Technology | The Guardian

Tech firm beat Wall Street forecasts with $55bn in revenue, even as it faced antitrust lawsuits

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Tensions between Facebook and Apple have been growing, but is it just an attempt to get ahead of US antitrust regulators?A longstanding feud between Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook could come to a head this week, as a highly anticipated Apple operating system update will for the first time allow users to opt out of cross-platform tracking.Tensions between Facebook and Apple have been growing for some time, but the new operating system threatens to kneecap Facebook’s business model, and has turned up the heat, said Ari Lightman, a professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. Continue reading...

Social media giant gave organisation behind a page for Australian 13- to 17-year-olds option to run alcohol, smoking and gambling ads for as little as $3Facebook is allowing businesses to advertise to children as young as 13 who express an interest in smoking, extreme weight loss and gambling for as little as $3, research by the lobby group Reset Australia has found.The organisation, which is critical of digital platforms, set up a Facebook page and advertising account under the name “Ozzie news network” to see what ad options Facebook would provide through its Ads Manager platform. Continue reading...

Automated lane-keeping systems likely to be allowed only when traffic is moving slowlyMotorists could legally allow their cars to “self-drive” on British motorways later this year – but only slowly, the government has announced.Drivers could soon be allowed to read a newspaper or watch a film via the car’s built-in screen in periods of slow-moving traffic, using automated lane-keeping system (Alks) technology that makes the car stay in lane and a safe distance from other vehicles. Continue reading...

Setting means iPhone users can stop advertisers following their digital lives – to the ire of Facebook

Designer living in Buenos Aires says he snapped up google.com.ar after noticing it available in registryGoogle’s entire web presence in Argentina was last week briefly redirected to the website of a 30-year-old designer who bought the company’s domain name for just £2.Nicolas Kuroña, a resident of Buenos Aires, says he noticed that the company’s services were down when he began receiving messages from friends on WhatsApp. But rather than doing what many would have, and shrugging before returning to work – or taking the outage as a sign to have a tea break – he headed to the Argentinian domain name registry, NIC Argentina, to see if he could work out the cause. Continue reading...

Researchers are going on a bear hunt, using AI and radar to spot dens and track the threatened Arctic predatorsGenghis Khan got his dying wish: despite attempts by archaeologists and scientists to find the Mongolian ruler’s final resting place, the location remains a secret 800 years after his death. The search for his tomb, though, has inspired an innovative project that could help protect polar bears.“I randomly tuned into the radio one night and heard an expert talking about the use of synthetic aperture radar [SAR] to look for Genghis Khan’s tomb,” says Tom Smith, associate professor in plant and wildlife sciences at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah. “They were using SAR to penetrate layers of forest canopy in upper Mongolia, looking for the ruins of a burial structure.” Continue reading...

How am I supposed to wean my children off screens when they know I’m addicted too?It started, last March, as an act of necessity – sticking the kids on iPads all day so I could make a hard deadline that fell six weeks into lockdown. There was no way around this; at five years old, my kids couldn’t manage their Zoom schedules or self-entertain for long without fighting, and I couldn’t break off every two minutes to help them. Overnight, kindergarten and after-school disappeared, to be replaced with the sedative of kids YouTube, and when the appeal of that started to wane, the more addictive and ruinous content on TikTok. If it was hideous, I told myself, it was an emergency. It wouldn’t be like this for ever.A year later and in New York, at least, we’re in a radically different place. Next week my kids’ elementary school goes back full-time and although it lets out early – at 2pm – half of the city is now at least partially vaccinated, so most parents are comfortable hiring a sitter. (If they can find one, that is; indoor after-school programmes still seem risky to many, so the scramble is on for that already mythical creature, the 22-year-old sitter only looking for two hours work a day.) Things are, on the surface, starting to look vaguely like normal. Continue reading...

Such an update would be another signal that Covid lockdown entertainment boom is over

The bosses of Tesla and Amazon want to take humans to Mars and beyond – but won’t show basic humanity on EarthElon Musk’s SpaceX just won a $2.9bn Nasa contract to land astronauts on the moon, beating out Jeff Bezos.Related: Revive the US space program? How about not | Nicholas Russell Continue reading...

Tech boss ‘proud’ to be working with space agencies as astronauts begin six-month missionFour astronauts on board Elon Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft have successfully docked at the International Space Station (ISS) for a six-month mission.Frenchman Thomas Pesquet is the first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut to fly in the billionaire tech entrepreneur’s space capsule, alongside Nasa’s Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, and Jaxa’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Akihiko Hoshide, who is on his second mission to the space station. Continue reading...

