Government to ban WeChat on Sunday to ‘safeguard national security of the US’, while TikTok to be banned by 12 NovemberThe US government will ban downloads of the Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok and the use of China’s popular messaging and payments app WeChat to “safeguard the national security of the United States”.Related: 'He’s paying attention to people like us': Trump’s messages resonate in Wisconsin Continue reading...

Adding a few paragraphs and photos can boost revenue by £100,000 for small citiesForget glossy travel brochures and whizzy online sites; one of the most cost-effective ways tourism chiefs can drive business to their towns or cities is by updating their Wikipedia page.An experiment by economists at the Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, Italy, and ZEW in Mannheim, Germany, found that a few simple edits to a Wikipedia page could lead to an extra £100,000 a year in tourism revenue for a small city, underscoring the power of the free online encyclopaedia. Continue reading...

Extension on Firefox browser will allow users to record information about videos recommended by siteYouTube viewers are being asked to become “watchdogs” and record their use of the site to help uncover the ways in which its recommendation algorithm can lead to online radicalisation.Mozilla, the non-profit behind the Firefox web browser, has produced a new browser extension, called RegretsReporter, which will allow YouTube users to record and upload information about harmful videos recommended by the site, as well as the route they took to get there. Continue reading...

Company releases new versions of operating systems with just a day’s notice

Engineer, academic and activist who sought to transform the relationship between human skill and technologyThe innovative thinking and political campaigning of Mike Cooley, who has died aged 86, influenced generations of trade unionists and advocates of a sustainable, green and socially just economy.It was while working as a highly skilled design engineer at Lucas Aerospace during the turbulent 1970s that Cooley, who was also a mililtant trade unionist, first made his mark. He believed that a radically different relationship between technology and human skill was needed for social transformation. At the heart of his philosophy was a conviction that the supposed conflict between these forms of labour should be transformed into a mutually reinforcing partnership. Continue reading...

Cheaper, lighter, crisper screen and more power make for potent standalone virtual reality escapismThe Oculus Quest 2 is Facebook’s second iteration of its popular standalone virtual reality headset. It is more powerful, has a better screen and is cheaper, ready to be your ticket to a virtual escape from the misery of Covid-19.The Quest 2 costs £299 and comes with everything you need to start playing – there’s no powerful gaming PC required. The original Quest released in 2019 marked a defining moment in the evolution of VR breaking it free from the shackles of cables and expensive computers – and proving more popular than expected in the process. Continue reading...

UK government urged to intervene in SoftBank’s $40bn deal with US tech firmOpposition to the $40bn (£31bn) sale of the UK’s largest tech firm, Arm Holdings, is mounting, as the trade union Unite said staff concerned about their future had been “fobbed off” and the company’s local MP urged the government to act.The US software company Nvidia said on Monday it had agreed to buy Arm, a global leader in designing chips for smartphones, computers and tablets, from the Japanese tech investment business SoftBank. Continue reading...

Top Apple smartwatch has new blood oxygen sensor, while SE has main features at reduced price

If the US is free to close its market to Huawei, then why can’t Britain act in the national interest over Arm?

Tech giant fails to convince court it doesn’t carry out business in Australia as privacy regulator accuses Facebook of breachesFacebook has been dealt a blow in its fight to fend off Australian legal action surrounding the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with the tech giant failing to convince the federal court it does not carry out business in Australia.In March, the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) sued Facebook for allegedly breaching the privacy of more than 300,000 Australians between March 2014 and May 2015. Continue reading...

Hybrid smartwatch tracks heart rate, ECG, sleep, blood oxygen and activity with smartphone alertsThe new Withings ScanWatch is one of the most advanced health trackers you can buy and comes in the form of a hybrid smartwatch with a traditional analogue face and a 30-day battery life.The ScanWatch comes in two sizes, with either a black or white face. The 38mm size costs £249.95 but it is the larger 42mm size costing £279.95 that is reviewed here. Continue reading...

Young influencers have made US slang and accents cool in British schools. But that’s OK, academics tell parentsAs Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers once sang, the difference between British and American English used to come down to whether someone said “tomato” or “tomAto”.Now though the lines are becoming increasingly blurred as the words, intonation and accent used by US internet stars are adopted by their young British fans. Continue reading...

