Technology | The Guardian

Peter Molyneux’s protege is parting ways with the veteran games designer to work on his own projects. He talks exclusively about his decisionJack Attridge is leaving 22Cans. The talented designer, who many expected would eventually step in to lead the studio that was set up in 2012 by British industry legend Peter Molyneux, has walked away to pursue his own ideas as an indie developer. “Friday was my last day,” he tells the Guardian in a London coffee shop. “Me and Peter went on a big 10 mile walk and finally said our goodbyes.”In February, the small team at 22Cans found itself engulfed in a huge controversy over latest project, Godus. The title, a spiritual successor to classic God sim Populous, was long-delayed and missing key features promised during a successful Kickstarter campaign.Related: Peter Molyneux interview: 'It's over, I will not speak to the press again' Continue reading...

Korean company downplays roots of flagship phone in effort to gain foothold in Japanese market Continue reading...

Change should help mobile searchers understand websites better, the search engine says Continue reading...

Xbox One, PS4, EA, cert: 18 Continue reading...

(PS3/PS4/Xbox 360/Xbox One/PC; Milestone, cert: 3) Continue reading...

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

Wii U, KnapNok Games, cert: 7 Continue reading...

The pre-painted ships and custom dice peeking out from the box beg to be played. But is it worth the price?Board game publishers Fantasy Flight already make some of the most high-end tabletop games in the world, but Star Wars: Armada is something else entirely.

The file-sharing firm best known for making piracy possible is now doing deals not only with film and TV companies but with graphic novel publishers too Continue reading...

The European commission’s investigation into Google’s shopping service misses the larger point of how much information the company actually owns

Do you hate your shins? Then give them a good bruising with this torture device from America Continue reading...

Man arrested after food writer and campaigner is abused by Twitter user claiming to be former Ukip candidate Continue reading...

Pokémon Rumble World | The Trace: Murder Mystery Game | Affordable Space Adventures Continue reading...

‘I was never going to pick up anyone in this car, but plenty of people wanted a lift’ Continue reading...

One can be elusive and expensive, the other turns a human moment to a rateable transaction. It’s not easy steering between black cabs and the taxi service app Continue reading...

French government to invest more than £70m in three-year plan, while tightening the law on hate crime and cracking down on racism online Continue reading...

Prosecutors declare Uber a ‘suspect’ and begin collecting evidence of ‘providing illegal transportation on a commercial basis’ after company ignored banDutch prosecutors are launching a criminal investigation into Uber for providing an illegal taxi service following court rulings and €10,000 fines.Uber continued to operate its UberPop peer-to-peer ride-sharing service in the Netherlands in violation of a Dutch court order which saw fines of €10,000 for every driver caught providing the UberPop service. Continue reading...

Silicon Valley heavyweight IVP joins US startup’s investors, and predicts it could be as successful as Netflix and Twitter Continue reading...

A website commenter who will end up being banned for antisocial behaviour can be spotted with 80% accuracy simply by examining their first five posts, claim researchersIt is possible to tell comment trolls apart from other users simply from looking at the way they write, researchers have found.Studying the comments on three sites – CNN, Breitbart and IGN – over an 18 month period, the researchers at Cornell and Stanford universities found that users who went on to be banned wrote differently to other users in the same comment thread, using fewer words indicative of positive emotion. Continue reading...

After 85m downloads of its apps, Swedish company will explore the booming world of online entertainment for kids: ‘It’s an almost blank piece of paper’Tens of millions of parents are familiar with the children’s apps made by Swedish firm Toca Boca. Now it’s hoping to capitalise on that reputation as it explores the worlds of TV and video.The company is launching a new video division, based in New York and headed up by J Milligan, who previously worked as creative director of Sesame Street parent company Sesame Workshop’s content innovation lab.Related: ‘Traditional TV viewing for teens and tweens is dead. Not dying. Dead.’Related: YouTube Kids ads row: how should we pay for children's entertainment? Continue reading...

Google faces a real challenge from Microsoft’s Bing in the US, but its dominance of global, European and UK search is almost uncontestedMicrosoft’s Bing search engine has captured more than 20% of the US desktop search market for the first time since it launched, leaving Google with 64.4%.

A new report wants to foster a digital age underpinned by human rights and calls for greater transparency from global giants. But will we ever trust the internet?Citizens of the internet: here is some welcome news. Your downtrodden digital rights might be getting a well-overdue booster shot. But it comes with some warnings.This week in the Hague, a high-level group of 29 internet policymakers and influencers – including prominent ex-US and UK security and intelligence officials Michael Chertoff, Joseph Nye, Melissa Hathaway and David Omand – issued a clarion call for the protection and promotion of human rights online. Self-styled the Global Commission on Internet Governance, the group made this call as part of the broader objective of restoring trust and confidence in the internet. Continue reading...

