Technology | The Guardian

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...

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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...

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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...

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Company pledged to measure diversity after a wave of scrutiny, but numbers reveal its tech leadership team is entirely white and Asian, and 88.7% menUber released its first diversity report on Tuesday, fulfilling a pledge made last month amid a storm of allegations about workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination.The numbers reveal a workforce that is overwhelmingly made up of white or Asian men. Just 15.4% of the tech staff are women, while blacks and Latinos account for 1% and 2.1% of tech staff, respectively. Continue reading...

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Workplace sexism row continues at taxi-hailing company with HR complaint from female manager

Critics say home secretary’s demand for access to encrypted messaging to thwart attacks is unrealistic and disproportionateAmber Rudd has called for the police and intelligence agencies to be given access to WhatsApp and other encrypted messaging services to thwart future terror attacks, prompting opposition politicians and civil liberties groups to say her demand was unrealistic and disproportionate.The home secretary said it was “completely unacceptable” that the government could not read messages protected by end-to-end encryption and said she had summoned leaders of technology companies to a meeting on Thursday 30 March to discuss what to do. Continue reading...

Messaging app forecast to attract revenues of $3bn a year by 2019 by attracting hard-to-reach youth marketSnapchat could become more popular with advertisers than Twitter, Yahoo and AOL within three years, with the messaging app company forecast to bring in revenues of more than $3bn (£2.4bn) a year before the end of 2019.That bullish forecast is based on advertisers targeting the youth audience that the disappearing photo app has seemingly cornered. More than half (51%) of video users on Snapchat are under 24, compared with 23% for Facebook and 17% for Google’s YouTube, according to Ampere Analysis. Continue reading...

Company removes all self-driving cars from road in three states pending further investigation into Volvo SUV collisionUber has suspended its fleet of self-driving cars while it investigates a crash in Arizona involving one of its vehicles.

It harks back to that 80s principle that being a bit uncomfortable might do some family members a bit of goodAh, the Fiat Tipo: they call it a multijet lounge, which gave me distinctly mixed messages. Did it want to jet, or did it want to lounge? Did I want to sit in it, or did I want to race? The cabin is spacious but beset with tiny inconveniences. The gear housing was a bit lax, so when you put it in neutral, it would transpire you’d left it in second. You could never catch it in the act, so you never knew whether it was your fault, and had to fall back on “But this has never happened to me in any other car”, like a bad relationship.The frame design is strange, with big wedges of plastic at the back; if you parked on a curve, the road was effectively all blind spot. There was a lot of red styling going on in the binnacles, which made me feel a little alarmed, as if I was being told something important in a dream. The cabin did not make me feel special: the screen was diddy and hard to read; the bits where you keep things were not where my hand wanted them to be. Continue reading...

Grindr’s “gaymoji” (Pass notes, G2, 22 March) serve as an unfortunate reminder of the widespread conflation of being gay and being promiscuous – one that causes thousands of gay people, particularly men, across the world to believe that their homosexuality forces them to constantly have sex with strangers. Grindr is free to create all the sexual emojis it wishes, but it is colluding in a societal deception that prevents gay people from forming real relationships; that makes thousands of teenage boys weep with fear and sadness because they believe they have no choice but to follow this form of living that masquerades as “gay culture”. As a 17-year-old gay boy, I hope to join those demonstrating that this is emphatically not the case, and I hope that others of whatever orientation can realise the same.

From Maps to Instagram, Uber to Snapchat – the top 10 app developments which have been copied, adopted or simply absorbed into everything else

Workers in wholesale and retail sectors at highest risk from breakthroughs in robotics and artificial intelligence, PwC report findsMore than 10 million UK workers are at high risk of being replaced by robots within 15 years as the automation of routine tasks gathers pace in a new machine age.A report by the consultancy firm PwC found that 30% of jobs in Britain were potentially under threat from breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI). In some sectors half the jobs could go. Continue reading...

EE has told Duncan and other readers it’s closing email addresses that some have been using for almost 20 years. Where should they go now?Many of us have been using Orange/Freeserve/Wanadoo email accounts since they were introduced about 20 years ago. Now BT/EE plans to shut them down at the end of May 2017.Many businesses were built on the back of these addresses, and large investments made using their contact information in brochures, product literature, business cards, letterheads etc. Having started to work out a migration plan, I realise I shall have to invest a substantial amount of time and money to move to a new email address. I also need a new account that allows me to download, archive and work offline with a suitable email client.Dixons launched Freeserve in 1998, and it was subsumed into France Télécom’s Wanadoo in 2000. Then France Télécom bought Orange UK, and changed its branding to Orange SA. In 2010, Orange UK merged with Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile UK to become EE (Everything Everywhere). Finally, BT bought EE for £12.5bn, completing the deal in January 2016.

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A captivating exploration of transhumanism features cryonics, cyborgs, immortality and the hubris of Silicon ValleyMax More runs Alcor, an American company which, in exchange for $200,000, will store your corpse in liquid nitrogen until the science exists to revive you. Tim Cannon is a computer programmer who implanted a device the size of a pack of cards into his arm, without the aid of anaesthetics. Zoltan Istvan recently ran for US president and publicised his campaign by driving across the country in a huge vehicle modified to look like a coffin.These are among the unusual individuals Mark O’Connell interviews in his travelogue-style exploration of transhumanism, the movement that campaigns for the direct incorporation of technology into our bodies and minds, and strives to remove ageing as a cause of death. “What are my chances, would you say, of living to a thousand?” the author asks Aubrey de Grey, an established figure in this strange world: “I would say perhaps a little better than fifty-fifty,” is the serious reply. “It’s very much dependent on the level of funding.” Continue reading...

Problems are inevitable in a game of such epic proportions but there is a lot here that will make you want to keep playing

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Inconsistencies behind the company’s ability to police advertising on controversial content are coming to light

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The tech giant has apologised for ads appearing next to extremist videos – but it needs to take action, not just rely on usersThe first rule of making an apology is simple: be clear about what you are apologising for. Matt Brittin, head of Google’s operations in Europe, failed the test. Was Google taking responsibility for allowing the company’s YouTube site to be polluted with extremist videos produced by terror preachers and racists? Or was he merely apologising to advertisers for the fact that some of their messages appeared alongside such offensive material?Brittin blurred the lines during his remarks on Monday but one suspects the advertisers were uppermost in his mind for three reasons. First, a boycott has been growing by the day and Google will be desperate to avoid more corporate defections. Second, most of his points were about tightening the definition of sites deemed suitable for adverts. Third, Brittin refused several times to say whether Google would take the initiative and try to root out altogether offensive content on YouTube. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterHello! We run Chatterbox everyday so that readers can come and talk about video games. Continue reading...

#YouTubeIsOverParty trends on Twitter after users say videos referencing same-sex relationships are being filtered outYouTube has responded to accusations of discrimination from high-profile members of its LGBT community, who have reported their videos being hidden by the platform.#YouTubeIsOverParty was trending on Twitter on Sunday after several users flagged that their videos referencing same-sex relationships or attraction had been filtered out under its restricted mode. Continue reading...

It wasn’t unusual to emerge from the vehicle to find a small crowd waiting, hoping for Lewis Hamilton’s autographWhen I was a kid, someone told me you should never give a cat an egg, because afterwards egg was all it wanted, and other food all fell into the same grey, “not-egg” category. It’s not exactly that, to drive a Mercedes, but you never come away unscathed: there’s always a new dimension to your character, whether it’s status anxiety, spoiltness or a hitherto undreamed of yen for luxury.The one with the ridiculous name (GLC 250 d 4Matic AMG line, as if made up by a password generator) certainly has flights of fancy from which you will never want to return. They have nailed the parking camera, with a bird’s-eye and a side view. This, for people who hate having to turn their neck, is a huge deal. And it does make for awesomely elegant, single-swoop manoeuvres, so that it wasn’t unusual to emerge from the vehicle to find a small crowd waiting, hoping for Lewis Hamilton’s autograph. The cabin is like a spacecraft: solid, slightly futuristic, full of dinky trims of light in doors and footwells, and with more USBs and cupholders than even the most device-intense, thirstiest family could hope for. The instrument cluster is classy and legible, the pedals have sports styling, brushed aluminium with rubber studs, and there’s a leisurely spaciousness about both front and back rows. Continue reading...

Andromeda is the first in the galaxy-chasing series for five years, and brings fans new stories and characters. But will it live up to expectations?Mass Effect: Andromeda is the first new Mass Effect game in five years and the first on the current generation of consoles. Set in the same universe as the original trilogy but in a different galaxy and 600 years later, Andromeda tells a new story with new characters in a new setting. This was BioWare’s opportunity to change the formula, no doubt with substantial anxiety over how fans would react. Here are some of the key ways Andromeda has changed the Mass Effect universe, based on the first few hours of the game.Mild spoilers for the opening two missions lie ahead. Continue reading...

50m users who currently listen for free will not be able to access the latest releases from some top flight artists

A video produced by Waymo, Google’s self-driving car operation, shows how one of its cars avoids a woman in a wheelchair entered the middle of the road in front of the car and moving in circles, chasing what appears to be a duck or a turkey Continue reading...

People who signed up for Russian Embassy news and information were asked to permit automatic retweets to share positive news

Headphones that block out sound were first invented for airplane pilots on long flights and have for some become a vital part of daily lifeThere’s one thing other than my wallet and my travel card I wouldn’t be without in a big city, and it’s my headphones. But I don’t actually listen to music that much: I just activate the noise-cancelling feature, and leave it at that.No sound plays into my ears – instead a quiet fills my head, as if the sounds of the world have been turned down. Until I got noise-cancelling headphones, I had no idea how loud the city always was, and just how hungry I’d been for silence. Continue reading...

Four indicted in conjunction with the hack of a billion Yahoo accounts, amid intense political controversy over Russian interference in the US electionThe US has announced charges against two Russian intelligence officers and two hackers over a massive Yahoo data breach that affected at least 1 billion user accounts.The indictment, unveiled by the justice department on Wednesday, said that the hack targeted the email accounts of Russian journalists and opposition politicians; former government officials in neighboring countries; and several US government figures, including “cyber security, diplomatic, military and White House personnel”. Continue reading...

Accounts that use third-party analytics service Twitter Counter compromised to tweet in support of Turkey’s prime ministerThousands of Twitter accounts, including high profile ones belonging to users such as Forbes, Amnesty International, the BBC’s North American service, and tennis star Boris Becker were compromised on Wednesday morning, resulting in them tweeting propaganda related to Turkey’s escalating diplomatic conflict with Germany and the Netherlands.All the compromised accounts were attacked through their use of a popular third-party analytics service, Twitter Counter. Continue reading...

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