Technology | The Guardian

Documents alleged to contain revelations on data and privacy controls that led to Cambridge Analytica scandalParliament has used its legal powers to seize internal Facebook documents in an extraordinary attempt to hold the US social media giant to account after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg repeatedly refused to answer MPs’ questions.The cache of documents is alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. It is claimed they include confidential emails between senior executives, and correspondence with Zuckerberg. Continue reading...

As N26 makes its UK debut, we look at what you can expect from the new breed of servicesThe march of the smartphone-based “challenger banks” continues, with the German-based N26 the latest to launch in the UK.It joins other app-based banks, such as Monzo and Starling, that are shaking up the banking industry. Continue reading...

In this collaboration between the Guardian’s Science Weekly and Chips with Everything podcasts, we explore whether we will ever be able to build an intelligent machine to detect our lies. And if we did, could we trust it?How good are you at lying? Could you fool a friend? How about a machine? We’ve recently learned that the EU plans to trial lie detectors equipped with artificial intelligence, or “deception detection”, at border control to combat crime and terrorism.This got Jordan Erica Webber and Graihagh Jackson wondering about lying – how people learn to tell fibs, whether an AI machine can pick up subtle clues and cues, and if so, can we trust its judgment? Continue reading...

‘Digital detox ruling’ extends to all devices and is an an attempt to untether people from obsessively checking their phonesDoes a hotel pool even exist if you don’t put it on social media?It’s a question one Bali resort is encouraging its guests to put to the test by banning phones and mobile devices by the pool, in a bid to encourage people to absorb their surroundings rather than staring at a screen. Continue reading...

Tools launched to enforce transparency and avoid repeat of Russian misinformation campaign in Trump US electionsGoogle has launched a set of tools across Europe to help ensure political transparency in the run-up to the 2019 EU elections in an attempt to crack down on “dark adverts” online.The tools are a response, in part, to the Russian misinformation campaign during the 2016 US election, in which overseas operatives were able to buy political adverts to target Americans. Continue reading...

At Rockstar’s Edinburgh studio, designers reveal the lengths they went to in creating the western adventure’s animal soulOddly for a multimillion-selling blockbuster video game, in Red Dead Redemption 2 you spend many, many hours staring at a horse’s ass. Of the 70-ish hours I’ve spent with the game so far, I reckon 35 have been in a saddle, either exploring the wilderness or haring it from A to B on the way between story chapters. Horses are omnipresent, hitched to wagons, trotting under everyone from lawmen and farmers, running wild in the fields. They aren’t just a means of conveyance – they’re the soul of the game, beautiful and blameless, metaphors for the natural freedom that the game’s humans keep screwing up. If I ever accidentally shoot one in a fight, I feel appalled at myself.If the horses didn’t look and sound so lifelike, rearing and whinnying in the presence of wolves and grunting with exertion as you push them into a gallop, players wouldn’t feel such a connection to them. One of the first things I marvelled at in Red Dead was the way my steed’s muscles were moving under its flanks as it pushed through the deep snow. At Rockstar’s Edinburgh studio the week before Red Dead Redemption 2’s release, no matter whom I talked to, I ended up in a 20-minute conversation about horses. Continue reading...

Communication head takes blame for hiring Definers Public Affairs as Sheryl Sandberg says antisemitism claim ‘abhorrent’Facebook admitted on Wednesday that a top executive hired a public relations firm to attack George Soros and undermine critics by publicizing their association with the billionaire Jewish philanthropist.Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s outgoing head of communications and policy, took responsibility for hiring Definers Public Affairs in a memo first reported by TechCrunch and subsequently published as a blog post on the eve of the US Thanksgiving holiday. Continue reading...

The Facebook CEO agreed in a CNN interview that his power needs to be checked, but he has no plans to limit it himselfWith 2.2 billion members, Facebook is larger than any single nation, language or even religion. And as founder, chief executive, chairman of the board of directors and controller of 60% of the company’s voting shares, Mark Zuckerberg’s power is near absolute.Which is why it was almost reassuring that when CNN’s Laurie Segall asked Zuckerberg in an interview aired Tuesday, “Shouldn’t your power be checked?” Continue reading...

Move comes months after retailer closed global website after the government introduced GST changesAmazon has reopened its global website to Australian consumers, with the backflip coming just in time for Black Friday sales.The giant online retailer closed the global store to Australians in July after the federal government introduced changes to the GST – known colloquially as the “Amazon tax”. It placed the 10% tax on all low-value overseas purchases and businesses with a turnover of more than $75,000. Continue reading...