Post-Brexit bid to boost innovation is troubling Conservatives with its socialist overtones, and exasperating BrusselsBoris Johnson wants the freedom to pump hundreds of millions of pounds into tech startups with a view to promoting businesses that can emulate Apple, Facebook or Alibaba – China’s answer to eBay.Related: Why Boris Johnson's tech vision lacks the support of investors Continue reading...

Dramatic swings in stock prices are causing serious alarm – but these huge companies are no longer fragile startups‘Everybody loves a party ... but, inevitably, after a big party there’s a hangover,” billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller said last week as stock markets seesawed amid fears that a new tech bubble was about to burst. “Right now, we’re in an absolute raging mania,” he said.And at times it did look like a tech bubble was about to burst again. Last Tuesday, Tesla’s shares fell 21% and Elon Musk’s net worth plunged $16.3bn (£12.7bn), the largest single-day wipeout ever for a member of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, lost $7.9bn. The whiplash continued throughout the week but, for many market watchers, it is still too soon to call time on tech’s stellar rise. Continue reading...

I witness horror stories of social media algorithms turning young people into extremists. But why cede this space to the far right?

Widespread adoption of remote work amid Covid could reshape a city that has become unaffordableThrough free massages, decompression capsules, and limitless nitro cold brew, San Francisco’s tech companies spent the last decade making their offices considerably comfier than the average cubicle farm. Beyond making the workday pleasant, they attracted workforces whose six-figure salaries altered the city’s demographics, spurring widespread displacement and years of head-scratching over the exact moment San Francisco lost its bohemian soul.Now, nearly six months after the Covid-19 crisis began, those same startups and tech giants have started to dangle the ultimate perk: the ability to work remotely, indefinitely. Continue reading...

From basic models to those with smart features, these clocks mean you don’t need to rely on your mobile phoneIf you want to eject your smartphone from the bedroom but currently use it to get you up in the morning, you need something else to do that job instead. From basic models, to smart alarms, what are the best options for your bedside table? Continue reading...

Commissioning GPT-3 was a fun – and strange – lesson in artificial intelligence. Here’s how we did itThis summer, OpenAI, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company co-founded by Elon Musk, debuted GPT-3, a powerful new language generator that can produce human-like text. According to Wired, the power of the program, trained on billions of bytes of data including e-books, news articles and Wikipedia (the latter making up just 3% of the training data it used), was producing “chills across Silicon Valley”. Soon after its release, researchers were using it to write fiction, suggest medical treatment, predict the rest of 2020, answer philosophical questions and much more.When we asked GPT-3 to write an op-ed convincing us we have nothing to fear from AI, we had two goals in mind. Continue reading...

Subscription deal will combine products including Apple TV+ and Apple Music, leak suggestsApple is preparing a new bundle of all its subscription products called Apple One, according to a leak in the source code of one of its apps.The bundle, which has been rumoured for some time and could be launched as soon as next week’s press event, will combine a number of Apple services including Apple Music, Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade in one subscription for a discounted fee. Continue reading...

Platforms will target unverified claims of election rigging and premature results declarationsPremature claims of victory will be blocked from Twitter and Google in the run-up to November’s US presidential election, as both companies follow Facebook in trying to fight the prospect of a stolen vote.Under its new rules, Twitter will treat as harmful misinformation any tweet which makes false claims about election rigging, or prematurely claims to announce the election results. Continue reading...

Companies are waging a scorched-earth regulatory battle to avoid providing basic benefits to their drivers in CaliforniaUber and Lyft are waging a scorched-earth regulatory battle to avoid providing basic benefits to their drivers, now considered essential workers, in their largest US market: California. In response to a lawsuit by the California attorney general, Xavier Becerra, a judge found the companies’ drivers to be employees and ordered Uber and Lyft to act accordingly – including by providing a living wage, unemployment benefits, state-mandated sick leave and full reimbursements for expenses like cleaning and personal protective equipment.The companies have responded by threatening to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Their goal is to extend the crisis until November, when Proposition 22, a referendum written and sponsored by the gig companies, will be voted on. Prop 22 would create a special exemption from California employment laws just for these companies, while also pre-empting local regulation. The companies have taken a page from big tobacco’s political playbook to avoid complying with wage laws and basic aspects of the social safety net in exchange for the labor of their majority immigrant and people-of-color workforce. Continue reading...

