Technology | The Guardian

Competition commissioner says company unlikely to face EU regulators now that Germany is scrutinizing its data protection policiesFacebook is unlikely to come under separate EU antitrust scrutiny since Germany, which launched an investigation into the social network last week, is well-placed to handle the case, Europe’s antitrust chief said on Monday.

Veteran UK studio, founded by Peter Molyneux, is likely to close as Microsoft ceases production on latest Fable title, which has been in the pipeline since 2012Microsoft is set to close the UK game development studio Lionhead and has canned its forthcoming title Fable Legends.Hanno Lemke, the general manager of Microsoft Studios Europe, announced the decision in a blog post on the Xbox news site. In the same article, posted to the site on Monday afternoon, Lemke announced that the Danish studio Press Play would also be closed. Continue reading...

Lee Se-dol, 33, one of the world’s top players of the ancient Asian pastime, is confident he can beat Alphago. But he hasn’t seen improvements made to the system – and the match results could have implications far beyond the gameOn Wednesday afternoon in the South Korean capital, Seoul, Lee Se-dol, the 33-year-old master of the ancient Asian board game Go, will sit down to defend humanity.On the other side of the table will be his opponent: Alphago, a programme built by Google subsidiary DeepMind which became, in October, the first machine to beat a professional human Go player, the European champion Fan Hui. That match proved that Alphago could hold its own against the best; this one will demonstrate whether “the best” have to relinquish that title entirely. Continue reading...

Kitty Mrache’s ‘geodesic dome loft’ has appeared on the site for seven years and is so busy her own children have to wait in lineIt started life as DIY kit assembled in a spare patch of land for a newly homeless friend. Now this tiny wooden cabin sheltering in the oaks and redwoods of Aptos, California, is the most popular rental on Airbnb.Other properties on the home-sharing website are more glamorous, and others are more likely to be tagged by Airbnb’s “wish list” button. Continue reading...

Amanita Design draws its influences from Czech landscapes, mythology and cultural history to produce award-winning titles like Samorost and MachinariumHanging from the curved ceiling of the old town hall in Brno in the Czech Republic, is the preserved body of a dragon. The beast was said to have terrorised the inhabitants of the city centuries ago, until it was poisoned by a brave butcher. This area of the country is synonymous with myths and monsters. Ivan Mládek’s popular song Jožin z bažin tells of a swamp creature from Moravia – the lush region of which Brno is the largest city – travelling to nearby Prague to eat its tourists. But that was just a song, and the monster hanging by chains in the town hall is actually a crocodile – probably a gift from a visiting king in the 17th century. The myths and legends, however, live on.Venture beyond the city, into the surrounding forests, and you’ll often find Jakub Dvorský, founder of game development studio Amanita Design, exploring and foraging with his young family. It is here, where many of the city’s folk tales originated, that Dvorský draws his inspiration. Born in the region and a nature lover, he now brings his two small children out to pick mushrooms and wild fruits, to spot animals or to stargaze long into the night. He talks about investigating nature at every level, from microbes to landscapes, to the universe beyond Earth. Continue reading...

Tech-savvy? Narcissistic? Open-minded? What does being a millennial really mean?Millennials are currently aged 20-35, or born between 1980 and the end of 1994 (with some more generous definitions taking in those born up to 2000). They also get called Generation Y, because they follow on from Generation X (born 1965-1979), and other, less flattering names. Continue reading...

Company says customer-service tickets including ‘rape’ often involve misspellings of ‘rate’ and customers claiming ‘you raped my wallet’Uber has hit back at a report that it has received thousands of customer complaints about rape and sexual assault.The company claimed that it received five complaints alleging rape and 170 with a “legitimate claim of sexual assault” between December 2012 and August 2015, in response to leaked internal data published by BuzzFeed. Continue reading...

