Technology | The Guardian

Display that has been three years in the making ‘will not break no matter how many times the phone is dropped’, and is covered by four-year guarantee

Partnership between developer Respawn Entertainment and free-to-play firm Nexon sees both invest in mobile studio that makes the gamesFirst-person shooter Titanfall made a big impact when it stomped on to PC and Xbox consoles in 2014. Now the game is squeezing its giant mechanised armoured transports down for smartphone and tablet screens.Its developer Respawn Entertainment has struck a deal with free-to-play games firm Nexon that will see both investing in mobile developer Particle City, which will be creating several mobile games based on Titanfall. Continue reading...

On today’s show we’re talking to Ed Key, George Buckingham and Laura Dreamfeeel about radical game designOnce again, we’re broadcasting our live audio chat show from the GameCity festival in Nottingham. At 9am, you’ll be able to hear Keith Stuart and Jordan Erica Webber talk to offbeat game designers Ed Key (Proteus), George Buckenham (Punch the Custard, Panoramical, Fabulous Beasts) and Laura Dreamfeeel (Curtain).If you don’t catch it live, you’ll be able to listen to the recording later on. Continue reading...

Working with three local internet providers, Google is trying to expand in Indonesia by installing helium-filled balloons in the stratosphereHow do you connect a country made up of 17,000 islands to the internet? That’s the huge infrastructure challenge faced by Indonesia, and one that Google hopes to address using its high altitude ‘Project Loon’ balloons.The Silicon Valley giant has partnered with three Indonesian internet service providers - Telkomsel, Axiata and Inmost - to deliver LTE connectivity to remote areas via clusters of giant helium balloons to places where fixed-line service aren’t available. It’s part of the the company’s plan to help connect some of the billions of people around the world who remain offline. Continue reading...

Fans queued online for tickets but technical difficulties with system meant three-hour wait and transaction failureThe booking period for the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, has been extended to January 2017 due to phenomenal demand. Fans scrambled for tickets when priority booking for performances from 7 June to 18 September 2016 opened at 11am but seats sold out quickly.Demand for tickets led to technical difficulties with the online system, including the site freezing and locking customers out of their purchases, which meant many fans who had waited up to three hours in the queue could not complete their transactions. Continue reading...

Retailer says sorry after technical problem allowed customers to temporarily see others’ account detailsMarks & Spencer has apologised for a data breach that forced it to suspend its website for two hours after customers were able to view other people’s personal details when logging into their accounts online.The retailer blamed a technical issue, which affected 800 customers, and said it acted quickly to resolve the problem. It stressed that it was not hacked by a third party and that no one’s financial details were compromised. Continue reading...

Another morning of live chat from the GameCity festival, this time feature James Parker of Ground Shatter and Alex Roberts, lead engineer of the National Videogame ArcadeIt’s raining here in Nottingham, but that will not quell spirits inside the National Videogame Arcade for the fifth day of the GameCity festival.One again, Guardian games editor Keith Stuart, and games writer Jordan Erica Webber will be live streaming from 9am, chatting to developers and industry veterans.

This iPad Air 2 rival has ample storage, but feels dated with last year’s software and average battery lifeSamsung’s latest Galaxy Tab S2 tablet is the thinnest yet, outdoing both Apple and Sony,and it comes with a vibrant 9.7in screen and a microSD card slot for storing hundreds of movies.The follow up to the Galaxy Tab S, the first truly good Samsung tablet, improves on design and speed, but swaps a widescreen for a squarer one, making it a more direct challenger to Apple’s iPad. Continue reading...

Justice Department asking Apple to access user’s data is comparable to asking a drug company to administer a lethal injection, US judge saysAsking Apple to bypass an iPhone’s password protection to hand over personal information to the US government is the equivalent of “asking a drug company to administer a lethal injection”, a judge has said.The Obama administration requested that Apple bypass passwords in a case involving an iPhone 5S and a closed investigation that is being conducted by the FBI and the US Drug Enforcement Administration but has unfolded into a war between a judge and the Obama’s Justice Department over encryption. Continue reading...

Firm now has more money in the bank than the annual GDP of Czech Republic, Peru and New Zealand, after selling 48m iPhones in latest quarterApple has more than $205bn of cash in the bank, the company revealed on Tuesday as its chief executive Tim Cook said the firm had made more than $234bn in 2015, making it its “most successful year ever”.The California company now has more money in the bank than the Czech Republic, Peru and New Zealand make in gross domestic product (GDP) a year, according to World Bank statistics. Apple’s cash balances increased by $2.8bn in the last three months alone. Continue reading...