Military intelligence behind 2016 hack of Democrats attempted similar intrusions into computer systems of political partiesThe same Russian military intelligence outfit that hacked the Democrats in 2016 has attempted similar intrusions into the computer systems of organizations involved in the 2020 elections, Microsoft said Thursday.Those efforts, which have targeted more than 200 organizations including political parties and consultants, appear to be part of a broader increase in targeting of US political campaigns and related groups, the company said. Continue reading...

The man who brought my Amazon package had already handled half a million jobs. He still seemed to be enjoying himselfI have always been against the use of names and personal stuff in commercial transactions. And by that I don’t mean someone addressing me by my first name or anything like that; I am on about that business in Starbucks when they demand you identify yourself so they can write your name on a paper cup. For some reason, I have all sorts of problems getting across that my name is Adrian. This might be my accent, which I am told makes my “A” sound like an “I”. You would be amazed how many different spellings there are of my name. I have taken to calling myself Tim, to avoid confusion.Boden catalogues used to annoy me, too. They would put the models’ names next to the photos, which were of no interest to me, and also their favourite film, song, sandwich or whatever. I am not sure if they still do this because I never bought anything from Boden in protest. Continue reading...

Update adds new conversation features, privacy controls, quick smart device controls and moreGoogle has released its latest big update called Android 11 “R”, which is rolling out now to the firm’s Pixel devices, and to smartphones from a handful of third-party manufacturers.Announced at the end of February, Android 11 brings with it enhanced privacy, new chat-related features and smarter media and device controls, as well as some Pixel-exclusive additions. Continue reading...

Court filings reveal Apple may delay return even if developer backtracks in App Store disputeFortnite could be banned from iPhones and other Apple devices for a year, the game’s developer, Epic Games, has revealed, as the court battle between the two companies continues.The scale of the ban was revealed in a legal filing from Epic, which asks the court to force Apple to allow the game back on the iOS App Store while the wider lawsuit winds its way to a full hearing. Continue reading...

Online retail giant says potentially higher corporation tax bill was offset by infrastructure investmentsAmazon’s key UK business paid just 3% more tax last year when profits rose by more than a third as the online retailer benefited from the switch to home shopping.The group’s warehouse and logistics operation, which employs more than two-thirds of its 30,000-plus UK workforce, Amazon UK Services, said its corporation tax contribution was £14.46m in 2019, up from £14.03m the year before. Pretax profits at the division soared 35% to nearly £102m as revenues rose by 29% to nearly £3bn, according to accounts about to be published by Companies House. Continue reading...

Graphic footage originally broadcast on Facebook has spread across social networkTikTok is battling to remove a graphic video of a livestreamed suicide, after the footage was uploaded to the service on Sunday night from Facebook, where it was initially broadcast.Although the footage was rapidly taken down from TikTok, users spent much of Monday re-uploading it, initially unchanged, but later incorporated into so-called bait-and-switch videos, which are designed to shock and upset unsuspecting users. Continue reading...

Firm tells Information Commissioner’s Office it is being pressured into breaking EU privacy lawsThe ride-hailing app Wheely has written to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after claiming it is being pressured into potentially breaking European privacy law by handing over data on its journeys to the Moscow Department of Transportation (MDOT).The company, which has its headquarters in London, last month had its Russian subsidiary suspended from operating by a Moscow court for 90 days, after it refused to hand over the information that it argues could be used to breach the privacy of individual customers. Continue reading...

PS4, Xbox One, PC; Vicarious Visions/Activision

Palantir powers Ice immigration raids, the defense sector and police surveillance. It is the big tobacco of the tech world

PeaceData, seemingly a leftwing news outlet, offered me a column. I should have known it was too good to be trueOn 8 July, I was contacted via direct message on Twitter by a man who introduced himself as an associate editor for PeaceData. @Alex_Lacusta described his organization as a “young, progressive global news outlet that was seeking young and aspiring writers” and was looking to grow its presence on social media. Would I want to write a weekly column and be paid $200 to $250 per piece?My interest was piqued. I had lost my part-time job in the food industry amid the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, and I was in need of income and an outlet to build my portfolio. The opportunity to write a column could be the break I was hoping for. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Testimony of HGV drivers from ex-Soviet countries raises fresh questions over supply chainHaulage drivers delivering to Amazon distribution centres across Europe allege that safety records are being deliberately manipulated and wages withheld in a breach of the e-commerce multinational’s pledges about working conditions in its supply chain.HGV drivers recruited from former Soviet-bloc countries have told the Guardian that they were instructed to cheat tachograph machines that log their working hours, so that they could drive illegally long and unsafe stints in western Europe. Continue reading...

