Technology | The Guardian

Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone has a curved screen, powerful processor and premium craftsmanship that finally matches rivalsSamsung’s latest flagship smartphone the Galaxy S6 Edge has a curved screen, metal body and is powerful. But is it enough to beat strong competition from HTC, Sony and Apple?The S6 Edge combines the premium design and feel of Samsung’s Alpha range with the curved screen technology seen in the Note Edge phablet to create a new smartphone that is a cut above previous efforts.Pros: fast, great screen, attractive design, good fingerprint reader, excellent cameraCons: short battery life, no removable battery or storage, Facebook and Microsoft apps bundled, curved edges provide little utility Continue reading...

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

The newly tapped host has been criticised for controversial tweets from past that some feel are out of step with the tone of the satirical news program Continue reading...

Myspace – the hot social media website of 2003 – is back. But you won’t find Myspace Tom popping up as your default first friend any more – he’s too busy posting pics on InstagramThere aren’t many second acts in the digital world, but Myspace seems to be making a comeback. In the US, Myspace now has more monthly users than Vice, Snapchat and Vine. According to internet analytics company comScore, the site grew 469% between 2013 and 2014, with 40 million unique visitors per month.New Myspace looks pretty different to the 2003 version. It’s dropped the clunky interface, glittery backgrounds, HTML code spilling onto profile pages and mind-boggling load errors. Continue reading...

He is a video games visionary, the creator of intricate gothic fantasies regarded by some as the best titles of the last 20 years. In a rare interview, Hidetaka Miyazaki explains how he rose from unwanted coder to company presidentWhen Hidetaka Miyazaki was a child, he was a keen reader, though not a talented one. Often he’d reach passages of text he couldn’t understand, and so would allow his imagination to fill in the blanks, using the accompanying illustrations. In this way, he felt he was co-writing the fiction alongside its original author. The thrill of this process never left him – and it is very much there in his arcane and fascinating video games, the latest of which, Bloodborne, has just been released to wild acclaim.Related: Bloodborne review – elegant, precise and irresistible Continue reading...

The danger of a herd mentality in tech hack circles is real, including missing out on mainstream products, but a nose for interesting news goes beyond analyticsTechnology journalism – and US technology journalism in particular – is getting a roasting every bit as stinging as Justin Bieber’s recent Comedy Central special, in an opinion piece by mobile industry expert Tero Kuittinen published on tech site Boy Genius Report.Titled “Meerkat is dying – and it’s taking US tech journalism with it”, it pulls no punches in its assessment of whether recent, excitable coverage of video-broadcasting app Meerkat was matched by actual downloads and usage.

New smaller, cheaper tablet joins larger Surface Pro 3 to be its lightest and thinnest Windows tablet

The Guardian is holding a discussion event to investigate the connections between real-life warfare and gaming – and what that means Continue reading...

Nottingham’s new National Video Game Arcade has just opened – and there’s plenty more to see if that’s not your thing, from modern art to an 800-year-old pub Continue reading...

Age ratings and threatening parents with police intervention aren’t the answer. Parents need to know what their children are playing and judge for themselves Continue reading...

Best friends Adam Saleh, a 21-year-old American of Yemeni descent, and Sheikh Akbar, a 21-year old American of Bangladeshi descent, started their YouTube channel in 2012 to challenge misconceptions about Islam. They are now some of the biggest Muslim stars on YouTube, with over 750,000 followers on their channel. Their last London meet-and-greet was so mobbed by fans that police were called to rescue them. Last week, Saleh and Akbar appeared at the new East Shopping Centre in Upton Park, east London, amid a heavy police presence. So who would queue up just to have 30 seconds with them? We spoke to some of their fans to find out Continue reading...

Exclusive: People without Facebook accounts, logged out users, and EU users who have explicitly opted out of tracking are all being tracked, report saysFacebook tracks the web browsing of everyone who visits a page on its site even if the user does not have an account or has explicitly opted out of tracking in the EU, extensive research commissioned by the Belgian data protection agency has revealed.The report, from researchers at the Centre of Interdisciplinary Law and ICT (ICRI) and the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography department (Cosic) at the University of Leuven, and the media, information and telecommunication department (Smit) at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, was commissioned after an original draft report revealed Facebook’s privacy policy breaches European law.Facebook’s tracking practices have ‘no legal basis’Related: Facebook’s privacy policy breaches European law, report finds Continue reading...

If the future does arrive as promised, technology could herald the end of waiting to pay for goods and services. But what does that mean for Britishness? Continue reading...

The place to keep talking about Bloodborne Continue reading...

Musicians including Beyoncé and Madonna show support for rapper as he overhauls service designed to make more money for artists

Officials scramble to respond after blunder reveals passport numbers, visa details and other personal information about leaders including Barack Obama and Angela Merkel Continue reading...