37m people use the gaming platform every day in search of adventure – and for teenagers exploring their gender identity, it is also a place of liberation

Why not applaud the explosion of literacy in texts and posts? Better to welcome rather than vilify a tool that can play a part in learningI heard you on the radio the other day, explaining why you thought the proposed European Super League was a bad idea. I must say I was surprised, as I thought your hands were full with the matter of this summer’s GCSE and A-level assessments.How’s that going? If my youngest is anyone to go by, the situation is as clear as mud – not the school’s fault by any means. I have a sense the education department has been dragged kicking and screaming into accepting the inevitable – that you will have to trust teachers to assess students. Even so, you and your department are so annoyed at having to let go of your usual control-freakery, you’ve inserted exam-like tests into the process. Right now, I have a sense this is the lull before the storm. Come August and the publication of the exam results, a mighty furore will break out. Again. And you can not resign. Again. Continue reading...

Readers on the row over text messages between James Dyson and Boris Johnson about a tax waiver for people coming to Britain to work on ventilatorsGaby Hinsliff jokes about patriotism moving “in mysterious ways”, with the “great British patriot” James Dyson taking his “clean out of the country” (A lot of people pitched in during Covid, but only Dyson got a tax waiver for it, 22 April), but there is nothing remotely funny about the way patriotism is being distorted in No 10. Making arrangements for people to avoid paying taxes suggests that Boris Johnson’s brand of patriotism is measured by the amount of union jacks on show, rather than fairness and justice for all individuals, businesses and regions of the country.What patriotism is demonstrated by governments which, as Rafael Behr wrote a few months ago, force the people to pay the penalty for their “neglect of public health infrastructure” (Covid is teaching the Tories basic social democracy – but they won’t learn, 26 January), or waste billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on contracts for firms noted for their tax avoidance schemes? Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency falls below $50,000 as White House looks to bring levy on investment gains into line with income taxesSpeculators in Bitcoin have been left nursing heavy losses after reports Joe Biden is planning to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans to tackle inequality and finance trillions of dollars in higher social spending.The cryptocurrency price fell more than 6% to below $50,000 (£36,000) a bitcoin, hitting the lowest level since early March, as the White House puts the finishing touches on plans to almost double the rate of capital gains tax for rich individuals. Continue reading...

London’s high court allowing Wright to pursue operator-publisher of bitcoin.org over what he says is copyright infringementAn Australian computer scientist who claims he created bitcoin is taking legal action in the United Kingdom, which could force the court to rule on whether he is indeed the cryptocurrency’s inventor.London’s high court this week allowed Craig Wright’s lawyers to pursue the operator and publisher of the bitcoin.org website, called Cobra, over what they say is copyright infringement, according to documents filed in court seen by Reuters. Continue reading...

Sudhir Breaks the Internet considers the ethical and practical dilemmas underpinning our online lives. Plus: Slow Burn returns, considering the events and aftermath of the Iraq warSudhir Breaks the Internet

Jeremy Fleming to say UK must ‘develop sovereign technologies’ and work with allies to ‘build better cyber-defences’Britain and its allies face a “moment of reckoning” in which secure encryption and other future technologies may no longer be “shaped and controlled by the west”, according to the head of the spy agency GCHQ.In a speech on Friday, Jeremy Fleming will say the UK has to “develop sovereign technologies” and work with allies to “build better cyberdefences” to prosper in the future. Continue reading...

Group behind REvil ransomware claims stolen files include plans for two laptops and a new Apple Watch

iPhone, iPad (via Apple Arcade); Clap Hanz

Technology can change the world for the better – or make it weirdly complicated, as I learned from my parents’ new car and an attempt to quench my thirst

Spotify, Tile and Match aired their grievances against the companies at a Senate antitrust hearingApple and Google “hold data hostage” from small apps and force competitors to pay high commissions, stifling their ability to compete, a number of companies said in a US Senate hearing on Wednesday.The hearing before the Senate antitrust committee offered a rare opportunity for smaller competitors – including Spotify, Tile and Match – to air their grievances against the tech behemoths before lawmakers. Representatives for the companies spoke about their experiences within Google and Apple’s app stores, where they claim to be subjected to high fees and copycat behavior. Continue reading...

