In 2015, the Facebook co-founder challenged himself to read one book every two weeks, but for 2016 he’s going to engineer a robot for his homeMark Zuckerberg wants to overtake Elon Musk to become the real-world version of Marvel superhero Tony Stark.The billionaire Facebook founder has expressed his desire (in a Facebook post, of course) to spend 2016 building an artificially intelligent assistant to help run his life at home and work – and directly compared it to Jarvis, the AI companion developed by Stark in the Iron Man films. Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s new electric car is still hard to find on the streets, but production is ramping upThe Model X, Tesla’s first new car in three years, was launched to much fanfare in 2015, but the company’s boasting of the “most advanced car yet” may have been a tad premature – just 208 cars were actually delivered in the fourth quarter of 2015, the first full quarter in which it was available to buy.A crossover (combining design cues from SUVs and more traditional cars such as hatchbacks), the Model X was unveiled in 2012, with plans for it to ship in 2013. That date slipped, first to 2014 and then to 2015, before it was finally launched in September of that year. Continue reading...

BBC3 going online only is set to be one of the biggest changes in the digital content worldYouTube stars such as PewDiePie and the multichannel networks that represent many of them will continue their youth-driven rise in 2016, but other media organisations will step up their efforts to get in on the game.John Kampfner of the Creative Industries Federation thinks 2016 “could be the year when media organisations truly break out of their silos”. He explains: “Whether free-to-access or heavily paywalled, websites continue to struggle to produce the revenues required to invest in strong journalism. While TV advertising revenues are strong, income for online services remains variable, at best. Continue reading...

Small, sharp and easy to live with: the only big decision you face when buying an Audi TT is whether to go soft or hardPrice: from £29,915

Dating apps to which you have to apply to join promise to end time-wasting mismatchesNew year, new love life. It’s a resolution that hundreds of thousands will make this month and January 2016 is expected to see the highest ever number of sign-ups to dating apps. But this year the apps are going in a new direction – instead of spreading the net as widely as possible, the new ones are all about keeping out “undesirable” people.The League is one such app. It heavily vets members, boasts that only 20-25% of those who apply are allowed in, and has more than 75,000 people on its waiting list. It launched in America last year and is now coming to the UK. Applicants must provide access to their profiles on LinkedIn, the business-oriented social network, to check out their academic achievements and employment history. Continue reading...

The vast Consumer Electronics Show traditionally predicts the hit technologies of the year to come - but is a sales event really the best predictor of consumer demand?Twenty years almost to the day, on 6 January 1995, Nintendo revealed its new Virtual Boy virtual reality headset at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Technologists had been experimenting with virtual reality since the 1960s, but the headset was a significant milestone by the then thriving Japanese games company. The press were unwilling to write off anything by Nintendo, but VR aficionados were not convinced. And as it turns out, they were right: players complained of dizziness, nausea and headaches and Nintendo sold only 770,000 – a tenth of predicted sales. The device was canned.“When Virtual Boy was introduced there was a lot of excitement about virtual reality and augmented reality as part of the future of gaming, but it didn’t happen that way for a variety of reasons,” said Regina Joseph, a forecasting expert and lead at New York University’s Future Lab. “The technology simply wasn’t at the same level as it is now, and there were some fundamental ergonomic issues. The hype concentrated in the press, and in a press run by fanboys, often doesn’t pan out. History is littered with the corpses of devices, projects and ideas that people got behind in a big way but that failed.” Continue reading...

You may have been delighted to get that smartphone for Christmas, but using it to send a smiley face will not make you happy when your bill arrivesIf you received a smartphone, and particularly an iPhone, for Christmas, be careful how you send any future text messages, because you may well find yourself facing an unexpected bill for picture messages – even though you haven’t sent any.It’s a little known fact that, depending on your handset and network, adding an emoji – a picture icon such as a smiley or a sad face – to a text message, or sending a text to an email address, can result in you being charged as much as 40p a time. On some phones, even typing a simple emoticon such as ;-) can cost you money when the software replaces it with an image file. Continue reading...

Newspaper said Apprentice star was ‘careless’ for being tricked into retweeting image of serial killer Harold ShipmanAlan Sugar has angrily criticised the Sun over its coverage of how he was tricked on Twitter into retweeting a fake birthday message containing a photoshopped image of serial killer Harold Shipman.The business magnate and star of BBC show The Apprentice fell victim to a prankster, who claimed the image was of his father and asked Sugar to wish him a happy birthday. Continue reading...

