Gender-neutral voice assistants and accent recognition among projects in the pipelineTechnology that can understand regional accents and gender-neutral voice assistants are among the developments expected in the voice technology field in 2020.Products such as Alexa and Siri have faced mounting criticism that the technology behind them disproportionately misunderstands women, ethnic minorities and those with accents not represented in datasets that have historically favoured white and Chinese male voices. Continue reading...
Mark Zuckerberg’s new year’s resolutions show Facebook has no plans to change its ways. At least the lip service is overIn Silicon Valley, the first week of January is reliably bookmarked by two news stories: the latest absurd and amusing products at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of his new year resolutions, which he annoyingly persists in calling “personal challengesâ€.Zuckerberg’s resolutions have evolved in tandem with Facebook itself, from the domestic and human-sized (go running, eat less meat) to the global and unwieldy (“fixing†Facebook). So it seems worth noting that 2020 is apparently the year that Zuckerberg is officially giving up. Continue reading...
by Sarah Marsh and Guardian community team on (#4XQHR)
A year on from banning self-harm images, we’d like to hear your thoughts on how the photo-sharing platform has improved the situation for peopleLast year Instagram announced that it would ban all graphic self-harm images as part of a series of changes made in response to the death of the British teenager Molly Russell.
A new campaign that encourages parents to engage with games is long overdue. It’s time for parents to overcome technophobiaFor three years, I’ve spoken at schools about video games and social media. The small groups of parents who have attended often tell me similar stories: their sons and daughters are “addicted†to Fortnite, to Pokemon, to Minecraft, and they feel powerless about what they can do. When I tell them about parental controls – built-in tools on all games machines that let you limit access to games – many are bewildered or agitated, even though such controls have been a feature of console design for a decade.Video game trade body Ukie has launched a campaign to encourage more parents and carers to use parental controls, teaming up with ex-footballer Rio Ferdinand. The organisation wants to raise awareness that everything from screen time to in-game purchases can be monitored and controlled. Last year, an NSPCC study found that only 19% of parents with children aged five to 15 use family controls on internet-connected devices. Continue reading...
Exclusive: former Microsoft contractor says he was emailed login after minimal vettingA Microsoft programme to transcribe and vet audio from Skype and Cortana, its voice assistant, ran for years with “no security measuresâ€, according to a former contractor who says he reviewed thousands of potentially sensitive recordings on his personal laptop from his home in Beijing over the two years he worked for the company.The recordings, both deliberate and accidentally invoked activations of the voice assistant, as well as some Skype phone calls, were simply accessed by Microsoft workers through a web app running in Google’s Chrome browser, on their personal laptops, over the Chinese internet, according to the contractor. Continue reading...
The Consumer Electronics Show opened this week in Las Vegas with more than 4,400 companies exhibiting, including 1,200 startups. CES 2020 features the latest transformative technologies, including 5G, artificial intelligence, vehicle technology and digital health. The four-day show is a place for companies to unveil their products and services for the coming year Continue reading...
After decade of setting individual goals, Facebook CEO weighs in on ‘next computing platform’ and ‘new forms of governance’It had almost become a tradition. For the past decade, Facebook employees and tech journalists closely monitored Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook profile at the start of January for signs of the CEO’s annual personal challenge. Zuckerberg’s goals have ranged from traditional new year’s resolutions like running, learning a new language or eating more vegetables to broader efforts veering on the political that fueled speculation he might one day run for office.Related: A brutal year: how the 'techlash' caught up with Facebook, Google and Amazon Continue reading...
Measure is aimed at preventing antisocial behaviour and improving quality of discussionTwitter users will be able to prevent others from replying to their tweets, the company has announced, in a move it hopes will prevent antisocial behaviour on the platform while improving the quality of conversation for all.But the new features could undercut the social network’s ambition to prevent the spread of misinformation. It is unclear how Twitter intends to reconcile the two goals. Continue reading...
Product search tools help you find a phone, PC or camera if you know the specs you wantMy Samsung S8 has given up the ghost, and the prohibitive cost of repair means I’m in the market for a new mobile phone. I’ve come up with a wishlist of specifications. Are there any phones due in the coming months that offer all of these? I don’t believe anything currently on the market does. DeclanThere are four obvious problems with having a list of specifications for the device you want to buy, whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, laptop, digital camera or whatever. The first and biggest problem is that it can easily eliminate most of the products on the market or, in your case, all of them. In fact, it’s a problem I share: nobody offers a laptop that meets my most-desired specification, though a few come close. Continue reading...
by Samuel Gibbs Consumer technology editor on (#4XN8C)
Top-end smart TV box can’t quite live up to the promise of the voice-controlled TV commanderThe Fire TV Cube is Amazon’s attempt to combine a smart TV streaming box with an Alexa-powered smart speaker, producing a small black box that doubles as an Echo device.The Cube doesn’t look like anything else. The combination of shiny and matt black plastic makes it stand out at first, but the 86mm-wide and 77mm-tall cube is small enough not to be distracting sitting next to your TV. Continue reading...
