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Current Google CEO will also manage Alphabet under one role in bid to ‘simplify management structure’

Frequent critic of Kremlin interference in the UK was sent suspicious email from MoscowThe Labour candidate Ben Bradshaw has said he has been the victim of a suspected Russian cyber-attack after he received an email from Moscow with attachments containing sophisticated malware.Bradshaw – who has repeatedly raised the subject of Kremlin interference in British politics, including in the EU referendum – received the email at his election gmail address. The sender – “Andrei” – claimed he was a whistleblower from inside Vladimir Putin’s presidential administration. Continue reading...

The employee-activists accuse the company of attempting to quash employee organizing, in violation of federal labor lawsThe four worker-activists who were fired by Google during Thanksgiving week plan to file federal charges alleging that their former employer fired them to quash worker organizing, in violation of federal labor laws.Google told its staff of approximately 100,000 last week that the employees were fired for “clear and repeated violations of our data security policies”, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg. But in defiant interviews with the Guardian on Monday, the workers rejected that justification as a pretext. Continue reading...

Video-sharing site restricted posts by users it identified as disabled, fat or LGBTQ+TikTok has admitted censoring posts by users it identified as disabled, fat or LGBTQ+ as part of a misguided effort to cut down on bullying on the platform.According to a report from the German site NetzPolitik.org, the video-sharing site artificially limited the reach of users who it thought would be vulnerable to bullying if their videos reached a wide audience. Continue reading...

The firm’s overworked warehouse staff have had to pee in old water bottles while their CEO is paid in a second what they earn in five weeksJeff Bezos, says the TUC, earns as much in a second as one of his warehouse workers would earn in five weeks. It makes his performative philanthropy – such as his Bezos Day One charity, which helps families in low-income areas – slightly nauseating. If he hadn’t set Amazon up to maximise his power and overvalue his contribution, he wouldn’t have helped to create the disempowerment and exploitation he claims to want to overcome.Serf-like conditions for Amazon warehouse staff, the atmosphere of hyper-surveillance in which every motion is monitored to check that it’s fast enough, are piled on top of the low wages to ram home to each employee how dispensable they are. But then, think of the free delivery. Continue reading...

DPD says drones are quicker and safer than driving a van up mountain roads in winter

YouTube chief executive officer confirmed in interview there were ‘ads of Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube’Google and YouTube have pulled hundreds of ads for Donald Trump over the last few months, according to 60 Minutes on CBS.Related: Trump heads to UK for Nato summit as impeachment deadline looms – live Continue reading...

European commission surveys companies about agreements they have made to share dataThe European commission is launching a new investigation into Google, examining the company’s data collection practices, according to a report from Reuters.During the past week, the competition commission has sent out questionnaires to companies that work with Google asking them about the agreements they have made to share data with the search firm. Continue reading...

Zuckerberg says ‘people should be able to judge for themselves the character of politicians’ and compares alternative to censorshipFacebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has defended the company’s decision to not take down political advertising that contains false information – and compared the alternative to censorship.Related: BBC tells Tories to take down Facebook ad featuring its presenters Continue reading...

Five days after director’s mob epic hits Netflix, Scorsese urges viewers to see it on as big a screen as possibleMartin Scorsese has implored audiences not to watch his films – or those by other directors – on their smartphones.Scorsese was speaking to the Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers in the wake of the Netflix streaming release of his latest film, The Irishman. Continue reading...

Company facing scrutiny over treatment of Li Hongyuan, who had demanded severance payThe Chinese telecom corporation Huawei has come under fire in its own country as members of the public rallied behind a former employee detained for eight months after demanding severance pay from the company.Last January, Li Hongyuan, a Huawei employee of 13 years, was arrested on extortion charges and detained until August, when he was released because of “unclear criminal facts and insufficient evidence”, according to court documents posted online by Li. Continue reading...

Jordan Erica Webber looks into the recent setbacks for Uber and Airbnb in cities such as London and Toronto Continue reading...

