Technology | The Guardian

If the UK government wants to start easing the country's lockdown restrictions, it needs to get contact tracing right. But what does that mean? What would successful contact tracing even look like? Josh Toussaint-Strauss tries to find out with a little help from Christophe Fraser, an Oxford professor and infectious disease epidemiologist, and Alex Hern, the Guardian's UK technology editor

MPs and rights groups have warned lack of data protection could make UK app illegal

Coronavirus crisis has forced musicians and others to adapt, says founder of platformMusicians, artists and writers have turned to crowdfunding sites to make up for lost opportunities in lockdown, and their audiences have followed them, leading to a rise in contributions through platforms such as Patreon.Since mid-March more than 70,000 extra creators have joined Patreon, which allows fans to give monthly payments to artists in exchange for exclusive content or simply out of a desire to support someone whose work they appreciate. Continue reading...

My friend and colleague Tony Morgan, who has died aged 83 after contracting Covid-19, was one of the heroes of the early days of computers. As a computer engineer from the late 1950s, he was responsible for the installation of the pioneering Leo computers worldwide, including for the GPO (now BT) for telephone billing. After a 38-year career he remained an active member of the Leo Heritage Project, using his unrivalled knowledge to identify the company’s artefacts.Born in Kenton, near Harrow, Middlesex, to William Morgan, an architect, and Millie (nee Ferguson), Tony went to Harrow County grammar school and, after getting four A-levels, did his national service with the RAF, where he was trained as an air-radar fitter. Continue reading...

An online fitness class was hacked, prompting calls for greater security awarenessSixty children taking part in a fitness class on Zoom were subjected to footage of child sexual abuse streamed into the session by a hacker. The class was being hosted by a sports club in Plymouth, Devon.Devon and Cornwall police believe the hacker gained access to the virtual class after the details of the event were published on online forums. The force is trying to track down the hacker and is working with Plymouth city council’s social care team to identify everyone who saw the footage. Continue reading...

More protections needed before coronavirus app fully launched, says human rights committee

Sidewalk Labs’ CEO said unpredictabilities stemming from pandemic meant project was no longer feasibleGoogle’s affiliate Sidewalk Labs has abruptly abandoned its vision to transform Toronto’s waterfront into one of the world’s first “smart cities”.In a statement released on Thursday, Sidewalk Labs’ CEO, Dan Doctoroff, said that sustained unpredictabilities stemming from the coronavirus pandemic meant that the project was no longer feasible. Continue reading...

Xbox livestream showcases new titles designed to support the advanced features of the forthcoming consoleMicrosoft has revealed 13 games coming to its Xbox Series X console when the machine launches this winter. In an hour-long presentation, streamed live on Thursday, the company announced that well-known titles such as the recently announced Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, as well as Madden NFL 21 and Yakuza: Like a Dragon, will all be on Xbox Series X.Also featured was Paradox Interactive’s vampire adventure, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. Codemasters presented its racer DiRT 5 complete with impressive lighting and mud splatter effects, and an option to run it in 4K at 60 frames-per-second or in a lower resolution at 120fps. Namco Bandai showed a new anime-style sci-fi thriller named Scarlet Nexus, about a group of psychic law enforcers. Continue reading...

The panel has the potential to reshape how Facebook shapes the world and possibly introduce a new era of social media governanceA new era of social media governance began Wednesday, when the first 20 members of Facebook’s long-awaited oversight board were announced. The international panel of free expression advocates, journalists, a former prime minister, a Nobel laureate, and law professors will have final say over certain content moderation decisions for the world’s largest social media platform, independent of Facebook’s executives and staff.This limited transfer of power to an independent entity represents something of a sea change for a company that has since its founding been under the tight control of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is chairman of the board and controls a majority of the company’s voting shares. Continue reading...

