Technology | The Guardian

Company asks customers to stop using speakers, promising refund after discovering that ‘in rare cases’ they may catch on fireApple has issued a voluntary recall of its Beats Pill XL speakers, after discovering that the device’s battery can overheat and catch on fire.While the company claims that this is “rare”, it is nevertheless asking customers to stop using the speakers and return them, claiming a full refund of £215 in the UK, and $325 in the US. Continue reading...

Is an automotive revolution just round the corner?Cars have evolved gradually over the past century, but we're suddenly on the cusp of an four-wheeled revolution.Driverless cars, electric vehicles, car-sharing … how do these latest developments change the way we drive, and how will they affect the way our roads look in five, 10, or 20 years time? Continue reading...

Woman seeking damages and criminal prosecution alleging former boyfriend posted secret video of them having sex before breakup launches complex legal challenge in UK courtsAn American woman is aiming to make legal history in England as the first person to seek both a civil action for damages and the criminal prosecution of a former partner she accuses of posting revenge pornography of her on the internet.Speaking exclusively in a Guardian documentary on her search for justice, Chrissy Chambers, 24, claims that her ex-boyfriend recorded them having sex without her knowledge and subsequently posted the footage on an amateur porn site without her consent. The man, whom the Guardian has chosen not to name, is British and Chambers alleges he posted the footage while in England, which has led her to seek legal recourse in the UK. Continue reading...

Facebook-owned photo-sharing service forges ahead with advert plan, opening it up to local and global marketersInstagram is opening up its advertising to all businesses regardless of size to expand its money-making efforts, meaning more ads in user feeds.

Game publisher Bethesda has teased the arrival of a new instalment in its hugely-successful post-apocalyptic role-playing series. Here’s what we’re hoping forOn Tuesday, Bethesda stuck a 24-hour countdown on its website, and Twitter blew up like a nuclear warhead. The ticker was, of course, leading us toward the official announcement of Fallout 4, which is set for release on PC, Xbox One and PS4. And that sound is my head exploding with excitement like a radroach blasted with a plasma rifle.When it comes to post-apocalyptic open-world video games, the Fallout series is the genre’s gruesomely mutated king. Heavily inspired by the Mad Max movies as well as end-of-the-world fiction like A Boy and His Dog, its combination of 1950s Americana and desolate, nuclear-grade violence, has struck a chord with millions of gamers. Desperately scavenging for irradiated Nuka Cola in a collapsed house before a robot with a flame thrower jumps you shouting “you ready to die for your country you commie son of bitch?!”, is just one of the crazed moments these games throw at you with nihilistic abandon. Continue reading...

Social photo-sharing service moves into e-commerce, creating option for users to browse items by price and colour – and purchase with a clickSocial photo sharing service Pinterest is introducing a “buy button” allowing users to purchase products pinned to its boards.The site and mobile app has long been the destination for browsing aspirational products, such as home ware, clothing and gadgets, but until now there has been no purchase option for users. Continue reading...

Glitch causes Skype apps on iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows to crash and permanently lock upMicrosoft’s Skype chat service is vulnerable to a simple booby-trapped text message that causes the app to enter a crash loop that permanently breaks the app on iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows.

Campaign against ‘censorship’ hits front page of image-sharing website popular on Reddit, after it finally acts on rules banning obscene and explicit commentsImage-sharing website Imgur accidentally sparked a user revolt on Tuesday, after it began removing obscene and sexually explicit comments from the site.Imgur, which is in practice one of the largest social networks on the internet with 5 billion page views each month, has always had a rule in its community guidelines, under the rubric “always be civil”, which bans obscene and sexually explicit comments – but until recently, the site’s enforcement of the rules was lax. Continue reading...

Released 40 years ago this week, Jaws didn’t just invent the summer blockbuster – it also kickstarted the love affair between games and filmsThe moment will be familiar to a generation of Jaws fanatics. Early in the movie, after the first mangled victim is discovered, the highly strung police chief Martin Brody is certain a great white shark is lurking in the waters surrounding Amity island – but it’s the Fourth of July and the mayor insists that the beach has to stay open. With the expectation of more carnage in every viewers’ mind, the camera cuts to a beachside arcade, and one machine in particular. On the cabinet screen we see the visually arresting depiction of a shark thrashing about in its bloody death throes, before the camera draws back to the player operating a harpoon-gun shaped controller. It’s effectively Brody’s nightmare, and his objective, rolled into one flickering image on an ancient coin-op display for a few redolent seconds.In a movie filled with legendary cinematic moments, this brief sequence is a minor one, but as with many other elements of Steven Spielberg’s 1975 picture, it was also prescient. The director, a keen games player and watcher of pop culture trends, foresaw an era in which Hollywood would be seduced by the popularity and the visual spectacle of the emerging video game arcade scene. He got the appeal of these new entertainment machines, but he also understood how computer graphics represented a new way to present narrative to audiences – even if, in Jaws, it was a few seconds of footage.Related: Jaws, 40 years on: ‘One of the truly great and lasting classics of American cinema’ Continue reading...

