Technology | The Guardian

At 108 pages and covering a wide terrain, comprehensive report damns FacebookWeighing in at 108 pages, the final report of the parliamentary committee investigating disinformation makes devastating reading for Facebook, which is accused of greedily squeezing as much profit out of user data as possible, while deceiving or obstructing anyone daring to scrutinise the company’s activities.The committee’s inquiry has covered an extraordinary amount of terrain in its 18-month lifespan, from Russian election interference to cash-for-passport schemes, and the report is similarly comprehensive. Continue reading...

Parliament’s report into fake news raises many questions, but will the government act?Facebook is an out-of-control train wreck that is destroying democracy and must be brought under control. The final report of parliament’s inquiry into fake news and disinformation does not use this language, precisely, but it is, nonetheless, the report’s central message. And the language it does use is no less damning.Facebook behaves like a “digital gangster”. It considers itself to be “ahead of and beyond the law”. It “misled” parliament. It gave statements that were “not true”. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has treated British lawmakers with “contempt”. It has pursued a “deliberate” strategy to deceive parliament. Continue reading...

US has pressured its allies not to use Chinese group amid fears of cyber espionageUK security chiefs have advised that the risk of using Huawei technology in the new superfast 5G could be contained despite US warnings about opening the telecoms network up to Chinese cyber-espionage, according to sources.The US has reportedly been pressuring the UK and other allies not to use Huawei technology for critical infrastructure, arguing that it could be too risky when the Chinese state is engaged in spying. Continue reading...

Once the stuff of science fiction, technology that enables people to talk using different languages is now here. But how effective is it?Noise, Alex Waibel tells me, is one of the major challenges that artificial speech translation has to meet. A device may be able to recognise speech in a laboratory, or a meeting room, but will struggle to cope with the kind of background noise I can hear surrounding Professor Waibel as he speaks to me from Kyoto station. I’m struggling to follow him in English, on a scratchy line that reminds me we are nearly 10,000km apart – and that distance is still an obstacle to communication even if you’re speaking the same language. We haven’t reached the future yet.If we had, Waibel would have been able to speak in his native German and I would have been able to hear his words in English. He would also be able to converse hands-free and seamlessly with the Japanese people around him, with all parties speaking their native language. Continue reading...

Westminster will also urge investigation into foreign meddling in UK electionsFacebook cannot be trusted to regulate itself and must be subject to sweeping new legislation, a parliamentary report will announce on Monday.It will also call on the government to launch an independent investigation into foreign interference in British elections since 2014. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee will publish what is expected to be a landmark report into fake news and disinformation at midnight on Sunday night. Continue reading...

When Seamas O’Reilly responded to all his emails for a week using only Smart Reply, our columnist’s messages suddenly became spookily jaunty. Did his friends spot the difference?The philosopher Jeremy Bentham was famed for his panopticon, a hypothetical circular prison that was designed in such a way that its inmates never knew whether or not they were being observed. This would, his theory went, encourage prisoners to presume they were always being watched, and thus act accordingly. No true version of the prison was ever really built, and the word itself only now lives on due to its prodigious utility within breathless op-eds about surveillance culture, mostly written by people who’ve already overused references to Orwell and Kafka.The genius of today’s boring dystopia has been to offer this surveillance as a feature, not a bug; to cast that all-seeing-eye not as a malevolent shadowy jailer, but as the world’s most boring personal assistant. Nowhere is this truer than with Gmail smart replies, the pocket panopticon that now resides in every inbox. Not only can it see what you’ve already read and written, it has some great ideas on how to make your next contribution, too. But how well does it really know us? How deeply does its unsleeping, lidless eye scan our thoughts and deeds? And could I use this information, the knowledge of a god, to create a stronger, better, smarter me? Seeking answers, I stopped resisting and spent an entire week surrendering to its every whim. Continue reading...

As Mazda’s record-breaking MX-5 turns 30 it is still as young and fun as it was in 1989 – only the price has slowed downMazda MX-5

Company is not paying any taxes for the second year in a row, due to various unspecified ‘tax credits’ and executive stock optionsAmazon has had a bad week but there is some comfort for the tech titan – it will not pay a single cent in income tax on the $11.2bn of profits it made last year.Related: Amazon cancels plans for New York headquarters after fierce opposition Continue reading...

Abrupt collapse of company’s plans seen as a milestone victory for leftwing insurgents over Democrats who backed the dealAmazon picked a tough moment to come to New York.Progressive groups were in the ascendant and they turned their fire on an obvious target: a plan to lure a company run by the world’s richest man with $3bn in subsidies and tax breaks. Continue reading...

