The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical conceptsDoes anyone still believe that any of the companies they call or email are labouring under higher-than-normal call volumes – especially given that that they all seem to have it “higher than normal” all of the time. Does anyone know how long ago the baseline “normal” might have been? Robert Cullen, Härryda, SwedenPost your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published on Sunday. Continue reading...

While developing traditional narrative games is harder than it has ever been, Microsoft’s Xbox chief sees an opportunity in using modern platforms and tech to tell new storiesOver the last decade, the concept of “games as a service” has revolutionised the way the interactive entertainment industry works. From the subscriptions introduced by massively multiplayer online adventures such as World of Warcraft to the seasonal battle passes of current online shooters, we’re seeing a huge amount of focus on games that can sustain a lucrative community of players over several years.But where does that leave more offbeat ideas and concepts that couldn’t support years’ worth of play? Where does it leave the single-player narrative adventure – the blockbusting genre that brought us titles such as Metal Gear Solid, Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect? It’s a genre Sony has supported through funding the studios that make games such as The Last of Us, Spider-Man and God of War. But Microsoft has focused its efforts on cross-platform, connected games, as symbolised by the mammoth Minecraft industry. Is there still room for traditional forms of narrative games on the Xbox Series X? Continue reading...

Seizure follows confiscation of £114m of the cryptocurrency in JuneMetropolitan police detectives investigating international money laundering have seized nearly £180m of bitcoin.The seizure by the Met’s economic crime command follows a confiscation of £114m of the cryptocurrency in June. Continue reading...

Guardian Australia picture editor Carly Earl explains the dos and don’ts of taking pictures of the moon and night sky

Video-sharing app’s reputation problem isn’t holding back its phenomenal growth, says authorAlmost a third of Britons are concerned that TikTok might share their personal data with the Chinese government, according to a book on the social network, despite the app’s popularity across the nation.And a third of Britons aged between 18 and 34, the key demographic for the app, are more than just worried: they believe TikTok would hand over their data on request from China. Continue reading...

UK union complains to competition watchdog that retailer profited from high prices on hand sanitiser and masksThe Unite union has lodged an official competition complaint against Amazon, alleging the online retailer profited from pandemic-related “price gouging” on products such as hand sanitiser and face masks.In a 41-page letter, seen by the Guardian, lawyers for Unite accuse Amazon of “exploitative abuse of its dominance” and call on the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to launch an investigation. Continue reading...

Nissan’s ‘gigafactory’ in Sunderland must be the first of many sites if the UK is to compete in the electric vehicle eraThe British government’s £100m-plus commitment to secure Nissan’s battery gigafactory for Sunderland has been like gadget-shopping on Amazon writ large: splurging on some new technology that has suddenly become essential – and then being immediately prompted to buy another six.This time, though, duplicating the spending looks more sensible. More gigafactories – or plain old big battery factories – are not essential for the UK to transition to using electric vehicles (EVs). But they certainly will be if Britain hopes to keep making, selling and exporting its own cars. Continue reading...

Internet cons have surged in the Covid crisis, with some victims left with little recourse to recover cashIn early May, James Evans* met a man on the dating app Grindr. The man, who said his name was David, was friendly and chatty. “It started off as a normal conversation,” says Evans. “We moved to WhatsApp and exchanged messages. After a few days he started telling me about crypto trading and how he could show me how it worked and how I could earn money from it. It seemed like a genuine connection.”Unfortunately for Evans, , that wasn’t the case. He hadhooked up with a scammer, who within a week had convinced him to hand over £20,000. Continue reading...

The elevation of the man behind the Cloud while Jeff Bezos relinquishes day-to-day control, comes at a critical time for AmazonAndy Jassy made a powerful – and painful – first impression on the billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos soon after he joined the then start-up bookseller in 1997.During a rambunctious game of “broomball” – a cross between lacrosse and football that another Amazon executive invented and is still overly competitively played at the company – Jassy, then a fresh-faced recruit from Harvard Business School, accidentally hit Bezos over the head with a kayak paddle. Continue reading...