California workers say the company is pressuring sick employees to show up – and flouting a California law meant to protect them from Covid-19

World’s most popular video game to celebrate launch of new party mode with live event featuring Deadmau5 and Steve AokiFortnite developer Epic Games has announced that the game now has 350 million registered players. In a tweet published on Wednesday, the company also revealed that, during April, the online shooter was played for 3.2bn hours – a tally that is likely to have been boosted by global coronavirus lockdown measures.Now well into its third year of existence, Fortnite is continuing to attract a massive global audience, despite several newer rivals in the battle royale genre, including Apex Legends from Electronic Arts and a new Call of Duty mode, Warzone. Over time the game experience has constantly evolved and expanded, from a defensive shooter in which players fended off zombies, to the wildly popular competitive battle royale mode, to more recent modes and events that focus on building things, socialising online with other players, or attending one-off performances. Last month, one such series of in-game live events featuring rapper Travis Scott attracted more than 12 million spectators. Continue reading...

Wireless speaker firm revamps top TV audio line, plus Sonos 5 speakers and gen 3 SubThe wireless home-audio specialist Sonos is launching the first of its next-generation speakers with a new Dolby Atmos voice-controlled soundbar called Arc.Arc replaces the firm’s popular Playbar and Playbase as its top-end TV sound system, re-engineered to provide a wider, more powerful sound and built on the new S2 software platform, which is due to roll out to existing speakers soon. Continue reading...

New independent board, which includes ex-Guardian editor, will rule on freedom of expression issuesFacebook has announced the members of its new oversight board, an international committee of judges, journalists and academics who will help steer the company’s policy on freedom of expression.Among the 20 board members who have agreed to help set policy for the social network are Helle Thorning-Schmidt, the former prime minister of Denmark; the Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman; and Alan Rusbridger, the former Guardian editor-in-chief. Continue reading...

Experts say NHS relying on ‘Android herd immunity’ to overcome Apple-related issues

Windows-maker updates top and cheapest PCs, and launches new headphonesMicrosoft is launching a revamped line of its most powerful and cheapest Windows 10 PCs, the Surface Book 3 and Surface Go 2, as it adjusts to continue operations during the pandemic.The new products, announced by blogpost rather than an event, are Microsoft’s premium computers competing directly with the likes of Apple and Dell, but with more novel designs. Continue reading...

Staff losing jobs receive email within hours of co-founder outlining plans in blogpost

iPad/iPhone (PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions forthcoming); E-Line MediaRealistic marine-diving game shines a light on the deep oceanA mellow and overtly educational game about marine wildlife, Beyond Blue is an opportunity to submerge yourself in the expansive beauty of the Western Pacific. Futuristic technology enables our marine scientist to scan creatures, track whale calls and withstand the crushing pressures of the deep ocean as she follows a pod of sperm whales through seascapes taken from the BBC’s Blue Planet II, from shallows to open ocean to the toxic deep-sea brine pool that gave me nightmares for weeks after seeing it on TV.Atmospheric though these watery places are, there’s no peril in this version of deep-sea diving, even when you try to manufacture it. Attempts to swim directly into the gaping mouth of a humpback or provoke a hammerhead shark yield nothing but the odd visual glitch. You can admire the impressively realistic sea life at leisure, panning drones around creatures to record their songs and examine their markings. Nonetheless, do not expect an entirely chill time beneath the waves. Inevitably for a game informed by the actual state of our oceans, there’s a touch of sadness here. Continue reading...

An update to integrate the Google-Apple framework should fix the issue, MPs toldAustralians running the Covidsafe contact tracing app on iPhones may not be recording all the data required if they don’t have the app running in the foreground or they are using an older model phone, the government has admitted.More than 5.1 million Australians have downloaded and registered to use the app on iPhone and Android devices, and, while the Android version works while running in the background (ie, not open on the screen), the iPhone version works best when the app is open on the screen and the phone is unlocked. Continue reading...

