Facebook says ‘bug’ resulted in videos being kept, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg hits back at Apple chief Tim Cook’s ‘extremely glib’ attackFacebook continues to deal with the fallout of the Cambridge Analytica files, announcing policy changes and bug fixes aimed at undoing some of the company’s more controversial data collection features.On Monday, Facebook apologised for storing draft videos which users had filmed and then deleted, saying a “bug” resulted in them being indefinitely stored instead. Continue reading...

A king recruits his subjects, and neighbouring rulers, to share in his quest for a fairer new worldOnce the obvious decrees have been made – free sweets, everlasting school holidays! – most children, if asked to reign for a day, would surely wish for peace and plenty for their kingdom. So it is with Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, a prince made, in sudden and bloody circumstances, an exiled king who, together with a growing band of friends, supporters and assorted strays, must build an empire and an alluring constitution to draw subjects to his freshly birthed nation.Rendered in the Studio Ghibli aesthetic – defined here by artist Yoshiyuki Momose and composer Joe Hisaishi, who both worked on the Japanese studio’s Oscar-winning Spirited Away – the newly released Ni no Kuni II’s non-threatening whimsy is stylish but childlike. And for the first few hours, while searching for a patch of unclaimed land on which to settle a capital, it’s a likable adventure. You bumble over hill and dale, slaying monsters, incrementally upgrading your swords and sandals, and sleeping off the effort at local inns. Continue reading...

Everything you need to know about the videos your children are watchingYou don’t need to attend a VidCon meet-and-greet to be across the fact that young people are watching a lot of online video content; a casual glance around any bus, tram, cafe or quadrangle will reveal smartphones, tablets and laptops glued to favourite channels. The international phenomenon of teen YouTube stars is, by now, well-trodden ground – but who are the young YouTube superstars in Australia, and what are they peddling?It happens to us all: one day, we wake up and realise that we’re no longer at the crest of the internet wave. For some of us, this can be shattering. Continue reading...

Trump is after Amazon, Congress is after Facebook, and Apple and Google have their problems too. Should the world’s top tech firms be worried?Trump is going after Amazon; Congress is after Facebook; Google is too big, and Apple is short of new products. Is it any surprise that sentiment toward the tech industry giants is turning sour? The consequences of such a readjustment, however, may be dire.Related: Trump lashes out at Amazon and sends stocks tumbling Continue reading...

Ready Player One takes gaming culture and represents it as male-dominated, elitist and not dissimilar to the ‘alt-right’Steven Spielberg’s new blockbuster, Ready Player One, is the most significant Hollywood depiction of gamer culture to date. For the first time in mainstream cinema, it presents video games not merely as the cliched subcultural world of geeks and nerds, but as a significant force shaping the future of entertainment, communication, love, and politics.In this way, it does justice to the importance of video games, which have an increasing role in social and cultural life. On the other hand, it’s fraught with gender problems, reverence for elitism, and a rightwing endorsement of the importance of culture over political and economic conditions. As such, the celebrated director is showing the worst side of gamer culture. Continue reading...

Steven Spielberg’s film mashes together Jessica Rabbit, Sonic the Hedgehog and the Iron Giant, without much thought to how they would all get alongOn paper, it sounds like a utopia. Steven Spielberg’s new film Ready Player One presents itself as a party to which everyone is invited, its fictional VR dimension playing host to familiar faces from every blessed corner of the pop-culture universe. In the virtual plane known as the Oasis, players can captain the Millennium Falcon or the fluffy beast Falcor. They can try to sweet-talk Jessica Rabbit or befriend Sonic the Hedgehog. Brave warriors may fight alongside Freddy Krueger or Solid Snake, Mecha-Godzilla or the Iron Giant.Except that the Iron Giant is a lover, not a fighter. Tricking out the character with death-lasers goes against everything that he’s about, directly contradicting his native film’s guiding theme of pacifism in the face of violence. The way Ready Player One deploys the character undermines everything we understand about him. But the film doesn’t get hung up on this, quickly cutting to the next big-ticket cameo. Was that Samus Aran from Metroid just now? Continue reading...

Scandals are rife in Silicon Valley and its greatest minds not as popular as when they first created some of the world’s most impressive technology. Jordan Erica Webber asks whySubscribe and review: Acast, Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook, Twitter or email us at podcasts@theguardian.comIn March 2018, a whistleblower called Christopher Wylie revealed to the Observer that a company called Cambridge Analytica had used personal information harvested from Facebook to target voters with personalised political advertisements. The story was so huge that it triggered a movement represented by the hashtag #DeleteFacebook, which garnered support from big names like WhatsApp’s co-founder Brian Acton, SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk, and even Playboy.

Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to testify in the UK shows us what we can expect as a small nation adrift on its own, says HD LewisWhy should MPs be surprised that the head of one of the world’s most powerful companies should ignore British appeals but agree to go before the US Congress (MPs ‘astonished’ by Facebook chief’s refusal of third call to testify, 28 March)?Britain is one small nation that will soon be on its own among other small nations, having chosen – well, at least a minority of its voting-age citizens chose – to leave one of the strongest political and economic units in the world. Continue reading...

The president escalated his attack on Amazon, alleging the company shortchanges taxpayers and puts traditional retailers out of businessPresident Trump escalated his attack on Amazon on Thursday, alleging the retail and cloud-hosting behemoth shortchanges taxpayers and attacking its use of the US Postal Service and its impact on traditional retailers.“I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the election,” he wrote on Twitter. “Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our postal system as their delivery boy (causing tremendous loss to the US), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!” Continue reading...

Users complain of phone and text data collected by the company despite never having agreed to practiceFacebook began logging the text messages and phone calls of its users before it explicitly notified them of its practice, contradicting the company’s earlier claims that “uploading this information has always been opt-in only”.In at least one previous version of the Messenger app, Facebook only told users that the setting would enable them to “send and receive SMS in Messenger”, and presented the option to users without an obvious way to opt out: the prompt offered a big blue button reading “OK”, and a much smaller grey link to “settings”. Continue reading...

Company to shut down Partner Categories feature to ‘improve people’s privacy’ but analysts question potential impact of changeFacebook is shutting down a feature that allowed “data brokers” such as Experian and Oracle to use their own reams of consumer information to target social network users, the company has announced.The feature, known as “Partner Categories”, will be “winding down over the next six months”, Facebook announced in a terse blogpost. The company says the move “will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook.” Continue reading...

Companies like Uber and Citymapper are scrapping for a piece of the mass transit market – with or without the support of public bodiesThe sleek black van seemed a lot like a taxi. After summoning it to my location in central London using my smartphone, I walked a short distance to the pick-up point and clambered in. But then, just as I moved to close the door, a stranger climbed in after me.She introduced herself as Anna. It was Anna’s third time using Smart Ride, the new service from Citymapper, the route planning app that has branched out to offer its own transport services. Smart Ride uses a fleet of minivans that move around the city on a fixed network, matching up passengers based on pick-up points and destinations. Citymapper calls it “a solution for dynamic shared transportation in cities”. Essentially, it’s a cross between a taxi and a bus. Continue reading...

Suit alleges ‘egregious, shocking’ discrimination and says Facebook still allows housing advertisers to exclude certain kinds of people

John Rothenstein | Green getaway | Jennie Lee and Aneurin Bevan | Facebook | Memorable sick noteIt is to be hoped that John Rothenstein’s diary (Report, 26 March) will also tell how he persistently refused the gift to the Tate, from the German-Jewish art historian Rose Schapire in gratitude for her safety in Britain, of a collection of German Expressionist paintings, pre-eminently by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. He was said to have described her as “a conceited fool who no more understands art than a cow understands dancing”. This is why the Leicester City Art Gallery has such a fine German Expressionist collection.

Facebook could face huge fines as Federal Trade Commission confirms inquiry into whether the company engaged in ‘unfair acts’Facebook’s privacy practices are under investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission following a week of scandals and public outrage over the company’s failure to protect the personal information of tens of millions of users.“The FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook,” said Tom Pahl, acting director of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection in a statement on Monday noting that the investigation would include whether the company engaged in “unfair acts that cause substantial injury to consumers”. Continue reading...

Rev Glayne Worgan wonders if different rules apply to the social media giantAs a church minister I am reading up on data protection as new laws come in May (The web was stolen from us. This is how we can take it back, 24 March). My understanding is that churches, along with all other organisations, businesses and charities, will have to look at any data we hold (for churches that is membership lists and luncheon club registers) and make sure that we have good reason to be holding that data. We can only hold it if we have either contractural obligation, legal obligation, legitimate purposes or consent. We will then need to send a privacy notice to each person whose data we hold, with a list of that data, so the person can ask for it to be corrected or deleted. If Facebook holds any data on me (my likes, dislikes and political views) am I to assume that it will check with me that it’s correct? Or do different rules apply here?

