Technology | The Guardian

After its game-playing AI beat the best human, Google subsidiary plans to test evolution of technology with Go festivalA year on from its victory over Go star Lee Sedol, Google DeepMind is preparing a “festival” of exhibition matches for its board game-playing AI, AlphaGo, to see how far it has evolved in the last 12 months.Headlining the event will be a one-on-one match against the current number one player of the ancient Asian game, 19-year-old Chinese professional Ke Jie. Continue reading...

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Unknown hackers triggered about 15 alarm cycles before city officials took down emergency notification system used during inclement weather eventsHackers took control over the 156 sirens in Dallas this weekend, triggering false alarms on the system used to alert residents to take shelter from inclement weather, until officials deactivated the system early Saturday morning.The person or people responsible were able to hack into a part of the system that was communicating with all 156 of the city’s sirens, said Rocky Vaz, who heads the city’s office of emergency management, at a news conference. Continue reading...

Personal details from hundreds of thousands of accounts may have been illegally accessed, admits payday lenderMore than a quarter of a million customers of payday loan firm Wonga are being warned that their personal data may have been stolen in a data breach at the firm.The online lender said it was “urgently investigating illegal and unauthorised access” to the personal data of some of its customers in the UK and Poland. It is understood that the breach could affect up to 270,000 current and former customers, including 245,000 in the UK. The company would not disclose where it had taken place. Continue reading...

Teen rebellion is even better fifth time around, while a crowd-funded platformer revives the 90s and Kenya’s wildlife gets up close and personalPS4, PS3, Sony, cert: 12

Your smartphone needn’t keep you sedentary: these apps will soon have you cycling, exploring forests or gazing at night skiesWhy don’t you just switch off your smartphone and go out and do something less boring instead? Although with all due respect to the famous intro for children’s TV show Why Don’t You?, perhaps better advice for 2017 would be to keep your smartphone on – but seek out some apps that will get you out into the world.Whether you’re spotting wildlife, blue plaques or Gruffalos; discovering new walking and biking trails; taking up geocaching or staring at the night skies, there are apps to help you get out into the fresh air for some activities. Continue reading...

Wellie wearers rejoice! The much-loved classic Volvo estate is back and it’s bigger and cleverer than everPrice: £34,955

At the media industry’s annual bash in Cannes, virtual reality is the next mass medium that will take TV to a new levelVirtual reality (VR) technology secured its place in popular culture through films such as The Lawnmower Man and The Matrix, as well as books such as Ready Player One, which Steven Spielberg is adapting for a movie. They presented visions of technology whereby strapping on a VR headset (or, as in The Matrix, being imprisoned in pods and hooked up to a computer network by human-farming machines) enabled people to explore virtual, computer-generated worlds.In 2017, these cultural touchstones are freshly in mind for the television industry, as it tries to understand whether real-life headsets can be used to deliver new forms of drama, documentary and storytelling. Continue reading...

Apps such as Spreeder and Spritz are bringing speed reading back into fashion. But what gets lost in this race for the last page?This article contains 1,993 words. If you were to read it to the end, without being distracted by your email or your dog or your children or the contents of the fridge or the bills you have to pay, it would take you, on average, a little over six minutes. But what if you were able to imbibe all of its (undoubted) nuance and richness in half of that time? Or a quarter? What if you could glance at the text and know everything it said just by running your eyes down the page?The idea of speed reading was invented by an American schoolteacher named Evelyn Wood, whose search for a way to improve the lives of troubled teenagers in Salt Lake County, Utah, by teaching them to read effortlessly, led her to the belief that she herself could read at the rate of 2,700 words a minute, 10 times faster than the average educated reader. And further, that the techniques that allowed her to do so could be taught and sold. Continue reading...