Customers’ names and email addresses posted on website, tech giant confirmsAmazon has suffered a major data breach that caused customer names and email addresses to be disclosed on its website, just two days ahead of Black Friday.The e-commerce giant said it has emailed affected customers but refused to give any more details on how many people were affected or where they are based. Continue reading...

Company says it disputes penalty for role in Cambridge Analytica scandal on principleFacebook is lodging an appeal against the record fine of £500,000 levied against it by the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK, arguing that the penalty “challenges some of the basic principles of how people should be allowed to share information online”.The company, which was fined the maximum amount allowable for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year, had until Wednesday to launch an appeal or accept the fine. Continue reading...

Foxconn Technology Group plans to cut costs by £2.3bn next year, according to reportsFoxconn Technology Group, which supplies Apple with components for the iPhone, is reportedly planning to cut costs by billions of pounds amid concerns that iPhone sales growth is slowing.The Taiwanese manufacturer will slash 20bn yuan (£2.3bn) from expenses in 2019, Bloomberg News reported. Continue reading...

Company failed to remove post that informed users of auction of 17-year-old girl for several daysFacebook has been criticised for failing to remove a viral post promoting an auction of a child bride in South Sudan, which eventually led to the payment of the largest dowry ever recorded in the civil war-torn country.The highest bidder was a man three times the age of the 17-year-old girl who was auctioned. At least four other men in Eastern Lakes state competed, including the region’s deputy governor, said Philips Anyang Ngong, a human rights lawyer who tried to stop the bidding last month. Continue reading...

The sequel to Wreck-It Ralph is an overstuffed but weirdly pointless exercise in tech worship that fails to include much that actually connects with the audience

A video-sharing app is has become the most popular free app on the App Store in the USIt has been called “the Chinese lip-syncing app your kids love, but you’ve never heard of”, and now it has become a hit in the States.The upstart video-sharing app TikTok is the most popular free download in the App Store in the US, above such behemoths as Facebook, YouTube and Amazon. It has been downloaded almost 80m times in the US to date, including nearly 4m downloads in October alone, making it No 1 in the App Store for that month. Continue reading...

Everything from reading to swimming to cooking can now be tracked or optimised. What is this quest for perfection doing to our free time?

Federal Agency of News says it’s legitimate and is seeking an injunction to prevent Facebook from blocking its accountA Russian company whose accountant was charged by federal prosecutors for attempting to meddle in US elections has sued Facebook, claiming it is a legitimate news outlet and its Facebook account should be restored.The Federal Agency of News LLC, known as FAN, and its sole shareholder, Evgeniy Zubarev, filed the lawsuit in federal court in the northern district of California, seeking damages and an injunction to prevent Facebook from blocking its account. Continue reading...

We would like to hear from Facebook workers following allegations published last week in the New York Times

Cryptocurrency’s value has slumped by more than a quarter in less than a weekThe price of bitcoin continued to plunge on Tuesday as it fell another 7% to $4,387, taking its losses to almost 30% in the past week.A 14% tumble in the price of the world’s biggest and best-known cryptocurrency on Monday had taken bitcoin below $5,000 for the first time in 13 months. It is now at its lowest level since October last year. Continue reading...

Jack Dorsey accused of hate speech after posing with sign criticising country’s caste systemTwitter’s chief executive, Jack Dorsey, has upset Hindu nationalists and some members of the Brahmin caste in India by posing for a picture with a placard reading: “Smash Brahminical patriarchy”.Related: WhatsApp struggling to control fake news in India, researchers say Continue reading...

Big tech has ushered in a second Gilded Age. We must relearn the lessons of the first, writes the former US labor secretaryLast week, the New York Times revealed that Facebook executives withheld evidence of Russian activity on their platform far longer than previously disclosed. They also employed a political opposition research firm to discredit critics.There’s a larger story here. Continue reading...

Announcement comes before publication of damning Human Rights Watch reportAirbnb has said it will remove from its website all properties in Israeli settlements built on the occupied Palestinian territories in the West Bank, after years of accusations that the company was benefitting from rentals in the illegal outposts.The accommodation bookings website announced on Monday that around 200 listings would be taken down in what will be seen as a victory for the Palestinian-led anti-occupation movement. Continue reading...

Social media firm to finance trainee ‘community’ journalists schemeFacebook will donate £4.5m to fund 80 local newspaper jobs for the next two years, as the company faces further questions over its relationship with the media and long-term impact on the news business.The social networking company will make the money available to subsidise the cost of trainee journalists based in newsrooms across Britain with the objective of providing “reporting from towns which have lost their local newspaper and beat reporters”. Continue reading...

