Technology | The Guardian

Poorly-executed change to terms of service sends messaging app’s subscribers flocking to competitorsA poorly explained update to its terms of service has pushed WhatsApp users to adopt alternative services such as Signal and Telegram in their millions.The exodus was so large that WhatsApp has been forced to delay the implementation of the new terms, which had been slated for 8 February, and run a damage limitation campaign to explain to users the changes they were making. Continue reading...

After skewering YouTubers, the comic’s quick-witted mockumentary returns to take aim at the ecosystem around online celebritiesPls Like (BBC Three) has a problem: how do you spoof the unspoofable? The quick and quick-witted mockumentary, written by and starring Liam Williams, spent two series teasing YouTubers and the like, but now, in the age of TikTok, you have to wonder how it will manage to make comedy out of something with such a rapid turnover. To spend 10 minutes on TikTok is to be bombarded with gags and jokes and memes and viral trends that either refuse to make sense as a point of principle, or only make sense if you know the galaxy of stuff that went before it.Williams has made a smart choice here, by focusing on the influencer industry – with the emphasis on industry – as much as he does on the surreal, rapid-fire humour of the influencers themselves, although he does have plenty of fun with that, too. After the first two series, “greying millennial” Williams (the Pls Like character, not the real one) has decided to reinvent himself, moving away from documenting vlogging culture into the more demanding field of political films, with the ultimate goal of making a feature film called Squad Coals. However, there is not quite the audience he anticipated for his no doubt visceral work on John Prescott, so he attempts to figure out how he himself can become an influencer and get people to pay attention to his serious art. Continue reading...

The Facebook-owned messaging service has been hit by a global backlash over privacy. Many users are migrating to Signal or Telegram. Should you join them?Earlier this month, WhatsApp issued a new privacy policy along with an ultimatum: accept these new terms, or delete WhatsApp from your smartphone. But the new privacy policy wasn’t particularly clear, and it was widely misinterpreted to mean WhatsApp would be sharing more sensitive personal data with its parent company Facebook. Unsurprisingly, it prompted a fierce backlash, with many users threatening to stop using the service.WhatsApp soon issued a clarification, explaining that the new policy only affects the way users’ accounts interact with businesses (ie not with their friends) and does not mandate any new data collection. The messaging app also delayed the introduction of the policy by three months. Crucially, WhatsApp said, the new policy doesn’t affect the content of your chats, which remain protected by end-to-end encryption – the “gold standard” of security that means no one can view the content of messages, even WhatsApp, Facebook, or the authorities. Continue reading...

Can a virtual four-day art class come anywhere close to visiting the famous archipelago? Maybe not, but for our writer it turns out to offer something far more valuableThe creature comes into view quite slowly. It’s like staring into the bushes, realising there is something there, then picking out its parts, assembling the whole that, suddenly, magically, comes alive and steps gently forward. A giant tortoise. Mary-Anne, our guide, laughs: “A tortoise’s mouth always remind me of my grandmother.” As if hearing this, the animal’s wrinkled lip curls slightly, into a sad old grin. The panels on its shell catch the light and the shadows under the leading edge deepen, catching subtle flashes of magenta and ultramarine. I would never have noticed such details without Mary-Anne pointing them out.“There,” she says, “I think we’re finished.” And puts down her brush. Continue reading...

Josh Frydenberg says tech companies’ threats to pull services out of Australia did them a ‘big disservice’Josh Frydenberg has warned the internet giants it is “inevitable” they will pay for news content and their threats to shut down core functions in Australia do them a “big disservice”.At a doorstop on Sunday, the treasurer said the Morrison’s government intended to become a “world leader” in regulating social media and search companies, who he accused of shifting the goalposts in their opposition to the proposed bargaining code of conduct. Continue reading...

The MG ZS EV brings electric cars into the realm of financial possibility for many more families. But is there a gap between possible and practical?The big question facing a lot of prospective electric car owners is: will it make my life easier or harder? It’s a question that I desperately want to answer. As the owner of a VW Tiguan with a dirty secret (the company lied about how bad its emissions were and misled regulators) I am more than ready to embrace the new era of zero-emission cars. But I was not convinced that any electric vehicle on the market would cope with my life – city bound, apartment dwelling, with two kids and a large, often very sandy and badly-behaved dog.Related: Dirty lies: how the car industry hid the truth about diesel emissions Continue reading...