Cameras are all very well, but it’s nice to have the option of using your actual eyesI t calls itself a family car, the Mazda 3 2.0, and “family” in car speak is a dialectical code for what it’s not: it’s not a hot hatch or a roadster, it’s not an SUV or a saloon, it’s a car, it goes, and it fits people in. OK?The kind of family it would suit is one in which the front two could be any size – plenty of leg and head room – and the back three had short little legs and a high tolerance for engine noise and tyre roar. (It is actually a pre-adolescent standard, to have short legs and like car noises.) I liked all the revving and the way the speed picked up, and the slightly white-knuckle steering: very keen into a corner but not 100% predictable. Continue reading...

One friend’s version of meal planning for the weekend is to stock up on free food from the office cafeteria on FridaysMy husband and I moved here for the jobs. This place had way more than we could imagine. We packed our bags and uprooted our lives without ever having been to the west coast. Being selected to work for a major tech company was like winning the lottery; it wasn’t a question of whether you’d accept the prize, but how soon.Most of the friends we’ve made are colleagues from other states who are here for the same reason. The companies we work for have taken over the role of our parents, sponsoring what feels like an extension of our college years: free meals, laundry and shuttle buses. We are making six-figure salaries, but we’re also slow to outgrow the frugal student lifestyle. One friend’s version of meal-planning for the weekend is to stock up on free food from the office cafeteria on Fridays. Apparently, this is common practice. Continue reading...

Court in Rome upholds taxi unions’ complaint and gives company 10 days to end use of apps in country – but ruling is subject to appealAn Italian court on Friday banned the Uber app, saying it contributed to traditional taxis facing unfair competition, local media reported.In a ruling that is subject to appeal, a court in Rome upheld a complaint filed by taxi unions and gave Uber ten days to end the use of its various phone applications on Italian territory, along with the promotion and advertising of them. Continue reading...

Allegations of possible employment violations emerge at court hearing as part of lawsuit to compel company, a federal contractor, to provide compensation dataGoogle has discriminated against its female employees, according to the US Department of Labor (DoL), which said it had evidence of “systemic compensation disparities”.As part of an ongoing DoL investigation, the government has collected information that suggests the internet search giant is violating federal employment laws with its salaries for women, agency officials said.

Attempt to reveal identity behind an account criticizing Trump’s immigration policy sparked an outcry from free speech advocates and a lawsuit from Twitter

Ride-hailing company defends itself in federal court filing amid allegations it lifted LiDAR technology from Waymo, a company spun out of GoogleUber has begun to mount its defense against allegations that the ride-hailing company is using technology stolen from Waymo, the self-driving car company spun out of Google.Uber claimed in a federal court filing Friday that it began developing its own self-driving technology in 2015, before it acquired Otto, a self-driving trucking startup founded by several former Google employees. Continue reading...

App enables creative camera tomfoolery that Snapchat does so well, but without attached social networkCloning Snapchat is the new brunch, which is the new black. Facebook did it, Instagram did it, even WhatsApp did it. But even so, it’s surprising today to see that Apple’s done it too.Clips, the new iOS app from the iPhone manufacturer, takes a different tack to cloning Snapchat than most. Apple has finally learned that social networks are not its biggest strength (remember Ping?) so its new app doesn’t have one. Continue reading...

In its ongoing bid to combat fake news, Google follows Facebook in announcing new technology to help curb spread of misinformationGoogle is to start displaying fact-checking labels in its search results to highlight news and information that has been vetted and show whether it is considered to be true or false, as part of its efforts to help combat the spread of misinformation and fake news.The fact-checking feature, which was first introduced to Google News in the UK and US in October, will now be displayed as an information box in general search results as well as news search results globally. Continue reading...

If you’ve ever wondered what an android thinks about humans and the future, now’s your chance to ask one a question

Playdead’s Inside picked up four awards as indie developers outshone major studios but blockbuster took the biggest prizeAt last year’s Bafta Game Awards, the developer of Her Story, Sam Barlow, famously so struggled with his three awards that he carried them around in a champagne bucket. This year, indie developer Playdead went one better by winning four for their dystopian puzzle platformer Inside: artistic achievement, game design, narrative, and original property.After their previous game, Limbo, won none from four in 2011, the team at Playdead were delighted to take home so many this year: “We kind of expected to continue the clean slate, so we’re very happy.”

