Technology | The Guardian

The researchers behind the illusion, which went viral last month, explain how the plan was actually to see how people react to self-driving vehiclesIn early August, residents of Arlington, Virginia, spotted an unmarked silver Ford Transit van cruising around town without a human behind the wheel.Local news publication ARLnow caught the ghostly vehicle on camera and speculated that it was part of Virginia Tech’s autonomous driving research. A couple of days later, NBC reporter Adam Tuss approached the vehicle on foot and peered inside, only to see hands poking out from the driver’s seat holding the steering wheel. The “driverless” car had a driver – but he was disguised as a car seat. Continue reading...

Embarrassing discovery that Facebook let advertisers target users interested in antisemitic topics comes as the social network’s ad practices are under scrutiny

Exclusive: Women say Google denied them promotions, telling the Guardian they were forced into less prestigious jobs despite qualificationsGoogle systematically pays women less than men doing similar work, according to a class action-lawsuit accusing the technology company of denying promotions and career opportunities to qualified women who are “segregated” into lower-paying jobs.

Company says too many people tried to use Face ID on device backstage before its unveiling, highlighting a potential problem for prospective buyers

The digital currency lost 10% of its value after the JP Morgan boss described it as fraud – but it has come a long way since it was started in 2009Bitcoin is a digital currency started in 2009 by a mystery figure named Satoshi Nakamoto, whose true identity is still unknown. It is unlike traditional currencies because it has no central bank, nation state or regulatory authority backing it up.The “coins” are made by computers solving a set of complex maths problems. To spend them, users buy bitcoin and conduct transactions with them using exchanges such as San Francisco-based Coinbase. Rather than a central authority validating transactions, they are all recorded on a public ledger, called the blockchain. Continue reading...

Bungie has improved its sci-fi shooter with a less lonely game for those who don’t have online friends and a more rewarding one for those who doThere are three reviews of Destiny 2 that need to be written.The first is Destiny 2: the campaign, the game that you can sit down and play through from start to finish. It’s a genuinely good experience, with a plot that makes sense, characters who have actual personalities, and a narrative delivered through more than just text inserts and mission descriptions. Continue reading...

Jamie Dimon claims cryptocurrency is only fit for use by drug dealers, murderers and people living in North KoreaBitcoin is a fraud that will ultimately blow up, according to JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, who said the digital currency was only fit for use by drug dealers, murderers and people living in places such as North Korea.Speaking at a conference in New York, the boss of America’s biggest bank said he would fire “in a second” anyone at the investment bank found to be trading in bitcoin. “For two reasons: it’s against our rules, and they’re stupid. And both are dangerous.” Continue reading...

The first outing in the Steve Jobs Theater saw unveiling of flagship iPhone X, as well as iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and updated Apple Watch and Apple TV

Despite leaks and a hiccup during a demo of its new Face ID unlocking feature, analysts say this year’s launch puts Apple in an ‘extraordinarily strong’ position

US National Transportation Safety Board said operational limitations in the Tesla Model S played a major role in the death of 40-year-old Joshua Brown from OhioThe chairman of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Tuesday that “operational limitations” in the Tesla Model S played a “major role” in a May 2016 crash that killed a driver using the vehicle’s semi-autonomous Autopilot system.The limits on the autonomous driving system include factors such as Tesla being unable to ensure driver attention even when the car is traveling at high speeds, ensuring Autopilot is used only on certain roads and monitoring driver engagement, NTSB said. Continue reading...

Felix Kjellberg, the highest-paid YouTuber in 2016, says he learned nothing from previous racist controversies and that ‘there are no excuses for it’YouTube star PewDiePie has apologised for using a racial slur during a livestream, saying that he is “disappointed in himself”.In a short video posted to his YouTube account , the vlogger – real name Felix Kjellberg, the highest-paid YouTuber in 2016 – said he was “not going to make any excuses” as to why he said the n-word in the middle of a game of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, “because there are no excuses for it.” Continue reading...

The electric-car giant gave customers a lifeline by remotely boosting their vehicles’ battery capacity. But this act of kindness also highlighted that it had been selling identical cars at different pricesTesla drivers who fled Hurricane Irma last weekend received an unexpected lesson in modern consumer economics along the way. As they sat on choked highways, some of the electric-car giant’s more keenly priced models suddenly gained an extra 30 or so miles in range thanks to a silent free upgrade.The move, confirmed by Tesla, followed the request of one Florida driver for a limit on his car’s battery to be lifted. Tesla’s cheaper models, introduced last year, have the same 75KwH battery as its more costly cars, but software limits it to 80% of range. Owners can otherwise buy an upgrade for several thousands of dollars. And because Teslas software updates are online, the company can make the changes with the flick of a virtual switch. Continue reading...