Slimmer, better design, long battery life, 10.1in HD screen and speakers makes for a good TV tabletAmazon’s top 10in Fire OS tablet has had a makeover and now has faster performance, without costing iPad money.The 2021 Fire HD 10 comes in either a standard version costing £150/US$150 or a “Plus” version, as tested here, costing £180/US$180, with a few more bells and whistles. Continue reading...

Alice Levine and Matt Forde delve into the News International phone-hacking scandal. Plus: spoofy horror in Summer Camp Massacre, and an insightful look at trans rights in sportBritish Scandal

A similar agreement was made with Google in February for Guardian Australia to participate in the company’s News Showcase productGuardian Australia has struck a deal with Facebook to licence news content to the platform’s News tab.After months of lengthy negotiations between the two companies since the passage of the federal government’s news media bargaining code in February, Guardian Australia’s managing director, Dan Stinton, announced the agreement with Facebook had been reached on Friday. Continue reading...

A flying car is seen completing its first intercity flight in Slovakia. The prototype, called AirCar, takes off from Nitra airport and lands in Bratislava 35 minutes later. Using wings that fold away in less than three minutes and a propeller at its rear, the dual-transportation vehicle has now completed more than 40 hours of test flight

Campaigners call on entertainment and sport sectors to ensure inclusion of those without access

Facebook, Google, Twitter and TikTok commit to overhaul their platform’s moderation systemsFour of the world’s largest social networks have committed to overhauling their moderation systems to tackle the abuse of women on their platforms.Facebook, Google, Twitter and TikTok have signed up to the pledge, led by the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF), to fix persistent weaknesses in how they tackle online gender-based violence. Continue reading...

We ask Australian humorists to tell us what’s funny online. Andrew Sholl’s Twitter account is devoted to doing just that. Consider this the bumper editionThe original intent behind the @OzKitsch Twitter account was to have a laugh at cringey aspects of Australian life, like concrete koala letterboxes and Ned Kelly bottle openers. There’s certainly no shortage of material.But its purpose has evolved over time. Instead of simply wincing at the olden days or wallowing in nostalgia, it seeks to examine aspects of everyday life that we have seem to have forgotten, either by accident or design: everything from regional beauty contests, monuments that were never built, and high school war cries, to Menzies’ fleeting admiration for Hitler, quack cures for the Spanish flu, and the musical stylings of Alan Jones. Continue reading...

It turns out that Facebook is more powerful and resilient – and American antitrust law less helpful – than critics of big tech had hopedWithin 12 hours of a federal judge tossing out a state and federal antitrust lawsuits against Facebook, the market value of the adolescent company exceeded $1tn. Facebook became the fifth company worth more than a trillion, joining Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet (the parent company of Google).What are we to make of this sudden turn of events? We have been conditioned by more than five years of criticism and concern about the growing power of Facebook to influence our politics, social lives and economic activities to assume that the company was increasingly vulnerable to aggressive regulators around the world. Continue reading...

Lawyers will try to persuade Canadian court to permit new documents to be introduced as evidence to clear Meng WanzhouThe US justice department’s battle to extradite Meng Wanzhou from Canada has taken a fresh turn as lawyers for Huawei’s chief financial officer claimed that internal emails and bank documents prove there is no grounds to extradite her to the US.Meng, 48, was arrested on a US warrant at Vancouver airport in late 2018, and has been battling extradition. Her detention infuriated the Chinese government and has helped drag relations between Beijing and Ottawa to their lowest point in years. Continue reading...

Graphic depicted Kashmir region as separate country, adding to tension between social media firm and stateTwitter is facing criminal charges in India after the site published a map that incorrectly showed the turbulent Indian region of Kashmir as a separate country.On Monday night a report was filed to police in the state of Uttar Pradesh against Twitter’s head in India, Manish Maheshwari, calling the publication of the distorted map “an act of treason”. Continue reading...

