Musician has 1,400 backers 14 hours after launching her profile, including two who’ll pay $1,000 every time she releases a new song, video or piece of writingEvery time US musician Amanda Palmer releases a new song, video or long-form piece of writing, she’ll earn more than a total of $13,000 from her 1,400 backers on crowdfunding site Patreon, making her one of the site’s most popular creators.It took just over 14 hours for the musician to reach that figure after launching her profile on the US-based site, with her fans pledging to pay an average of $9.28 each whenever she releases a new piece of content to her “patron-only” feed.Related: Amanda Palmer is crowdfunding again, but this time on Patreon Continue reading...

Device can detect when it’s being dropped, bounced, kicked and shaken, with 6-10 year-old children coding games on its companion iPad app“Kids should be outside kicking balls around, not inside staring at more screens!” is a regular complaint about children’s apps. But what if they’re outside kicking a ball around that they’ve programmed using an iPad app?That’s the pitch for Hackaball, a project trying to raise $100k on crowdfunding site Kickstarter. Described as “a programmable ball for active and creative play”, it has already raised more than $12k towards its goal.Related: 'Great big poo balls!' What it's like making a Kano computer with your kids Continue reading...

The press preview shows the latest offerings from car manufacturers. The motor show will open to the public from 5 March to 15 March

Tom Wheeler tells the world’s largest telecoms trade show ‘there needs to be a referee’ even as European officials propose fast lanes that don’t impair trafficThe US’s top media regulator hit back at critics of new net neutrality rules voted into law last week, comparing them to the first amendment and saying neither government nor private companies had the right to restrict the openness of the internet.The Federal Communications Commission chairman, Tom Wheeler, was speaking in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, the world’s largest telecoms trade show, just as European governments are meeting to thrash out their own principles for keeping the internet open.

A new French law demands that manufacturers display how long their appliances will last. Could this stop planned obsolescence – products designed with restricted lifetimes?It is news that will cheer anyone who has struggled to get a vacuum cleaner, fridge or TV repaired only to be told it’s probably cheaper to buy a new one. A new government decree in France is forcing manufacturers to tell consumers how long their appliances will last. French companies will also have to inform consumers how long spare parts for the product will be available, or risk a fine of up to €15,000 (£11,000).And if this wasn’t enough, from next year faulty products – whether it’s mobile phones to washing machines – will have to be repaired or replaced for free within two years of being purchased. Continue reading...

Around 2,000 companies have flocked to Barcelona to show off their new wares, from iris-recognition phones to sat navs for cyclists or furniture that charges your deviceWearables of every shape and size have littered the exhibition halls at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, where 2,000 companies have gathered to show off their wares to a forecast record 90,000-plus visitors this week.Apple traditionally stays away from the event, giving rivals a chance to get noticed, although the iPhone maker is set to unveil its digital watch on Monday. HTC, Huawei, Samsung and LG have all rushed to release their own wrist-based screens.

Musician famously raised $1.2m on Kickstarter for last album, but is now seeking ‘constant communication’ with her fans on another site Continue reading...

True Detective director Cary Fukunaga’s latest film gives streaming platform their biggest title yet Continue reading...

Company that sparked protests in the UK after founder’s comments about cyclist deaths will vie with Uber for control of New York City’s $3.4bn taxi market Continue reading...

Privacy International is battling to force GCHQ to delete information that has been collected illegally – but could we all be doing more in the battle for our data?Government agencies and companies across the world hold large amounts of data on each and every one of us. From profiles of your favourite movies to where you ate out last night, this vast mountain of data is a representation of you that you can do little about.But is that strictly true? Can you find out what GCHQ, Facebook or Google hold on you? And can you get it removed? Continue reading...

The multiplayer role-playing game is launching the ‘WoW Token’, which could make paid subscription a thing of the pastWorld of Warcraft is set to launch real-money transactions and the ability to play without paying for a subscription, as developers Blizzard move to position the game against free-to-play competitors.The company is introducing “WoW tokens”, which can be bought from other players for in-game gold, or from Blizzard for real money, and exchanged for 30 days of game time. That currently costs £9.99 on Blizzard’s Battle.net store, although it drops to £8.69 if bought in bulk. The changes mean players can for the first time buy in-game gold from Blizzard indirectly . Continue reading...

Search company pushes plans to launch a fleet of high-altitude atmospheric satellites to provide internet accessGoogle will be conducting test flights of its first drones this year after purchasing unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer Titan Aerospace.The drones will be used as atmospheric satellites, part of Google’s plan to provide internet access to areas without ground-based access and the four billion people currently without access, its senior vice president of product, Sundar Pichai, revealed during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Continue reading...

