Amazon hopes its low-cost, feature-rich Fire 7 and HD 8 tablets continue to buck market trend thanks to improved battery life, screen and storageAmazon has launched two new budget Fire tablets, with one costing just £50, and has brought its Alexa voice assistant to tablets in the UK.The new thinner and lighter £50 Fire 7, which has an improved screen, longer battery life and more storage, hopes to continue the success of the previous Fire 7 tablet, which won plaudits for balancing low cost with features. At the same time, Amazon has launched a new version of its Fire HD 8 tablet, with similar improvements and a lower starting price of £80. Continue reading...
Group linked to NSA cyberwarfare tools used in ransomware attack threatens to set up ‘wine of the month’-style serviceThe hacking group that says data they released facilitated the WannaCry ransomware attack has threatened to leak a new wave of hacking tools they claim to have stolen from the US National Security Agency.The so-called Shadow Brokers, who claimed responsibility for releasing NSA tools that were used to spread the WannaCry ransomware through the NHS and across the world, said they have a new suite of tools and vulnerabilities in newer software. The possible targets include Microsoft’s Windows 10, which was unaffected by the initial attack and is on at least 500m devices around the world. Continue reading...
Developer Impulse Gear has made an earnest attempt at a VR version of Halo, but the game, and its strange PlayStation Aim Controller, fall short of the targetWhen the GunCon, a plastic replica pistol for the PlayStation console, first launched in December 1995, it came in just one colour: jet black. Viewed from any distance, the only giveaway that this was a video game controller, rather than an authentic firearm, was the claret-coloured start button on the side of a barrel. Pull a GunCon from a rucksack on a crowded subway and you’d almost certainly cause a terror stampede. When the devices launched in the UK, the law demanded they were recoloured bright blue and red.There’s no risk of any potentially deadly confusion when it comes the PlayStation Aim Controller, which launches this week alongside Farpoint, a futuristic shooting game built for virtual reality. It’s an impressionistic sketch of a firearm, built from the kind of white tubing you might find under a kitchen sink, with a glowing ping-pong ball fixed to the end of the barrel. If the purpose of peripherals like this aim to narrow the gulf of abstraction that separates activity in a video game from its real-world counterpart (the plastic driving wheel that makes it feel more like you’re driving a Ferrari in Forza, for example, or the wooden gear lever that approximates the Shinkansen’s dashboard in Densha de Go) then this effort seems laughably off-target. Continue reading...
GMB says it will seek judicial review if Transport for London does not guarantee more rights for driversUber has come under further pressure in London after a union threatened legal action if the capital’s transport authority renews the taxi app’s licence without guaranteeing more rights for drivers.In a legal letter sent this week, the GMB union warns Transport for London (TfL) that failure to impose conditions which guarantee income for Uber drivers while limiting their number in the city and the hours they can work would “breach the relevant standards of reasonableness and would accordingly be unlawfulâ€. Continue reading...
Companies see share prices rise sharply amid expected increase in spending on IT security after WannaCry hackThe ransomware attack that disrupted the NHS and businesses around the world has led to a boom in share prices of cybersecurity companies – including the firm used by the health service to protect it against hackers.With governments and companies expected to increase spending on IT security after being caught out by the attack, cybersecurity firms have seen their stock market values climb sharply over the past two days. Continue reading...
French regulator hits firm with maximum fine, while Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Spain continue investigationsFacebook has been fined €150,000 (£129,000) by France’s data protection watchdog and is being investigated by Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain for data privacy violations around the tracking of users and non-users and the use of user data for advertising.The data regulators clubbed together to form a so-called contact group to analyse the changes Facebook made to its privacy policy in 2014. The French watchdog CNIL hit Facebook with the maximum fine possible at the point at which it started its investigation in 2014. As of October last year CNIL can now issue fines of up to €3m. Continue reading...
National data guardian says patient data transfer from Royal Free to Google subsidiary has ‘inappropriate legal basis’ as information not used for direct careThe transfer of 1.6m patient records to Google’s artificial intelligence company DeepMind Health has been criticised for its “inappropriate legal basis†by the UK’s national data guardian.In a letter leaked to Sky News, the national data guardian, Dame Fiona Caldicott, warned DeepMind’s partner hospital, the Royal Free, that the patient record transfer was not for “direct care†since the data was initially used to test the app that the two organisations were working on, before patients were treated with it. Continue reading...
