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Company is listed as a ‘gold circle’ sponsor for rightwing group Federalist Society dinner where justice will be keynote speakerFacebook is facing criticism for sponsoring the annual gala dinner of the Federalist Society, the powerful rightwing legal group behind the nomination of the conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh.Related: Nancy Pelosi accuses Trump of bribery after first public impeachment hearing – live Continue reading...

Google’s reputation has remained relatively unscathed despite behaviors similar to Facebook’s. This could be the tipping pointFew things are certain in the American healthcare system – except for the paperwork. The tedious ritual of signing forms authorizing new providers to access our medical history is the result of a rarity for Americans: thanks to the first amendment, we have few rights and little expectation of privacy, except when it comes to our medical records. Even doctors who have our best interests at heart must get permission to access our data under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (Hipaa).So it was truly shocking to learn this week that a business partnership between Google and Ascension, a major hospital chain and health insurer, has resulted in the transfer of 50 million Americans’ most intimate medical records to the Silicon Valley company, without the knowledge or consent of those 50 million patients. Even more alarming, the records are not de-identified, and a whistleblower disclosed to the Guardian serious concerns about the program, including that individual staffers have downloaded patient records. Continue reading...

App-centric box is like a smart TV combined with a video recorder, with access to almost everythingVirgin Media is Sky’s long-time rival in the pay-TV space, delivering TV coverage through its own cable network to its latest V6 box. Positioned as the king of the aggregators where you can get everyone’s channels for cheaper, does Virgin deliver?First things first, Virgin TV only works if you happen to live in a cable area, which immediately makes its availability smaller than Sky, BT or the others. Virgin currently covers over 50% of UK households with a target to reach 53% by the end of 2020. Continue reading...

Angela is a light internet user and is wondering if she could make do with an older, slower ADSL serviceI signed up for fibre broadband a couple of years ago but am now wondering whether it is worth the cost. The only devices I use in my home are a six-year-old Toshiba Satellite L870 laptop and a Samsung tablet. I use them for email, web browsing and watching BBC iPlayer, but not much else. The laptop runs Windows 10 and works well enough so I don’t have any immediate plans to replace it.If I revert to ordinary broadband, will I notice a reduction in performance in either device? AngelaYou should notice a difference, because your “fibre” connection is probably about five times faster than you will get from ADSL2. However, for your purposes, the difference may not matter. Continue reading...

Study finds Robert F Kennedy Jr’s World Mercury Project and Larry Cook’s Stop Mandatory Vaccinations bought 54% of adsThe majority of Facebook ads spreading misinformation about vaccines are funded by two organizations run by well-known anti-vaccination activists, a new study in the journal Vaccine has found.The World Mercury Project chaired by Robert F Kennedy Jr, and Stop Mandatory Vaccinations, a project of campaigner Larry Cook, bought 54% of the anti-vaccine ads shown on the platform during the study period. Continue reading...

Karatbars used former football stars Lothar Matthäus, Roberto Carlos and Patrick Kluivert to promote productsA German cryptocurrency company that used the former football stars Lothar Matthäus, Roberto Carlos and Patrick Kluivert to promote its products has been ordered by a German watchdog to wind up its blockchain-based business after allegations it was luring customers into a pyramid scheme.Karatbars, founded by a Stuttgart-born former vacuum cleaner salesman, Harald Seiz, in 2011, has promised to revolutionise the world’s financial system through its internet-based currency. Continue reading...

News of service called Cache comes day after whistleblower sounded alarm over secret transfer of personal medical dataGoogle is preparing to launch a personal checking account service, a move that comes as its big tech rivals are increasingly focused on consumer finance.The project, in partnership with Citigroup and code-named Cache, is expected to launch next year. Continue reading...

A group of Facebook workers say they are treated as if they ‘do not belong’ at the companyOne year after a former Facebook manager accused the company of having “a black people problem” – failing its black employees by allowing the proliferation of a hostile workplace culture — an anonymous group of tech workers at the social media giant have penned a letter in which they argue that the problem has only metastasized.“Racism, discrimination, bias, and aggression do not come from the big moments,” they write. “It’s in the small actions that mount up over time and build into a culture where we are only meant to be seen as quotas, but never heard, never acknowledged, never recognized, and never accepted.” Continue reading...