It’s 126 years since work was compelted on Gustave Eiffel’s famous structure – still the tallest building in Paris

Alex Younger, head of Secret Intelligence Service, defends use of internet and big data to protect the country

DEA agent Carl Force accused of extorting thousands’ worth of bitcoin from convicted money-launderer Ross Ulbricht, while second agent also charged“French Maid” wasn’t Carl Force’s officially sanctioned darknet alias.In his capacity as an undercover Drug Enforcement Agency agent, and a senior member of the team investigating the deep-web drug market Silk Road and its owner, Force used the alias “Nob”. Continue reading...

In a break from its tumultuous product launches, Apple is offering high-end customers its 18-carat gold Watch Edition with sapphire display for $17,000New Apple releases are usually accompanied by lines of fans outside their stores waiting patiently to be the first to get their hands on the tech icon’s latest gizmo. Not this time. Well, if you have at least $10,000 to spend on a watch.

E-commerce company’s latest expansion attempt offers 700 services in major US cities that can be booked through Amazon, spanning from repairs to goat grazing Continue reading...

GitHub censorship project GreatFire alleges that China authorities redirected global web traffic to launch a massive denial of service attack on the websiteActivists battling internet censorship in China said Monday they had proof a massive online assault on their websites had been coordinated by the Chinese authorities.In recent days, popular coding service GitHub faced a massive denial of service (DDoS) attack – an online attack aimed at bringing down a service by overloading it with fake traffic. Continue reading...

In the first of our series on the IoT we take a look at connected devices that are available today, the privacy and security issues of using them – and how Britain can play a key part in its future

Move by comic and actor, who has 92,000 followers on the picture-sharing site, follows his break from Twitter last November Continue reading...

Writers who are up in arms over the ebook app’s ‘profanity’ blacklist have no right to dictate how the reader should read their books

Tech company claims there were ‘inaccuracies’ in coverage by Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and responds to claims of undue political influence

Millions of kids are obsessed with Mojang’s crafting game, but understanding it rather than fearing it is a good first step for parentsA lot of people are getting hot under the collar about the BBC’s article on Minecraft, children and parenting, written by journalist Jolyon Jenkins.Should parents ever worry about Minecraft? asks whether Minecraft is entirely healthy for kids, from addiction and lessening interest in the real world through to the prospect of “children being digitally mugged” by other players.Related: Minecraft movie will be 'large-budget' but unlikely to arrive before 2017Related: Minecraft YouTube videos have been watched 47bn timesRelated: Headteachers ​threaten to contact police over children playing 18-rated gamesRelated: Minecraft's creator will always be a hero to me, he gave my autistic son a voice Continue reading...

We bank online, so why can’t we vote online? There’s good reason, argue security expertsWe do everything online – book doctors’ appointments, manage our bank accounts and find dates – but we still can’t yet vote from our PCs or smartphones.By 2020 that should be set to change, with a government report calling for online voting to be trialled again by that year. But critics continue to call for caution, saying electronic voting isn’t secure enough to trust for the basis of our democracy – and may never be.Related: John Bercow calls for online voting in 2020 general electionRelated: UK should consider e-voting, elections watchdog urgesRelated: Pirate party founder: 'Online voting? Would you want 4chan to decide your government?' Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guardian gains access to unnamed British Columbia site where tech giant’s roboticists and engineers, stymied by American regulation, are now developing their unmanned domestic delivery serviceRelated: Amazon warns Congress: US risks being left behind in delivery drone businessAmazon is testing its drone delivery service at a secret site in Canada, following repeated warnings by the e-commerce giant that it would go outside the US to bypass what it sees as the US federal government’s lethargic approach to the new technology.Amazon will will result in other large American companies like Google and Facebook looking at our market as well Continue reading...

Pre-orders for new device with seven-day battery life smash previous record on site, with more than 78k backers this time round Continue reading...

Deirdre Kelly claims Channel 4 show that Birmingham’s James Turner Street was previously a ‘massive happy family’ and it has now become a tourist attraction

Information Commissioner’s Office says allegations are ‘very serious’ and could result in fines of up to £500,000 Continue reading...

Taxi app says it found ‘no evidence of breach’ despite claims that thousands of usernames and passwords can be bought on the dark webUber denies that its servers were hacked after reports that thousands of usernames and passwords for the taxi-like service are available to buy for as little as $1 online.

US laws enabling discrimination against LGBT people ‘rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear’, says Apple chiefApple’s chief executive Tim Cook has called on US legislators to rethink their support of so-called religious freedom laws, which enshrine the ability of individuals to breach nondiscrimination laws if the laws go against personal religious beliefs.Such laws have been passed in 20 US states, most recently Indiana, and are widely seen to be specifically aimed at enabling discrimination against LGBT people. Continue reading...

