Technology | The Guardian

Cars are much wider now than they were 50 years ago – but the standard size of a space has hardly changed. Is it time to design car parks differently?If you haven’t had a ding, you’ve probably had a job squeezing yourself out of your car, pushing limbs through the door like an octopus escaping an aquarium. At its worst, car parking can be a trial of stress and bodily contortion. What’s to blame? Fat cars.A vehicular obesity epidemic is reportedly putting a strain on the nation’s multistoreys, where accidents are on the rise. According to Accident Exchange, a courtesy-car firm, there are now almost 2,000 parking prangs a day. Continue reading...

More than 100 Uber minicabs drive at walking pace down Edgware Road and Park Lane towards Westminster in central London in an effort to put pressure on the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to insist the company pays the minimum wage. The action was organised by James Farrar and Yaseen Aslam, who three weeks ago won a crucial employment tribunal verdict that Uber should treat its drivers as workers rather than as self-employed

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Fault with certain smartphones made between September and October causes iPhone 6S to unexpectedly turn offApple will replace the batteries on its iPhone 6S free of charge after discovering a fault with the 2015 top-end smartphone.

Highly skilled posts required for offices in Fitzrovia will help to increase company’s British workforce by 50%Facebook will hire an extra 500 workers in the UK when it opens a new headquarters in London, increasing its British workforce by half.The US social media company will employ 1,500 people in London next year when it opens its office, which is under construction in Fitzrovia, close to the West End. Continue reading...

Kim Stoddart’s report (Living in a broadband ‘not-spot’? Try using the church spire to get a signal, 12 November) highlights a variety of local attempts to solve this problem but bemoans the fact that Ceredigion in west Wales is seventh from the bottom out of 650 UK constituencies for connectivity. Oh really? Not in our part of Ceredigion. We have a mast supplying 4G signals from all four major mobile network operators and we buy, and distribute 40Mbps broadband from a small technology company.We are currently looking at extending our service by using “whitespace”, spare bandwith capacity on TV wavebands. This is a community achievement. Six years ago four of us in our seventies and eighties formed a not-for-profit company, raised £243,000 from grant sources (including European money) and the cost of our unpaid time. We had contractors build the mast on a small piece of land leased to us by a local farmer. It was not always easy: fighting bureaucracy at local, Welsh and Westminster government levels took a lot of time and energy but with help from our friends in the community, including our local MP, we did it. He tells us we have better communications here than he has in Westminster. It can be done but needs a community to commit its resources of members’ time and energy. And forget the church spires: Welsh chapels don’t have spires.

From digital assistants to ‘smart’ medicine bottles, a new wave of connected devices could help people live independently for longerSmart bottles that dispense the correct dose of medication at the correct time, digital assistants, and chairs that know how long you’ve sat in them are among the devices set to change the face of care for those living with dementia.Dementia is now the leading cause of death in England and Wales, and is thought to affect more than 850,000 people in the UK. But a new wave of connected devices, dubbed “the internet of things”, could offer new ways to help people live independently for longer. Continue reading...

The future of manufacturing in the UK will look very different by creating bespoke goods through disruptive collaborationThere is nothing new in the adage that we are no longer a making economy. It’s a theme that has been picked up and echoed in most post-industrial economies over the past decade – just look at the last US presidential campaign. In the UK barely 10% of workers are employed within orthodox manufacturing; a generation ago that figure was well over four times as high. It is folly to believe mass manufacturing in its previous form, and at anything close to its previous scale, can return. But this does not have to be the existential problem it is being framed as.Last weekend in Manchester, the world’s first industrialised city, several hundred makers met at the city’s Museum of Science and Industry. They were there to take part in Europe’s first craft and innovation conference, a forum for craft professionals, scientists, roboticists, designers and tech professionals to discuss collective innovation and making. This is the real future of manufacturing: an atomised but highly networked society of makers servicing an evolving market where consumers no longer want mass-manufactured goods but products that are bespoke and have that golden element all marketeers now crave – provenance. We are becoming a society of curators where consumers want a relationship with a product and its makers, not simply a transaction. Policymakers still see this trend as relatively peripheral – a micro “hipster” economy. This is a mistake. Continue reading...