After criminals hijacked our phone to route calls abroad, our insurer and system operator both refused to pay outI work for a small charity in Benwell, Newcastle, where we have been the victim of phone system hacking that has resulted in a bill of almost £5,000 over a four-day period. We have been informed by our phone system supplier, Chaser Communications, that the hackers gained remote access to our phone system via our answering machine, and were somehow able to route calls to Syria at a premium rate.We have reported it to our local police and Action Fraud, but this has been no help. Our insurer has said we are not covered for a cyber attack, while Chaser says it will have to pass on the charges to us. Continue reading...

Following ‘error 53’ case, Choice says businesses cannot turn customers away just because they’ve had a third-party repairsCourt action against Apple for allegedly misleading iPhone and iPad owners serves as a “timely reminder” to companies that consumer rights are inviolable, Australian consumer advocates have said.

Twitter says government wants to reveal identity behind an account that claims to provide anonymity for civil servants who disagree with Trump policyThe US government sought to unmask the identity of an anonymous Twitter account criticizing its policies, according to a lawsuit filed by the social media platform Thursday.Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), a division of homeland security, issued a summons to Twitter on 14 March seeking records including the phone number, mailing addresses, and IP addresses associated with @ALT_USCIS, an account that purports to convey the views of dissenters within the government. Continue reading...

Generous words of Mr Justice Holman – ‘don’t be embarrassed’ – may be indicative of softening attitude to tech among judiciaryThe sudden trilling of a mobile phone amid the solemn atmosphere of a court hearing often leads to stern glances from the bench and cringing embarrassment from the offender. But Mr Justice Holman, one of the longest-serving high court judges in England and Wales, responded to an electronic interruption from one lawyer’s device in the family court on Thursday with compassionate forbearance.

Social network says it has responsibility to reduce amount of fake news on platform and help users make informed decisionsHundreds of millions of Facebook users will be offered tips for spotting fake news as part of the social network’s latest attempt to address concerns about its role in the spread of false information.The new “educational tool” is part of a multi-pronged strategy which will also see a growing range of “signals” from user behaviour and third-party fact checkers used to make misinformation less prominent on the social network. Continue reading...

Traverse, Edinburgh

From Paint 3D to Start menu folders, greater privacy control and a dedicated game mode, here are the things worth updating forThe next big update for Microsoft’s ubiquitous Windows 10 operating system is here. The so-called Creators Update adds a host of new features from MS Paint reinvented to privacy tweaks.

Stephen does a lot of backpacking and wants a machine that can handle both Apple iTunes and blogging on the go … Continue reading...

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Online abuse has been around for years, but the idiom of the troll has changed the landscape. Can they be reasoned with?Q: Should I ever engage with my trolls?A: Firstly, let’s settle on a definition of “troll”. A troll is not someone who makes you feel bad. It’s not someone whose opinion you find offensive, or a “devil’s advocate” who assumes a position contrary to your own with the intention of stirring up trouble. That person, while annoying, is called an opinion writer and can still be usefully engaged with. A troll, on the other hand, is someone whose gratification is vested in an intent to cause harm. Why on earth would you engage with that? Continue reading...

New photo-matching technology that allows users to easily report intimate pictures posted without consent has been praised by campaignersFacebook is launching a series of tools designed to crack down on the sharing of so-called revenge porn.The new tools will allow users to easily report any intimate photos posted without consent that they see on the social network, which will flag the pictures in question to “specially trained representatives” from the site’s community operations team, who will “review the image and remove it if it violates [Facebook’s] community standards”. Continue reading...