Doom scrolling, oversharing, constantly updating social media feeds – the internet shapes how we see the world, and now it’s changing the stories we tell, writes author Olivia SudjicTowards the end of 2020, a year spent supine on my sofa consuming endless internet like a force-fed goose, I managed to finish a beautifully written debut novel: Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, which comes out next month. And yet despite the entrancing descriptions, I could barely turn two pages before my hand moved reflexively toward the cracked screen of my phone. Each time I returned to the novel I felt ashamed, and the shame only grew as I realised that, somehow, though the story was set in the present, and involved an often long-distance romance between two young people with phones, it contained not one single reference to what by then I considered a hallmark of present-day humanity: mindless scrolling through social media.There was something sepia-toned about the book thanks to this absence, recalling love stories from previous eras even as it spoke powerfully to more urgent contemporary issues. Azumah Nelson’s narrator mentions phones in the context of calls and private text messages, but the characters are never sullied by association with Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Was this because they were too sensible, ethical or self-assured to use such things, or is the omnipresence of these platforms now so implicit, in literature as in life, that they hardly seemed worth mentioning? Continue reading...

Analysis: tech firm’s refusal to pay news publishers comes as it agrees to do exactly that in FranceThe biggest companies in technology love an ultimatum but rarely do they spell out their threats. This week, however, Google has done exactly that, telling an Australian parliamentary hearing that a proposed law forcing the company to pay news publishers for the right to link to their content “would give us no real choice but to stop making Google Search available in Australia”.The threat, from the company’s Australian managing director, Mel Silva, is the latest escalation in a war of words over the proposal, which seeks to undo some of the damage online business models have dealt to the country’s publishing industry. Continue reading...

House oversight chair seeks inquiry into platform’s potential use to facilitate planning and ties to RussiaAmerican lawmakers have asked the FBI to investigate the role of Parler, the social media website and app popular with the American far right, in the violence at the US Capitol on 6 January.Carolyn Maloney, chair of the House oversight and reform Committee, asked the FBI to review Parler’s role “as a potential facilitator of planning and incitement related to the violence, as a repository of key evidence posted by users on its site, and as a potential conduit for foreign governments who may be financing civil unrest in the United States”. Continue reading...

Great screen, performance and battery plus new camera with dual 3x and 10x lenses for super zoomingThe Galaxy S21 Ultra is Samsung’s new superphone for 2021 – and comes out firmly as the best of its type, with a price to match.Equipped with a new more powerful camera system – with not one but two optical zoom lenses on the back for a huge 10x optical zoom – it costs from £1,149 and leads Samsung’s 2021 mobile line, which also includes the smaller and cheaper £769 S21 and £819 S21+. Continue reading...

British MP asks firm why it is introducing end-to-end encryption that will ‘put more children at risk’Facebook’s plans to implement end-to-end encryption on all its messaging products will lead to continued exploitation of some of the British children it would otherwise help to safeguard, the company has admitted to a House of Commons committee.The firm operates a number of programmes to find and prevent child exploitation on its platforms, from scanning private messages to acting on referrals from law enforcement and other social media sites. Between them, according to evidence submitted to the home affairs committee, these programmes report around 3,000 at-risk children to the British National Crime Agency each year. Continue reading...

Live sport major draw for Prime Video, while Netflix second with 17% share in fourth quarterAmazon proved more popular than Netflix in the run-up to Christmas as live Premier League and international rugby helped it attract half of all new UK subscribers to streaming services in the final quarter last year.There were almost 1.3m new subscriptions to services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, which includes access to Prime Video as well as perks such as free delivery on purchases, as bored Britain turned to streaming in record numbers to stay entertained during the pandemic. Continue reading...

