Technology | The Guardian

Most of us use a smart speaker to listen to music or set a timer – but lockdown has made 14% of men yearn for a decidedly more intimate relationshipName: Alexa.Age: Five. Continue reading...

Good sound, battery life, case and design, with instant translation and different silicone tip with open-air-like fitGoogle’s AirPods competitor is finally ready. The Pixel Buds are true wireless earbuds that aim to be all things to all people with a hybrid design that’s neither fully open nor isolating.The £179 earphones are Google’s second attempt at Bluetooth earbuds, the first being not great. The new version dispense with the wire and adopt a tried-and-tested approach: earbuds that slot into a small and pocketable case. Continue reading...

Fifty years on, Marion Morrison tells how she followed the return to Bristol of SS Great Britain for the ObserverAs it made its slow way up the Avon in July 1970, people lined the riverbanks to see the 127-year-old incredible hulk return home. After an 8,000-mile, 87-day journey, SS Great Britain was back in its place of birth.Approaching the port of Bristol, the extraordinary ship built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel passed under the Clifton suspension bridge, another of the great engineer’s masterpieces. “Flags were flying, people were roaring and clapping,” recalled one witness. “Something took hold of the people of Bristol,” said another. Continue reading...

Move has enraged drivers and labor organizers who say company should provide protective gear free to workersThe ride-hailing platform Lyft has opened an online store to sell masks and other protective gear as the Covid-19 pandemic intensifies, enraging drivers and labor organizers who say the company should be providing these free.The tech company’s move to sell drivers protective gear rather than provide it resurfaces the debate of whether drivers are employees or independent contractors, and to what extent the tech giants carry responsibility for the work conditions of gig workers. Continue reading...

NSO Group was sued last year by messaging app owned by Facebook

Accounts of Uber and Apple also appear to have been hacked as part of scam instructing followers to transfer cryptocurrencyTwitter suffered a major security breach on Wednesday that saw hackers take control of the accounts of major public figures and corporations, including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Apple.The company confirmed the breach Wednesday evening, more than six hours after the hack began, and attributed it to a “coordinated social engineering attack” on its own employees that enabled the hackers to access “internal systems and tools”. Twitter said it was “looking into what other malicious activity they may have conducted or information they may have accessed” in addition to using the compromised accounts to send tweets. Continue reading...

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo accuses Chinese telco of human rights abuses and says employees may have US visas restrictedThe United States has cleared the way for sanctions on employees of the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, expanding its campaign against Beijing.The US secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that Washington would restrict US visas for employees of Huawei and other Chinese firms if they were involved in human rights abuses. Continue reading...

Court defeat for Brussels is reminder of glacial pace at which international tax reform proceedsMargrethe Vestager may as well give up. If the EU’s competition commissioner can’t win her highest-profile case in the EU’s second-highest court, then the EU’s tax arrangements, as they apply to multinational tech companies, will remain a free-for-all.In practice, she may plough on. The Luxembourg-based general court’s order that Apple does not need to pay €13bn (£11.7bn) in back taxes to the Irish government can be challenged. Lawyers may yet enjoy many more years of lucrative work. Continue reading...

Company’s first hardware product will feature HD cameras, eight microphones and touch displayZoom, the company behind the video-conferencing software that experienced a huge boom during the Covid-19 crisis, has announced a new product for those of us stuck working from home: a 27-inch computer screen.Zoom For Home, the company’s first hardware product, is aimed at the growing number of people whose remote-work involves a substantial amount of time spent on Zoom calls with colleagues, clients and suppliers. Continue reading...

Beijing warns that removal of telecoms firm from UK network by 2027 will undermine trustThe British government’s decision to ban the use of Huawei in its 5G network is groundless and indicative of the UK’s junior status in its alliance with the US, Beijing has said as it vowed to take measures to protect the interests of Chinese companies.“Listening to all the rhetoric it was clear the UK had succumbed to pressure from China hawks and bashers,” said Liu Xiaoming, the Chinese ambassador to the UK. “We are not asking you to take sides between China and the US. We are just asking you to take the right side of the argument. Britain can only be Great Britain when it has an independent foreign policy.” Continue reading...

