Technology | The Guardian

Former shadow home secretary David Davis says investigatory powers bill will have to let judges’ authorise warrantsPlans to grant police and intelligence officers new powers to monitor suspects online will not get through parliament without a requirement for judges to sign off on spying warrants, the former Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis has said.The backbench MP was speaking before the publication of a draft of the investigatory powers bill, due on Wednesday, with the Home Office so far refusing to indicate whether the proposed legislation will include judicial approval of applications made by the security services to intercept communications. Continue reading...

Co-star of new Steve Jobs film says she is worried by the addictive qualities of devices Apple has createdParents are “losing control” of their children to social media, award-winning British actor Kate Winslet has said, adding the she has banned her own from using such sites over fears their self-esteem is being damaged.In an interview with The Sunday Times, the Revolutionary Road star, 40, said parents should confiscate technology from their offspring – who she said may turn to social media for validation from strangers. Continue reading...

Vauxhall’s new Viva is fun, full of life and aimed at first-time motorists. But is it just too good for them?Price: £7,995

Ministers rule out ban on encryption but civil rights group Liberty says climbdown is ‘just spin’Highly controversial plans to allow the police and security services full access to everyone’s internet browsing history have been abandoned by ministers in what is being presented as a dramatic climbdown over online surveillance.Amid fears in government that it would be unable to force new laws through parliament because of concerns over civil liberties, the Home Office said it had dropped several contentious proposals from the investigatory powers bill, which will be published in draft form on Wednesday. Continue reading...

A 20-year-old man has been detained at an address in Staffordshire, police have said, following arrest of two teenagers

Hackers may have stolen the personal details of up to 2,000 mobile phone customers, Vodafone admits days after TalkTalk scandalHackers may have accessed the bank details of nearly 2,000 Vodafone customers, the company has said.The mobile phone provider said 1,827 accounts were accessed, potentially providing criminals with customers’ names, mobile numbers, bank sort codes and the last four digits of their bank accounts. Continue reading...

House of Lords emboldened by tax credits vote and sets sights on government’s draft investigatory powers billPeers could derail plans to give police powers to potentially access the internet browsing history of any computer user in Britain in the latest show of defiance by the House of Lords.The upper chamber has been emboldened after peers voted this week to delay proposed cuts to tax credits even though legislation had been passed by the House of Commons. Continue reading...

Einstein’s relativity, optical atomic clocks, and November’s Perimeter Institute public lecture from David Wineland. With some added geek nostalgiaA while ago the Independent asked me, and others, to share some science books that have excited us. My choice was “Science and the Universe” from the Mitchell-Beazley Joy of Knowledge library. In a pre-wikipedia (and for me pre-O level) age, this book opened up a whole landscape of amazing ideas - ideas backed by facts.The page I remember best is the one on the “Idea of Relativity”¹, which amongst other things shows cosmic muons lasting longer than usual because of the time-dilation effects of their high speeds. I think that must have been the first time I came across muons, or cosmic rays. But the illustration that stuck in my mind most strongly was that of a light clock, in which a ray of light is reflected between two mirrors. Continue reading...

Bacteria-fighting plastic could be the future of dentistryThe latest 3D printing innovation could change the way you think about your visit to the dentist. That’s because Dutch researchers at the University of Groningen are working on the creation of a 3D-printed tooth made of an antimicrobial plastic that kills the bacteria responsible for tooth decay on contact.Related: Smile! Meet the 3D printer churning out teeth, nerves and gums for dentists Continue reading...

This week’s tabloid headlines about the teenager who allegedly broke into TalkTalk’s website invoked the usual formula: reclusive, antisocial, young, male. But hackers are more complicated than that – and the people pursuing them say the stereotype is a problemThe portrait of the hacker as an antisocial, lonesome deviant is pervasive and seemingly indelible. This week, for example, the British tabloids rounded on a child who has been arrested in connection with the hacking of telecommunications provider TalkTalk’s porous servers in order to access customers’ personal data. The Daily Mail’s front page referred to him as “a baby-faced loner who rarely leaves his bedroom”. The Sun described the boy, who lives on a council estate with his single mother in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, and who suffers from learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as “reclusive”. He is, they continued, an avid player of video games, as if such a detail distinguishes this particular teenager from any other. The Mirror quoted a neighbour who described the boy as “quiet and shy”. He was often seen, she added, with a skateboard, although there was no mention whether or not his baseball cap was worn in the style of Bart Simpson: anarchically askew.Related: TalkTalk hack: boy arrested over alleged cyber-attack is bailed Continue reading...

For four days every year, Essen’s Spiel exhibition is the centre of the board game world. Owen Duffy looks at the games that make it that wayOn a drizzly Thursday morning in Germany’s industrial Ruhr region, I seemed to have unwittingly walked in on a seance.I found myself in a dimly gaslit room with grubby, wood-panelled walls and heavily cobwebbed corners that could have been lifted straight from the pages of a Victorian ghost story. The figures hunched around the table at the centre of the scene were concentrating intently on a collection of strangely-painted cards laid out before them. Continue reading...