Social media giant wants a six-month grace period for proposed code it describes as ‘complex, unpredictable and unworkable’Facebook has asked the Australian government to consider giving digital platforms a six-month grace period to make deals with news outlets to pay for content before hitting companies with the “big stick” of the news media bargaining code.Ahead of Facebook’s appearance on Friday before a Senate committee examining the federal government’s news media and digital platforms mandatory bargaining code bill, the social media giant told the committee the code remained “complex, unpredictable and unworkable”. Continue reading...

Half of referrals for child sexual abuse material could be falling under the radar after changes to EU e-privacy directive

CEO Alex Baldock says Currys PC World owner is ‘winning online’ as shopping habits change in pandemic

A Facebook page with 40,000 members created for people buying plots of land has been taken over by rightwing conspiracy theoristsOn 14 January, the 40,000 Britons who had joined the Facebook group Land for Sale UK awoke to find their newsfeed transformed.Until then, the group had been a moderately sized message board for people looking to buy or sell small parcels of land. “We’d love a patch of land in the Falmouth and Penryn area to let the kids roam, grow fruit trees,” read one typical post. Continue reading...

Great sound, solid noise-cancelling, decent battery, comfortable fit and small case are potent combinationSamsung’s latest Galaxy Buds Pro earbuds add noise-cancelling, virtual surround and improved sound, making them a challenger to Apple’s AirPods Pro.At £219, they are the new top-of-the-range earbuds from Samsung, sitting above the £179 Galaxy Buds Live and £159 Galaxy Buds+. Continue reading...

Exclusive: first factory production means recharging could soon be as fast as filling up petrol or diesel vehiclesBatteries capable of fully charging in five minutes have been produced in a factory for the first time, marking a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles.Electric vehicles are a vital part of action to tackle the climate crisis but running out of charge during a journey is a worry for drivers. The new lithium-ion batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines. Continue reading...

In 2013 James Howells threw out a computer hard drive containing bitcoin. Last week he again asked his local council for permission to dig for it at his local dump as he believes it is now worth about £200m. The Guardian’s UK technology editor, Alex Hern, looks at the rise of bitcoin and whether it should be bannedThe Guardian’s UK technology editor, Alex Hern, talks to Rachel Humphreys about the cryptocurrency bitcoin, which allows people to bypass banks and traditional payment methods. It uses a blockchain – a shared public record of transactions – to create and track a new type of digital token, one that can only be made and shared according to the agreed-upon rules of the network. At its heart bitcoin is a big database of who owns what, and what transactions were made between those owners. But unlike a conventional bank, there is no central authority running that database.Bitcoin’s value has recently soared and the City regulator the FSA is concerned that crypto investment firms could be overstating potential payouts or understating the risks from investing in bitcoin and products related to the digital currency. As a newer and relatively lightly regulated market, consumers are unlikely to have access to state-backed compensation if something goes wrong. There has also been a boom in bitcoin scams. Continue reading...

Platform popular with Trump supporters is back online, but only carries a message from its CEO, using IP address owned by DDOS-GuardParler, the social network popular with Donald Trump supporters, has partially returned online with the help of a Russian-owned technology company.The network vanished from the internet after it was dropped by Amazon’s hosting arm and other partners over a lack of moderation after its users called for violence and posted videos glorifying the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January. Continue reading...

This long-buried gem from 1982 about a teen-girl punk band subverts the great rock’n’roll swindle of the Sex PistolsWhen Johnny Rotten crouched on the edge of the stage in San Francisco in 1978, at the demise of the Sex Pistols’ US tour, and asked, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” it would inspire a key moment in a film four years later.In Ladies and Gentleman, the Fabulous Stains, Billy (Ray Winstone) fronts the Looters – a London punk band, all “poxy” this and “bollocks” that – rounded out by real-life Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones, as well as Paul Simonon from the Clash. Billy addresses the fanatical teenage girl audience awaiting the set of headline act the Fabulous Stains, and snarls: “You’ve been ripped off.” Continue reading...