Moazzam Begg stresses the importance of encryption programs while convert Cerie Bullivant says ‘Muslims are the canaries in the mine’ of civil libertiesMoazzam Begg, the former Guantánamo Bay detainee, was unable to address Europe’s largest hacker convention in person because the British government confiscated his passport. The British Pakistani who spent two years at the US detention facility – but who has been declared not guilty of terrorism charges – spoke to the event by video link, urging developers to continue building free software encryption tools for political resistance.“What did I ever do to these governments? They took me from my home in Pakistan to the world’s most notorious prison,” Begg said. “If seeking justice and accountability they think will harm them, then I will continue to do that. Nobody is above the law.” Continue reading...

Father Albert San Jose has found himself in a lot of bovver over a hover after singing to his congregation during Christmas Eve mass while riding and spinning down the aisle on a hoverboard. Some parishoners seem delighted at the Catholic priest’s stunts on the self-balancing scooter. However, the diocese of San Pablo in Laguna has suspended him saying ‘the Eucharist demands utmost respect and reverence’Read: priest suspended for riding hoverboard up aisles during Christmas Eve massWatch: Mike Tyson left down for the count by hoverboard fail Continue reading...

From the prime minister’s porcine university shenanigans, to Donald Trump making a consistent fool of himself, we vote for our favourite political tweets of the yearWhat the hell is going on here? This looks like a character selection screen in a shite version of Mortal Combat. pic.twitter.com/Ru7WfxBwlZ Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and everything else that mattersIt’s New Year’s Eve! Continue reading...

At the stroke of midnight on 31 December, eager social media managers set free their 2016 messages. There was just one problem …Related: Dogs, the pope and JK Rowling: the best tweets of the year in 2015The dilemma: you’re a friendly, Twitter-loving organisation that wants to wish its followers a happy new year, but doesn’t want to be staffing a corporate social media account at the moment the party poppers start popping. Continue reading...

Retailer’s stock price falls 8% as fears grow that new online grocery delivery service could cause tremors in an already competitive sectorShares in Ocado dived more than 3% after fears that the online grocer faces increased competition from Amazon and is struggling to sign up an international partner.The British retailer took a hit on Wednesday after Amazon said this week it would rapidly expand its grocery delivery service in the UK. Ocado shares have now fallen 8% since Christmas Eve, closing at 315p on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Service that provided internet without data charges to more than 3 million Egyptians is closed, but the social network hopes to ‘resolve the situation soon’Facebook says a programme that had been giving free basic internet services to more than 3 million Egyptians has been shut down.In a statement to the Associated Press on Wednesday, Facebook says it is “disappointed” by the shutdown and hopes to “resolve this situation soon” so the programme can be restored. Continue reading...

Advertising Standards Authority rules article and video on Telegraph.co.uk did not make it clear they had been paid forThe Telegraph has been reprimanded by the advertising watchdog for failing to adequately label an online advertorial for Michelin tyres.The Advertising Standards Authority said the article and video on Telegraph.co.uk, which compared Michelin tyres with an unnamed budget brand, were misleading and did not make it clear they had been paid for. Continue reading...

Lamborghini - The Legend, from Italy’s AMBI Group, will detail the sports car maker’s passion for automobiles and his lavish lifestyleThe production company behind a proposed remake of La Dolce Vita is to embark on a biopic of the celebrated Italian sports car maker Ferruccio Lamborghini, according to the Hollywood Reporter.The AMBI Group, which announced in July that it had bought the rights to the classic Federico Fellini film, hopes to shoot Lamborghini – The Legend this summer on location in Italy.

Sidecar will close operations on New Years Eve, after the more successful transportation app companies Uber and Lyft see off major rivalUber has claimed its first major scalp, with San Francisco-based competitor Sidecar announcing on Tuesday that it will be shutting down operations at 2pm on New Year’s Eve.Despite raising $35m of venture capital funding over its four years in existence, from investors including Richard Branson and influential VC Fred Wilson, the company has announced it cannot continue in its present form. Continue reading...

From law and politics to film and music, we explore women’s achievements in the UK and its global industries, and the barriers still holding them back Continue reading...

Since 2006, the site insisted anything that wasn’t illegal should be tolerated. Under Ellen Pao’s brief leadership, all that changedHalfway through 2015, one of the largest white supremacist communities on the internet was closed down. The “Chimpire”, a loose network of forums with names like “CoonTown” and “Teenapers”, had started in 2013 with the founding of the virulently racist “GreatApes” forum.By this year, it included around 50 separate forums, some dedicated to specific topics such as sharing footage of black people dying or trying to live a “negro-free” life, and others providing a more general location for racists to socialise with each other over their shared interest in the dominance of the white race. Continue reading...