Following pressure from users, the social network introduced tools to stem the spread of false information. But the rollout has been rocky at bestWhen Facebook’s new fact-checking system labeled a Newport Buzz article as possible “fake newsâ€, warning users against sharing it, something unexpected happened. Traffic to the story skyrocketed, according to Christian Winthrop, editor of the local Rhode Island website.“A bunch of conservative groups grabbed this and said, ‘Hey, they are trying to silence this blog – share, share share,’†said Winthrop, who published the story that falsely claimed hundreds of thousands of Irish people were brought to the US as slaves. “With Facebook trying to throttle it and say, ‘Don’t share it,’ it actually had the opposite effect.†Continue reading...
Marcus Hutchins works from home for an LA-based web security company but has been a tech blogger since leaving schoolThe “accidental hero†who halted the global spread of the international ransomware attack is a self-trained 22-year-old from south-west England who skipped university and got hired by a California web security company thanks to his tech blog.Marcus Hutchins found and inadvertently activated a “kill switch†in the malicious software that wreaked havoc on organisations including the UK’s National Health Service on Friday, by registering a specific domain name hidden within the program for just $10.69 (£8.30). Continue reading...
Could the government or intelligence agencies have done more to protect the health service from cybercriminals?Three days after the WannaCry ransomware outbreak, a string of questions have emerged. Could the US and UK intelligence agencies – the NSA and GCHQ – have done more to prevent the attack? And, in the UK, must the NHS share some of the blame for allowing itself to be so vulnerable?The chain of events starts with the NSA. It discovered the weakness that made the ransomware so prolific , which was then stolen by a hacking group known as Shadow Brokers, thought to be linked to the Russian government. Continue reading...
We’d like to hear from victims of recent attacks, that affected NHS hospitals and other organisations, who sent payments to restore encrypted filesAccording to analysis of the two bitcoin addresses to which the software demanded payment, fewer than a hundred victims appear to have paid the ransom.Related: How to defend your computer against the ransomware attack Continue reading...
A mobile game makes an infectiously good transition to tabletop, a card game richly rewards smart selection and a domino-strategy mashup is a quickfire winnerThere’s a faintly luddite spirit to the board game renaissance of recent years, perhaps a reaction to the heavy demands screens now make on our time. Yet there isn’t such a great divide between games built of cardboard and those spun from code. They explore similar themes and their designers frequently learn from one another.In 2007, a simple web game, Pandemic, challenged players with spreading an infection across the world. Around the same time, an unrelated board game of the same name tasked its players with preventing the spread of disease and quickly assumed cult status. Soon after, a mobile game called Plague Inc reversed the goal again, making global epidemic a mainstay of many commutes, while happily crediting the original Pandemic web game as an inspiration. Now Plague Inc has been reimagined as a board game that looks much like a homage to the board game, completing a considerable circle over 10 years. Continue reading...
Security specialists from 27 nations including Britain and the US will meet for five-day conference in Czech capitalSecurity specialists from 27 countries including Britain and the US are meeting in Prague on Monday in what has been billed as the most concerted attempt yet to counter alleged Kremlin destabilisation measures aimed at undermining western elections.The Czech interior ministry is hosting the five-day summit staged by Stratcom - Nato’s strategic communications arm – in an effort to persuade governments and the European Union to strengthen electoral processes amid rising concern over suspected interference by the Russian government under Vladimir Putin. Continue reading...
Brad Smith says ‘Wannacry’ virus attack that locked up to 200,000 computers in 150 countries is a ‘wake-up call’ amid fears more will be hit as week beginsThe massive ransomware attack that caused damage across the globe over the weekend should be a “wake-up call†for governments, the president of Microsoft has said.Related: What is 'WanaCrypt0r 2.0' ransomware and why is it attacking the NHS? Continue reading...
Dan Tehan says the government received reports of the private sector being impacted but not commonwealth organisationsAn Australian business has fallen victim to a global malware attack and there are investigations into two other reports, the federal government says.The so-called ransomware has wormed its way into thousands of computer systems in an apparent extortion plot, shutting users out unless they coughed up a payment. Continue reading...