Kickstarter funded a third instalment of this much-loved 80s murder mystery, but it’s not all middle-aged nostalgiaFor a moment in 1999, Shenmue represented the future of all video games. And in some ways, Sega’s grand murder mystery, set in late-80s Japan, has defined the medium. With a reported budget of $20m and a supporting battalion of artists, designers and programmers, it was the first game to show that video-game publishers could make financial wagers at Hollywood blockbuster-scale. Likewise, Shenmue’s star director, Yu Suzuki, then in his early 40s, laid a template that has defined the games that dominate today’s charts: a living virtual city filled with diversions and populated by AI-controlled characters that worked to daily routines; shops that opened to defined schedules; a world that strained at the seams of its technological circumstance.Still, while Shenmue came with a cinematic plot – you play as a young Japanese man, Ryo Hazuki, trying to disentangle the threads of his father’s murder – its slow-burn rhythm was almost art-house in pace. Suzuki later said his aim was to replicate not realism, but reality, with all of its periods of listlessness and boredom. As such, the game was filled with daily chores, repetitious part-time work, all the stuff that, ostensibly, people play video games to escape. The gamble did not pay off. Only two of the planned six instalments in the series were released. Grand Theft Auto 3’s arrival in 2001, with its cinematic set pieces and celebrity voice actors, changed the arc of video game design, probably inevitably. The market decided Shenmue’s vision of the future was too quirky, and consequently the murder of Ryo’s father went unresolved. Continue reading...

As the biggest ride-hailing app faces trouble over fake IDs, we test out its three main rivals, and find few can match taking the bus or tubeFor London, Uber is not yet over. But last week’s decision by the capital’s transport authority to reject the global ride-hailing firm’s application to renew its licence has put its long-term prospects in doubt.Two years ago, Uber promised to work with Transport for London (TfL) to become a better service provider, and can list many positive steps taken. Yet TfL still had doubts about its security processes – doubts confirmed by revelations that 14,000 journeys were undertaken by drivers who had faked their ID on the app. Now, to the delight of the vocal black-cab lobby, London has once more told Uber that is not fit to hold a private hire licence. Continue reading...

Tech executive declared plan to move temporarily in 2020 following a month-long visit to entrepreneurs on the continentTwitter chief Jack Dorsey said this week that he plans to move to Africa for up to six months next year. The tech executive announced the planned move following a month-long trip visiting entrepreneurs on the continent.“Sad to be leaving the continent … for now. Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!),” Dorsey tweeted from Addis Ababa on Wednesday. “Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020. Grateful I was able to experience a small part.” Continue reading...

Be afraid … Apple TV+ is serving up creepy dolls, creepier nannys and all sorts of supernatural shenanigans thanks to M Night Shyamalan

Thousands of users complained about issues, citing problems with sharing posts and sending messagesFor many attempting to share Thanksgiving posts on Facebook on Thursday morning, it seemed the social network was not in the holiday mood.Thousands of users complained about issues with Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram, citing problems with sharing posts and sending messages, according to Down Detector, a website that tracks such outages. Continue reading...

Chinese-owned video sharing platform blocked Feroza Aziz after she posted film disguised as makeup tutorialTikTok has apologised for blocking a US teenager from the Chinese-owned video sharing platform after she posted a video highlighting Beijing’s treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang.A spokesman for the platform on Thursday blamed a “human moderation error” for the removal of a video by 17-year-old Feroza Aziz disguised as a makeup tutorial to avoid being censored. Continue reading...

Allen wants to set up a small company working from home, and would like some adviceI’m looking to set up a small business working from home, and would like some advice on back up and security measures. I have an Office 365 account so my main directory for saving documents will be OneDrive. I was looking to back up on a Synology NAS drive, perhaps to two separate hard drives as a precaution. Also, I currently just use Windows’ built-in security, but wondered whether I should look for something else.Initially, it would just be me, but if things go well then I may have another two or three people helping. I’m assuming I can just scale up any security measures as the need arises. AllenTechnology manufacturers cater to two very large markets with different needs: home users and businesses. You’re about to enter the SoHo (small office, home office) market where home technologies dominate because most single traders don’t need proper business systems with all the extra costs and complications involved. Continue reading...

Company has been criticised for handling of move it says will reduce risk from hackingTwitter has announced it is to clear out inactive accounts, freeing up dormant usernames and reducing the risk of old accounts being hacked.But the company is facing criticism for the way it has handled the announcement, with many concerned that the accounts of people who have died over the past decade will be removed with no way of saving their Twitter legacies. Continue reading...

‘Final straw’ was refusal to allow partner to mark dubious claims by far-right partiesFacebook’s only Dutch factchecker has quit over the social network’s refusal to allow them to highlight political lies as being false.The online newspaper Nu.nl had been Facebook’s only factchecking partner in the Netherlands since Leiden University dropped out of the programme last year. The website had sole responsibility for marking Facebook and Instagram news content for Dutch users as being false or misleading, in order to help power the social network’s tools that suppress distribution of misinformation. Continue reading...