A show of further things to come for the franchise, and an enjoyable game, though perhaps not the blow-away title of 2016It’s been a rough year.This summer, post-Brexit, many people turned to Pokémon Go, the augmented-reality game from Niantic and the Pokémon Company, as a nostalgic and social respite from the ills and ails of the world. As if on cue, another Pokémon game – Pokémon Sun and Moon – has arrived to help numb the sting of being a person in the never-ending car crash that is 2016.

It’s the Golden Joystick Awards on Friday 18 November Continue reading...

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Silicon Valley has enjoyed its relationship with Obama, but how will companies such as Google, Apple and Facebook fare under a Trump administration?America’s technology industry has enjoyed a close relationship with President Obama’s administration since he was elected in 2008 – a fact that will not be lost on president-elect Donald Trump, who pitched his own ideas about technology policy while campaigning.

The US president denounced the spate of misinformation across social media platforms, including Facebook, suggesting American politics can be affectedPresident Barack Obama has spoken out about fake news on Facebook and other media platforms, suggesting that it helped undermine the US political process.Related: Facebook staff mount secret push to tackle fake news, reports say Continue reading...

Extreme right-wing users hit back with false accounts after being kicked off Twitter, as the social network tries to crack down on hate speechWhile Facebook battles with its fake news problem, Twitter is dealing with a different problem: fake accounts set up by the alt-right.Related: Gab: alt-right's social media alternative attracts users banned from Twitter Continue reading...

The social media company has angered advertisers after admitting it made errors in the way it measures ad activityFacebook is facing calls for greater transparency and oversight after admitting widespread errors in the way it measures advertising activity, as the social media company finds itself under increased pressure to clean up its act over a number of issues including distributing “fake news”.On Wednesday, Facebook, which had already angered advertisers when it admitted it made significant measurement errors around video ads in September, said that an internal inquiry found new problems with key measurement metrics. Continue reading...

Royal Court, London

A game providing data from 2.4 million players will help research into the early stages of Alzheimer’s. But the move raises questions about privacyIn tech circles, alongside words such as “scaleable” and “the gig economy”, you often hear the phrase “tech for good” bandied around. Sometimes it’s a fairly innocuous but ultimately toothless concept, essentially denoting the idea that technology has the potential to be a driver for positive social change but not doing very much about it. Other times it can take on a more creepily utopian tone, suggesting that should the world more closely represent the shiny libertarian enclaves of Silicon Valley, the world’s problems would be solved. And sometimes – just sometimes – it does what it says on the tin.Related: Sea Hero Quest: the mobile phone game helping fight dementia Continue reading...

A study commissioned by Mashable finds that verified accounts in the US and Australia are overwhelmingly maleYou are no one without a blue tick. Or at least, that’s how some verified Twitter users make non-verified users feel. Twitterpolitan liberal elite. Never mind that the tick is actually white on a blue background.It seems Twitter’s verification privileges may skew male. A study commissioned by tech website Mashable has found that in the US and Australia, far more men than women have been verified, likely disproportionate to the gender of users. Continue reading...

Game by cartoonist Tim Hunkin features villains such as second-home owners as players try to buy a house before they’re 80Britain’s housing crisis has been turned into a spoof arcade game where players have to dodge second-home owners and foreign investors to “buy a house or die trying”.The Housing Ladder slot machine, by the Suffolk-based cartoonist and inventor Tim Hunkin, uses treadmill steps on an actual ladder to move an automated figure towards the prize of a house encrusted in fake diamonds.

Internet-related complaints to industry ombudsman hit five-year high, while gripes about NBN double between 2015 and 2016Sluggish internet speeds are driving more complaints from Australians than those about patchy mobile services.Internet-related complaints to the industry ombudsman have hit a five-year high, surging by more than a fifth between July 2015 and June 2016. Continue reading...

Game played by 2.4 million people has become largest dementia study in history, generating equivalent of 9,400 years of lab-based researchA mobile phone game that tests spatial navigation skills and has been played by 2.4 million people, has become the largest dementia study in history and raised hopes of a breakthrough in diagnosing the disease.Sea Hero Quest, a collaboration between Alzheimer’s Research UK, Deutsche Telekom, game designers Glitchers and scientists, has generated the equivalent of 9,400 years of lab-based research since its launch in May. Continue reading...

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...

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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...

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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...