Facebook VR subsidiary’s in-house studio follows up its first film with ‘a heartwarming comedy’ created by Pixar and DreamWorks veterans Continue reading...

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Device for children will cost £119 or £139 and come bundled with built-in subscription for unlimited use of apps, ebooks and videosAccording to the latest figures from communications regulator Ofcom, 71% of British children aged 5-15 have access to a tablet in their home, including 34% who own their own device. .Now Amazon is hoping to boost the latter figure with the UK launch of its dedicated children’s tablet: the Fire HD Kids Edition, which originally launched in the US in October 2014.Related: 10 children's app trends for 2015Related: Parents! Focus less on worrying about Minecraft and more on understanding it Continue reading...

Profits likely to exceed forecasts with 13% increase in sales on anniversary of merger between Carphone Warehouse and Dixons Continue reading...

Web rivals’ business models undermine users’ privacy, says Tim Cook, who also warns governments on pursuing ‘dangerous’ encryption policiesApple chief executive Tim Cook has delivered his sharpest attack yet on rivals Google and Facebook, with a speech criticising their advertising-supported business models for their disregard for users’ privacy.Cook also used his speech to the EPIC Champions of Freedom event in Washington to fire a broadside at governments pushing for backdoors to encryption systems used by Apple and other technology companies on national-security grounds, describing the prospect as “incredibly dangerous”.Related: Secret report urges treaty securing US web firms' cooperation in data sharingRelated: Apple CEO Tim Cook challenges Obama with impassioned stand on privacyRelated: Apple's Tim Cook attacks Google and Facebook over privacy flaws Continue reading...

An animated film featuring the popular Manga comic book figure is playing to packed cinemas in mainland ChinaJust a few months ago, Chinese media denounced him as a counter-revolutionary.Now, though, Doraemon – Japan’s beloved robot cat – is easing diplomatic tensions between Tokyo and Beijing, and breaking box-office records in the process. Continue reading...

Lawyer for former partner at venture capital firm files two-page notice in case at center of concerns over inequality in the tech world Continue reading...

Exclusive: UK privacy campaigners say international treaty could provide legal alternative to government’s ‘snooper’s charter’ proposals Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence technology Im2Calories aims to identify pictures of food posted to Instagram, and tell users the calorie count of their meals Continue reading...

New malware ‘Tox’ lets would-be hackers create their own ransomware at will

The planes, which are equipped with video and cellphone technology at times, are being managed behind fake companies to mask government involvement Continue reading...

Workers treated at the scene in North Carolina by paramedics before being taken to hospital after exposure to noxious fumes

Former Olympian and reality TV star, previously known as Bruce Jenner, takes just four hours to reach one million followers, becoming the fastest everFormer Olympic decathlon gold-medallist Caitlyn Jenner, previously known as Bruce Jenner, has smashed another world record by becoming the fastest person on Twitter to reach one million followers.Jenner took just four hours (and three minutes) to reach the milestone, usurping US president Barack Obama who broke the record just two weeks ago with his new @POTUS Twitter handle.pic.twitter.com/X7FvYrEH2DI'm so happy after such a long struggle to be living my true self. Welcome to the world Caitlyn. Can't wait for you to get to know her/me. Continue reading...

‘One of the hardest things to do is scaling openness, whether you run an internet platform or whether you run a country,’ claims Robert Kyncl• Interview part one: mobile, virtual reality and musicWith more than one billion monthly viewers, YouTube is the biggest online video service – but in 2015, there are plenty of companies hoping to take a bite out of it.Videos uploaded directly to Facebook are currently being watched more than 3bn times a day; startup Vessel is offering big YouTube stars more money if they give it three-day exclusivity on new videos; and Snapchat and Spotify have both expanded into video.Related: Snapchat adds entertainment and news with DiscoverRelated: Vessel founder: ‘Companies realise it’s a chance to redefine the next generation of TV’Related: PewDiePie, Zoella and who else? What the UK watched on YouTube in 2014Related: YouTube and Google win lawsuit in free speech battle over anti-Muslim film Continue reading...