Stock plummets 10% after company releases third-quarter results revealing its number of US users has remained flat at 66 million since start of the yearTwitter stock took another hit on Tuesday, dropping by more than 10% in after-hours trading in the hour after the company revealed it had failed to add any new users in the US for the second quarter in a row.In order to halt the slowdown Twitter is turning to old media, it will start airing TV ads during the World Series baseball championship starting Tuesday night. Continue reading...

The speaking iPhone tool has been pointing out users’ subscription status when they ask for information on chart-topping songsSiri has begun to differentiate between iPhone owners who subscribe to Apple’s music streaming service and those who do not.Apple Music launched in June 2015 with a free trial, which is now coming to an end. So far, 6.5 million people have paid for their first month of the streaming service, but those who choose not to pay to continue may see some differences in the way Siri answers their questions. Continue reading...

Andrus Ansip, European commission vice-president in charge of the digital single market, hails the MEPs decision to scrap roaming charges as an ‘historic achievement’. European parliament members voted through rules on Tuesday, which will allow mobile phone users to call, text and use data at the same cost as they would at home, while travelling within the EU from mid-2017 Continue reading...

More than 2,000 current and former workers – with more likely to follow – have begun a group claim after details of nearly 100,000 staff were leaked onlineThousands of Morrisons staff are preparing to sue the supermarket after their personal details were leaked online.A senior employee, Andrew Skelton, was jailed for eight years in July after he posted details of nearly 100,000 staff online. Continue reading...

On today’s show we’re talking to game designer Holly Gramazio about performative gaming and changing the rules of footballAll this week we’re running a daily audio chat show live from the GameCity festival in Nottingham. Every day, we speak to game developers and industry veterans about the state of the games industry.Today we’re talking to game designer Holly Gramazio about the project she’s running in Nottingham’s Old Market Square, looking to change the rules of football. Continue reading...

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

Metropolitan police say a 15-year-old boy has been arrested in County Antrim over the hacking of the telecoms company TalkTalkA 15-year-old boy has been arrested in Northern Ireland in connection with the cyber-attack on TalkTalk’s website.The arrest is the first major development since the phone and broadband provider said last week it had been hacked, prompting warnings from the company that the bank details and personal information of its four million customers may have been accessed. Continue reading...

New York attorney general’s office tells Time Warner, Verizon and Cablevision it is concerned their ‘fast lanes’ and premium services may be false advertisingA group of major US internet providers have been told to prove their “fast lanes” and premium services are any quicker than ordinary internet access.The office of New York’s attorney general has written to Time Warner, Verizon and Cablevision raising concerns that subscribers might not be getting the speeds advertised. Senior enforcement counsel Tim Wu requested detailed information by 8 November. He warned records could be subpoenaed and legal action taken to stop any deceptive business practices. Continue reading...

Hedge fund levels claims of data falsification and misrepresentation of financial position by AIM-listed mobile phone software developerThe chief executive and chief financial officer of Globo, an AIM-listed technology group, have resigned amid allegations of falsification of data and misrepresentation of the company’s financial position.The resignations come days after a scathing report into the company’s financial position by the US hedge fund Quintessential Capital Group and the suspension of stock market trading in Globo shares. The hedge fund claimed Globo, which was valued at about £100m, had been massively overstating its revenue and profit.

Community of horror writers keep the ‘ghost train’ alive by crafting scary stories for an audience of millions – with plots so good it’s hard to tell what’s true“Fear is a wonderful thing, in small doses,” Neil Gaiman once said. “You ride the ghost train into the darkness, knowing that eventually the doors will open and you will step out into the daylight once again.”These days it feels like there are fewer and fewer ways to get on that “ghost train” of delighting in the suspense of a scary story. The tradition of swapping tales around a campfire is a rare occurrence in modern life, and smartphone screens too often get in the way, and stop us from getting lost in a book. Continue reading...

The site has introduced an update to its search feature which includes every public post ever madeFacebook users are being encouraged to double-check their privacy settings after the social network introduced an update to its search feature which adds almost 2 trillion older posts by its members to the index.Previously, Facebook’s search feature was largely limited to groups, events and locations, with individuals’ public posts difficult to find without directly navigating to the user’s profile page. Continue reading...

