Technology | The Guardian

IBM shows off Project Debater, artificial intelligence project designed to make coherent arguments as it processes vast data setsIt was man 1, machine 1 in the first live, public debate between an artificial intelligence system developed by IBM and two human debaters.The AI, called Project Debater, appeared on stage in a packed conference room at IBM’s San Francisco office embodied in a 6ft tall black panel with a blue, animated “mouth”. It was a looming presence alongside the human debaters Noa Ovadia and Dan Zafrir, who stood behind a podium nearby. Continue reading...

Consumer watchdog took tech giant to court over complaints about repair and replacementApple has been slapped with a $9m fine by the federal court for making false or misleading claims to customers with faulty iPhones and iPads.The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission launched legal action in April 2017, claiming Apple had misled consumers about their warranty rights by routinely refusing to inspect or fix faulty devices without charge if they had been repaired by a third party. Continue reading...

As the World Health Organization classifies gaming disorder as a mental health condition, one UK treatment centre reveals how it is trying to tackle the problemIan* was in his 20s when he started gaming in the mid-1990s. A long-time interest in building PCs had developed into an initially healthy interest in first-person shooters like Counter Strike and Team Fortress, which he’d play at weekends and when he came home from work.It was the online element of these games, he says, that really changed his relationship to gaming, and what started as a hobby quickly took over his life. Continue reading...

App blamed for circulating false information in India, Brazil, Kenya and now the UKAbijeet Nath and Nilotpal Das were driving back from a visit to a waterfall in the Indian province of Assam earlier this month when they stopped in a village to ask for directions. The two men were pulled out of their car and beaten to death by a mob who accused them of stealing children.“The villagers got suspicious of the strangers as for the last three or four days messages were going around on WhatsApp, as well as through word of mouth, about child lifters roaming the area,” Mukesh Agrawal, a local police officer said. Continue reading...

We need to provide safe spaces where kids can learn positive online behavioursWhen I heard that Eton now requires its year 9s to hand in their mobile phones at bedtime, my immediate thought was I quite like the idea of a check-in, zone-out service that would confiscate my smartphone as the Love Island credits start to roll and return it in time for the 8am news bulletin. But if Eton expects its 13-year-old boarders to hand in their phones overnight, where are they the rest of the time? And why are older boys allowed to keep their phones overnight?On schools and smartphones, I’m an enthusiastic proponent of the nanny state. After Emmanuel Macron made it a key pledge in his presidential campaign, the French government is banning mobile phones in schools altogether after September. In the UK, the decision is left to headteachers: some ban them, others take a more permissive approach. Continue reading...

James Bridle’s essay on disturbing YouTube content aimed at children went viral last year. Has the problem gone away – or is it getting worse?In November of last year, I read an article in the New York Times about disturbing videos targeted at children that were being distributed via YouTube. Parents reported that their children were encountering knock-off editions of their favourite cartoon characters in situations of violence and death: Peppa Pig drinking bleach, or Mickey Mouse being run over by a car. A brief Google of some of the terms mentioned in the article brought up not only many more accounts of inappropriate content, in Facebook posts, newsgroup threads, and other newspapers, but also disturbing accounts of their effects. Previously happy and well-adjusted children became frightened of the dark, prone to fits of crying, or displayed violent behaviour and talked about self-harm – all classic symptoms of abuse. But despite these reports, YouTube and its parent company, Google, had done little to address them. Moreover, there seemed to be little understanding of where these videos were coming from, how they were produced – or even why they existed in the first place.I’m a writer and artist, with a focus on the broad cultural and societal effects of new technologies, and this is how most of my obsessions start: getting increasingly curious about something and digging deeper, with an eye for concealed infrastructures and hidden processes. It’s an approach that has previously led me to investigate Britain’s system of deportation flights or its sophisticated road surveillance network, and this time it took me into the weird, surreal, and often disturbing hinterland of YouTube’s children’s videos. And these videos are worrying on several levels. As I spent more and more time with them, I became perturbed not just by their content, but by the way the system itself seemed to reproduce and exacerbate their most unsavoury excesses, preying on children’s worst fears and bundling them up into nightmare playlists, while blindly rewarding their creators for increasing their view counts even as the videos themselves descended into meaningless parodies and nonsensical stories. Continue reading...

