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The tech giants are racing to provide internet access from unmanned aircraft flying higher than passenger jets, having quietly registered new drone designsGoogle and Facebook have significantly expanded their rival plans to develop unmanned aircraft that can provide broadband internet access from high above the Earth, the Guardian has learned.Both Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have quietly registered new drone designs with the US Federal Aviation Administration. Continue reading...

In this extended edition of the podcast, we talk to some of the biggest movers and shakers at the annual web summit in DublinThis week Tech Weekly packs up its bag of cables and microphones and hits the road for the annual Web Summit in Dublin. We move through the throngs of braying startups and roving investors to cut straight to some of the most interesting speakers at the event.This year it seems four initials are gaining traction: AI and VR. We talked to VR pioneer Jackie Ford Morie about her work to make astronauts less lonely; futurist Nell Watson about virtual consciousness for AI; cyber-psychologist Mary Aiken on how online life is affecting children; and to Silicon Valley roboticist Andra Keay and the Guardian's Julia Powles on the tech monopolies taking over our lives. Continue reading...

Like every parent, David Bowie told his son to put down the console and play outside. But that young gamer has grown into the director of the first World of Warcraft movie. Duncan Jones on tackling a $100m fantasy epicWhen he was a child growing up in the 1980s, Duncan Jones would often stay up through the night, drawing maps on graph paper of places he’d only ever visited inside a computer screen. His father, David Bowie viewed his son’s arcane video game obsession with suspicion. “Like any parent he would say, ‘Why won’t you just get out of the house and play outside?’” Jones recalls.Zowie, as he was known at the time, spent much of his early life on tour with his father. A peripatetic child, even one cushioned by the comforts of a rock star lifestyle, has to find home somewhere. For Jones, it was the video game worlds into which he disappeared each day. “Games have always presented an opportunity to escape,” he says. “But they are also an opportunity to go somewhere that you come to know well.” Continue reading...

Free service available in Moscow will delete all mentions of homosexuality or ‘evil under the guise of goodness’The Russian Orthodox Church has said it will offer free “Orthodox internet” Wi-Fi cleansed of immoral content near churches and in public places around Moscow.Orthodox priest Roman Bogdasarov, who heads the Russian Inter-religious Council, told Izvestia newspaper that the internet contains many threats to users, including recruitment materials for Christian sects and Islamic State, pornography and “distorted versions of history”. Continue reading...

By clamping down on her children’s use of smartphones and tablets, the Steve Jobs actor doesn’t know what she’s getting intoKate Winslet, in an interview to promote Steve Jobs, her new movie about the legendary Apple designer, said she is clamping down on her children’s use of smartphones and tablets and will not allow them to use social media because of its harmful qualities.Related: Kate Winslet says children being harmed by social media Continue reading...

This GPS-driven story about loss turns your smartphone screen into a portal, presenting a virtually abstracted version of cities

Every Friday, we review things that desperately need appraising but seldom receive the critical treatment they deserve. We also review things that really don’t need appraising at all. We’ll review your suggestions, too – suggest in the comments or @guideguardian Continue reading...

When two worlds meet to make a successful combinationTwo of the mainstays of geek culture, comics and games have shared an awkward relationship – for many years, games were re-imagined to mediocre effect in print. There were exceptions, but today it’s much easier to find well-considered game-comics. Here are some of the best. Continue reading...

Star Wars is back, with The Force Awakens opening in cinemas in December, but for gamers the franchise has never gone away, from the early arcade delights of destroying the Death Star to recreating the movies in Lego1983 Star Wars

Site is offering small businesses new location-aware adverts, to let them distinguish between users in different placesAlready alarmed by how well Facebook’s adverts seem to know you? They are about to get even more specific.The social media company is rolling out two new ad products aimed squarely at small businesses who have typically been reluctant to fork out for prime placement on the site. Continue reading...