US electric carmaker will build battery factory in Berlin, says boss Elon MuskThe Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, has said Brexit uncertainty played a role in the firm’s decision to build its first European factory in Germany rather than the UK.The billionaire entrepreneur revealed that the firm’s European battery plant would be built on the outskirts of Berlin. Continue reading...

Fears about overtourism have prompted the new holiday rental website to ban properties owned by businesses and donate 50% of commission to community projectsEthical holiday rental website Fairbnb.coop has launched its reservations system offering travellers a chance to book in at city apartments that support community projects. The site aims to be a marketplace for “authentic, fair and conscious tourism” and promises to donate 50% of its commission to social projects selected by local residents.“In Amsterdam the money will go to a community gardening project in the north and an urban agriculture project for migrant women in the south-east – both poorer parts of the city,” said Fairbnb.coop’s Spanish founder, Sito Veracruz. Continue reading...

Legislation that reverses onus of proof described as ‘a dangerous precedent’New South Wales courts could be flooded with tens of thousands of cases every year if the NSW government moves ahead with plans to roll out cameras that use artificial intelligence to detect drivers using their mobile phones, a parliamentary committee has warned.The state parliament is considering legislation that would allow mobile phone detection cameras to be placed around NSW to capture drivers using their mobile phones while behind the wheel. The government estimates that there were at least 158 casualties on NSW roads between 2012 and 2018 involving mobile phones. Continue reading...

Company has confirmed system bug in the latest version of iOS app, and said it is submitting a fix to AppleA system bug has been allowing Facebook to access iPhone cameras as users scroll through their feed, the company confirmed on Tuesday.Twitter user Joshua Maddux tweeted a screen recording this weekend that showed his iPhone camera would open as he scrolled through his social media feed. Other users had also noticed the glitch earlier in the month, one calling it “a little worrying”. Continue reading...

Speakers at event in Oxford say ‘junk news’ tools pioneered by Russians now originate in UKMisinformation techniques first deployed by Russian agents are now more commonly used in Britain by the far right, as well as by politicians to convince their own voters, an audience in Oxford has been told.At an event hosted by Oxford University’s Internet Institute, which has been studying the effects of “computational propaganda” in elections around the world, speakers said the evidence of foreign interference in Britain’s election was slim, but that strategies first deployed by foreign actors were still going strong. The event was held under the Chatham House rule, meaning speakers can be quoted but not named. Continue reading...

Whistleblower tells Guardian of growing alarm over secret transfer of medical history data, which can be accessed by Google staffA whistleblower who works in Project Nightingale, the secret transfer of the personal medical data of up to 50 million Americans from one of the largest healthcare providers in the US to Google, has expressed anger to the Guardian that patients are being kept in the dark about the massive deal.Related: Mick Mulvaney drops impeachment lawsuit but will not comply with House subpoena – live Continue reading...

The pop star, who shunned mobile phones before the iPhone era, joins Elton John and Werner Herzog in his abstinenceDespite being one of the UK’s most successful pop stars, with millions of social media followers to keep updated, Robbie Williams has revealed he hasn’t owned a phone since 2006.Speaking on football talk show Back of the Net, Williams said: “I haven’t owned a phone since 2006. I’m always on my computer, I’ve always got Wi-Fi … I got rid of [my phone] because I just don’t like them.” Continue reading...

After the 2016 US election, some fear online interference could create political chaos in the UK. The truth is more complexWe’re now well into the “phoney war” period of the election – where on the surface all seems calm. Parliament has been prorogued, there have been a few early jabs, and a consensus is already beginning to emerge about how everything will play out online.Related: Ex-Johnson aide behind banned Facebook ad worked on fake grassroots campaign Continue reading...