Cases filed by FTC and state attorneys general did not give enough evidence to prove Facebook was a monopolyIn a significant blow to US regulators’ attempt to rein in big tech, a federal judge has dismissed lawsuits brought against Facebook by the Federal Trade Commission and a broad coalition of state attorneys general.Markets cheered the ruling, sending Facebook shares surging by more than 4%, which pushed the social network’s market value to more than $1tn (£722bn) for the first time. Continue reading...

Information was parsed from gov.uk website incorrectly, leading to possible confusion over Covid requirements

As the proportion of girls taking these subjects remains low, teachers reveal why they believe that is and what they’re doing about itGetting women into tech careers has never been more important, but teachers believe old-fashioned stereotypes about subjects such as design and technology and computer science put girls off choosing them at school.In 2020, the number of girls choosing to study computer science GCSE was 16,919 – just over 21.4% of total entrants – compared with 61,540 boys. Slightly fewer girls and boys picked the subject compared with the previous year. Continue reading...

Decision that allows information to continue to flow to and from UK could be revoked ‘immediately’British data protection standards are “adequate”, the EU has ruled in a long-awaited decision that lets digital information continue to flow between the UK and the bloc. But Brussels warned Boris Johnson’s government the decision could be revoked “immediately” if it sees weakening UK standards.Failure to get a positive decision would have risked plunging British businesses into disarray, leaving industries from banking to logistics scrambling to set up more costly, bureaucratic alternatives to share data. Continue reading...

Managerial hierarchies must learn the true lessons of the pandemic if they are to survive and thrivePandemics, the historian Yuval Noah Harari has observed, have a way of accelerating history. Just ask the founders of Zoom. Only two years ago, we were all thinking that it would take at least another decade before video-conferencing became an integral part of the way we work in organisations. Then along comes Covid and in three weeks we’re all happily Zooming (or unhappily in the case of Handforth parish council). And now we’re more or less acclimatised or, at any rate, resigned to the idea that remote meetings might be here to stay.The problem with having had the fast-forward button suddenly propel us into an unexpected place, though, is that we find ourselves unmoored. We start wondering about what lies ahead as the immediate threat of the virus recedes. What will our post-pandemic future be like? In relation to work, three main possibilities are currently taking up all the airtime: continuing to work from home (WFH); a hybrid mode in which we spend some time in the office but also two or three days WFH; and a return to ye olde days commuting to the office to gather round the water cooler and pretend to be doing something useful. Continue reading...

They were sold as gadgets that meant you would never miss a delivery. But now doorbell cameras – from Amazon’s Ring to Google’s Nest – are recording our every moveI have got a new doorbell. It’s brilliant. It should be; it cost £89. It’s a Ring video doorbell; you’ll have seen them around. There are others available, made by other companies, with other four-letter names such as Nest and Arlo. When someone rings my doorbell, I’m alerted on my smartphone. I can see who is there, and speak to them.My phone is ringing! C major first inversion chord, arpeggiated, repeated, for the musically trained – you’ll recognise it if you’ve heard it. It’s a delivery. Amazon, as it happens; Amazon acquired Ring in 2018, reportedly for more than $1bn. Continue reading...

New message warns that results are ‘changing quickly’ and may not yet include reliable sourcesGoogle has started warning users when they search for a topic that is likely to have poor results, as part of its effort to tackle “data voids” on the search engine.The new warning was spotted by Renee DiResta, an academic who studies misinformation at Stanford University. “It looks like these results are changing quickly,” Google will now caution users. “If this topic is new, it can sometimes take time for results to be added by reliable sources.” Continue reading...

CMA will decide whether consumer law was broken by not taking sufficient action to protect shoppersAmazon and Google are to be investigated by the UK competition watchdog over concerns the tech companies have not done enough to tackle the widespread problem of fake reviews on their websites.The Competition and Markets Authority, which began looking at the issue of fake reviews on major platforms two years ago, will now consider whether Amazon and Google have broken consumer law by not taking sufficient action to protect shoppers from fake reviews. Continue reading...

