Technology | The Guardian

Decent performance for its low price, but the real draw is its eat-all-you-want catalogue of apps, games, ebooks and videosWhen Apple launched its first iPad in 2010, the thought of handing a £429 device over to a child seemed like crazy talk. Yet that’s exactly what happened with that and subsequent tablets.Fast forward to May 2015, when the UK’s communications regulator Ofcom reported that 71% of British 5-15 year-olds had access to a tablet at home, including 34% who had their own one. Continue reading...

The first ‘science oven’, launched in 1967, was simple to use but then digital interfaces came along and made things worse. The real problem, however, is that microwave ovens live too longVisited anyone recently and tried to use their microwave oven? Of all the familiar devices in a house, the microwave has long been the laggard in usability. The “science oven”, as it is so wonderfully described in the 1970s-set film American Hustle, pre-dates the digital era (the first came out in 1967); and the advent of programmes and digital buttons hasn’t helped much since. So when you buy one, or go to someone’s house and use theirs, you will almost certainly be confronted by an unfamiliar interface. How powerful is it? Do I have to set the heat or time first? If I have to press digital buttons to set the heating time, will it interpret them as hours? If I need to set a heating time of more than an hour, do I enter the minutes, or is there an “hour” setting?Meanwhile, since the “science oven” came along, we’ve got used to smartphones and tablets whose interfaces have undergone a flurry of interbreeding. Even in rival mobile interfaces, you expect to find apps offered as an array of icons; to have notifications about events in a sliding layer at the top; and get easy access to key functions such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth from any screen. If microwave interfaces had standardised to the same extent, we’d be able to operate almost any on sight. Instead, they still can’t tell when you’ve put metal in them. Continue reading...

Ellen Pao, who resigned as Reddit chief executive on Saturday, speaks to Katie Couric for Yahoo News in April about gender discrimination in the workplace. Pao is interviewed shortly after losing a landmark sex discrimination lawsuit against a former employer. Pao tells Couric that sexism in the workplace is a hard issue for people to confront, and says women are often undermined in countless small ways Continue reading...

One device applies electric currents to your head to help you meditate while another encourages you to breathe more deeply – Silicon Valley is abuzz with entrepreneurs offering gadgets to help you ‘upgrade your mind’

The recent dump of the company’s private documents revealed the blurred moral lines of ‘digital mercenaries’ providing software that could violate human rights

Our favourite tech innovations this week include a refreshing new way to share party snaps, and a carry-on briefcase that carries youThis summer ditch the wicker basket and embrace picnic 2.0. Updating alfresco dining for an urban setting, Atelier Teratoma have created the technopicnic, kitting out this portable case (actually a foldable table) with solar panels, bluetooth-connected screen, speakers, silver pillows, lights and even USB ports so you can plug in your phone for a power boost. Commercial versions are in the pipeline, but until they’re available adventurous readers can embark on their own exploratory mission to the Sala Amadis Youth Institute in Madrid, where the technopicnic prototype is on display this month. Continue reading...

Due to popular demand, climbers can now shamelessly selfie and check work emails atop Japan’s spectacular peaks. The days of living in the moment are overWi-Fi is available everywhere these days. You can use Wi-Fi at some New York City subway stations. You can use Wi-Fi at some Subway restaurants. Some people even have Wi-Fi in their homes.Now, thanks to Japanese government officials, Wi-Fi is also available at the summit of the country’s highest mountain. Continue reading...

Katherine Archuleta steps down after sensitive information of an estimated 21.5 million federal employees stolen in cyber-attack by suspected Chinese hackersA government hacking scandal that compromised the personal information of an estimated 21.5 million Americans claimed its first big political casualty, in the shape of Katherine Archuleta, the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Social media company forced to remove two flashing vines for its #DiscoverMusic campaign after charity raises concerns

DVLA makes ‘share your licence’ passcodes valid for 21 days rather than 72 hours, allowing holidaymakers more flexibility in booking car rentalsHiring a car on holiday should be less stressful after the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency made a significant change to the new system that allows vehicle hire companies to check an individual’s driving history.The DVLA came under fire after abolishing the paper part of the driving licence and introducing an online system that allows car hire companies to access people’s driving records. Predictions the new regime would provoke chaos at car hire desks appeared to be borne out, with the launch being dogged by technical hitches and website crashes.