Statistics from San Francisco suggest carpooling is a new frontier for public transport. But is everyone ready to jump in a car with a total stranger? Continue reading...

Tidal Rising update debuts as criticism continues that the digital music app will only boost the careers of its superstar owners Continue reading...

Julian Assange says data ‘belongs in the public domain’ and says hacked files shed light on extent of cooperation between government and HollywoodWikiLeaks has republished the Sony data from last year’s hacking scandal, making all the documents and emails “fully searchable” with a Google-style search engine.The move provides much easier access to the stolen information. Searching the name of, for example, former Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal, whose controversial comments were revealed by the hack, immediately yields nearly 5,700 results. Continue reading...

An art group satirising the anthems of fighters in eastern Ukraine say they are countering Russian propaganda about the conflict, RFE/RL report Continue reading...

Man ruptures tendon in his thumb by playing Candy Crush Saga, but addiction to game enabled him to ignore the intense pain and keep on tappingA man has ruptured a tendon in his thumb by playing Candy Crush Saga, making it one of the first touchscreen-gaming related injuries and putting BlackBerry thumb back on the map.

TripAdvisor-style wine apps may seem to be the future, but are they really?

The number of tech companies valued at dizzying sums over the last year has fuelled talk of a tech bubble - are we in one? Continue reading...

Russian voice-assistant for iPhones and iPad accused of answering questions with homophobic responses, while company dismisses issue as ‘a bug’ Continue reading...

Digital veteran Burnie Burns talks YouTube, Lazer Team, GamerGate and why PewDiePie isn’t his main competition any more“We were three years late to YouTube! We didn’t join YouTube until late 2008, because when we first looked at it, honestly, I viewed them as a competitor. But then it grew to the point where if you wanted to be part of the conversation, you had to be on YouTube.”Burnie Burns, co-founder and creative director of Rooster Teeth, is sitting in the company’s booth in the basement of Cannes’ Palais des Festivals at the MIPTV television industry market, one of a number of digital production companies here to parlay massive YouTube popularity into licensing deals with broadcasters.Related: ‘Traditional TV viewing for teens and tweens is dead. Not dying. Dead.’Related: BuzzFeed sees short-form videos as springboard to TV shows and filmsRelated: ‘History, yes. Science, sure. Sharks, yes’ – what millennials want from factual TVRelated: TV industry faces its ‘ketchup’ moment: ‘Mobile is now the first screen’ Continue reading...

New UP4 fitness band has contactless payments built in joining a new raft of wearables that go beyond fitness trackingJawbone has added contactless payments to its latest fitness band, giving a secondary use to its activity tracker as the wearables market becomes more competitive.The new UP4 is a version of Jawbone’s long-awaited UP3 and incorporates an NFC chip that can be used to pay for goods and services in shops. Continue reading...

Stunning landscapes with dizzying visual detail, and a tool that lets you record and edit in-game footage and upload it to YouTube, puts this open-world game lightyears ahead of its competitorsRockstar Games / PC / £40 / PEGI rating: 18+

Dave is planning to get a new family computer but would like a touch-sensitive screen for Windows 8 Continue reading...

New Photos app replaces company’s amateur and professional photo apps, but is it any good – and is it safe to upgrade?Almost every new gadget has a camera these days, which means almost every moment can be captured for posterity. But the sheer number of photos we collect as we go about our lives is becoming a nightmare of organisation.

Online campaign, which first appeared on BuzzFeed, asks viewers to imagine what Tory leader would do with another five years Continue reading...

Everyone’s favourite fantasy drama is back on screen – but there’s even more backstabbing, plotting and fantasy to be had with the game first released in 2003When you play the Game of Thrones, as Cersei Lannister famously observed, you win or you die. And at this particular moment, my chances for survival didn’t look too good.I’d set out from my home on Dragonstone intent on raiding the Lannister lands on the eastern shores of Westeros. With a strong force of cavalry, infantry and ships, I’d planned a succession of lightning attacks that would culminate in my seizing the city of King’s Landing and establishing House Baratheon as the rightful holders of the Iron Throne. Continue reading...

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

From natural disasters to the scale of government spying, we don’t seem able to process figures we can’t relate to. So will we fall into big data’s empathy gap?It’s a little unclear whether Joseph Stalin actually said, “the death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic”, but it seems about right.The number of lives the Soviet dictator ended is so large that it is mind-boggling. And it seems “mind-boggling” is a literal description of what happens when we encounter large numbers. It seems humans don’t really know how to process figures which they can’t personally relate to, and this has surprising consequences. Continue reading...

AVS WinVote machines used in three presidential elections in state ‘would get an F-minus’ in security, said computer scientist who pushed for decertification Continue reading...