We’re at GameCity for one last breakfast show, starring Keith Stuart, Jordan Erica Webber and Molly Carroll from Chucklefish Games!We’re back for one last ‘Wake up with the Guardian’ broadcast from the GameCity festival in Nottingham.All this week games editor Keith Stuart and writer Jordan Erica Webber have been broadcasting chat shows from the National Videogame Archive, interviewing developers and industry veterans and generally getting up too early. Continue reading...

Lobbying by police ahead of investigatory powers bill suggests ISPs will be required to keep data for 12 monthsPowers to view the web browsing history of criminal suspects or missing people are likely to feature in the government’s surveillance legislation published next week.The investigatory powers bill is expected to reintroduce a requirement that telecommunication firms retain records of sites accessed by their users, known as weblogs, for a 12-month period – a key element of the “snooper’s charter” that was blocked by Liberal Democrats in the last parliament.

Stuck for what to wear this Halloween? How about dressing up as your favourite internet meme?It's that time of year again: ghosts and ghouls, parties and pumpkins, llamas and left sharks.Yes, in this week's instalment of Updog – our podcast dedicated to internet memes and all things digitally viral – Alex and Elena decide on what internet meme they're going to dress up as for Halloween. Will it be Pizza Rat, Left Shark, or that perennial favourite Doge? Continue reading...

Meme was started by a celebrity Philippines couple, Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza, on television – but has left its origins far behindThe pabebe, a delicate hand wave from the Philippines, is taking the internet by storm. Millions of people all over the world are taking photos of themselves doing it. Continue reading...

Telecoms company confirms scale of cyber-attack was far smaller than feared as second teenager is bailed following data breachA second teenager has been arrested in relation to the alleged theft of data during a cyber-attack on the Telecoms giant Talk Talk.The 16-year-old boy was arrested in Feltham, west London, Metropolitan police said on Friday. He was released on bail until a date yet to be confirmed. Continue reading...

What this online update adds after Konami’s superb Phantom Pain is negligible, leaving you with a multiplayer that lacks depthInside big-budget games development, multiplayer is one of the first and most important decisions. Activision’s all-conquering Call of Duty series looms large over the landscape, and competitors for the top spot offer similarly comprehensive multiplayer modes – most of which will be supported for regular content releases and updates. For a primarily singleplayer game like Metal Gear Solid, an online mode is an enormous creative and financial gamble in 2015.Metal Gear Online’s biggest problem might be this context, because it has resulted in tunnel vision: this is the series’ third attempt at crossing over to online, across three generations of hardware, and the narrowest yet. Available as a download for all owners of MGSV: The Phantom Pain, MGO’s first impression is that it’s a bit of a penny-pincher. There are only three modes, for example, alongside a simple hub level and five maps.

Chrome OS and Android head says company is committed to the browser-based operating system despite greater integration with smartphone sofwareGoogle has denied the veracity of a report that states the company will fold its Chrome OS for laptops and desktop computers into its Android mobile operating.

Service providers send list of principles to MPs amid fears over impact of new legislation on civil libertiesInternet service providers have warned that any new powers introduced by the government to allow broader surveillance of web browsing behaviour must come with adequate oversight to protect civil liberties.The Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) has sent a checklist of five key principles to MPs that it believes any new legislation must adhere to.

Publisher News UK set to make U-turn and offer its content for free from 30 November in bid to compete with rivals such as Mail Online

Police confirm 16-year-old from west London held over alleged theft of thousands of TalkTalk customer’s dataPolice have made a second arrest in relation to the investigation into alleged data theft from TalkTalk.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer also revealed that a forthcoming band reunion was unlikely while she focused on raising her first childKaren O has teamed up with Lara Croft by writing a song for the latest Tomb Raider game.I Shall Rise will feature in Rise of the Tomb Raider, and according to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer, it was a perfect collaboration. Continue reading...

Latest round smartwatch from Motorola comes in more sizes and colours, lasts a good day with the screen on and takes standard watch strapsMotorola’s second generation smartwatch is what the Moto 360 should have been last year.

Andrew Barr says he has used the app-based taxi service, which now operates in almost 60 countries, numerous timesThe ACT chief minister has officially launched Uber in Canberra, calling it “a real step forward for on-demand transport” in the city.The ACT is the first jurisdiction in Australia to have passed legislation regulating app-based taxi services, allowing the likes of Uber, OnTap and GoCatch to operate under strict conditions and government oversight. Continue reading...

The ‘hacktivist’ collective wrote that the identities of white supremacist group members will be revealed next month on anniversary of their anti-Klan operationThe “hacktivist” collective Anonymous have vowed to release the names of “about 1,000” Ku Klux Klan members as part of an ongoing operation against the white supremacist group in the US.The names were obtained after Anonymous gained access to a Klan twitter account, according to a tweet from the Operation KKK, as Anonymous have named the anti-Klan operation.

Owner Mind Candy admits communication breakdown with ASA over pushing subscriptions to kids and resolves issuesMoshi Monsters has been removed from an advertising “blacklist” after admitting a “communication breakdown” with the UK regulator over a failure to comply with an order to stop pushing kids to get paid subscriptions to the hugely popular children’s website.Earlier this week the Advertising Standards Authority took the unusual step of launching a “name and shame” campaign against Moshi Monsters after the company failed to abide by a ruling published in August that its marketing practices broke the UK code on social responsibility, as well as direct exhortation and undermining parental authority. Continue reading...

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...