Worries public will not use app after security specialists and MPs raise concerns

At least six workers who have participated in protests or advocated for safer conditions have been fired during the pandemic

Tim Bray’s departure comes as company faces increased scrutiny and employee activism around its Covid-19 responseTim Bray, a top engineer and vice-president at Amazon, announced on Monday he is resigning “in dismay” over the company’s firing of employee activists who criticized working conditions amid the coronavirus pandemic.Bray’s resignation comes as Amazon faces increased scrutiny and employee activism surrounding its internal response to coronavirus. Amazon workers on Friday participated in a nationwide sick-out to protest against poor working conditions and inadequate safety protections, claiming the company has failed to provide enough face masks for workers, did not implement regular temperature checks it promised at warehouses, and has refused to give workers paid sick leave. Continue reading...

New keyboard replaces issue-prone Butterfly version, plus new chips and more storageApple has launched an updated version of its popular 13in MacBook Pro laptop with a revamped keyboard, more storage and faster chips.The 13in MacBook Pro now has Apple’s Magic Keyboard, replacing the ultra-thin Butterfly keyboard that suffered from multiple issues regarding noise, dust and malfunctioning keys. The new machine joins the larger 16in MacBook Pro and the recently released MacBook Air, completing the removal of the Butterfly keyboard from Apple’s product line. Continue reading...

Experts say Russia, Iran and China likely to be behind cyber-attacks on universities

It started as a photo-sharing platform, but quickly rose to become the most influential app of our generation. Now, a forensic new book reveals the struggles and eccentricities of the men behind InstagramOne day in the autumn of 2015, a small but significant change was implemented at the Instagram offices in Menlo Park, California. Employees arrived at work to discover the rubbish bins under each desk had disappeared. The bins had allowed people to work efficiently – no one had to stand up to throw away a coconut water carton or wasabi pea wrapper after they’d enjoyed the company’s free food. But the bins weren’t really Instagram’s – they were installed by Facebook, which had purchased the photo-sharing app for $1bn in 2012.Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s co-founder, didn’t like the bins. He didn’t like the cardboard boxes employees used to file papers and paraphernalia. He hated old, sagging birthday balloons. Instagram’s offices, he explained, after removing the bins, should represent its ethos. They should be beautiful, simple, pristine – much like the app itself. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Privacy experts say the breach in the SkillsSelect platform, which affects data going back to 2014, was ‘very serious’Privacy experts have blasted the home affairs department for a data breach revealing the personal details of 774,000 migrants and people aspiring to migrate to Australia, including partial names and the outcome of applications.At a time the federal government is asking Australians to trust the security of data collected by its Covid-Safe contact tracing app, privacy experts are appalled by the breach, which they say is just the latest in a long line of cybersecurity blunders. Continue reading...

From energy-saving bulbs to leak detectors, smart tech offers many benefits at the touch of a buttonAlmost everything in your home, from lights and thermostats to door locks and security cameras, can now be connected to the internet. With a few taps on an app or a voice command you can turn down your heating, let visitors into your home or check for leaks.But while many of these gadgets appear to be simply a way to impress visitors (“Hey Google, dim the lights and play some romantic music”), others can save you money. And at a time when many of us are working from home and running up bills during the day, this is likely to be their biggest selling point. Continue reading...

House lawmakers said they could subpoena CEO to testify in antitrust investigation if he doesn’t appear voluntarilyA bipartisan group of House lawmakers investigating Amazon for possible antitrust violations have demanded that Jeff Bezos testify before Congress to address statements by the company that “appear to be misleading, and possibly criminally false or perjurious”.“Although we expect that you will testify on a voluntary basis, we reserve the right to resort to compulsory process if necessary,” seven leaders of the House judiciary committee, including the chair Jerry Nadler, wrote in a letter to the Amazon CEO on Friday. Continue reading...