Matthew Hanley and Connor Allsopp from Tamworth sentenced over data theftTwo friends have been jailed for their roles in hacking the telecommunications company TalkTalk.Matthew Hanley, 23, and Connor Allsopp, 21, both from Tamworth in Staffordshire, admitted charges relating to the huge breach of customer details in 2015, which cost the company £77m. Continue reading...

Apple CEO predicts Congress will pass laws targeting big US technology firmsBig US technology companies should brace themselves for “inevitable” regulation, according to Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook.Cook predicted the US would pass new laws targeting technology firms “at some point” to prevent the misuse of personal data, after a leak of Facebook user information to Cambridge Analytica that resulted in Mark Zuckerberg being hauled in front of Congress. Continue reading...

Brazil, Latvia and Singapore join coalition of parliaments seeking answers from Facebook chiefThree more countries have joined an “international grand committee” of parliaments, adding to calls for Facebook’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to give evidence on misinformation to the coalition.Related: How Republican firm's plan to defend Facebook by attacking rivals backfired Continue reading...

PlayStation 4 (version played), Xbox One, PC; Bethesda

US lecturer receives more than 50,000 tweets a year meant for the British retailerEvery year the frenzy around John Lewis’s Christmas ad results in the chain’s namesake, an American lecturer, being mistakenly inundated with thousands of tweets. This year he stars in his own Christmas ad.Twitter UK has paid for the “real” John Lewis, who receives more than 50,000 tweets a year meant for the British retail chain, to appear in a tongue-in-cheek ad playing on the case of mistaken identity. Continue reading...

For harassed loved ones everywhere, we compare the Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One and Nintendo SwitchA games console is the perfect Christmas present – it’s exciting, it’s cool and everyone can join in on the day (as long as you’ve had the foresight to sneak it out of its packaging on Christmas Eve to download the inevitable six hours of system updates). But selecting which machine to opt for is complicated and confusing, and if you get it wrong you may end up with yet another unloved gadget crammed in the cupboard where you keep the air fryer and mini candyfloss machine.Here are some tips for harassed parents or partners who have found the words “games console” on a loved one’s Christmas list and are experiencing technophobic panic. Continue reading...

Ministers not taking growing threat to national infrastructure seriously, says committeeMinisters are failing to act with “a meaningful sense of purpose or urgency” in the face of a growing cyber threat to the UK’s critical national infrastructure (CNI), a parliamentary committee has warned.The joint committee on national security strategy said at a time when states such as Russia were expanding their capability to mount disruptive cyber-attacks, the UK’s level of ministerial oversight was “wholly inadequate”. Continue reading...

Hillary J Shaw harks back to the events in Denmark in September 1943Whenever anyone suggests that, for example, microchips implanted under our skin are only a minor extension of already-existing monitoring, or that “the innocent have nothing to fear” from increased surveillance and tracking (Report, 12 November), I mentally rerun the events in Denmark in September 1943 but with this latest technology. September 1943 was when the Danes, having been tipped off that Germany was about to round up and exterminate the Jewish population there, suddenly admitted these people to hospital or hid them in their homes under “Danish” names such as Jensen. Thousands were saved. Now how would all this have played out if there had been chip implants or electronic ID cards then?

Search engine is lobbying hard to stop proposed tax, aimed at compensating news publishersGoogle’s top news executive has refused to rule out shutting down Google News in EU countries, as the search engine faces a battle with Brussels over plans to charge a “link tax” for using news stories.Richard Gingras, the search engine’s vice-president of news, said while “it’s not desirable to shut down services” the company was deeply concerned about the current proposals, which are designed to compensate struggling news publishers if snippets of their articles appear in search results. Continue reading...

Machines are supposed to be tools that serve human ends, but the relationship is slowly shifting - and not in our favourThe other day I had to log in to a service I hadn’t used before. Since I was a new user, the website decided that it needed to check that I wasn’t a robot and so set me a Captcha (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). This is a challenge-response test to enable a computer to determine whether the user is a person rather than a machine.I was presented with an image of a roadside scene over which was overlaid a grid. My “challenge” was to click on each cell in the grid that contained a traffic sign, or part thereof. I did so, fuming a bit. Then I was presented with another image and another grid – also with a request to identify road signs. Like a lamb, I complied, after which the website deigned to accept my input. Continue reading...