The owner of Amazon and the Washington Post keeps his counsel, spurring the president to ever-greater rageNestled between the embassy of Myanmar and the historic home of Woodrow Wilson, the biggest house in Washington DC is taking shape. A yellow digger is parked outside, construction workers throw sandbags over their backs, and thick black tubes stretch from high windows to the ground like the legs of a giant octopus. Inside, a foreman in a baseball cap sits behind a desk at a laptop. “Going good,” he says.This will be the luxury home of Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, owner of the Washington Post and would-be first man on Mars. A sign on the corner of S Street in the swish Kalorama neighbourhood still points to the textile museum that occupied the 27,000 sq ft property before Bezos bought it for $23m. Along the row there are flags and signs supporting immigrants and gay rights; there are diplomatic outposts including the Irish ambassador’s residence. On one doorstep, the inevitable: a package from Amazon. Continue reading...

Foxconn commits to provide workers with basic rights after report by the ObserverAmazon and its Chinese supplier Foxconn have moved swiftly to tackle illegal working conditions exposed in an investigation by the Observer and rights group China Labor Watch.Temporary workers hired without basic rights such as sick pay and holiday pay have been offered staff contracts, and managers have been told to hire more workers to reduce levels of overtime. The company says it is also taking action to tackle “confusing” overtime payments. Continue reading...

Open the crazy ‘scissor doors’, find the right button to spark the engine up and get set for a spooky ride, says Martin LoveLamborghini Aventador S Roadster

Actor says husband was flagged down by passersby who told him to get outActor Mary McCormack has shared video of her husband’s Tesla car catching fire while in traffic in California. Flames can be seen shooting out from underneath the vehicle as it sits on the side of the road.McCormack said in an accompanying tweet it was not the result of an accident and that the incident came “out of the blue”. She is married to British director Michael Morris, a former director of the Old Vic theatre who has produced episodes of hit Netflix shows including 13 Reasons Why, Kingdom and Bloodline. Continue reading...

Playstation, Xbox, Ubisoft, Bethesda, EA and more competed for the video game world’s attention this week in LA. Here’s what stood out.E3 is the biggest video games news event of the year, where Playstation, EA, Xbox, Ubisoft and more compete to show off their latest games (and announce new ones) at flashy press conferences and ostentatious booths in the Los Angeles Convention Centre. Now that the onslaught of announcements, trailers and general showing-off from the week-long show is over, here are ten big stories that emerged from the chaos.

Couple say holiday was ruined after site cancelled booking at the last minuteYou have bought your plane tickets and sorted out your accommodation but then, just days before you are about to set off on holiday, Airbnb suddenly cancels your booking with no explanation, wrecking your plans.This is what happened to Surrey couple Roger Ridey and Alice Woolley, who had to scrabble around to rearrange their holiday after Airbnb – the company, not the hosts of the property – pulled the plug on their week’s stay in San Francisco, 10 days before they were due to arrive. Continue reading...

Easing of immigration rules may not be enough to keep UK ahead of rivals, say expertsLeaders in the UK tech industry have warned that the government’s removal of a visa cap for skilled migrants may not go far enough to ensure Britain continues to attract the best people from across the sector.Related: How will the UK's tech sector fare outside the EU? Brexit Means … Podcast Continue reading...

Technology is starting to behave in intelligent and unpredictable ways that even its creators don’t understand. As machines increasingly shape global events, how can we regain control?The voice-activated gadget in the corner of your bedroom suddenly laughs maniacally, and sends a recording of your pillow talk to a colleague. The clip of Peppa Pig your toddler is watching on YouTube unexpectedly descends into bloodletting and death. The social network you use to keep in touch with old school friends turns out to be influencing elections and fomenting coups.Related: YouTube to clamp down on disturbing kids' videos such as dark Peppa Pig Continue reading...