Games developer Campo Santo files copyright takedown requests against Felix Kjellberg after racist comment, and urges others to follow suitYouTube’s best-paid star Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, has yet again used a racial slur on the video-sharing site.The 27-year-old video blogger called an opponent a “fucking nigger” while live-streaming playing the online game Playerunknown Battlegrounds, before correcting himself to “fucking asshole”, adding: “I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” Continue reading...

My former colleague and friend Peter Bird has died aged 82. Today computers are ubiquitous and have transformed many aspects of business administration and how we live our daily lives. But the so-called information age ushered in by computing and communications technology dates only from the middle of the last century.Peter, who had worked with J Lyons & Co, the food company famed for its teashops, and the unlikely pioneer of the use of computers in business from the 1950s, chronicled the Lyons initiative in his groundbreaking book LEO: The First Business Computer (1994), and later the story of J Lyons itself in The First Food Empire: A History of J Lyons & Co (2000). Both books were meticulously researched and compiled, with original photos from the respective eras. Continue reading...

With its invisible rear doors and dramatic design, Toyota’s compact coupé is all set to divide public opinionPrice: £21,065

As robots grow more lifelike, and religious faith in our uniqueness wanes, it is a challenge to understand what it means to be mortalPerhaps the best way to think of what makes a human being human is to look at something that seems almost human and subtract the difference. Whatever is left over is what is unique to us. That seems to be the thinking behind the Finnish photographer Maija Tammi’s One of Them Is a Human #1, a portrait of Erica, the Japanese android who was declared the most realistic female human robot of 2016. The photograph caused a stir last week because it was shortlisted for the National Portrait Gallery’s prestigious Taylor Wessing prize, despite the rule that “all photographs must have been taken by the entrant from life and with a living sitter”.Related: Why the rise of the robots could allow humans to flourish again | Giles Fraser: Loose canon Continue reading...

US-based credit ratings firm says records of UK citizens were among those unlawfully accessed during cyber-attack in JulyEquifax, the US credit ratings firm victim to an unlawful breach of security, has been told to inform British residents “at the earliest opportunity” if their personal information has been put at risk, the Information Commissioner said on Friday.Equifax says it holds details on over 44 million Britons, and said that records of UK and Canadians citizens were among the unlawfully accessed confidential data for 143 million Americans. Continue reading...

Online services are challenging our model of primary care – the NHS must find a way to incorporate new approaches into the mainstreamThe irresistible entrepreneurial spirit of Silicon Valley is slamming into the immovable object of UK healthcare regulation, with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) exposing significant concerns with at least 10 online clinical services.

The lives of tech entrepreneurs aren’t always as glamorous as they’re made out to be, as I learned living among them on a dangerous San Francisco streetFor the past 12 months of my life, I paid the bargain price of $1,250 per month to sleep diagonally in a bunk bed in a 10ft x 10ft room that I shared with a 32-year old man. Because I am 6ft 4in, sleeping diagonally in my undersized accommodation was the only way I could make it through the night without getting cramps.Welcome to my life in the hacker house. Continue reading...

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

Lauri Love is charged with masterminding a 2013 attack by Anonymous on US government websites. Will Britain allow him to spend the rest of his days in an American prison?In October 2013, Lauri Love was drinking coffee in his dressing gown in his bedroom at his parents’ house in the village of Stradishall, Suffolk, when his mother called upstairs to say there was a deliveryman at the front door. Love, whose first name is pronounced “Lowry”, like the English painter, clomped downstairs. In the front doorway was a man dressed in a UPS uniform. “Are you Lauri Love?” the man asked. “Yes,” Love said. In a single motion, the man grabbed Love’s arm while presenting, not a package, but a pair of rattling handcuffs.For the next five hours, while dusk turned to evening outside, Love, then 28, and his parents sat in the front room as a dozen or so men from the National Crime Agency, which investigates organised crime and other serious offences, checked the computers in the house. In Love’s bedroom, they found two laptops, and a PC tower humming on his desk. Among the bewildering Rolodex of open tabs in Love’s internet browsers, the officers found accounts logged into several hacker forums and arcane internet chatrooms. Downstairs, Love, who knew that anything said in these limbo moments of investigation could be later used against him, kept the conversation to small talk about the weather and football. Continue reading...