After the King purchase, could Activision be thinking of entering its hugely successful collectible card game into the ‘skill-based gaming’ sector?On Monday, Activision announced a deal to acquire the smartphone and online gaming specialist King for $5.9bn, instigating one of the largest takeover bids in recent gaming history. The move was greeted with surprise by analysts who pointed to King’s heavy reliance on a single title, Candy Crush Saga, which appears to be stagnating, as well as the company’s declining revenues – a point underlined on Thursday when King announced its third-quarter earnings, down to $180m, compared with $216m a year ago.

Jason Clare seizes on data released by former head of NBN Co Mike Quigley to defend company from claims of poor accounting and financial systemsThe prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has no one to blame but himself for the cost blowout of the national broadband network (NBN), Labor’s communications spokesman, Jason Clare, has said.Related: Turnbull defends purchase of $14m worth of copper to deliver NBN Continue reading...

Low resolution screen, weak processor, poor cameras and serious lag make the Fire HD 10 a disappointment with few redeeming qualitiesThe Fire HD 10 is Amazon’s latest full-sized tablet, but it cuts far too many corners and isn’t cheap.

Company to employ 200 people in a new facility that will include development of roboticsToyota is investing $1bn in a research company it is setting up in Silicon Valley to develop artificial intelligence and robotics, underlining the Japanese automaker’s determination to lead in futuristic cars that drive themselves and apply the technology to other areas of daily life.Related: Life with robots: 'What people enjoy most is avoiding social interaction' Continue reading...

Online retailer launches Prime Same Day – free to Prime subscribers but £9.99 for others – a day before Argos unveils free delivery offerAmazon and Argos delivery drivers will be racing each other to customers’ front doors from Friday, as the retailers go head-to-head with a same-day delivery service.Amazon has launched Prime Same Day, allowing customers of its Prime service to order goods before noon and receive them between 6pm and 10pm. Continue reading...

‘It’s like Lego!’ – the perky Radio 1 presenter offers young listeners a quick guide to coding a big-money winner“If you could invent any app in the world, what would it be?” A quick vox pop of would-be young digital pioneers discovers that their life-changing ideas involve takeaway deliveries and tech to blag their coursework. Teenagers today, eh?In Radio 1’s How to Make a Million-Pound App, perky host Dev dangles the digital carrot of becoming as rich as Facebook entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg or Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel before the age of 30. It’s a big promise, but his boundless enthusiasm should surely be enough to inspire teenagers to get off WhatsApp and create their own technology. Continue reading...

The e-commerce behemoth that put chain bookstores out of business has seemingly ripped a page from their playbook with the opening of its first physical shop, in Seattle. But are the locals buying it?It took Amazon.com to get Kirsten Davenport back into a bookshop.“It has been a long time. Years. I couldn’t even tell you where a bookstore is,” the healthcare manager said. “That’s so awful.” Continue reading...

Amazon’s parental leave policy is the latest in tech company trend of ostensibly generous perks meant to retain hard workers rather than give them a real breakLet’s give Amazon the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps the announcement of its revamped and significantly more generous family leave policy didn’t have anything to do with the really bad PR that the company has been combatting since the publication of a New York Times exposé, including comments by some former Amazon insiders, about just how difficult it is to work for the retail behemoth.Writing that the company “is conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable”, Times reporters collected somewhat hair-raising tales of what it means to be an elite worker at the giant online retailer. In the process, they raised the question of whether a gender gap might partly explain the problem, and recounted at least one instance where a woman was told by her boss that having children “would most likely prevent her from success at a higher level”. Continue reading...

Dyson argues tests don’t reflect real-world energy use but green campaigners say they have still made vacuum cleaners more efficient and help cut energy billsThe British technology firm Dyson is asking the European court to throw out a large chunk of the EU’s energy efficiency legislation following accusations that rival firms are misleading customers over the way their products operate.Dyson, headed by the British engineer James Dyson, is seeking to quash the EU’s regulation for vacuum cleaners at the European court of justice. Continue reading...