My father, Richard Zobel, who has died aged 81, was a pioneering computer scientist at the University of Manchester, birthplace of “Baby”, the world’s first stored-program computer.He rode the wave of the information technology revolution, starting in the early 1960s on military flight simulators for the electronics and equipment company Sperry’s – the valve analog computers they used ran so hot that he had to work in the cool of the night – and in later years recommending improvements to the distant early warning system (Dews) protecting Indian Ocean coastlines from tsunami, but it was his 40-year academic career that defined his professional life. Continue reading...

Internet Research Agency also hired real, unwitting freelance reporters in operation Facebook has removedThe Russian agency that interfered in the 2016 US election created a fake leftwing news publication, staffed it with fake editors with AI-generated photos and hired real freelance reporters as part of a fresh influence operation detected and removed by Facebook, the company said on Tuesday.The latest operation by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) was still in its early stages when it was detected thanks to a tip from the FBI, according to Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher. The network had 13 accounts and two pages, with about 14,000 total followers. Continue reading...

Move is part of effort to make virtual inroads with voters at a time when many traditional campaign events are considered unsafeLorilei Storm, an American who has lived in Ireland for the last decade, has signs supporting Joe Biden all over her front yard – not in front of her Dublin flat, however, but the one surrounding her home in the wildly popular Nintendo game Animal Crossing.“Campaign signs aren’t as much of a thing here, so I was really excited to find them in the game – I put up as many as I could,” Storm said. Continue reading...

Lateness in rolling out pure fibre networks to blame for low ranking, says analystThe UK has plummeted down the global broadband speed rankings to rate as one of the slowest countries in Europe, with a typical household taking more than twice as long to download a movie than the average home in western Europe.Britain has dropped 13 places in an annual study ranking the average broadband speeds of 221 countries and territories, placing it 47th fastest in the world. Last year, the UK ranked 34th for average broadband speed. Continue reading...

Stock split is merely cosmetic for company whose valuation seems to be controlled by pure psychologyYou have to admire Elon Musk’s stage management. On Monday, the Tesla founder delivered a crowd-pleasing five-for-one stock split, transforming a $2,300 share price into a smaller figure to make ownership “more accessible”. The economic effect of the change was precisely zero – investors just got four additional shares for each one they owned – but Tesla’s shares surged 12% anyway.On Tuesday, Musk produced a twist. Since investors are clearly keen to throw money at Tesla at almost any price, the company will issue new shares to raise $5bn for “general corporate purposes”. The explanation was gloriously vague but, in Tesla’s shoes, you can afford to be loose. With a stock valuation of $460bn, the new shares represent minimal dilution for existing investors. It would almost be silly not to take advantage. Continue reading...

Index down almost quarter in year tech firm has thrived as people turn to digital servicesApple has notched up another milestone by overtaking the combined market value of the entire FTSE 100 index of the UK’s biggest publicly listed companies.The iPhone and iMac maker has had a stellar performance this year with its share price rising an astonishing 75%, and last month it became the first US company to reach a $2tn (£1.48tn) market value. It has since climbed even further, reaching a new record of $2.268tn (£1.69tn) in early US trading on Tuesday. Continue reading...

The billionaire entrepreneur loves to make headline-grabbing claims, but behind the hype his innovations are often underwhelmingHere is a philosophical conundrum: if no one is talking about Elon Musk, does he really exist? The entrepreneur needs attention the way mortals need oxygen. If the 49-year-old is not in the news for a couple of days, he finds a way to shoehorn himself back into the headlines – even if it means piggybacking on international efforts to rescue children trapped in a cave, or calling his child X Æ A-12.Behold the billionaire’s latest stunt: a bionic pig. On Friday, Musk livestreamed a “progress update” on Neuralink, his neuroscience startup. The star of the show was Gertrude, a pig with a chip in her brain. Musk is betting we will all soon be clamouring to get what Gertie has, which is what Musk described as “a Fitbit in your skull”. Neuralink’s ambition is to develop mass-market brain-computer interfaces that allow you to control things with your mind, as well as to cure depression, spinal injuries and neurological disorders. Continue reading...