The onset of hair loss was devastating to writer Joe Donnelly – until a game called Dark Souls arrived and changed his perspective“Screw you, you baldy bastard,” cried the man I’d spent the last 15 minutes alongside, slaughtering Russian mobsters and seizing bag-loads of drugs. We were at the end of a Grand Theft Auto IV online mission and things had gone wrong; somehow, I was getting the blame, despite the fact that he was the one who nearly blew the plan by leaving me behind at the helipad. Nonetheless, a belligerent grenade, tossed at me in spite, marked the end of our contemptuous partnership. It was his words however, not the explosion, that cut deepest.He couldn’t have known it of course – we spoke over headsets, and his remark was aimed at my onscreen character and not at me – but I was going through the early stages of male pattern baldness and the associated dawning denial that accompanies the ordeal. Continue reading...

Californian information security firm Proofpoint uncovers attack on Brazilian internet users with generic router login details such as ‘admin’Internet users are being warned to ensure that their routers have unique passwords, after email spammers have been spotted sending phishing links, which try to hijack the devices using default passwords, in order to harvest personal information from their victims.The phishing emails attempt to trick the user into clicking a carefully crafted link, which will log the spammer into a home router if it’s set up with the default security settings and a known password. From there, the spammer can eavesdrop on communications by altering the router’s settings to pass all traffic through their owner servers. Continue reading...

Government launches mass drive to gather biometric data from mobile owners in attempt to combat terrorism Continue reading...

Pursuit of premium design and slender profile have come at the cost of losing what made the company’s smartphones interesting and different

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

The London arts institution has been touring its groundbreaking video game exhibition for 12 years. Now it’s heading back to the UK with some bold new ideasIn 1998, one of the co-founders of Rockstar, the studio behind the blockbusting Grand Theft Auto series, was chatting with the director of the National Museums of Scotland when he suggested something relatively new: an exhibition of video games. The scale and the complexity of the task looked daunting though, so the duo – Rockstar’s Lucien King, and Sir Mark Jones, now master at St Cross College, Oxford – sought help. The Barbican answered.The result was the 2002 exhibition Game On, which packed the Barbican’s gallery with hundreds of vintage arcade machines and computers. I wrote about it at the time, inspired by King’s enthusiasm; and when I visited just after opening it was astonishing to see artefacts like an old PDP-10 mainframe and the original Pong cabinet. This wasn’t the first example of a major cultural space embracing games. The American Museum of the Moving Image began its Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade exhibition in 1989 and toured it around the US for the next five years. Japan also saw a number of exhibitions through the 1990s. But 13 years ago, it was certainly rare – especially for a general arts venue like the Barbican. The organisers were far from sure about how it would go. Continue reading...

A virtual reality experience is touring America to put viewers in the middle of the action. Is it a gimmick, or the shape of things to come? Continue reading...

Service will work as a mobile payment system for third-party developers, allowing users to pay for goods and services using an Android smartphoneGoogle has announced a rival mobile payment service to Samsung Pay and Apple Pay called Android Pay. The new service will allow users to pay contactlessly for goods and services using their Android smartphone. Each transaction will generate a single-use “token”, which is sent to the receiving device to secure against fraud.Android Pay will use near-field communication (NFC) initially, but will be able to take advantage of biometric devices such as fingerprint scanners at a later date. Credit card data will be stored locally so that payments can be conducted without a data connection on the smartphone. Continue reading...

Younger users get a bargain on the dating app, saving over £10 a month compared with over-28s Continue reading...

Subscribers to Nova will be able to switch seamlessly between mobile phone and Wi-Fi signals, and between masts of competing networks

Thought there was something missing from Apple’s diversified emojis? So did the person who started a petition to get auburn-haired characters addedRedheads with iPhones rejoice: there is now a petition to get Apple to add characters with red hair.Last week, Apple released a beta update to its operating system to include characters with five shades of skin and same-sex relationship emojis. At the time, the Guardian asked when redheads would be given an emoji presence – and now there is a petition urging Apple to do just that.Thanks to all who have signed the petition for #redhead emoji! It only takes a minute: https://t.co/LYMhuWWpww pic.twitter.com/9JHSy17o5BI can’t believe redheads didn’t even get one character in Apple’s openly ‘diversified’ collection of emoji. If you say you’re going to diversify, why not add a few ginger-haired emoji in the mix? Sure, we only make up less than 2% of the world’s population, but that is 138,000,000 iPhones waiting to happen. Continue reading...