Leaving the social network after Cambridge Analytica scandal, users discover extent of data heldAs users continue to delete their Facebook accounts in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a number are discovering that the social network holds far more data about them than they expected, including complete logs of incoming and outgoing calls and SMS messages.The #deletefacebook movement took off after the revelations that Facebook had shared with a Cambridge psychologist the personal information of 50 million users, without their explicit consent, which later ended up in the hands of the election consultancy Cambridge Analytica. Continue reading...

In a jab against the embattled social network, Musk joked ‘What’s Facebook?’ before deactivating his companies’ official pages

Non-profit organisation behind Firefox browser announces move after Cambridge Analytica revelationsMozilla, which makes the popular Firefox web browser, has become the first major organisation to stop advertising on Facebook amid the controversy over the Cambridge Analytica files.Related: Mark Zuckerberg apologises for Facebook's 'mistakes' over Cambridge Analytica Continue reading...

Secunia’s recommended Personal Software Inspector is being discontinued and Laurence is looking for a replacementNow that Flexera has announced end-of-life on Secunia Personal Software Inspector, do you have any recommendations for a replacement? LaurenceIn 1999, David Lee Smith – who was later jailed – named his PC virus after a stripper called Melissa, and it swept the world, forcing some large companies to shut down their email gateways. That and some later malware successes forced Microsoft to spend two years rewriting Windows XP, and Windows XP Service Pack 2 was finally completed in 2004.

In 1993, the makers of The Killing Fields and Chariots of Fire bought the film rights to the world’s biggest video game. The result was a commercial disaster. But that’s only part of the storyDennis Hopper was not happy.It was the summer of 1992, a few weeks into shooting Super Mario Bros: The Motion Picture and the atmosphere on set was febrile. Endless rewrites and script splices had scrambled the story and dialogue. Producers, writers and investors were all working at cross purposes with the directors, the British couple Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton. On set, there were 300 extras waiting to film the next scene. The lines Hopper was about to deliver had been changed at the last moment, and not for the first time. He was dressed as a humanoid dinosaur, heavily made up in the sweltering North Carolina heat, his hair gelled into a weird row of reptilian spikes. Continue reading...

We’d like to hear your thoughts on Facebook, privacy and the Cambridge Analytica files

Human rights group says trolls are winning as site has become toxic place for womenTwitter is failing to prevent online violence and abuse against women, creating a toxic environment for them, Amnesty International has claimed.In a report published on Wednesday, the day that Twitter celebrates 12 years since the first tweet, Amnesty said the social network responded inconsistently when abuse was highlighted, even when it violated its own rules. Continue reading...

Google’s vice-president for news defends company against claims it is harming journalismGoogle has welcomed the competition regulator’s inquiry into the impact of digital platforms on Australian publishers.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is investigating the impact of Google, content aggregators such as Apple News and social media platforms such as Facebook on the state of competition in media and advertising. The inquiry has taken on a new urgency in the wake of revelations about Cambridge Analytica’s mining of Facebook data. Continue reading...

Researchers discover illegal content within the distributed ledger, making possession of it potentially unlawful in many countriesGerman researchers have discovered unknown persons are using bitcoin’s blockchain to store and link to child abuse imagery, potentially putting the cryptocurrency in jeopardy.The blockchain is the open-source, distributed ledger that records every bitcoin transaction, but can also store small bits of non-financial data. This data is typically notes about the trade of bitcoin, recording what it was for or other metadata. But it can also be used to store links and files. Continue reading...

Downing Street backs information commissioner inquiry into data-mining affecting millions of peopleDowning Street has expressed its concern about the Facebook data breach involving the analytics company that worked with Donald Trump’s campaign team and that affected tens of millions of people.No 10 weighed in on the row as almost $20bn (£14bn) was wiped off the social network company’s market cap in the first few minutes of trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange, where Facebook opened down more than 3%. By midday, the company’s share price losses had multiplied to more than $40bn, making the day its worst in more than five years. Continue reading...

Beautiful, fantastical and feelgood, this Studio Ghibli collaboration is a timely counterpoint to the idea that games are gun-centric, violent and nihilisticJapanese role-playing games tend to be pretty specialist, with anime-style graphics and rather old-fashioned, often turn-based gameplay. But Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, whose gorgeous visual style was created in collaboration with feted animation pioneers Studio Ghibli, is more inviting than most. It possesses the irresistibly charming vibe of Nintendo’s Zelda games, combined with modern, open-world gameplay that’s reminiscent of Witcher 3.Ni no Kuni II begins in Ding Dong Dell, a cute fantasy kingdom occupied by cat-human Grymalkins, though before long the action takes us elsewhere. You play Evan, a cat-boy-king whose ascension to the throne is imminent following the death of his father. But dastardly mice execute a coup. Evan manages to escape. Continue reading...