North Wales police and crime commissioner criticises plans for Cardiff and Swansea clashOne of the most senior policing figures in Wales has warned that the use of facial recognition technology at the country’s biggest football derby this weekend could create miscarriages of justice.Arfon Jones, a veteran Welsh police officer and the North Wales police and crime commissioner, has expressed grave concern about the deployment of the surveillance technology at Sunday’s clash between Cardiff City and Swansea City. Continue reading...
From the Kama Sutra bed that helps you try out new positions to a robot that brings you toilet roll, this year’s consumer electronics exhibition in Las Vegas is full of bizarre inventionsName: Kama Sutra bed.Age: Well the Kama Sutra itself, the Sanskrit text on sexuality, is about 2,400 years old. This bed is more recent. In fact, it is yet to come on to the market. Continue reading...
Currency firm still offline as hackers demand $3m to stop release of customers’ dataTravelex staff have had to write out paper invoices for customers as the foreign currency firm continues to be without computer systems after hackers took control, demanding a $3m ransom.Travelex was forced to take down its global websites on 1 January after criminals attacked on its computer system on New Year’s Eve using Sodinokibi ransomware. Continue reading...
Male culture and a lack of role models are stopping female academics from launching companies based on their researchThe first time Olivia Champion pitched a business idea based on her academic research was so disheartening she nearly gave up. The 10-strong panel she faced were all men, bar a few women responsible for administration and taking minutes. Their first question was: “Why are you here?â€â€œIt took the wind out of my sails immediately,†she says. “I thought, ‘Blimey. This is going badly.’†Continue reading...
Decision to have president’s daughter deliver keynote invited scathing criticism, especially from women in the tech industryIvanka Trump’s appearance at a major technology conference in Las Vegas has been met with a backlash from industry figures, who denounced her “privilege†and lack of tech qualifications.Trump spoke in a keynote session on Tuesday afternoon at CES, a consumer electronics trade show, on “the path to the future of workâ€. In an interview with Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which organizes the show, she addressed technology’s role in creating and enabling the workforce of the future. Continue reading...
Aerial ridesharing would allow for a pilot and three passengers at speeds of up to 180mphUber has unveiled plans for a flying taxi at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The ride-sharing company on Tuesday showed off a full-size mock-up of the electric plane concept vehicle created with South Korean carmaker Hyundai, as it seeks to fly above traffic rather than add to it.Uber wants to offer aerial ridesharing, allowing a pilot and three passengers to take city trips of up to 60 miles at a speed of up to 180mph. Resembling a winged helicopter and featuring four propellers, Uber and Hyundai joined forces to design a personal air vehicle, or PAV, which can take off and land vertically. Continue reading...
Cyber-attack forced currency exchange firm to take down all its global websitesThe foreign currency specialist Travelex is reportedly being held to ransom by hackers who launched a cyber-attack a week ago that forced the firm to take down all of its global websites.Criminals are thought to be demanding about $3m (£2.3m) – to give the firm access to its computer systems after they attacked using the Sodinokibi ransomware on 31 December. Continue reading...
Royal Mail’s set of 12 postage stamps traces Britain’s role at the forefront of the games industry through the 1980s and 90sA new set of postage stamps will celebrate the history of the British video game industry, from groundbreaking space sim Elite to blockbusting action adventure Tomb Raider.Each of the 12 stamps in the collection features an image from a memorable and influential game, tracing the history of the industry from the 1980s. Also featured are classic titles such as Dizzy, Populous, Lemmings and Sensible Soccer. Continue reading...
Critics say policy does not cover ‘shallow fakes’ – videos made using conventional editing toolsFacebook has announced a new policy banning AI-manipulated “deepfake†videos that are likely to mislead viewers into thinking someone “said words that they did not actually sayâ€, as the social network prepares for the 2020 US election.But the policy explicitly covers only misinformation produced using AI, meaning “shallow fakes†– videos made using conventional editing tools – though frequently just as misleading, are still allowed on the platform. Continue reading...