European commission failed to prove Apple had benefited from arrangement, court findsThe European commission has been dealt a major blow in its battle to stop EU member states granting sweetheart tax deals to multinational corporations after the bloc’s general court ruled that Apple did not need to pay €13bn (£11.7bn) in back taxes to the Irish government.The Luxembourg-based court found the EU’s executive body had failed to prove that the iPhone maker benefited from an allegedly illegal arrangement with the Irish authorities, in a decision with wide repercussions for the bloc’s plans to clamp down on tax avoidance. Continue reading...

Coronavirus, trade, Hong Kong and human rights all in play as relations teeter over 5G role

Ernest Maragall revelation set to boost calls for inquiry into possible domestic espionage

Speaker of regional parliament was told he was targeted by spyware in ‘possible case of domestic espionage’Current and former leaders of Catalonia’s pro-independence government have called for an inquiry after it emerged that the speaker of the region’s parliament has been warned that his mobile was targeted using spyware its makers say is only sold to governments to track criminals and terrorists.On Monday, a joint investigation by the Guardian and El País revealed that Roger Torrent and at least two other pro-independence supporters have been told they were targeted last year in what experts describe as a “possible case of domestic political espionage” in Europe. Continue reading...

U-turn puts Boris Johnson on collision course with Tory rebels on timing of banHuawei is to be stripped out of Britain’s 5G phone networks by 2027, a date that puts Boris Johnson on collision course with a group of Conservative rebels who want the Chinese company eliminated quicker and more comprehensively.Oliver Dowden, the UK culture secretary, also announced that no new Huawei 5G kit can be bought after 31 December this year – but disappointed the rebels by saying that older 2G, 3G and 4G kit can remain until it is no longer needed. Continue reading...

Rights group wanted export licence for NSO’s leading phone-hacking software to be revokedA Tel Aviv court has rejected a legal case filed by Amnesty International that attempted to block the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group from selling its cyberweapons internationally.The rights groups sought to force the Israeli ministry of defence to revoke NSO Group’s export licence for its leading phone-hacking software, Pegasus. Amnesty’s lawyers alleged the product had been used by repressive governments to target activists, including one the rights group’s own researchers, as well as journalists. Continue reading...

The UK government will soon decide on its future relationship with the Chinese telecoms firmThe UK government is due to announce its decision on the extent of the Chinese firm Huawei’s participation in the 5G network. Continue reading...

US national security adviser to urge European counterparts to bar Chinese firm from 5G networksRobert O’Brien, the US national security adviser, will meet his counterparts from France, Italy, the UK and Germany in Paris this week to urge European nations to debar the Chinese technology company Huawei from Europe’s 5G networks.The meetings, over three days, underline how most European governments are facing similar choices to the UK, which will announce on Tuesday its decision on the company, on how far and quickly to exclude Huawei, and with what consequences in terms of potential Chinese reprisals. Continue reading...

(Sneaky Bastards/Humble Games; PC)

Two-year audit praises some decisions but criticises lack of action over Trump postsFacebook’s decisions over the last nine months have resulted in “serious setbacks for civil rights,” according to the damning conclusion of a two-year-long audit commissioned by the social network to review its impact on the world.The final report, which focuses primarily on decisions made since June 2019, praises Facebook’s move to ban American advertisers from using its tools for housing and employment discrimination, and the company’s belated decision to ban explicit support for white nationalism. Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch, PC; Marvelous/Xseed

US firm will buy naming rights for fleet and piers, and users can book journeys on its appUber is to extend its reach in London by taking to the water, with the Thames Clippers commuter service to be rebranded Uber Boat and bookable through the US company’s app.A formal partnership will be launched this summer, allowing Uber users to book a Thames river journey through the app, and board using a QR code on their phone. Uber will buy the naming rights for the 20-strong fleet of river boats and Thames Clipper’s piers from Putney to Woolwich, in a rolling contract expected to last for at least three years. Continue reading...

If the combined might of brands like Unilever and Coca-Cola don’t scare Mark Zuckerberg, who can hold the social media platform to account?

