In contrast to the current crop of swaggering tech bros, the Microsoft founder comes across as wry and self-deprecating in this memoir of starting out

Bill Gates is the John McEnroe of the tech world: once a snotty brat whom everyone loved to hate, now grown up into a beloved elder statesman. Former rivals, most notably Apple’s Steve Jobs, have since departed this dimension, while the Gates Foundation, focusing on unsexy but important technologies such as malaria nets, was doing “effective altruism” long before that became a fashionable term among philosophically minded tech bros.

Time, then, to look back. In the first of what the author threatens will be a trilogy of memoirs, Gates recounts the first two decades of his life, from his birth in 1955 to the founding of Microsoft and its agreement to supply a version of the Basic programming language to Apple Computer in 1977.

He grows up in a pleasant suburb of Seattle with a lawyer father and a schoolteacher mother. His intellectual development is keyed to an origin scene in which he is fascinated by his grandmother’s skill at card games around the family dining table. The eight-year-old Gates realises that gin rummy and sevens are systems of dynamic data that the player can learn to manipulate.
As he tells it, Gates was a rather disruptive schoolchild, always playing the smart alec and not wanting to try too hard, until he first learned to use a computer terminal under the guidance of an influential maths teacher named Bill Dougall. (I wanted to learn more about this man than Gates supplies in a still extraordinary thumbnail sketch: “He had been a World War II Navy pilot and worked as an aeronautical engineer at Boeing. Somewhere along the way he earned a degree in French Literature from the Sorbonne in Paris on top of graduate degrees in engineering and education.”)

Ah, the computer terminal. It is 1968, so the school terminal communicates with a mainframe elsewhere. Soon enough, the 13-year-old Gates has taught it to play noughts and crosses. He is hooked. He befriends another pupil, Paul Allen – who will later introduce him to alcohol and LSD – and together they pore over programming manuals deep into the night. Gates plans a vast simulation war game, but he and his friends get their first taste of writing actually useful software when they are asked to automate class scheduling after their school merges with another. Success with this leads the children, now calling themselves the Lakeside Programming Group, to write a payroll program for local businesses, and later to create software for traffic engineers.

A review of this year’s Photo Brussels festival, where the theme of artificial intelligence and its impact and potential were examined by the curated work

Who’s afraid of artificial intelligence? Probably all of us are a little – but the artists at the centre of this year’s Photo Brussels festival have embraced the technology to bring us an intriguing and, at times, optimistic exploration of one of the most concerning developments of our time.

The ambitious curation by the photography academic Michel Poivert gathers together 17 projects at Brussels’ Hangar gallery. Together their creations reveal the visual and intellectual potential, along with the current limits, of this wave of “promptography”.

Images in the Cherry Airlines series

A city associated with sausage and herring is now a haven for plant-based foods – and Poland’s rightwing politicians aren’t happy

I want to tell you about a relatively typical neighbourhood in my city. There are two vegan sushi restaurants, three vegan ramen spots. There are a few vegan delis. All the convenience stores have a vegan section. There’s an abundance of vegan bakeries. There’s a place that does vegan peking duck – it’s good, I promise. Many of these vegan places proudly have a rainbow flag on display. I’m not talking about Los Angeles or New York. I’m not even talking about Copenhagen. My neighbourhood is called Śródmieście. The vegan paradise I’m talking about – it’s Warsaw.

If you don’t believe me, well, Warsaw has been ranked among the top vegan cities in the world by HappyCow (a vegan ranking website) for the past six years. In 2022, it was National Geographic’s number one vegan city in the world. Maybe your perception of Poland is all kielbasa (sausage) and conservative politics. Herring and hate. It’s more complicated than that. In the past two decades there has been a quiet vegan revolution in the country.

Karol Adamiak is a chef from Warsaw. Barclay Bram contributed research and writing to this article. They cook together as Bracia

From mindful waking in the Yorkshire Dales to a Buddhist retreat in Japan, our tipsters have found inner peace and rejuvenation all over the world

With Eryri national park (Snowdonia) on the doorstep and guided wild swims available, north Wales’ Tawelu Retreats offers options to explore the outdoors or go full hibernation with the retreat’s yoga classes and meditations, plus a sauna and hot tub. The chef cooked up filling, comforting veggie food and gorgeous chai and hot chocolate. Even getting lost running up the Welsh fells and nearly missing my hot shells massage didn’t trouble my stress levels. It’s women only, four days from £650.
Laura King

From a 16th-century house on the banks for the River Stour in Suffolk to a west London flat above a pizzeria

The Simple Sabotage Field Manual is going viral! All the kids are reading it

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For nearly two decades, ‘General’ Narsamma and her team at Sangham Radio have honed their craft, learning every aspect of broadcasting, including fixing the radio mast and interview techniques

• Words and photographs by Uday Narayanan

As twilight settles over Sangareddy district in the southern Indian state of Telangana, the airwaves crackle to life. It is the voice of Masanagari Narsamma, a 45-year-old Dalit woman, who has spent the last two decades transforming the lives of women, farmers and children in nearby villages.