Campaigners say technology risks turning UK citizens into ‘walking ID cards’Two legal challenges have been launched against police forces in south Wales and London over their use of automated facial recognition (AFR) technology on the grounds the surveillance is unregulated and violates privacy.The claims are backed by the human rights organisations Liberty and Big Brother Watch following complaints about biometric checks at the Notting Hill carnival, on Remembrance Sunday, at demonstrations and in high streets. Continue reading...

PS4, Xbox One, PC; Coldwood/EA

Features for synching with other apps is most aggressive move yet to capitalise on Facebook’s problemsSnapchat users will be able to use their account on the messaging service to log in to other apps, export their bitmoji and post information from elsewhere direct in the Snapchat app, as the company makes its most aggressive attempt yet to capitalise on Facebook’s woes.The new features, collectively called “Snap Kit”, offer a set of tools that developers can incorporate into their own apps. The Creative Kit feature is about getting content into Snapchat: similar to an earlier integration with Uber, it lets apps create personalised filters, stickers and lenses that users can share on Snapchat. Food delivery service Postmates, for instance, will let users throw an ETA for their food onto a picture – to let their friends know to hurry up. Continue reading...

Julia would buy a MacBook Pro Retina but she doesn’t like the latest version’s keyboard. What are the alternatives?I recently upgraded to a used early-2015 MacBook Pro Retina because of Apple’s recent redesign of the MacBook Pro, which sliced off a little bit of thickness at the cost of various ports and the very reliable keyboard with scissor mechanism. Apple is facing class-action lawsuits over the new butterfly keyboards’ untimely breakage, and as my computer’s main job is to be a writing tool, I didn’t want to risk ending up with non-functional keys. Also, I have tried the new keyboard and I did not like the feel of it: travel seems too short and rather “flat” for my taste.

World’s favourite video game holds first major competition, watched live in LA by 15,000 fans and millions more onlineUnder the unforgiving LA sun, in front of a crowd of thousands, the first ever pro/celebrity Fortnite tournament took place on Tuesday afternoon, and anyone still mystified by the success of this brashly colourful multiplayer shooter would perhaps have been a lot wiser by the end. It was a fun spectacle, put on by the developer, Epic Games, for fans who screamed their support throughout the hour-long contest.The set-up was simple. Fifty well-known Fortnite players – young adults who play every night for countless fans on YouTube and Twitch – were teamed up with 50 celebrities from the worlds of wrestling, television and music, with each pair taking part in an all-or-nothing match of the world’s most popular video game. In Fortnite’s famed Battle Royale mode, 100 players land on a giant island and must fight until only one player – or team – is left standing. Usually the prize is simply kudos, but here there was a $3m (£2.2m) pot to aim for, the money to go to charities chosen by the top-finishing duos. Continue reading...

Move will prevent hackers and others accessing devices without proper authorisationApple is closing a security gap that allowed outsiders to obtain personal information from locked iPhones without a password, a change that will thwart law enforcement agencies that have been exploiting the vulnerability to collect evidence in criminal investigations.

The CEO is known for outsized claims and ambitious goals. But numerous factory workers say he doesn’t follow through – and that his leadership sets a troubling toneIt was “a master class in emotional intelligence”, raved the business magazine Inc, and “a powerful lesson in authentic, heartfelt leadership”.Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, had emailed his entire staff following the May 2017 publications of separate investigations by the Guardian and a workplace safety organization showing high injury rates at the company’s northern California electric car factory. Continue reading...