The id Software founder talks about secret rooms, the value of guns and what the controversial genre has lost since the 1990s“Give us more guns!” is a common battle-cry among players of first-person shooters, the videogame industry’s bloodiest genre. Doom co-creator John Romero has a rather different opinion.“I would rather have fewer things with more meaning, than a million things you don’t identify with,” he says, sitting in a Berlin bar mocked up to resemble a 1920s Chicago speakeasy. “I would rather spend more time with a gun and make sure the gun’s design is really deep – that there’s a lot of cool stuff you learn about it.” Continue reading...

Adding a screen for the time transforms the Echo Dot into the best bedroom smart speakerAmazon has a new twist on its popular cut-price Echo Dot smart speaker, now setting its sights squarely on your beleaguered bedside alarm clock with a new LED display embedded in the side.The Echo Dot with Clock is one of those true Ronseal products - it says what it does on the tin. It is literally the same as the excellent third-generation Echo Dot, but is only available in white and has a white LED display showing the time peeking through the fabric side. Continue reading...

Calculating the patterns and cycles of the past could lead us to a better understanding of history. Could it also help us prevent a looming crisis? By Laura SpinneyIn its first issue of 2010, the scientific journal Nature looked forward to a dazzling decade of progress. By 2020, experimental devices connected to the internet would deduce our search queries by directly monitoring our brain signals. Crops would exist that doubled their biomass in three hours. Humanity would be well on the way to ending its dependency on fossil fuels.A few weeks later, a letter in the same journal cast a shadow over this bright future. It warned that all these advances could be derailed by mounting political instability, which was due to peak in the US and western Europe around 2020. Human societies go through predictable periods of growth, the letter explained, during which the population increases and prosperity rises. Then come equally predictable periods of decline. These “secular cycles” last two or three centuries and culminate in widespread unrest – from worker uprisings to revolution. Continue reading...

Company reportedly gets access to health records across 21 US states via alliance with Ascension, a leading providerGoogle’s announcement of a partnership with a major healthcare provider raises fresh privacy concerns as the tech company expands its footprint into the healthcare industry.Monday’s announcement comes after the Wall Street Journal revealed Google had won access to health-related information of millions of Americans across 21 states through the partnership with Ascension – the second-largest healthcare system in the US. Continue reading...

Dara Khosrowshahi scrambles after saying Saudi Arabia’s murder of dissident was a ‘mistake’ similar to self-driving car accidentDara Khosrowshahi, the chief executive of Uber, has attempted to limit the damage after calling the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi “a mistake” similar to a fatal accident that occurred during tests of his company’s self-driving car.Related: The Killing in the Consulate by Jonathan Rugman review – a dark fable of unaccountable power Continue reading...

Social media platforms do have a role to play, but real change requires political parties to take responsibility

Apps and wearable devices are touted as a way to transform health. But are we too obsessed by the ‘quantified self’?Martin Lewis owns his obsessiveness about counting steps with something approaching pride.“I’ve never done less than 10,000 steps in any day for the last three years,” he says. “But to be honest, if I do just 10,000 steps, I’m never happy. My average is nearer 25,000. It’s an obsession.” Continue reading...

Manufacturers claim their products taste like the real thing, have huge ecological benefits and could soon be in our homesAfter the success of the Greggs vegan sausage roll and the juicy-yet-meatless Impossible Burger, the next new food sensation is coming to a plate near you: 3D-printed steaks and chicken thighs.Printed meat could be on European restaurant menus from next year as Israeli and Spanish firms serve up realistic beef and chicken produced from plant protein. And, within a few years, the printers are likely to be available to buy so that consumers can produce their own at home. Continue reading...

There’s something unsettling about a private firm making powerful autonomous machines – but what’s scarier is who’s building them, and whyEarlier this year, videos of a robot being kicked, hit with a chair, and shot at by its human owners spread online. Created by an LA-based production company, Corridor Digital, the videos were a parody of those released by Boston Dynamics, a company that has been making robots since 1992.Related: Steve McQueen's school sensation, R2-D2 and a hi-tech Leonardo – the week in art Continue reading...

Easy-to-access activities that help to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and the risk of heart diseaseLast week, research published by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that running can reduce the risk of early death regardless of how long or at what speed you run. The research focused on 14 previous studies based on six different groups of participants, totalling more than 230,000 people over a period of between 5.5 and 35 years. The authors reported that any amount of running, even just once a week, is better than no running at all. Continue reading...