Second edition of Google-backed music awards will be online-only, with gongs for Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, One Direction and other artistsEd Sheeran and Charli XCX are among the artists filming exclusive videos for the second YouTube Music Awards, which will take place online later in March.YouTube is working with Vice Media to produce new videos from 15 artists, which will launch simultaneously on its site on 23 March.Related: Zoe Keating v YouTube: key sticking points in Google's latest music row Continue reading...

Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone is thinner, made of glass and metal, and has a curved screen versionSamsung’s new Galaxy S6 flagship smartphones have powerful processors, very high resolution screens and a new metal and glass design – but sacrifices have been made in pursuit of premium materials and a curved screen in Samsung’s war with Apple.People edge on Galaxy S6 edge. Select five favourite contacts for enhanced alerts. pic.twitter.com/GXfj9NkN9Q Continue reading...

Australian attorney general, George Brandis, targeted after having Apple messaging account linked to his public email address Continue reading...

Amazon subsidiary streamed 56m minutes of poker to its 100m monthly viewers in January, setting its sights on gambling market Continue reading...

Privacy-focused devices accompanied by updated Android-based PrivatOS operating system: ‘No software, no hooks to carriers, and no leaky data ...’ Continue reading...

Valve has finally revealed its VR intentions – but what do developers think of the Vive, the latest entry into an increasingly crowded market?Just when you thought you had the consumer virtual reality market mapped out, along comes Valve, the veteran developer behind the dominant Steam gaming platform, to complicate things yet further.At the Mobile World Congress on Sunday, smartphone manufacturer HTC announced the Vive, a powerful new VR headset, built in association with Valve, and featuring two 1200 x 1080 displays, a smooth 90-frames-per-second refresh rate and a bunch of motion tracking technologies: this includes two “base stations” that will work like Microsoft’s Kinect, allowing the headset to track the player’s movement within the room. Vive is also set to ship with two wireless controllers – although little was said about what these would look like. Continue reading...

Standalone device will go head-to-head with Facebook’s $2bn VR headset by the end of 2015, when both will have released commercial editionsGames firm Valve has made its long-anticipated move into virtual reality, teaming up with HTC for the Vive VR headset, which will launch later in 2015.It’s the second move into hardware for Valve – best known for the Steam digital games service as well as games like Half-Life, Portal and Left 4 Dead – with the company also developing its Steam Machine console.Related: Virtual reality documentaries 'take the middle man out of journalism' Continue reading...

Terror group supporters threaten social network, as well as co-founder Jack Dorsey specificallyIsis supporters have threatened Twitter employees, including co-founder Jack Dorsey specifically, with death over the social network’s practice of blocking accounts associated with the group.In an Arabic post uploaded to the image-sharing site JustPaste.it, the group told Twitter that “your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you”. It warned that Jack Dorsey and Twitter employees have “become a target for the soldiers of the Caliphate and supporters scattered among your midst!” Continue reading...

PS4, PS3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Bandai Namco, cert:12 Continue reading...

Apple’s mobile payment system has provided a method for US criminals to make fraudulent transactions – and banks are rushing to stem the tideCriminals in the US are using the new Apple Pay mobile payment system to buy high-value goods – often from Apple Stores – with stolen identities and credit card details.Banks have been caught by surprise by the level of fraud, and the Guardian understands that some are scrambling to ensure that better verification and checking systems are put in place to prevent the problem running out of control, with around two million Americans already using the system.Related: Samsung buys mobile payments firm LoopPay to take on Apple Pay Continue reading...

PS4, Sony, cert: 7 Continue reading...

The pioneering use of technology in sport is fundamentally changing how matches are played and watched. Stephen Pritchard reports on a wave of innovation that businesses could learn from Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Monday again, but hey, at least it’s spring now! Continue reading...

PS4, Sony, cert: 18 Continue reading...

The new thin and waterproof Android tablet comes with a PC-like mode for adding a keyboard and turning it into a laptopSony has launched an Android tablet that doubles as a laptop when connected to a keyboard accessory, despite announcing the end of its long-running laptop line in 2014.The new Xperia Z4 tablet, announced at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, is a slimmer, lighter and more powerful follow up to the Z2 tablet released in May and claims to be the thinnest and lightest 10in tablet at 6.1mm thick and 392g. Continue reading...

Desks, tables and lamps will have new wireless technology inbuilt which allows users to charge devices Continue reading...

Korean firm takes aim at Apple with latest handsets featuring curved screen and new payments technology Continue reading...