Technology | The Guardian

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...

After 16 years, one of the internet’s first – and most surreal – Q&A platforms is to be shut downBefore Reddit’s Am I the Asshole? forum for the “frustrated moral philosopher”, or days-long Twitter debates about whether you wash your legs in the shower, there was Yahoo Answers: one of the first online crowdsourcing resources, now a repository of infamously idiosyncratic wisdom.Established in 2005, the “knowledge-sharing” platform was where you might turn for help with a head-scratcher such as “How do I get black ink from a Biro out of coloured clothes?”, “What documents do you need to enter China?” or “Any ladies want to show me their boobs?”. Continue reading...

We asked Australian comedians to find the good bits online and share them with us. Diana Nguyen has delivered them hereSo a little strange thing about me – while looking for lovers on the traditional dating apps, I found myself on LinkedIn and started dancing on LinkedIn, which then went viral. If you are looking for light entertainment, just search #DancingDiana and you’ll find my 1,000 dancing videos on LinkedIn. Not even joking. But here are some funny videos I always go to during a lockdown. Continue reading...

US justice department says bureau hacked devices to remove malware from insecure softwareThe FBI has been hacking into the computers of US companies running insecure versions of Microsoft software in order to fix them, the US Department of Justice has announced.The operation, approved by a federal court, involved the FBI hacking into “hundreds” of vulnerable computers to remove malware placed there by an earlier malicious hacking campaign, which Microsoft blamed on a Chinese hacking group known as Hafnium. Continue reading...

iPhone, iPad (via Apple Arcade); Mistwalker/Apple

Smart speaker ditches puck shape but keeps solid sound and function with or without LED clock displayAmazon’s fourth-generation Echo Dot has evolved from its predecessors’ puck-like appearance into a small ball, shaking up the idea of what a small smart speaker can look like.The new Echo Dot is priced the same as the last one, costing from £50, although it will be frequently available at a discount at various retailers, and looks like the full-sized £80 Echo hit with a shrink ray. Continue reading...

Oversight Board braced for onslaught of cases concerning issues including blasphemy and hate speech

Several digital currencies surge a day before launch of Coinbase trading platform on Wall StreetThe value of the cryptocurrency bitcoin has surged to a record high, reaching $63,000 (£45,800).The cryptocurrency, which has risen in value by 450% in the last six months, continued to climb by a further 5% during trading on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Richard Kind is compelling as the retiree seduced by a VR ‘companion’, but the film fails to do much with its rather familiar premise

We want to hear about the best Yahoo Answers posts you have encountered since it started in 2005Since 2005, Yahoo Answers has been one of the longest-running platforms providing reader posted questions and answers. Last week it was announced that the platform would be shutting down on 4 May.To celebrate the best of Yahoo Answers, we would like to hear about the best posts you have seen on the platform over the last 16 years. Continue reading...

Juan Orlando Hernández falsely inflated his posts’ popularity for nearly a year after the company was informed about itFacebook allowed the president of Honduras to artificially inflate the appearance of popularity on his posts for nearly a year after the company was first alerted to the activity.The astroturfing – the digital equivalent of a bussed-in crowd – was just one facet of a broader online disinformation effort that the administration has used to attack critics and undermine social movements, Honduran activists and scholars say. Continue reading...

Want to go viral on Twitter? Steer clear of positive terms, Spanish researchers sayYou’ve treated your Twitter followers to a pithy 280-character comment about the government’s latest gaffe – but what gives your tweet the fuel to spread like wildfire? It’s how negative the tweet is, say researchers, that raises its chances of going viral, at least in the political context.Previous studies have suggested that the main factors affecting the virality of a tweet are user features (such as the number of followers), specific tweet features (number of URLs, hashtags and so on), and aspects of the tweet topic – but few have investigated the importance of a specific type of sentiment as an overarching link among these factors. Continue reading...

Cheaper wifi speaker has Bluetooth plus Google or Alexa for great indoor and outdoor musicSonos’s new smaller and cheaper Roam portable speaker is one that won’t end up relegated to a drawer collecting dust as it sounds great at home too.The £159 Roam joins the much bigger and heavier £399 Move as the second of firm’s battery-powered models and proves itself as one of the best options in a saturated market. Continue reading...

In 1842, the US patent office registered 14 designs, including a bathtub and a ‘corpse preserver’. It now handles 35,000 a year. Why did this once sedate world became a corporate arms race?It was designed to make sharpening a pencil feel as thrilling as flying a jet. A gleaming chrome teardrop, tapered to a point and adorned with a bullet-like handle, Raymond Loewy’s aerodynamic tail-fin pencil sharpener brought the glamour of the machine age to the humble office desk.As the godfather of American industrial design, Loewy gave his streamlined signature to trains, planes and Coca-Cola vending machines, defining the sleek art deco look of the 1930s. But his go-faster pencil sharpener never made it into production, deemed one chrome-plated, deco-styled step too far. The design does survive in the form of its patent, filed in 1933 and now republished as one of 1,000 such protected inventions, brought together in a new book. Continue reading...