We reveal how a confidential legal agreement is at the heart of a web connecting Robert Mercer to Britain’s EU referendumOn 18 November 2015, the British press gathered in a hall in Westminster to witness the official launch of Leave.EU. Nigel Farage, the campaign’s figurehead, was banished to the back of the room and instead an American political strategist, Gerry Gunster, took centre stage and explained its strategy. “The one thing that I know is data,†he said. “Numbers do not lie. I’m going to follow the data.â€Eighteen months on, it’s this same insight – to follow the data – that is the key to unlocking what really happened behind the scenes of the Leave campaign. On the surface, the two main campaigns, Leave.EU and Vote Leave, hated one other. Their leading lights, Farage and Boris Johnson, were sworn enemies for the duration of the referendum. The two campaigns bitterly refused even to share a platform. Continue reading...
Public sector has lessons to learn as hospital trusts and GPs struggle to recover from ransomware attackLast October the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust was subject to a cyber-attack that saw it forced to shut down its IT systems, resulting in the cancellation of almost 3,000 patient appointments.Until last Friday the incident was one of the few known examples of an attack on the NHS using ransomware, a type of software that encrypts a computer system’s files and refuses to unlock them until a payment is made. Continue reading...
Whether you’re tweeting, shopping or just browsing, internet companies are monitoring you. Here’s how to evade the snoopersNobody likes being spied on. When you’re innocently browsing the web, it’s deeply unpleasant to think that faceless technology corporations are monitoring and recording your every move.While such data collection is legal, that doesn’t mean it’s all right. There are plenty of things you might prefer to keep to yourself, such as your income, your sexuality, your political views or your membership of the Yoko Ono fanclub. For an indication of what can be inferred from your online habits, take a look at the Apply Magic Sauce tool produced by Cambridge Psychometrics Centre, which produces a profile of your personality based on Facebook and Twitter data. Continue reading...
Attack renews debate over agencies such as the NSA leaving vulnerabilities in place for strategic purposes rather than alerting companies immediatelyThe attack that temporarily crippled the NHS in Britain and dozens of other institutions across Europe and Russia reveals the failure of the US government’s protocols for warning software developers and the private sector about system vulnerabilities, a cyber-security expert told the Guardian.Related: 'Accidental hero' halts ransomware attack and warns: this is not over Continue reading...
A worldwide ransomware attack affecting almost 100 countries has hobbled parts of the NHS across England and Scotland, rendering patient information inaccessible and forcing some emergency patients to be rerouted to other hospitals. Ransomware encrypts data on infected computers and demands payment in return for the release of files
The help I get from strangers will run to many man hours by the end of this caperThe Hyundai Ioniq has its automatic gears on large, crude buttons that look as though they were designed to teach a baby how to spell. It doesn’t seem likely that hitting D will result in a forward movement, but there she goes, smooth and silent, a cheerful blue predator. All that stuff I would normally notice (the exterior, the cabin, the satnav, the driving posture): forget it. This is one woman’s struggle against her hybrid’s battery life, like Leonardo DiCaprio and the bear in The Revenant.I set off for Oxford, 57 miles, with my 107-mile fully charged battery. Acceleration is great, but nothing on the smugness. Road roar is a bit of an issue, especially when trying to listen to a tense podcast full of deep southerners making racist remarks sotto voce. Continue reading...
Malicious software has attacked computers across the NHS and companies in Spain, Russia, the Ukraine and Taiwan. What is it and how is it holding data to ransom?
Tech startup Improbable is now valued at more than $1bn after funding from Japan’s SoftBank. The British firm, started by Cambridge University graduates in 2012, creates complex virtual worlds to be used in everything from games to urban planning
From cross-platform video editing to syncing files, clipboards and apps, Microsoft is taking Windows to iOS and Android – and is warming to iTunesMicrosoft has announced the latest update to Windows 10, the Fall Creators Update, and with it some surprises – including iTunes on the Windows Store and cross-platform syncing with the iPhone and Android devices. No, hell hasn’t frozen over. Continue reading...
From Mattel’s 515-byte Auto Race to this year’s game-changing Nintendo Switch, here are the portable gaming devices that have pushed things forward Continue reading...
Police watchdog is investigating claims unit used hackers in India to obtain passwords of campaigners and journalistsA watchdog investigating claims that a Scotland Yard unit illegally accessed the private emails of hundreds of political campaigners and journalists has appealed for whistleblowers to come forward.The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) launched its investigation after an anonymous individual alleged that the unit used hackers in India to obtain the passwords of the email accounts of the campaigners, and some reporters and press photographers. Two were alleged to work for the Guardian, although neither was named. Continue reading...