Teenager claims video sharing platform is censoring her posts, which TikTok deniesAn American teenager who is using makeup tutorials on TikTok to spread awareness of China’s detention of at least a million Muslims in internment camps in Xinjiang has claimed her videos are being censored by the platform.In a three-part series that has gone viral on the international version of the Chinese short video-sharing platform, Feroza Aziz, 17, begins by appearing to show viewers how to use an eyelash curler. Continue reading...

Platform bars Red Ice TV and Affirmative Right, as VDare continues to operateFacebook will no longer allow Red Ice TV and Affirmative Right to use its platform, following a Guardian report on the continued presence of prominent white nationalist organizations on the site eight months after a promised ban.Related: Facebook's only Dutch factchecker quits over political ad exemption Continue reading...

More than 64m unnecessary emails are sent in Britain every day. Along with clogging up our inboxes they are also damaging the environment

Three other Google staffers were reportedly fired on Monday, prompting accusations of retaliationOn Friday, about 200 employees rallied outside Google’s office in San Francisco to demand that two suspended worker activists be reinstated. By Monday, at least one of the suspended workers said she had been fired, with reports that three other Google staffers had also been let go.Rebecca Rivers, a software engineer at Google who had been involved with internal protests against Google’s work with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), announced her firing on Twitter on Monday afternoon. Three other Google staffers were also fired on Monday, according to an internal company memo obtained by Bloomberg. Continue reading...

Ride-hailing service to continue while it appeals against Transport for London decisionUber has been stripped of its London licence after authorities found that more than 14,000 trips were taken with drivers who had faked their identity on the firm’s app.Transport for London announced the decision not to renew the ride-hailing company’s licence at the end of a two-month probationary extension granted in September. Uber was told then it needed to address issues with checks on drivers, insurance and safety, but has failed to satisfy the capital’s transport authorities. Continue reading...

Whether you are a driver or have been a passenger with Uber, we would like to hear from youUber has lost its licence to operate in London over passenger safety concerns. Transport for London (TfL) claimed Uber’s systems let unauthorised drivers to access the accounts of other drivers allowing them to pick up passengers, which happened on 14,000 trips. The company has 21 days to appeal the decision during which it can still operate.TfL said on Monday it had identified a “pattern of failures” by Uber, including several breaches that placed passengers and their safety at risk. Continue reading...

Jordan Erica Webber chats to the man behind the Hide the Pain Harold meme, and Elle Hunt explains why a person’s face might gain notoriety Continue reading...

Inventor of web calls on governments and firms to safeguard it from abuse and ensure it benefits humanity

Facebook claims its data collection is inherent to the way the internet works. The internet didn’t have to be this wayIt’s a quintessential experience of the digital age: you’re scrolling through Facebook, or reading an article online, and suddenly get served with an advertisement so narrowly targeted to a passing interest, secret desire, or undisclosed medical condition that you find yourself looking over your shoulder, shuddering, and asking yourself: “How did they know?”While most of us have learned to shrug off our unease at these creepy encounters, a new report by Amnesty International made the bold case this week that we need to stop accepting the status quo and start seeing it for what it really is: a violation of our human rights “on an unprecedented scale” perpetrated by two American companies, Facebook and Google. Continue reading...

Retailer claims decision on ‘war cloud’ system is political and is contesting it in US federal courtAmazon has filed a lawsuit contesting the US defence department’s decision to award a Pentagon cloud computing contract worth up to $10bn (£7.8bn) to rival bidder Microsoft.The complaint and supplemental motion for discovery were filed in the US court of federal claims under seal, according to a spokesman for Amazon Web Services, a division of the online retail giant founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. Continue reading...

Tesla’s chief designer smashed the vehicle’s windows in an attempt to demonstrate their toughnessDoes the act of someone’s net worth plummeting make an actual sound?If so, then for Elon Musk it would be the thonk of a metal ball splintering the purportedly unbreakable glass of his long-awaited cybertruck. Continue reading...

Firm considering to raise amout of targeted people from 100 to ‘a few thousands’Facebook’s plans to limit political advertising have taken another step, according to reports, as the company firms up plans to stop political advertisers from sending messages to very small numbers of people.According to the Wall Street Journal, the company has weighed up whether to increase the minimum amount of people targeted in any given political advert from 100, the current limit, to “a few thousand”. Continue reading...