Social media platforms under pressure by US congressman to crack down on anti-vaccine propaganda, citing Guardian investigationsFacebook enables advertisers to promote content to nearly 900,000 people interested in “vaccine controversies”, the Guardian has found.Other groups of people that advertisers can pay to reach on Facebook include those interested in “Dr Tenpenny on Vaccines”, which refers to anti-vaccine activist Sherri Tenpenny, and “informed consent”, which is language that anti-vaccine propagandists have adopted to fight vaccination laws. Continue reading...

Surveillance at concerts is just the beginning, as fears grow around an unregulated, billion-dollar industry

Michael Gianaris turned his outrage into leverage when he was appointed to an obscure state board – and soon after, the company called the project offAmazon made plenty of enemies with its plans for a new headquarters in New York, but one of those foes played an outsized role in sending the tech giant packing.Related: Amazon cancels plans for New York headquarters after fierce opposition Continue reading...

Company said to be negotiating settlement with FTC after revelations it inappropriately shared 87m users’ informationThe US government and Facebook are negotiating a settlement over the company’s privacy lapses that could require the online social network to pay a multibillion-dollar fine, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.The newspaper said that the US Federal Trade Commission and Facebook had not agreed on an amount, citing two people it said were familiar with the matter. Facebook reported fourth-quarter revenue of $16.9bn and profit of $6.9bn. Continue reading...

The Elon Musk-backed nonprofit company OpenAI declines to release research publicly for fear of misuseThe creators of a revolutionary AI system that can write news stories and works of fiction – dubbed “deepfakes for text” – have taken the unusual step of not releasing their research publicly, for fear of potential misuse.OpenAI, an nonprofit research company backed by Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, and others, says its new AI model, called GPT2 is so good and the risk of malicious use so high that it is breaking from its normal practice of releasing the full research to the public in order to allow more time to discuss the ramifications of the technological breakthrough. Continue reading...

Tech company says it has ‘decided not to move forward’ with giant campus in Queens

The new battle royale version of Tetris is absurdly compelling – but prepare to take a hit to your game-playing egoI’m sorry to have to tell you this – not everybody takes it well – but you’re probably not as good as you think you are at Tetris.It’s tough to take. Until this morning I thought I was a Tetris prodigy. Beginning with a year-long asynchronous rivalry with my brother on the Game Boy, where each of us would play obsessively until we’d topped all the high-score tables before smugly handing the console over to the other, I’ve played Tetris most of my life. I finished last year’s Tetris Effect, a version of the Russian block-rotating puzzle game that somehow turns it into a psychedelic meditation on the birth of the universe, in one three-hour session. Continue reading...

PC, Xbox One; Sumo Digital/Microsoft

AT wants to replace her MacBook Pro with an all-in-one computer with a bigger screenI’m an illustrator, and I’m looking to replace my old MacBook Pro with a PC. I have a budget of up to £1,500, but would love to spend less if possible (about £1,300). I mainly use Adobe Photoshop for digital painting and editing scanned artwork, InDesign and occasionally Illustrator.For space and comfort reasons, I would ideally buy an all-in-one. I want a fast processor, lots of RAM (16GB at least) and a good screen display.Last September, Bernadette, a writer and photographer, asked for a cheaper Windows alternative to her MacBook, and I was criticised for recommending that she stuck with what she knew. Guess what: I’m going to do it again. Anyone who switches either way will lose some of the benefits of years of experience, and will spend time relearning. Lost productivity is a cost. Continue reading...

Donation will aid transportation in low-income neighborhoods, but tax could have generated far more moneyLyft’s announcement this week that it is donating $700,000 to expand transportation options in Oakland’s low-income neighborhoods was hailed by the city’s mayor, Libby Schaaf, as a way of “undoing the wrongs of the past”.According to the company and the mayor’s office, Lyft’s grant will pay for a participatory design process for the creation of new parklets and bike share stations, and a bike lending library. It will also provide subsidized local transit passes and Lyft rides in cars and on scooters for qualifying low-income residents in areas of Oakland where transportation infrastructure is chronically underfunded. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC; 4A Games/Deep Silver

Chinese tech company uses full-page ads to push for inclusion in 5G rollout despite concerns it is a security riskChina’s Huawei has taken out full-page ads in major New Zealand newspapers in which they equate the idea of ban on the company to a rugby tournament without the All Blacks.The advertisement reads: “5G without Huawei is like rugby without New Zealand”, referring to the upcoming nationwide rollout of the mobile technology. Continue reading...

