Technology | The Guardian

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...

Concerns after bars and restaurants in England instructed to record customers’ details

Company will retire Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers, on 15 JulySegway, which boldly claimed its two-wheeled personal transporter would revolutionize the way people get around, is ending production of its namesake vehicle.The Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers but perhaps better known for its high-profile crashes, will be retired on 15 July, the company said in a statement. Continue reading...

Pandemic has sent internet usage soaring and may leave lasting legacy, report says

South Wales police accused of using system with ‘racial bias’ that breaks data protection lawAutomated facial recognition technology that searches for people in public places breaches privacy rights and will “radically” alter the way Britain is policed, the court of appeal has been told.At the opening of a legal challenge against the use by South Wales police of the mass surveillance system, lawyers for the civil rights organisation Liberty argued that it is also racially discriminatory and contrary to data protection laws. Continue reading...

Move in autumn will let users set Gmail as default email app and Firefox as main web browseriPhone users will be able to set Gmail as their default email app, Firefox as their main web browser, and listen to Spotify on their HomePod speakers, after Apple announced concessions to competitors who argue the company is abusing its monopoly.The new openness will arrive with a wave of software updates in the autumn, Apple said, alongside the other new features the company promised at its Worldwide Developers Conference, held remotely from Cupertino, California, on Monday. Continue reading...

A new kind of venture capital fund would use money from the US government to invest in companies that most need itOn first blush a Silicon Valley venture capitalist might not strike you as the first person to turn to when trying to address the racial wealth divide but these days we should take good ideas where we find them.Ash Shrivastav works for Buckhill Capital, a Silicon Valley-based private equity and venture capital firm that specializes in investing in early stage and growth companies and real estate such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a customer-owned banking platform called Good Money as well as apartment communities from New York to Washington State. Continue reading...

Apple says it will switch to its own brand of processors for Mac computers, ditching Intel after nearly 15 years. The shift was announced at the firm’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in the US, held virtually for the first time due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and follows similar changes to the iPhone and iPad range. Apple also announced its upcoming iOS 14 software, as well as updates to its watches

The North Face, REI and other brands pause advertising on the platform in ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaignSeveral companies have suspended advertising on Facebook over the company’s failure to address hate speech on the platform.The outdoor apparel and product retailers the North Face, REI, and Patagonia have pledged not to pay for advertising on Facebook platforms as part of the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, launched Wednesday by advocacy groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and the Color Of Change. The freelance job listing site Upwork and the internet company Mozilla have also joined the pledge. Continue reading...

Follow the launch of Apple’s latest hardware and software updates as they are announced

WhatsApp has accused an Israeli spyware company of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists and diplomatic officials. As new allegations emerge, Guardian US investigations correspondent Stephanie Kirchgaessner discusses how she first discovered the storyIn October 2019, the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against a little known Israeli technology company called NSO Group. It accused the group of being responsible for a series of highly sophisticated cyber-attacks on 1,400 of its users, many of them human rights activists, journalists and diplomatic officials. It was the latest twist in a saga that the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner had been investigating for months.She tells Anushka Asthana that after working with researchers at the Canadian firm Citizen Lab, which tracks the use of spyware, she believes current and former clients of NSO Group include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading...

Amnesty alleges phone of Omar Radi in Morocco was infected by NSO’s Pegasus softwareAs NSO Group faced mounting criticism last year that its hacking software was being used illegally against journalists, dissidents and campaigners around the world, the Israeli spyware company unveiled a new policy that it said showed its commitment to human rights.Now an investigation has alleged that another journalist, Omar Radi in Morocco, was targeted with NSO’s Pegasus software and put under surveillance just days after the company made that promise. Continue reading...

Cut of up to 30% charged by app stores obstructs fair competition, claims Brad SmithMicrosoft has thrown its weight behind calls for an antitrust investigation into App Store monopolies, piling yet more pressure on Apple as the iPhone maker prepares for its annual developer conference on Monday.Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, criticised the 30% cut that app stores take from developers this month, and argued that the policy is a far higher burden on fair competition than the issues that led to Microsoft’s antitrust case in the early 2000s. Continue reading...