Amazon is looking to build its second home, promising it will be a full equal to current Seattle base, but has a list of key demands from potential candidatesAmazon has launched a $5bn (£3.8bn) search for a site for a new headquarters, asking cities across the US and Canada to make their pitches.The new HQ will be the world’s largest e-commerce company’s second in North America, and “will be a full equal” to its current headquarters in Seattle, Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos said. Continue reading...

Social media company’s advertising data doesn’t tally with census data for millennial and other demographics to the tune of millions of peopleFacebook claims that it can reach more millennials and people in other demographics than actually exist in the UK, US, Australia, Ireland and France, according to census data.In the UK, Facebook says it can reach 7.8 million users aged between 18 and 24. The Office of National Statistics, however, says there were only 5.8 million people in that age group in the whole in the country in 2016. Continue reading...

For his new book, America 51, the Slipknot frontman has been examining the sicknesses at the heart of US culture – and from Donald Trump to modern dating, here’s his exclusive guide to navigating themHe is so ineffectual. Everyone was worried about the crazy things he’d do, but there’s nothing that he’s done that can’t be changed in another administration, like the Paris agreement. There’s no need to panic. Too many – I don’t want to say liberal lambasts – are hitting the panic button too quickly, instead of bringing up issues and talking about them. For me it’s really a case of: what’s going on with the senators, what’s going on on a local level? Continue reading...

Cybersecurity firm Symantec says ‘Dragonfly’ group has been investigating and penetrating energy facilities in US, Turkey and SwitzerlandA hacking campaign is targeting the energy sector in Europe and the US to potentially sabotage national power grids, a cybersecurity firm has warned.The group, dubbed “Dragonfly” by researchers at Symantec, has been in operation since at least 2011 but went dark in 2014 after it was first exposed, secretly placing backdoors in the industrial control systems of power plants across the US and Europe. Continue reading...

From a cookie that’s definitely not a cookie to a yellow flag when everyone else sees red, sending emojis is fraught enough without manufacturers changing thingsIt’s a tricky life, being an emoji designer. Unicode, the consortium that controls the key standard used to digitally encode writing, picks which emojis need to be included, but until recently offered little guidance beyond a name and a black and white illustration.Then there’s the problem that every individual operating system needs to design its own emoji because the little glyphs are copyrighted, so it won’t do to simply use the same ones as your competitor. Continue reading...

While so many books, TV shows and films has used schools as a setting, very few video games take place in and around the classroomThis week sees thousands of children throughout the country wake up and realise with stark horror that the summer holidays are over and school beckons.Most adults can remember the sudden system shock of these mornings; the alarm going off unreasonably early, the shivering cold of the bathroom, the family gathered in stony silence around the table, munching forlornly on soggy toast. Games such as Resident Evil or Silent Hill have conjured few horrors that compare with entering a new classroom and meeting an unfamiliar teacher who may or may not prove to be an authoritarian sociopath. Continue reading...

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

Aloneness and not knowing are fundamental to being human – let’s leave the virtual world and return to the real one, says Peter HindleyHoward Jacobson expresses surprise at his dependence on his smartphone (Weekend, 2 September). I recently lost mine, and it made me confront the two sources of anxiety my phone assuaged for me. First, the fear of being alone: my phone gave me the illusion that I could always be in contact with someone or something. Second, fear of uncertainty: my phone could always provide me with an answer for any question I wanted to ask. Aloneness and not knowing are fundamental to being human and drive much of our communication and creativity. Surely it is time for the Guardian to encourage us to give up our phones and celebrate the delights of being disconnected from the virtual world but truly connected to the real world.

With no home button on the new iPhone, something’s got to give, and that something might just be your power buttonIf you are a fan of Siri, then good news: Apple’s voice assistant looks like it will be getting a promotion in the near future, thanks to the combination of iOS 11 and the “D22” iPhone (the leaked model thought to be the forthcoming “iPhone Pro, 8 or X”). If you’re not a fan of Siri, well, look away now – some of this isn’t pretty.For the first time, Siri will sync across devices, letting details it has picked up from your phone affect how it answers on your iPad or computer. The service is also seeing a slight refocus: Siri isn’t just a voice assistant anymore, since “Siri” will also be responsible for suggesting topics in Apple News based on your web browsing, or for suggesting a calendar event if you make a booking online. Continue reading...