Stories of human resilience, enlightenment, love and death provide a much-needed escape from the bluster of BrexitWhat Nobody Tells You About Rape | The Modern Mann

Automated ‘voices’ that were supposed to do mundane tasks online also now spread hate speech and polarise opinion. Are they a boon or a threat?Alan Turing’s famous test of whether machines could fool us into believing they were human – “the imitation game” – has become a mundane, daily question for all of us. We are surrounded by machine voices, and think nothing of conversing with them – though each time I hear my car tell me where to turn left I am reminded of my grandmother, who having installed a telephone late in life used to routinely say goodnight to the speaking clock.We find ourselves locked into interminable text chats with breezy automated bank tellers and offer our mother’s maiden name to a variety of robotic speakers that sound plausibly alive. I’ve resisted the domestic spies of Apple and Amazon, but one or two friends jokingly describe the rapport they and their kids have built up with Amazon’s Alexa or Google’s Home Hub – and they are right about that: the more you tell your virtual valet, the more you disclose of wants and desires, the more speedily it can learn and commit to memory those last few fragments of your inner life you had kept to yourself. Continue reading...

Just when you thought the classic Defender was no more, along comes a firm determined to keep the 4x4 as relevant and desirable as everTwisted Land Rovers

Guardian readers respond to David Edmond’s article about the moral arguments surrounding driverless carsI was disappointed that David Edmonds (Driverless Cars still need a moral compass. But what kind?, Opinion, 15 November) failed to credit one of our most brilliant British moral philosophers who developed the “trolley problem” as a way to abstract the reasoning behind ethical decision-making. Philippa Foot is rarely given her due even though these thought experiments are regularly cited in modern philosophy. Her inventiveness has helped inspire the next generation of philosophers to engage with the practical challenges of artificial intelligence. And we wonder why philosophy is dominated by men.

Tech giant’s founder made surprise warning in staff meeting when addressing question about Sears, according to a recordingAmazon is going to fail, Jeff Bezos, the tech company’s founder, told staff recently.Related: What cities offered Amazon: helipads, zoo tickets, and a street named Alexa Continue reading...

Open Society Foundations hits out after reports firm tried to discredit critics as agents of philanthropistOpen Society Foundations has hit out at Facebook as “reprehensible” after a PR agency hired by the social networking site reportedly tried to discredit critics by claiming they were agents of George Soros.Patrick Gaspard, the president of OSF, said Facebook’s methods “threaten the very values underpinning our democracy” in a letter addressed to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and the executive responsible for the company’s political operations over last few years. OSF was founded by Soros in 1993 to fund civil rights groups around the world. Continue reading...

Growth in bookings continues to slow as pressure builds to improve financial performanceUber has posted a loss of more than $1bn (£780m) in its latest quarter as growth in bookings continued to slow in the run-up to its stock market flotation next year.The San Francisco-based ride-sharing firm, valued at $76bn, is under pressure to improve its financial performance before the IPO. It lost $1.07bn in the three months to September, a 20% increase from $891m in the previous quarter. Continue reading...

Mary needs to replace her 2009 MacBook Pro but is overwhelmed by the options. Which is the best choice?I have soldiered on with a 2009 MacBook Pro, which I use for internet access, social media, photos, and my research. But in order to access the university library remotely, I have to use an up-to-date operating system, and my Mac is so old I can no longer update it.So, I need to buy a new MacBook, but I am overwhelmed by the options. Do I need a Touch Bar? How much memory and SSD do I need? MaryFollowing the product refresh on 30 October, Apple has four MacBooks that do much the same job. The good news is that, if you can survive on a 2009 MacBook Pro, any of them would be fine for your purposes. The bad news is that they all have features that would put me off buying them, though, with luck, they won’t necessarily put you off. Continue reading...

Blizzard’s wildly popular shooter has built up a fan base thanks to its progressive cast of characters. Here’s how they’re createdThere’s a buzz in the air at Blizzard Entertainment’s Irvine offices. It’s just a few days before BlizzCon, the annual celebration that sees thousands of fans of the company’s games pack into the Anaheim Convention Centre for announcements, panels and entertainment. Overwatch’s game director, Jeff Kaplan, bounces in his chair as he tells me it “feels like Christmas.” But there are no elves at work here, just hundreds of developers collaborating to make a new character to introduce to Overwatch’s players.At BlizzCon’s opening ceremony, fans will see a meticulous animated short that focuses on beloved cowboy character McCree, and introduces a new face, with red eyes framed dramatically by white hair and a wide brimmed hat. Her name is Ashe, and she’s a no-nonsense gunslinger who commands a gang of outlaws, including her own robot butler, Bob. Continue reading...