Don’t scoff: psychological and social science research supports that living amid the wealthy even when you are upper-middle class is bad for your mental health
Pro tips on which games your child should play, how long they should play for, how to limit screen time – and what to do if their friend plays violent gamesFor me, parenting often feels like endlessly having to say no. No, we can’t have Kinder Eggs for breakfast. No, we can’t buy a horse. No, it doesn’t matter that you only met her once, you still can’t wear swimming trunks to Auntie Ethel’s funeral. Although that last one was my husband.
Use of electronics in packaging is on the rise, raising questions about the recyclability of everyday productsIn the run up to this year’s Super Bowl, US snack company Frito-Lay launched a limited run of microchipped bags of tortilla chips, supposedly capable of sensing alcohol on a user’s breath and, if instructed, calling them an Uber home.It was a stunt to grab attention but the use of interactive, intelligent packaging is not a futuristic fantasy. Already, you can find olive oil and craft beers connected to the cloud and ready to report on their origins to any passing punter with a smartphone. Continue reading...
Company attempts to secure place in health market with acquisition of Finnish business specialising in tracking sleep quality, heart rate and snoringApple has bought Finnish sleep tracking firm Beddit to boost its health and fitness services, as it attempts to secure its place in the “quantified self†market.
In the maelstrom of new motherhood, doing something fun and familiar can be a huge stress reliever. And why shouldn’t that thing be gaming?Here’s one of the more bizarre and pressurising fictions of motherhood: the second you give birth, everything in your previous life instantly becomes meaningless. You might have spent 30 years enjoying skiing or novels or, you know, a career, but as soon as you’re someone’s mummy you become singularly devoted to parenthood forever. If you do have any spare time in between tending to the ceaseless needs of your infant you’re supposed to spend it either baking or aggressively researching local schools.Oddly enough, we don’t expect dads to give up all their hobbies and redirect their energies into sewing bunting or father-baby yoga. Mums shouldn’t have to either. In the first few months after having a baby, I was desperate to retain some sense of personhood amongst all the feeding and nappy-changing and not-sleeping and marvelling at my son’s tiny hands. But a lot of the things I really enjoy – travel, reading things longer than five paragraphs, drinking more than one glass of wine a night – truly are off the table for a while, as they are wildly impractical. During the first three months of my son’s life, playing video games was one of the only things I could realistically do for myself. They are relatively cheap and you don’t have to spend two hours trying to leave the house. Continue reading...
The iPhone maker’s market capitalisation is well on the way to $1 trillion after a huge 50% rise since the US electionApple has become the first company in history to top the $800bn mark in market capitalisation, slightly more than two years after it crossed the $700bn threshold.
Kicking off our series of features about motherhood and gaming, Kate Gray looks at why the maternal role is so badly represented in the mediumI’ve never had a baby. I once had one of those dolls that you could feed and it periodically pissed itself, but I gather this represents only a fraction of the maternal experience. I’ll tell you what I have done, though: I have played a lot of video games.And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out. Did you know that once you have a daughter you suddenly become aware that women are people, too? Who could have seen that coming? This modern phenomenon, known as the “dadification of gamesâ€, has largely come about through game designers and writers growing up, becoming parents and having all these feelings about protectiveness and caring that they want to express through their chosen medium. See The Last of Us, BioShock Infinite and The Walking Dead among others. Meanwhile, due to the fact that not a lot of senior game designers are women, and because many of the ones that are women are often forced to choose between career and family – because sexism is bullshit – the motherhood stories just don’t get told. Continue reading...
US campaigners rejoiced in 2015 when ‘net neutrality’ enshrined the internet as a free and level playing field. A vote on 18 May could take it all backThursday 26 February 2015 was a good day for internet freedom campaigners. On that day the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to more strictly regulate internet service providers (ISPs) and to enshrine the principles of “net neutrality†as law.Related: John Oliver on net neutrality: 'Every internet group needs to come together' Continue reading...
