Technology | The Guardian

Site given three months to stop tracking and transferring data to US without consent in first significant action since Safe Harbour pact was struck downThe French data protection authority on Monday gave Facebook three months to stop tracking non-users’ web activity without their consent and ordered the social network to stop some transfers of personal data to the US.

Pichai received 273,328 shares, company filing shows, bringing his holdings in Alphabet to $650m – still far less than the net worth of Google’s foundersThe boss of Google, Sundar Pichai, has been awarded $199m (£138m) worth of shares, making him the highest paid chief executive in the US.

Exclusive: Breach at Australia’s health practitioner regulator reveals flaws in handling of personal data and ‘shakes confidence’ in medical complaints systemA nurse was allegedly assaulted by an employee of Australia’s health practitioner regulator, who used his credentials to access the agency’s database and track down her home address and phone number.Related: Lamb chop weight enforcers want warrantless access to Australians’ metadata Continue reading...

Researchers at University of California at Berkeley are developing a mechanical roach after finding its exoskeleton is uniquely suited to fitting into small spacesSearch and rescue missions of the future could be led by a horde of robot cockroaches, with US researchers developing a mechanical version of the reviled insect in order to serve the whims of its human overlords.A University of California at Berkeley team found that cockroaches, despite their reputation as unwanted vermin, are superbly adaptable creatures able to contort their bodies to fit into various small and awkward spaces. Continue reading...

Hackers claim to have stolen sensitive information from 20,000 people employed by Department of Justice and 9,000 employed by Homeland SecurityUS officials have downplayed the impact of the latest hack of government data, this one containing employee information from 29,000 Department of Justice (DoJ) and Homeland Security (DHS) staff.Hackers claimed Sunday night to have stolen sensitive information from some 20,000 people employed by DoJ, including Federal Bureau of Investigation officials, and another 9,000 from DHS. But government sources familiar with the hack said the compromised information paled by comparison to the recent data theft from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Continue reading...

Chef Neal Fraser served avocado soup and spicy meatballs at an event for ‘food influencers’ in LA – then revealed that all the ingredients came from McDonald’sA well-known Los Angeles chef tricked a group of foodies with an elegant meal prepared entirely out of McDonald’s food.Chef Neal Fraser, who hosted the meal last week at the Carondelet House in downtown Los Angeles, told about 40 “food influencers” in attendance he would be “cooking with experimental” and “fresh ingredients”, the Orange County Register reported. Continue reading...

Science Museum, London

Viral attacks in the 1980s and 90s were often gaudy, psychedelic and provocative – and now they can be experienced without destroying your PCThey may have crippled computers and cost billions, but the computer viruses unleashed in the 1980s and 1990s could be provocative works of art, too. Rather than the silent-but-deadly viral attacks of today, the attention-seeking malware of yesteryear featured animations, taunts and even games that would flash up on your computer screen as the virus took hold. Continue reading...

With Linx, Amy Anderson helps the high-powered but often lonely tech CEOs of California find love the old-fashioned way for the low price of $50,000It is a truth universally acknowledged about dating in Silicon Valley that for single women in possession of reasonable fortune, “the odds are good, but the goods are odd”.According to the Pew Research Center, the area around San Jose and Silicon Valley is top in the nation for the ratio of single men to single women. Most of those single men work in tech.

UK scientist is advocating for research to show psychoactive drug use is a matter of sound public health policy – and Silicon Valley startups see an opportunityFinding safe, new uses for psychoactive drugs, well-known chemical compounds that can alter the mind, is a fashionable occupation for a niche group of tech enthusiasts called biohackers. Biohackers are hobbyists that typically experiment with psychoactive drugs, among other life-enhancing tools, outside of institutional laboratories. But one academic scientist is trying to convince the UK government and the scientific community that psychoactive drug use is a matter of sound public health policy.While the US Federal Trade Commission is in the midst of penalizing businesses for using inadequate scientific evidence to claim that their products improve cognitive abilities, Samuele Marcora, the director of research at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Kent, is initiating academic research that could bolster these products’ reputations. Continue reading...