Ed Vaizey applauds UK tech strongholds and calls on next generation of digital entrepreneurs to also focus on largely state-backed sectorsThe government is urging tech companies to target the education and healthcare sectors as it encourages the industry’s growth outside London.The digital economy minister, Ed Vaizey, wants the next generation of tech entrepreneurs to focus on sectors that are largely state-backed. Wherever government is involved as a buyer of services, Vaizey said, it should make the most of new technology. “In education, universities and colleges are already using massive online courses, so lectures and courses can reach a much wider audience, costing less. Could schools benefit from similar innovations?” he said. Continue reading...

Chaos Communications Congress, Europe’s largest hacker conference, opened with call to action from Fatuma Musa Afrah: ‘Things are solved by human beings’Fatuma Musa Afrah was 16 when she touched a computer for the first time in Kenya. Somalian by birth, she insists that people use the word “newcomer” instead of “refugee” to refer to her.Musa Afrah inaugurated the largest hacker conference in Europe, the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, by declaring she knew nothing about the field of IT. Linus Neumann from the Chaos Computer Club, which has organized the congress every year since 1984, had to work hard to convince her to come. Continue reading...

The new version of Google’s head-mounted computer has been revealed in a US government filing.Despite killing it off at the beginning of this year, Google has revealed a new version of its Glass wearable computer, aimed squarely at enterprise businesses such as healthcare and manufacturing.In filings with the American federal communications commission, the search firm has published the first pictures of the redesigned device, which now features a foldable arm holding a much larger screen. Continue reading...

Technology companies will be required to decrypt messages at the Chinese governments request, following the passage of a new law on SundayA new anti-terror law in China gives the government the explicit power to demand technology firms decrypt electronic messages stored on their servers, sparking concern – and confusion – from foreign companies.The law as enacted, however, falls short of a draft bill which would have required computer companies to explicitly install “backdoors” on their devices, allowing the Chinese government privileged access to the users’ communications. Continue reading...

The deathknell tolls for Flash as Google, Firefox, Amazon and other technology companies block it, while Adobe dumps the name from its own productsDeaths are rarely to be celebrated, but there is one passing that certainly won’t be widely mourned: that of Adobe’s Flash.2015 was the year the bug ridden security flaw finally went into terminal decline. Once the darling of the new interactive web (we’re talking in the late 1990s), enabling video, web apps and fancy ads, Flash has become bloated and dangerous, loved only by hackers on the open web. Continue reading...

User growth stalled, abuse was rife – but will it be able to break through in 2016?In 2015 Twitter lost one chief executive, gained another, and nearly tossed them too, before eventually settling down with him – incidentally, one of the men who had founded the company way back in 2006.It also finally admitted that it sucks at dealing with abuse on the site, made its first tentative steps from “platform” to “publisher”, and began testing the most controversial new feature it’s ever introduced. Continue reading...

The first wave of VR headsets flopped, but soon the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR will go on sale – and they’re going to be much, much betterVirtual reality is coming. 2016 will see the release of the first serious consumer VR headsets for 20 years.In the first quarter of the year, VR pioneers Oculus (a subsidiary of Facebook, since a $2bn (£1.3bn) buyout in March 2014) will launch the consumer version of their Rift headset to the world. In April, Taiwan’s HTC will launch the Vive, another PC peripheral developed in conjunction with gaming firm Valve. And at some point in the year – likely to be the first half – Sony will launch its PlayStation VR, an add-on for the Playstation 4, which will bring VR into the living room. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Monday! How was your Christmas? Continue reading...

It’s been a year of quality sequels, indie class acts and some incredible immersive journeys, from the zombie apocalypse to a rural Shropshire one…The year has been dominated by a series of open-world games that were both impressive and exhausting. Batman: Arkham Knight gave us a glittering gothic maze; Mad Max and Fallout 4 traded visions of the apocalypse; Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain erected a grand stage for the apparently final exit of Snake; and Just Cause 3 built another just to blow it up as inventively as possible. These games are odysseys of side quests and collectibles, and their relentless ambition has become the dominant mode of this generation of consoles, if only because they leave little time to play anything else. Continue reading...

Google’s Project Tango allows mobile devices to gain awareness of the space around us. Could the technology be as game-changing as the iPhone was, or is it just another shot at the moon?In early 2014, Google made an interesting announcement. The company had a new product in the pipeline, one that could change the way we interact with computers. Google showed a prototype of the technology built into a Nexus phone. Dubbed Project Tango, it allowed the device to gain awareness of the space it was in, and to do so far more precisely than anything seen previously.Google pre-announced the technology, it seems, because it didn’t really know what to do with it. Continue reading...

