Technology | The Guardian

Should we fear or embrace automation? Jol Miskin, Dr Jamie Gough, Colin Hines, William Wilson, Terence Oon and Dave Hughes give their viewsJohn Harris asks what happens next to all the jobs that technology will obliterate (Ten million jobs could be gone in 15 years. What then?, 30 April). He fears that inequality will worsen. Not necessarily. Let robots do the boring, repetitive stuff. Humans can do all those jobs required to create a better life for all, and provide decent pay and good working conditions to boot. It’s not rocket science. We need many more care, support, youth and early years workers. In fact, we pretty much need to reinvent local government and the services it should provide. Our parks, green and other spaces need workers to create pleasant environments (we once had such workers). We know the NHS is in crisis and that without investment – including increasing staff numbers – the future is bleak.In addition, a progressive government needs to rejuvenate our education system. That means developing a truly comprehensive system under democratic control. And it should enable us to learn for learning’s sake (gone will be the 40-plus-hour working week) as well as offering high-quality education and training throughout life for work, leisure and citizenship engagement. Perhaps a citizens’ income is the way forward, or maybe a genuine offer of decent work, at least for those who can. Either way, a dignified and adequate income for all: bread and roses. Continue reading...

Up to 2m people play the general knowledge quiz each day – and celebs are lining up to host itImagine the intellectual and social pressure of a pub quiz, then multiply it by more than 2 million people.Every day, at 3pm and 9pm sharp, an army of teenagers, students, pensioners and office workers stop what they are doing, whip out their smartphones and fire up an app to take part in a new online craze called HQ Trivia, the pub quiz brought kicking and screaming into the smartphone era. Continue reading...

This week, Jordan Erica Webber looks at how children are getting involved in maker culture and building their own adventureSubscribe and review: Acast, Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter or email us at podcasts@theguardian.comThe other day, a friend told Jordan Erica Webber that her tech-savvy dad has used the Raspberry Pi – a small and very cheap computer – to build all sorts of creative projects. For example, he created bark-activated door that allowed the family dog to let herself out for her morning pee. Continue reading...

Microsoft working on fix for machines and suggests temporary solutions to bug caused by installation of April 2018 updateThe new Windows 10 April 2018 update is causing apps such as Google’s Chrome browser and even Microsoft’s own Cortana virtual assistant to freeze and lock up computers.

iPhone, Android; Jam City/Portkey Games

Company says it has fixed the internal glitch and has seen ‘no indication of breach or misuse’ but recommends precautionary stepsTwitter has urged its 336 million users to change their passwords after the company discovered a bug that stored passwords in plain text in an internal system.

‘China’s Apple’ turns focus to west and is set to raise $10bn on Hong Kong stock exchangeThe Smartphone maker Xiaomi will begin selling its smartphones in the UK under a partnership with Hutchinson’s Three as “China’s Apple” turns its attention to the west.The news came as the firm announced its IPO on the Hong Kong stock exchange seeking to raise at least $10bn (£7.3bn), in what could be the largest offering since Chinese e-commerce conglomerate Alibaba’s $25bn listing in New York in 2014. Continue reading...

Some products really are designed to addict your child. But this latest bogeyman is not among themEvery few years, a video game gets so popular with children that someone decides there must be something wrong with it. When I was a kid, it was Pokémon; when my stepson was little, it was Minecraft; now, of course, it is Fortnite, a colourful, battle royal-style shooter that’s currently so popular that pop star Drake and footballer Dele Alli are fans.When children get into things, they tend to do so quite intensely. (The concerningly detailed diagrams of the insides of Egyptian pyramids that I drew when I was nine are testament to that.) There is nothing wrong with a kid getting so into Fortnite that she wants to play it all the time; it’s just passion. Continue reading...

Tech insiders have finally started admitting their mistakes – but the solutions they are offering could just help the big players get even more powerful. By Ben Tarnoff and Moira WeigelBig Tech is sorry. After decades of rarely apologising for anything, Silicon Valley suddenly seems to be apologising for everything. They are sorry about the trolls. They are sorry about the bots. They are sorry about the fake news and the Russians, and the cartoons that are terrifying your kids on YouTube. But they are especially sorry about our brains.Sean Parker, the former president of Facebook – who was played by Justin Timberlake in The Social Network – has publicly lamented the “unintended consequences” of the platform he helped create: “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains.” Justin Rosenstein, an engineer who helped build Facebook’s “like” button and Gchat, regrets having contributed to technology that he now considers psychologically damaging, too. “Everyone is distracted,” Rosenstein says. “All of the time.” Continue reading...

