Tech Digest daily roundup: Cinemas accepting Digital ID cards

Being turned away from a 15 or 18 rated film for not having the right identification with you might be a thing of the past. The UK Cinema Association – which includes Cineworld, Odeon, Showcase Cinemas, and Vue – are partnering with digital ID firm Yoti. The free app will be accepted as proof of age, providing a safe and convenient way to show ID. It is hoped the move will tackle abuse against cinema staff too… In order to use the Yoti ID, children will need to have a smartphone where they can download the free app, adding details from their passport and a current photograph. BBC 

Google was once so dazzlingly brilliant at what it did that it became a verb, and its cherubic founders were the goofy face of Silicon Valley innocence. Today Google isn’t so innocent, and it isn’t even so good at web searches any more. Nobody knows better how those ideals were corrupted by greed than Google’s former head of advertising at the giant, Sridhar Ramaswamy, who joined in 2003 and became one of the key figures in its astronomical growth… Ramaswamy is the co-founder and chief executive of Neeva, a stealth startup that has quietly been building the first true competitor to Google Search in almost two decades. Telegraph 

After struggling to find staff during the pandemic, businesses in Singapore have increasingly turned to deploying robots to help carry out a range of tasks, from surveying construction sites to scanning library bookshelves. The city-state relies on foreign workers, but their number fell by 235,700 between December 2019 and September 2021, according to the manpower ministry, which notes how COVID-19 curbs have sped up “the pace of technology adoption and automation” by companies Singapore construction site, a four-legged robot called “Spot”, built by U.S. company Boston Dynamics, scans sections of mud and gravel to check on work progress, with data fed back to construction company Gammon’s control room. Reuters

New York state officials have offered robot companions to more than 800 older adults. The New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA) announced that it would work with its local partners to identify which adults would most benefit from the service, as the government department works to tackle social isolation. The robots are known by the name ElliQ and made by Israeli firm Intuition Robotics. They use AI technology to support senior citizens, offering wellness activity suggestions and initiating conversation to build a sense of relationship with the device, according to the NYSOFA. Business Insider 

You’ve probably heard of play-to-earn games by now. Within crypto, they’re especially popular, with people raking in cash while gaming in the metaverse and beyond. Why sit down on FIFA for free when you can be earning coin, innit? But most of these games have one thing in common: they’re created to be played on a PC or laptop. Weird, right? Outside of the crypto world, people are flocking to their phones to play games, while PC gaming is decreasing. Depending on whose stats you want to believe, more people game via mobile than on consoles and PC combined – almost, at least (46 per cent, in this dataset’s case). So why then, have the tech-bros of the future, people who know how to make things using blockchain technology and web3 and all that, done so little when it comes to mobile games? The Face