A surprisingly high proportion of male youths think female game characters are too often treated as sex objectsMany teenage boys are tired of the sexualised depiction of women in video games, according to the findings of a new survey.In the study of about 1,400 US youths, 47% of middle-school boys and 61% of high school boys agreed that women are treated as sex objects too often in games. Continue reading...

Video games haven’t been sent to destroy society – but parents do need to get informedWhen it come to choosing video games for the kids, 40% of parents are not confident about what they are buying, according to recent research by the Game chain store.Certainly, identifying best-value and most appropriate games for the family is more complex than it first appears. In-app purchases sell players additional content during the course of play. They can change the total price of a title substantially and fly under the radar of parents who assume games are a one-off cost. Continue reading...

Interactive stories carve out one of the gaming medium’s most diverse landscapesTwine is many thingsFirst and foremost, though, Twine is a writing tool, specifically for making interactive stories. It can be used to pen digital text adventures that function much like the old Choose Your Own Adventure or Fighting Fantasy books, from short stories to playable poems. It’s also free and remarkably easy to use. If you can handle a word processor, Twine should be no problem. In fact, you won’t need to hammer out a single line of code. Continue reading...

Language is what makes us human. So what does it mean when algorithms start to put words in our mouths?This week on Tech Weekly, we look at how new apps are transforming language. From new start-up Crystal, which promises to make your emails more empathetic, to the global rise of emoji, do these apps short-cut meaningful communication or are they just innocuous tools helping make life quicker?To help us decide is Evan Selinger, a professor of philosophy who thinks the divide between the human and the algorithm is getting dangerously blurred; and Professor Vyv Evans, a linguist championing the use of emojis to help us express our emotions more clearly. Continue reading...

Tributes pour in after well respected anti-surveillance campaigner and former Microsoft privacy chief who warned of NSA snooping before Snowden diesMicrosoft’s former head of privacy and respected independent privacy campaigner Caspar Bowden has died after a battle with cancer.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Friday! Forget work, go and read my interview with Dishonored and Deus Ex designer Harvey Smith instead. Continue reading...

Magic Mike actor busts some moves, Queen star knocks out the king of rap, Example’s selfie stick-up and Jack Black gives us GoosebumpsWe’ve got quite a musical theme going on this week, starting with some nifty dance moves from Magic Mike star Channing Tatum and an imagined battle between Kanye West and Freddie Mercury singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. If West’s performance was a little surprising, then you’ll love the shock on the faces of a club crowd when the DJ switches to Spandau Ballet’s golden oldie True.Example’s latest video for the song Whisky Story came out on Thursday and is filmed using a selfie stick on the London Underground – ironic timing given the tube strike. Continue reading...

With a sequel to Arkane Studios’ fascinating stealth adventure on the way, its co-creator discusses systems, freedom and followersThere is a central question at the heart of narrative game development – it has always been there and it probably always will be: how do you give a player the freedom to explore and express themselves, while also providing a cogent story for them to experience?There are hundreds of possible solutions. While highly systemised role-playing adventures, such as Mass Effect, allow player individuality through complex character progression systems, open-world titles (Grand Theft Auto V, Far Cry, etc) accompany their backbone narrative missions with dozens of discoverable side-quests and emergent encounters. Whatever the approach, it’s always a tussle between guiding the player and just letting them go. Continue reading...

Facebook is making a distinct choice: rather than enable freedom of expression as the company often claims to do, it imposes cultural conservatism, eroding our freedom in the very spaces we perceive to be and treat as our commonsWhen Frédéric Durand-Baïssas shared Gustave Courbet’s The Origin of the World on Facebook, he probably didn’t expect that the painting – a close-up view of a nude woman’s genitals and abdomen – would trigger the platform’s censors. The French art enthusiast’s profile was removed by Facebook in 2011, reportedly after another user flagged his post for breaching the company’s guidelines on nudity.Durand-Baïssas, who is suing Facebook for €20,000 ($22,000) in damages, is unfortunately in good company. Over the years, countless others have found their content removed or their entire profiles deleted from social networking sites for posting nude or semi-nude images. Continue reading...

Judge tells technology firms they acted in ‘bad faith’ when not removing or blocking ‘degrading photos’

Social network is reportedly investing in video streaming with an eye to launching a music service to take on Spotify, Apple, Google and TidalRewind just a few short years. The music industry was sick, if not dying. Napster had started the decline, free music for all, albeit illegally. With shrinking revenues and costly licensing deals only Apple was really making any money by selling its breakthrough iPod music player.