‘Passion’ meant working six days a week –16-hour days. I still play games, but having seen the inside of the sausage factory they’ll never be the same againAt the age of 11, I wrote my own version of Space Invaders. Someone I met on the internet who I knew only as “Mit” (it was a more trusting time) gave me the code. I muddled my way through the logic of enemies sliding back and forth, collisions and player controls, and after a few weeks was completely hooked. I loved playing computer games, and now I could make my own: I knew that I definitely wanted to become a games programmer.When I left university, it was in the middle of the last economic meltdown and buying games wasn’t really people’s top priority. The whole industry was going through a massive round of layoffs, so jobs were thin on the ground. In the end I was incredibly lucky, landing a junior role at a major UK studio owned by a console manufacturer just after they had made some more experienced engineers redundant. Continue reading...

Acmi join forces with Sydney Dance Company for an immersive film that combines choreography with virtual reality, allowing the audience to view the production from all angles

Your correspondent on Apple (Letters, 2 March) is not wrong – there are people choosing to live behind 3m walls with rottweilers running free. But is that a world that we want? I love the elegance of Apple devices – developed, as economist Mariana Mazzucato points out in The Entrepreneurial State, using technology paid for with public money for the military. But a few weeks ago I decided not to upgrade to an iPhone – partly because of the concealed costs and partly because it has become the preferred phone of drug barons, arms dealers etc. Apple has gained the world but lost its soul. The company has lost touch with its engineering genius and is behaving something like a rogue state. We hardly need to ask if it is in favour of TTIP, which by accident or design would put predatory capital in charge of the world. On one level money does make the world go round, but experience tells that the kindness of other people is what makes life worth living. A padded cell is very safe, but not most people’s des res.

Some of the most beautiful walks in England and Wales will be appearing on Google Street View from 17 MarchIf “the Google effect”on Britain is anything like “the Wild effect” in the US, there will soon be unprecedented numbers of people walking the national trails that traverse some of the most beautiful countryside in England and Wales.Wild was the name of a book in 2012 and, two years later, a film about writer Cheryl Strayed’s life-affirming journey along the Pacific Crest Trail, the longest walking route in the world, stretching more than 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada. Before Wild, only a few hundred hiking permits were issued for the trail every year. Last year it was more than 4,500 – and the number who walked the whole route quadrupled. Continue reading...

M6 earmarked for trial of ‘HGV platoons’ aimed at cutting down on fuel consumption and improving road safetyDriverless lorries are to be tested in “platoons” on British motorways as part of a government drive to bring major improvements to journeys.According to reports, the chancellor, George Osborne, is expected to confirm funding for the initiative in his budget next week. Continue reading...

Behaviour-recording program tracks a child’s education, but ensuring privacy is a concernWhen a child is asked by parents what they got up to at school, they probably won’t confess that they were told off for talking in their English lesson, or that they didn’t do their maths homework.But now honesty may be the only option as behaviour-tracking apps are becoming increasingly popular as an educational tool. Continue reading...

Watch rangers and volunteers using sophisticated Google Trekker cameras to map Britain’s ancient paths and byways Continue reading...

I can’t think of many people except for Abraham who’d sacrifice nippiness and thrill for so much spaceI thought for ages it was called the Seat Abraham and pictured myself as a Biblical patriarch – “Another six sons? No problem. Not much room in the boot, mind” – before someone pointed out that nobody names a car after anyone religious and it was an Alhambra. Without my six sons (seven in all, of course), I found it really annoying; I don’t want to say it’s the only good thing, but certainly the best thing about it is that it has seven seats.This car feels as if it has been designed for the passengers: spacious, lots of headroom. The younger passenger may enjoy climbing from one seat to another while you’re driving, in defiance of safety laws. This is hypothetical; nobody I know did this. Automatic sliding doors are when you know you’ve reached the summit of respectability, the kind of touch you might have a prejudice against before you’ve realised how useful it is. Continue reading...

The high price of oil, and an increasingly software-reliant network of sensors and monitoring tools are making the oil trade a high target for hackersOil and gas companies should be extremely concerned about the threat of hackers targeting critical infrastructure as they attempt to steal commodities or cause explosions, a security expert has warned.Alexander Polyakov of the software company ERPScan said the threat is particularly acute now that oil prices are so low, putting the industry under increasing pressure to cut costs. Continue reading...

The social media company has announced it will pay more tax as revenue from largest advertisers to be routed through UK rather than IrelandHow much tax does Facebook pay in the UK?Latest accounts show Facebook’s UK arm paid corporation tax of just £4,327 for 2014. Many ordinary British workers earning £33,000 a year or higher were outraged that they were paying more income tax than the social network. Continue reading...

