Technology | The Guardian

Company has U-turned on cheeky plan to censor much-loved symbol and has reinstated its defining characteristicsiPhone users, fear not: Apple is listening to your demands, assuming your demands involve a peach emoji that looks a bit like a bum. If you have other demands, those will have to wait. We’re dealing with the bum issue here.The company had previously caused dismay among users due to a small change implemented in the first beta of iOS 10.2, the next update to its operating system for iPhones and iPads. As part of a general push by Apple to replace classic emoji with new, “realistic” versions, the update contained a new version of the peach emoji. Replacing the angular, contoured peach of the past was a new, rounder fruit, with a less prominent cleft running down its middle. Continue reading...

Deliciously dark stealth adventure returns to tempt players into a trap-like city of wary guards and architectural puzzlesDunwall, the briny, whale oil-guzzling capital of the first Dishonored game was a city defined by Dickensian hardship. This suited Corvo Attano, bodyguard to the empress, for whose murder he was framed, allowing him to squeeze through society’s cracks and skulk unseen among the plague rats. For this sequel the setting has changed to the sun-bronzed (and in later stages, dust-blasted) Karnaca, an archipelago whose ports might offer an enviable holiday destination were it not for an infestation of murderous insects.You play again as Attano or alternatively, the newly monarched Emily Kaldwin, a choice that must be made in the game’s opening moments and adhered to until the final credits. Both are wrongfully accused of murder (although by the game’s end, all but the most patient players will have blood on their hands). Both must flee the charges and pursue their accusers in the dark. At least Karnaca’s high sun casts long shadows to hide in. Continue reading...

Social media has made it easy to live in filter bubbles, sheltered from opposing viewpoints. So what happens when liberals and conservatives trade realities?

Tech giant announces it is going ahead with delayed plans to build a campus for 7,000 employees with Olympic cauldron designer Heatherwick Studio on boardGoogle has confirmed plans to build a new headquarters in London and create 3,000 jobs, in a move that will be seen as a vote of confidence in Britain’s prospects after Brexit.The project, which involves building a vast headquarters next to Google’s existing base in King’s Cross, central London, was thrown into doubt by the EU referendum and disagreement about its design. Continue reading...

Resolution Trust and Bethnal Green Ventures shared research at launch of new venture to harness digital technology to help low-paid workersJust one in 10 private sector workers may be members of a trade union by 2030 if current trends continue, according to a new analysis outlined at the launch of WorkerTech, a charity-backed project intended to harness digital technology to help low-paid workers.Related: How digital technology is transforming social care Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Wednesday. Continue reading...

Initial public offering could come as soon as March and value Snapchat at $20bn to $25bn, making it one of the biggest technology offerings in recent yearsMessaging app Snapchat has filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for an initial public offering (IPO), sources familiar with the situation said on Tuesday.The filing puts the Venice, California-based company one step further towards its IPO, which sources say could come as soon as March and value it at $20bn to $25bn, making it one of the biggest technology offerings in recent years. Continue reading...

It would be tragic if the ladder used to rescue me from extradition was kicked away from the next person who needs itIn the early part of this century I gained unauthorised access to government computer systems in the US, in a successful attempt to find evidence of official knowledge of the UFO phenomenon. What followed was a decade-long nightmare. I slipped further and further into depression as the years wore on, having to take Prozac and regularly see a therapist. The emotional wear and tear on my family was one of the worst parts, watching them fight and mostly lose for 10 years.Related: The Tories are using the army to take a shot at human rights | Conor Gearty Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Tuesday. Continue reading...

Employees allegedly formed a task force to tackle the problem, while others say executives are reviewing products to eliminate appearance of political biasFacebook is facing increasing pressure to improve the way it deals with fake news in the wake of the shock 2016 US presidential election result, amid reports that even some of its own staff have formed an unofficial task force to address the problem.Employees from across the company have secretly come together to try and tackle the problem, BuzzFeed reported on Monday, despite Facebook publicly playing down the role of fake news in the election. CEO Mark Zuckerberg insisted on Sunday that more than 99% of what people see on the platform is authentic, rejecting the “crazy idea” that fake news swayed voters. Continue reading...