The Earn It Act, described as an effort to address sexual exploitation, could threaten encryption practices, opponents sayA US Senate bill that critics say would enable widespread censorship and surveillance has taken a significant step towards becoming law, raising alarm among internet freedom advocates.The Senate judiciary committee voted on Thursday to advance the Earn It Act, legislation that on paper is intended to address sexual exploitation. However, privacy experts say the act would give the Department of Justice unprecedented power over the internet and potentially threaten the privacy of messages sent online. Continue reading...

PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch; Echodog Games

As social media has become more inhospitable, the appeal of private online groups has grown. But they hold their own dangers – to those both inside and out.In the spring, as the virus swept across the world and billions of people were compelled to stay at home, the popularity of one social media app rose more sharply than any other. By late March, usage of WhatsApp around the world had grown by 40%. In Spain, where the lockdown was particularly strict, it rose by 76%. In those early months, WhatsApp – which hovers neatly between the space of email, Facebook and SMS, allowing text messages, links and photos to be shared between groups – was a prime conduit through which waves of news, memes and mass anxiety travelled.At first, many of the new uses were heartening. Mutual aid groups sprung up to help the vulnerable. Families and friends used the app to stay close, sharing their fears and concerns in real time. Yet by mid-April, the role that WhatsApp was playing in the pandemic looked somewhat darker. A conspiracy theory about the rollout of 5G, which originated long before Covid-19 had appeared, now claimed that mobile phone masts were responsible for the disease. Across the UK, people began setting fire to 5G masts, with 20 arson attacks over the Easter weekend alone. Continue reading...

Although the term is not banned, the network has been designated as a dangerous organization similar to white supremacistsFacebook has banned an extremist anti-government network associated with the term “boogaloo”, a slang word supporters use to refer to a second civil war.Tuesday’s move by Facebook designates the rightwing “boogaloo” network as a dangerous organization similar to the Islamic State group and white supremacists, both of which are already banned from its service. Continue reading...

‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign gathers momentum as ad boycott spreads outside USAlmost a third of advertisers are considering joining a month-long boycott of Facebook as the social network struggles to convince advertisers that it is doing enough to fight hate speech on its platform.The unprecedented corporate snub has been revealed in survey by the World Federation of Advertisers, whose big-spending members control nearly $100bn (£81bn) in spending. Continue reading...

The social network’s crisis has been a long time in the making and shows no sign of going awayIt took less than two hours for Facebook to react and it did so for good reason.At 5pm on Friday, Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, with a portfolio of products that ranges from Marmite to Vaseline, suddenly announced it was pulling all adverts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the US. Continue reading...

What happens when you decide to search the National Library database for historical references to global warming? It goes further back than you think“Science has uncovered indisputable evidence that the level of our oceans is rising. This is the result of a sudden and unexpected increase in our planet’s northern temperatures. Ice masses are melting rapidly away. If the rate of thawing continues, civilisation near the sea may be submerged and profound changes be wrought in climate, soil, sea and the race itself. The whole face of the earth may be moving towards a vast transformation.”That’s quite an opening paragraph, but it’s not mine. It belongs a story titled “Sea Levels Rising” published in the Central Queensland Herald on Thursday. Thursday 30 September 1948. Continue reading...

The US giant faces a probe into its lucrative App Store and, more interestingly, the tech behind its phone payment systemOn 16 June, the European commission opened two antitrust investigations into Apple’s App Store and Apple Pay practices. The first investigation will examine whether Apple has broken EU competition rules with its App Store policies. The second investigation is into whether restrictions imposed by Apple on the near field communication (NFC) capability of its iPhone and Apple Watch mean that banks and other financial institutions are prevented from offering NFC payment systems using Apple kit.Let’s take the App Store first. When Apple unveiled the iPhone in 2007, it created an amazing new opportunity for software developers and, of course, for Apple itself. Because the new phone was basically a powerful handheld computer, that meant it could run smallish programs, which came to be called apps. And because it had an internet connection those programs could be efficiently distributed across the net. From this came the idea that Apple should set up an App Store to which developers could upload their programs. Apple, being a control-freak corporation, would vet those apps before they appeared on the store and would levy a 30% commission on sales. It seems like a great idea. Continue reading...