The Tesla CEO is welcome to argue for reopening America. But he is relying on bad science to make his caseWhat has happened to Elon Musk?A highlight reel of the billionaire Tesla CEO’s activities since early March includes his pooh-poohing the coronavirus “panic” as “dumb”; keeping his northern California factory open in defiance of local public health orders; falsely asserting that children are “essentially immune” from the virus; providing a giant platform to promoters of an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment; predicting (inaccurately) that the US would have no new cases of Covid-19 by the end of April; attempting to re-open the factory before the end of the local shelter-in-place order; and calling shelter-in-place orders “fascist”. (Let’s not even get into the drama over whether the BiPap machines he donated to some hospitals count as ventilators.) Continue reading...

Top performance, good camera, long support and manageable size make cheaper iPhone a bargainApple’s latest iPhone SE is a surprise cut-price marvel that revives a classic iPhone design and trounces every other mid-range phone in the process.The £419 iPhone SE takes the important bits of the iPhone 11 – the processor and software – and shoehorns them into the body of an iPhone 8 from 2017. You get a phone design largely unchanged from the iPhone 6 of 2014, with traditional home button, but the performance and longevity of a brand new Apple phone for £310 less than an iPhone 11. Continue reading...

Company reports $58.3bn in sales as CEO says China sales ‘headed in the right direction’ despite coronavirusApple reported sales and profits that beat Wall Street expectations on Thursday despite fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, with Tim Cook saying China sales were “headed in the right direction” as that country reopens.But the CEO said it was impossible to forecast overall results for the current quarter because of uncertainty created by the virus. Continue reading...

Sitcom veteran Greg Daniels stumbles with an overstuffed new sitcom about what happens when we die and how much it costs to be happy thereTV has reached its maximum capacity of quirky afterlifes. The Good Place set this recent wave in motion on NBC with its vision of Hell as a metaphysical bureaucracy plastering a cheery expression over its endless labyrinth of paperwork and intra-departmental conflicts. TBS’s Miracle Workers cranked the whimsy up a notch for the romcom angle, as two low-level angels invisibly nudged a pair of shy mortals together. Amazon’s Forever went the existential route, confronting a married couple stuck in a rut with the horror of continuing all their daily drudgeries after death in a suburb identical to their own. In each case, the series generated comedy by offering a banal solution to the grand mystery of what happens after we shuffle off this mortal coil. Who knew heaven would be so devastatingly similar to a place on earth.Related: Never Have I Ever review – Netflix teen series slowly finds its voice Continue reading...

PC (version tested), Xbox One; Microsoft Game Studios

Pay-monthly service sees huge surge in players and gaming time due to Coronavirus lockdownMicrosoft has announced that its Xbox Game Pass subscription service has passed 10 million members. The initiative, which adopts a similar model to Netflix and other streaming platforms, gives subscribers unlimited access to more than 100 Xbox and PC games for a monthly fee.Commenting on the figure, Xbox chief Phil Spencer said that use of Game Pass, as well as the company’s online multiplayer gaming service Xbox Live, had increased substantially in recent weeks due to Covid-19. “Since March, Xbox Game Pass members have added over 23 million friends on Xbox Live, which is a 70% growth in friendship rate,” he said. “Game Pass members are also playing twice as much and engaging in more multiplayer gaming, which has increased by 130%.” Continue reading...

Dr Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus taskforce coordinator, has become an internet star thanks to her selection of scarves for Covid-19 press briefings. Birx, whose reaction to Donald Trump's suggestion of injecting disinfectant to treat the disease went viral, has attracted an online following thanks to her sartorial choices

CEO calls for governments to ‘give people back their freedom’ as company reports revenues beating analysts’ estimates

Company earns $4.9bn as it faces slowdown in digital advertising market amid coronavirusFacebook reported its slowest quarterly growth as a public company, pressured by a global slowdown in the digital advertising market due to the coronavirus pandemic.Like other tech companies, the social network is feeling the squeeze from the global pandemic, but its results still beat analyst expectations. Revenue rose 18% to $17.74bn, sending stocks surging more than 7% in after-hours trading. Continue reading...