Just as new formats and technologies have driven new types of pornography in the past, virtual reality is starting to offer powerful, immersive new formats for adult entertainment. Stuart Heritage braves an onslaught of stimulating demos to find out if VR is as good as the real thing

Do more with your digital fitness coaches — find out how to move your data between apps, sync music to your exercise, set up smarter alerts and more. Continue reading...

Twitter has helped make the world a better place – but it has the potential to do so much moreIt is often said that technologists are the new rock stars, though what they lack in glamour they make up for in a profound influence on how we live and interact with the world.Two weeks ago I was in the Spanish city of Granada at what claims to be the world’s first conference dedicated to Twitter, where the now departed CEO Dick Costolo appeared on stage to a standing ovation before he had even started speaking. Costolo later said the reception is always the same, even when he visited journalism students in China – a country that blocks Twitter. It is a shame tech firms don’t look outwards more often; it is a mark of the tunnel vision of American tech companies that they still call staff “international” if they deal with any countries other than the US. Continue reading...

The viral content site announces a major editorial overhaul that has been inspired by Netflix, according to co-founder Peter KoechleyUpworthy is rolling back its clickbait headlines and ramping up its story creation in a shakeup that will pit it against viral media storytellers, such as BuzzFeed and Vice.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella is writing off the company’s Nokia devices purchase and pulling back from being a smartphone manufacturerMicrosoft’s mobile business just keeps calling wrong numbers. On Wednesday chief executive Satya Nadella announced he had “restructured” the company’s smartphone business laying off 7,800 staff and writing off $7.6bn.Ex-Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer’s dreams of making it big in mobile with his 2014 purchase of Nokia Devices have essentially gone up in smoke. Continue reading...

Cuts will add to more than 12,000 jobs eliminated in past year as CEO Satya Nadella says the company is reassessing its money-losing smartphone businessMicrosoft announced on Wednesday that it is cutting 7,800 jobs and taking a loss of $7.6bn on its money-losing mobile phone business.The cuts add to the roughly 12,500 jobs eliminated in the past year from the Nokia phone business that Microsoft bought for $7.3bn in 2012. Some 2,300 of the jobs will be made in Finland, where Nokia is headquartered.

What is really going on in the much-hyped preview shown during this year’s expo? We carry out a forensic analysisThe Sony press conference at this year’s E3 expo in Los Angeles was one huge gift to veteran gamers. There was the long-awaited confirmation that The Last Guardian is still in development; there was news of the Shenmue 3 kickstarter; and, to the raucous delight of the audience, there was the announcement of Final Fantasy VII Remake, a modernised version of the classic PlayStation role-playing game. The internet blew up.Many writers have attempted to explain the lasting appeal of this hugely successful 1997 release, but few have managed it conclusively. Set in a dark industrialised world, where eco warriors face a mega-corp looking to suck all the resources from the planet, the game is crammed with flawed, interesting characters, quirky charm (including cross-dressing in order to sneak into a pimp’s mansion) and truly epic narrative scale. 18 years, three spin-off games, a handful of novella’s and an animated sequel later, and the adventure is still considered a masterpiece of its genre. Continue reading...

Company designer Caitlin Winner puts women front and centre in new icons for friends and groupsAs software updates go, the one coming soon to Facebook appears relatively minor. It’s a slight visual update to the icons used to represent friends and groups on the platform, and probably won’t even be noticed by the vast majority of users. But symbolically, the change says a lot.Why? Because it puts women first – literally. Continue reading...

Tech company promises patch within a day for major new flaw uncovered by leak of 400GB of documents from hacking firm

While more than 200,000 Redditors want Ellen Pao to resign, readers are jumping ship to budding competitor sites as top brass pushes to go mainstreamReddit, the giant online discussion forum for everyone from political junkies to billiards enthusiasts, is in revolt. Continue reading...

RideWith uses technology developed by the Israeli start-up bought by Google to connect drivers with people travelling in same directionCarpooling could be set for a new trip around the block following a decision by Google to test a new app in Israel.RideWith uses technology developed by Waze, an Israeli start-up bought by Google in 2013 for about $1bn. Continue reading...