Rules appear to target services like Onavo Protect, which claims to protect user data even as it feeds information to FacebookApple has updated its rules to restrict app developers’ ability to harvest data from mobile phones, which could be bad news for a Facebook-owned data security app called Onavo Protect.Onavo ostensibly provides users with a free virtual private network (VPN) which, it claims, helps “keep you and your data safe when you browse and share information on the web”. What is not immediately obvious is that it feeds information to Facebook about what other apps you are using and how much you are using them back to the social networking giant. Continue reading...

Chinese company hits back at report it will be snubbed on security grounds and also says it hopes to avoid foreign influence registerThe Chinese telecommunications company Huawei has said it is still talking to the Turnbull government about participating in the 5G wireless network and might not have to register on the proposed foreign influence transparency register.

Reuters Institute report found that use of WhatsApp for news has almost tripled since 2014The public is increasingly forgoing Facebook as a news source and using WhatsApp to share and discuss stories with friends and family, according to a new report on the state of the media.“Consumers are being put off by ‘toxic’ debates and unreliable news. They are also finding that alternative networks offer more convenience, greater privacy and less opportunity to be misunderstood. As a result they are moving discussion to messaging apps where they can be sure they are talking to ‘real friends’,” says the report from the University of Oxford’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Continue reading...

A proposal to divide the state in thirds will appear on the November 2018 ballot – but is it more than a stunt?

British taxpayers have already contributed more than £1bn to satellite navigation systemThe EU’s member states have backed officials in Brussels in their attempt to block the UK from achieving its post-Brexit goal of unrestricted access to the Galileo satellite programme to which British taxpayers have paid more than £1bn.Despite some concerns about the high-handed manner of their approach to the UK, European commission officials secured support from the 27 member states during a meeting on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Finman used his fortune to fund an educational business – and he’s not as awful as he seems on InstagramErik Finman is one of the world’s youngest bitcoin millionaires – an achievement he’s not shy about flaunting. The 19-year-old’s Instagram feed is full of ostentatious photos of himself stepping out of private jets or lying on beds covered in money with captions like: “Cash so worthless compared to Bitcoin I’m sleeping on it …”In one photo he is pictured smoking, with the caption: “Sometimes you just need a good smoke to relax when you have to live with the exhausting burden of so much money and too many beautiful women.” After one of his fans admonishes him, he replies: “Don’t worry guys. It’s not a real cigarette. Just a hundred. Don’t smoke!” Continue reading...

Private companies are helping the government build a virtual alternative to the physical wall, prompting an outcry

Melbourne man to sue over ‘Melbourne criminal underworld photos’ search results that show his faceMelbourne man Milorad “Michael” Trkulja has won his high court battle to sue the search engine Google for defamation over images and search results that link him to the Melbourne criminal underworld.Trkulja said he would continue legal action against Google until it removed his name and photos from the internet. Continue reading...

The tax, which would have assessed $275 per employee on Amazon, was not considered a ‘winnable battle’ by officialsA month after Seattle leaders applauded themselves for landing a small blow against big business in the form of an “Amazon tax”, on Tuesday they hurriedly abandoned it to avoid what they called “a prolonged, expensive political fight”.The tax, which would have assessed a $275-per-employee “head tax” on Seattle’s largest private employer, was slated to pay for new public housing and homeless services in the booming city. Passed unanimously on 14 May, the tax was also an unsubtle demonstration of the company town’s disaffection with its unofficial patron, Seattle-headquartered Amazon. Continue reading...

• Gareth Southgate’s team were briefed by security experts

CEO says thousands of job losses are part of a ‘difficult, but necessary’ restructuring

One of the most popular games in the world arrives on Nintendo’s Switch console on Tuesday, and Nintendo has revealed new games arriving in the next yearNintendo announced via livestream at E3 in California that Fortnite – which has more than 40 million players on PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4 and mobile phones – arrives on Nintendo Switch today.For European players, it will be available to download from the Nintendo eShop at around 11pm BST, and is out now in the US. Continue reading...