Goldman Sachs faces official inquiry as IT figures including Steve Wozniak say they got 10 times or more the credit limit received by their wivesThe algorithm used to set credit limits for the new Apple Card will be the subject of an official investigation, following tweets from a tech entrepreneur blasting the company for gender discrimination.New York’s Department of Financial Services has initiated the probe into the credit card practices of Goldman Sachs, which provides the Apple Card. In a series of Twitter posts starting on Thursday, David Heinemeier Hansson railed against the Apple Card for giving him 20 times the credit limit that his wife got, Bloomberg reported on Saturday. Continue reading...

Images of queer and plus-sized bodies are not ‘sexually suggestive’ content. So why is Instagram blocking them?Vulnerable and marginalised communities on Instagram have been calling for a wider conversation to address what they say is the platform’s censoring of queer and plus-sized bodies.Related: Instagram tightens rules on diet and cosmetic surgery posts Continue reading...

Jet-propelled British vehicle tested in South Africa before attempt to beat 763mph in 2020Under the blistering Kalahari sun, a British-made machine that looks like a mash-up between a grand prix car, a fighter plane and a spaceship has broken the 500mph mark as it bids to break the land-speed record.There have been a few frights and hitches – including a fire scare – but the hope is that within the next few days Bloodhound LSR, which has been taking shape in a college workshop on the banks of the River Severn in Gloucestershire, will whizz through the desert at about 600mph. Continue reading...

The new app Lex was born out of Personals, a photo-free Instagram service that emulated traditional newspaper ads

As implants grow more common, experts fear surveillance and exploitation of workers. Advocates say the concerns are irrationalOn 1 August 2017, workers at Three Square Market, a Wisconsin-based company specializing in vending machines, lined up in the office cafeteria to be implanted with microchips. One after the other, they held out a hand to a local tattoo artist who pushed a rice-grain sized implant into the flesh between the thumb and forefinger. The 41 employees who opted into the procedure received complimentary t-shirts that read “I Got Chipped”.This wholesale implant event, organized by company management, dovetailed with Three Square Market’s longer-term vision of a cashless payment system for their vending machines – workplace snacks purchased with a flick of the wrist. And the televised “chipping party” proved to be a savvy marketing tactic, the story picked up by media outlets from Moscow to Sydney. Continue reading...

This year’s BlizzCon, a 35,000-strong event in California for fans of World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone, was embroiled in a battle over free speech and ChinaEric did not imagine this would be how he would spend his first BlizzCon. The 26-year-old World of Warcraft (WoW) player from Glendale, California, was at the annual fan event in Anaheim held by Blizzard, the games company behind global hits such as Warcraft, Overwatch and more. Each year, more than 35,000 people pack into the city’s vast convention centre to play games, attend talks and share in their fandom.But at this year’s event, held last weekend, there was a different feel. Instead of WoW cosplay, Eric was sporting a mask as worn by Hong Kong protesters to shield their faces from tear gas and facial recognition. And rather than joining in with the hype during panels about the forthcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion, he was outside the convention centre handing out “Liberate Hong Kong” flyers, adorned with the protestors’ adopted symbol, the Overwatch character Mei. Continue reading...

Like the big banks, big tech uses its lobbying muscle to avoid regulation, and thinks it should play by different rules. And like the banks, it could be about to wreak financial havoc on us all. By Rana Foroohar‘In every major economic downturn in US history, the ‘villains’ have been the ‘heroes’ during the preceding boom,” said the late, great management guru Peter Drucker. I cannot help but wonder if that might be the case over the next few years, as the United States (and possibly the world) heads toward its next big slowdown. Downturns historically come about once every decade, and it has been more than that since the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, banks were the “too-big-to-fail” institutions responsible for our falling stock portfolios, home prices and salaries. Technology companies, by contrast, have led the market upswing over the past decade. But this time around, it is the big tech firms that could play the spoiler role.You wouldn’t think it could be so when you look at the biggest and richest tech firms today. Take Apple. Warren Buffett says he wished he owned even more Apple stock. (His Berkshire Hathaway has a 5% stake in the company.) Goldman Sachs is launching a new credit card with the tech titan, which became the world’s first $1tn market-cap company in 2018. But hidden within these bullish headlines are a number of disturbing economic trends, of which Apple is already an exemplar. Study this one company and you begin to understand how big tech companies – the new too-big-to-fail institutions – could indeed sow the seeds of the next crisis. Continue reading...