The tech industry doesn’t simply tolerate gender discrimination, it’s hardwired to marginalise women, says author Emily ChangEmily Chang is an American journalist and host of the US TV show Bloomberg Technology. Her new book, Brotopia, is an exposé of Silicon Valley’s macho culture.What is Brotopia?

JFTC investigating firm over antitrust allegations that it demanded fees from suppliers for discounting productsAmazon’s Japanese headquarters in Tokyo have been raided by the country’s fair trade watchdog on suspicion of violation of antitrust regulations.The Japanese Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) said on Thursday that Amazon Japan was being investigated after allegations that the company improperly asked suppliers to shoulder part of the costs of discounting their products on the retail site. Amazon Japan said Thursday that it was “fully cooperating” with JFTC, but declined to comment on the details of the allegations. Continue reading...

Streaming service’s voice recognition system seeks to free it from reliance on Siri and Alexa, paving way to launch its own smart speakerSpotify is experimenting with a voice-control interface, looking to free itself from reliance on Siri and Alexa and pave the way for the company’s forthcoming smart speaker.Users of the service have spotted the new feature hiding in the search bar of Spotify’s iOS app. After tapping the magnifying glass to search for a track or playlist , testers see a microphone icon inside a white bubble, according to the Verge. Continue reading...

As cities vie to host second campus, local activists say the ‘Hunger Games’-style competition is a bad deal for everyone – except Amazon

Hot pants in the tundra? As Tomb Raider hits cinemas, Lara Croft’s writers and developers explain her evolution from pneumatic bait for teenage boys to global sensation – and reveal why motherhood may be nextLara Croft is one of the few video-game characters to have crossed over into real-world celebrity. As with James Bond, her various iterations have reflected the times. When the first Tomb Raider game was released in 1996, she was a sex symbol in sunglasses and a tank top, later featuring in Playboy and on the cover of style magazine the Face.Embodied by Angelina Jolie in the 2001 film, she is curvy and capable, kicking the collective ass of the Illuminati. In 2013, she was a shipwrecked student in torn cargo pants – an accidental metaphor for graduates struggling through the economic recession. Now, in a Tomb Raider movie out this week, Alicia Vikander plays a tearaway Croft dossing around in London. Continue reading...

Suit claims world’s largest software firm failed to properly redress 238 internal complaints, including harassment, discrimination and rape

Andy Ganf and Jude McGowan reflect on a man who was great fun with a string of risqué jokesLiving on an island provides a ready-made family and Trevor Baylis (Obituary, 7 March) repeatedly said it was the best move he ever made. It was with sadness that Eel Pie islanders read of his death – our very own celebrity. He was a lovely man – eccentric, yes, but never a bad word to say about anyone. In his last three years he came to us for Christmas lunch. The first year, a neighbour had to bring him because he had forgotten who had invited him. We all laughed. On another occasion at pre-Christmas lunch drinks he presented me with a handwritten list of the doctorates and awards he had received. This was not a boast, he was repeatedly surprised at his own success. Of course there was his string of risqué jokes. That was just Trevor.The island took him to its heart and there was always someone who made sure he was safe, that he had taken his pills, walked his beloved dog, seen that he had eaten properly and not fallen into his swimming pool, which was situated precariously just inside the front door. Continue reading...

The cloud storage company set the pricing well below the $10bn valuation when the company had raised private capital in 2014The silver lining appears to be coming off Dropbox, the cloud storage company set to go public next week.On Monday, the company set terms for its initial public offering (IPO) that values the company at between $7bn and $8bn – well below the $10bn valuation when the company had raised private capital in 2014. Continue reading...

Founder of SpaceX, which is working on getting humans to the planet, speaks at SXSW amid rising nuclear tensionHumans must prioritise the colonisation of Mars so the species can be conserved in the event of a third world war, SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk said on Sunday.Related: Trump under pressure over chaotic approach to North Korea nuclear talks Continue reading...

This excellent documentary celebrates the glamorous Hollywood icon and brilliant engineer whose groundbreaking work led to Bluetooth and wifiThere can hardly be any more extraordinary story from the Hollywood golden age than that of Hedy Lamarr; a very beautiful star with a moderate acting talent but an untutored brilliance in science and engineering that should by now be getting her compared to Nikola Tesla, or maybe even a neglected female scientist like Rosalind Franklin. Her tragedy was that she was in the wrong business, precisely that business that promotes beauty over brains – the movie business.Alexandra Dean’s excellent and important documentary about her is very instructive – a parable of modern sexual politics and assumptions about science. Even now, many can’t believe in their hearts that movie star Hedy Lamarr really was a scientist, or scientist manqué. The accomplishment simply doesn’t square with the accepted female star biography narrative into which Lamarr otherwise fits: movies, husbands, poignant reclusive decline etc. Many film encyclopedias and reference books simply omit what was important about Hedy Lamarr. Continue reading...