App boss says while hook-ups happen, 80% of users are looking for long-term relationshipsTinder users are looking for long-term love, not just casual sex, according to the dating app’s chief executive, Sean Rad.“We just conducted a survey of over 300,000 of our users. What we found was over 80% of people on Tinder are there to find a long-term relationship,” said Rad, at the Web Summit conference in Dublin. Continue reading...

Nothing digital is secure, so the massive proposed extension of state powers in the ‘snooper’s charter’ could backfireThe surveillance bill has had a rough passage so far. Today the spooks were under pressure from left and right. Libertarians, nerds and the big computer firms were up in arms. The sceptred isle was up against the Spectred isle. So MI6 sent for Bond.The past week has seen the most bizarre spinning. The BBC and the Times suddenly “managed to secure” exclusive stories about the wonderful world of secret intelligence, shamelessly pegged to the premiere of the film. The Times offered a gushing prospectus of work inside GCHQ. The BBC’s Frank Gardner sat, obsequious, in a darkened room and asked faceless voices what it was like being “the real James Bond”. It was like a spoof promotion video for the Stasi. Continue reading...

A Nokia 3310 and couple in sauna among 30 tongue in cheek digital symbols to be launched by Finnish governmentFinland has rolled out images of a couple in a sauna, an old Nokia phone and a heavy metal music fan as part of a set of national emojis, or symbols, to be used in digital communication. Continue reading...

Project Zero security vulnerabilities team reveals top-end curved Korean handset had 11 holes, of which three have yet to be fixedGoogle has revealed that Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S6 Edge Android smartphone suffered 11 “high impact” security issues that were introduced by the company’s customisation of Android.

Theresa May’s revived snooper’s charter will give police and spies access to a year’s worth of your web browsing historyCritics call it a revived snooper’s charter, because the government wants police and spies to be given access to the web browsing history of everyone in Britain.However, Theresa May says her measures would require internet companies to store data about customers that amount to “simply the modern equivalent of an itemised phone bill”. Continue reading...

Home secretary Theresa May likens accessing internet browsing history to allowing the authorities to see an itemised phone bill, as part of the new bill on internet surveillance in the House of Commons on Wednesday. The bill, known as the snooper’s charter, gives new powers for police and security services tracking UK citizens’ internet use without the need for a judicial check

Teenager, who quit platform after revealing how much she was being paid to promote products, has started her own websiteA teenager who dramatically altered her popular Instagram profile to reveal how she was paid for seemingly perfect images has deleted her account, encouraging followers to visit and donate to her new website instead.Essena O’Neill, 18, who had 612,000 followers, had rewritten the captions on many of the images, explaining she was being paid to promote clothes and drinks, and had taken some of the selfies more than 100 times to get the right stomach-sucked-in shot. O’Neill said the pictures “served no real purpose other than self-promotion”. Continue reading...

The new surveillance powers unveiled by home secretary Theresa May in wake of the Edward Snowden revelationsRelated: Theresa May gives police powers to view UK citizens' web browser history – live• Requires web and phone companies to store records of websites visited by every citizen for 12 months for access by police, security services and other public bodies.

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

Will 140-characters rule be axed as new CEO aims to make Twitter fly?I am not sure what a low-key billionaire is supposed to look like, but I’m certain that’s the look Jack Dorsey was aiming for when he opened Twitter’s developer conference last month. He was wearing one of the first Twitter T-shirts (slightly creased, with the slogan: “Wearing my Twitter shirt”), jeans, trainers and an unidentifiable smartwatch, having ditched the beard shortly before the CEO job looked permanent. That’s a shame, because however post-beard San Francisco likes to think it is, it’s still a pleasingly jarring thing to have some facial fur among all the achingly dull preppy blue shirts and dark jeans of the Valley.As Dorsey came on stage, I was only slightly distracted by remembering that his net worth is $2.3bn. That’s so much money as to be almost abstract. Would he notice if he lost any of that? I mean, if he carelessly lost most of it down the back of the Tesla, wouldn’t $100m still be more than enough to buy a nice home, travel a bit, give some away and still never work again? Anyway, I have no privileged knowledge of Dorsey planning to leave anything on any of the buses he used to say he took to work in San Francisco. In the meantime, he’s probably focused on pulling Twitter out of its fog of despondency. It was for this reason that Twitter decided to name its developer conference Flight, in the hope it might give it wings. Continue reading...