Hamburg conference hears that Red Star intranet allows Pyongyang to control citizens’ access to websitesNorth Korea’s homegrown computer operating system mirrors its political one – marked by a high degree of paranoia and invasive snooping on users, according to two German researchers.Their investigation, the deepest yet into the country’s Red Star OS, illustrates the challenges Pyongyang faces in trying to embrace the benefits of computing and the internet while keeping a tight grip on ideas and culture. Continue reading...

Smartphones are increasingly becoming the devices on which we access the web at home as well as on the move, meaning more power for Google and AppleThe Christmas holidays are the time of year when different generations of the family gather around the dinner table. So it’s a perfect opportunity for a spot of tech anthropology. Here’s how to do it.At some point, insert into the conversation a contemporary topic about which most people have strong opinions but know relatively little. Jeremy Clarkson, say. There will come a moment when someone decides that the only thing to be done to resolve the ensuing factual disputes is to “Google it”. Watch what happens next. The younger members of the group will pull out their smartphones and key in the search terms. Most of the older members will do nothing – other than make a mental note to look it up when they’re next at their PCs and wait for the smartphone owners to report what they have found. Continue reading...

It may be the ne plus ultra of automotive sophistication, but a long weekend in this Roller will put you into a head spinPrice: £367,632

A quality off-roader for kids that means they’ll be able to keep up with youSpecialized, founded in 1974 in California, is one of the world’s largest bike builders. So you know that when they put their mind to remodelling the MTB for juniors they’ll have considered all the angles. The main goal for the new Riprock was an affordable children’s trail bike that performed like an adult’s, so your kids could join you on the toughest tracks. It’s been built to safely flatter and foster their handling skills. It has plus-sized 2.8in Big Roller tyres for great traction and a geometry with a low standover, which makes it easy to hop on and off, and gives a broader range of fit across the years. It also has suspension forks and disc brakes to improve stopping power and allow small hands to yank on the brakes faster. And it’s mercifully light for little legs (evanscycles.com).Price: £350

Getaways that force stressed Britons to detach from digital media in relaxing surroundings are enjoying a boomOverworked, stressed-out Britons are driving a surge in demand for digital-free new year getaways, where guests are forced to ditch their smart devices as they check in.The trend for “digital detox” has been around in the America for some time, but the urge to go “off grid” is taking hold here too, along with a mini-boom in specialist companies looking to cash in. Continue reading...

Christmas can be stressful, cooped up in a house with a number of your closest family members. These gadget ideas can help you take that crucial break to retain your sanityChristmas is meant to be a time of sharing, caring and food, but it can be quite fraught and stressful a couple of days in. Technology can help you take a break so you don’t end up hating your lovely family. Continue reading...

From Periscope, Google Photos and Dubsmash to Apple Music, YouTube Gaming and Ninja Jamm, the 25 best new Android apps of the yearLet’s be blunt: the vast majority of apps used by the vast majority of smartphone owners were not released for the first time in 2015.Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify, Skype, Uber ... all well-established before Big Ben struck midnight on 31 December 2014. As the years go by, the number of brand new apps that make a massive, global impact seems to narrow. Continue reading...

From Periscope and Enlight to Apple Music, Google Photos, YouTube Gaming and Pacemaker: the best new iOS apps of the yearAccording to analyst firm Forrester Research, smartphone owners spend 85% of their time on those devices using apps, but 84% of that time is spent using just five apps that weren’t already preloaded on their devices.That’s why it’s so tough for new apps to become WhatsApp or Candy Crush-sized hits: even if their developers can persuade people to download them, getting them to use them regularly is another challenge entirely. Continue reading...

From privacy to backups and the best apps – here’s a guide to get you started with that new smartphoneIf the holiday season has been kind enough to bestow upon thee a shiny new smartphone, here’s what to do to get the best out of the first few hours and set it up right. Continue reading...

Got a new Mac for Christmas? Ideal. Time to invest in a cover before you scratch it to bits. Here are 10 covers that don’t look like covers Continue reading...

This hunk of tech will only be as good as the apps you put on it and as secure as you make itIf the holiday season has been kind enough to bestow upon thee a shiny new tablet, here’s what to do to get the best out of the first few hours and set it up right. Continue reading...