As elections near, one social media platform appears to have escaped hardliners’ curbs and filtersAs Iran gears up for parliamentary elections at the end of the month, an instant messaging app believed to be used by one in four Iranians is set to play a major role.Telegram allows users to broadcast to unlimited numbers of people on public channels, with a strong emphasis on privacy protection for its users. It made headlines when it emerged that members of Islamic State were using it to broadcast propaganda. In Iran, however, which has a tech-savvy young population, it is mostly downloaded for reading news, communicating with friends or sharing jokes. Continue reading...

Set amid the wilderness of Yellowstone National Park, this enigmatic adventure offers a compelling meditation on love, loss and lonelinessFirewatch is a game about solitude and space, a first-person journey through the massive wilderness of America’s Yellowstone National Park. It’s a space of such magnitude that it almost unavoidably conjures mysteries and conspiracies of corresponding size. But at the close, we are drawn back down to the essential and human.You are Henry. Continue reading...

The fitness tracker craze has taken a paternalistic turn with a US university asking students to wear wristbands. Has datafication gone too far?‘Apple’s iPhone sales disappoint but profit beats targets,” said the headline. It turned out that Apple sold “only” 74.77m iPhones in the fiscal first quarter of 2016, which is less than a 1% increase on the same period a year ago. So what happens? The share price plummets and Alphabet (aka Google) overtakes Apple as the world’s most valuable company.And right on cue, we get the usual kind of kindergarten “analysis” from the tech commentariat. Apple has run out of ideas. It needs a new “breakthrough” product along the lines of the iPhone. The iPad was supposed to be that product, but its sales are declining. And the Apple watch clearly isn’t going to take its place etc, etc... Continue reading...

The creator of The Witness has defended its £29.99 price tag. But how do you measure the true value of a video game?Of all the bargains to be had in the Harrods New Year sale, none shines quite so ostentatiously as the store’s 24-carat gold-plated Xbox One, sat in gaudy resplendence under thick, presumably ram-raid-proof Perspex. While the console (purportedly the only one of its kind) had endured an ego-shanking £3,500 discount to its original £5,999 price tag, it remains one of the most expensive pieces of video game hardware in the world. This will be of small comfort to the sulking internet commentators who, in the past few weeks, have bemoaned the launch price of the Oculus Rift, Facebook’s forthcoming virtual reality headset. The technology, which will lead the VR charge in March, will cost £499 at launch (or around £1,000 for a package that includes a capable PC), much more than was previously expected. Continue reading...

Affordable and stylish, this classic town bike is perfect for city slickersThe Loft is made by Electra, a Californian bike company. They call it a ‘flat-footer’, which means its frame has been designed so that when you stop you can put your feet flat on the ground. For anyone who has given themselves a temporary vasectomy as they tipple over on tiptoes, this could be a godsend.The relaxed geometry also means it is incredibly comfortable to ride around town. It’s been designed with functional minimalism in mind and there’s nothing poncey about its clean and classic lines, its sensible mudguards and useful rack. It has a deep step through to make getting on and off easy, and the upright bars put you in the ideal position to avoid bumps, pot holes and jaywalkers. Gearwise, you can choose from a fixie-like single up to an 8-speed hub. A good un’ (evanscycles.com). Continue reading...

Security measure is necessary to prevent use of fraudulent parts, says company, after thousands of users affectedApple has hit back at criticism of its controversial “Error 53” message on iPhones, claiming it is part of measures to protect customers’ security.On Friday, the Guardian revealed how thousands of iPhone 6 users have had their devices, which cost hundreds of pounds, left useless after encountering the error message. Continue reading...