Leslie Miley says reappointing Dorsey is a step toward fixing issues at a company that in 2014 had only 49 African American employees out of 2,910Just months after it was reported that Twitter employed only 49 African Americans out of a 2,910-member staff, Leslie Miley, an African American engineer who left the social networking company last week, has penned a Medium post highlighting the struggles Twitter faces as it attempts to become more diverse.According to Miley, there is hope in the form of Jack Dorsey, the company’s co-founder and newly appointed CEO, who returned to Twitter in August after seven years. Continue reading...

Home secretary tries to sweeten snooper’s charter by stating that police will need judicial approval to access internet connection recordsTheresa May is to propose a major extension of the surveillance state when she publishes legislation requiring internet companies to store details of every website visited by customers over the previousyear.The home secretary will try to sweeten the pill of her revived snooper’s charter on Wednesday by announcing that the police will need to get judicial authorisation before they can access the internet connection records of an individual – something that is currently banned in the US and every European country, including Britain. Continue reading...

“We believe that a universe only driven by profit maximisation can be poisonous, to culture especially.”In a single sentence during his appearance at the Web Summit conference, Kickstarter chief executive Yancey Strickler set out the principle behind the crowdfunding company’s recent decision to turn itself into a public benefit corporation (PBC). Continue reading...

All eyes may be on next year’s contest, but today brings key decisions across the US with votes on housing in San Francisco and discrimination in HoustonA year after the midterm congressional elections and still a year away from the 2016 presidential decision, election year 2015 is something of a sleeper. But decisions made by voters in several cities and states could be an important bellwether of sentiment ahead of next year’s presidential elections. Here’s a look at the major decisions playing out in polling stations across the country on Tuesday:Governor’s races in Kentucky and Mississippi

US-based firm claims TfL idea of short wait before start of journey will leave each driver almost £1,000 out of pocket a yearUber has claimed the proposed introduction of a five-minute delay to the start of minicab journeys in London would be “a huge mistake” for the capital’s economy.The US-based company claimed the Transport for London (TfL) idea, part of a public consultation, would leave each Uber driver in London almost £1,000 out of pocket a year. Continue reading...

Social network changes star shaped ‘favourite’ button to heart shaped ‘like’ button. But how have people reacted online?Favourites – we use them for a myriad of reasons. Favouriting a tweet could mean “I like this tweet”, or “good point”, or “this is fun, but not enough to retweet”, or “I acknowledge your communication, but can’t be bothered to reply”, or “the conversation is ending now, but on a positive note!” Also, the favourite is a great bookmarking tool.Now, however, Twitter has cruelly stripped away all of the above nuances of communication by replacing the favourite function with a “like” button. Unlike. How, now, is one supposed to bookmark an article on the refugee crisis without ‘liking’ it? I’m not ready to inaccurately look – ironically – heartless on social media. Continue reading...

Emily O’Reilly wants to improve regulation on private companies poaching experts from EU political bodies

North Rhine-Westphalia pays €5m for information on tax avoidance and illegal deals, according to Der SpiegelTax authorities in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia have purchased a USB stick reported to hold evidence of tax avoidance and illegal deals worth more than €600m (£427m).Investigators are believed to have paid more than €5m for the data, the highest amount handed over for such information, according to Der Spiegel. Continue reading...