Cameras to check workers’ temperatures amid coronavirus come from Dahua, which allegedly helped Beijing detain MuslimsAmazon has bought cameras to take the temperatures of workers during the coronavirus pandemic from a firm the US previously blacklisted over allegations it helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.China’s Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co Ltd shipped 1,500 cameras to Amazon this month in a deal valued close to $10m, one of the people said. At least 500 Dahua systems are for Amazon’s use in the US, another person said. Continue reading...

Tesla founder says ‘FREE AMERICA NOW’ in outburst against economic impact

Alphabet first-quarter earnings offer a glimpse of how the digital ad market has fared amid stay-at-home ordersGoogle reported its weakest revenue growth in nearly five years in the first quarter as the pandemic-driven recession began to shrivel its advertising sales.“It was the tale of two quarters,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, told investors on a conference call on Tuesday. Typically – strong revenue growth in January and February was undercut by a “significant and sudden slowdown in advertising” in March, he said. “When I last spoke with you, no one could have imagined how much the world would change – and how quickly.” Continue reading...

Deployment of coronavirus tracking system to be trialled in ‘small area’ before roll out

Charities warn of ‘devastating effect’ as most vulnerable households left without access to web

Many of us are finding it hard to concentrate on books during lockdown – so here are some games that do fascinating things with words and storiesIt has been one of the many cruel ironies of lockdown: we all have time to read more, but the constant uncertainty and worry, together with the endlessly transmogrifying news narrative, have made it difficult to concentrate on novels.A few keen readers have turned to essay collections, short stories or diaries, which are less demanding on the memory and attention, but video games may also offer a way back into reading during these difficult times. Here are 12 interesting puzzle and adventure games that play with words, text and narratives in innovative ways, which may well guide you back into a reading frame of mind. Continue reading...

Epic makes its blockbuster game available in store, an embarrassing climbdownFortnite for Android is available through the Google Play store for the first time, almost 18 months after owners Epic Games tried to use the game’s popularity to break the app store duopoly.The release is an embarrassing climbdown for Epic, which has sunk significant resources into building its own independent games service, and is sure to reignite accusations of anti-competitive behaviour on the parts of both Apple and Google. Continue reading...

From those 6,000 cloud-stored selfies to your most guessable and reused passwords, here is an easy, expert guide to wielding a virtual vacuum

This Supershoppers special takes two Amazon-devoted families on an eye-opening tour of the retailers’ tactics – with mixed resultsI forget how much of an unbearable metropolitan elitist I am sometimes. When I see a programme called The Truth About Amazon, I automatically think it’s going to be an excoriating investigation into some of the alleged abuses of its workers. These are so many that, taken together, they would amount to something remarkably close to servitude, even before the new claims of failures to protect its people (or provide such things as hazard pay) started since the pandemic began. Or its viciously anti-union stance, or how a company making £11bn a year pays less tax than a pet hamster, or whether the invisible hand of the market is really enough to keep western capitalism from ultimately destroying us all ...You get, I’m sure, the idea. In fact, last night’s The Truth About Amazon on Channel 4, presented by Sabrina Grant and Helen Skelton, was a Supershoppers special, attacking it from that programme’s usual consumer rights perspective. This will probably do at least as much to problematise punters’ immediate relationship with the retail giant-of-giants as would another handwringing article about its tentacular reach into more and more aspects of our lives. Not to mention Jeff Bezos’s likely ultimate plan to strangle us all in our beds as we sleep and turn our bodies into fuel for his behemoth once it gains sentience. Continue reading...

The move raises thorny questions about civil rights amid the coronavirus pandemic

Unverified claims suggest UK government are running fake accounts to steer coronavirus conversation

Government becomes first to call for invasive measures in effort to combat coronavirus