Technology | The Guardian

There’s an insidious side to those stars. Ratings are forging new power structures – and soon we’ll be judged for every achievement or mistakeYou’re at a job interview and your prospective boss pulls out their phone to check your Employee Obedience score: 4.5. OK. When you get the job, your new colleagues use an app to see how previous colleagues have reviewed you. Your Overall Likability score is 3.2. They learn that you play Rihanna on repeat and hoard pens. Nevertheless, a girl in sales thinks you’re kind of hot, so uses an app to look up your Relationship score: 3.4. She reads reviews from former partners that cover everything from your table manners to your bedroom manners. It seems you always serve yourself first.Welcome to the future in which every aspect of our personalities and behaviour is assigned a star rating, available for all to see. Think this sounds crazy? Your Suspension of Disbelief score is probably low. Bear with me. You can rate my Credibility Quotient at the end. Continue reading...

Tech lovers usually visit the Austin festival in search of the next breakout app, but it was an event that tapped into ‘analog’ nostalgia that drew the big crowdsRelated: We all love to and the French are : what we learned about emojis at SXSWOne of the hottest demos at Austin’s annual South by Southwest (SXSW) tech conference was a pencil. Continue reading...

Google’s supercomputer AlphaGo defeated world Go champion Lee Sedol 4-1 on Tuesday, in what has been described as a landmark achievement for an artificial program. According to Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind co-founder, AlphaGo improved its game by playing against itself millions of times. Have humans taken the 2,500-year-old game as far as they can?

Atiur Rahman learned of loss of funds only after the news appeared in the mediaBangladesh’s central bank governor, Atiur Rahman, said on Tuesday he had resigned after $81m (£75m) was stolen from the bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in one of the largest cyber-heists in history.Rahman told Reuters that the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, had accepted his resignation. Continue reading...

Online retailer delivered age-restricted product, similar to weapon bought by teenage killer of schoolboy Bailey Gwynne, without age-verification

With over 30 hours battery life, great controls and a compact design, Marshall’s first wireless headphones carry on the good work of the vintage amplifier companyBritish audio brand Marshall has taken its first steps into the wireless headphone world with a brand new version of its Major II, which is claims has over 30 hours of battery life.

Computer scientist who helped to bring email to the massesRay Tomlinson, who has died aged 74, put the @ sign in your email address, and thus invented the name@host convention now used by billions of people every day. His logical but entirely personal choice of the asperand made a little used keyboard character into what the Museum of Modern Art in New York called a “defining symbol of the computer age”.At the time – the early 1970s – Tomlinson’s idea did not seem much of a big deal. He was a computer scientist at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, one of the US government contractors developing the Arpanet computer network, a precursor of the internet. Users of BBN’s PDP-10 minicomputers, such as BBN-TenexA, could send each other messages, but only to people who were using the same physical computer. They couldn’t email colleagues who were logged on to the identical computer right next to it, say BBN-TenexB. It would obviously be useful if they could and Tomlinson introduced that capability in 1971, as a side project to his real job, which was extending the minicomputer’s operating system. Continue reading...

Gun deaths correlate to searches for ‘ammo’, one expert says, as social media gurus look to work around federal gun research ban with an innovative websiteWhen it comes to data on shopping habits or driving, it’s all available and being constantly mined by advertisers and government offices who sell and legislate around it appropriately.But data around gun violence? There’s almost nothing. And that had been by design – until now. Continue reading...

Sean Parker’s plan to make Hollywood blockbusters available at home on the day of their cinema release ‘will expand audiences’, says JacksonHollywood titans Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams are reportedly among backers of a new service that would make major blockbusters available at home on the day they hit cinemas.Lord of the Rings director Jackson has been a vocal opponent of previous attempts to consign to history the longstanding “theatrical window” that separates cinema release dates from home video debuts. But he became the most high-profile backer of Napster founder Sean Parker’s Screening Room service when he told Variety that the new technology would expand the audience for films rather than killing off cinemas. Continue reading...

A mandatory code of conduct would solve most issues raised surrounding noise and amenities, parliamentary inquiry toldAirbnb and Stayz have called for regulation of short-term holiday rentals to be consistent across New South Wales.Executives from the two companies, as well as the Holiday Rental Industry Association, have appeared at a parliamentary inquiry into the adequacy of regulation. Continue reading...

