Technology | The Guardian

Why would Google want to strip out its famous blue? Perhaps the money’s too good to refuseGoogle searches could soon look very different: the company is testing a new version of its results page featuring black links, in the place of the familiar blue.Users began reporting the visual change on Sunday, suggesting that Google is embarking on one of its famous “A/B tests”. The company regularly makes a small change for a subset of users, examining how they respond before deciding whether or not to roll it out to the wider userbase. Continue reading...

Stopping revenge porn is complicated by blurring the context of images and by hosts’ reliance on abuses being reportedOne of the most difficult things about tackling revenge porn is the sheer number of channels by which it is distributed.Despite high-profile convictions of site operators such as Kevin Bollaert, sent to jail in the US April 2015, most revenge porn sites are nowhere near as conspicuous, organised or open. Continue reading...

Rise in sales of music, DVDs and games over the last quarter is HMV’s best performance since it went into administrationHMV has reclaimed is position as the second biggest entertainment retailer in the UK as high street chains enjoy a revival against their online competitors.HMV recorded a 2% year-on-year rise in sales of music, DVDs and games over the last quarter, giving it a market share of 16.9%, ahead of Tesco’s 16.1%. Continue reading...

The series is going back to the first world war, and while EA Dice creative director Lars Gustavsson is intrigued by the design, its historical challenges are the most pressing concernIt’s been rumoured for months, but on Friday, Electronic Arts confirmed that the next title in its Battlefield series of military shooters will be set during the first world war. While the rival Call of Duty titles have been marching ever further into the future, Battlefield 1 is an attempt to re-engage with fans of the genre, who fell for titles like Battlefield 1942, Medal of Honor and the original Call of Duty games with their depiction of historically authentic scenarios.“This was the dawn of all-out war, the switch from the old world to the new world,” says creative director Lars Gustavsson. “Battlefield has always been about the land, sea and air war experience. This was something we had to do.” Continue reading...

Staff error meant anyone receiving 56 Dean Street’s HIV clinic newsletter could see email addresses of all other recipientsAn NHS clinic in London has been fined £180,000 for a serious breach of the privacy of more than 700 users of an HIV service.Patients and service users who were on the HIV clinic email list of 56 Dean Street, a Soho-based sexual health clinic, said at the time of the breach they were terrified it could leave them open to blackmail or public outing. Continue reading...

Streaming service, which has had a difficult relationship with the band, says it is looking forward to making A Moon Shaped Pool availableSpotify has said it hopes to stream Radiohead’s new album, A Moon Shaped Pool, as soon as it can. A Moon Shaped Pool, the Oxford band’s ninth album, was released on Sunday 8 May and is currently available through Apple Music and Tidal.Related: Radiohead: A Moon Shaped Pool review – something they've never achieved before Continue reading...

Megumi Igarashi fined after distributing data that would allow 3D printing of her genitals in order to raise funds for boatA Japanese artist who made a kayak modelled on her vagina has been found guilty of breaking the country’s obscenity laws, in a case that has invited widespread ridicule of attitudes towards images of female genitalia.Megumi Igarashi, who works under the pseudonym Rokudenashiko – or good-for-nothing girl – was arrested in July 2014 after she distributed data that enabled recipients to make 3D prints of her vagina. Continue reading...

Move is part of attempt to rein in content of country’s burgeoning and unregulated live-streaming sectorChina has reportedly outlawed the “erotic” online consumption of bananas after the president, Xi Jinping, called for steps to “rehabilitate” his country’s “cyber-ecology”.Speaking at a Communist party summit last year, Xi said action was needed to promote “civilised behaviour” on China’s already heavily controlled internet.

Texan city rejects ballot which would have repealed strict new regulationsRide-sharing services Uber and Lyft are suspending operations in Austin, Texas, after the city’s voters rejected a proposal that would have allowed the companies to self-regulate their drivers.Instead, the voters upheld stricter regulations that the city council passed in December: ride-sharing drivers are required to pass fingerprint-based background checks, clearly mark their cars with the ride-sharing company’s logo, and not pick up or drop off their passengers in certain lanes of the city’s streets. Continue reading...