Dido Harding says TalkTalk will ‘thrive’ in greater transparency with customers but that it would be naive to suggest hack could not happen againTalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding has insisted the company’s cybersecurity is “head and shoulders” better than its competitors in the wake of the massive hack attack affecting thousands of customers.In an interview with the Guardian, Harding conceded it would be “naive” to rule out the prospect of the telecoms firm suffering a similar cyber-attack in the future, describing the threat from hackers as “the crime of our generation”. Continue reading...

In this episode of our daily GameCity show we’re talking to Goldeneye designer Martin Hollis, The Chinese Room’s Dan Pinchbeck and original GTA producer Gary PennIt’s our second day of live audio broadcasts from the GameCity festival in Nottingham.Join us for an hour of chat with legendary game designer Martin Hollis (GoldenEye, Perfect Dark), Dan Pinchbeck co-founder of The Chinese Room (Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture) and Gary Penn of Denki, who oversaw the first two Grand Theft Auto titles, and wrote for seminal Commodore 64 magazine, ZZap 64. We’re also joined by UK industry veteran Alison Beasley. Continue reading...

The fad for colouring has reached the mechanical cutaway, and Haynes’s manual is a winnerAsk anyone (well, let’s be honest, any man) about engineering ‘cutaways’ and they’ll go misty eyed. Up there with Hornby model trains and Airfix plane kits, these incredibly detailed diagrams of the inner workings of everything from Bessemer iron converters to Apollo space crafts have the power to reduce men to a state of slack-jawed reverence.Haynes, famous for its maintenance manuals, has now brought out a book of them. And, as if that’s not exciting enough, the idea is that you can colour in the diagrams, too. Currently six of Amazon’s top 10 bestsellers are colouring-in books. Animals, flowers, swirly patterns… pathetic really. But classic cars? Now that makes a lot of sense. I’ve finished the Porsche 911 and have just made a start on a Triumph Spitfire. Continue reading...

Warning that telecom firm’s security breach could cause problems that will last for years, including identity theft risksRegulators must be given significant new “US-style” powers to tackle the escalating problem of online fraud in the wake of the cyberattack that potentially potentially compromised the security of millions of TalkTalk customers, IT experts said. Their call came amid warnings that the security breach at the telecoms provider could cause problems for its victims that will last for years.Some TalkTalk customers have complained that their bank accounts and credit cards have been targeted since Wednesday’s attack. But the TalkTalk chief executive, Dido Harding, insisted the data stolen in the cyberattack would not allow criminals to plunder customers’ bank accounts. Continue reading...

Firm says customer data stolen ‘materially lower’ than thought and would not allow money to be taken from bank accountsTalkTalk has said the amount of customers’ financial information stolen by hackers is “materially lower” than first thought and would not allow money to be taken from bank accounts.The embattled telecoms company said on Saturday that the cyber-attack, which took place on Wednesday, targeted its website and not its core systems. Continue reading...

The host of National Geographic’s StarTalk on how he chooses his guests, why his subject is nothing to fear – and what he wants from presidential candidates

Sussex teenagers create ‘a virtual memory jar’ to beat the stress and pressure of social mediaA group of teenagers has created an app that offers an antidote to Britain’s “share everything” social media culture.Memory Star allows users to create happy memories in a “virtual memory jar”, which they can revisit at any time to give themselves a boost when they are feeling down. Continue reading...

Whether you want to roleplay as a Jedi warrior, record your own Star Wars scenes or swap digital trading-cards, the app stores will provideStar Wars fans around the world are daring to hope that new film The Force Awakens will be as good as its promo clip makes it look – or at least better than The Phantom Menace. Early ticket sales suggest optimism on that point.But with two months to go until the new movie premieres, how can you fill the time? Unsurprisingly, there are apps for that. In fact, Star Wars has generated a whole mini-industry of mobile games and apps in its own right. Continue reading...

Every morning this week, Guardian games editor Keith Stuart and games writer Jordan Erica Webber are broadcasting a live chat show from the GameCity festival in NottinghamThe GameCity festival kicks off today in Nottingham’s National Videogame Arcade. The annual event, now in its tenth year, showcases games from around the world, from the smallest indie treats to the biggest Triple A hits.Every day of the festival, Guardian games editor Keith Stuart and games writer Jordan Erica Webber will be hosting a morning chat show, featuring developers showing their games at the event. And we’re streaming live from 8.45am each morning. Continue reading...