The football games’ 25-year turf war has been an exciting match. But will the next generation of consoles be the final whistle for PES?Earlier this year, Barcelona’s Sergi Roberto was due to compete in a charity Fifa 20 tournament, which ultimately raised almost £130,000 towards the fight against coronavirus. Yet his first-round match against Eibar’s Edu Expósito never took place. The reason? Barca are an official PES 2020 partner club – and publisher Konami reportedly wasn’t keen for him to promote its main rival. It was the latest shot in a turf war going back 25 years.When Fifa International Soccer launched on Mega Drive in December 1993, its competitors were already beginning to look old-fashioned. Contemporary hits Kick Off 2 and Sensible Soccer both adopted an overhead view and lacked any kind of big-league sponsorship. But Fifa was a flashy newcomer, designed for the 16-bit console era, and within a month it had sold 500,000 copies. Critics and football fans loved its isometric viewpoint, realistic animations, end-to-end action and spectacular bicycle kicks. “The word ‘classic’ is used too much,” wrote Mean Machines Sega magazine, awarding it 94%, “but anyone who plays Fifa Soccer must concede that this IS football.” Continue reading...

Service adds to firms shunning Facebook over refusal to act against Donald Trump postsThe messaging service Viber, the fifth biggest with more than a billion users around the world, is severing all ties to Facebook as part of a growing boycott of the company by commercial partners.The campaign, initially started in the US after Facebook’s refusal to take action against posts from Donald Trump which critics said incited violence, has now grown to become an international movement. Continue reading...

Guardian investigation finds more than 3m aggregate followers and members support QAnon on Facebook, and their numbers are growingIn early May, QAnon braced for a purge. Facebook had removed a small subset – five pages, six groups and 20 profiles – of the community on the social network, and as word of the bans spread, followers of Q began preparing for a broader sweep.Some groups changed their names, substituting “17” for “Q” (the 17th letter of the alphabet); others shared links to back-up accounts on alternative social media platforms with looser rules. Continue reading...

PC, Mac, smartphones, Nintendo Switch; Happy Volcano

Track sleep, heart rate, snoring and even sleep apnoea with a zero-maintenance mat you stick under your mattressSleep tracking has become an important piece of total wellness monitoring, but typically requires strapping devices to your wrist or head. Withings Sleep Analyzer records your sleep and heart rate, plus is one of the first devices to monitor sleep apnoea, all without you needing to attach anything to your person.Instead, the £120 Sleep Analyzer is a sensor-packed slim mat that you slide under your mattress. Once it’s there you simply go to sleep as normal. Continue reading...

The firm will now delete its saved records of a new user’s activity after 18 monthsGoogle will no longer save a complete record of every search made by new users, the company says, as it launches a push to promote its privacy credentials against concerted competition from arch-rival Apple.The company will now automatically delete its saved records of a new user’s activity on the web and in its apps after 18 months, chief executive Sundar Pichai announced on Wednesday. Previously, such information had been kept indefinitely by default, which the company argued was necessary to personalise its services for individual users. Continue reading...

Its bloody tragedies have outraged some players but this sequel draws unashamedly on heritage horror films. (Contains spoilers)• This article contains story details from throughout the game.It’s the sound effects that really get to you. The strangulated gurgle of a slashed throat, the wet schlump of an axe hitting a skull, the gloopy splatter of a shotgun blast to the torso. For those coming to The Last of Us sequel expecting a dark, character-led drama, these gruesome noises, encountered in the first moments of combat, are an attention-grabbing reminder that this is first and foremost a horror series. After all, the original title ended on a horrific decision: in the midst of a deadly viral pandemic, troubled father figure Joel could either let a medical team dissect his surrogate daughter to discover a cure, or save her life and doom humanity. He chose the latter, murdering everyone in the operating theatre in the process. Continue reading...