ICO says firm ‘failed to prevent’ 2014 Russia-sponsored hack after 500m accounts compromisedYahoo has been fined £250,000 over a hack from 2014 that affected more than 515,000 UK email accounts co-branded with Sky, the Information Commissioner’s Office has announced.The personal data of 500m user accounts worldwide was compromised during a state-sponsored cyber attack in 2014, which was only revealed in 2016. The stolen data included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, passwords and encrypted security questions and answers, the ICO said on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Join video games editor Keza MacDonald and correspondent Keith Stuart for another day of video game news, including the latest from Sony and Ubisoft at E3.3.32am BSTFor its 2018 E3 press conference, Sony made the decision to concentrate on longer, more in-depth footage of previously announced titles rather than bludgeoning our senses with reams of announcements, whilst those in attendance were shepherded through a giant video-game-themed labyrinth built on a film set in LA. It has proved a rather controversial decision and several technical problems with the live feed didn’t help matters for those watching at home.Nevertheless, a visceral sequence from Last of Us 2 gave us a glimpse into protagonist Ellie’s new life – and a new relationship – as she dances with and kisses another woman at a church dance. It’s a touching, warm and beautifully visualised scene, but it gives way to a gut-wrenchingly violent sequence with Ellie sneaking through an overgrown multi-storey car park, stabbing various enemies.3.18am BSTThe Sony conference attendees are now allowed out to play some games.We are now being let loose on the film set to play some games. Here's the Spider-Man area. pic.twitter.com/vi7JA6MLcF Continue reading...

New system could examine a user’s walking speed, unusual typos and whether a phone is swayingUber may be working on technology which would detect if users of its app are drunk or high. A patent application from the company, revealed this week, outlines a system that would be able to identify if someone is displaying uncharacteristic behaviour by looking at small changes in their behaviour as they use the Uber app.Related: Uber to allow sexual assault and harassment victims to sue company Continue reading...

The company is investing in studios in attempt to win over next generation of gamersWhen you think of Microsoft, you probably think of Word or Windows first; omnipresent computer software that, despite its usefulness, does not elicit enormous excitement. Xbox is different. At E3 each year, the video games industry’s biggest event, Microsoft packs out a stadium-sized room with fans for its annual press conference, many of whom have travelled from all over the world. People are passionate about Xbox and its games – Minecraft, Halo, Gears of War – in a way that nobody is about Microsoft Office.Microsoft’s most senior figures appear to have woken up to this relatively recently. Phil Spencer, who ran Xbox’s game development studios for years, was made executive vice-president of gaming within the company in September 2017. This finally put Xbox on equal footing with Windows and Office within Microsoft – and put a gamer in the room with the CEO and CTO of the company. This has meant big changes for the Xbox business, and apparently huge investment in creative video game talent.

Security fears rise as South Korea’s Coinrail loses about £28m of virtual currencyThere has been a sharp drop in the price of bitcoin and other virtual currencies after South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Coinrail was hacked over the weekend.A tweet from Coinrail confirming the cyber-attack sent the price of bitcoin tumbling 10% on Sunday to two-month lows. Continue reading...

As long as humans are sensible when they create the operating programs, robots will bring enormous benefits to humanity, says expertThe idea of killer robots rising up and destroying humans is a Hollywood fantasy and a distraction from the more pressing dilemmas that intelligent machines present to society, according to one of Britain’s most influential computer scientists.Sir Nigel Shadbolt, professor of computer science at the University of Oxford, predicts that AI will bring overwhelming benefits to humanity, revolutionising cancer diagnosis and treatment, and transforming education and the workplace. If problems arise, he said, it will not be because sentient machines have unexpectedly gone rogue in a Terminator-like scenario. Continue reading...