On the face of it Sony’s decision to sacrifice resolution seems surprising but the trade off is an improved frame-rate which makes the viewing experience as a whole much smoother, says Will Freeman

Those upset about the election of Donald Trump are using secret groups as a means to mobilize against what they fear could be a wild conservative agenda

Over 412m accounts from pornography sites and sex hookup service reportedly leaked as Friend Finder Networks suffers second hack in just over a yearAdult dating and pornography site company Friend Finder Networks has been hacked, exposing the private details of more than 412m accounts and making it one of the largest data breaches ever recorded, according to monitoring firm Leaked Source.

We asked you for your views after a charity warned parents were increasingly worried about their children’s screentime and possible gaming addictions

In this episode of Chips with Everything we attend 2016’s Web Summit in Lisbon to explore the future of all things tech, business and creativityIn this week’s episode, we speak to techies, startup owners and speakers at Europe’s largest technology and digital culture conference, Web Summit. To find out more about this week’s guests or how you can attend the conference next year, visit websummit.net. Continue reading...

Unicode has signed off on 56 new symbols including a bearded man, a sandwich and a face vomiting, but calls for a redhead have gone unansweredThe consortium that approves emojis has signed off on 56 new ones, including a woman breastfeeding a baby, a woman wearing a hijab and a “gender-inclusive” child, adult and older adult.Among the other emoji that will be released in 2017 by Unicode are a face vomiting, a head exploding and a man and woman practising yoga. Continue reading...

Most tech industry leaders railed against the Republican, but some are now changing their tune as they consider what his presidency will meanIn the end, it took less than 24 hours for Silicon Valley to start making nice with President-elect Donald Trump.For a full year, the tech industry had collectively railed against the xenophobic, bigoted, and anti-science tenor of candidate Trump, displaying a political consensus so strong that the only public outlier – PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel – became the target of a shunning campaign from industry insiders. Even the generally apolitical Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg rebuked Trump and his supporters’ “fearful voices talking about building walls”. Continue reading...

The latest role-playing fantasy from the Pillars of Eternity creators puts players into a morally ambiguous universe of tyrants and mercenariesPortraying evil in games is hard: it’s more than a shadowy figure laughing maniacally in a tower. But of all the themes that Tyranny explores, evil is one of the most successful and exciting.The latest isometric RPG from the creators of Pillars of Eternity casts you in the role of a reluctant or zealous antihero (depending on how you play), serving the Overlord Kyros, a being of immense and undeniable power who beat the forces of good and essentially rules the world. You exist to snuff out the last resistance to this tyrant but that doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person. Continue reading...

Those who think fake news is why someone voted for Trump show ‘profound lack of empathy’ and fail to internalize the president-elect’s message, he saidMark Zuckerberg has rejected the notion that fake news on Facebook influenced the outcome of the US election, describing it as a “pretty crazy idea”.“Voters make decisions based on their lived experience,” he said at the Techonomy conference near San Francisco on Thursday. Continue reading...

The company is being accused of abdicating its responsibility to clamp down on fake news stories and counter the echo chamber that defined this election

We don’t yet know Trump’s surveillance plans, but follow these guidelines if you think it’s better to be safe than sorryIn January 2017, Donald Trump will become President of the United States of America, and the most technologically advanced surveillance infrastructure in the world will start reporting directly to him.When Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance regime in 2013, he warned that a new American president could rapidly expand its scope overnight with just a simple change of government policy. Continue reading...

Toymakers fear flood of cheap copycat cubes after European court rules that bestselling game’s trademark is invalidIt’s the familiar multicoloured 3D brainteaser that has challenged puzzle enthusiasts for more than 40 years and is still the world’s bestselling toy of all time.But on Thursday – after a 10-year legal tussle – Rubik’s Cube lost a key trademark battle after the European court of justice (ECJ) said its shape was not sufficient to grant it protection from copycat versions. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterOops, sorry, I’m at the Yorkshire Games Festival and forgot to set this up! Continue reading...