Social media company to pay more tax as revenue from largest advertisers to be routed through UK rather than IrelandFacebook could pay millions of pounds in UK tax after approving fundamental changes to its corporate structure in Europe.Starting in April, the world’s largest social network will change its policy so that revenue generated from its largest advertisers displaying content on Facebook will be routed through the UK rather than Ireland. The change is expected to generate higher taxable profits in Britain and forms part of the US company’s plan to mitigate criticism of tax avoidance. Continue reading...

The privacy crisis is a disaster of our own making – and now the tech firms who gathered our data are trying to make money out of privacyFor privacy advocates, the Apple-FBI standoff over encryption is deja vu all over again.In the early 1990s, they fought and won a pitched battle with the Clinton administration over the Clipper chip, a proposal to add mandatory backdoors to the encryption in telecommunications devices. Continue reading...

Emad El-Sayed is in an LA prison awaiting his return to Egypt after writing that he ‘wouldn’t mind serving a life sentence for killing’ Donald TrumpAn Egyptian student at a flight school in Los Angeles is in custody and facing deportation after posting a message on Facebook that authorities say constituted a threat to kill US Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney launches blistering attack on Microsoft, over what he sees as plans to curtail users’ freedoms and subvert rights of developers

Microsoft is looking to dominate the games industry ecosystem with its aggressive new UWP initiative. Developers must oppose this, or else cede control of their titles

Almost nine in 10 of those polled were against Britain leaving the EU, with a further one in 10 undecidedLondon’s technology sector overwhelmingly opposes Britain exiting the EU, according to a survey of members of Tech London Advocates, an industry group representing almost 3,000 senior members of the capital’s tech scene.Of the members polled, 87% opposed Brexit, due to fears that leaving the EU would make it harder for British companies to reach customers in EU countries; harder to find and employ the necessary talent from overseas; and harder to convince international companies to operate in the UK at scale. Continue reading...

Polish developer 11 Bit Studios drew widespread acclaim for its gritty survival sim This War of Mine. We talk to the lead designer about why the developer has added children, and the challenges involvedAn eastern European city, several years into a civil war. A man named Christo and his young daughter Iskra have been forced from their home and end up sheltering from the bombs and snipers in an abandoned building torn apart by shrapnel. Food is hard to come by; Christo has been going hungry to make sure Iskra has enough to eat. He lies to her about his own needs so that she won’t worry.Reluctant to leave his daughter in the shelter alone, he teams up with another survivor so that one of them can always be around – but even that isn’t enough to keep them safe. While the new companion is out scavenging one night, Christo is unable to fend off a group of raiders who steal their food and injure Iskra. Traumatised, she starts to have panic attacks that last through the night. Continue reading...

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

Deputies move to punish companies that refuse to hand over encrypted data in wake of US legal battle between Apple and FBIFrench parliamentary deputies, defying government wishes, have voted in favour of penalising smartphone makers which fail to cooperate in terrorism inquiries, entering a controversy that has pitted the FBI against Apple in the United States.The move came in the form of an amendment to a penal reform bill that was receiving its first reading in parliament. Continue reading...

Colleagues and rivals including Airbnb, eBay, Reddit and Twitter file brief saying that FBI is executing strategy against Apple ‘unbound by any legal limits’The US technology industry formally lined up beside Apple on Thursday in the company’s legal fight with the FBI over encryption.

Ruling is a coup for the social network, which has argued its real-name policy ensures people know who they are sharing with and protects them from abuseFacebook may prevent its users from using fake names, a German court said on Thursday, overturning a previous order from the Hamburg data protection authority.The ruling is a coup for the social network, which has long argued its real-name policy ensures people know who they are sharing and connecting with and protects them from the abuse of the wide-open internet. Continue reading...

West End musical Beyond the Fence claims to be the world’s first computer-generated musical. What’s the potential for music made by machine?The Telegraph said it ‘held up against rivals like Mrs Henderson Presents’. The Guardian wrote that ‘a strong cast gave the piece some welly’. The Independent said Beyond the Fence ‘won them over’.