New rules also prohibit celebrities who look under-25 from appearing in promotionsGambling adverts will no longer be allowed to appear on websites or in computer games that are popular with children, under new rules designed to stop irresponsible gambling.Bookmakers will be required to use every targeting tool possible to ensure online gambling promotions are not seen by under-18s. They will also have to avoid placing gambling adverts on parts of websites that are popular with children, and stop using celebrities or other people who appear to be under 25 in their promotions. Continue reading...

Gavin de Becker has spent decades protecting the rich and famous. Now he’s helping the Amazon CEO take on a tabloidThe National Enquirer has his sexts and, it appears, saucy photos. His imminent divorce is the talk of Wall Street.So Jeff Bezos, the Amazon boss, announced on Friday that he had turned to a singular figure for help – a “bodyguard to the stars” and Los Angeles-based security consultant named Gavin de Becker. Continue reading...

Experts are calling on company to counter closed groups where members can post misinformation without challengeFacebook is under pressure to stem the rise of anti-vaccination groups spreading false information about the dangers of life-saving vaccines while peddling unfounded alternative treatments such as high doses of vitamin C.Related: How Facebook and YouTube help spread anti-vaxxer propaganda Continue reading...

Part van, part car – the all-new Rifter from Peugeot is ready to work hard all week and party at the weekendPeugeot Rifter

In this Valentine’s week special, Jordan Erica Webber looks at whether apps have helped or hindered the art of datingGrindr, the dating app geared towards gay, bisexual, trans and queer people, celebrates its 10th anniversary in March. In addition to being one of the most popular dating apps, it is also being used by enthusiastic tourists wanting to learn more about the places they’re visiting, without having to pick up a travel guide book.How has the app, along with Tinder and others, affected the way we meet people? Jordan chats to professor of sociology at Stanford Michael Rosenfeld, the director for equality at Grindr, Jack Harrison-Quintana, and PHD student Rachel Katz. Continue reading...

Saudi minister says ‘we have nothing to do with it’ as row between the world’s richest man and the tabloid rumbles onThe kingdom of Saudi Arabia has denied that it had anything to do with the leaking of intimate photographs and texts of the Amazon chief executive, Jeff Bezos, to the National Enquirer, as the row between the world’s richest man and the tabloid rumbles on.Related: Jeff Bezos accuses National Enquirer owner of 'extortion and blackmail' Continue reading...

Back in 2016, Apple’s wireless earbuds were ridiculed by the tech industry. Now, thousands of memes later, the tables have turnedOf all the widely ridiculed tech products, Apple’s AirPods have experienced an extraordinary turnaround. Back in 2016, they were roundly mocked by the tech industry. Tiny wireless earbuds? It seemed like a recipe for disaster – streets would be littered with these lost headphones, which would clutter up city pavements like discarded gloves and babies’ socks.“If only there were an invention that could keep those AirPods tethered together, like a string,” wrote Ashley Esqueda from the tech website CNET on Twitter. “The beauty of the headphone cable is just like the beauty of a tampon string: it is there to help you keep track of a very important item,” wrote Julia Carrie Wong in the Guardian. Continue reading...

These insects’ brains may be tiny, but they’re better with numbers than many human children and they are past masters at communicating life skillsLast week, Australian scientists announced that honeybees (Apis mellifera) can learn to add and subtract. Fourteen bees were put through 100 training exercises in a maze – and got the correct answer between 64% and 72% of the time. “It is not that every bee could do this [spontaneously], but we could teach them to do it,” said Dr Adrian Dyer, co-author of the research. Continue reading...

This convoluted tale – with lurid pics, private investigators and, naturally, Trump – seems to have captured the spirit of the ageAnother Hollywood awards ceremony passed with the usual red carpet fashion show, earnest acceptance speeches and mingling of the rich and famous. So few found it remarkable when billionaire Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, was photographed at an after-party with TV presenter and helicopter pilot Lauren Sanchez.Related: Jeff Bezos 'blackmail' claim puts focus on National Enquirer links to Trump Continue reading...