PC; Riot Games

From the cheap and cheerful through to the classic or luxury, there’s something for everyoneWith many of us still stuck working at home because of the coronavirus crisis and some employers saying it could be months before they reopen offices, it is time to start seriously thinking about your home set-up and whether it could be more comfortable and efficient. A decent keyboard and mouse could prove a good investment – ensuring your working day takes less of a long-term toll on your joints.With seemingly endless options to choose from, here’s a quick guide to some standouts, from the dirt cheap to the ergonomic. Continue reading...

Scam email tries to exploit Microsoft platform used by schools in bid coinciding with prime minister’s warning of wider cyber-attack

The PM’s reluctance to be drawn on details is understandable but the curious way he presented the threat invited questionsIt was a moment of farce just hours after a sombre-sounding Australian prime minister delivered the grim news that a wide range of the nation’s public and private sector organisations “are currently being targeted by a sophisticated state-based cyber actor”.What, journalists wanted to know, did Scott Morrison mean by “currently” experiencing these attacks? Continue reading...

Security officials fear UK telcos could run out of vital parts if US pressure disrupts suppliesBritish security officials have told telecoms operators to ensure they have adequate stockpiles of Huawei equipment owing to fears that US sanctions will disrupt the Chinese firm’s ability to maintain critical supplies, according to a letter seen by Reuters.Senior officials at the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), who are studying the impact of new US measures intended to restrict Huawei’s ability to source advanced microchips, wrote to BT and Vodafone last week, said three people familiar with the matter. Continue reading...

Matt Hancock had doubts about US software’s accuracy in measuring proximity to potential coronavirus carriers

Novel design blends open-ear but secure fit with good sound, great controls and long battery lifeMicrosoft has finally launched a competitor to Apple’s AirPods and Samsung’s Galaxy Buds+ with its Surface Earbuds – and they are just a little bit different from the rest.The Surface Earbuds cost £199.99 and only come in grey. Their distinctive design certainly stands out. Continue reading...

The ‘state-based cyber actor’ Morrison announced as having targeted Australia is exploiting well-known vulnerabilities, they say

It’s a bit fiddly on your phone, but guiding Soviet cosmonaut Ivan through lush jungles and forgotten cities is still a lot of fun

BBC radio boss tells MPs regulation could allow other digital assistants to competeServices such as Amazon’s Alexa could be regulated to allow rival digital assistants to operate on smart speakers and stop the tech giants building a monopoly “in people’s kitchens and living rooms”, the head of the BBC’s radio operation has said.James Purnell, the director of radio and education at the BBC, made the comments weeks after the BBC launched its own voice-activated digital assistant, named Beeb, which offers information such as news, weather and programmes. Continue reading...

EU will look at Apple practices after years of criticism from competitors and regulatorsApple Pay and the iOS App Store are being investigated over potential breaches of European competition rules, the EU’s competition commission announced on Tuesday.The two investigations come after years of growing criticism of Apple’s business practices from competitors like Spotify and regulators in the US and EU. If the iPhone maker is found to breach EU competetion rules it could face penalties of up to 10% of its global turnover. Continue reading...

Britain gave the world the first official group for female engineers, but still only 12% of the UK’s engineering workforce are womenIn June 1919, seven women came together in London to do something unprecedented: they founded the world’s first Women’s Engineering Society (WES), which survives to this day.The creation of WES was precipitated by the end of the first world war. Thousands of women had entered factories and gained practical engineering training, but the 1919 Restoration of Pre-War Practices Act forced women to hand over their jobs to men returninghome. The society’s founding aims were to protect job opportunities for women in engineering and to ensure training and educational prospects were available to make sure women could enter the field. Continue reading...

Social media site incorrectly removed historical photo on grounds of nudity, then for three days blocked and even banned users who posted link to articleFacebook has blocked and in some cases banned users who tried to share a Guardian article about the site incorrectly blocking an image of Aboriginal men in chains.On Saturday, Guardian Australia reported that Facebook had apologised for incorrectly preventing an Australian user from sharing the photo from the 1890s. Continue reading...