David Bytheway has signed a deal with the Bundesliga club in another sign sports gaming is becoming as popular as the real thingIt is safe to say that David Bytheway earns just a fraction of Wayne Rooney’s £15m-plus annual Manchester United salary. But while Britain’s latest footballing export plies his trade with his thumbs rather than his feet, the future might just belong to him.“I’m definitely on a very comfortable wage at the moment. And while it doesn’t come close to a footballer’s wage, maybe it’s something that will change,” says Bytheway, 22, from Wolverhampton, who has signed a deal with the German Bundesliga club Wolfsburg to be one of its two official gamers. Continue reading...

It takes a particular kind of driver who not only loves to floor it, but actively enjoys a car that feels as if it’s going 80 even at 40Are dual exhausts just for showing off, or the logical end point of the high horsepower vehicle? For that matter, does anybody need this kind of power, and when – outside of criminal activity – does anybody need to hit 62 miles an hour from cold in 6.2 seconds? These questions are for losers. Reason not the need of the sporty vehicle. If you want it, you know why you want it, and all that remains to ask is, does the sportiness fulfil the dearest desires of those who love to sport? If we take those desires to be antithetical to those of the general population, then yes. But let’s dig in a little: lazyboneses, who sit marshmallowishly in their seats and are just waiting for a driverless car, followed by a liverless life, prefer the automatic. Those who are a bit more vigorous prefer a manual, and those who like to sport prefer a gearbox like this: so racy that it’s quite hard to get into each gear unless you’ve hit peak condition for it. It’s like watching Breaking Bad. You think it’s just telly, and only when you concentrate will you understand why other people enjoy it.Likewise, your sedate, prosocial driver (like my stepmother, whom I once had to follow home from Kent and was surprised when I arrived that my toenails hadn’t grown through my shoes) will drive at 80 tops and never once wonder what a car sounds like at 100. The regular driver might strain at the speed limit every now and again, for kicks. But it takes a particular kind of driver who not only loves to floor it and can see the point of a top speed of 155mph, but actively enjoys a car that feels as if it’s going 80 even at 40. I’m not saying I am one of those people, I’m just saying I understand they exist, and this is the car for them. It is a cheeks-blown-back, hair-on-end, take-hills-like-you’re-flying kind of car. The steering is taut, responsive, even a bit melodramatic, like having a telepathic bond with a vehicle that sometimes misinterprets you on purpose. Continue reading...

Transport chiefs are trying to convince US technology company to extend trials of prototype driverless vehicles to the capitalLondon transport chiefs are in “active discussions” with Google in an attempt to convince the company to trial its driverless cars in the capital.Isabel Dedring, the deputy mayor for transport, said officials met with Google recently to encourage the technology company to extend its pilot scheme to London. Continue reading...

Perhaps the most highly revered Silicon Valley engineer, Musk said he has been thinking about an electric jet with vertical takeoff and landingElon Musk, founder of SpaceX, Tesla and PayPal, has hinted that his next project could be building a vertical takeoff electric plane.Making a surprise appearance at the Hyperloop pod competition, a contest to design a futuristic, high-speed, people-moving pod between Los Angeles and San Francisco, Musk was asked what his next project might be. Continue reading...

The professional social networking website’s stock plummeted to three-year low of $110.01 after revenue predictions fell much shorter than expectedLinkedIn Corp’s shares plunged as much as 43% on Friday, wiping out nearly $11bn of market value, after the social network for professionals shocked Wall Street with a revenue forecast that fell far short of expectations.The stock sank to a three-year low of $110.01 in early trading, registering its sharpest decline since the company’s high-profile public listing in 2011. At least seven brokerages downgraded the stock from “buy” to “hold” or their equivalents, saying the company’s lofty valuation was no longer justified. Continue reading...

Google makes the money but Alphabet’s other companies are wildly ambitious, from ‘curing’ ageing to robot butler designLooking at the annual results of Alphabet, you could be forgiven for thinking that last year’s reorganisation of the world’s most valuable company was all for nothing.Google, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet, dominated financially. The segment, which includes most of the best-known Google products such as its search engine, maps, Gmail, YouTube and Android, made up $74.5bn of the company’s $75bn (£52bn) annual revenue. Continue reading...