The arrival of the popular US festival for vloggers in the UK is a reminder of the powerful forces changing children’s televisionFor people working in the outwardly bright and cheerful world of children’s television, the past week was not a happy one.On Thursday, a report on the UK’s television viewing habits confirmed many of their worst fears. Among 4-to-15-year-olds last year, the hours of conventional or “linear” television viewed – that is, television watched at the time it was being broadcast – had fallen by 11% in 12 months. Among 16-to-24s, the decline was 15%: the biggest year-on-year drop ever recorded. Continue reading...

The red blood droplet with a period-positive message is hailed as a step forward but some see it as a half-measureThe newest emoji made crimson waves across the internet upon its unveiling this week – and that was exactly the point.Plan International UK’s fight for the cartoon red blood droplet – an emoji meant to symbolize menstruation – was almost poetically symbolic to the message it was trying to convey with it: that periods aren’t shameful. Continue reading...

Who’s who in saga involving world’s richest man Jeff Bezos, and Donald Trump ally and National Enquirer owner David PeckerThe founder of Amazon was until recently perceived to a be a nerdy technocrat bent on nothing more than dominating every single aspect of world commerce through ruthless efficiency. Now, the richest man in the world has transformed himself into the bulked-up, leather jacket-wearing owner of the Washington Post, willing to take on both rival media barons and the US president after details of his love life were made public. The 55-year-old struggled to control the scandal when the National Enquirer first revealed details of his affair with a TV presenter, Lauren Sanchez, last month but he has since gone on the warpath, responding to threats from the tabloid by publishing his correspondence with the outlet, including detailed descriptions of intimate images he sent to his lover. Continue reading...

The Amazon CEO has accused the tabloid of threatening to publish nude images of him to stop him investigating acquisition of intimate text messagesA sprawling international scandal involving Jeff Bezos – the owner of Amazon and world’s richest man – and allegations of “extortion and blackmail” by a tabloid publisher threatened on Friday to also engulf Donald Trump as several key questions went unanswered.Bezos alleges that David Pecker, the owner of the National Enquirer and a longtime friend of the US president, warned him he would publish revealing intimate photos of him unless he stopped investigating how the tabloid obtained text messages exposing his extramarital affair. Continue reading...

Social media platform advised to follow self-harm picture ban with focus on anorexiaImages promoting potentially life-threatening eating disorders are thriving on Instagram and need to be cracked down on in the same way as graphic self-harm images, leading charities and experts have said.The social media giant’s focus on removing graphic images of self-harm did not go far enough, they said, and young people also faced being confronted with pro-anorexia images due to little policing on the site. Continue reading...

Tackling non-graphic related content, however, presents harder challenge than graphicInstagram has bowed to public pressure and introduced a series of policies aimed at protecting vulnerable young people who use the site.Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has committed to tightening up a number of policies relating to self-harm and suicide on the photo-sharing platform after weeks of pressure spearheaded by the father of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old who took her life in 2017. Ian Russell believes Instagram was partly to blame. Continue reading...

Staff responsible for getting children to use social network previously worked on LOL ‘meme hub’Facebook is restructuring its “youth team” with a greater focus on Messenger Kids, its instant-messaging app for under-13s, reports say.The team, a small group within the company responsible for getting children to use the social network, had previously been working on an experimental new feature called LOL, described by industry news site TechCrunch as a “cringey teen meme hub”. Continue reading...

‘Transparency’ rule requires labor department to reveal details of investigations to their targetsThe Trump administration is making it easier for tech companies to discriminate against workers, with a policy that impedes efforts to close the gender pay gap in Silicon Valley, current and former US labor officials said.A new US Department of Labor (DoL) “transparency” directive is forcing DoL officials to disclose preliminary details about anti-discrimination investigations to the targets of the inquiries, which, current and former DoL employees say, enables those companies to evade enforcement efforts and conceal potential violations while cases are ongoing. It’s as if the FBI or the Internal Revenue Service had to give an advanced heads-up to entities they were investigating, the DoL employees say. Continue reading...

From business started in garage to world’s richest man and collision course with Trump

When one critic hailed the company’s immersive show ‘game of the year’, founder Felix Barrett explored video games’ non-linear storytelling. Now he spies a new frontier for the stageThere is a head-scratching moment at the beginning of the popular farming simulator video game Stardew Valley, where you wonder, “What now?” Newly installed on your late grandfather’s dilapidated farm, you’re given no instructions on how to turn the business’s fortunes or what to explore in the neighbouring town.This conundrum fills Felix Barrett with glee. As the founder and creative director of British theatre company Punchdrunk, he has spent 19 years turning warehouses into vast worlds that audiences must learn to explore alone. From Woyzeck to Faust, Punchdrunk transforms classic plays into sprawling, interactive experiences. The idea is this: traditional theatre shows are passive affairs where you watch a distant stage from the comfort of a chair - but a Punchdrunk show is active, mysterious, and places you inside a fiction you can touch, smell, and even taste. The choice of what to do and where to go is up to you. Continue reading...