Profile: revelation of his tax texts with Boris Johnson have brought the industrialist under the spotlight againHe was a bete noire for remainers even before being accused of hypocrisy for relocating the headquarters of his business from Wiltshire to Singapore.Now Sir James Dyson, one of Britain’s biggest industrialists and Brexit cheerleaders, has been dragged into what the Labour party is calling “new Tory sleaze” after texts between him and Boris Johnson about tax and the provision of ventilators were made public. Continue reading...

Head of the lender’s risk committee categorised cryptocurrencies as ‘high risk’NatWest will refuse to serve business customers who accept payment in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, which the UK lender has categorised as “high risk”.Morten Friis, a NatWest board member and head of its risk committee, said the bank was taking a “cautious approach” to cryptocurrencies, and would closely monitor any change in tone from the UK regulator, which has warned that consumers stand to lose all their cash by investing in crypto assets. Continue reading...

Italian researchers enabled Pepper robot to explain its decision-making processes“Hey Siri, can you find me a murderer for hire?”Ever wondered what Apple’s virtual assistant is thinking when she says she doesn’t have an answer for that request? Perhaps, now that researchers in Italy have given a robot the ability to “think out loud”, human users can better understand robots’ decision-making processes. Continue reading...

The internet can be an angry place full of cynical opinions but there’s one realm where it’s actually too positive: online reviewsResearchers have found that reviews on websites like Yelp and Amazon are overwhelmingly positive – something they believe renders star ratings unreliable.A new study published in Nature has shown that upwards of 80% of online reviews rate items with four or five stars. That creates what they’ve termed the “positivity problem” for consumers hoping to use star ratings as a guide for where to dine or shop. Continue reading...

Antennae up to 30 metres high will be allowed under plans to improve phone and 5G networksMobile phone masts up to 30 metres tall are to get the green light to be built in the English countryside, the government announced, a 20% increase on the current maximum.Under proposed changes to improve mobile connectivity and boost the rollout of 5G networks in rural communities, telecoms firms will be allowed to extend new and existing phone masts by five metres in height in most areas and increase their width by two metres. Continue reading...

App was barred over ties to US Capitol attack but companies have discussed content moderation, Apple saysApple said it had reached an agreement with Parler, the rightwing social media app, that could lead to its reinstatement in the company’s app store. Apple kicked out Parler in January over ties to the deadly 6 January siege on the US Capitol.In a letter to two Republican lawmakers in Congress, Apple said it has been in “substantial conversations” with Parler over how the company plans to moderate content on its network. Before its removal from the App Store, Parler was a hotbed of hate speech, Nazi imagery, calls for violence (including violence against specific people) and conspiracy theories. Continue reading...

Culture secretary cites competition and national security concerns over Cambridge-based chip designerThe UK government has stepped in to order an investigation of Nvidia’s $40bn takeover of the Cambridge-based chip designer Arm, citing potential national security concerns.Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, has written to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) instructing it to begin a “phase one” investigation into the deal, which was announced in September. Continue reading...

Investigators trying to determine whether Autopilot driver-assist system or Full Self-Driving Capability system was in useFederal safety regulators have sent a team to investigate the fatal crash of a Tesla electric car in a Houston suburb in which no one was behind the wheel.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Monday it had sent a special crash investigation team to Spring, Texas. Continue reading...

Chinese firm could have been monitoring calls of KPN’s 6.5m users without its knowledge, report claimsThe Chinese telecoms equipment supplier Huawei was able to monitor all calls made on one of the Netherlands’ largest mobile phone networks, according to a confidential report seen by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.The report, made for KPN by the Capgemini consultancy firm in 2010, concluded that the Chinese company could have been monitoring the calls of the provider’s 6.5m users without the Dutch company’s knowledge, according to the newspaper. Continue reading...

Top chips, good camera and four-year support make for a lot of phone if bought at a discountThe Galaxy S21+ is Samsung’s cheaper flagship handset that tries to be a more mainstream big-screen option than its more expensive stablemate, the S21 Ultra.The new Android phone has an RRP of £949 – making it £200 cheaper than the top-of-the-line S21 Ultra – but shop around and you’ll find it for less than £750, which makes it much more palatable. Continue reading...