British astronaut plans to post tweets about the game, as the BBC beams live-stream of it to his space station orbiting 400km above the earth

Drama is based on viral tweets by Aziah ‘Zola’ Wells – which won praise from Ava DuVernay and Missy Elliott – about her brush with a violent pimpJames Franco has signed up to direct a potentially controversial true-life drama based on a wild and unsavoury stripper road trip to Florida that went viral on Twitter.According to the Hollywood Reporter, Franco’s film will be based on the Rolling Stone article Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted, which was published in November. The piece related the story of stripper Aziah “Zola” Wells’ 148-tweet splurge, described as “like Spring Breakers meets Pulp Fiction, as told by Nicki Minaj”, in which she claimed she narrowly avoiding being tricked into prostitution by a fellow stripper and her violent Nigerian pimp. Continue reading...

DeepMind’s Go-playing software will play South Korean in five-match game live-streamed on YouTube, following victory over European championGoogle’s French Go-champion-beating AlphaGo artificial intelligence will take on the Go world No 1 in a live broadcast from Seoul, South Korea. The contest will begin on 9 March and offers a $1m prize.

Battery could revolutionise UK energy market by enabling people to store excess energy generated from rooftop solar panelsThe setting is decidedly modest: a utility room in a red-brick house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Wales. But if the hype turns out to be right, this may be the starting point for an energy revolution in the UK.Householder Mark Kerr has become the first British owner of a Tesla Powerwall, a cutting-edge bit of kit that the makers say will provide a “missing link” in solar energy. Continue reading...

From discounts on hotel rooms and plane tickets to shopping vouchers, student deals and gig tickets without booking feesAll hail the age of austerity. Even if that doesn’t extend to the expensive devices we carry in our pockets. But smartphones can save you money, if you let them.Apps comparing the prices of meals, plane tickets, insurance and more are well established on the app stores now, as are apps with more specific methods of saving you a few pounds. Continue reading...

Author Alec Ross looks at how robots, genomics and big data are going to change our lives foreverAs a senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, Alec Ross travelled the world with the remit of cataloguing the best examples of innovation the human race has to offer. His trips took him to Korea, the Congo and Silicon Valley (and far enough overall he has calculated, to take him from the Earth to the moon twice, with a side trip from the US to New Zealand), and left him with a concern that the rate of change could leave many behind.From robots entering the workforce and leading to the very real prospect of redundancy within a decade for the million employees of Taiwan’s electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn to genetic engineering unleashing the possibility of designer babies, the power of technology to reshape the world is reaching historic levels. Continue reading...

The social media platform used its friend graph to calculate the degrees separating its 1.6 billion members and found it is as few as 3.57 peopleIt’s a smaller world after all: Facebook has challenged the conventional wisdom that there are six degrees of separation between everyone on the planet.Its number-crunching in commemoration of “Friends day” suggests Kevin Bacon might be as much as 40.5% closer than previously thought. Continue reading...

Games magnate Ian Livingstone’s schools in London and Bournemouth will teach latest in technology and creative thinkingThe founding father of the British games industry, who helped bring Dungeons and Dragons and Lara Croft to the world, is to open two free schools aimed at preparing pupils for the digital world.

Sick children, elderly women and the internet at large have a lot of love for this feline internet celebrity – otherwise known as the ‘Mother Theresa of memes’In which I find myself, at this station in life, sitting in the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel petting something called “Grumpy Cat” while her owner tells me they are here at the Super Bowl because one of the teams has a cat for a mascot…I scratch Grumpy Cat’s head. She sniffs my finger. She licks her nose. And I pray this morning that the geological fault far beneath my feet does not shudder, that the earth does not shake and the Fairmont’s walls will not collapse for that means the final act of my career’s work is to ask an elfin cat with a pouty face if she even knows what a Carolina Panther is. Continue reading...