Gorgeous screen and excellent camera are highlights of this top-end phone, but battery life could be improvedHaving ushered in a new super-slim bezel design at the beginning of 2017 with the S8, has Samsung’s new dual-aperture, dual camera enough to entice people to upgrade?

Debate over connection between games and crime dates back to Columbine – but despite moral panic evidence doesn’t stack up

DoD’s Project Maven uses tech firm’s TensorFlow artificial intelligence systems, prompting debate both inside and outside companyGoogle’s artificial intelligence technologies are being used by the US military for one of its drone projects, causing controversy both inside and outside the company.

Three-year review will consider responsibility in self-driving vehicles and their role in public transportThe government is to review the law before the arrival of self-driving cars on UK roads, considering issues such as whether this type of transport requires new criminal offences.The development of autonomous vehicles is at the heart of the government’s industrial strategy and the three-year law review is considered necessary if it is to stick to the timetable announced in November last year when the chancellor, Philip Hammond, promised driverless cars on the road by 2021. Continue reading...

Local residents are hitting back at their new robot neighbors – literally – as reports detail assaults on driverless carsThe great promise of self-driving cars is that they will save innumerable lives by removing the most fallible and unpredictable element from vehicle traffic: the human.But in San Francisco at least, fickle human behavior is taking a stand. Continue reading...

The search engine’s map now allows you to review any business building in the world – and the country’s magistrates are taking a kicking

Do mere human beings stand a chance against software that claims to reveal what a real-life face-to-face chat can’t?According to Nathan Mondragon, finding the right employee is all about looking at the little things. Tens of thousands of little things, as it turns out.Mondragon is head psychologist at HireVue, which markets software for screening job candidates. Its flagship product, used by Unilever and Goldman Sachs, asks candidates to answer interview questions in front of a camera. Meanwhile its software, like a team of hawk-eyed psychologists hiding behind a mirror, takes note of barely perceptible changes in posture, facial expression and vocal tone. Continue reading...

Firm says shift to more connected and ‘concierge-like’ experience needed to combat smartphone-obsessed societyWe need to return to being the masters of our technology and stop being slaves to our phones, says Samsung’s head of mobile for the UK.

Former employee alleges she was subject to ‘lewd comments, pranks and even physical violence’ on daily basisGoogle has a “bro-culture” that allowed the daily sexual harassment of a female software engineer, a new lawsuit from a former employee alleges.Loretta Lee, who worked for Google from 2008 to 2016, filed suit this month against the Silicon Valley giant for sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and wrongful termination in California state court. Continue reading...

Man wants results that mention his criminal conviction removed in first case of its kind in England

Doctors have warned that overuse of electronic screens is leaving some children unable to hold a pen properly. But while learning as an adult is difficult, it’s not impossibleThis week, paediatric occupational therapists warned that children were entering primary school not knowing how to hold pens and pencils, owing to an overuse of technology instead of activities that build muscles in the hands and teach control of movement, such as using building blocks. But what if you make it to adulthood without knowing how to hold a pen? Can you learn then? “You can, but the brain of a very young child is so plastic that it just absorbs information quite well,” says Angela Webb, recently retired clinical psychologist and the chair of the National Handwriting Association. “After age 11, you can learn things – but you have to really want to, you have to be motivated, you have to practise. The ideal position is if you learn in early childhood and then you have a skill for life.”There was a time, she says, when people didn’t believe handwriting was going to survive the digital age, “so they stopped teaching handwriting in schools. You have a generation of young adults [in their 20s and 30s] who weren’t taught at school and had to find their own way.” Continue reading...

HMD Global bets on nostalgia once more after the successful relaunch of the 3310 last yearIn 1996 the original Nokia 8110 slider “banana” phone was released; three years later it hit the big time in the hand Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. Fast forward 22 years and the Nokia 8110 has been reloaded.The Nokia 8110 was groundbreaking in its day as one of the first to feature an ergonomic shape, with the slider shooting down and out curving gently towards your mouth. But it will always be remembered for that moment when Reeves shoots down the slider picking up the phone to Morpheus before dropping it from the ledge of a tall skyscraper after he has stepped out the window of his office. Continue reading...