Seventy-six cities and regions are using Strava Metro data to help assess and shape transport policySheila Lyons recalls the way Oregon used to collect data on how many people rode bikes. “It was very haphazard, two-hour counts done once a year,” said the woman in charge of cycling policy for the state government. “Volunteers, sitting on the street corner because they wanted better bike facilities. Pathetic, really.”But in 2013 a colleague had an idea. She recorded her own bike rides using an app called Strava, and thought: why not ask the company to share its data? And so was born Strava Metro, both an inadvertent tech business spinoff and a similarly accidental urban planning tool, one that is now quietly helping to reshape streets in more than 70 places around the world and counting. Continue reading...

After eight years of bringing Tech Weekly to your ears, we’re preparing a new podcast – it will be better, bigger, more human and ... it needs you! While we get everything ready, tell us the one thing about tech you’d like explainedWe launched our technology podcast Tech Weekly the year the first iPhone was released. Think about that. Most of us were still making calls on flip phones, MySpace was still relevant, and people were still renting DVDs from Blockbuster. That was eight years ago, and needless to say, Tech Weekly has come a long way.We’ve covered topics such as how social media is used in Middle-Eastern conflicts and President Obama’s Reddit AMA session, and done deep dives into things like ISIS’ use of tech and why your Uber rating is actually quite important.

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

Ratchet & Clank and Donkey Kong Country are superbly updated, while Mario & Sonic at the Olympics is a tame cash-inRatchet & Clank

After her husband’s death, the Facebook chief operating officer says she has begun to recognize the challenges faced by women raising children aloneFacebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has marked Mother’s Day by paying tribute to single mothers, saying she never realized how hard it was to be a single parent until her husband died a year ago.Related: Sheryl Sandberg's moving tribute to the husband who died: 'Dave was my rock' Continue reading...

Sussex police decision to caution man, despite evidence he targeted five women, comes as data shows most revenge porn offences do not result in criminal chargeThe mother of a 15-year-old victim of revenge porn has criticised police for letting the perpetrator off with a caution despite evidence he targeted five women over several months.The decision not to prosecute the man comes after figures released last month revealed that most offences of revenge porn do not result in a criminal charge. Continue reading...

Victims and their loved ones report sense of powerlessness in face of flawed laws and mixed police responsesOn a business estate in Devon, Jade sits at a computer screen and hovers her mouse over an innocent selfie of a young woman from Scotland. In a matter of seconds, she is led down the internet’s tunnels and diversions deep into what was once the private world of the 21-year-old.

Project marking presenter’s 90th birthday features footage from series including Zoo Quest, Planet Earth, and Frozen PlanetHe may have just become a nonagenarian, but Sir David Attenborough shows no signs of slowing down as he launches a mobile app offering more than 1,000 clips of his work for the BBC.The Story of Life app, which is in development, marks the presenter’s 90th birthday on 8 May and aims to bring Attenborough’s work to a younger generation focused more on iPhones than TV screens. It will be available in the Autumn. Continue reading...

BMW’s flagship saloon is the epitome of elegant discretion. And to drive it you barely need to lift a finger…Price: £66,200

Eye-catching and robust, the Pilgrims from Bowman is a lot tougher than it looksCycling into the office the other day my eye was caught by the bike of a fellow rider. It was a proper head-turner – anodised paint job, tapered carbon forks, T-section top tube – and a brand I hadn’t heard of: Bowman. I guessed it was one of those poncey pricey frames that bankrupt you and then leave you too terrified to actually enjoy it. But it turns out Bowman builds rugged, rideable frames for the year-round, no-nonsense cyclist. The firm is the brainchild of Neil Webb who, after 20 years in the industry, decided to go it alone. His bikes are designed at his base on the outskirts of southeast London and then built in Taiwan. There are currently five models, each named after a landmark familiar to cyclists in the southeast– Palace, Pilgrims, Foots Cray and Layhams. This one is the Pilgrims (named after the Pilgrims’ Way). It features generous ‘RoadPlus’ geometry which gives you the clearance to fit wider tyres or mudguards so you can swap in bigger rubber and turn off the road to tackle trails. In all you’ll get bespoke looks for Sundays, but a sturdy worker for weekdays (Bowman Cyles).Price: £750 (frameset only, complete bikes from £1,500)