Cities attract wild ideas, from Qinhuangdao’s straddling bus to London’s bike lanes in the sky. As Musk’s Boring Company starts tunnelling, could his plans for underground roads and Hyperloop trains prove the doubters wrong?In early August, the city council of Hawthorne, California, held a special meeting. It had set aside this time to discuss a major construction project proposed by a high profile company based there in the sprawling Los Angeles basin.The company was Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, the rocket-building offshoot of the electric car company Tesla, run by the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. SpaceX had recently spun off another entity, this one aimed at disrupting the tunnel boring business, cheekily named the Boring Company – and it needed the City of Hawthorne’s cooperation. Continue reading...

Techies are pushing the trend of intermittent fasting for weight loss – made popular by diets like the 5:2 plan – to the extreme. Are they crazy?The last time any food passed Phil Libin’s lips was a day ago, when he ate yakitori at a restaurant in San Francisco’s Mission district. He’ll next eat in three days time on Thursday evening, when he has a reservation at one of the fanciest sushi restaurants in town. In the intervening four days it’s just water, coffee and black tea.Over the last eight months the former CEO of Evernote and current CEO of AI studio All Turtles has shunned food for stretches of between two and eight days, interspersed with similar periods of eating. He’s lost almost 90lbs and describes getting into fasting as “transformative”. Continue reading...

From Google to Uber, Silicon Valley’s tech giants have a woman problem. Meet Lawless & Lawless, the sisters fighting backOn the wall of Lawless & Lawless’s San Francisco office is a framed, full-page newspaper advert with a black background and just two words in white text: “Thanks Ellen”. The ad, taken out in March 2015 in a Silicon Valley freesheet, referred to Ellen Pao, who had recently fought a $16m sexual discrimination suit against her former employer, venture capitalists Kleiner Perkins. Pao claimed she was passed over for promotion and excluded from meetings after she accused a senior partner of sexual harassment.Although Pao lost the suit, coverage of the case shone a bright light on Silicon Valley’s gender problem. More legal suits followed, this time against Facebook and Tesla. The common denominator? The lawyers representing the women: Therese and Barbara Lawless. The formidable sisters, who have been practising employment law together since the late 1980s, have become the go-to attorneys in the battle against what they describe as America’s “wild west” of gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Continue reading...

The company, which offered pre-sold packets of diced fruits and vegetables that users plugged into its $400 machines, launched only 16 months agoJuicero, a Silicon Valley juicer startup that raised $120m from investors and was widely ridiculed after the $400 machines were revealed to be the equivalent of two hands squeezing a juice box, is shutting down.The death of Juicero, announced on Friday, is the latest case of a San Francisco tech startup collapsing after raising substantial funds under the guise of innovation and disruption, but failing to build a profitable business. Continue reading...

The president to make a decision on Daca, as Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and Tim Cook among tech leaders urging him not to end the programDonald Trump’s spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Friday that the president would announce his decision on whether to kill off special legal provisions offered to “Dreamers”, people brought to the US illegally as children, on Tuesday.Related: 'The fear is great': 'Dreamers' on edge as Trump threatens to end Daca program Continue reading...

Prof Martyn Thomas had first-hand experience of fighting the millennium bug, and dismisses the idea that it never posed a serious threat to the world’s computer systemsPlease don’t perpetuate the falsehood that the millennium bug was a myth (Hard to stomach, G2, 30 August). The widespread use of two-digit years in computer systems was a serious threat. I led the Y2K teams for Deloitte Consulting internationally in the 1990s and those of us who spent years successfully finding and fixing many of the huge number of problems resent the implication that our work was unnecessary or fraudulent. Despite all the worldwide work (coordinated by a special UN team), many failures did occur, including 15 shut-downs of nuclear reactors around the world. Details and authoritative references from Gresham College can be found online at tinyurl.com/zcd8tqd.

On 12 September Tim Cook’s company will hold its first event at the new Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California. Here’s what they will (probably) talk aboutApple will hold a press event on 12 September to unveil its much anticipated new iPhones, which are expected to introduce a whole new design and set the tone for the next few years.Unlike previous years, much is known about at least one of the new iPhones thanks to a large software leak from Apple that revealed several of its key details. But new smartphones are not the only new thing Apple is expected to announce, with the event taking place in the just-built Apple Park and its Steve Jobs Theatre. Continue reading...