Corporation to set up not-for-profit venture to sell starter device, a modern-day successor to the BBC Micro, after its rollout to pupils in October.The BBC is to give away up to one million of its new Micro:bit computers to 11- and 12-year-old children across the UK.The computer was unveiled at an event in London on Tuesday, along with plans for its rollout this October, after the Micro:bit project was launched earlier this year as part of the corporation’s Make It Digital initiative. Continue reading...

Offensive cybersecurity firm warns clients to lie low while it assesses damageHacking Team, the cybersecurity firm which saw 400GB of private data published on Sunday night in a humiliating hack, has been forced to advise customers to stop using its software while it assesses the damage caused by the leak.A spokesman for the company recommended that clients, who are largely law enforcement and national security agencies who use Hacking Team to provide surveillance capabilities, suspend their operations while the company determines what has been exposed. Continue reading...

A late-1980s SNES-CD console ditched by Sony and Nintendo was discovered last month. Here are six other elusive games machines for look out for …For gamers, it was like discovering the Ark of the Covenant – but made of plastic and less likely to contain the power of God. In early July, one Dan Diebold posted a YouTube video showing an apparently functional prototype of the SNES CD, an aborted update of the famed Super Nintendo Entertainment System built in partnership between Nintendo and Sony.Developed in the late 1980s, the machine was intended to run games on both cartridges and CD-rom discs, but then Nintendo and Sony fell out and things went wrong. Sony proudly showed off its console – now called the Play Station – at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, but Nintendo switched its allegiance to Philips a day later. Enraged, Sony decided to release a new PlayStation console on its own, and many of the SNES-CD prototype units were destroyed. Which is why this new footage has caused much excitement in the gaming community. Continue reading...

Report claims that more than 22 multi-channel networks reaching 1bn monthly views, as top star PewDiePie’s earnings are revealedThe 100 largest multi-channel networks (MCNs) on YouTube may have a collective valuation of nearly $10bn, and account for 42% of the online video service’s monthly views.That’s according to a report from research firm Ampere Analysis, which has been crunching data on the last three years’ worth of acquisitions of MCNs to figure out the value of the rapidly-growing market. Continue reading...

Vessel, Medium, CloudPlayer by DoubleTwist, BitTorrent Shoot, Geometry Wars 3, Vainglory, Lego Minifigures Online and moreWelcome to this week’s roundup of the latest, greatest Android apps and games, covering smartphones and tablets.All these apps have been released for the first time – ie not updates – since the last roundup. All prices are correct at the time of writing, with “IAP” indicating use of in-app purchases. Continue reading...

Yves Guillemot admits company raised expectations too high with its 2012 ambitious graphical demo of cyberpunk thriller

(PS4, Xbox One, Warner Bros, cert: 18)Rocksteady’s masterful Arkham trilogy comes to a close with a game so far from the cramped, knotty, Bafta-winning original Asylum as to be nigh on unrecognisable. Where Asylum took place entirely in the titular madhouse, in City, the Caped Crusader took to the skies and streets of Gotham to deal justice to his collection of nemeses. Now, in Knight, the basic idea is the same – the open-world setting has grown, the already impressive visuals have been polished further – as the Dark Knight takes on the Scarecrow and the mysterious Arkham Knight, a malevolent doppelgänger.The addition of the Batmobile is the biggest change in gameplay – with the ability to speed through the streets of the city a welcome departure – although some of the tank-style combat has strayed too far from the claustrophobic, stealth challenges that really made the series great. However, the twisty plot is a comic-book delight – a fitting end to a triumvirate of games that have always valued storytelling and voice-acting – and it propels players through to a fine conclusion to this version of DC’s most popular superhero. Continue reading...

Minecon 2015 panel sees game’s creator talking about the next steps for its computer, console and mobile editionsWe know all about Minecraft’s past and present: 70m sales across computers, consoles and mobile devices, and a burgeoning community of players, YouTubers, educators and independent developers doing interesting things with developer Mojang’s game.We know a little about its future too: a narrative-driven adventure spin-off called Minecraft: Story Mode - a separate game, not a new mode within the main game - and a Minecraft movie sometime in 2016 or 2017. But what’s next for the main game itself? Continue reading...

London startup tailors smaller, cheaper battery for UK households to use more of their own generated solar energyWhen Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, took to the stage in California in April to launch a solar battery for the home, the audience hollered and whooped at every detail. On the other side of the Atlantic, a more modest, quieter challenger plans to take on the US electric car giant.Based within a railway arch, with the sound of trains running overhead from nearby London Bridge station and surrounded by other ecologically minded startups, the offices of Powervault are a far cry from Tesla’s showpiece Californian stage. The similarity lies in the product – the Powervault battery, which stores energy from domestic solar panels. Continue reading...