Facebook and Instagram like to be thought of as progressive. But when it comes to nudity policies, a campaign started by a trans woman is finding confusion and prejudice remainNipples. We’re all born with them, but only half of the population can show them off on a warm summer’s day without people tutting, objecting, being offended or outraged. Male nipples, it’s OK for the world to see. Female nipples, not so.The same is true online in social media circles. The social network Facebook and picture-sharing service Instagram, which it owns, have a community-standards policy on nudity which permits male nipples but not female ones. It states: “We remove photographs of people displaying genitals … we also restrict some images of female breasts if they include the nipple.” Continue reading...

Deal to buy King Digital is biggest takeover of a UK tech company in four years and will give World of Warcraft maker a foothold in the mobile games marketKing Digital, the British creator of Candy Crush, has been bought for $5.9bn (£3.8bn) in the biggest takeover of a UK tech company in four years.King is being acquired by US video game maker Activision Blizzard, the business behind World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. The US group will pay $18 in cash for each King share – 16% more than King’s closing price on Monday – in a deal that is the biggest in the British tech sector since Hewlett Packard bought Autonomy in an ill-fated £7bn deal in August 2011. Continue reading...

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

User agreements are written for regulators and lawyers but new database intends to help consumers make more informed choices to ensure data is protected

Head of company’s Project Wing says guidelines being developed with FAA on identifying, tracking and co-ordinating unmanned craft flying at low altitudesGoogle has said it expects to begin delivering packages to consumers via drones in 2017.David Vos, the leader for Google’s Project Wing, said his company was in talks with the Federal Aviation Administration and other stakeholders about setting up an air traffic control system for drones that would use cellular and internet technology to co-ordinate unmanned aerial vehicle flights at altitudes under 500ft (152m). Continue reading...

Activists in San Francisco showed support for Proposition F, which would restrict short term property rentals and faces a key local vote on 3 NovemberAirbnb’s San Francisco headquarters has been occupied by protesters as the debate over affordability of the city’s housing reached fever pitch ahead of a crucial local vote on 3 November.Protesters were campaigning in support of Proposition F, which proposes tighter restrictions on short term rental properties, and gathered outside the office of vacation rental company Airbnb, which has been a flashpoint for the Prop F debate. Continue reading...

Legislation will enshrine security services’ licence to hack, bug and burgle their way across the web – with judicial oversight still to be determined

Knowledge Point to shut after 26 years, with rising rents and low unemployment blamed more than UberA combination of gentrification, low unemployment and Uber has forced London’s largest school for cabbies to slam on the brakes.Knowledge Point will shut in December after having trained black-cab drivers for 26 years in Islington, north London. Continue reading...

Discovering information via Google unfortunately appears to give us an over-inflated sense of our own intelligenceHow intelligent are you? It’s a question that is often best left unasked – particularly on a Monday morning.Luckily, it turns out that feeling smart without necessarily being so is simple – all you need is an internet connection. Because, apparently, Googling things can make us feel more intelligent. Continue reading...

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

Online retailer continues to be biggest seller of CDs, games and DVDs with 20.4% of market despite first slip in at least four years, figures suggestAmazon has lost market share in non-digital films, video games and music for the first time in at least four years as the high street fights back.

Immersive digital exhibition at Somerset House marks 50 years of saving the shores“This is where the coast opens, fanning like the primaries of a predator’s wing,” murmurs poet Owen Sheers, as the wind whispers in the ears and waves roll rhythmically on to the shore below. The tang of salt and seaweed in the air seems almost palpable – but that’s just an illusion, because this isn’t a day out on the headland; it’s the latest immersive digital experience.This one has been dreamed up by the National Trust. Part of the 50th anniversary celebrations for what is now the Neptune Coastline Campaign – the trust’s ambitious mission to buy swaths of the British coastline to save it from development – One and All launches on 4 November at nationaltrust.org.uk/oneandall, alongside a physical installation at Somerset House in London. “We’ve got over 775 miles of coastline under the care of the National Trust,” says Tom Freshwater, the trust’s contemporary arts programme manager. “What we are looking to do now is very much about managed access to the coast, people’s enjoyment of it and the wildlife potential that it has.” Continue reading...