The BBC’s latest Panorama asks whether it’s time to regulate Mark Zuckerberg’s cultish dotcom. Plus, laddish app comedy Loaded soars when the women join inThirty-two million people in the UK have a Facebook account and globally that figure is closer to 2 billion. Likes, political affiliations, favourite bands: all of that data sloshes around in a big, unregulated tank for the advertising sharks to guzzle. No wonder Panorama: What Facebook Knows About You (And What it Does With Your Information (BBC1) is asking the question: is it time to regulate Facebook?As is often the case with the half-hour documentary format, we barely scratch the surface of the who and how here. Reporter Darragh MacIntyre could have done with more time to sum up his research and extensive US interviews. But I get the feeling even a six-part series wouldn’t be enough. Continue reading...
Roles for former Conservative and Labour figures prompt fears firm ‘whispering in ears’ of parties to aid micro-targeting of usersFacebook has stepped up attempts to build its influence as a political tool by giving jobs to former senior Conservative and Labour campaign officials.The Guardian has learned Facebook’s recruits have inside knowledge of how the major parties’ general election campaigns are likely to work. They include a former Downing Street adviser to David Cameron, a former aide to Ed Balls and a social media expert who worked with the Conservatives’ election strategist Lynton Crosby. Continue reading...
Security firms think group with ties to Russian intelligence behind leak of emails and other documents belonging to French election winner’s campaign teamThe hackers behind a “massive and coordinated†attack on the campaign of France’s president-elect, Emmanuel Macron, have been linked by a number of cybersecurity research firms to the Russian-affiliated group blamed for attacking the Democratic party shortly before the US election.Tens of thousands of internal emails and other documents were released online overnight on Friday as the midnight deadline to halt campaigning in the French election passed. According to the head of Macron’s digital team, Mounir Mahjoubi, “five entire mailboxes†were “stolenâ€, with many of the accounts being personal Gmail mailboxes. Continue reading...
More toylike than other Nintendo handhelds, light and sturdy, the 2DS XL looks like it’s meant for young gamersThe full name of Nintendo’s latest handheld-only console is the New Nintendo 2DS XL, a title that almost requires breaking down into parts to fully understand. It’s a 2DS because it’s like a 3DS without the stereoscopic 3D. It’s XL because its screen is the same size as that of the 3DS XL, roughly 80% bigger than that of the original 2DS. And it’s New because it’s part of the same generation as the New 3DS XL: consoles with slightly more power than their predecessors, a small additional analog stick called the C-Stick, and a handful of exclusive titles (most notably Xenoblade Chronicles and Binding of Isaac: Rebirth).And yet, though the New Nintendo 2DS XL is an improvement on the Nintendo 2DS, it’s not meant to be a replacement. Of course, it’s rarely wise for a company to admit that a product they still have for sale is about to become obsolete. But Nintendo insists the New 2DS XL is just a new member of the family, not meant to push out any other, fitting somewhere between the 2DS (with slightly more power, a C-Stick, and a clamshell design) and the New 3DS XL (without 3D). Got that? OK, good. Continue reading...
The on-trend funeral is a celebration rather than a solemn occasion, says Co-op, with Darth Vader and She-Ra making recent appearancesThe undertaker’s traditional uniform of dark frock coat and top hat is under threat from Darth Vader and Spider-Man outfits.Co-op Funeralcare, which arranges about 100,000 funerals annually, says there is a trend towards celebration rather than solemnity. Continue reading...
A US couple have lost custody of their children after featuring them in allegedly abusive prank videos. They’re not the first to go too far in search of hitsPranks have been a booming part of YouTube’s scene for years – but it’s a subculture prone to attracting controversy. The latest incident has led to a US father and a stepmother losing custody of two of their children as a result of some of their prank videos.Mike Martin of Baltimore ran a channel named DaddyOFive, featuring his wife, Heather, and their five children. At the height of the controversy, but before his videos were made private, DaddyOFive had more than 750,000 subscribers and the clips were viewed more than 176m times. Continue reading...
The insurance market is extracting millions to protect us from the built-in flaws the surveillance state relies onThe political legitimacy of democratic capitalism, that unlikely political formation that has brought us the end of history and now presents itself as the only bulwark against rightwing extremism, rests on a clear distribution of functions between governments and corporations. The former take on the role of regulating the latter in order to protect the customers from the occasional harmful effects of the otherwise beneficial business activity.Related: Should we worry the general election will be hacked? Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian