Technology | The Guardian

The five and a half hour long hearing on Capitol Hill offered a stunning illustration of the extent of misdeeds by big tech“Our founders would not bow before a king, we should not bow before the emperors of the online economy.” That’s how Congressman David Cicilline started the remarkable hearing on Wednesday in the antitrust subcommittee, where four tech CEOs – Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sundar Pichai of Google, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon – finally had to answer questions about how their businesses operated. And the answers they gave weren’t pretty. The word both Republicans and Democrats used to describe their corporations was dominance, and as members unspooled the evidence they had collected in an investigation over the past year, it’s easy to see why.Almost any moment of the four-hour hearing offered a stunning illustration of the extent of the bad behavior by these corporations. Take Amazon, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, often seemed off-balance and unaware of his corporation’s own practices. Congresswoman Lucy McBath played audio of a seller on Amazon tearfully describing how her business and livelihood was arbitrarily destroyed by Amazon restricting sales of their product, for no reason the seller could discern. Bezos acted surprised, as he often did. Representative Jamie Raskin presented an email from Bezos saying about one acquisition that: “We’re buying market position not technology.” Bezos then admitted Amazon buys companies purely because of their “market position”, demonstrating that many of hundreds of acquisitions these tech companies have made were probably illegal. Continue reading...

With its stunningly realistic visuals and cutting-edge use of geographic and weather data, this flight sim offers a virtual chance to travel freely once moreFor a few seconds, it seems real. A Cessna 172 Skyhawk flying low over a rural landscape dotted with fields and farmhouses, a copse of tall trees casting shadows over the swaying grass, a winding country lane. Then, on the horizon, the landscape gives way to rugged coastline, and, as the plane flies closer, we glimpse the rippling waves glinting in the evening sun. In real life, I have not seen the ocean for five months and, although I’m just sitting in my kitchen watching a virtual presentation of a video game, I feel a surge of emotion.When the latest instalment in Microsoft’s decades-old Flight Simulator series was first shown at the E3 video game event last year, it drew gasps from the audience. Using two petabytes of geographic data culled from Bing Maps, together with cutting-edge, machine learning algorithms running on the company’s Azure cloud computing network, the game presents a near-photorealistic depiction of the entire planet. Continue reading...

A Silicon Valley startup could offer a template for universities shifting their courses online due to coronavirusNo one could accuse CEO and businessman Ben Nelson of lacking ambition. “I wanted to create a university that serves as a model for other institutions, by being indisputably the best university in the world,” he says, bouncing up and down on a video call from his San Francisco office. “Unless you demonstrate that you are the absolute best, that you can provide an education that Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford cannot come close to, no one will listen. And we are doing exactly that.”Related: 'The MIT of the north': how the government plans to transform ex-mining towns Continue reading...

Cut-price Android offers a first-class experience, long battery life, good camera and great designWith the Nord, OnePlus is returning to its roots with first-class smartphones at mid-range prices, which is a very good thing.The £379 Nord sits under the £599 OnePlus 8 as the firm’s mid-range offering, aiming to bring everything that makes its top-end smartphones so good but at a significantly lower price. Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg’s autocratic nature and fear of anti-trust legislation might see him plump for Trump in the race for president

An early investor in Facebook outlines the unprecedented scale of power wielded by the social media giants – and sets out his blueprint for reform

Our writer dons a headset and turns boxer, air guitarist and saber wielder in a bid to shake off his lockdown lassitudeLike many people, by May I was having a difficult time in lockdown: struggling with homeschooling; stressing about work; tired out by Zoom calls; comfort eating; drinking too much; and feeling nervous about venturing out for short walks, let alone exercise.And then I strapped a computer to my face and gave thin air a damn good pummelling and everything improved a little. Virtual reality’s role in helping me to clamber out of the lockdown blues has changed the way I think about the technology and its potential to play a meaningful role in day-to-day life. Continue reading...

UK to bear brunt of job losses with 600 staff set to go as part of cost-cutting exercise

Expectations had been high following Tesla’s report that it had delivered slightly more than 90,000 vehicles in the second quarterTesla reported a profit for the fourth straight quarter on Wednesday, surpassing a key milestone for the perennially loss-making electric car company.The company reported net income of $110m for the second quarter with a net profit of $104m, which it attributed to “fundamental operational improvement”. Revenue was down 4.9% from a year ago to $6.04bn for the quarter, but still beat estimates of $5.15bn. Continue reading...

Fitness guru who made his name online during lockdown has donated £580,000 of advertising revenue to NHS charitiesAfter 18 weeks, one broken hand, and endless supplies of perky enthusiasm the fitness show that kept millions of Britons occupied during lockdown has come to an end.Joe Wicks called time on his morning PE with Joe workouts on Wednesday, after raising hundreds of thousands of pounds for the NHS and establishing himself as the fitness guru for the pandemic era. Continue reading...

Tech firm says its commitment covers entire supply chain and lifecycle of all its productsApple has pledged to become a carbon-neutral operation by 2030, a commitment that covers its entire supply chain and the lifecycle of all its products, including the electricity consumed in their use.The company is aiming to achieve the goal by means including: Continue reading...

Ministers accused of reckless behaviour over roll-out, with Guardian learning of data breaches

Most of us use a smart speaker to listen to music or set a timer – but lockdown has made 14% of men yearn for a decidedly more intimate relationshipName: Alexa.Age: Five. Continue reading...

Good sound, battery life, case and design, with instant translation and different silicone tip with open-air-like fitGoogle’s AirPods competitor is finally ready. The Pixel Buds are true wireless earbuds that aim to be all things to all people with a hybrid design that’s neither fully open nor isolating.The £179 earphones are Google’s second attempt at Bluetooth earbuds, the first being not great. The new version dispense with the wire and adopt a tried-and-tested approach: earbuds that slot into a small and pocketable case. Continue reading...

Fifty years on, Marion Morrison tells how she followed the return to Bristol of SS Great Britain for the ObserverAs it made its slow way up the Avon in July 1970, people lined the riverbanks to see the 127-year-old incredible hulk return home. After an 8,000-mile, 87-day journey, SS Great Britain was back in its place of birth.Approaching the port of Bristol, the extraordinary ship built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel passed under the Clifton suspension bridge, another of the great engineer’s masterpieces. “Flags were flying, people were roaring and clapping,” recalled one witness. “Something took hold of the people of Bristol,” said another. Continue reading...

Move has enraged drivers and labor organizers who say company should provide protective gear free to workersThe ride-hailing platform Lyft has opened an online store to sell masks and other protective gear as the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies, enraging drivers and labor organizers who say the company should be providing these free.The tech company’s move to sell drivers protective gear rather than provide it resurfaces the debate of whether drivers are employees or independent contractors, and to what extent the tech giants carry responsibility for the work conditions of gig workers. Continue reading...

NSO Group was sued last year by messaging app owned by Facebook

Accounts of Uber and Apple also appear to have been hacked as part of scam instructing followers to transfer cryptocurrencyTwitter suffered a major security breach on Wednesday that saw hackers take control of the accounts of major public figures and corporations, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Apple.The company confirmed the breach Wednesday evening, more than six hours after the hack began, and attributed it to a “coordinated social engineering attack” on its own employees that enabled the hackers to access “internal systems and tools”. Twitter said it was “looking into what other malicious activity they may have conducted or information they may have accessed” in addition to using the compromised accounts to send tweets. Continue reading...

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo accuses Chinese telco of human rights abuses and says employees may have US visas restrictedThe United States has cleared the way for sanctions on employees of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, expanding its campaign against Beijing.The US secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington would restrict US visas for employees of Huawei and other Chinese firms if they were involved in human rights abuses. Continue reading...

Court defeat for Brussels is reminder of glacial pace at which international tax reform proceedsMargrethe Vestager may as well give up. If the EU’s competition commissioner can’t win her highest-profile case in the EU’s second-highest court, then the EU’s tax arrangements, as they apply to multinational tech companies, will remain a free-for-all.In practice, she may plough on. The Luxembourg-based general court’s order that Apple does not need to pay €13bn (£11.7bn) in back taxes to the Irish government can be challenged. Lawyers may yet enjoy many more years of lucrative work. Continue reading...

Company’s first hardware product will feature HD cameras, eight microphones and touch displayZoom, the company behind the video-conferencing software that experienced a huge boom during the Covid-19 crisis, has announced a new product for those of us stuck working from home: a 27-inch computer screen.Zoom For Home, the company’s first hardware product, is aimed at the growing number of people whose remote-work involves a substantial amount of time spent on Zoom calls with colleagues, clients and suppliers. Continue reading...

Beijing warns that removal of telecoms firm from UK network by 2027 will undermine trustThe British government’s decision to ban the use of Huawei in its 5G network is groundless and indicative of the UK’s junior status in its alliance with the US, Beijing has said as it vowed to take measures to protect the interests of Chinese companies.“Listening to all the rhetoric it was clear the UK had succumbed to pressure from China hawks and bashers,” said Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the UK. “We are not asking you to take sides between China and the US. We are just asking you to take the right side of the argument. Britain can only be Great Britain when it has an independent foreign policy.” Continue reading...

European commission failed to prove Apple had benefited from arrangement, court findsThe European commission has been dealt a major blow in its battle to stop EU member states granting sweetheart tax deals to multinational corporations after the bloc’s general court ruled that Apple did not need to pay €13bn (£11.7bn) in back taxes to the Irish government.The Luxembourg-based court found the EU’s executive body had failed to prove that the iPhone maker benefited from an allegedly illegal arrangement with the Irish authorities, in a decision with wide repercussions for the bloc’s plans to clamp down on tax avoidance. Continue reading...

Coronavirus, trade, Hong Kong and human rights all in play as relations teeter over 5G role

Ernest Maragall revelation set to boost calls for inquiry into possible domestic espionage

Speaker of regional parliament was told he was targeted by spyware in ‘possible case of domestic espionage’Current and former leaders of Catalonia’s pro-independence government have called for an inquiry after it emerged that the speaker of the region’s parliament has been warned that his mobile was targeted using spyware its makers say is only sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists.On Monday, a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed that Roger Torrent and at least two other pro-independence supporters have been told they were targeted last year in what experts describe as a “possible case of domestic political espionage” in Europe. Continue reading...

U-turn puts Boris Johnson on collision course with Tory rebels on timing of banHuawei is to be stripped out of Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027, a date that puts Boris Johnson on collision course with a group of Conservative rebels who want the Chinese company eliminated quicker and more comprehensively.Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, also announced that no new Huawei 5G kit can be bought after 31 December this year – but disappointed the rebels by saying that older 2G, 3G and 4G kit can remain until it is no longer needed. Continue reading...

Rights group wanted export licence for NSO’s leading phone-hacking software to be revokedA Tel Aviv court has rejected a legal case filed by Amnesty International that attempted to block the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group from selling its cyberweapons internationally.The rights groups sought to force the Israeli ministry of defence to revoke NSO Group’s export licence for its leading phone-hacking software, Pegasus. Amnesty’s lawyers alleged the product had been used by repressive governments to target activists, including one the rights group’s own researchers, as well as journalists. Continue reading...

The UK government will soon decide on its future relationship with the Chinese telecoms firmThe UK government is due to announce its decision on the extent of the Chinese firm Huawei’s participation in the 5G network. Continue reading...

US national security adviser to urge European counterparts to bar Chinese firm from 5G networksRobert O’Brien, the US national security adviser, will meet his counterparts from France, Italy, the UK and Germany in Paris this week to urge European nations to debar the Chinese technology company Huawei from Europe’s 5G networks.The meetings, over three days, underline how most European governments are facing similar choices to the UK, which will announce on Tuesday its decision on the company, on how far and quickly to exclude Huawei, and with what consequences in terms of potential Chinese reprisals. Continue reading...

(Sneaky Bastards/Humble Games; PC)

Two-year audit praises some decisions but criticises lack of action over Trump postsFacebook’s decisions over the last nine months have resulted in “serious setbacks for civil rights,” according to the damning conclusion of a two-year-long audit commissioned by the social network to review its impact on the world.The final report, which focuses primarily on decisions made since June 2019, praises Facebook’s move to ban American advertisers from using its tools for housing and employment discrimination, and the company’s belated decision to ban explicit support for white nationalism. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch, PC; Marvelous/Xseed

US firm will buy naming rights for fleet and piers, and users can book journeys on its appUber is to extend its reach in London by taking to the water, with the Thames Clippers commuter service to be rebranded Uber Boat and bookable through the US company’s app.A formal partnership will be launched this summer, allowing Uber users to book a Thames river journey through the app, and board using a QR code on their phone. Uber will buy the naming rights for the 20-strong fleet of river boats and Thames Clipper’s piers from Putney to Woolwich, in a rolling contract expected to last for at least three years. Continue reading...

If the combined might of brands like Unilever and Coca-Cola don’t scare Mark Zuckerberg, who can hold the social media platform to account?

The Earn It Act, described as an effort to address sexual exploitation, could threaten encryption practices, opponents sayA US Senate bill that critics say would enable widespread censorship and surveillance has taken a significant step towards becoming law, raising alarm among internet freedom advocates.The Senate judiciary committee voted on Thursday to advance the Earn It Act, legislation that on paper is intended to address sexual exploitation. However, privacy experts say the act would give the Department of Justice unprecedented power over the internet and potentially threaten the privacy of messages sent online. Continue reading...

PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch; Echodog Games

As social media has become more inhospitable, the appeal of private online groups has grown. But they hold their own dangers – to those both inside and out.In the spring, as the virus swept across the world and billions of people were compelled to stay at home, the popularity of one social media app rose more sharply than any other. By late March, usage of WhatsApp around the world had grown by 40%. In Spain, where the lockdown was particularly strict, it rose by 76%. In those early months, WhatsApp – which hovers neatly between the space of email, Facebook and SMS, allowing text messages, links and photos to be shared between groups – was a prime conduit through which waves of news, memes and mass anxiety travelled.At first, many of the new uses were heartening. Mutual aid groups sprung up to help the vulnerable. Families and friends used the app to stay close, sharing their fears and concerns in real time. Yet by mid-April, the role that WhatsApp was playing in the pandemic looked somewhat darker. A conspiracy theory about the rollout of 5G, which originated long before Covid-19 had appeared, now claimed that mobile phone masts were responsible for the disease. Across the UK, people began setting fire to 5G masts, with 20 arson attacks over the Easter weekend alone. Continue reading...

Although the term is not banned, the network has been designated as a dangerous organization similar to white supremacistsFacebook has banned an extremist anti-government network associated with the term “boogaloo”, a slang word supporters use to refer to a second civil war.Tuesday’s move by Facebook designates the rightwing “boogaloo” network as a dangerous organization similar to the Islamic State group and white supremacists, both of which are already banned from its service. Continue reading...

‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign gathers momentum as ad boycott spreads outside USAlmost a third of advertisers are considering joining a month-long boycott of Facebook as the social network struggles to convince advertisers that it is doing enough to fight hate speech on its platform.The unprecedented corporate snub has been revealed in survey by the World Federation of Advertisers, whose big-spending members control nearly $100bn (£81bn) in spending. Continue reading...

The social network’s crisis has been a long time in the making and shows no sign of going awayIt took less than two hours for Facebook to react and it did so for good reason.At 5pm on Friday, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, with a portfolio of products that ranges from Marmite to Vaseline, suddenly announced it was pulling all adverts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US. Continue reading...

What happens when you decide to search the National Library database for historical references to global warming? It goes further back than you think“Science has uncovered indisputable evidence that the level of our oceans is rising. This is the result of a sudden and unexpected increase in our planet’s northern temperatures. Ice masses are melting rapidly away. If the rate of thawing continues, civilisation near the sea may be submerged and profound changes be wrought in climate, soil, sea and the race itself. The whole face of the earth may be moving towards a vast transformation.”That’s quite an opening paragraph, but it’s not mine. It belongs a story titled “Sea Levels Rising” published in the Central Queensland Herald on Thursday. Thursday 30 September 1948. Continue reading...

The US giant faces a probe into its lucrative App Store and, more interestingly, the tech behind its phone payment systemOn 16 June, the European commission opened two antitrust investigations into Apple’s App Store and Apple Pay practices. The first investigation will examine whether Apple has broken EU competition rules with its App Store policies. The second investigation is into whether restrictions imposed by Apple on the near field communication (NFC) capability of its iPhone and Apple Watch mean that banks and other financial institutions are prevented from offering NFC payment systems using Apple kit.Let’s take the App Store first. When Apple unveiled the iPhone in 2007, it created an amazing new opportunity for software developers and, of course, for Apple itself. Because the new phone was basically a powerful handheld computer, that meant it could run smallish programs, which came to be called apps. And because it had an internet connection those programs could be efficiently distributed across the net. From this came the idea that Apple should set up an App Store to which developers could upload their programs. Apple, being a control-freak corporation, would vet those apps before they appeared on the store and would levy a 30% commission on sales. It seems like a great idea. Continue reading...

The football games’ 25-year turf war has been an exciting match. But will the next generation of consoles be the final whistle for PES?Earlier this year, Barcelona’s Sergi Roberto was due to compete in a charity Fifa 20 tournament, which ultimately raised almost £130,000 towards the fight against coronavirus. Yet his first-round match against Eibar’s Edu Expósito never took place. The reason? Barca are an official PES 2020 partner club – and publisher Konami reportedly wasn’t keen for him to promote its main rival. It was the latest shot in a turf war going back 25 years.When Fifa International Soccer launched on Mega Drive in December 1993, its competitors were already beginning to look old-fashioned. Contemporary hits Kick Off 2 and Sensible Soccer both adopted an overhead view and lacked any kind of big-league sponsorship. But Fifa was a flashy newcomer, designed for the 16-bit console era, and within a month it had sold 500,000 copies. Critics and football fans loved its isometric viewpoint, realistic animations, end-to-end action and spectacular bicycle kicks. “The word ‘classic’ is used too much,” wrote Mean Machines Sega magazine, awarding it 94%, “but anyone who plays Fifa Soccer must concede that this IS football.” Continue reading...

Service adds to firms shunning Facebook over refusal to act against Donald Trump postsThe messaging service Viber, the fifth biggest with more than a billion users around the world, is severing all ties to Facebook as part of a growing boycott of the company by commercial partners.The campaign, initially started in the US after Facebook’s refusal to take action against posts from Donald Trump which critics said incited violence, has now grown to become an international movement. Continue reading...

Guardian investigation finds more than 3m aggregate followers and members support QAnon on Facebook, and their numbers are growingIn early May, QAnon braced for a purge. Facebook had removed a small subset – five pages, six groups and 20 profiles – of the community on the social network, and as word of the bans spread, followers of Q began preparing for a broader sweep.Some groups changed their names, substituting “17” for “Q” (the 17th letter of the alphabet); others shared links to back-up accounts on alternative social media platforms with looser rules. Continue reading...

PC, Mac, smartphones, Nintendo Switch; Happy Volcano

Track sleep, heart rate, snoring and even sleep apnoea with a zero-maintenance mat you stick under your mattressSleep tracking has become an important piece of total wellness monitoring, but typically requires strapping devices to your wrist or head. Withings Sleep Analyzer records your sleep and heart rate, plus is one of the first devices to monitor sleep apnoea, all without you needing to attach anything to your person.Instead, the £120 Sleep Analyzer is a sensor-packed slim mat that you slide under your mattress. Once it’s there you simply go to sleep as normal. Continue reading...

The firm will now delete its saved records of a new user’s activity after 18 monthsGoogle will no longer save a complete record of every search made by new users, the company says, as it launches a push to promote its privacy credentials against concerted competition from arch-rival Apple.The company will now automatically delete its saved records of a new user’s activity on the web and in its apps after 18 months, chief executive Sundar Pichai announced on Wednesday. Previously, such information had been kept indefinitely by default, which the company argued was necessary to personalise its services for individual users. Continue reading...

Its bloody tragedies have outraged some players but this sequel draws unashamedly on heritage horror films. (Contains spoilers)• This article contains story details from throughout the game.It’s the sound effects that really get to you. The strangulated gurgle of a slashed throat, the wet schlump of an axe hitting a skull, the gloopy splatter of a shotgun blast to the torso. For those coming to The Last of Us sequel expecting a dark, character-led drama, these gruesome noises, encountered in the first moments of combat, are an attention-grabbing reminder that this is first and foremost a horror series. After all, the original title ended on a horrific decision: in the midst of a deadly viral pandemic, troubled father figure Joel could either let a medical team dissect his surrogate daughter to discover a cure, or save her life and doom humanity. He chose the latter, murdering everyone in the operating theatre in the process. Continue reading...