Concerns after bars and restaurants in England instructed to record customers’ details

Company will retire Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers, on 15 JulySegway, which boldly claimed its two-wheeled personal transporter would revolutionize the way people get around, is ending production of its namesake vehicle.The Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers but perhaps better known for its high-profile crashes, will be retired on 15 July, the company said in a statement. Continue reading...

Pandemic has sent internet usage soaring and may leave lasting legacy, report says

South Wales police accused of using system with ‘racial bias’ that breaks data protection lawAutomated facial recognition technology that searches for people in public places breaches privacy rights and will “radically” alter the way Britain is policed, the court of appeal has been told.At the opening of a legal challenge against the use by South Wales police of the mass surveillance system, lawyers for the civil rights organisation Liberty argued that it is also racially discriminatory and contrary to data protection laws. Continue reading...

Move in autumn will let users set Gmail as default email app and Firefox as main web browseriPhone users will be able to set Gmail as their default email app, Firefox as their main web browser, and listen to Spotify on their HomePod speakers, after Apple announced concessions to competitors who argue the company is abusing its monopoly.The new openness will arrive with a wave of software updates in the autumn, Apple said, alongside the other new features the company promised at its Worldwide Developers Conference, held remotely from Cupertino, California, on Monday. Continue reading...

A new kind of venture capital fund would use money from the US government to invest in companies that most need itOn first blush a Silicon Valley venture capitalist might not strike you as the first person to turn to when trying to address the racial wealth divide but these days we should take good ideas where we find them.Ash Shrivastav works for Buckhill Capital, a Silicon Valley-based private equity and venture capital firm that specializes in investing in early stage and growth companies and real estate such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, a customer-owned banking platform called Good Money as well as apartment communities from New York to Washington State. Continue reading...

Apple says it will switch to its own brand of processors for Mac computers, ditching Intel after nearly 15 years. The shift was announced at the firm’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in the US, held virtually for the first time due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and follows similar changes to the iPhone and iPad range. Apple also announced its upcoming iOS 14 software, as well as updates to its watches

The North Face, REI and other brands pause advertising on the platform in ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaignSeveral companies have suspended advertising on Facebook over the company’s failure to address hate speech on the platform.The outdoor apparel and product retailers the North Face, REI, and Patagonia have pledged not to pay for advertising on Facebook platforms as part of the “Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, launched Wednesday by advocacy groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and the Color Of Change. The freelance job listing site Upwork and the internet company Mozilla have also joined the pledge. Continue reading...

Follow the launch of Apple’s latest hardware and software updates as they are announced

WhatsApp has accused an Israeli spyware company of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists and diplomatic officials. As new allegations emerge, Guardian US investigations correspondent Stephanie Kirchgaessner discusses how she first discovered the storyIn October 2019, the encrypted messaging app WhatsApp filed a lawsuit against a little known Israeli technology company called NSO Group. It accused the group of being responsible for a series of highly sophisticated cyber-attacks on 1,400 of its users, many of them human rights activists, journalists and diplomatic officials. It was the latest twist in a saga that the Guardian’s Stephanie Kirchgaessner had been investigating for months.She tells Anushka Asthana that after working with researchers at the Canadian firm Citizen Lab, which tracks the use of spyware, she believes current and former clients of NSO Group include Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading...

Amnesty alleges phone of Omar Radi in Morocco was infected by NSO’s Pegasus softwareAs NSO Group faced mounting criticism last year that its hacking software was being used illegally against journalists, dissidents and campaigners around the world, the Israeli spyware company unveiled a new policy that it said showed its commitment to human rights.Now an investigation has alleged that another journalist, Omar Radi in Morocco, was targeted with NSO’s Pegasus software and put under surveillance just days after the company made that promise. Continue reading...

Cut of up to 30% charged by app stores obstructs fair competition, claims Brad SmithMicrosoft has thrown its weight behind calls for an antitrust investigation into App Store monopolies, piling yet more pressure on Apple as the iPhone maker prepares for its annual developer conference on Monday.Brad Smith, Microsoft’s president, criticised the 30% cut that app stores take from developers this month, and argued that the policy is a far higher burden on fair competition than the issues that led to Microsoft’s antitrust case in the early 2000s. Continue reading...