Elon Musk got testy with analysts amid concerns over company’s future, after it burned through $745.3m in cash during important quarterTesla posted a record $709.6m net loss in the first quarter and burned through $745.3m in cash while struggling to crank out large numbers of its Model 3 mass-market electric car.The loss and cash burn announced on Wednesday raised questions about the company’s future and whether it would be able to pay all of its bills by early next year without more borrowing or another round of stock sales. Continue reading...

Employee allegedly called himself ‘professional stalker’ on Tinder as site seeks to launch dating app and faces privacy scandalFacebook has fired a security engineer after he was accused of stalking women online possibly by abusing his “privileged access” to data, raising renewed concerns about users’ privacy at the social network.The controversy, which came to light after the employee allegedly called himself a “professional stalker” in a message to a woman he met on Tinder, is particularly bad timing for Facebook, which announced this week that it is launching an online dating feature while it continues to battle a major privacy scandal in the US and the UK. Continue reading...

Rockstar Games offers new glimpse at wild west prequel ahead of October releaseRockstar Games has released a new trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the most anticipated video games of the year.The game, which will be out on October 26, is a prequel to 2010’s Red Dead Redemption, a western set in 1911 that followed the ill-fated outlaw John Marston in his attempts to redeem himself in the eyes of the law. Red Dead Redemption 2 stars Arthur Morgan, a member of the Van der Linde gang that played a pivotal role in the first game’s storyline. It is set in 1899, and the new trailer shows the gang on the run as the West becomes less wild. Continue reading...

I, for one, can’t wait for Facebook’s new service. Where better to point a powerful surveillance tool than at our love lives?

With revenues of over $61bn, Apple beat its 2015 record in the report released Tuesday – but sales of its most valuable product are slowingApple on Tuesday shook off worries that its $1,000 iPhone had failed to live up to the hype – but sales of the world’s most valuable company’s most valuable product are slowing, and Apple has announced a plan to buy its way out of trouble.Releasing its latest quarterly report, Apple announced it had sold 52.2m iPhones in the quarter ending 31 March, at an average price of $728.54. Sales were up 3% compared to last year and slightly lower than analysts had expected, but numbers beat the gloomiest forecasts and were enough to deliver Apple its best second quarter ever, with revenues of over $61bn. That beat the record of $58bn set in 2015. Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg says app, which shares some features with Tinder, aims to build ‘real long-term relationships – not just hookups’Facebook is launching a new dating app on the social media platform, its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced at an annual developer conference on Tuesday, unveiling a feature designed to compete with popular services like Tinder.Speaking in front of a packed crowd in San Jose, Zuckerberg described the new dating feature as a tool to build “real long-term relationships – not just hookups”. Continue reading...

Firm can continue to operate while it appeals against ruling that it is not ‘fit and proper’Brighton and Hove has become the third British city to reject Uber, after the council decided not to renew the firm’s licence to operate private hire cars.

With meteors crashing into the landscape, the latest update for the smash-hit online shooter game has an apocalyptic superhero feelAfter weeks of hints, rumours and comet trails illuminating the lurid skies, season IV of Fortnite has begun.The smash-hit online shooter game, which sees 100 players battling each other to survive on a vast island, was updated on Tuesday, with a selection of new items and emotes. More intriguingly, there are now two new areas to explore. Continue reading...

Drama created after Tackroom Theatre teamed up with Barnardo’s to conduct the largest piece of research ever done into the subjectThere’s no holding back in the rehearsal room, with talk of sex, incest porn and bondage. One musical number has a chorus about masturbating. It is funny, revealing and deeply troubling. The play, Why Is the Sky Blue? (Or How to Make Slime), is based on interviews with 10,000 people aged between six and 22, about the effects of pornography on their lives. Its title comes from the children’s search-engine questions, which included “Am I gay?” and “How big is my penis?”The cast members are drawn from the same age group as the interviewees and the show includes songs, verbatim experiences and improvised conversations. One of the young people says that, after stumbling across pornography online: “I didn’t even want to look at my own [genitals]. I was scared after watching.” Another comments: “It has affected my mental health and the way I feel about myself, the way I speak to girls.” Continue reading...