‘It’s a third-party service given first-party priority on the platform,’ says Sony of new PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 partnershipSony and Spotify have launched their PlayStation Music streaming service in 41 countries, making it available for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 games consoles as well as Sony’s smartphones and tablets.It’s a replacement for Music Unlimited, the Sony-branded streaming music service that launched in 2010, but has now been axed by the company in favour of a partnership with Spotify.Related: Streaming music: what next for Apple, YouTube, Spotify… and musicians?Related: Spotify has six years of my music data, but does it understand my tastes? Continue reading...

US coding site responds to flood of traffic following hacking attack, with reports claiming Chinese search engine Baidu was sourceUS coding site GitHub said it was deflecting most of the traffic from a days-long cyber-attack that had caused intermittent outages on the social coding site, with the Wall Street Journal citing China as the source of the attack.“Eighty-seven hours in, our mitigation is deflecting most attack traffic. We’re aware of intermittent issues and continue to adapt our response,” a tweet from the GitHub Status account said on Sunday. Continue reading...

The major US events in Chicago and California have prohibited the photography aid at their events this year Continue reading...

Not a charity campaign, but marketing support for the rapper’s imminent relaunch of Spotify rival Tidal, the streaming service he just acquiredMusicians including Kanye West, Rihanna and Beyoncé have turned their Twitter profiles blue to promote Tidal, the streaming music service recently acquired by Jay Z.Madonna, Nicki Minaj, Deadmau5 and Jay Z himself are among the other artists taking part in the campaign, which comes hours before the rapper is due to announce his plans for Tidal at a press conference."The Tides They Are-A Changing" #TIDALforALLMusic makes the people come together. Join Madonna and turn your profile picture blue. Do it for the music. #TIDALforALLTogether, we can turn the tide and make music history. Start by turning your profile picture blue. #TIDALforALLNAVY, turn the tide…#MakeMusicHistory #TurnitBlue #TIDALforALLTides are about to turn. #TIDALforALLRelated: Jay Z to take on Apple and Spotify by buying streaming music services“The subject was how they could turn Aspiro – which will be known in the U.S. as TidalHifi when it relaunches – into a streaming music and video service akin to the old United Artists pictures, in which artists would actually profit from their art and put out quality material.In 1919, a handful of movie stars – Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and director D.W. Griffith – banded together and started their own studio to combat what they saw as growing commercialism of the majors. I’m told that Jay Z, who can be a bit of a visionary, sees his new service just this way.” Continue reading...

The Democracy Club project wants to encourage MPs to share their CVs so that prospective voters can examine their qualifications for the job Continue reading...

Periscope, Layout from Instagram, Vessel, Silly Sausage in Meat Land, The Trace, Fast & Furious: Legacy and more

New 3DS, Nintendo, cert: 12There are two ways of looking at Xenoblade Chronicles. In terms of mechanics, it’s nigh-on flawless – a brilliant example of Japanese RPG game design. It boasts a combat system combining real-time action with deep customisation, an engrossing story, and characters you genuinely grow to care for. In this sense, having been overlooked on the Wii, it’s great to have this modern classic more widely available.Visually, however, it’s much trickier. Despite the ambitious title needing the more powerful New 3DS hardware, the device still has ridiculously low-res screens. It’s a real shame, as there’s clearly a beautiful world underneath the murky, indistinct graphics. Keep playing and despite the muddy screens it’s clear Xenoblade is a remarkable game, but sadly still not getting the treatment it really deserves. Continue reading...

PS4, Xbox One, Square Enix, cert: 16The first clue that this is unlike any previous Final Fantasy game arrives early, when a military cadet and his chocobo steed – the series’ cheery mascot – bleed out while an entire city is ravaged around them. Type-0 is far bleaker than its peers, with a story exploring the harsh realities of war. Controlling Class Zero, a group of 12 students at a magic school targeted by the attacking forces from the Militesi Empire, speedy combat sees attacks unleashed with the tap of a button, although using a party system, only one character is directly controlled, with two others supporting. Progression is largely mission-based, many of which are action-oriented, although a few adopt clunky real-time strategy mechanics.The HD remastering is impressive but still shows signs of Type-0’s PSP roots, with some low-res textures and restrictive level design. Engaging combat and an emotionally challenging story will win players over, however. Matt Kamen Continue reading...

PlayStation 4, Sony, cert: 16The most eagerly awaited game of the year is finally here. And it is a pleasure to report that it’s brilliant. A fast and aggressive action-RPG, Bloodborne is the spiritual successor to the Dark Souls series, in which you are the sufferer of a strange sickness who has come to the city of Yharnam for treatment. Here, the citizens hide behind locked doors as monsters stalk the streets. You must become a hunter and cut a path through the city to uncover the truth behind the affliction.The new combat system puts first-timers and veteran Souls players on a more even footing, discouraging defensive play while rewarding agility. Interesting online features – user-generated and shareable dungeons; the ability to join someone else’s game – are offset by weaker RPG elements such as a smaller arsenal and simplified levelling system. Continue reading...

Optic Gaming joins several other leading Call of Duty sides on the sidelines as Faze Red, Denial and Team Revenge emerged as championship contenders Continue reading...