Big-screen adaptations of computer games, with A-list cameos, produce big cash. Some of it could be used to produce groundbreaking artBack in 2009 a Finnish company called Rovio launched its 52nd video game. Its premise was simple: players would use their smartphone touchscreen – still a relative novelty two years after the first iPhone came out – to control a catapult. Swine flu was in the news, so the enemies would be pigs. The missiles? A flock of angry birds.That game reportedly cost less than £100,000 to make. The numbers involved in The Angry Birds Movie, which arrives in cinemas 13 May, are rather larger. There’s an estimated $80m production budget and $100m set aside for marketing. Sony has even splashed out on the ultimate status symbol: an A-list cameo. Sean Penn, we were informed in April, will play a bird called Terence who communicates only through low, rumbling growls. Continue reading...

Commissioning teams experiment with using data from Twitter and Facebook as well as from 6 million-plus people who have signed up for BBC iDThe BBC is following Netflix in using online viewing data to help it decide which programmes to make.

The long-running series features biplanes, battleships and the earliest tanks in an attempt to combat Call of Duty’s move into future warWhile Call of Duty is heading far into the future with this year’s installment, its annual first-person shooter rival, Battlefield, is heading in the opposite direction. Publisher Electronic Arts has announced that the latest title in its military action series will be titled Battlefield 1, and takes place during the first world war.Featuring a number of battles from throughout the conflict, developer EA Dice says it will offer vast environments, taking in trench warfare on the Western front, as well as combat in the Italian Alps, the deserts of Arabia and through besieged French towns. As usual, the game features weapons and vehicles accurate to the timescale, including the fighter planes and tanks that heralded a new era of mechanised warfare. Players will be able to ride horses, though its not clear whether there will be cavalry charges. Continue reading...

In April, Zuckerberg talked of ‘fearful voices building walls’ – but Facebook insists that sponsorship of Republican convention is not an endorsement

Bitcoin Foundation’s chief scientist, who supported Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, no longer allowed to make changes to currency’s codePoor Gavin Andresen.First he publicly backs Craig Wright, saying that the Australian computer scientist really is the man who created bitcoin under the alias Satoshi Nakamoto. Then, when Wright’s own promised evidence falls apart – utterly disintegrates, really, faster than a tissue left in your pocket when you wash a pair of jeans on the spin cycle – he can only respond “what the heck?” On Thursday, it became clear that Wright wasn’t even going to try to provide any other evidence, and Andresen started mulling platitudes, tweeting: “‘we are all Satoshi’ is such a lovely idea; might say ‘yes’ when asked ‘are you?’” Continue reading...

The Strong museum has announced the latest additions to its collection of classic games, spanning the history of the mediumMario the plumber may have got there first, but Sonic was always going to catch up. The Strong museum in Rochester, New York, has announced the latest six inductees to its video game hall of fame – and Sega’s iconic hedgehog is among them. Continue reading...

Uber rival will road-test fleet of autonomous Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis within a yearDriverless taxis could hit the streets in a matter of years after Lyft – a rival to private car-hailing app Uber – announced plans to test them on US roads.Detroit-based automotive firm General Motors and Lyft will road-test a fleet of autonomous Chevrolet Bolt electric taxis within a year, as the driverless car revolution gathers pace. Continue reading...

Google’s artificial intelligence company hits back in row over data-sharing agreement for medical recordsGoogle’s DeepMind has hit back at criticism of its partnership with London’s Royal Free hospital to develop an app that helps doctors and nurses rapidly identify and treat acute kidney injuries.DeepMind’s co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, said the company was better placed than any other to handle sensitive medical data, given its long history of securing highly personal information from other fields. He said: “As Googlers, we have the very best privacy and secure infrastructure for managing the most sensitive data in the world. That’s something we’re able to draw upon as we’re such a core part of Google.” Continue reading...

In this podcast originally published in February 2011, we discuss how the Egyptian government was able to cut off 80% of the country’s internet – and find out about the technologies used to get around the restrictionsJoin Aleks Krotoski, Jemima Kiss and Charles Arthur as they tackle technology news.