In a speech, the actor argued that Facebook would have run ads by Hitler. Here are his remarks in full

We thought tech would bring us closer together. Instead it has scrambled our minds, our politics and our relationships. Can we burst our filter bubbles?In 2010, I joined Twitter. This momentous development went unnoticed by the world’s press – but to be fair, it went almost unnoticed by me, too. Certainly, I had no particular trepidation about getting involved in social media. The internet still embodied more promise than threat: the iPad was just arriving; Uber and Airbnb were finding their feet; “gamification” was going to solve everything from obesity to voter apathy, by turning tedious chores into fun digital challenges with points and prizes; the Arab spring, coordinated on social media, was a few months away. This was before the Rohingya genocide, before the teenage anxiety epidemic, before Cambridge Analytica and the alt-right and “fake news”. In October 2010, the Guardian news blog ran a brief item on a darkly comical nightmare scenario for US politics: “Donald Trump considers running for president,” the headline read.What changed in the 2010s was not so much the arrival of new technology as the rapid evolution of a business model, the monetisation of attention. This wasn’t a recent invention; indeed, it dated back to the “yellow journalism” of the 19th century, which used sensationalist stories and cheap cover prices to build big audiences that advertisers would pay to reach. But ubiquitous high-speed mobile internet has sent the attention economy into hyperdrive, plunging us into an online world structured to prioritise not the truth, or what matters most, but whatever’s most compelling, which often means whatever makes us angriest. Continue reading...

The Facebook CEO views all politics as merely instrumental to the fortunes of his companyWhat are Mark Zuckerberg’s politics? Based on recent events, one might assume the young billionaire favors American conservatism, even explicit Republican positions.On Thursday, NBC News revealed that the CEO of Facebook had a secret dinner at the White House in October with President Donald Trump. Zuckerberg was accompanied by Facebook board member and long-time mentor Peter Thiel. Thiel is notorious among Silicon Valley billionaires for explicitly endorsing Trump in 2016 and speaking at the Republican National Convention that year. Thiel, a libertarian who runs a company that enhances government surveillance efforts, has also questioned the value of women voting. Continue reading...

The 12 complainants in the class action lawsuit say an algorithm that restricts content is an attempt to push them off the platformFour LGBT YouTubers have joined a class action lawsuit suing YouTube for discrimination, deceptive business practices and unlawful restraint of speech.The 12 complainants in total allege that the algorithm YouTube, and its parent company Google, uses to promote, censor and pair advertising with videos is discriminating against LGBT content just because it is made by and for LGBT people. Continue reading...

A demonstration intended to show the strength of the windows on Tesla's first pickup truck went wrong when one of the team threw a metal ball at them. The futuristic Cybertruck was unveiled in Los Angeles on Thursday. Production is expected to begin in late 2021

Elon Musk says model essential to sustainable energy – but is embarrassed when ‘armour glass’ windows breakElon Musk’s glitzy unveiling of the first Tesla “cybertruck” descended into farce when a PR stunt testing the “bulletproof” body strength of the electric vehicle resulted in smashed windows.The Blade Runner-meets-cyberpunk themed launch of the $39,900 (£30,000) futuristic armoured vehicle was meant to take aim at the traditional Detroit carmakers, proving that Tesla could make a credible electric version of America’s favourite vehicle, the pickup truck. Continue reading...

Game will be first in series since Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was released in 2007Developer Valve Corporation has unveiled the latest game in the long-dormant Half-Life series, a VR-exclusive title named Half-Life: Alyx, set for release in March 2020.A new game in the critically acclaimed sci-fi shooter series had been heavily rumoured following leaks from this year’s Game Awards and was confirmed by the developer via Twitter. A prequel set between the first and second games, Half-Life: Alyx stars supporting character Alyx Vance following an alien invasion of earth and is expected to act as a flagship VR title, showcasing virtual reality shooter gameplay at a high level of fidelity. Continue reading...

Elon Musk has said he wants to build ‘supertruck with crazy torque’ as Ford and GM plan offerings of their ownUpdate: Windows shatter during demo of Tesla’s ‘cybertruck’ Elon Musk has talked for years about building an electric pickup truck that would threaten Detroit’s automakers, and on Thursday he will finally take off the wrapping.

Administrator closes the Rose Bay community group after acrimonious dispute forced her to spend $9,000 in legal feesA popular Facebook group for residents of the harbourside Sydney suburb of Rose Bay has been shut down after defamation threats were made against the administrator by the administrator of a rival Facebook group.Bianca Havas started the Rose Bay Community – Official Group in her spare time seven years ago, between working full time and parenting. Over time the group grew to more than 5,500 members, mainly women, sharing information about events in the suburb. But Havas agreed to shut down the group after an acrimonious dispute with the administrator of a splinter group that led to defamation threats. Continue reading...