A movement led by survivors, public health experts and technologists is utilizing interactive technology to shift how people approach sexual misconduct

Identity matching bill provides ‘significant scope’ for minister to expand powers, state warnsVictoria has threatened to pull out of a state and federal government agreement for the home affairs department to run a facial recognition system because the bill expands Peter Dutton’s powers and allows access to information by the private sector and local governments.In October the Council of Australia Governments agreed to give federal and state police real-time access to passport, visa, citizenship and driver’s licence images for a wide range of criminal investigations.

Trial among users in Australia and New Zealand allows people to give comments an up or down voteFacebook is trialling new technology on some Australian and New Zealand users which allows people to give comments an “up” or “down” vote.A Facebook spokeswoman said the trial was in the early test stages and no decision had been made on expanding it to the global community of 2.2 billion users. A decision would be made after the company had gauged whether users found the new tool useful and productive, she said. Continue reading...

WhatsApp was built with a focus on privacy and a disdain for ads, but the Facebook-owned service is now under pressure to make money

Twenty cities are vying for a $5bn investment and 50,000 jobs, so are the movements of the CEO’s aircraft, N271DV, the key to HQ2?The tail number of Jeff Bezos’ $75m, 18-seat Gulfstream G650ER jet may provide the best clue yet of Amazon’s choice for a second North American headquarters, otherwise known as HQ2.Related: 'Not welcome here': Amazon faces growing resistance to its second home Continue reading...

Microsoft has released the latest version of Windows 10, adding improvements to task management, Cortana, Edge and sharingThe next version of Windows 10 is finally ready to download as a free update that adds some potentially game-changing new features as well as some welcome features that bring it up to par with what you might expect from a smartphone.

Six-wheeled robots will deliver food and coffee across a Silicon Valley office park in first commercial use of the technology – and whole cities could be nextIf you work in an office park, or study at a campus university, robotic delivery drivers could be coming your way, following the first-ever commercial deployment of the technology.Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery startup created in 2014 by two Skype co-founders, has been in public testing mode in 20 countries around the world since 2015. Now the company says it is ready for its first “major commercial rollout”. Continue reading...

Corey Pein took his half-baked startup idea to America’s hottest billionaire factory – and found a wasteland of techie hustlers and con men• Read the text version hereSubscribe via Audioboom, iTunes, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, Acast & Sticher and join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence is being used to predict behaviour in ‘frightening new ways’ despite condemnation from MPs and campaignersThe gambling industry is increasingly using artificial intelligence to predict consumer habits and personalise promotions to keep gamblers hooked, industry insiders have revealed.

The search engine’s new feature is being sold as a creative tool – but mainly it’s a collection of semi-coherent and accidentally profound sentences

Analysts worry Apple could expose a weakness in consumer demand as the tech giant releases its first-quarter numbers

The ice-blue three-wheel invalid carriage that was such a feature of the 1970s rides again in a heroic adventureAC Invacar Model 70

The photo-sharing app has avoided the scandal that has engulfed its owner, Facebook. But can it stay unscathed?It has been a rough few weeks for Facebook since the Observer reported the Cambridge Analytica data breach. The scandal revealed how the political consulting firm might have raked up the personal information of at least 87 million Facebook users in order to influence them with tailored political ads, sent the social network’s stocks into a tailspin, triggered the #DeleteFacebook movement – and regaled the planet with the cringefest that was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the US Senate. But if Facebook’s reputation has seen better days, one of the company’s most valuable assets has come out of the kerfuffle practically unscathed.Instagram, the photo-sharing platform Facebook acquired in 2012 for $715m, has not yet come up in the debate over Facebook’s cavalier attitude to user data protection, despite being of a piece with the longer-running social network (and being headquartered just a few blocks from Facebook’s Menlo Park campus in California). Prominent members of the #DeleteFacebook campaign, such as SpaceX’s Elon Musk, singer Cher, and Playboy magazine, are still pretty much present and active on Instagram. The app’s apparent immunity to whatever befalls its owner, and the possibility that this might not last, even led a Reuters analyst to recommend that Facebook spin off Instagram as a separate company, to shield it from reputational contagion. Continue reading...