Now that the home for its next headquarters has been chosen, losing cities are revealing how they tried to sweeten the deal

DeepMasterPrints created by a machine learning technique have error rate of only one in fiveResearchers have used a neural network to generate artificial fingerprints that work as a “master key” for biometric identification systems and prove fake fingerprints can be created.According to a paper presented at a security conference in Los Angeles, the artificially generated fingerprints, dubbed “DeepMasterPrints” by the researchers from New York University, were able to imitate more than one in five fingerprints in a biometric system that should only have an error rate of one in a thousand. Continue reading...

Prosthetics have made amazing advances in recent years – and are slowly changing people’s attitudes to disability. By Patrick KaneI was born with the usual set of limbs. When I was nine months old, I contracted meningococcal septicaemia, a dangerous infection of the blood, which very nearly killed me. I survived, but because I had sustained major tissue damage, it became necessary to amputate my right leg below the knee, all of the fingers on my left hand and the second and third digits on my right hand. I learned to walk on a prosthetic leg at the age of 14 months, and have gone through my life wearing a succession of artificial limbs.As time has passed and technology has advanced, so too have my limbs. Like our mobile phones, prostheses have become lighter, faster and more efficient. When I was nine, I was fitted with a lifeless silicone hand, a useless thing that was purely cosmetic, and so clumsy that I refused to wear it after the first day. Now, at 21, and a student in my third year at Edinburgh University, I wear a bionic arm with nimble fingers that move independently, which I operate using controlled muscle movements in my forearm, as well as an app on my phone. As a child I wore a stiff artificial leg attached with straps that frequently fell off; earlier this summer, I took delivery of a new dynamic right leg with shock absorption and carbon fibre blades. Continue reading...

Facing a string of crises, Facebook hired a PR firm to push conspiracy theories about the billionaire, the New York Times reportsFacebook hired a PR firm that attempted to discredit the company’s critics by claiming they were agents of the billionaire George Soros, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.Soros is a Jewish philanthropist who is the frequent subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. At the same time, the social media company urged the Anti-Defamation League to object to a cartoon used by anti-Facebook protesters over its resemblance to antisemitic tropes. Continue reading...

From the meaning of life to whether we are good in bed, we expect the search engine to be omnipotentWhat question do you wish Google were able to answer? If the survey commissioned by the TV channel Dave is to be believed, chances are your burning questions are what tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers will be, do aliens exist and what will happen to you when you die.The top 25 questions mostly fall into four categories: conspiracies (Who shot JFK? Did Donald Trump rig the election?); desires for worldly success (Will I ever be rich? What will tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers be?); anxieties (Do people like me? Am I good in bed?); and curiosity about the ultimate questions (What is the meaning of life? Is there a God?). Continue reading...

When children spend their parents’ cash on Fifa players, it’s easy to believe games are ruthlessly engineered to extract money. But that’s not the whole story

Moving healthcare subsidiary into main company breaks pledge that ‘data will not be connected to Google accounts’Google has been accused of breaking promises to patients, after the company announced it would be moving a healthcare-focused subsidiary, DeepMind Health, into the main arm of the organisation.The restructure, critics argue, breaks a pledge DeepMind made when it started working with the NHS that “data will never be connected to Google accounts or services”. The change has also resulted in the dismantling of an independent review board, created to oversee the company’s work with the healthcare sector, with Google arguing that the board was too focused on Britain to provide effective oversight for a newly global body. Continue reading...

Three of the greatest family games from the original PlayStation era have been updated and improved for modern kids – and nostalgic children of the 90sBefore he was a member of the Skylanders universe, Spyro the Dragon was one of Sony’s leading lights, the plucky protagonist of a trilogy of PlayStation-exclusive platformers developed by Insomniac Games (now perhaps better known for Ratchet & Clank and Marvel’s Spider-Man). Nostalgic fans have remained fond of those old adventures, and so two decades since the first game, Skylanders creator Toys for Bob has released this collection of remasters.I was eight years old when the first Spyro game came out, and my siblings and I played all three over and over again. When I loaded up the first of these remasters it felt so familiar – in the layout of the levels and the precise placement of items within, in the music and sounds and voice acting (despite the fact that Spyro here is voiced throughout by Tom Kenny, who originally only starred in the second and third games) – that my brain was tricked into believing that this was how Spyro had looked all along. Continue reading...