Activision Blizzard wants to turn the beloved shooter title into a big-screen force to rival Disney’s superhero arm. Can it succeed where others have failed?It has been years since video games surpassed blockbuster movies as the biggest releases in media, but that’s never stopped games makers wanting to get a slice of the action on the big screen.Now Call of Duty’s makers Activision Blizzard are planning an assault to rival Disney’s Marvel Universe. It plans to use the multi-layered, interconnected approach that has made Marvel’s superheroes a dominant force in cinema to turn the first-person shooter into an all-conquering film franchise of its own. Continue reading...

The $70bn company is locked in a legal fight with drivers who want to unionize, and has hinted it might do what it did in Austin: pack up and goUber is threatening to leave Seattle if it cannot stop a potential union election, and some Uber drivers could not be happier.“Uber came and killed my business,” said Tewodros Ashene, an Ethiopian immigrant who is proud to display the 7,588 five-star trips he has earned on the Uber platform. Before the ride-hail company came to town, Ashene owned a limousine company and made a good living. Now, he is working 16 hours a day to make the same amount of money he used to make in eight. Continue reading...

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

US district judge in Seattle temporarily blocks country’s first law of its kind following lawsuit brought by US Chamber of CommerceA federal judge in Seattle on Tuesday temporarily blocked the city’s first-in-the-country law allowing drivers of ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft to unionize over pay and working conditions.US district judge Robert Lasnik’s ruling comes after he heard arguments last week in a case brought by the US Chamber of Commerce. He said his decision was not an indication of how he would ultimately rule. Continue reading...

Deal with Universal Music is first time users of music streaming service’s ad-supported free tier won’t have full access to catalogueNew albums from some Universal Music artists will be available only to premium Spotify subscribers for the first two weeks of release, the two companies have announced.The deal means that for the first time ever, users of Spotify’s ad-supported free tier will not have access to the full catalogue of music on the streaming service. Instead, they will have to choose between paying up – the paid-for tier begins at £9.99 a month – or waiting another two weeks. Continue reading...

It may look like a game for children but this primary coloured, Kickstarter-funded platformer is catnip for 30-somethings who came of age with Banjo-KazooieDon’t be fooled by the saccharine paint job, the goggle-eyed supporting cast of anthropomorphic chestnuts, clouds and refrigerators, or the ear-niggling lullaby melodies: Yooka-Laylee is a game meticulously crafted, not for children, but for the middle-aged.Its nostalgia is plainspoken and precise: the game is a paean to 1997, a time when Nintendo, in conjunction with its former life-partner, the British games company Rare, was busily establishing the rules, boundaries and aesthetic of platform games on the Nintendo 64, the company’s first fully 3D-capable machine. Continue reading...

Elon Musk’s electric car company has been valued at $49bn, leaving the 100-year-old motor manufacturer lagging behindOne is an automotive titan that has built more than 350m vehicles in an illustrious history spanning more than a century.The other is less than 15 years old and has never made a profit. Continue reading...

Company apologises to Pro users for neglect of product line as it prepares for the launch of its first new desktop computer since 2015Apple has taken the rare step of pre-announcing major new products, confirming that it will release new iMacs later this year and a “completely rethought Mac Pro” at some point in the future.The company also apologised to Mac Pro users for the neglect of the product line, which has gone three years without an update. Continue reading...

As the world wide web creator accepts the prestigious Turing award, he talks to Sam Thielman about the US Congress’s rollback of privacy rules and fake newsThe Trump administration’s decision to allow internet service providers (ISPs) to sign away their customers’ privacy and sell the browsing habits of their customers is “disgusting” and “appalling”, according to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, creator of the world wide web.Talking to the Guardian as he was declared recipient of the prestigious Association for Computing Machinery’s AM Turing award on Tuesday, Berners-Lee expressed mounting concerns about the direction of the internet he did so much to promote. Continue reading...

Statistics show minicab firm is worst of six major self-driving car companies, with human intervention required at one-mile intervals during testingAccording to driving statistics published by California, Uber is the worst of six major self-driving car companies testing its vehicles in the state.The minicab firm experienced a “disengagement” – when the automated system forces the human driver/passenger to take over control of the vehicle – once every mile driven, with a total of 20,354 miles clocked up before it was banned from testing in the state. Continue reading...