“This is our weapon,” she says, gripping the microphone at the radio station. “With this, we speak our truth.”

Masanagari Narsamma and Algole Narsamma in front of Sangham Radio. The duo, with no formal training in media or broadcasting, have built the station into a cornerstone of their community

Such a profound social change needs consensus and leadership. Those tasked with seeing this through are offering neither

There is something about the sound of Prof Sir Chris Whitty’s voice that inexorably takes me back. Whenever he speaks it’s hard not to think about R numbers and social distancing, masks and variants. His was the judgment we learned to trust in the days when the only certainty was that thousands were going to die; his the not-quite-inscrutable face we studied for clues that some politician had just said something stupid. For those reasons and more, I would very much like to know what the chief medical officer thinks about assisted dying for terminally ill people. But when he came before the committee scrutinising this most sensitive of issues on Wednesday, he wouldn’t say.

Whitty answered all questions posed about the proposed new law, including how accurately doctors can predict that someone has only six months left. (Not entirely, though he explained that they’re better at predicting that death will come in the foreseeable future – which seems more important here than whether it’s five, six or seven months exactly, though Whitty didn’t say the last part.) He wasn’t asked how well doctors can predict what that death might be like: how much pain or indignity it’s likely to involve, which might be equally hard to say but is what I’d want to know. (Some apply for assisted death without ever using the option, just to know it is there if needed.)

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Using thermogalvanic technology as cooling mechanism may significantly reduce power usage, research says

A novel use of technology could make refrigerators cheaper and more environmentally friendly, according to a report.

Domestic refrigerators and freezers consumed close to 4% of global electricity in 2019, according to one estimate, so an innovation that significantly reduces their power usage would not be insignificant.

Clinical trials find one-time gene therapy exa-cel offers ‘functional cure’ in 96.6% of patients

A “groundbreaking” £1.65m treatment offering a potential cure for people in England living with sickle cell disease has been approved for use on the NHS, the medicines watchdog has announced.

Campaigners welcomed news of the approval of the one-time gene therapy, known as exagamglogene autotemcel, or exa-cel, which edits the faulty gene in a patient’s own stem cells.

Researchers found that muscles move to orient ears toward sound source in vestigial reaction

Wiggling your ears might be more of a pub party piece than a survival skill, but humans still try to prick up their ears when listening hard, researchers have found.

Ear movement is crucial in many animals, not least in helping them focus their attention on particular noises and work out which direction they are coming from.

Formation of Hague Group comes amid challenges to ICJ and ICC rulings

South Africa and Malaysia will launch a campaign to protect and uphold the rulings of the international court of justice (ICJ) and the international criminal court (ICC) in the face of what they describe as defiance of ICJ orders and attempts by US Congress to hit the ICC through the use of sanctions.

The aim of the nine-nation Hague Group – which includes Colombia, Bolivia, Chile, Senegal and Namibia - is to defend the institutions and rulings of the international legal order.

Exclusive: More Danish people regard US as a threat than see North Korea or Iran as danger

Almost half of Danish people now consider the US to be a considerable threat to their country and the overwhelming majority oppose Greenland leaving to become part of the US, new polling has found.

The research by YouGov, shared exclusively with the Guardian, comes after weeks of tension between Denmark, Greenland and the US over Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that he plans to take control of the autonomous territory, which is part of the Danish kingdom.

Some of those abandoning the frontline say the longer the war goes on, ‘the more people like me there will be’

When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine three years ago, Viktor* was ready to die for his country. He volunteered to defend Kyiv as enemy tanks appeared and joined Ukraine’s armed forces. In the spring of 2023 he was fighting in the village of Tonenke, near the eastern city of Avdiivka. “When I arrived I was super-motivated. If necessary I would give my life,” he recalled.

Gradually, however, he became disillusioned. The battle was furious. “The Russians would smash our positions to the ground,” he said. Senior Ukrainian commanders gave unrealistic orders. Then, while he was defending a ruined building, a panel fell on his shoulder. After receiving injections to reduce the pain, he was told to return to the front. “I realised I’m nobody. Just a number,” he said.

Nearly 25 years after the first film, the actor, her co-stars and the writer Helen Fielding discuss the ultimate singleton, love and loss – and why Bridget Jones is the female James Bond

Mark Darcy is dead. Bridget Jones fans have been grieving since 2013, when Helen Fielding’s third novel, Mad About the Boy, was published sans Bridget’s hot human-rights lawyer husband. The outcry made front page news (as did the copies that were accidentally printed with 40 pages from David Jason’s memoir). People could not believe that romcom’s favourite reindeer-jumper-wearing dish, who proved that – ding dong! – nice men do kiss like that, was no more.

“Someone ran out of the pub shouting: ‘You’ve murdered Colin Firth!’” Fielding says over a video call, tulips arranged on a huge wooden table in the background, as well they should in a boho-posh Primrose Hill kitchen. “I just want to point out that he is fictional. Colin Firth is not dead.”

The internet’s go-to gathering place for those who rate and revere sticks is big and growing fast. The appeal is simple ...

The first stick was small, and shaped like a revolver.