The second dotcom boom may seem like a way for money to flow from older, richer people to talented young entrepreneurs. But it hasn’t worked out that wayPicture a startup founder.Chances are you went straight for a Mark Zuckerberg-type: male, white, nerdy and, above all, young. Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, three years after the collapse of the dotcom bubble, at the age of 20. Continue reading...

Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide festival centre

We might not have realised it, but emojis have given us a powerful shorthand emotional vocabulary – even if most of us are cry-laughing 20% of the timeLinguists, and perhaps everyone else, started taking emojis a bit more seriously after Oxford Dictionaries made the “tears of joy” emoji its word of the year in November. The first, very basic, emojis were created in Japan around 1998, but the rich, color emojis we use now didn’t make it to a full emoji keyboard on Apple’s iOS devices until 2011 and Android in 2013.The alternative keyboard app SwiftKey found in August that 70% of emojis are used to express positive emotion, 15% neutral and only 15% negative. SwiftKey co-founder Ben Medlock told a packed room at SXSW that this might be because we tend to feel we have to present a positive image to the world. So we’re self-editing in favor of happy, shiny emojis. Continue reading...

Go champion Lee Sedol scores his first victory against Google’s AlphaGo on Sunday, after suffering three consecutive defeats to the supercomputer. Sedol, who was visibly happy after the game, says the victory is priceless and he had hoped to win at least one round. CEO and founder of Google DeepMind says while AlphaGo may have lost, his team will learn important lessons about the program’s limitations

The Zuck has his eye on 3.5bn social media accounts – that’s a lot of data handed on to advertisers. Here’s how to cover your tracksMark Zuckerberg has a gargantuan social network. If you add up the number of accounts from the services he owns – Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram – you get a figure of 3.5bn, which is roughly half the world’s population. Granted many people will have multiple accounts and belong to multiple services, but still, that’s a lot of pokes, likes and cat gifs. Especially impressive given the scepticism and the love-hate relationship many have with his empire, particularly the Facebook mothership – or Dark Star, depending on your point of view. Being part of modern society without being involved somehow with the Zuck is increasingly tricky: instant messaging is hard without going via Facebook’s servers; you’ll need Instagram if you want to show off your perfectly arranged avocados and children’s fancy-dress outfits to the world; and if you want to date, no Facebook means no Tinder. Even if you’re one of those refuseniks who proudly claim “I’m not on Facebook”, you probably are – what about that chemically inconvenienced stag weekend in Tallinn that your pals created a Facebook album for? Yes, you’ll have to join to find out.It’s a Faustian pact: in return for these sometimes useful services we give up our privacy and allow Facebook to mine our lives for data to sell to advertisers – but it’s a deal we can finesse a little to reclaim a bit of our dignity. Here are some suggestions how… Continue reading...

The internet amplifies harassment and bullying in the physical world, but politicians, tech companies and society all need to make the internet safe for allExtra security guarded the door at the day-long online harassment summit Saturday at Austin’s SXSW tech festival.It’s for a good reason: threats of violence often accompany those who speak about the online hate mob Gamergate and its impact on women and minorities in the video game community. Those threats led the SXSW organizer Hugh Forrest, citing “threats of on-site violence”, to shut down the Gamergate discussion session. After public outcry, organizers relaunched it as a full-day program. Continue reading...

The San Francisco-based company valued at $2bn will cut shoppers’ per-item commission by 50%, and drivers will see a 63% drop, according to reportsInstacart, the San Francisco-based grocery delivery startup valued at $2bn, is slashing pay for its shoppers and drivers, according to reports.In San Francisco, shoppers who select items off the shelves to fulfill individual customer orders will have their per-item commission cut 50% to $0.25, and delivery drivers will see their commission drop 63%, from $4 to $1.50 per trip, according to the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading...

Naoto Kan, who presided over country during Fukushima disaster in 2011, cautions over plans to build new UK plantsNuclear power is unsafe and too expensive to justify building new plants anywhere in the world, according to the Japanese prime minister at the time of the Fukushima nuclear accident.Related: Hinkley Point C: what you need to know about the nuclear power project Continue reading...