It claims to help New Yorkers ‘stay safe and informed’. But its constant updates play on our worst rubbernecking instinctsOn the second day of the new year, I awoke to the news that a man had been assaulted on 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue, and there had been a fist fight on the east side of Central Park. The previous day, the morning update featured an overnight fight at a Burger King in Hell’s Kitchen, possibly involving an ice pick, and an assault involving a knife 10 blocks south of my apartment. In both cases the news, which was reported to some 4,000 people in the vicinity with the Citizen app on their phones, was prefaced with demands from the app to turn on push notifications and the entreaty, “Keep your loved ones safe with urgent crime and safety alerts near them in New York.â€Related: 'We will not let up': activists protest NYPD subway crackdown Continue reading...
Surge in processing industry will increase Ireland’s already too high carbon emissionsInside Digital Realty’s Dublin data centre, racks of shiny black servers throb and whirr as unseen fans cool machines that steadily process unending data.It operates 24 hours a day from the business park, sited on a former orchard, and the data joins a digital torrent in an underground fibre ring network that sweeps around the Irish capital and connects to undersea cables – the physical backbones of the digital world. Continue reading...
Ross LaJeunesse, former head of international relations, says he was forced out after reporting discriminatory practicesA former Google executive claims he was pushed out of the company over his advocacy of human rights, alleging in a public blogpost that the company is increasingly putting profits over people.Ross LaJeunesse, the former head of international relations at Google and now a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Maine, said he was forced to leave the company after reporting discriminatory practices, and that his work to combat censorship was at odds with Google’s desires to expand into a growing market in China. Continue reading...
City firms experimenting with tech that flags harassment but critics question effectivenessArtificial intelligence programmers are developing bots that can identify digital bullying and sexual harassment.Known as “#MeTooBots†after the high-profile movement that arose after allegations against the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, the bots can monitor and flag communications between colleagues and are being introduced by companies around the world. Continue reading...
Amid the calamitous effects of climate change, artificial intelligence could make the difference between a livable future or a dystopian oneFuturism is a mug’s game: if you’re right, it seems banal; if you’re wrong, you look like the founder of IBM, Thomas Watson, when he declared in 1943 that there is room in the world “for maybe five computersâ€.David Adams knew these risks when he wrote about the future of technology in the Guardian in 2004 – even citing the very same prediction as an example of how they can go awry. And from our vantage point in 2020, Adams certainly did a better job than Watson. When he looked ahead to today, he avoided many of the pitfalls of technology prediction: no promises about flying cars nor sci-fi tech such as teleportation or faster-than-light travel. Continue reading...
Currency specialist says no customer data appears to have been compromised by virusThe foreign currency specialist Travelex has been forced to take its websites offline following a cyber-attack.The group said it immediately took down its online systems to protect data and prevent the software virus spreading after discovering the attack on New Year’s Eve. Continue reading...
Revealed: emails show group of employees who called for stronger climate action by the company were told they risked dismissalAmazon has threatened to fire employees for speaking publicly about the company’s role in the climate crisis, tech workers at the retail giant have revealed.Related: Trump campaign credits impeachment for helping to fundraise $46m – live Continue reading...
by Edward Helmore in New York and agencies on (#4X9W6)
Technique allowed the tech giant to delay paying US taxes on international earnings for years, and pay a lower tax rate overseasInternational tax authorities were welcoming in the new year after Google’s parent company, Alphabet, announced it will no longer use a notorious tax loophole known as the “Double Irish, Dutch sandwichâ€.The technique allowed the tech giant to delay paying US taxes on international earnings for years, and pay a lower tax rate overseas. It is thought to have allowed American companies to cut their tax bills by hundreds of billions of dollars, but is finally being closed by authorities. Continue reading...
by Associated Press in Gardena, California on (#4X9PT)
Authorities assign investigation team that specializes in Autopilot system incidents to inspect Tesla Model S that hit Honda CivicThe US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a crash involving a speeding Tesla that killed two people in a Los Angeles suburb, the agency said on Tuesday.Related: Video appears to show Tesla driver asleep at the wheel Continue reading...
Racist slurs and bizarre jokes were briefly tweeted to the singer’s 21.4 million followers in an apparent trolling effortMariah Carey’s Twitter account appeared to have been hacked late Tuesday afternoon, sharing numerous racist slurs and comments with the singer’s 21.4 million followers on the platform.It’s unclear who’s behind the hack, and the pop star did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Continue reading...