The sharing economy exists in a legal grey area beyond the reach of hard-won civil rights laws, and black users say they experience discrimination as a result

Meetings come at a critical time for tech giant as it faces a flurry of problems in the countryApple chief executive Tim Cook plans to visit Beijing later this month to meet high-level government officials, at a time when the company is facing setbacks in its most important overseas market, a source said.

Nathan Drake returns for one last treasure hunt, resulting in a beautiful and exciting gaming experience that transcends it flawsThere have been very few video game characters as well conceived as Nathan Drake. Exuding charm and determination, strength and vulnerability, he is the sort of male lead great Hollywood screenwriters aspire to create, but that video games have tended to bypass in favour of gritty, cynical sociopaths on mindless quests for retribution. Nathan is a character you care for and want to protect, even when he makes awful decisions that will hurt the people he loves. That is great writing.In Uncharted 4 he gets the conclusion he and his fans deserve – a rollicking, globe-trotting adventure that manages to be funny and exciting, yet also touched with sadness. We soon begin to realise that Nathan’s quest to discover Libertalia, the fabled anarchist utopia set up by pirate Henry Avery, is symbolic of his whole career as a treasure hunter. This is a story about hubris, obsession and self-denial, and gradually, throughout the game, we discover that these are personality quirks shared between Nathan and Henry, as well as generations of other adventurers who set out to find Avery’s haul and died in the trying. Continue reading...

Passengers to enjoy streaming service aboard planes from next year as airline hails decision to wait for more advanced inflight web technologyBritish Airways passengers will be able to stream films on transatlantic flights from next year after the airline’s owners, IAG, announced a deal to install what it claims will be the fastest Wi-Fi in the air.While BA has lagged behind competitors in providing Wi-Fi on its flights, Willie Walsh, the IAG chief executive, said technological advances have vindicated the decision to wait. Continue reading...

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

What is it like to be a NextUp contest winner, one of 16 hopefuls chosen as emerging stars by YouTube and trained to be the next PewDiePie or Zoella“If people are learning about John Stuart Mill and what he thought about utilitarianism, that’s fine. Nobody really gets angry about that. But if you’re talking about critical gender theory, or critical race theory or feminism or transphobia, that’s when people get a lot more touchy … ”Olly Lennard may not be your idea of an average YouTuber. Rather than playing games or giving makeup tips, his channel dishes out the syllabus from his masters degree in philosophy, one 5-10 minute video at a time. Continue reading...

Fast food chain plans roadshow of agricultural shows around UK to connect consumers with modern farming realitiesMcDonald’s is to tour agricultural events around Britain with a roadshow that uses virtual reality to bring people closer to the fast food chain’s supplier farms.The company will invite visitors to don headsets allowing them on to virtual farms, where they can drive a tractor and help harvest the potatoes for its fries. They can also go behind the scenes with a virtual tour of supplier farms producing eggs, milk and beef for McDonald’s 1,250 UK restaurants. Continue reading...

Barry Chang is stuck between Apple on one side not paying for his infrastructure proposal and frustrated citizens on the other who see their roads too crowdedThe last time the mayor of Cupertino walked into Apple – the largest company in his small Californian town and, it so happens, the most valuable company in the world – he hoped to have a meeting to talk about traffic congestion.Barry Chang barely made it into the lobby when Apple’s security team asked him to leave, he said.

An open letter sent through tech’s trade bodies will pressure politicians on raft of policies, including support for controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership trade dealFacebook, Apple, Amazon and a host of top technology companies are planning to publicly urge the next US president to support a swath of new regulation that would make it easier for them to hire highly skilled workers for overseas, Reuters reports.In an open letter expected to be published on Wednesday, a host of trade bodies representing technology firms will lay out 12 policy recommendations including pledging support for the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal, urging more “narrowly targeted government access to user data” and recognition of encryption as a “critical security tool”. Continue reading...

Taxi app company Uber recruits board of influential people as it faces lawsuits, opposition, allegations of foul play and bans in some citiesBlack-cab drivers are famous for boasting about notable passengers – but they’ve got nothing on the cabbie’s nemesis, Uber.The taxi-booking app has quietly picked up an entire minibus load of global power brokers to join an “advisory board”, which held its first meeting this week. Continue reading...