Diana wants a tower PC to handle multiple Excel spreadsheets, which are freezing her old laptopI’m looking to purchase a tower PC for working from home, ideally for less than £500. It must have a processor fast enough to manage my work across multiple Excel spreadsheets, as well as running Microsoft Word and Google Chrome at the same time. At the moment, I am using an old laptop with two external monitors. When I try to process my spreadsheets, things slow down to the point of freezing, or it crashes. DianaYou are right in thinking that a tower PC will generally run faster than a similarly priced laptop. Towers provide plenty of space for chips to run hotter and therefore faster than they can in laptops, without throttling performance to avoid overheating problems. Continue reading...

From Oculus Rift to Google Daydream, VR is getting plenty of hype. Which system should you go for, what do you need to buy, and what should you play?Until recently, virtual reality had been something of a fantasy for storytellers and technologists. As long ago as 1935, American science fiction writer Stanley G Weinbaum described something like virtual reality in a short story called Pygmalion’s Spectacles.“But listen – a movie that gives one sight and sound. Suppose now I add taste, smell, even touch, if your interest is taken by the story. Suppose I make it so that you are in the story, you speak to the shadows, and the shadows reply, and instead of being on a screen, the story is all about you, and you are in it. Would that be to make real a dream?” Continue reading...

Welcome to the Guardian’s home for virtual reality. You will find all of our pieces here along with information on how to watch Continue reading...

Sony responds to the acclaimed Xbox One S with a more powerful PlayStation 4 – and while it’s no looker, it opens new visual horizons for developersIn August, Microsoft kickstarted the second wave of this current console generation, releasing its acclaimed Xbox One S to a largely receptive audience. Now, Sony is returning fire with the PlayStation 4 Pro, an updated version of the standard PS4, which – like Microsoft’s machine – is designed to get the most out of the coming era of 4K televisions. Here’s how the new instalment stacks up. Continue reading...

Hyperloop co-founder said he would fund ‘Calexit’ campaign for Democratic state to become its own nation as tech industry has been at odds with Trump

First Samsung’s phones started blowing up. Now its washing machines are doing the same. But they aren’t the only deadly home-appliances out there …First it was Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 smartphones catching fire and exploding, now it is the company’s washing machines blowing up. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has recalled 2.8m Samsung washing machines after the South Korean manufacturer received 733 reports of “excessive vibration or the top detaching from the washing machine chassis”. On Good Morning America, Elliot Kaye, the chairman of the CPSC, described “a very serious hazard of the top of these washing machines completely blowing off”.Nine injuries have been reported, including a broken jaw, an injured shoulder, and other fall-related injuries. One woman reported a washer top flying off and hitting her in the back, causing her to “collide into a cabinet”. All of which conjures up a domestic nightmare of marauding washing machines blowing their lids and attacking their owners. Continue reading...

Delaying repairs to save money and dehumanising your tenants ... Adam Forrest becomes a virtual landlord and learns some interesting – and depressing – lessonsBuilding my first high-rise tower wasn’t too difficult. I threw up some studio apartments, hooked them up with power and phone lines, arranged for a rubbish collection, and welcomed my first tenants. I packed the people in, stacked the units, and the profits soon began to pile up nicely.

Brands and businesses can send ‘sponsored messages’ to anyone who has previously chatted to them or a chatbot on Facebook MessengerFacebook has begun allowing businesses to send users adverts on Messenger, but only if those users have previously made contact with the brand.

Film version of wildly popular and notoriously addictive ‘kitty collector’ app will star Japanese actor Atsushi ItoA popular mobile phone game about collecting cats is being made into a live-action movie, to be released in 2017, in what has to be one of the most 21st-century article introductions ever written.The Japanese game Neko Atsume, which means “kitty collector”, created by Hit-Point, is being turned into a film starring the popular Japanese television and film actor Atsushi Ito. Continue reading...