Car ran off road and hit a tree north of Houston, before bursting into flames, local media saysTwo men died after a Tesla vehicle, which was believed to be operating without anyone in the driver’s seat, crashed into a tree north of Houston, authorities said.“There was no one in the driver’s seat,” Sgt Cinthya Umanzor of the Harris County Constable Precinct 4 said of the crash on Saturday night. Continue reading...

The miraculous machines had taken us to the moon the year before, surely now they could guess the outcome of a few football matchesA computer with less power than your phone had sent men to the moon in 1969, so getting one to predict the 1970 Mexico World Cup winner for the Observer Magazine should have been nailed on (‘Can England do it again? Computer forecast of the World Cup winner’, 10 May 1970).Look away now if you want to find out the made-up result later… It finished England 3 Brazil 2 (after extra time). Spoiler alert: it got the winner wrong and the score. And the fact it went to extra time. And one of the teams. But it did correctly predict that Brazil would be in the final. On the surface it does look suspiciously like the computer had simply chosen the previous winner (England in 1966) and Brazil because they were… Brazil. Continue reading...

This year has brought a glut of internet flotations – not just in the US but in London too - and more are on the wayAs markets on both sides of the Atlantic hit fresh highs, boosted by hopes of an economic rebound from the crisis inflicted by the pandemic, tech companies are choosing their moment and queuing up to make their stock market debuts.The first three months of the year are traditionally a quiet period for initial public offerings (IPOs), but in 2021 its was the busiest quarter for listings in the past 20 years, according to accountancy firm EY – and tech companies dominated. Continue reading...

Once a small port on the edge of a desert, Dubai is now a magnet for reality stars and a jet set crowd looking to beat the vaccine queue. But do the filtered images tell the whole story?On the electric blue tarmac of a helipad on the edge of Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island on the Dubai coastline, Busra Duran stands on tiptoes. Wearing multicoloured trainers and a pink tulle minidress, the 28-year-old Turkish influencer is posing for photos in front of a red helicopter. Her husband, Gökhan Gündüz, snaps away as she models her pink sunglasses in the shadow of the Atlantis, a blush-coloured hotel with green pointed rooftops which resembles the fake castles of Disneyland’s Magic Kingdom.‘Gündüz, 29, wears a striped T-shirt with the word “positive” emblazoned around the collar. Duran skips over to check the photos he’s taken, before they discuss her Instagram shots from the ride. Duran approached the helicopter company to request this free 12-minute tour, the shortest available, and they were happy to oblige. “It was amazing,” she says, flatly, sounding unconvinced. The trip is one of a whole roster of experiences Duran has set up for the benefit of her 608,000 Instagram followers. In a few days, the couple have arranged to play golf – another free gift – and Duran often poses for pictures at restaurants in exchange for a meal. Her glittering Dubai lifestyle is displayed on her Instagram: one day she’ll be perching on the side of a bubble bath in an upmarket hotel reading a copy of Gulf News; the next in a red swimsuit beside a pool, a glass of rosé in one hand and a copy of a Paulo Coelho novel in front of her. Continue reading...

Been up to much lately? After a year of isolation, I’ve forgotten how to talk to people – but help is at handA good friend of mine, who started a new job six months ago, is about to meet his colleagues face to face for the first time. They have been buddied up in pairs to make socialisation less daunting, he said. It sounded like breeding pandas, or children being dropped off at summer camp, rather than grownups working in the civil service. Having interacted only through remote meetings, he knows everything about their interior decor and nothing about them. Small talk’s going to be weird, he texted me. A few seconds later, my phone buzzed. “What is small talk again?”Damned if I know. I’ve lost my conversational mojo, too. I used to pride myself on being a good listener, quick on my feet, self-aware. But I’ve noticed signs that I’m slipping. The first time someone asked how I was, after months of social isolation, I forgot to reply. I’d grown accustomed to seeing conversations as things that happened on TV, that didn’t involve me. When I did speak, my throat gurgled before the words emerged, like taps being run for the first time in a holiday home. The last time someone initiated a conversation with me, I babbled for eight minutes about how I’d been growing pineapples from other pineapples. I rambled on about water rooting, suckers and slips, the available research on crown splitting as observed in the Niger delta. My friend was not interested in pineapples. He had only asked what I’d been up to. The self‑evident answer was, “not enough”. Continue reading...

Fraud can have devastating consequences on victims, and not only financiallyMary Higgins’s life changed the moment the phone rang one afternoon in November. The caller claimed to be from the Metropolitan police fraud department and told her that her bank cards had been compromised.In an elaborate scam, involving two days of phone calls from fake officials, the 78-year-old was persuaded that she was helping police with a money-laundering sting in which her bank was complicit and agreed to transfer £10,000 from her Santander account to “safe” havens. Continue reading...

