WIRED Middle East

The September digital issue of WIRED Middle East is about existing online. Take a look at your screen time – odds are you spend at least a few hours a day on the phone (and that's not counting hours on your work or personal computer). Many spend north of 8 hours a day online. I hover around 4-5 hours of daily screen time. People talk about the online world as though it exists outside of real life. Yes, the internet has a culture, rules, norms and values of its own. But given that it's a space we all occupy, we wanted to talk about it as our second home. This issue is about a child-free internet, and what that would look like. It's about the Middle East manosphere, and why you should be paying attention. It's about having your identity taken by AI. It's about how LLMs are the newest propaganda tool. It's about how AI affects teenagers. It's about you, online. https://lnkd.in/dnbD2x6Q

The gaming industry is rapidly evolving, and Media City Qatar is building momentum for its growth across the MENA region, where it is estimated to be worth $5.14 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $9.32 billion by 2031. More than 500 companies are now licensed by Media City Qatar, including game developers and studios, publishers, and interactive media businesses. From original titles and competitive gaming to new forms of interactive entertainment, their work is contributing to a growing industry in the region and creating new links between local talent, regional audiences, and the global gaming market. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/extYM2y8 #Presentedby: Media City Qatar

We put Abir El Saghir through WIRED Middle East's Wired/Tired/Expired. Check out her hot takes on everything from AI recipe videos to physical cookbooks. Reporting: Iain Akerman Video producer: Tamanna Sajeed

How would you know if a store was a front for money laundering? We asked Nishanth Nottath, Emirates NBD’s group head of financial crime compliance, what are the signs to watch out for. Watch the full episode of Anti-Money Laundering Support: https://lnkd.in/d2b9xv_m

Most of the debate around AI is about which model wins. Core42 has spent years on a less visible problem: what it actually takes to turn AI from an experiment into something a government or a bank can run every day, at scale, without it falling over. “The model is what people see,” says Sherif Tawfik, Chief Business Officer at Core42. “Our job is to make everything behind it, compute, cloud, security, governance and operations, work reliably every time AI is used.” Making that complexity invisible to the people using it, he says, is the point. Core42 was built for exactly that job. Founded in the UAE as the sovereign-enabled cloud and AI infrastructure arm of G42’s Intelligence Grid, it helps governments and enterprises run AI environments with the governance, security and controls that regulated workloads demand. Its Compass platform gives organisations governed access to leading AI models, with more visibility and control over how those workloads are used. Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/dDbyDvW9 #presentedby Core42

Oil leaking from the grounded tanker Caroline Bezengi has reached Oman’s coastline, potentially exposing coral reefs, nesting beaches and endangered species to crude oil contamination. The tanker, carrying approximately 800,000 barrels of Russian crude, ran aground on 30 June near Al Qibliyah Island – one of the five remote islands that make up Al Hallaniyat Islands Nature Reserve. This occurred three weeks after it reported an apparent blast off Yemen, which had caused the tanker’s crew to abandon the vessel. The cause remains unknown, according to Reuters. The amount of oil released has not been established. On 10 August, Oman said the visible slick covered almost 400 square kilometres. Two days later, an oil-spill specialist who examined satellite imagery for Reuters estimated that it extended across more than 2,000 square kilometres. Such figures describe the visible area affected, rather than the volume of oil in the water. Oman’s Environment Authority has confirmed that pollution has reached beaches around Ras Madrakah, affecting parts of the mainland coastline. The spill’s location makes it particularly dangerous: Al Hallaniyat reserve supports coral reefs, nesting sea turtles, seabirds and the endangered Arabian Sea humpback whale. Read the full report: https://lnkd.in/ebX2p5TU Words: Omnia Al Desoukie

As the back-to-school season begins, OpenAI is rolling out ChatGPT for Teens for users aged 13 to 17. The experience adds learning tools and stronger safeguards around self-harm, violence, eating disorders and explicit content. Parents can manage selected settings and set Study or Quiet Hours, but they cannot read conversations or monitor activity in real time. ChatGPT may also use age prediction to identify users under 18. Adults placed in the teen experience by mistake can verify their age using a selfie, government ID or both. But child-safety experts say stronger controls alone do not resolve concerns about teenagers forming emotional attachments to AI. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eF5Zvy8p

An extended look of GTA 6 will officially premiere on Thursday 27 August on Netflix. After months of delays, leaks, hacks and AI-generated slop, the streaming giant will exclusively release Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look. It will be available to Netflix’s paid subscribers six hours before it is released on the official GTA VI website and Rockstar’s YouTube channel for the rest of the world for free. The decision to drop the first look behind a subscription paywall is dividing the internet. Why would the buzziest gaming release of the year need Netflix at all? Read more: https://lnkd.in/exj9XW64

Launched in 2000, Hot or Not invited people to upload photographs of themselves and be rated by strangers on a scale from one to 10. It was crude, addictive and, within weeks, one of the most visited sites on the web. More importantly, it turned an intensely subjective judgment–whether someone was attractive–into structured data that could be ranked, compared and used to organise human behaviour. Twenty-six years later, the dating industry appears to be retreating from the internet Hot or Not helped create. Earlier this month, Bumble said it is moving away from its swipe format towards “fewer, better, more considered signals”. A day earlier, Match Group, the company behind Tinder, said that the app will introduce more in-person events by the end of the year. Read more: https://lnkd.in/e3Q4csFq

The Gulf didn’t wait for artificial intelligence to hit the mainstream before it began betting big. It had already begun building the policies, institutions and infrastructure to make AI part of their economic future, with some of those efforts dating back to 2010. While the region has impressive ambitions, it also has a resource problem. All GCC countries face severe water insecurity and rely heavily on energy-intensive desalination to meet basic water needs. AI data centres anywhere in the world pack thousands of GPUs into dense server racks, which generate intense heat as they process workloads. Keeping equipment from overheating requires constant cooling. Most large data centres use chilled-water systems and refrigeration towers, or air cooling that relies on evaporative technologies. In the Gulf, that job is much harder. Summer temperatures in Saudi Arabia and the UAE can exceed 45 degrees Celsius, with little relief at night, meaning systems have to work continuously to keep server temperatures within safe limits, which adds to both the energy and water consumption. 🔗 in bio for the full article.