Day one brought plenty of announcements, from Gears 5 and Halo Infinite to Fallout 76, Doom Eternal and Elder Scrolls VIMicrosoft has showcased the line-up for its Xbox One console and Windows platform in 2018 and 2019, announcing new Halo and Gears of War games in a press conference in Los Angeles on Sunday that covered 50 games in total. Game publisher Bethesda also announced fantasy role-playing game The Elder Scrolls 6 and shooter Doom Eternal in its own announcement, and spoke in more detail about the highly anticipated Fallout 76, a role-playing game set in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear war.Related: As it happened: Day one of E3 2018 gave us new Halo, Gears of War, Fallout, and Elder Scrolls V Continue reading...

Matt Hancock refuses to rule out law to protect minors online, but would stop short of French measuresThe UK culture secretary, Matt Hancock, does not allow his own children to have mobile phones and thinks none should have access to devices overnight, but would not follow the French government’s lead in legislating on the issue.Hancock, whose brief includes digital issues, said: “Keeping children safe online is mission-critical, and everybody has a responsibility. The parents have a responsibility to ensure that children use technology appropriately. For instance, I allow my children to do their homework online, but I don’t let them on to social media. Continue reading...

Researchers suggest artificial intelligence is now better and faster at detecting cancer than cliniciansAn AI system developed by a team from Germany, France and the US can diagnose skin cancer more accurately than dermatologists. In the study, the software was able to accurately detect cancer in 95% of images of cancerous moles and benign spots, whereas a team of 58 dermatologists was accurate 87% of the time. Continue reading...

Part beauty, part beast: Audi’s latest super estate has it allAudi RS4 Avant

The tech billionaire urges buyers to act responsibly as dozens queue up to get their hands on the $500 weaponsSome may think it the worst idea in the history of capitalism, an irresponsible stunt by a pyromaniac Willy Wonka, but for Earle Tabula there was no better feeling than buying a flamethrower.

For 30 years the model of a global village dependent on American innovation worked... for the US. Now that illusion is fading fastAs Donald Trump’s America gears up for a full-blown trade war with the resurgent China, Washington seems to have forgotten the very mechanisms that assured its dominance in the post-cold war era. Those mechanisms were underpinned not just by America’s military might, but also by its ability to minimise the odds of any anti-systemic dissent.American policymakers have known perfectly well that the hallmark of effective hegemony is the invisibility of its operations. Getting other people to behave as desired is easier if those others believe that doing so is not only in their interest but also the natural course of history and progress. Continue reading...

In the Chinese city of Hengyang, we find a fatigued, disposable workforce assembling gadgets for Amazon, owned by the world’s richest man.Five o’clock in the morning and the young woman’s eyelids are drooping. All night she has been removing spots of dust from Amazon smartspeakers with a toothbrush. Time seems to crawl. Now she is overwhelmed with exhaustion.She works on, more and more slowly, until she can do no more. She looks around the workshop. Other workers have rested their heads on the bench. She slumps forward and falls asleep. Continue reading...

US tech giant admits audit of Foxconn factory in Hengyang found irregularitiesAmazon has admitted that thousands of agency workers who make its Echo smart speakers and Kindles in China were hired and paid illegally.The US giant issued a statement regretting “issues of concern” following an investigation by the Observer and the US-based China Labor Watch into the “unethical and illegal” working conditions at its supplier factory in Hengyang. Continue reading...

Tech’s stock market dominance is no longer a Wall Street fear as Apple is close to becoming first company valued at $1tnApple is just a couple of pips away from becoming the first company ever to be valued at $1tn, a symbolic threshold that further shows just how much tech companies have come to dominate the US stock market.On Friday, Apple was valued at over $940bn – “just” $60bn short of a figure no other listed company has ever achieved. It’s not the only tech company nearing $1tn – Amazon is currently valued at over $820bn. Continue reading...

Hackers said to have swiped information, including secret plans for new type of missile, from US navy contractorChinese government hackers have stolen a massive trove of sensitive information from a US navy contractor, including secret plans to develop a new type of submarine-launched anti-ship missile, according to the Washington Post.Investigators told the newspaper that breaches were executed in January and February by a division of the Chinese ministry of state security, operating out of the Chinese province of Guangdong. Continue reading...