Great design, screen, performance, battery and health-tracking, with long support and sustainabilitySamsung’s latest, the Galaxy Watch 3, is an all-round refinement of its previous excellent smartwatch efforts – slimmer, lighter and with a larger screen.The £399 Galaxy Watch 3 comes in two sizes (41mm or 45mm), two colours and with or without 4G, aiming to be the Apple Watch of Android, here reviewed in black with a 45mm case. It sits alongside the smaller, fitness-focused Galaxy Watch Active 2 and works with any brand of Android with access to the Google Play Store as well as an iPhone running iOS 9 or newer. Continue reading...

Facebook phishing schemes charge fans to view events’ free live streams

NBN Co claims just 4% of fibre-to-node broadband users are not getting the legally required minimum speeds. Share your experiencesAs people continue to work and study from home, relying solely on their home internet connection, the almost-finished National Broadband Network should be making life easier, but tens of thousands are still finding the network not up to scratch.Data released in the federal parliament last week shows 139,963 premises were not able to get 25 megabits a second download speeds as of May this year. Continue reading...

Amazon and IBM get Covid screening systems from companies that use their technology to oppress minority groups

Does taking back control mean transferring authority from Westminster to Washington? It must do because Boris Johnson won’t say otherwise as sovereignty over unique British microprocessor know-how slips into US handsThe collision of political rhetoric and commercial reality in Cambridge’s “Silicon Fen” threatens to expose the government’s industrial strategy for what it is: draping a union jack over the wilder edges of global capitalism. Earlier this summer, Boris Johnson sought new powers to block outsiders from picking up British firms, especially hi-tech ones. Weeks later, it emerged that the jewel in the crown of UK computing may depart from these shores. Ministers said nothing.That may be because the ownership of the company in question – the world’s most important chip-design firm Arm – was previously decided by Brexit politics. Just after the 2016 vote, Theresa May, having vowed to defend UK firms from foreign takeovers, blessed Arm’s sale to SoftBank, a Japanese conglomerate, for £24bn. That move came with conditions to double the workforce and keep Arm’s headquarters in Cambridge for five years – a pledge that expires next July. SoftBank is now in talks to sell Arm to Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chip company. Continue reading...

Facebook, Amazon and Google all have their problems, but Apple is losing friends fasterFacebook may be the home of international conspiracy theories, Amazon the bane of high streets everywhere and Google slowly tightening its grip on the entire web but it is Apple that is rapidly becoming the most friendless of the big tech companies.Even its attempts to make new allies are starting to come back to bite. Continue reading...

Facebook CEO points to ‘operational mistake’ by teams meant to bar organizations deemed dangerousMark Zuckerberg blamed an “operational mistake” by contractors for Facebook’s failure to remove the “call to arms” of a Kenosha, Wisconsin, militia before the shooting on Tuesday night that left two people dead and another injured.The Kenosha Guard militia had established a Facebook page in June 2020 and this week used a Facebook event page to invite “any patriots willing to take up arms and defend out [sic] City tonight from the evil thugs”, referencing those protesting about the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Facebook has admitted that both the page and the event should have been banned under the company’s new policy addressing groups linked to violence, such as militias. The company nevertheless failed to remove the page or event despite multiple users who reported the content to Facebook, the Verge reported. Continue reading...

Halo’s always-on microphones and requests for body selfies worry privacy campaigners

Tech giant urges MPs to ‘carefully consider the proposal to ensure it operates in the best interests of Australians’Google is lobbying Labor and crossbench MPs to oppose a proposed code that would require digital platforms to pay news media companies for content, urging them to “carefully consider the proposal to ensure it operates in the best interests of Australians”.The direct lobbying effort supplements the tech giant’s major digital campaign, which includes a post on Google’s home page, and pop-up advertisements on Google Search, Chrome and YouTube to mobilise its huge user base against the proposal. Continue reading...

Operating system update will allow opt-in to coronavirus exposure notifications without need of an app

Acquisition by firm which streams virtual reality gigs will offer ‘next-generation’ serviceA British music tech startup has struck a surprise $70m (£53m) deal to buy Napster, one of the pioneers of the music streaming revolution.MelodyVR, which films and streams gigs fans watch with virtual reality headsets, is taking over Rhapsody International, which operates as Napster and is owned by Nasdaq-listed RealNetworks. Continue reading...