Announcement follows similar move by Facebook, as internet companies respond to attacks that can be ‘more advanced and dangerous’Yahoo has become the latest technology company to promise to alert its users if it thinks their accounts have been attacked by “state-sponsored actors” – hackers working on behalf of governments.“Yahoo will now notify you if we strongly suspect that your account may have been targeted by a state-sponsored actor,” said Bob Lord, Yahoo’s chief information security officer, in a blog post announcing the change. Continue reading...

Mobile operator Reliance Communications ordered to stop offering social network’s suite of free services on net neutrality groundsIndia’s telecoms regulator has ordered mobile operator Reliance Communications to stop offering Facebook’s “Free Basics” service to its customers, due to concerns over net neutrality.Free Basics is a suite of basic internet tools including news, travel, job listings and health services, offered to people in a number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America through partnership with operators that remove data charges. Continue reading...

Crytek’s new project for the Oculus Rift shows us exactly where VR gaming is going – towards heady and experiential gameplayAbove you, the craggy face of the cliff seems to stretch up endlessly toward the sky, offering perilously few footholds. In the far distance there’s a small village by a beach, bathed in orange sunshine – an exotic idyll. But below you there is ... nothing. Nothing but a long deadly drop into the crashing sea far below. Your only option is to keep climbing.Crytek has always been interested in pushing graphics technology. In the mid-2000s, the Frankfurt-based developer and publisher achieved wide acclaim for its visually spectacular first-person shooters Far Cry and Crysis; although several years old, both are still widely used as a benchmark for near photo-realism in games, especially in terms of environmental detail. With its steamy tropical rain forests, Far Cry presented a lush counterpoint to the genre’s obsession with steel grey interiors. Continue reading...

From Vainglory and Prune to Lara Croft Go, Alphabear and Minecraft: Story Mode, the 25 best games for Android of the yearOnce upon a time, Android often played second fiddle to iOS when it came to the latest and greatest games. That’s long gone though: 2014 was an exceptional year for Android gaming, but 2015 was just as good.From platformers and puzzle games to shoot ‘em ups and even hardcore MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) titles, Android owners had plenty to choose from. Here’s our roundup of the 25 best titles, with more to be recommended in the comments section. Continue reading...

Engineering and robotics design company Boston Dynamics dresses up robots as reindeer. A female Santa Claus is pulled by three robot reindeer, wishing everyone ‘happy holidays’. Funding for the majority of the most advanced robots made by Google-owned Boston Dynamics comes from US military sources Continue reading...

Entrepreneur may be facing extradition to the US, but in 2016, labels will be more focused on navigating the changing economics of streamingYou might expect champagne corks to be popping within major music labels at the news that a New Zealand court has ruled Kim Dotcom can be extradited to the US to face charges of copyright infringement, racketeering and money laundering.In his heyday at cloud storage service Megaupload, Dotcom became a cartoon villain for music rightsholders – and their compatriots in the film, games and software industries – as they saw the company as a haven for illegal filesharing. Yet that heyday is ancient history for a music industry that has been going through an intense period of digital disruption in recent years. Dotcom was arrested and his site shut down nearly four years ago, in January 2012. Continue reading...

Flywheel claims to be the world’s first and only regulator-approved, GPS-based taxi meter – and is stepping up competition against rivals Uber and LyftCalifornia’s state regulators have approved TaxiOS, an app for hailing traditional taxis – making it the first and only GPS-based taxi meter in the world approved for use by state regulators.Customers can view a real-time display of their current ride price, though drivers can lower their rates during off times so the cost can be split between friends or a carpool group, similar to the Uber Pool and Lyft Line options offered by its ride-sharing competitors. Continue reading...

He has millions of followers and likes on Facebook, Twitter, Vine and Instagram. He uses YouTube and Periscope. His polling numbers remain high. Could Trump’s social media strategy really win him the biggest job of all?In sentences I never thought I’d write: Donald Trump is still riding high in the polls as part of his bid to be the next President of the United States. Late last month, the Republican nomination hopeful dropped a massive 12 percentage points in a single week following comments on creating a Muslim Database, but it speaks to his unfathomable popularity that even with such a vertiginous fall he was still hitting 31%, and since then, his ratings have climbed ever higher.If there’s anything that goes some way to explaining Trump’s popularity in the midst of his quasi-fascistic views that reached a nadir with his call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, it is his social media prowess. Trump has more than 5.5 million Twitter followers and 4.5 million Facebook fans. He has a presence across YouTube, Vine, Instagram and Periscope. Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s highly-regarded former digital and social media guru, has said Trump is “way better at the internet than anyone else in the GOP which is partly why he is winning.” Continue reading...