Chancellor says Germany having to deal with cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns on daily basisAngela Merkel has said Russia could try to influence Germany’s general elections next year through cyber-attacks or disinformation campaigns, after Washington accused the Kremlin of similar meddling in the US vote.“We are already, even now, having to deal with information out of Russia or with internet attacks that are of Russian origin or with news which sows false information,” the German chancellor said at a press conference alongside the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg, on Tuesday. Dealing with that was already “a daily task”, she told reporters in Berlin. “So it may be that this could also play a role during the election campaign.” Continue reading...

As fans gather for San Francisco’s first Emojicon, a researcher explains how your phone’s keyboard reveals ‘baked-in’ values beyond poop and eggplantsWhen Emojipedia founder Jeremy Burge sent his fiancee to the wrong side of London for dinner, he sent an apologetic text message. He received an emoji-less reply: “It’s fine.”

Parody goes viral, suggesting when you need to increase profits, what could be better than forcing people to buy a bag full of dongles at $25 a pop?What is the real reason for Apple ditching everything but the USB-C ports on the new MacBook Pros? According to a Spanish “Apple engineer”: more dongles means more profit.Yes, El Risitas – the parody meme that first came to wide attention when lampooning the new MacBook last year – is back and this time it is explaining the reasoning behind the long-awaited MacBook Pro’s lack of ports. Continue reading...

Suspicious transactions spotted on around 40,000 accounts have seen online payments frozen. So what next?Current account customers at Tesco Bank have had online payments frozen after tens of thousands of accounts were attacked by fraudsters. Continue reading...

Developer of the bestselling video game defends lengthy production schedule for the expected live-action adaptationThe Minecraft film, based on the massively popular video game franchise, will be released on 24 May 2019, according to the game’s developer, Mojang.The lengthy wait has been defended by Mojang as “the right amount of time to make it completely awesome”. Continue reading...

The adaptation of the iconic videogame, first announced in 2014, is becoming a trilogy – but not for financial reasons, says producer Larry KasanoffTetris, the 1980s video game about stacking blocks, is being made into not one, but three films, according to Empire.Producer Larry Kasanoff is lining up a trilogy about the GameBoy favourite, which featured the simple but addictive formula of shuffling falling shapes into corresponding gaps. Continue reading...

From scribbling robots to music-making devices, tech giant’s initiative hopes to spark a new wave of ‘tangible programming’ toys and kits for children“How many robots can I control with this? In theory, up to 255 at one time. That really is a robot army.”I’m in a room at Google’s London headquarters listening to creative technologist Zebedee Pedersen show off the company’s latest research project. Despite how it sounds, world domination isn’t on the agenda. Continue reading...

Free service DoNotPay helps appeal over $4m in parking fines in just 21 months, but is just the tip of the legal AI iceberg for its 19-year-old creatorAn artificial-intelligence lawyer chatbot has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York for free, showing that chatbots can actually be useful.

If deep learning will be as big as the internet, it’s time for everyone to start looking closely at itThe world is quietly being reshaped by machine learning. We no longer need to teach computers how to perform complex tasks like image recognition or text translation: instead, we build systems that let them learn how to do it themselves.“It’s not magic,” says Greg Corrado, a senior research scientist at Google. “It’s just a tool. But it’s a really important tool.” Continue reading...

British bike builder Filament promises custom-made comfort for riders of every shape and size• Chapeau! Stylish cycling gear for the roadVisitors to the Bespoked Handmade UK Bicycle Show in Bristol earlier this year would have noted how bike building in the UK is undergoing a renaissance. On a floor of 100 exhibitors, dominated by custom steel and titanium bikes, one builder stood out because of his choice of material: carbon fibre.While the majority of road bikes are carbon fibre these days, custom frames built from the lightweight material are rare because of the technical challenges involved. However, from his workshop in Worcestershire, Richard Craddock is overcoming these barriers. Continue reading...

As more people consider career switches and opportunities in tech, three of the newest Guardian developers chart their own unorthodox routes into the industry.Inspired by the upcoming digital networking event, the latest cohort of the Guardian Digital Fellowship reflect on how they became developers. Continue reading...