A legal filing implies that Department of Justice has a plan B, which involves demanding the company’s electronic signatureIf Apple doesn’t comply with the court order requiring it to weaken the security on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, it may be asked to hand over the source code to the entire operating system instead, the Department of Justice has implied.In its formal legal rebuttal to Apple, the department addressed one of Apple’s key legal arguments: that forcing it to write the code, which would remove key security features from Syed Farook’s iPhone would be unduly burdensome. Continue reading...

Just another Apple product or a digital magic wand? Guardian illustrator Chloe Cushman takes it for a spinThe Apple Pencil is a cursed product, haunted by a single Steve Jobs quote from 2010: “If you see a stylus, they blew it.” Jobs thought that the stylus, a pen-like device used to write or draw directly on a digital screen, was a useless appendage. If you couldn’t operate a device with only your fingertips its design was flawed. This may be the real reason behind the very literal design of the Apple Pencil. Apple seems to have deliberately designed its latest accessory to look, feel and function like a creative tool – and not the technological appendage that Jobs famously hated.The new Pencil is exclusive to the latest and largest iPad, the iPad Pro, and is intended to let everyone from amateur artists to creative professionals draw on their tablets as freely as if they were putting pencil to paper. I tested it out and discovered that despite its simple purpose, the Pencil could not be more complex; in its attempt to harness the effortless beauty of the elementary writing and drawing instrument, Apple has crafted its own magic wand. Continue reading...

The proposed California 1099 Self-Organizing Act would allow workers such as Uber and Lyft drivers to join together to negotiate wages and conditionsA bill in California aims to allow the new class of “gig economy” workers to use an old strategy to collectively bargain.The proposed California 1099 Self-Organizing Act, which was introduced this week, would create a legal framework for workers classified as independent contractors – such as Uber and Lyft drivers – to join together and negotiate wages and working conditions with the on-demand companies they work for. Continue reading...

The label famed for licensing classy classic and contemporary cinema comes to Britain in April – but what impact will it have?

The long-running assassination series returns in an intriguing episodic structure that invites you to explore as you killEpisodic games have proliferated in recent years but, until now, have broadly conformed to a specific blueprint in which storyline has taken precedence over gameplay. High-profile examples such as Life is Strange, the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have myriad merits but underneath their visuals belong to the most archaic of genres, the point-and-click adventure. So when a major franchise such as Square Enix’s Hitman makes the move to a piecemeal structure, it amounts to a noteworthy change of tack. You might not have flagged Hitman as an obvious candidate for such an experiment but it turns out to have been an inspired move.

Latest high-end Android phone raises bar for screen, camera and speed, while bringing back such fan favourites as waterproofing, expandable storage and decent battery lifeSamsung’s latest smartphone takes the best bits of last year’s Galaxy S6 and combines them into a curved phablet with the dimensions of a normal-sized phone.

Echo, a home automation gadget, reset its owner’s thermostat after mistaking NPR broadcast on its capabilities for a voice commandVoice control is great. You can shout at your electronics, and they actually do what you want. Unfortunately, all too often that means other people can also shout at your electronics, and they do what they want instead. Electronics aren’t very smart.The latest group of gadget fans to discover the downside of talking to their hardware are owners of Amazon’s Echo, the all-singing, all-dancing home automation device produced by the Seattle-based retailer. Hiding inside Echo is Alexa, the (inevitably gendered) personal assistant: simply ask Alexa to perform a task, from playing your favourite song to dimming the lights in your smart home, and she will. Continue reading...

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

Breakdown in relations means Silicon Valley and Washington are less likely to compromise in debate over encryption and law enforcement in smartphone ageApple said federal prosecutors are “offensive”, “desperate” and “intended to smear” them in a remarkable escalation of the digital privacy fight between America’s most valuable company and the FBI.The remarks from Apple’s top lawyer, general counsel Bruce Sewell, were made in a conference call with reporters just hours after the Justice Department submitted a legal brief that accused the technology company of trying to usurp power from the government. Continue reading...