The US in a submission to a Senate inquiry favours a voluntary code rather than government regulationThe United States has urged the Australian government to ditch draft media laws that would force tech giants Google and Facebook to pay news organisations for sharing their content.The US, in a submission to an Australian parliamentary inquiry, has said that the proposed legislation is unreasonable, impractical, “fundamentally imbalanced” and could run counter to the US-Australia free trade agreement. Continue reading...

After US president’s ban, some wonder if action will be taken against populists accused of using social media to stir chaos“I do not celebrate or feel pride,” the Twitter boss Jack Dorsey said this week after banishing Donald Trump.But for many around the world the decision brought hope: might similar action soon be taken against other populist provocateurs they accuse of using social media to stir chaos? Continue reading...

Nadine Dorries, James Cleverly and Michael Gove joined the platform favoured by Trump supportersAt least 14 Conservative MPs, including several ministers, cabinet minister Michael Gove and a number of prominent Tory commentators joined Parler, the social media platform favoured by the far right that was forced offline last week for hosting threats of violence and racist slurs.Parler was taken offline after Amazon Web Services pulled the plug last Sunday, saying violent posts and racist threats connected to the recent attack on the US Capitol violated its terms. Continue reading...

The suspension of Donald Trump’s accounts sparked outrage among conservatives but the prevailing mood is for greater regulationNationals MP Anne Webster and Labor MP Sharon Claydon are less concerned with why Donald Trump was taken off social media, and more concerned with what platforms such as Facebook are doing to stop online defamation and abuse.Webster and Claydon are the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Making Social Media Safe, a group to “highlight the environment of social media and the risks associated” and to make the platforms more accountable. It now boasts more than 50 members thanks partly to Twitter and Facebook’s response to last week’s attack on the US Capitol. Continue reading...

The US president’s ban has sparked a furious debate about online opinion, but it’s part of a bigger conversationIt was eerily quiet on social media last week. That’s because Trump and his cultists had been “deplatformed”. By banning him, Twitter effectively took away the megaphone he’s been masterfully deploying since he ran for president. The shock of the 6 January assault on the Capitol was seismic enough to convince even Mark Zuckerberg that the plug finally had to be pulled. And so it was, even to the point of Amazon Web Services terminating the hosting of Parler, a Twitter alternative for alt-right extremists.The deafening silence that followed these measures was, however, offset by an explosion of commentary about their implications for freedom, democracy and the future of civilisation as we know it. Wading knee-deep through such a torrent of opinion about the first amendment, free speech, censorship, tech power and “accountability” (whatever that might mean), it was sometimes hard to keep one’s bearings. But what came to mind continually was H L Mencken’s astute insight that “for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong”. The air was filled with people touting such answers. Continue reading...

Mobile phone operator will increase prices from 16 February but says rates remain competitiveThe mobile phone operator Three is increasing call and text charges for its pay-as-you-go customers, with some international texts rising from 2p to 35p.From 16 February, the cost of making a PAYG call will rise to 10p a minute – up from 3p. The cost of sending a text in the UK will jump from 2p to 10p, while the price of using data anywhere rises from 1p to 5p a MB. Continue reading...

British Transport Police investigate ‘reckless’ video posted of car on working level crossing near BoltonPolice are investigating after a video showing a car parked over a live railway track for a photoshoot was posted on TikTok.The clip shows a tripod and car set up by a level crossing north of Bolton with the caption: “Would you take the risk to get the shot no one else would?” Continue reading...

Away from the vitriol, researchers are investigating concrete steps companies, officials and the rest of us can take to tackle the crisisIt was nearing midnight on Tuesday, 12 January when the final plank of Donald Trump’s social media platform fell away. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, Snapchat and, finally, YouTube had all come to the same conclusion: that their platforms – multibillion-dollar American companies that dominate American political discourse – could not be safely used by the president of the United States.In less than a week, a new president will take office. But considering the role social media played in elevating Trump to the presidency and its part in spreading misinformation, conspiracy theories and calls for violence, it is clear that the end of the Trump presidency won’t provide an immediate fix. There is something fundamentally broken in social media that has allowed us to reach this violent juncture, and the de-platforming of Trump is not going to address those deeper pathologies. Continue reading...