Consumer-electronics trade show’s invitation of Donald Trump’s daughter draws outrage after years of overlooking women in techCES, the leading consumer-electronics trade show, is facing criticism after picking Ivanka Trump to serve as its keynote speaker next month in Las Vegas, after years of being accused of overlooking the role of women in technology.Related: Fox News drew in highest ever number of viewers in 2019 Continue reading...
With ever more tech in our lives, our data is vulnerable. Here are our six top tips to keep it safe in the new yearTechnology is changing our lives for the better; yet it’s also exposing us to organised crime, online scammers and hackers – and whole industries built around monetising our personal data. But you don’t have to be resigned to cyber-victimhood. Give yourself, and your devices, a security update for 2020 and start fighting back. Continue reading...
Chairman Eric Xu warns that hit from US sanctions means telecoms firm must ‘go all out’ to maintain salesThe embattled Chinese telecommunications company Huawei says “survival†is its first priority after announcing sales were hit hard by a boycott from western countries.Eric Xu, the company’s chairman, said estimated sales revenue would reach 850bn yuan for 2019 (US$121bn) - up roughly 18% from the previous year, but much lower than initially expected. Continue reading...
The ads, which were on Facebook for months before the company acted, contained false claims about side effects of anti-HIV drugsFacebook has quietly removed false and misleading ads about HIV-prevention medications after months of pressure from LGBTQ+ and health organizations.Fifty organizations including Glaad and PrEP4All started a public campaign in December, arguing that the social media platform was putting “real people’s lives in imminent danger†by refusing to remove targeted ads containing medically incorrect claims about the side effects of HIV-prevention medications such as Truvada. Continue reading...
First 15 Model 3 electric cars go to employees and US firm will ramp up production in 2020Tesla has delivered the first vehicles it has made in China, marking a major milestone in the electric carmaker’s global expansion efforts.The first 15 Model 3 cars to roll off the line at the US carmaker’s Shanghai factory went to customers who were Tesla employees and were handed over in a ceremony at the plant on Monday. Continue reading...
CCTV commissioner says he gets many queries about facial recognition and other toolsPolice forces, hospitals and councils struggle to understand how to use artificial intelligence because of a lack of clear ethical guidance from the government, according to the country’s only surveillance regulator.The surveillance camera commissioner, Tony Porter, said he received requests for guidance all the time from public bodies which do not know where the limits lie when it comes to the use of facial, biometric and lip-reading technology. Continue reading...
The world over, species, landscapes and natural resources are threatened by seemingly untamable wildfiresThe Australian Koala Foundation has declared koalas to be “functionally extinctâ€, after fears of 2,000 of them being killed as more than 100 bushfires struck south-eastern Australia. However, the claim has been criticised since there are still an estimated 15,000-28,000 koalas in New South Wales. Even so, it is believed that the species will be extinct by 2050 if its habitat is continually undermined. Continue reading...
Shadowy firms collect detailed data on where we go and who we meet through our apps. Yet where is the protest that would fuel change?When the history of our time comes to be written, one of the things that will puzzle historians (assuming any have survived the climate cataclysm) is why we allowed ourselves to sleepwalk into dystopia. Ever since 9/11, it’s been clear that western democracies had embarked on a programme of comprehensive monitoring of their citizenry, usually with erratic and inadequate democratic oversight. But we only began to get a fuller picture of the extent of this surveillance when Edward Snowden broke cover in the summer of 2013.For a time, the dramatic nature of the Snowden revelations focused public attention on the surveillance activities of the state. In consequence, we stopped thinking about what was going on in the private sector. The various scandals of 2016, and the role that network technology played in the political upheavals of that year, constituted a faint alarm call about what was happening, but in general our peaceful slumbers resumed: we went back to our smartphones and the tech giants continued their appropriation, exploitation and abuse of our personal data without hindrance. And this continued even though a host of academic studies and a powerful book by Shoshana Zuboff showed that, as the cybersecurity guru Bruce Schneier put it, “the business model of the internet is surveillanceâ€. Continue reading...
Privacy scandals and antitrust issues dogged social media giants and the online retailer saw a rise in employee organizingWhat goes up must come down, and in 2019, gravity reasserted itself for the tech industry.After years of relatively unchecked growth, the tech industry found itself on the receiving end of increased scrutiny from lawmakers and the public and attacks from its own employees. Continue reading...