Decision to cancel premiere reportedly stemmed from sexual abuse allegations against a producer of the filmApple abruptly cancelled the world premiere of its film The Banker at the AFI Festival in Hollywood on Wednesday amid reports of sexual abuse allegations against the son of the film’s subject.Related: Apple hopes its new streaming service will make a splash Continue reading...

I find myself with nothing to look forward to EVERWe are saturated with stimulation and easy pleasure. Anything from food to homewares to porn to entertainment we can get immediately via our phones. But is the easy life messing with our brain chemicals? Are we releasing too much dopamine?The latest Silicon Valley trend is dopamine fasting – having a break from anything pleasurable in order to “reset” your brain chemistry. Continue reading...

2020 candidate, Richard Blumenthal and Bill Cassidy express concerns over Project Nightingale in bipartisan letter

Guardian analysis finds VDare and Red Ice TV among several outlets that are still on the platform despite Facebook’s promised banOn 7 November, Lana Lokteff, an American white nationalist, introduced a “thought criminal and political prisoner and friend” as a featured guest on her internet talk show, Red Ice TV. For about 90 minutes, Lokteff and her guest – Greg Johnson, a prominent white nationalist and editor-in-chief of the white nationalist publisher Counter-Currents – discussed Johnson’s recent arrest in Norway amid authorities’ concerns about his past expression of “respect” for the far-right mass murderer Anders Breivik. In 2012, Johnson wrote that he was angered by Breivik’s crimes because he feared they would harm the cause of white nationalism but had discovered a “strange new respect” for him during his trial; Breivik’s murder of 77 people has been cited as an inspiration by the suspected Christchurch killer, the man who murdered the British MP Jo Cox, and a US coast guard officer accused of plotting a white nationalist terror attack. Continue reading...

Peter has to move from his very secure high-rise flat and wants to avoid being burgledI currently live in a high-rise flat, which is very secure, with CCTV, fob-controlled access and so on. Unfortunately, due to Grenfell, our block is being emptied for refurbishment. I don’t know what type of property I will be offered, but I will have to provide my own home security system. Cost is not a major issue, because I will get a disturbance grant for the enforced move. But, as a pensioner, I wouldn’t like to be saddled with a high monthly premium for monitoring. Any suggestions would be very welcome. PeterTechnology companies are selling a lot of new gadgets to increase home security, including smart locks, motion detectors, window sensors and digital cameras. Many are part of the trend towards “smart homes” with internet-connected doorbells, lighting, voice assistants and so on. Most of this stuff comes under the general tech-industry label of the internet of things (IoT). Continue reading...

From God of War 2 to Grand Theft Auto 6, here are the almost-confirmed titles and wish-list fantasies we’re holding out for with the console’s next releaseNow that Sony has revealed the technical specifications of its forthcoming console, including its powerful AMD Ryzen processor, SSD storage system for fast loading, 3D sound and 8K support, what everyone wants to know is – what will we be playing on the machine when it launches next year?Here are the rumours and expectations, some more fanciful than others, but each one a distinct and enticing possibility. Continue reading...

The great trick of online retail has been to get us to shop more and think less about how our purchases reach our homes. By Samanth SubramanianA decade ago, the British department-store chain John Lewis built itself a long warehouse, painted in gradations of sky blue. The shed, as it is called in the industry, cost £100m and covered 650,000 sq ft. Windsor Castle could easily fit inside it. John Lewis named the shed Magna Park 1, after the site where it stands: a “logistics campus” of warehouses, roads, shipping containers and truck bays east of Milton Keynes. Magna Park 1 was intended to supply the company’s stores around southern England, but almost as soon as it was finished, John Lewis realised that it wasn’t enough. The pace of e-commerce was flying, and Magna Park 1 opened in the midst of a spell in which, between 2006 and 2016, the share of John Lewis deliveries going direct to customers rose 12-fold.So John Lewis built Magna Park 2, measuring 675,000 sq ft. After that, the company realised it needed a new shed for Waitrose, its supermarket chain, where home deliveries were skyrocketing, too. “It became a bit of a standing joke,” said Philip Stanway, a regional director at Chetwoods, the architecture firm that designed and built all these facilities. “They used to come to meetings with their forecasts, and they’d say: ‘Screw this. This is the new forecast,’” Stanway said, making a scribbling motion in the manner of a John Lewis executive hastily updating the numbers. “We couldn’t build the buildings quick enough for them.” Continue reading...