It was late summer 2023 and two friends, Boone Hogg and Logan Jugler, both 31, were on a late summer hike heading towards Delicate Arch, a 16m red rock formation in Utah’s Arches national park, when Jugler spotted it on the ground. He picked it up and began rating its attributes – colour, shape, flexibility – out of 10, while Hogg filmed. Then they uploaded it to Instagram.

As a sociologist, my career couldn’t be further from that of my father, who spent his life on the road as a truck driver. It’s only in recent years, as illness has struck, that I’ve started to truly understand him. By José Henrique Bortoluci. Read by Felipe Pacheco

Five of the last six Thai nationals have been released by Hamas. For one nine-year-old, the agonising wait continues for the return of his father

Narissara Jantasang’s nine-year-old son was brimming with excitement as he watched footage of Thai hostages being released from Gaza on Thursday. Then he noticed his mother had started to cry. “He asked me: ‘what’s going on, Mom?’” Narissara says. “He realised his dad was not one of those released.”

Five of the remaining six Thai nationals still being held in Gaza were released on Thursday, after 15 months in captivity. Nattapong Pinta, 36, however, was not among them. Of dozens of Thais kidnapped by Hamas from the farms on which they were working in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, he is the last to remain.

In an exclusive interview, Fiame Naomi Mataʻafa tells the Guardian she is surprised at Trump’s pick for health secretary and criticised anti-vaxxers for their part in 2019 measles crisis

Samoa’s prime minister, Fiame Naomi Mataʻafa, has criticised Robert F Kennedy Jr’s views and the spread of vaccine misinformation related to the deadly 2019 measles outbreak that claimed the lives of at least 83 people, mostly babies in her country.

It comes as Kennedy, who is president Donald Trump’s pick to lead the top US health agency, faced attacks in Senate confirmation hearings this week with Democratic lawmakers accusing him of covering up his anti-vaccine views.

• Updates as Australia chase England’s 170 at the MCG
• Any thoughts? Email or get in touch on Bluesky
• Sri Lanka v Australia: first men’s Test, day three – live

26th over: Australia 62-1 (Litchfield 21, Sutherland 29) Filer doubles down on her plan to bowl short to Sutherland and begins with a bouncer that sails over the all-rounder’s head. Sutherland waits until the final delivery of the over to get on the back foot and drive through covers for a couple.

Cricket Australia have ominously confirmed that Ellyse Perry is available to bat in this innings “if required”, though there is no further suggestion whether she might come in sooner rather than later… or at all.

• Updates from the third day of the first Test in Galle
• Any thoughts? Email Angus
• Australia v England: Women’s Ashes Test, day two – live

20th over: Sri Lanka 66-3 (Chandimal 26, Mendis 15) Usman Khawaja didn’t field yesterday due to cramp. Fair enough too after he batted 503 minutes and 352 balls. Instead Nathan McSweeney was sent in his stead and took a superb juggling catch in the gully to dismiss Dimuth Karunaratne for 7. McSweeney is back out there this morning as Ussie guzzles pickle juice in the shade of the dressing-rooms. Three singles from this Lyon over as Sri Lanka’s batters stay busy.

19th over: Sri Lanka 63-3 (Chandimal 24, Mendis 14) Mendis plays an aggressive angled bat to Starc but can’t get past the man at gully. He tries to drive the third but it sprays off the inside edge. Good to see an aggressive approach from the Sri Lankans this morning. Chandimal and Mendis are brilliant batters, highly capable of big runs on home pitches and have each compiled their highest Test scores at Galle so why not? A Chandimal single and a leg bye in this over means Sri Lanka are now only 591 behind.

Why is the US technology industry worried about Chinese company DeepSeek? Robert Booth reports

DeepSeek, the Chinese company behind the new AI chatbot R1, uses less computing power and fewer chips than its rivals, and claims the model is far cheaper.

“It’s sort of the biggest news in this space of AI chatbots since November 2022 when ChatGPT came out,” Robert Booth, the Guardian’s UK technology editor, tells Helen Pidd.

António Guterres issues call after saying he was ‘deeply moved’ by meeting with US doctors who worked in Gaza

• See all our Middle East coverage

UN secretary-general António Guterres has called for 2,500 children to be immediately evacuated from Gaza for medical treatment after meeting with US doctors who said the children were at imminent risk of death in the coming weeks.

The four doctors had all volunteered in Gaza during the 15-month-long war between Israel and Palestinian militants Hamas that has devastated the territory of more than 2 million people and its healthcare system.

Former chief resigned 10 days ago, after Elon Musk, a close adviser to Donald Trump, called for him to quit

• Washington DC plane crash – latest updates
• First confirmed victims include figure skating champions

Questions swirled in Washington on Thursday as the Federal Aviation Administration began its investigation of the Reagan airport crash without a permanent leader – its former chief resigned 10 days ago, after Elon Musk, the SpaceX CEO and close adviser to Donald Trump, called for him to quit.

Michael Whitaker, a 30-year aviation industry veteran, was unanimously confirmed as FAA administrator by the Senate in October 2023. He resigned last Monday, the day Trump was inaugurated as president.