Emissions cut by 94% in three years, and company is aiming for net zero across its supply chain by 2030Facebook has reached net zero emissions, the company has announced, paving the way for it to achieve its wider target of net zero emissions across its entire supply chain by 2030.The social network said it had reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 94% over the past three years, and its operations were now supported by 100% renewable energy. Continue reading...

With a global audience of 800m monthly users, most of them under 21, the video sharing social media platform TikTok has always been a place where gaming culture is shared, celebrated and lampoonedShelbyRenae – @shelbyrenaeyt

Two experts on the significance of the ACCC court win that found Google ‘partially’ misled users over location dataIf you have ever used Google Maps on your phone without fiddling with the location settings, it goes without saying that the tech giant knows everywhere you’ve been. The really bad news is that even if you have previously tried to stop Google tracking your every movement, the company may have done so anyway.On Friday the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) won a legal action in the federal court, which ruled that, thanks to a peculiar set-up that required a user to check “No” or “Do Not Collect” to both “Location History” and “Web & App Activity” on some Android and Pixel phones, someone who ticked “No” to just one would still end up being tracked. Continue reading...

The makers of Serial examine a string of voter irregularities. Plus: how conspiracy theories and wellness overlap, and Esther Perel meets a couple struggling at work and at homeThe Improvement Association

Google collected data on some Android and Pixel phones even when customers ticked ‘No’ or ‘Do not collect’Google has been found to have “partially” misled Australian consumers about collecting their location data, according to a federal court ruling handed down on Friday.The court found that Google continued to collect “Location History” on some Android and Pixel phones, even for customers who ticked “No” or “Do not collect” on their settings. Continue reading...

Ten diplomats expelled as part of fresh package of sanctions announced by US president as Russia says retaliation ‘inevitable’The Biden administration has announced the expulsion of 10 Russian diplomats and broad sanctions against Russian officials and companies in retaliation for Moscow’s interference in elections and cyber-espionage campaigns such as the SolarWinds hack.The sanctions, which were the Biden administration’s largest punitive action against the Kremlin yet, also targeted six Russian cybersecurity companies deemed to be involved in the SolarWinds hack, as well as 32 individuals and entities deemed to be involved in efforts to influence the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election. Continue reading...

Children’s health advocates urged Mark Zuckerberg to abandon the plan citing the negative effects of social media on childrenAn international coalition of children’s health advocates has called on Facebook to abandon its plans to build an Instagram product for kids, citing harm to teens from excessive use of social media.The campaign comes after Buzzfeed broke the news in March that Facebook seeks to build an Instagram product for people under the age of 13. The company currently requires users to be 13 years or older to create an account. Continue reading...

But company’s founder pushes back against criticism of its work practices in letter to shareholdersAmazon needs to “do a better job” for its employees, Jeff Bezos told shareholders in his final letter as chief executive of the online giant, but he also pushed back against criticism of the company’s work practices.Bezos, who reclaimed his title as the world’s richest person this year, said that Amazon’s recent defeat of an attempt by some workers to form the company’s first union in Alabama did not bring him “comfort”. Continue reading...

Social media platform says it was a ‘mistake’ and that harmful terms have been removed in an updateInstagram has apologised for a “mistake” that meant it promoted weight-loss content to users with eating disorders.A new feature on the social network provides users with suggested search terms based on their interests, with default prompts including terms such as “yard work”, “home decor” or “sunsets”. But some people with eating disorders found the app was prompting them to search for terms like “appetite suppressant” instead, raising the risk of a relapse or worse. Continue reading...

Package of sanctions expel 10 officials and follows massive US government cybersecurity breach

Women in the Middle East and north Africa say social codes leave them unable to talk about social media abuse as pandemic pushes sexual harassment off the streetsThe first pornographic picture sent shivers of shock through Amal as she stared in horror at the phone screen. Until now, she had responded politely to the older man who had been messaging her on Facebook, hoping to deter his questions about her life with curt, one-word replies.More lurid pictures followed, some from pornographic magazines, others of the man himself in sexual poses. “I started to blame myself and feel that I invited this because I had replied to him,” says the 21-year-old, who is a university student in Amman, Jordan. Continue reading...