Filings by Google UK show that £33m of £130m related to share options, which it had argued were exempt from UK taxGeorge Osborne’s claim that the government secured a major corporation tax deal with Google appear to be unravelling after it emerged that a quarter of the £130m recovered by HM Revenue & Customs related to the US company’s share options scheme.Filings by Google’s UK subsidiary show that £33m of the funds paid to the Treasury followed a wrangle over share options handed to staff, which the US business had argued were exempt from UK tax. Continue reading...

Government says Alibaba blocked vast majority of access attempts but regulator’s report leads to company’s US-listed shares falling by 3.7%Hackers in China attempted to access more than 20m active accounts on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Taobao e-commerce website using Alibaba’s own cloud computing service, according to a state media report posted on the internet regulator’s website.

Huawei’s latest Honor smartphone has an excellent fingerprint scanner, good screen, camera and battery life, but customised Android Lollipop isn’t up to parThe Honor 5X is the latest mid-range smartphone from rising Chinese manufacturer Huawei, which aims to bring decent performance, screen and fingerprint sensor for less than £190.Honor is Huawei’s budget brand and marketed separately, including a couple of smartphones available in the UK with exclusivity to mobile phone operator Three. Continue reading...

Three films and one show to make their debut on 10 February in the US, but fans from elsewhere in the world will have to buy onlineYouTube has confirmed that one TV show and three feature-length films will be the first exclusive content released for its YouTube Red subscription video service.They will debut on 10 February in the US, the only country where YouTube Red has launched so far. Fans elsewhere in the world will have to buy the shows and films from YouTube, or buy and rent them from the Google Play store. Continue reading...

Fan of BBC Radio 4 soap raises more than £10,000 for Refuge in response to powerful storyline of Helen Titchener’s abuseIt is an everyday story of internet folk and this time the tale is particularly heartwarming. An online donations page on behalf of a fictional character in the long-running soap, the Archers has raised more than £10,000 for domestic violence charity Refuge.Archers fan Paul Trueman set up the Helen Titchener (née Archer) Rescue Fund on Tuesday night in response to a powerful storyline in the BBC Radio 4 soap involving the abuse of Helen Titchener by her controlling husband, Rob. Continue reading...

Several US law enforcement agencies use analytics software to identify potential criminals, yet there is little oversight and no proof the data is reliableA police officer stands at the corner of a busy intersection, scanning the crowd with her body camera. The feed is live-streamed into the Real Time Crime Center at department headquarters, where specialized software uses biometric recognition to determine if there are any persons of interests on the street.Data analysts alert the officer that a man with an abnormally high threat score is among the crowd; the officer approaches him to deliver a “custom notification”, warning him that the police will not tolerate criminal behavior. He is now registered in a database of potential offenders. Continue reading...

The alienated workers behind Uber’s app are using other networks to communicate, saying they need the companionshipBill Moore’s walkie-talkie app Zello has mostly been used for people struggling against repressive regimes in places like Egypt, Turkey and Bahrain. In South Africa, communities use it as a 911 system. During anti-government protests in Venezuela, activists turned to Zello.But hasn’t been that popular in the US, Moore said, adding that the US isn’t even in the top market for the app’s 90 million users. Except among one funny group: Uber drivers. Continue reading...

The Mobile Photography Awards is the largest showcase for images taken on smartphones and tablets. Its 2015 competition saw entries from all over the world, including this image from Sydney Continue reading...

Chris Hill-Scott left tech firm in 2008, weeks after startup was set up – now Microsoft has bought it for £174mA civil servant traded in his stake in the keyboard app SwiftKey in 2008 in exchange for a bike, only to see it grow into a £170m success – and to miss out on a payout that could have been worth £25m.Chris Hill-Scott, a 29-year-old from Buckinghamshire, founded the startup bought by Microsoft on Wednesday with Cambridge-graduate friends Jon Reynolds, 30, and Ben Medlock, 26, in 2008. He was appointed director of SwiftKey’s parent company TouchType Ltd on 13 August, according to Companies House, but resigned just months later on 24 October that year. Continue reading...