Tesla chief says educating the public on climate issues is essential in countering oil and gas lobby’s influence over big political decisions, reports Edie.netTesla’s chief executive Elon Musk has accused politicians of bowing to the “unrelenting and enormous” lobbying power of the fossil fuel industry, warning that a global “revolt” may be needed to accelerate the transition to more sustainable energy and transport systems.

We’re making a new technology podcast and we need your helpWe launched our Tech Weekly podcast eight years ago. Think about that. First generation iPhones. Myspace. Blockbuster Video. This podcast has come a long way.But now we’re saying goodbye to our technology podcast as we know it, and creating a brand new show that will be even bigger and better. Continue reading...

An intimidating story emerging on Reddit plays on the horror of the unknown lurking in plain sight among the tools we use for everyday dialogueIf you take enough LSD, can you build a portal to the divine? It sounds like a typical internet conspiracy theory, the kind of thing weirdos post in online communities isolated from the rest of the world. But it’s also a conceptual prompt for a new work of digital fiction – a cool, and deeply creepy story that is gaining a cult fanbase.Two weeks ago, a user who came to be known as “_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9” posted a disjointed snippet of text in a comment on Reddit, a site where communities post articles, images, personal stories and more for threaded group discussions. The post, added almost as if by accident to a thread about the cover of George Orwell’s 1984, made claims about the CIA’s acid-fuelled “mind control experiment” programme, Project MKUltra, a common staple of paranoid theory. MKUltra was indeed a real programme, but other items the user mentioned – “restraint bed portals” and “flesh interfaces” – are not.

Users report racial bias when using app, which comes after Harvard study found ‘African-American sounding’ names 16% less likely to be accepted as guestsA trending social media hashtag has highlighted experiences of possible racial bias by users of the AirBnB rental app.Quirtina Crittenden, a 23-year-old business consultant living in Chicago, who is African-American, started the hashtag #AirBnBWhileBlack after noting how often she was declined by hosts when seeking a place to rent – even when the apartments advertised appeared to be available. Continue reading...

Chief executive of British Airways’ owner says drones may become serious risk to air passengersThe boss of British Airways’ owner IAG has called for a register of drone users after a series of near collisions between passenger planes and unmanned aircraft.

Wright, who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin’s creator, says he is ‘sorry’ and ‘does not have the courage’ to proceed further with his claimsCraig Wright, the Australian computer scientist who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of bitcoin, has backtracked on a pledge to provide proof of his earlier claims.Despite promising on Tuesday that he would be offering “extraordinary evidence” to verify his claim that he is really Satoshi Nakamoto, Wright wiped his blog on Thursday, replacing it only with a message headlined: “I’m Sorry.” Continue reading...

At least 10m homes and firms to get ultrafast broadband as BT hires 1,000 new engineers and pledges improved serviceBT, under pressure from rivals and regulator Ofcom, is to invest £6bn in improving its services, including extending superfast broadband and 4G coverage to more than 95% of the UK by 2020.The UK’s largest telecoms firm laid out its investment plans on Thursday as it reported a 15% rise in pre-tax profits to £3bn for the year to 31 March, helped by stronger demand for its broadband and TV bundles. Continue reading...

Samantha is running Windows 8.1 and wants to know what will happen to her programs, personal files and antivirus softwareI’m currently using Windows 8.1 and I’m planning to upgrade to Windows 10. I have few questions: Will my files be deleted – documents, pictures, videos, music, etc? What will happen to Microsoft Office? Do I have to re-install it? What will happen to my anti-virus (I’m using ESET Smart Security)? Samantha MIf the upgrade goes smoothly, all your programs and personal files should remain in place – with a few exceptions, which I’ll mention later. However, there are several things you can do to help the upgrade to go as smoothly as possible, and you need to take precautions in case it goes wrong. Continue reading...

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

For travel, budgeting and password managing, these three apps have become an essential part of my routine, says Alex HernI am not a very organised person.When I decided to make my lunch at home, rather than buy it at work, it took the better part of a year before I could reliably leave the house in the morning with the lunch in my bag, rather than in the fridge. When I started going to the gym, I would often only realise I’d skipped it when I unpacked my gym bag the morning after, only to notice that the clothes were unworn. Continue reading...

Tech startup Arctic Shores says its games-based recruiting tools better match companies and candidates and help create a diverse workforce