With Battlefield currently winning the propaganda war CoD developer, Infinity Ward, wants to convince gamers that its latest title isn’t just about spaceIn 2015, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gave an interview in which he argued that the world’s first trillionaire will be somebody who successfully mines asteroids. These celestial rocks are loaded with the sort of rare metals essential for the manufacturing of computers and smartphones – metals that are becoming increasingly scarce on Earth. There are already companies such as Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries developing technologies to facilitate the industry. It’s going to happen.And its this prospect that provides the background to Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, 2016’s instalment in the long-running shooter series. It’s the near future and humankind has expanded out into space, operating mining colonies throughout the solar system. To keep these in check, a new agency, UNSA, has been formed, uniting the armed forces of all the major countries involved. However, a fanatical organisation known as the Settlement Defence Front (SetDef) has formed out in space, looking to place a stranglehold on resources by taking over outposts throughout the system. “Wherever there is war over resources,” says Call of Duty design director, Jacob Minkoff, “there is extremism”. Continue reading...

Tech companies are vulnerable to modern slavery in their supply chains. A new benchmarking report says many must do more to address itSome of the world’s largest ICT companies including Hitachi, Canon and Samsung must step up their efforts to address the risk of forced labour in global supply chains, according to a new report.KnowTheChain, a US supply chain accountability initiative, benchmarked 20 global ICT companies on their efforts to ensure there is no forced labour, a form of modern slavery, from their supply chain. The average score for companies scrutinised on a number of areas including auditing processes, recruitment practices and worker rights was 39 out of a possible 100.

He may rule Twitter, but there is no evidence that the presumptive GOP nominee is building the digital fundraising and volunteer network he needs to winJudging by the headlines, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is in meltdown. He sacked his campaign manager, raised a historically low amount of cash, and is tanking in opinion polls in key swing states.

The photo-sharing platform, which has more than doubled in size over the past two years, now has more than 500 million monthly active users worldwideThe revolution will be #filtered: Instagram’s explosive growth is showing no signs of slowing, with close to one hundred million photos and videos now being shared on the platform every day.New figures show the photo-sharing platform’s monthly active user base has more than doubled in size over the past two years, with 500 million people a month worldwide now using Instagram. Continue reading...

A decade in the making, Fumito Ueda’s ethereal adventure is almost in our hands. But does it live up to the hype?It begins with a flashback – or at least that’s what it seems. While children are heard laughing and playing in the background, the camera approaches some sort of golden artefact half buried in the sand. Then, after a credits sequence illustrated with 16th century etchings of mythological monsters, we see a scene familiar to anyone who has been watching the slow development of Fumito Ueda’s third game for Sony: a small boy, lying asleep next to a vast dog-like beast.To be sat in a small demo room hidden away from the hurly burly of the E3 show floor, playing – actually playing – The Last Guardian, seems almost unreal. First previewed at E3 in 2009 and certainly in development for at least two years before that, the game has been a fixture on most wanted lists ever since. Partly it was the heritage of Ueda and his team, previously responsible for the ethereal delights of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus; but partly it was that first trailer, showing a little boy and the huge doe-eyed monster with whom he appeared to have built a symbiotic relationship. Little else was known – and, after a long, troubled development cycle, little else still is. Continue reading...

Game inviting players to stop mass shootings with thoughts and prayers alone highlights the ‘complete ridiculousness’ of political inaction, say developersIn the wake of the Orlando mass shooting, dozens of politicians have made public statements offering their thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families, as they did after San Bernardino, Charleston, Sandy Hook and the long and depressing back-catalogue of mass shootings in the US.But, a trio of game developers want to point out that thoughts and prayers are no match for assault rifles like the AR-15, which critics have called the weapon of choice for terrorists and mass murderers. Continue reading...

The social network says the London startup’s technology would be used to enhance live and video offeringsTwitter has bought London-based AI startup Magic Pony Technology for a reported $150m (£102m) as the company moves to strengthen its position in image-sharing, video and live video.Founded in 2014, Magic Pony uses machine learning to build improved systems for visual processing. The company said it was excited to be joining forces with Twitter “to improve the visual experiences that are delivered across their apps”. Continue reading...