim, though some questions of how many people wanted such a computer today, with the popularity of laptops. Apple may have avoided updating in part for that reason. But now it looks set to finally get an update, skipping the M2 chip line and going straight onto the M3. It is not clear whether it will get any other upgrades beyond that. Faster high-end MacBook Pro Some rumours have suggested that Apple will update its whole chip line-up at once – not releasing the M3 first and then slowly adding the higher-end chips, as it has in the past. If that is the case, then it would be expected to put them into its 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. Those computers were first introduced almost exactly two years ago, when they used the M1 series, but were last updated at the beginning of the year to get the M2 Pro and Max. Apple could switch the chips out to the new family, rumours have suggested. Beyond that, big updates to the MacBook Pro are unlikely, given how recently it was changed. But there have been some rumours that they could receive small tweaks to their display. Other Apple computers do also rely on those higher-end chips, with the Mac Studio being most notable among them. That was updated even more recently, however – in June of this year – and so seems even less likely to get yet another refresh. Refreshed other laptops If Apple is introducing a new base-level M3 chip, then it could come to all of its computers at once. At the moment, the M2 is found in a host of other Macs – the smaller and larger MacBook Air, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the Mac mini – and so they could all potentially be updated to the new generation. Entirely new Macs? Apple might not only refresh its existing Macs, but could launch entirely new ones, too. Some rumours have suggested that Apple is working on a new version of the iMac that could be bigger (at 30-inch), faster (with a Pro or Max processor), or both in one. Apple offered this kind of computer for a few years, in the form of the iMac Pro. That was the large model of the iMac but sold in a darker finish, with matching accessories and a range of performance improvements. It was only sold between 2017 and 2021, a period when Apple’s Mac Pro offering went largely without updates and plenty of criticism. Part of the job of the iMac Pro was to fill that role while Apple worked on other solutions, and the Mac Studio that was first introduced last year now does much the same job Non-Macs The event does seem to be primarily focused on Macs. And Apple has already released another product – the confusing new Apple Pencil – that might have been expected to be included if it didn’t want to focus only on the computers. There are other products waiting to be updated: no iPad has seen an update all year, for instance, and the line-up is now a little complicated as well as behind. But this event looks set to focus on computers rather than tablets. Apple might however choose to give an update on the Vision Pro, the augmented reality headset that it first revealed this June and which it has said is on track to arrive early next year. That headset does rely on a Mac processor – it was announced with the M2, though perhaps that could be updated to an M3 before it actually comes out – and so could potentially be tied into a Mac focused event. Read More Apple announces surprise event: ‘Scary fast’ Apple ‘is planning surprise Mac announcement soon’ Apple just released a new Pencil after days of excitement Sadiq Khan, Met Commissioner to ask phone companies to ‘design out’ theft Apple is planning to make a cheaper Vision Pro headset without key features ‘We are broken’: Armenia looks to technology to rebuild

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McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Delta were among dozens of websites that went down after Amazon’s cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services crashed. The outage, which took place on Wednesday afternoon according to DownDetector, also impacted The Associated Press as they tried to cover the criminal arraignment of former president Donald Trump. Amazon said that the cause of the issue was linked to a function called AWS Lambda, which allows customers to run code for different types of applications. Amazon said it was experiencing multiple error rates for multiple AWS services in an availability zone based in Northern Virginia, reported CBS News. The AWS Health Dashboard stated that issues in the US-East-1 region started at around 3pm ET. “Many AWS services are now fully recovered and marked Resolved on this event. We are continuing to work to fully recover all services,” the company posted at 5pm ET. Read More Amazon using AI to crack down on fake review ‘brokers’ Revealed: The delivery apps charging you double for your food shop Amazon staff spied on women private through Ring cameras, officials say

On the eastern side of Bengaluru, the city sometimes called the Silicon Valley of India, sits a campus