When he turned seven, Neal Whittington’s uncle gave him a £7 WH Smith voucher: this started a lifelong obsession with stationery. After studying graphic design, he now owns stationery shop Present & Correct in north London. “I always wanted it to feel like a sweet shop of desk supplies,” Whittington says. The rubbers, in particular, have a “confectionery-like quality” and he creates colourful geometric patterns with them for Instagram (#pandcerasers). He sources them from all over the world: Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Japan, the US. “We should celebrate erasers – they allow us to correct mistakes and beautify drawings,” he says. “Pencils are celebrated universally and erasers are their life partner, so they should get equal billing.” Continue reading...

Some claim they can stop your contactless cards being scanned – or is it just scaremongering?Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.This week’s question: Continue reading...

As a clash over scooters highlights inequality and a housing crisis, techies and local residents feud over who’s at faultThe cold war between San Francisco and the tech industry erupted into open hostilities again this month, when the overnight arrival of hundreds of motorized scooters across the city’s streetscape reignited tensions between the techies and the tech-nots.The dockless electric scooters, which were distributed around San Francisco by three competing startups just as the city was preparing to pass legislation to regulate them, have become the latest symbol of competing visions for city living. To critics of the tech industry, they represent everything that is wrong with the “move fast and break things” ethos. To tech evangelists, they are further proof that it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Continue reading...

In late April Google announced it was getting more serious about podcasts with an interesting new strategy. Alex Hern looks at why tech platforms are so eager to master the podcast industrySubscribe and review: Acast, Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter or email us at podcasts@theguardian.comMore than a decade after the term was coined, podcasts still don’t feel quite like they’ve grown up. People are intrigued by them because they’re still outside the realm what we expect from traditional. And they’re popular. Continue reading...

Readers respond to a Guardian editorial about the merits of analogue and digital timekeepingYour editorial (Clocking time…, 26 April) suggests that reading analogue clocks and watches requires computational skills. Indeed it does when one is learning to tell the time, but the main value once that has been learned is that an analogue clock facedisplay is information-rich in a way that a digital display is not. If I have 30 minutes to do a task, the analogue display shows me not only start time but finish time and progress can be checked instantaneously at any point in between – a huge amount of useful information. A digital display tells you the time but it requires mental arithmetic to work out whether you are on time or running late. Analogue wins hands down, as it were.

Industrial designer who gave the ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum their distinctive look has died of cancer in the USThe designer of the Sinclair Spectrum home computer, Rick Dickinson, has died of cancer in the US.Dickinson joined Sinclair Research, a British consumer electronics company founded by the inventor Sir Clive Sinclair, in 1979 after graduating from Newcastle Polytechnic’s industrial design programme. Continue reading...

Dotcom, a German national with New Zealand residency, has moved from Auckland to the tourist hub of QueenstownKim Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing company Megaupload, is advertising for live-in staff in his New Zealand mansion; and the eclectic team, including a chef and counter-intelligence officer, he is recruiting will make for a lively household.Dotcom, a German national who has permanent residency in New Zealand, shifted south from his longtime base in Auckland to the tourist hub of Queenstown in the lower South Island last year, citing a desire to get away from “spies” and raise his children among mountains and lakes. Continue reading...

Bill Morrow says Coalition changes made network cheaper and faster to install but more prone to faults• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noonThe national broadband network’s reliance on copper has led to a higher fault rate and slower internet speeds but helped deliver the network faster and cheaper, its outgoing chief executive has said.In a position paper released on Friday, Bill Morrow is frank about the challenges of fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) technology and use of the copper network, a signature policy of Malcolm Turnbull in his time as communications minister. Continue reading...

Company announces cost of Prime subscription will increase $20 to $119 for US customers, after share price soars to record high of $1,625As Amazon reported that it had more than doubled its profits to $1.6bn in the first three months of 2018, the company announced that the cost of a Prime subscription would increase to $119 from $99 per year for US customers.The results sent the company’s shares soaring 7% to a new record of $1,625 in after-hours trading, adding billions to the fortune of its founder, Jeff Bezos. Continue reading...

Family planning | Exam-hall clocks | Internet banking | Chess | Hank Williams | Royal birthIt was good to see the difficult topic of population being presented so clearly (The briefing, 23 April), when it is so often avoided. Not only is Trump’s global gag rule reducing access to contraception worldwide, but the UK government’s cuts to local authorities are causing closures and reductions in service for many family planning and sexual health services in England and Wales. It is difficult to think of anything more profligate than cutting something that saves so much money further down the line, eg in avoiding abortions and infectious diseases.