Boss apologises for breach which could have compromised financial details of up to 4 million people, amid speculation of Islamic militant involvementTalkTalk has said it does not know how many of its 4 million customers have been affected by a “significant and sustained” cyber-attack which could have compromised credit card and bank details.Dido Harding, the chief executive, apologised to customers for the third cyber-attack affecting the telecommunications firm in the past 12 months but said the breaches were “completely unrelated”. Continue reading...

Credit card details may have been compromised by ‘significant and sustained’ cyber-attack on telecoms company

The online retailer’s shares spiked 10% in after-hours trading as investors reacted to the $79m third-quarter profit reaped in part from its cloud computing servicesAmazon beat Wall Street expectations on Thursday, reporting a surprise profit, helped by rapid growth in its cloud computing business. Shares in the online retailer spiked 10% in after-hours trading as investors reacted to news that the company had posted a $79m profit for the third quarter. Analysts had expected Amazon to post a loss.The share surge added close to $5bn to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s fortune with the value of his 82.9m shares increasing $4.89bn. Continue reading...

Alphabet reports 13% rise in quarterly profits boosted by strong advertising sales driven by YouTube and mobile searchStock in Alphabet – formerly known as Google Inc – jumped in after-hours trading on the news the company had beaten Wall Street expectations with an earnings per share of $5.73.The company reported a 13% rise in quarterly revenue, boosted by strong advertising sales driven by YouTube and mobile search, it said. Its advertising line-items seemed to suggest a slightly different story – the company’s cost-per-click (how much it receives for every ad a user clicks on) was down 11% year-over-year, though its aggregate paid clicks metric was up 23%.

The Federal Communications Commission is ending a system that can cost inmates up to $17 a minute – cutting calls to between 11 and 22 cents a minuteFederal regulators moved to cap the costs of prison phone calls on Thursday in a move to end a system that has driven the price of a call as high as $17 a minute.At a meeting in Washington the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to cap rates on inmate calls made from one state to another. Prison calls have been driven sky high by fees charged by telephone companies, commissions and fees charged by prisons to monitor calls and for other services. Continue reading...

How user interfaces are designed to trick us. Plus, the legacy of Victorian computing pioneer Ada LovelaceEver subscribed to a mailing list by mistake? Booked travel insurance without noticing? Then you've fallen for a Dark Pattern.This week on the podcast we investigate the murky world of Dark Patterns: user interfaces that use psychological techniques to trick us into doing things we might otherwise not do. Continue reading...

Internet giant says funding will have ‘no strings attached’, with larger grants needing approval from a council including the Telegraph’s Murdoch MacLennanGoogle has launched its €150m (£109m) fund for European publishers to tap to develop new digital news projects, with large-scale grants needing approval from a council including Telegraph chief Murdoch MacLennan.Google announced its intention to launch the innovation fund in April as part of its Digital News Initiative that aims to support and improve historically often fractious relations with European publishers. Continue reading...

This week’s YouTube roundup also features Lewis Hamilton’s nail-biting finales, a very long badminton rally and Bacary Sagna going Back to the Future1) All pixels, all, well, mainly, perfect: the Fifa video game story, while retro game fans will doubtless enjoy our gallery of football gaming. “You’re a goalscoring, superstar hero!” – relive the marvellous Sensible Soccer theme in its entirety and sticking with Sensi, here’s a fantastic collection of real-life goals that could have come straight from the joystick and some crackers from the game itself. There is more. Roberto Carlos gets the Sensi treatment; Anglia News report on the game in 1992; Sensible Soccer Meets Bulldog Blighty; keep it in the air; the Cannon Soccer Amiga Format Special; Sensible World of Moon Soccer; and Unsensible Soccer. That has the top-end of the market covered, unlike Ashes Cricket 2013 however, which scraped the barrel before it was withdrawn from sale; equally International Rugby Challenge singularly failed to match Sensi’s success. Finally, when real sport fails, enter the properly bonkers sci-fi dystopia of Charles Barkley – “One billion b-balls dribbling simultaneously throughout the galaxy!” – in Barkley: Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden.2) “I’m getting tired just watching it.” Long badminton rally is very long. Continue reading...