GPS art or GPX is a combination of both fitness and artistic activity. Your movements, traced by GPS signals, become the paint on a city-sized canvas. You can run, ride or walk your artwork through popular fitness tracking apps such as Strava and the path of your choosing. Tackling the streets and cycleways of Sydney, Guardian Australia find out first hand the physical challenges and creative triumphs of the activity. Continue reading...

Shell company owned by two Russians cut ties with internet host of 8kun, which has been linked to other acts of violenceA far-right website that was among the platforms used to organize the deadly violence at the US Capitol has again been forced to find new internet service protection after a shell company owned by two Russians and registered in Scotland cut ties with the platform’s internet host. Continue reading...

We spoke to convicted hacker turned security consultant Kevin Mitnick to find out how to maintain your security onlineIf you use the popular messaging service WhatsApp you may have noticed a pop-up message in recent days asking you to accept the service’s new terms and conditions by 8 February in order to continue using it.The update has prompted calls for users to leave the popular messaging service in favour of alternatives such as Signal and Telegram. And on Friday a legal challenge on privacy grounds was filed against WhatsApp in India, the service’s biggest market. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has reported an influx of 25 million global users to the rival service since the announcement was made. Continue reading...

GPS art, or GPX, is a fitness and artistic activity where your movements, traced by GPS signals, become the paint on a city-sized canvasHenry David Thoreau once wrote: “This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” More than 150 years later, a new generation of artists tracing their movements via GPS to create sketches are proving Thoreau’s words remarkably prescient.That’s what Strava art is at its core. Named after the fitness tracking app that has previously helped reveal secret US military bases – and also referred to as GPS art or GPX – your movements are the paint and a city block your brush stroke. Think of them as 21st century digital geoglyphs. Continue reading...

As Silicon Valley businesses shutter offices, the city looks very different. But will the change outlast the coronavirus?The pandemic has brought the commercial real estate market in San Francisco to a new low, with work-from-home policies and office closures slowing Silicon Valley-driven business expansion to numbers not seen in at least three decades.New office-leasing activity in 2020 dropped a staggering 71% compared with the year before, according to the real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, from 7.7m to 2.2m sq ft – the lowest since the early 1990s. Tenant demand also halved during the pandemic, from 6.6m sq ft to 3.3m sq ft. Continue reading...

New data reveals that more than two million users are using an outdated version of the contact tracing app

Once the preserve of salty old sea dogs, the folk songs are the latest craze on the social media site. But is it wholesome fun, or a sign lockdown has broken us?Name: Sea shanties.Age: At least 600 years old. Continue reading...

NSPCC welcomes changes as it says abusers are taking advantage of pandemic to target children onlineChildren on TikTok will face “groundbreaking” new restrictions in an attempt to prevent grooming on the platform, the video-sharing company has announced, with particularly strict new rules for users under 16.The platform, which has a lower age limit of 13, said users under 16 would no longer be able to receive comments from strangers, have their videos used for “duets” or mark their posts as available to be downloaded. Their accounts will default to “private”, which prevents anyone other than friends from viewing their videos. Continue reading...

The tech giant says it is ‘running a few experiments that will each reach about 1% of Google Search users in Australia’Google has been hiding some Australian news sites from search results, in a move media outlets say is a show of “extraordinary power” as the tech company bargains with the Australian government over financial payment for content.The Australian government is attempting to impose a new code on Google and Facebook that would force them to negotiate a fair price for displaying local news content. Continue reading...

Police arrest 34-year-old suspected of operating site selling drugs, credit card data and malwareA German-led police sting has taken down the “world’s largest” darknet marketplace, whose Australian alleged operator used it to facilitate the sale of drugs, stolen credit card data and malware, prosecutors said Tuesday.At the time of its closure, DarkMarket had nearly 500,000 users and more than 2,400 vendors worldwide, as the coronavirus pandemic leads much of the street trade in narcotics to go online. Continue reading...

Stefan Thomas is not the first person to forget a password, but memory lapses are rarely so potentially costlyStefan Thomas has just two chances left to get his hands on his $240m (£175m) fortune.Thomas is a San Francisco-based computer programmer, and a decade ago he was given 7,002 bitcoins as a reward for making a video explaining how the cryptocurrency works. Continue reading...