The Teamsters union is rich, strong, and experienced – and it’s ready to help workers and give Amazon a headacheThe announcement that the Teamsters – one of America’s most powerful unions – is going to mount an ambitious campaign to unionize Amazon warehouses across the US presents the e-retailing colossus with a far bigger threat than the recent effort to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Alabama ever did.Related: Amazon fired him – now he’s trying to unionize 5,000 workers in New York Continue reading...

This year’s all-digital video game expo involved a deluge of livestreams showcasing upcoming excitements. Here are our picksThe chaotic mini-game series is making a really welcome return, this time featuring two-player co-op. The new vignette challenges range from avoiding bird plops to tweaking someone’s nipple hair. Classic Wario. Continue reading...

The growth of non-fungible tokens has given rise to massive windfalls for those behind early virals. Sirin Kale and Alex Hern explain allOn 28 May 2016 the photographer Jeff McCurry was taking pictures of a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla called Harambe in Cincinnati zoo when a child entered the enclosure. The zookeepers reacted by shooting the gorilla dead. The child was unhurt. What was a local story suddenly became a global phenomenon due to the combination of social media and McCurry’s picture. Harambe’s image was everywhere. But, despite his photo being shared billions of times, McCurry did not see much of a financial benefit. Now advances in technology have given the world non-fungible tokens (NFTs) – and McCurry has a way of finally cashing in on his famous image.The Guardian’s technology editor, Alex Hern, tells Rachel Humphreys that this year’s craze for NFTs follows in the wake of speculation on cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. Now similar technology means unique images, film clips, animations and even poems are being bought and sold online for increasingly large sums. Continue reading...

Opening up iOS to ‘sideloading’ would lead to wave of damaging malware on iPhones and iPads, firm saysAllowing users to bypass the App Store would lead to a wave of damaging malware on iPhones and iPads, Apple has warned, as the company faces the prospect of sweeping regulatory action on both sides of the Atlantic.Opening up iOS to “sideloading”, the name for installing software from unapproved sources, could allow malicious software to hold user data to ransom, let children bypass parental controls, or lead to rampant piracy, the company claims in a new paper. Continue reading...

It was the decade Sonic the Hedgehog, the original PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and so much more entered the world – here are the 15 best games of this golden age of gamingOf all LucasArts’ memorable, quip-fuelled point and click adventures – from dark afterlife comedy Grim Fandango to the surrealist Day of the Tentacle – it’s Monkey Island 2 that gets the most love nowadays, and justifiably so. The puzzles were just on the right side of deliberately obscure, the characters were strange and colourful, and the music unforgettable. And that ending still sparks discussion, 30 years on. Continue reading...

Creator of the world wide web says digital asset is ‘totally aligned with the values of the web’Tim Berners-Lee has defended his decision to auction an NFT (non-fungible token) representing the source code to the web, comparing the sale to an autographed book or a speaking tour.The creator of the world wide web announced his decision to create and sell the digital asset through Sotheby’s auction house last week. In the auction, which begins on Wednesday and will run for one week, collectors will have the chance to bid on a bundle of items, including the 10,000 lines of the source code to the original web browser, a digital poster created by Berners-Lee representing the code, a letter from him, and an animated video showing the code being entered. Continue reading...

Once, people who owned viral photos made little money from them. Now, the ‘original’ can potentially sell for an enormous sum. But are buyers savvy investors – or unwitting dupes?The photographer Jeff McCurry’s favourite Harambe memes are the ones where the dead gorilla is in heaven, Photoshopped alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, Tupac and Muhammad Ali. “It’s like: wow,” says McCurry. “What greater spot can you be placed in? Harambe’s at the top of the hill, waiting to meet you there.”McCurry took the photograph of the 17-year-old western lowland gorilla that went on to become a meme. In it, Harambe kneels, projecting a fearsome aura of strength, nobility and calm. A former volunteer photographer at Cincinnati zoo, McCurry was there on 28 May 2016, the fateful day a three-year-old boy climbed into the gorilla’s enclosure, forcing zookeepers to shoot Harambe dead. “It didn’t seem real at first,” says McCurry, who was a regular visitor to the zoo. “When any of your friends die, it’s hard to process. I was in shock.” Continue reading...