As thousands of techies head to Austin for SXSW, one city councilwoman stands to lose her job over a regulatory showdown with the ride-sharing firmsAnn Kitchen never imagined the repercussions of her decision to regulate Uber, the ride-hailing behemoth with a valuation of $62.5bn and – she now knows – a reputation for taking no prisoners.The 61-year-old Austin councilwoman had the temerity to propose that Uber and its rival, Lyft, be subject to the same rules that apply to other companies offering transport in the Texan state capital. Continue reading...

When Brad Colbow discovered the microblogging site, it seemed like a cool place to hang out, like a neighborhood bar. Then things started to change… Continue reading...

Fifth most popular desktop browser to offer built-in adblocking, which it says will cut page-load times by up to 90%Opera is introducing a new version of its desktop browser with built-in adblocking, removing the need for a third-party extension.

Prankster provides the smooth-talking face of bookie’s ‘complaints department’ in our review of the latest advertising from around the worldThe game “rock, paper, scissors” is the inspiration for an uplifting story of misfits forming unlikely friendships to underline the brand’s “together, not the same” philosophy. From the opening chords of St Elmo’s Fire – with its iconic 80s bratpack association – to the trio’s triumphal jump at the end, this lovely film presses every emotional button and then some.

AI machine takes 2-0 lead against South Korea’s Lee Sedol, putting its owners one victory away from $1m prizeGoogle’s Go-playing machine has scored a second victory against the best human player.Related: Google's AI machine v world champion of 'Go': everything you need to know Continue reading...

Payment company reports $374m revenue and indicates it is close to breaking even amid growth in use of chip cards and contactless paymentsThere was some good news for tech entrepreneur Jack Dorsey on Wednesday, for a change: Square, the payment company he founded, reported robust growth, with total revenue up by nearly half to $374m.The digital payments firm entered the market in November at a price so low it shaved off more than half of the company’s value, and it fell precipitously throughout January. Continue reading...

Dashboard camera footage from a public bus shows the moments leading up to a crash with one of Google’s self driving cars. The collision happened on Valentine’s Day, when a Google vehicle struck the side of a public bus in the Silicon Valley city of Mountain View. A Lexus SUV, which the company had outfitted with sensors and a camera that allow it drive itself, edged into the path of the bus as it rolled by at about 15mph Continue reading...

The crash – the first caused by a self-driving car – tore off its radar, flattened its tire, and crumpled its side. The bus driver was not at fault, the footage showsNewly released video shows the moment a Google self-driving car learned the hard way not to tussle with a public bus.

Speaking at Common Cause’s Blueprint for a Greater Democracy conference on 8 March via Skype from Moscow, Edward Snowden discusses US government surveillance. He also dismisses the claim that the FBI cannot access the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernadino shooters

Special rapporteur Joseph Cannataci says Britain should be oulawing bulk data collection rather than legitimising itThe UK is setting a bad example to the rest of the world with proposed changes to the law on surveillance, the United Nations special rapporteur on privacy has said.The criticism by rapporteur Joseph Cannataci is made in a report presented to the UN Human Rights Council. The report deals with privacy concerns worldwide but Cannataci, concerned about developments in the UK, has devoted a section to the British bill. Continue reading...

Online retailer is setting up first such centre in north-west England and will be recruiting staff over next three yearsAmazon is to open its first fulfilment centre in north-west England, creating 1,000 new jobs in Manchester over the next three years.The online retailer is recruiting operations managers and engineers, and for IT and HR roles at the site, which will open later this year. Continue reading...

NSA whistleblower rubbishes claims that only Apple can unlock killer’s iPhone 5C, indicating FBI has the means itselfEdward Snowden, the whistleblower whose NSA revelations sparked a debate on mass surveillance, has waded into the arguments over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters.Related: Is the FBI v Apple PR war even about encryption? Continue reading...

Guardian Media Group chief also voices concern about networks blocking ads, a week after culture secretary described it as a ‘modern-day protection racket’Adblocking has a “pretty unsavoury” business model, the chief executive of the Daily Mirror publisher, Trinity Mirror, has said.“The business model of adblocking is a pretty unsavoury one,” Simon Fox said at an Enders Analysis conference on Tuesday.