Amazon chief alleges tabloid threatened to publish nude images of him

Social media site announces action following criticism from British teenager’s fatherInstagram has announced that it will ban all graphic self-harm images as part of a series of changes made in response to the death of British teenager Molly Russell.The photo-sharing platform made the decision – which critics said was necessary but long overdue – in response to a tide of public anger over the suicide of the 14-year-old girl, whose Instagram account contained distressing material about depression and suicide. Continue reading...

Company reports 321 million active monthly users in fourth quarter, a drop of 5 millionTwitter’s share price fell close to 10% in on Thursday as record fourth-quarter revenues and the milestone of achieving its first full year of profitability failed to allay investors’ concerns over a drop in user numbers and a weak revenue forecast.The social media company reported 321 million monthly active users in the fourth quarter, a decrease of 9 million year-on-year and 5 million lower than the previous quarter. Continue reading...

User consent will be required before combining WhatsApp and Instagram account dataGermany’s anti-monopoly regulator has ordered Facebook not to combine user data from its WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook apps without consent, after a major three-year investigation into potentially anti-competitive actions.The federal cartel office announced on Thursday that it would be giving the technology company 12 months to change its data policies. Continue reading...

Jenifer wants a backup while EC wants a replacement for Google+, which is shutting downI have a lot of bookmarked sites for medieval manuscripts on my laptop, which it took a long time to collect. How can I back them up in case the laptop dies? JeniferAs you know, Google is closing Google+ in April. I currently use the site as my online bookmarking tool. Can you suggest something that is easy to use both online and on mobile? ECFirst things first, Jenifer. You should have a backup of your whole hard drive in case your laptop dies. Your operating system almost certainly includes usable backup software. Otherwise, there are more than 30 free third-party alternatives for Windows including BackUp Maker, AOMEI Backupper Standard and EaseUS Todo Backup Free. Continue reading...

An important investor explains how his enthusiasm has turned to shameAs the so-called Techlash gains pace and polemics on the downsides of the internet flood the book market, one omission seems to recur time and again. Facebook, Google, Amazon and the rest are too often written about as if their arrival in our lives started a new phase of history, rather than as corporations that have prospered thanks to an economic and cultural environment established in the days when platforms were things used by trains. To truly understand the revolutions in politics, culture and human behaviour these giants have accelerated, you need to start not some time in the last 15 or so years, but in the 1980s.Early in that decade, the first arrival of digital technology in everyday life was marked by the brief microcomputer boom, which was followed by the marketing of more powerful personal computers. Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were embedding the idea that government should keep its interference in industry and the economy to a minimum. In the US, a new way of thinking replaced the bipartisan belief that monopolies should always be resisted: concentrations of economic power were not a problem as long as they led to lower prices for consumers. And at the same time as old-school class politics was overshadowed, the lingering influence of the 60s counterculture gave the wealthy a new means of smoothing over their power and privilege: talking in vague terms about healing the world, and enthusiastically participating in acts of spectacular philanthropy. Continue reading...

Senior medical officers’ screen time recommendations include ban on use during mealtimesParents should not allow children to take phones and other electronic devices into their bedrooms or use them during mealtimes, the UK’s leading doctors have said.The recommendations are two of eight pieces of advice released by the UK’s chief medical officers to guide parents on how to manage their offspring’s use of technology. Continue reading...

Tech giant pledges £1.5bn but compares process to replacing parts on moving trainThe Chinese technology giant Huawei has said security problems raised in a government report could take between three and five years to resolve.In a letter to Norman Lamb MP, the chairman of the House of Commons science and technology committee, the firm pledged to spend £1.5bn over five years to address security concerns raised last year. Continue reading...

Guide dogs, prosthetics and accessibility emojis welcomed by rights groupsFrom falafels to mischievous sloths, dozens of new emojis will bring greater diversity to messaging applications this year, as the organisation behind the symbols responds to a number of campaigns.The introduction of image-based characters such as hearing aids, wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs and guide dogs will help redress the underrepresentation of disabled people on the emoji keyboard, while there will also be a wider range of mixed-gender and ethnicity couples for users to choose from. Continue reading...