My friend Eric Solomon, who has died aged 85, was a renowned inventor of board games and puzzles, a keen sportsman and an operational researcher.I first met him on the testing panel of Games & Puzzles magazine in 1972. Eric provided the first in a series of “Readers’ Games” by describing his own (unpublished) game Fighting Sail. His subsequently published games were not numerous but were of sufficient originality to have withstood the test of time, being constantly republished over the years under various titles in the UK, Germany and the US. Continue reading...

It is the second-largest e-commerce platform in the US, yet remains anonymous. Will its new app change all that?You probably will not have heard of Shopify, or be able to say what the company does, but you will almost certainly have used it. The joggers you found on Instagram at the beginning of lockdown and have worn continually since? Those Gymshark shorts you haven’t used for months, now the gyms are closed? The coffee beans you bought online and ground at home, while you waited for the cafes to reopen?Shopify provides the technology for anyone to set up a store and sell their products online, from the visible end of the website to the processing capabilities necessary to add stock, track inventory and complete sales. Because it is affordable, Shopify is favoured by small- to medium-size brands that can’t afford to pay for costly, custom website builds. Basic packages start at £29 per month. About 1m brands use its services, including major names such as Pepsi and Fashion Nova, and 80,000 of those merchants are based in the UK. Continue reading...

Facebook also blocks users from sharing Guardian Australia’s story based on its use of the imageFacebook incorrectly removed a post critical of the prime minister’s comments regarding slavery in Australia that featured a photograph of Aboriginal men in neck chains from the late 1800s, claiming the photo featured nudity.On Thursday, Scott Morrison said that there was no slavery in this country. Continue reading...

The API gives firms access to a text generation AI for use in coding and dating entryOpenAI, the machine learning nonprofit co-founded by Elon Musk, has released its first commercial product: a rentable version of a text generation tool the organisation once deemed too dangerous to release.Dubbed simply “the API”, the new service lets businesses directly access the most powerful version of GPT-3, OpenAI’s general purpose text generation AI. Continue reading...

Health secretary heard saying he ‘should have known’ about video consultation breachThe health secretary was caught on a live microphone admitting he was unaware of a data breach involving confidential patient information at his own GP practice until asked about it at a virtual conference.Babylon Health, a telemedicine company that enables people to have GP consultations over video chat, admitted to the breach on Tuesday night. A software error in the company’s app had led to patients being presented with recordings of other users’ consultations with their doctors. At least three patients were affected, the company said, and none of them had viewed the videos. Continue reading...

Finally, a reality show in which contestants don’t have to feign interest in finding love and can be honest about the end goalInstant Influencer, a new competition to find YouTube’s next viral make-up vlogger, might be 2020’s most transparent reality show. Even for those completely horrified by every second word in that sentence, it’s a fascinating insight into a billion-dollar industry – both a completely vapid and endlessly interesting watch, bingeable in a night. Forget MasterChef: who knew video editing to a time limit could be so suspenseful?For once, contestants don’t have to feign interest in finding love and can be honest about the end goal: selling #spon on social media. Again and again across its four episodes and without any hint of self-awareness, the six contestants say they need to prove their talents as an influencer and an artist, always in that order. It would be depressing if it wasn’t so absorbing. Continue reading...

CEO writes to US Congress calling for ‘national dialogue’ about use in law enforcementIBM is pulling out of the facial recognition market and is calling for “a national dialogue” on the technology’s use in law enforcement.The abrupt about-face comes as technology companies are facing increased scrutiny over their contracts with police amid violent crackdowns on peaceful protest across America. Continue reading...

Activists say the company’s work, which includes commercial partnerships with law enforcement, harms communities of colorAmazon on Monday became the latest tech company to face criticism for sharing public-facing statements supporting police reform and the Black Lives Matter movement while continuing internal policies and business practices that perpetuate the status quo.Amazon on Twitter has called for an end to “the inequitable and brutal treatment of black people” in the US and has put a “Black lives matter” banner at the top of its home page. Its chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, on Sunday posted on Instagram an email from a customer criticizing the BLM banner on Amazon’s home page, and said the emailer is the kind of customer he’s “happy to lose”. Continue reading...