Facebook is cracking down on content using the 'stop the steal' phrase behind false US election claims as the firm's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, says she’s ‘glad’ Donald Trump was blocked.

The network said it acted after ‘violent events in Washington’ when a pro-Trump mob stormed the US CapitolTwitter has said it has suspended more than 70,000 accounts since Friday that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content as the social media site continued to crack down on content after supporters of Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol.“Given the violent events in Washington DC, and increased risk of harm, we began permanently suspending thousands of accounts that were primarily dedicated to sharing QAnon content on Friday afternoon,” Twitter said in a blog late on Monday. Continue reading...

Company places limits on phrase behind false election claims as Sheryl Sandberg says she’s ‘glad’ president was blockedFacebook is cracking down on content using the phrase “stop the steal”, the rallying cry of Donald Trump supporters who claim without evidence that there was voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Continue reading...

This affectionate spoof of early 90s gaming scores high in nostalgia, but lags without comedic heavy-hittersHere is a throwaway space spoof, an affectionate send-up of the naffness of early 90s video games, that lovingly recreates the vintage details with its production design and fight choreography, but is troublingly low on scripted gags. It plays out in two dimensions: virtual and real life. Inside a computer game, explorer Max Cloud is an intergalactic hero, a preposterous macho knucklehead in latex, sturdily performed by actor and martial arts expert Scott Adkins, who has appeared in a few of the Marvels. I did wonder if an actor with the comic chops for some megaton silliness might have done some heavier lifting here.Meanwhile, in actual Brooklyn, teenage gamer Sarah (Isabelle Allen) is hooked on the Max Cloud video game. After a fight with her dad she is mysteriously teleported into the game – and into the body of a minor character, chef Jake (Elliot James Langridge). You might consider this a waste of a female lead – putting her into the body of a male actor – but there she stays for most of the movie. For any chance of making it back to her real life she must complete the game with the help of her friend playing in her bedroom (Franz Drameh). John Hannah is painfully unfunny as ultra baddie Revengor, who wants to destroy planet Earth over a past snub. Continue reading...

Regulator cautions public over risk of products promising high returns from cryptoassetsConsumers should be prepared to lose all their money if they invest in schemes promising high returns from digital currencies such as bitcoin, a City watchdog has warned.The volatile nature of cryptoassets was highlighted again on Monday as bitcoin dropped 28% from Friday’s record high of $42,000, having doubled its value in less than a month. Despite the day’s decline to $30,200, bitcoin is still only at its lowest level since the first day of the new year. Continue reading...

Amazon stops hosting social network, used as communication hub by US Capitol riotersThe “free speech” social network Parler, popular with Donald Trump supporters, has been forced off the internet after Amazon pulled its hosting services.The Twitter clone, which gained notoriety as a communication hub for the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on Wednesday, had already suffered a major hit to its reach over the weekend, as first Google and then Apple suspended its app from their stores. Continue reading...

The Czech playwright Karel Čapek coined the expression for artificial men in 1921. Now they are far more than science fiction“Listen Josef,” said the Czech playwright Karel Čapek to his brother. “I have an idea for a play.”Josef, an artist of some renown, was painting furiously and unimpressed by his brother’s intrusion. “What kind of play?” he asked, sharply. Karel set out the plot. In the future, humans have created synthetic, humanoid creatures to increase productivity in the factories and fight wars on the battlefield. Built as slave workers, they will eventually rise up and wipe out the human race. Continue reading...

After 2020, anyone would be forgiven for wanting to escape Earth, and Mars, the moon and the asteroid belt beckonThis Nasa telescope, which is to replace the Hubble, has been subject to many delays – its first planned launch was in 2007. A March 2020 takeoff was delayed due to Covid, while its initial $500m budget has spiralled to more than $10bn (£7.4bn). It is a more sensitive telescope than the Hubble and once operational it will be able to observe the formation of some of the first galaxies. It will be launched on a European Ariane 5 rocket on 31 October. Continue reading...