Competition watchdog says fibre-to-node gives advertised download speed less often than other technologies

Social network says scrutiny that followed edited clip serves accountabilityFacebook would allow the Conservative party to promote its “doctored” video of Keir Starmer as a paid-for advert during the election campaign, the social network has confirmed. But the company has announced a policy aimed at cracking down on pages that conceal their ownership in order to mislead users.The executive Rebecca Stimson said the public debate that followed the airing of footage of the senior Labour MP in an ITV interview justified the company’s policy of allowing political misinformation on the site. Continue reading...

Reports say firms may act over concerns that practice risks damaging democratic normsGoogle and Facebook are both considering new rules banning the micro-targeting of political ads, according to reports.Critics of political advertising online have long worried that the ability to display specific messages to small sections of the electorate runs the risk of damaging democratic norms, by allowing candidates to present different platforms to different demographics. Continue reading...

The best pay-TV experience comes at significant cost, but at least you get what you pay forThree years on from launch, Sky’s Q pay-TV service has changed quite a lot, and so has the competition, both from old and new players. So is the satellite broadcaster’s box still the one to beat?When Q launched in 2016 it dragged Sky’s pay-TV platform kicking and screaming into the TV-anywhere age first ushered in by services such as Netflix. Continue reading...

Jim doesn’t need a high-end mobile, but would like something he can rely on at a decent priceMy Nokia Lumia 820 smartphone is approaching obsolescence after six years’ use. Apart from that, I used a second-hand iPhone for a week before it failed, but I have never used an Android phone. I am clearly not someone who places a premium on having the latest phone, but I would like something I can rely on. I don’t use phones for music on the go – I still use iPods – and I very rarely watch videos on them: I use my laptop for that. I have a sim-only contract and the idea of spending £700 or so on a phone doesn’t really apply to my wants, needs or financial reality. JimEvery Windows smartphone user should be thinking about this topic, because Microsoft will stop supporting the platform roughly a month from today, on 10 December 2019. Obviously, this won’t be as traumatic for as many people as the end of Windows 7 support on 14 January 2020, but it does mark the end of an era. And the end of an error. Continue reading...

Company workers reportedly obtained personal account information of critics of the government in Saudi ArabiaTwo former Twitter employees have been charged with spying after they reportedly obtained personal account information for critics of the government of Saudi Arabia.A complaint unsealed on Wednesday in US district court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts. Continue reading...

Fitbit says data of its 28 million users will not be sold or used for Google adsGoogle’s recent acquisition of Fitbit for $2.1bn has left many users worried the tech giant may soon have access to their most intimate health information – from the number of steps they take each day to their breathing patterns, sleep quality or menstrual cycles.Fitbit, founded in San Francisco in 2007, tracks the health data of 28 million users. In a blogpost following the acquisition on Friday, Fitbit claimed user data would not be sold or used for Google advertising. “Consumer trust is paramount to Fitbit. Strong privacy and security guidelines have been part of Fitbit’s DNA since day one, and this will not change,” the company said in a statement. Continue reading...

Sarah Douglas recommends taking a break away from it all, and Chris Gibson suggests using non-smart mobilesI too am one of those incompetent and weak-willed parents alluded to in your report (The majority of 11-year-olds own smartphones. And experts are worried, 1 November), and appropriately slated in the comments. In my defence, I work in the NHS and thanks to many ill people I get home late, tired and basically incapable of parenting.The solution I have discovered is Pembrokeshire. One week here and my teenagers have walked along beaches, visited ruins, played board games and even eaten salad. A visit now and again will, hopefully, redeem them – and me – a little.