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

Company reveals just 3.34% of its tech workers are African American – the same proportion as a year ago – but increased number of female employeesIntel has failed to increase its proportion of African American and Hispanic employees despite the computer chip giant making a public pledge last year that it would ensure “full representation” by 2020.The company revealed on Wednesday that just 3.34% of its tech workers are African American – exactly the same proportion as a year ago. The proportion of Hispanic tech workers decreased by 0.08 percentage points to 8.06% from 8.14% this time last year, when Intel’s chief executive Brian Krzanich announced a $300m drive to increase the diversity of its employee base. Continue reading...

Investors could be taking advantage of spikes in Twitter’s stock price – driven by viral rumours on the social media platform that it is about to be acquiredAnother week, another Twitter acquisition rumor – and another spike in the company’s stock.The latest rumor came through the reputable Silicon Valley trade publication the Information, which claimed that Marc Andreessen, billionaire venture capitalist and active tweeter, would be buying Twitter along with the private equity group Silverlake. Twitter’s stock inflated by 6.5%, and then within a few days fell back even lower. Continue reading...

European nation to back research aimed at space race to open first commercial mine of valuable metals off planet EarthLuxembourg has declared its intention to blaze a trail in asteroid mining in the hope that it will reap lucrative returns.The small country’s government said on Wednesday it would invest in space mining companies and establish a legal framework to assure those engaging in the activity that they can keep the fruit of their toils. Continue reading...

Pioneer of artificial intelligence researchMarvin Minsky, who has died aged 88, was a pioneer of artificial intelligence. In 1958 he co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Subsequently known as the AI Lab, it became a mecca for artificial intelligence research.His published works included Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence (1960), a manifesto that profoundly shaped AI in its earliest days, and Society of Mind (1985), which postulated that the brain is fundamentally an assembly of interacting, specialised, autonomous agents for tasks such as visual processing and knowledge management. That view of the architecture of the mind remains a cornerstone of AI research. Continue reading...

The collectible card game is trying to balance accessibility for new players with pleasing the hardcore gamersHearthstone, the collectible card game from Blizzard, is about to undergo its biggest shake-up to date, with more than 150 previously released cards being declared illegal in standard games.Cards from the first two expansion packs to be released, July 2014’s Curse of Naxxramas and December 2014’s Goblins vs Gnomes, will no longer be playable in normal games. They will, however, be allowed a new format, called “Wild”. Continue reading...

US spies will have to choose between keeping hackers out or acting like them to gather intelligence, going against recommendation of computer security expertsA reorganization of the National Security Agency could increase pressure on US spies to choose between keeping hackers out – or acting like them to gather intelligence.This week, the NSA is expected to announce an internal reshuffling that will merge its defensive and offensive cybersecurity missions, two former US officials said. Continue reading...

Japanese prime minister condemns ‘serious provocation’ and Washington demands tougher sanctions for defying UN resolutionsThe United States, South Korea and Japan have condemned North Korean plans to launch a rocket carrying a satellite – a further major breach of UN resolutions following a nuclear test in January.The International Maritime Organization said it had received a shipping warning from North Korea of its intention to launch an earth observation satellite between 8 and 25 February.

Such an expansion, which Amazon itself has not confirmed, would position the world’s top online retailer as a competitor to booksellers such as Barnes & NobleAmazon.com is planning to open hundreds of brick-and-mortar bookstores, the head of a major US mall operator said.Such an expansion, which Amazon itself has not confirmed, would position the world’s top online retailer as a competitor to booksellers such as Barnes & Noble. At present, Amazon operates a single bookstore in its home city, Seattle. Continue reading...

Erica Harris and Arte Vann quickly felt a special connection after following each other on Instagram and decided to get married immediately upon meetingIt was love at first “like”.When Arte Vann, of New York, and Erica Harris, of California, connected on Instagram last winter, they clicked immediately. They quickly fell in love while dating long-distance, and finally met face-to-face for the first time on Friday night at the LA Ontario international airport. Continue reading...