One of US’s biggest unions, with 1.4m workers, to vote on resolution making Amazon employees its top priorityOne of the largest unions in the US is expected this week to launch a broad effort to unionize Amazon employees.The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 1.4 million workers in 500 unions nationwide, will vote on Thursday on a landmark resolution to make its highest priority helping Amazon workers achieve a union contract. Continue reading...

‘Report remove’ button on Childline website is described by internet safety charity as a world firstChildren in the UK who are worried that nude pictures and videos may end up online will be able to report the material to help prevent it from being uploaded in the future.For the first time, young people will be able to flag the content with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) via a tool on Childline’s website before it has appeared online. Continue reading...

Investors wary after authorities in Sichuan ordered bitcoin mining projects to closeBitcoin has tumbled further in the wake of China’s expanding crackdown on bitcoin mining, as investors grow more uncertain about the future of the leading cryptocurrency.Bitcoin fell as low as $31,333 on Monday, a two-week trough, dragging down other cryptocurrencies. The world’s biggest cryptocurrency has lost more than 20% in the past six days alone and was at half its April peak of almost $65,000. In the year to date, it remains up about 11%. Continue reading...

The troubled sci-fi adventure was taken off the PlayStation store in December 2020 due to serious technical issues – now it’s back, but its use is “not recommended” and PS5 owners still have to waitThe much-hyped sci-fi adventure Cyberpunk 2077 has finally been launched on the PlayStation store, more than six months after the game’s initial release.Related: Cyberpunk 2077: how 2020's biggest video game launch turned into a shambles Continue reading...

My friend Maureen Donnelly, who has died aged 71 of cancer, was a successful and creative businesswoman with socialist ideals and a belief in public service. She was also a rambler, adventurer and lover of Irish literature, and managed to be active in all these fields while also being a devoted single parent.Born in Dungannon, County Tyrone, Maureen was the daughter of Mary (nee Barker) and Frank Donnelly, and one of five siblings brought up on a modest farm nearby. After leaving St Joseph’s convent school, Donaghmore, and studying maths at Queen’s University Belfast, she moved to London. Asked why, she replied that as a Catholic she couldn’t get work she wanted in Northern Ireland, and as a woman, she wouldn’t get such employment in Dublin. Continue reading...

Losses almost double last year despite growing demand for crypto trading pushing up revenues 34%Losses at the British fintech firm Revolut nearly doubled last year, despite cashing in on the year-end cryptocurrency boom.The company – founded by the former Lehman Brothers trader Nik Storonsky and chaired by the ex-Standard Life Aberdeen boss Martin Gilbert – said it made £39m on its cryptocurrency investments last year, while growing demand for its crypto trading services helped pushed revenues up 34% to £222m in the 12 months to 31 December. Continue reading...

Nature is full of examples of biology adapting to its surroundings. Technology may just be about to catch upFrom the bottom of the oceans to the skies above us, natural evolution has filled our planet with a vast and diverse array of lifeforms, with approximately 8 million species adapted to their surroundings in a myriad of ways. Yet 100 years after Karel Čapek coined the term robot, the functional abilities of many species still surpass the capabilities of current human engineering, which has yet to convincingly develop methods of producing robots that demonstrate human-level intelligence, move and operate seamlessly in challenging environments, and are capable of robust self-reproduction.But could robots ever reproduce? This, undoubtedly, forms a pillar of “life” as shared by all natural organisms. A team of researchers from the UK and the Netherlands have recently demonstrated a fully automated technology to allow physical robots to repeatedly breed, evolving their artificial genetic code over time to better adapt to their environment. Arguably, this amounts to artificial evolution. Child robots are created by mixing the digital “DNA” from two parent robots on a computer. Continue reading...