Home Office minister says home secretary was talking about hashes, which are used to detect recurring images or videos onlineThe Home Office has clarified what Amber Rudd meant when she suggested the government would hire people who “understand the necessary hashtags” as part of the government’s fight against extremist material online.Prompted by a parliamentary question from Labour MP Louise Haigh, Home Office undersecretary Sarah Newton MP said: “The home secretary was referring to image hashing, the process of detecting the recurrence an image or video online. Continue reading...

A beloved but long-struggling industry sees a fresh start in VR, and in Bangkok headsets and high-powered PCs have replaced the coin-op machines of oldIt’s a scene straight from a 90s arcade.A group of guys clutching greasy fries and icy sodas fixating wide-eyed on a screen where their friend is manically shooting the limbs off zombies. The gang have bought credit for an hour of gaming — surely more than enough time for bloodshot eyes and pounding headaches. Continue reading...

Supreme court says Russell Howarth used intimidating tactics and had financial motive for damaging Uber’s businessAn Australian man who performed citizen’s arrests on Uber drivers and was associated with a rival ride-sharing service “terrorised” drivers, a court has found, and has been permanently banned from making similar arrests.Russell Howarth has touted himself as an “Uber vigilante” campaigning against the company’s “cartel-like” behaviour. From 2014 he gained notoriety from a series of “citizen’s arrests” on Uber drivers in Sydney he performed and filmed. Continue reading...

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

Forget clockwork mice. There’s a new range of gadgets for your cat to get its paws on, including ones to track it, feed it and even scoop up after itCats are relatively low-maintenance animals, though that won’t stop us from finding innovative ways to spend money on them. First they overran the internet; now they’ve come for the internet of things: the market is littered with toys, cameras, and camera-toys. Even some of the more basic items – food bowls, litter trays – apparently need a power supply now. But is this stuff really useful? Or are companies merely playing on the vulnerabilities of doting pet owners, such as myself? We tested a few gadgets with the reluctant help of my ageing cat, Toby. Continue reading...

Congress voted to allow internet service providers to sell your browsing habits to advertisers, but there are a number of options for protecting your historyCongress voted this week to allow internet service providers to sell the browsing habits of their customers to advertisers. The move, which critics charge will fundamentally undermine consumer privacy in the US, overturns Obama-era rules issued last October designed to give people more control over their personal data.

Digital service will let motorists view a ‘representation’ of their licence, but DVLA stresses it will not replace plastic licenceMotorists could be allowed to have their driving licence on their phones by 2018, according to the government agency developing the plans.The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) said a test system would be in place by September this year and that it would develop a “quick, easy and secure” service between April and March 2018. It wants the digital service to allow people to share and validate information with “trusted” third parties, although stressed that the new system will not replace existing plastic licences. Continue reading...

Industry trade body Ukie found 57% of games companies employ workers from the EU, and many are assessing their future in UKTwo fifths of games companies based in the UK are considering relocating out of the country in the wake of Brexit, a survey has found.The primary concern across the industry is over a loss in international talent from EU countries creating a skills shortage which 40% say could make them move some or all of their operations. Ukie, the industry trade body that carried out the research, found 57% of UK games companies employ workers from the EU, and that at those companies EU workers represent an average one third of all employees. Continue reading...

Password manager security flaw found by researcher from Google, prompting fears sophisticated hackers might be able to exploit itPassword manager LastPass is advising users to avoid using its browser plugins while it battles to fix a “major architectural problem”, which could allow an attacker to steal passwords or execute code.The vulnerability was discovered by Tavis Ormandy, a security researcher at Google, who tweeted about its existence over the weekend. Keeping with responsible disclosure norms, Ormandy did not publicly state how the bug is exploited, and informed LastPass of its existence. Continue reading...

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