Northumberland-based OpenWorks Engineering’s SkyWall fires net-containing projectiles to disable and capture nuisance civilian dronesWhat’s the answer to a drone that has gone rogue and is flying where it shouldn’t? According to Northumberland-based startup OpenWorks Engineering, it’s an air-powered net launcher that fires small anti-drone projectiles.The SkyWall is a new shoulder-mounted compressed-air launcher that fires shells containing a net and parachute to capture and bring a drone back to the ground without damaging it. Continue reading...

The company bagged exclusives from Kanye West and Rihanna, who released the biggest albums of 2016, but it still has daunting challengesSpotify beefed with Taylor Swift and got sued by songwriters; Apple messed with people’s iTunes collections and was accused of sexism; and Deezer abruptly cancelled plans to go public in 2015.Yet it was another music streaming service that has been generating the most negative headlines over the past year: Tidal. The star power of its co-owners – Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Madonna and more – hasn’t spared it from criticism and derision. Continue reading...

Journalist Jordan Erica Webber hosts a panel to discuss taking games seriously, diversity, game-ifying love and new titles Firewatch and Fabulous Beasts. Contains strong languageGames journalist Jordan Erica Webber hosts a panel debate to discuss the latest trends in gaming. She is joined by Keith Stuart, Guardian games editor, Meg Jayanth, game writer/maker, George Buckenham, games designer (Fabulous Beasts), and Alice Bell, junior staff writer at videogamer.com.This Guardian Live event took place on 18 February 2016 at the Guardian offices, London. To find out what other events are coming up sign up as a Guardian Member. Continue reading...

New guidelines for prosecutors are response to increasing use of false social media accounts to post humiliating images onlineSocial media trolls who set up fake profiles under their victims’ names in order to harass them will face criminal charges under new guidelines from the Crown Prosecution Service.Four-year-old social media guidelines have be updated to reflect new platforms such as Snapchat and include specific revenge pornography measures aimed at prosecuting those who post explicit images of former partners. Continue reading...

War of words escalates after the Canadian dance producer called out the rapper and Tidal ambassador for alleged piracy, prompting a barrage of tweets from YeezyThe war of words – or at least the tussle of tweets – between Kanye West and Deadmau5 shows no signs of abating.In the latest online exchange of words between the rapper and DJ, West compared Deadmau5 to Mickey Mouse, while the dance musician hit back, saying West was trying to deflect the story away from accusations of piracy. Isn’t it great that our popstars can be so grown up? Continue reading...

Refined design, great sound and a lighter, more comfortable fit make microphone-maker Blue’s latest headphones a cut aboveMicrophone company Blue attempted to break the mould with powered-up headphones Mo-Fi in 2014, now it’s back with a lighter, more comfortable set called Lola.

It’s the lightest disc bike in the shops, but is it the future of road cycling?£4699; 6.8kg; focus-bikes.comAt first glance it might not clear why this bike is priced at roughly the average cost of a new bathroom. The Izalco Max Disc Red’s black carbon finish frame, the lack of flashy aero tube shapes and the exposed cabling don’t shout “years of expensive research and development”. Yet a closer look reveals this machine could be the shape of road bikes to come. Continue reading...

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

Crown Prosecution Service seeks help as internet is increasingly used to perpetrate violence against womenTwitter is to train prosecutors in England and Wales to better fight online abuse, as the internet is increasingly used as a weapon by perpetrators of domestic abuse, rape and sexual violence against women.The Crown Prosecution Service said the US-based social network would help it contend with criminal activity such as using the internet to post explicit images of former partners – an offence under the new revenge pornography laws – and the monitoring and stalking of victims using spyware and GPS. Continue reading...

The struggling reviews site has used increasingly aggressive tactics to respond to two employees who have written scathing open letters in recent weeksThe reviews site Yelp has tweeted the attendance record of a single mother it fired in the latest episode of another high-profile public spat with a former employee.The company was responding to a letter that Jaymee Senigaglia had published online in which she claims to have been mistreated by the company. Continue reading...