Recent changes have driven down pay for drivers, including a reduction in minimum pay for long-distance tripsSocializing, parties and late night trips are all coming back as the coronavirus pandemic recedes in the US and along with them has come a surge in the price of calling a cab. It’s good news for Uber and Lyft, but for the rideshare drivers who were hit so hard by the pandemic? Not so much.“We’re making less than normal,” said Robert Eaton of Reno, Nevada, a full-time Uber driver for over two years. He tries to work as many hours as possible every week to provide for his family, citing his most common shift is 16 hours, noon to 4am. “While fares have skyrocketed in this market, the drivers’ pay has not been raised at all.” Continue reading...

AirPods rivals have top sound, battery and translation features but cost significantly lessGoogle’s latest AirPods competitors, the Pixel Buds A-Series, get a big price cut and a slightly more comfortable design.The new Bluetooth earbuds take a cue from Google’s cheaper but great A-Series phones, cutting a few features to cost £100 (US$99) – a full £80 cheaper than their predecessors. Continue reading...

Chief scientific adviser will head new government body looking at big bets in science and technologyThe government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, has been asked by Boris Johnson to investigate whether the UK’s successful vaccine procurement programme can be replicated in other areas of technology.Vallance, who has become a household name following his appearances at coronavirus press conferences, will take on the new title of national technology adviser, serving alongside his current roles. Continue reading...

The Booker prize-winning author on Mare of Easttown, her favourite lockdown park and the fearsome power of folk musicBorn in Dublin in 1962, Anne Enright studied English and philosophy at Trinity College Dublin and received an MA in creative writing from the University of East Anglia. Formerly an RTE television producer, she has written two collections of stories, published together as Yesterday’s Weather, one book of essays and seven novels, including the 2007 Booker prize-winning The Gathering and The Forgotten Waltz, which was awarded the Andrew Carnegie medal for excellence in fiction. In 2015, she was named the inaugural laureate for Irish fiction. Her latest novel, Actress, published by Vintage, is out in paperback now. Continue reading...

Owner of video-sharing app also reports a 93% increase in gross profit to $19bn in 2020ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok, more than doubled its revenues last year as usage of the hugely popular video app boomed.The company, which last year weathered pressure from Donald Trump to sell its US operation as part of a trade war with China, reported a 111% increase in revenues to $34.3bn (£24.7bn). Continue reading...

This year’s online-only E3 video game expo was hardly the usual explosion of blockbuster games, but there were still some standout storiesWe all wanted to see Metroid Prime 4, the long-anticipated first-person science-fiction shooter-adventure that has been in development at Nintendo for an absolute age. But instead we got a whole new Metroid – a 2D one in the vein of the SNES and Game Boy Advance classics, the first game in the series in this style for about 19 years. Metroid Dread features Samus Aran being chased by distressing, transforming drone-robots who appear to be largely impervious to her ever-expanding array of weapons, and it looks genuinely scary. It’ll be out on 8 October on Nintendo Switch. Continue reading...

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Firm says sites are slow to act when warned that fake reviews are being solicited on their platformsAmazon has blamed social media companies for its failure to remove fake reviews from its website, arguing that “bad actors” turn to social networks to buy and sell fake product reviews outside the reach of its own technology.The company says it removed more than 200m suspected fake reviews before they were seen by customers in 2020 alone, but nonetheless has faced continued criticism for the enormous scale of fake and misleading reviews that make it on to its store. Continue reading...

The California startup leads a global push toward lab-grown meat. But experts question its bold claimsIn December of last year, a handful of diners sat down to a futuristic meal at 1880, a members-only restaurant in Singapore. The star ingredient was “no-kill” chicken – raised not on a farm but in a laboratory bioreactor. Attendees snacked on lab-grown nuggets paired with crispy maple waffles, bao buns, and black bean puree.For the California entrepreneur Josh Tetrick, it was a breakthrough. His company, Eat Just, had become the first in the world to sell the product after receiving approval from Singapore authorities. Headlines hailed a landmark step in the quest to end animal agriculture, upend the meat industry and redefine our diets. Continue reading...