Machine takes 1-0 lead in historic five-game matchup between computer program developed by DeepMind and world’s best Go player Lee SedolLee Sedol started with a bow, a traditional Korean gesture of respect for an opponent who could neither see him nor sense his presence.The world champion at Go – an ancient Chinese board game – looked nervous. His eyes darted from side to side. He took a sip of water, and made his first move. Continue reading...

Police believe that while it is true more victims are coming forwards there is also an increase in abuse driven by technology – and 80% of the abuse is of girlsCases of recorded child sexual abuse increased by more than 30% last year, figures suggest. Police chiefs fear the rise is being driven by predators searching online for victims.A total of 45,456 child sexual offences were recorded across the United Kingdom last year, an average of 124 a day. Continue reading...

Prince Philip’s trusty Lagonda, which he took on trips to Australia and used to ferry Charles to school, could fetch £450,000The clue is in the colour, and the extra mirror: the shade is Edinburgh Green, and the mirror is for one to fix one’s hat on the way to royal engagements.An immaculate veteran, a 1954 Aston Martin Lagonda, custom-built for Prince Philip, is coming up for auction with an estimate of up to £450,000 – more than three times the price of a brand new Aston Martin DB9. Continue reading...

Facebook picture urges people to change their profile picture to support Adam Johnson after child sex offence convictions

Suddenly, absurd faceswapping memes are everywhere, with everyone from Kanye to the Canadian prime minister having a go. A highly qualified expert in the art of the facial trade looks at their riseI hardly ever get to say this, but when it comes to faceswapping, I was an early adopter. I have proof. In late 2011, I posted a Facebook album called SWAPPED FACES, which consisted of 36 pictures of friends and family with their mugs superimposed on each other. As meme pioneering went, it was pretty impeccable. Founded on the app iSwap Faces, it featured your classic male-female and child-adult switches, and took an early, improvised step towards the more surreal variations that have lately become commonplace with a particularly uncanny shot of my friend Ross holding a dog, or, at least, my friend dog holding a Ross. Commenters were quick to recognise the importance of my work. “This is just one of the best things I have ever seen,” one said. “Again, thank you.” “Holy fuck,” said someone else. “I’m speechless. The taller one is particularly revolting.” Continue reading...

From dubstep moves in Toca Dance and animal instruments in Loopimal to Cookie Monster, opera and Frozen karaoke on Android and iOSFrom hammering saucepans to bellowing Justin Bieber in the bath, many children love to make a musical racket. Inevitably, there are apps for that too.A range of developers have been finding inventive ways for children to explore creative music-making – or the world of music more generally – on tablets and smartphones. Continue reading...

Chris Poole founded the controversial online community 4chan when he was 15, and many speculate he’s going to help Google tackle social mediaRelated: 4chan founder 'Moot' bids farewell: 'This is it for me. This is goodbye'Google has hired Christopher Poole, the founder of the notorious and controversial internet image-board 4chan. Continue reading...

Phones can have nasty side effects, but there are ways to minimise their impact on students

The US supreme court has decided not to hear Apple’s appeal against a 2015 ruling that it violated price-fixing laws by conspiring with five publishersThe US supreme court on Monday declined to hear Apple’s challenge to an appellate court decision that it conspired with five publishers to increase ebook prices, meaning it will have to pay $450m as part of a settlement.

Barnes & Noble has shut down its ebook store. It may have been overshadowed and outsold by the Kindle, but for some readers, it was briefly a revelationBarnes & Noble is shutting down its Nook app store, the slightly niche portal through which it sold ebooks for its e-reader, the Nook.I bought my Nook in a panic, when I was on my way to interview someone whose book would otherwise have taken six weeks to arrive. I viewed it as I do contactless payment and automatic windscreen wipers, with the reverence of the digital-latecomer, pathetically grateful and astonished, like the tribespeople confronted with a telly in The Gods Must Be Crazy. I hadn’t even processed at the time that I had all the boon of a Kindle with none of the tax avoidance of Amazon; indeed, I didn’t even realise it was serviced by Barnes and Noble. There were some glitches – when I tried to buy Pornland by the anti-pornography campaigner Gail Dines, it repeatedly gave me Lombard Street by Walter Bagehot instead. I decided in the end that there was no dark conspiracy behind this; if someone were deliberately making mischief, they would have replaced it with some actual porn, right? That’s what situationist pranks are for. Continue reading...