The electric Tesla S is a pure spark of inspiration. But how did it get so far ahead of the competition?Price £50,000

The multi-platform construction and battles game has become a worldwide phenomenon – so much so that it can draw thousands to live eventsAs a corporate conference venue, London’s ExCeL Centre is regularly overwhelmed by besuited executives dealing in arcane business jargon. This weekend, however, an altogether different sub-culture was in charge, as Creepers, Zombies, Skeletons and thousands of children congregated to celebrate a common digital passion: Minecraft.Minecraft involves exploring a world made out of digital blocks, which can be broken up and made into new materials and structures, from pickaxes and swords to buildings and carts. Its “creative mode” puts the emphasis on building, while its “survival mode” sees players having to battle monsters which come out at night. Continue reading...

The annual Minecraft conference comes to London’s Excel centre for Saturday and Sunday. Photographer Katherine Anne Rose met some of the players Continue reading...

Ellen Pao would not comment on firing of director of talent but said company was working on providing moderators with a better infrastructure and networkRelated: Reddit revolts: subforums shut down in protest over AMA co-ordinator sackingThe chief executive of the social media site Reddit, Ellen Pao, has apologized for “letting down” users after the company fired a well-liked employee. Continue reading...

‘It’s insufferable. It beeps with no obvious explanation and the manual is impenetrable’The new Subaru Outback is unaccountably large – 4.8 metres long, 1.8 metres wide, 1.6 metres high – but low-slung; it looks much more estate than SUV. This, paradoxically, makes it seem even larger. One makes allowances in an SUV and expects to feel ridiculous. In a supersized estate, I was never prepared for how much I would always be sticking out, everywhere.Given its outlandish size, the Outback was strangely characterless. I drove to Bristol and parked in a hurry on some floor or other of a multistorey. When I returned, I couldn’t remember anything about it, not even its colour, which occupied some indeterminate, Welsh-weather-ish space between brown and grey. Luckily, I had parked in a way that nobody else would, which is how I was able to find it without having to wait until all the other cars had gone home. Continue reading...

Minecon aims to create a world where reality and Minecraft co-exist, says game’s developer MojangWith more than 70m copies sold since its launch in 2009, Minecraft is one of the biggest success stories of the modern games industry. It is remarkable for the community it has spawned – from developers who modify the game for fun, to the players who have become stars on YouTube with videos of their exploits.Related: Minecraft: a crash guide to Mojang's world-beating game Continue reading...

Home Secretary receives gong for going ahead with ‘snooper’s charter’, while MPs Tom Watson and David Davis are ‘heroes’ for challenging surveillanceThe Home Secretary, Theresa May, has been named the UK internet industry’s villain of the year for pursuing “snooper’s charter” legislation without fully consulting the sector.The gong, part of the annual ISPA awards, was given for “forging ahead with communications data legislation that would significantly increase capabilities without adequate consultation with industry and civil society”. Continue reading...

PS4, Xbox One, PC; Warner; £39-£45Arkham Knight describes itself as the “conclusion to the Arkham trilogy”, conveniently ignoring the less well received Arkham Origins, which was admittedly by another developer. In this outing, Batman gets new body armour and a redesigned Batmobile, which is a Swiss Army knife-style problem-solver that pulls down walls and doors and even chips in with rubber bullets during fights. It’s also got a mini-gun and cannon for dispatching the legions of unmanned drone tanks that infest Gotham City, letting you blow stuff up without breaking Batman’s no-killing rule.It looks gorgeous, the perpetual night complemented by beautifully realised gothic architecture, but the 1980s Chuck Norris movie-grade script and mostly cheesy voice acting do little to bring the atmosphere to life. Still, pretending to be Batman has never been so exciting, and this is a well-constructed finisher for what remains the best superhero franchise ever. Continue reading...

UberPop is suspended for the next three months after violent protests and arrests in FranceUber has closed its ride-sharing service, UberPop, in Paris, after the arrest of two executives on Monday, and a series of increasingly disruptive protests against the company in France.The company said it had made the decision as a result of “intimidation, violent protests and organised aggression against UberPop drivers and users … due to a minority of out-of-control individuals”. Continue reading...