Software for fighting cybercrime in Ghana and tools for speeding up cervical cancer diagnosis in Uganda are among innovations recognised by the judges of this year’s Africa prizeThe Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa prize, now in its sixth year, is the continent’s biggest award for engineering innovation. Sixteen African inventors from six countries – including, for the first time, Malawi – have been shortlisted to receive funding, training and mentoring for projects intended to revolutionise sectors ranging from agriculture and banking to women’s health. The winner will be awarded £25,000 and the three runners-up will receive £10,000 each.This year’s inventions include facial recognition software to prevent financial fraud, a low-cost digital microscope to speed up cervical cancer diagnosis, and two separate innovations made from water hyacinth plants. Four inventors spoke to the Guardian about their innovations and their plans to change Africa for the better. Continue reading...
Lawsuit, which lists seven similar hacking incidents, argues that the camera systems are ‘fatally flawed’A man in Alabama is suing the Amazon-owned home security company Ring, claiming his internet-connected camera was hacked and used to harass his children.Ring user John Baker Orange purchased a Ring camera in July 2019 and in recent weeks allegedly experienced a chilling cybersecurity breach involving his children aged seven, nine, and 10, according to the lawsuit. Continue reading...
Carmaker says it expects to reach 1m by end of 2023 and 1.5m by end of 2025Volkswagen has accelerated its push into electric cars, as company forecasts suggest the world’s largest carmaker will produce its millionth battery electric vehicle two years earlier than previously planned.The core Volkswagen brand will have turned out 1m battery-only cars by the end of 2023 and will reach 1.5m by the end of 2025, the Wolfsburg-based manufacturer said on Friday. Continue reading...
For some farmers in New Zealand, Britain and Australia, drones are not just a toy – they’re an increasingly vital toolA shepherd is out tending a flock when a presence appears above. It descends from the sky and communicates vital information. It may sound like a nativity scene, but for an increasing number of farmers it’s a daily occurrence – and that celestial being is a drone.Corey Lambeth, a New Zealand farmer, originally purchased a drone for photography, but he quickly realised the device had more practical applications. “I thought ‘I’ll just give it a nudge on the sheep and see what that goes like’ and it actually worked out quite well,†he says. Now, Lambeth has been using a drone “pretty much as another dog†to muster sheep for three years. Continue reading...
Big tech behaves as though power absolves them of responsibility. Have we learned nothing since the financial crash?Towards the end of the last decade, two American social networks – Facebook and MySpace – were locked in a battle to conquer the rest of the world.The two companies took “radically different†approaches to their global expansions, TechCrunch reported at the time. MySpace spent time and money building local infrastructure for each new market – hiring a team on the ground, translating the site and performing outreach to local musicians and artists. Facebook simply enlisted volunteers to crowdsource the site’s translation into new languages, starting with Spanish, then German, French and more. Continue reading...
Google, Amazon and Facebook moved at a scale and speed governments couldn’t match. Now regulators are trying to catch upThe 2010s will be remembered for a new era in the development of capitalism, one of mind-boggling scale. Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are closing the decade as the world’s first trillion-dollar companies. Last year, Apple’s revenue was larger than Vietnam’s GDP, while Amazon’s research and development spending alone is almost as much as Iceland’s GDP. Facebook boasts 2.4 billion users, a population larger than that of every continent except Asia.Related: The dark side of tech: why the Guardian asks tough questions about Silicon Valley Continue reading...
This single piece of technology has obliterated the promise of the internet and corrupted human interactionIn the long lost year of 2011, I managed to graduate college without owning a smartphone. Even then, four years after the birth of the iPhone, I was not yet an unreasonable outlier. All my immediate friends owned flip phones. The pressure to join the future had not yet overtaken us.Related: Israeli spyware allegedly used to target Pakistani officials' phones Continue reading...
From Black Lives Matter to #OscarsSoWhite, the decade would not have been the same without black voices on social mediaThere is power in numbers. No internet subsection displayed this fact better than Black Twitter, which touched nearly every sphere of American culture and politics this decade.In the 2010s Black Twitter become a cultural force to be reckoned with. It promoted Black Lives Matter and raised awareness around the tragic deaths of Sandra Bland and Eric Garner through hashtags such as #SayHerName and #ICantBreathe. Its anger over Kevin Hart’s homophobic tweets pressured him to drop out as a host for the 2018 Oscars ceremony. It pressured Pepsi to retract and apologize for a Kendall Jenner-fronted commercial accused of co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement. It created hundreds of delightfully viral moments such as “eyebrows on fleekâ€. And it helped a wild 180-tweet thread – in which a stripper recounts an adventure-filled road trip to Florida – become an A24-produced, feature-length film. Continue reading...
Technology | The Guardian