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

FDA overseeing crucial firmware update in US to patch security holes and prevent hijacking of pacemakers implanted in half a million peopleAlmost half a million pacemakers have been recalled by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) due to fears that their lax cybersecurity could be hacked to run the batteries down or even alter the patient’s heartbeat.The recall won’t see the pacemakers removed, which would be an invasive and dangerous medical procedure for the 465,000 people who have them implanted: instead, the manufacturer has issued a firmware update which will be applied by medical staff to patch the security holes. Continue reading...

Julian Assange’s data-leaking site defaced via DNS attack, showing humiliating messages for organisation that prides itself on being tech savvyWikiLeaks suffered an embarrassing cyber-attack when Saudi Arabian-based hacking group OurMine took over its web address.The attack saw visitors to WikiLeaks.org redirected to a page created by OurMine which claimed that the attack was a response to a challenge from the organisation to hack them. Continue reading...

Thousands in San Jose are sleeping on the street, and the city has proposed temporary ‘tiny homes’ to help. But residents say: not in my backyard

Dara Khosrowshahi, the former Expedia CEO, holds an all-staff meeting as the ousted Uber founder describes the last six months as the hardest of his lifeThe incoming Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, former CEO of Expedia, addressed the ride-hailing company in an all-hands meeting Wednesday at the company’s San Francisco headquarters.Khosrowshahi, who starts next Tuesday, replaces the ousted leader and co-founder Travis Kalanick, who resigned following a string of controversies including allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and intellectual property theft.

The FCC has received nearly 22m comments on “Restoring Internet Freedom” with just hours left before the window for public feedback closes on WednesdayA sweeping plan to roll back Obama-era rules intended to ensure an open internet has drawn a record number of comments before a critical vote by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).With hours left before the window for public feedback closes on Wednesday, the agency has received nearly nearly 22m comments on “Restoring Internet Freedom”, which could dismantle net neutrality rules put in place in 2015. Though many of the comments appear to be from spambots, the effort to ease regulations on internet service providers (ISPs) has drawn widespread criticism from Democrats, consumer advocates and internet companies. Continue reading...

Company will give users option to be tracked only while actively using the app, as it tries to clean up its act on privacy after unveiling of new CEOUber will stop its controversial practice of tracking users for up to five minutes after a trip has ended, as it attempts to turn around its mired public image.A change to the Uber app due to roll out this week will allow users to share location data only when actively using the app, stopping further tracking once a trip is complete, according to Uber’s chief security officer Joe Sullivan. Continue reading...

Free speech was the left’s rally cry. But the fate of the Daily Stormer, a hate site ‘kicked off the internet’, signals the increasing irrelevance of the first amendment

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

The world’s largest video event showcased long-awaited 1930s cartoon-style platformer Cuphead, beast-bludgeoning fantasy Monster Hunter and moreGamescom, the world’s largest video game event, has just taken place in Cologne, bringing 400,000 visitors – including Angela Merkel – to the vast Koelnmesse for a week of hype and hands-on action.Here are the 11 games we most enjoyed amid the chaos. Continue reading...

Amazon, which acquired Whole Foods in June, will begin a wave of price cuts on Monday following Walmart’s new focus on developing its online retail effortsAmazon has set the stage for a price war with retail giant Walmart as it signaled a wave of price cuts at Whole Foods, the grocery chain it acquired for $13.7bn in June. The move signals the start of a much wider battle – to see who will be the king of online retail in America.Related: Amazon to buy Whole Foods Market in $13.7bn deal Continue reading...

Customers say recently acquired televisions stopped working after the company sent out an upgrade a week agoThousands of owners of high-end Samsung TVs have complained after a software update left their recently acquired £1,400 sets with blank, unusable screens.The Guardian has been contacted by a number of owners complaining that the TVs they bought – in some cases just two weeks ago – have been rendered useless by an upgrade sent out by Samsung a week ago. Continue reading...

From Ulm to New York 1901, board games have embraced stories about urban development – but can they teach us anything useful about planning?In 1666 a terrible fire raged through London, destroying most of the medieval city and consuming more than 13,000 houses, churches and monuments. It is estimated that at least 70,000 of the city’s 80,000 residents had their homes reduced to cinders. In the ashes of this tragedy, London needed to be rebuilt, creating myriad problems and opportunities.