MPs grilled Mike Schroepfer on Cambridge Analytica. Here’s what he and they had to sayMike Schroepfer may not have been Mark Zuckerberg, but Facebook’s chief technology officer was nevertheless forced to admit in front of MPs that the company had made errors in its handling of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, faced questions over what the company had not told MPs in a previous hearing, and apologised for threatening the Guardian with legal action.Here are the five main points from his appearance before the digital, culture, media and sport select committee: Continue reading...

Only 220,000 units of wearable gadget were sold first time around, with the tech firm writing off $40m in the processSnap is doubling down on its hardware business, launching a new version of its Spectacles camera-glasses today with a better camera, the ability to take still images and water resistance.The new model comes as Snapchat attempts to recover from the disappointing long-term fate of the first generation, which gathered attention – and long queues – when they were launched in extremely limited quantities in November 2016, but failed to sell in large numbers when they were eventually released on general sale. Continue reading...

When Dan Hett’s younger brother Martyn was killed in the Manchester Arena bombing, he embarked on a trilogy of autobiographical experimental video games about the experience and its aftermathScrolling through Twitter on his phone before going to sleep on 22 May 2017, Dan Hett saw a few vague mentions of an accident of some sort in Manchester: “no details, no actual news, just busybodies speculating.” He rubbed his eyes, removed his glasses and lay down without thinking about it any further. It wasn’t until he picked up his phone the following morning and saw hundreds of notifications that he realised something real had happened, that there had been an explosion, and that his brother Martyn was missing. “The messages, the ones you read … they were right, and you went to sleep,” said a voice in his head. “You went to fucking sleep.”Hett describes this and his other experiences in the days following the Manchester Arena bombing in harrowing detail in his autobiographical hypertext game c ya laterrrr, which was released in December 2017. Written in the second-person, the game puts you in Hett’s shoes, combining detailed descriptions of what was going on in his head as escalating panic gave way to fear and anger, with small decisions for the player to make about how to behave. Do you call your mum or your dad? Do you press the police for more information or sit in numb silence? Do you wait for news at the emergency zone, packed with other exhausted, terrified families, or go home and wait there? Continue reading...

Social media giant’s chief technical officer Mike Schroepfer questioned by MPs about the firm’s impact on politics. Follow rolling coverage here3.14pm BSTAnd that’s it. The session is over, a little under five hours after it started.3.08pm BSTStevens moves on to Myanmar, where Facebook has been implicated in violence against the Rohingya minority.“I went to the refugee camps last November. The UN has accused Facebook of playing a role in the violence, saying social media has been exploited to spread hate speech. Just last month the UN said your platform had morphed into a ‘beast’ that spreads hatred against Rohingya muslims.” Continue reading...

Amazon, Google and eBay will be obliged to ensure sellers know how to influence online rankingAmazon, Google and other tech firms will be forced to be more transparent in their dealings with third-party businesses who sell goods on their sites, under a draft EU regulation.

Firefox is about to stop supporting Windows Vista and websites are not working. Is there a cheap or preferably free solution?I read your article about Windows 10 updates and that most PCs with Vista should be tossed in the trash bin. I really don’t want to do that. I bought my computer with a disability settlement, and I simply don’t have the money for upgrades. It is an HP Model m8530f with an AMD Phenom 9550 quad-core processor and 5GB of memory. I use it for writing, blogging, internet access, simple games, nothing intense. But I do need to do something because there is only one web browser I can use effectively, and some websites have begun to shun us unfortunate Vista folks. Please tell me how to do this. I am not stupid or illiterate, just a little on the broke side, and a bit (OK, a lot) of a procrastinator. Jeanne

Sony’s new God of War is one of the best-reviewed games of the decade. Creative director Cory Barlog talks about how it was inspired by his own relationship with his sonSony Santa Monica’s new God of War, released earlier this month, is outstanding for several reasons. It’s one of the best-looking video games of the modern era, a Norse epic that weaves an overarching mythological tale together with a smaller-scale, personal story about grief and family. Its most unexpected achievement, though, is humanising its protagonist, Kratos – previously a lump of tattooed muscle whose entire emotional range was “angry”.Related: God of War review – violent, vital and more brilliant than ever Continue reading...