Camera with local AI for face recognition allows proactive display of personalised informationGoogle’s latest smart display is larger and can recognise your face for proactively showing you personalised information making it just that little bit smarter than competitors.The £219 Nest Hub Max is Google’s second own-brand smart display and is essentially a super-sized version of the excellent original Home Hub (now renamed Nest Hub). But where the Nest Hub is a veritable bargain at £119 or frequently much less, the Nest Hub Max is a different proposition at a little under twice the price. Continue reading...

Alex Crowley worked on ‘Mainstream Network’ campaign pushing for no-deal BrexitThe former Boris Johnson aide who was behind a Facebook ad that broke the social network’s funding disclosure rules previously worked on a fake grassroots campaign pushing for a no-deal Brexit, the Guardian can reveal.Alex Crowley, who left No 10 in September, oversaw the previous “Mainstream Network” Facebook campaign alongside employees of the lobbying firm run by Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist who helped run three Conservative general election campaigns. Continue reading...

‘I’d use them in class,’ says Izzy Jones, a London-based vice-principal, while marveling at their range and ingenuityThere is a long-held stereotype that teenagers spend a lot of time online, uninterested in real life events.People who say that clearly haven’t seen them on TikTok, where they are engaging in the unexpected: teaching history lessons. Continue reading...

Seen at BlizzCon, the new game’s trailer offers intense, cinematic story missions where upgraded favourites work togetherTeam-based multiplayer shooter Overwatch is getting a sequel: and interestingly for fans, it’ll bring story missions into the game for the first time. According to Blizzard, it will also “redefine what a sequel means”. Which is quite a claim for an online shooter.Unveiled with a crowd-pleasing cinematic trailer at annual fan convention BlizzCon last week, Overwatch 2 will introduce PvE missions in an all-new story mode, as well as a new core competitive mode, Push, a six-versus-six PvP team battle, which sees teams compete to have a robot push the map’s objective to their opponent. Continue reading...

The company’s new logo is designed to bring a ‘sense of optimism’ to the brand that brought us the Cambridge Analytica scandalForget Facebook: meet FACEBOOK.Amid antitrust investigations, Capitol Hill hearings, and a generally poor reputation, the company announced on Monday it is rebranding itself. In the coming weeks, a new multicolored, all-caps logo will begin appearing across its services. Instagram and Whatsapp, owned by the company, will proudly tell users that they are services “from FACEBOOK”. Continue reading...

Users must sit online test and pay annual fee of £9 to join register or face £1,000 fineDrone users in the UK must now sit an online test and pay a £9 annual fee or face a £1,000 fine after the launch of a mandatory national registration scheme on Tuesday.Owners are obliged to identify and label all drones by 30 November, and operators must pass a test about legal and safe usage before they can fly them. Continue reading...

The experiment for the month of August led to more efficient meetings and happier workers who took less time offMicrosoft tested out a four-day work week in its Japan offices and found as a result employees were not only happier – but significantly more productive.For the month of August, Microsoft Japan experimented with a new project called Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019, giving its entire 2,300-person workforce five Fridays off in a row without decreasing pay. Continue reading...

The corporation rents electric vehicles via Jump and has until Friday to appeal or their permit will be revokedLos Angeles has suspended Uber’s permit to rent electric scooters and bicycles because the corporation refused to follow the city’s rules on data sharing.The temporary suspension could result in the city confiscating scooters and bikes of Uber’s subsidiary Jump. It marks the latest conflict between local governments and the rideshare company, which has repeatedly flouted traditional transportation regulations. Continue reading...

Letter signed by more than 1,000 employees calls for zero emissions by 2030 in latest wave of industry climate activismMore than 1,000 Google workers have signed a public letter calling on their employer to commit to an aggressive “company-wide climate plan” that includes canceling contracts with the fossil fuel industry and halting its donations to climate change deniers.The letter, which is addressed to Google’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, also calls for zero emissions by 2030 and “zero collaboration with entities enabling the incarceration, surveillance, displacement or oppression of refugees or frontline communities”. Continue reading...