Head of content and business operations, Robert Kyncl, also sees potential in virtual reality and subscriptions

Fredrik Neij served two-thirds of 10-month prison sentence for copyright infringement but remains defiant over government actionPirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij has been released from prison, marking an end to the incarnation of the notorious pirate site’s crew.

Video-streaming service’s original series may be trailed before other Netflix shows if tests prove popularNetflix is testing pre-roll trailers before its original shows, according to reports from users.However, the company is keen to emphasise that the trailers, which promote other Netflix original shows, are “not adverts in the traditional sense”, according to a statement given to the Verge. The company also reaffirmed its promise to users that third-party adverts will never be shown on the site. Continue reading...

A big Porsche with decent fuel economy? That sounds as crazy as a pub that doesn’t serve booze… Continue reading...

Featuring customisable worlds and an array of models and mini-figs, Lego’s entry into creative gaming aims to corner market in constructive digital play

Ahead of the launch of Apple’s streaming service, a string of artists have been affiliated with the venture Continue reading...

In the US in 2014 just 2% of Google’s workers were black people and 3% were Hispanic, and only 18% of technology jobs are held by womenGoogle is largely failing to diversify its workforce beyond white and Asian men even though it hired women to fill one in every five of its openings for computer programmers and other high-paying technology jobs last year.The imbalanced picture emerged in a demographic breakdown that Google released on Monday. The report underscored the challenges that Google and most other major technology companies face as they try to add more women, black people and Hispanics to their payrolls after many years of primarily relying on the technical skills of white and Asian men. Continue reading...

The supreme court ruled in favor of Anthony Elonis, who wrote about smothering his ex-wife, but did not set a new standard of proof for lower courts Continue reading...

Users of the social network can now opt to encrypt email notifications such as password resets and other confidential informationFacebook is offering users the ability to encrypt password reset emails for the first time, using the popular PGP email encryption standard.Users who want to take advantage of the new security standards can tell Facebook their public key, and the site will then ensure that any sensitive emails that it sends out, such as password resets or other notifications, will be encrypted. The company will also cryptographically sign messages it sends, which allows users to verify that the sender genuinely is Facebook. Continue reading...

Have you chucked something in the bin only to realise later that it was a mistake? We’d like to hear from you

Google’s advanced research arm shows off new projects at I/O developer conference in San Francisco Continue reading...

Blockchain has issued an update for the Android version of its bitcoin wallet after discovering a critical failure which breaks the cryptocurrency’s securityBitcoin wallet application Blockchain has rushed to release an update after a critical bug left multiple users unaware that they were sharing a bitcoin wallet, leaving their cryptocurrency completely unsecured.The bug affected users running Blockchain’s app on Android version 4.1 or older, the company says, and it “resulted in one specific address being generated multiple times, leading to a loss of funds for a handful of users.”I’m just sitting here like ‼️ at the foolish audacity of acquiring remotely generated entropy for your Bitcoin app over plaintextWallet relied on http://t.co/tbMRgU4EP2, which wasn't random? Just another day in the Bitcoin clown show. https://t.co/3QkFk04qVE Continue reading...

MixRadio, Google Photos, Make My Day, Capitals, Geometry Wars 3, Til Morning’s Light, Inbox by Gmail and more Continue reading...

Google Photos, MixRadio, Periscope, Inbox by Gmail, Skiing Yeti Mountain, Biz Builder Delux, Lara Croft: Relic Run and more Continue reading...

Final version of Windows will be released this summer as a free upgrade for users of Windows 7 or later

The place to talk about games and other things that matter Continue reading...

(PS4, Xbox One, PC, Bandai Namco, cert: 18, out now) Continue reading...

It’s like the dating app, but for work. But is swiping really the best way to find employment – or dogs, or houses? Continue reading...

EA Games’ Fifa 16 is to include women for the first time – and it’s not the only recent boost for female football fans Continue reading...

Mystery woman dropped off computer – built by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in 1976 – after cleaning out garage, Silicon Valley recycling firm saysA $100,000 check is waiting for a mystery woman who donated a rare Apple 1 computer to a Silicon Valley recycling firm.CleanBayArea in Milpitas, California, said on its website that a woman in her 60s dropped off some electronic goods in April, when she was cleaning out the garage after her husband died. Continue reading...

Because the streaming software is an open-source community project run by a dedicated global collective, free all-the-movies-ever sites will keep popping up Continue reading...

Dread Pirate Roberts may have been sentenced to life, but experts and customers say the tide has turned and internet markets for illicit products are here to stay Continue reading...