Researchers warn sites such as Yahoo, BuzzFeed and Flickr would be susceptible to attack, and credit card info, passwords and other data could be compromisedSecurity researchers have developed a method of attacking ‘secure’ connections that can be used to intercept and decrypt information being transmitted to some of the world’s most popular email, news and entertainment services.The researchers, made up of a team from public universities, Google, and a number of groups devoted to the development of open source projects, say the attack relies on a flaw in an old piece of encryption technology. Continue reading...

Deputy BoE governor warns digital-style currencies could deny commercial banks crucial deposits and hinder their ability to lend moneyThe Bank of England (BoE) could become the hub of a bitcoin-style digital currency that sidelines high-street banks and cuts the costs of financial transactions, according to a senior executive at the UK central bank.Ben Broadbent, BoE deputy governor, said a new system of holding cash in a banking version of the cloud, with encrypted keys to protect accounts, would likely prove a huge hit with customers, but warned that this could deny commercial banks vital deposits and potentially hamper their ability to lend money. Continue reading...

Apple’s general counsel Bruce Sewell reads from a paper copy of his testimony in front of the US Congress, after his iPad appears to fail. Sewell is giving evidence at the House judiciary committee hearing into the standoff between Apple and the FBI when suddenly he stops reading from his iPad and turns to a hard copy of his testimony. The iPad Pro was unused for the remainder of the lawyer’s remarks Continue reading...

Company starts replacements because ‘the adapter assembly may detach’ for plugs supplied with two 2015 Android-based tabletsAmazon is recalling the power adapter for some models of its popular Fire tablets, including one aimed at children, because of a risk of electrical shock.

John Whittingdale offers support to the newspaper and music industries and others hit by the software, adding he will set up a round table on the issueAnalysis: what’s wrong with adblocking?Adblocking companies acting as a “modern-day protection racket” have been slammed by culture secretary John Whittingdale, who offered government support to those such as newspaper websites hit by the technology.In a speech at the Oxford Media Convention, the culture secretary said the fast-growing use of software that blocked advertising presented an existential threat to the newspaper and music industries. Continue reading...

Anti-competition watchdog launches investigation into social network’s profiling of users for targeted advertising and abuse of its dominant positionFacebook is being investigated by the German federal cartel office, the Bundeskartellamt, for suspected anti-competitive behaviour stemming from breaches of data protection law.The Bundeskartellamt said on Wednesday that it has initiated proceedings against the social network, which operates within Europe from a base in Ireland. Continue reading...

The US government has an increasingly tense relationship with Silicon Valley, Peter Singer says, yet needs its help to battle the ‘new cold war’ with ChinaSilicon Valley companies are shying away from selling cyberwarfare services to the Pentagon to avoid jeopardising their relationship with the Chinese market, a leading geopolitical strategist has suggested.Peter Singer, an author and senior fellow at the New America Foundation thinktank, said the United States and China are engaged in a new cold war – being fought partly in cyberspace – that “could turn hot”. Continue reading...

From porn and bullying to being groomed by strangers, California’s most qualified parents are taking a cautious approach to their kids’ internet accessEven in Silicon Valley, parents struggle to navigate the online risks and opportunities for their children. The internet might be the first place to turn for homework and entertainment, but how much should parents intervene to protect their children from adult content, cyberbullying and being contacted by dangerous strangers?

A new version of the block-building game puts players into an immersive virtual environment, courtesy of Facebook’s VR headsetIt is the sense of scale that hits you. Despite intentionally blocky visuals, the open-world building game Minecraft has always produced landscapes of great diversity and beauty. To stand on a hillside and see the plains extend out for miles in all directions remains a great pleasure, even four years after its release.But visiting the game in virtual reality, actually standing among the craggy chasms, being able to look up at the looming mountains, seeing them extend into the sky far above you ... this is a new, rather breathtaking experience. Continue reading...

Did Yeezy download a pirated version of synthesiser Serum? The rapper-slash-designer might have revealed too much on TwitterKanye West uses Pirate Bay.Yes, that’s right: Kanye West (lyrical genius of a generation, launch partner of Jay Z-backed streaming service Tidal, husband to Kim and father to North and Saint) uses Pirate Bay (file sharing site, founders sentenced to jail terms, blocked in the UK and shut down in its native Sweden). Continue reading...