DisneyLife, to launch in November, offers music and books as well as movies including Frozen, the Toy Story franchise and classics such as Snow WhiteDisney is to take on Netflix and Amazon Prime with a UK streaming service that will make its films, TV shows, books and music content available for £9.99 a month.The new service, DisneyLife, will launch next month as an app for Apple iOS or Android mobile and tablet devices. Continue reading...

Latest Android update is most refined yet, with powerful new Now on Tap features and extensive app permission control giving the power back to the usersThe latest version of Android boosts battery life and adds new advanced search features making it Google’s most polished operating system yet.Android 6.0 Marshmallow is already available on Google’s Nexus devices and LG and others have announced that they are bringing updates to their top-end smartphones within weeks. Continue reading...

Australia’s opposition leader, Bill Shorten, says the sharing economy is here to stay and has released six principles that will guide his approach to regulating itBill Shorten has called for “tailored, light-touch rules” for sharing-economy services such as Airbnb and Uber so that emerging operators pay their fair share of tax and customers’ safety is protected.On Thursday, the federal Labor leader released six principles that would guide his approach to regulating the sharing economy, although the details would be subject to talks with state and territory governments. Continue reading...

After talks with Xi Jinping in Downing Street, David Cameron hails greater cooperation along with trade deals including nuclear power investmentChina has agreed not to use cyber-espionage to steal commercial secrets from the UK and its president spoke positively about improving human rights, following talks with David Cameron on the second day of the state visit.Appearing side-by-side with Xi in Downing Street, the prime minister used a short press conference to brush aside concerns about working so closely with an undemocratic nation to announce unprecedented cooperation on sensitive issues of security. “I’m clear that the UK is China’s best partner in the west,” he said. Continue reading...

Early adopters share hair-raising videos of their Model S cars veering into traffic as new feature proves very betaTesla’s latest software update gave its Model S electric car the ability to drive itself with a new AutoPilot mode, but as a collection of owners have found out, two hands on the wheel are most definitely needed at all times.

The Linx IAS headband sensor monitors head trauma for American footballers and boxers, aiming to reduce the 300,000 concussions in US high-school sportsIn April this year, a US federal judge gave the final approval to a $900m class-action lawsuit settlement between the National Football League and thousands of former players.More than 5,000 retired players represented by the case complained that the league hid the risks of multiple concussions in order to keep players on the pitch. Each will now be awarded up to $5m (£3.23m) for any serious medical conditions associated with repeated head trauma. Continue reading...

From the first videogame, Intellivision Soccer, to a 3D rendering of Sergio Agüero’s head used in EA Sports’ Fifa 16, a new exhibition at the National Football Museum celebrates four decades of football gaming. Here are some of the highlights including Rio Ferdinand’s annoyance at his stats on Fifa 15 and a rejection letter to the producers of Football Manager from EA Sports.

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

New media streaming box is slick, supports ultra high definition content, can be voice operated and can come preset with your Amazon loginAmazon’s new Fire TV, the company’s 4K UHD-capable follow up to its successful streaming media box, beefs up specs but cuts a few small corners in the process.The Fire TV is a simple black box with shiny sides, a matt top and an embossed Amazon logo. It’s nonintrusive, can be hidden behind other devices and doesn’t have a fan, which makes it silent. Continue reading...

Proposed settlement means current and former Sony employees whose information was exposed in massive data leak will be paid from just a $2m fundThe Sony Pictures hack left thousands of employees vulnerable and scared, but when the dust settles on their class action lawsuit, the cash doled may not amount to much. Especially after the lawyers are paid.In a settlement proposed by the plaintiffs, Sony will pay between $5.5m and $8m to end the suit, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The “maximum base payment” against potential identity theft will be $1,050 cash for each class member (all current and former Sony employees whose information was exposed in the hack) out of a $2m cash fund. Anyone who has actually had their identity stolen as a result of the hack will be eligible for a $10,000 maximum. Continue reading...

Jeff Bezos owned newspaper’s writer backs The Gray Lady in row over article on working practices at online retailer … owned by Jeff BezosA sign of editorial independence at the Washington Post? The breaker of Watergate waded into the row between its rival the New York Times and online retailer Amazon with a piece which backed the venerable newspaper group on Monday.That’s the Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Continue reading...

Walmart and Target hire about the same amount of holiday employees as last year, while Toys R Us and Kohl’s are hiring fewerAmazon plans to hire 100,000 people for the holidays, a 25% jump from last year that reveals a shift in the way we shop.Related: Stock market shrugs off exposé of Amazon work culture Continue reading...