Technology | The Guardian

Uber plans to expand into food delivery and driverless cars but its IPO was a flop and its latest earnings figures could prove vitalUber has big plans. The ride-hailing service wants to ferry the world around in self-driving cars and on electric scooters, deliver our takeouts and groceries by drone, and ship freight via robot trucks. But first Uber needs to answer a big question: will it ever make any money?This week, Wall Street will have the chance to ask that question. Continue reading...

In our digital world, a misdirected text or simple keyboard error can trigger huge unintended consequencesOne day in May this year, Luigi Rimonti left his home in Gateshead to catch a ferry from North Shields, the first stage in a 1,000-mile drive across Europe to Italy. A dapper, energetic 81-year-old, Rimonti had grown up in a suburb of Rome before coming to the north-east of England as a young man. Often, over the years, he had driven back to Rome, insisting to his two adult sons, Gino and Valter, that he preferred to make this long journey by car. They worried about their father on these drives, and this spring, for the first time, they persuaded Rimonti to equip his car with a satellite-navigation device.Off the ferry in Amsterdam, Rimonti began to have difficulties with the satnav. He stopped in a petrol station: could someone there help him re-input his destination? A stranger obliged. Tap-tap-tap, enter. Rimonti thanked the stranger and drove on – south, he presumed, towards Rome. Continue reading...

Materials used in manufacturing and companies’ efforts to collect and charge scooters create significant greenhouse gas emissions

Tech firm to review virtual assistant ‘grading’ programme after Guardian revelations

From tablets to robot toys, here’s some tech ideas to keep the little ones occupied in the long breakWith the summer holidays in full swing you might need a bit of a hand keeping the kids entertained. From tablets and cameras to robot toys and updated old-school favourites, here is a collection of kid-aimed tech to keep the little ones occupied. Continue reading...

Technology is spying on us and machines are developing human voices. But it’s not all a weird cyberpunk dystopiaTechnology changes so fast that our lives are radically different from even a decade ago, yet slowly enough that sometimes we don’t even notice the changes.We live in the future, in other words, and sometimes it takes a moment to realise what an odd, and perhaps unsettling, future it is. So I’m going to try laying it out for you in plain English. Continue reading...

Polly wants to dump her laptop for a more ergonomic computer due to neck and shoulder painI’m an academic with neck and shoulder problems and fear turning into a hunchback through too much peering at the screen. I’m now moving house and setting up a home office. I want to dispense with my laptop – the source of my problems – and buy a desktop and an ergonomic keyboard.I’m confused about whether to get an all-in-one or a PC with a separate monitor. I am only really going to use it for internet and typing articles. I realise that this means I can look to the cheaper end of the market, but is there much slowdown in speed at that end? Should I be spending the money to get a good processor? PollyLaptops can be considered harmful if used for prolonged serious work rather than casual use. If you have neck and shoulder problems, you should seek medical help. I’ve been saved twice by an excellent physiotherapist, at my own expense. I’ve also spent time and money mitigating problems, but there is no panacea. Buying an ergonomic keyboard is only one part of a solution that could also include the mouse, desk, chair, lighting, work habits and, perhaps, glasses. Continue reading...

Decision to temporarily pull bikes comes nearly two months after ride sharing company launched its fleet in the cityLyft has put the brakes on its electric bike program in San Francisco, after the batteries on multiple vehicles caught fire.On Wednesday, a Twitter user posted an image of a bike in San Francisco’s Lower Haight neighborhood that appeared to have caught fire. Another bike in San Francisco appears to have caught fire on Saturday as well, the San Francisco Examiner reported. Continue reading...

PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One; Question

Usage changes from describing outdoors to depicting digital life in just one generationTweet, web, stream and cloud may once have evoked the wild outdoors, but they are now predominantly used to describe technology, according to new linguistic research.A study of datasets of informal conversations from different decades has found that the implied meaning of some common nature words in Britain has almost completely changed in a single generation. Continue reading...

Telco says diverse agencies accessing data through legal loophole need to follow the same process as law enforcement bodiesTelstra has warned that public trust in the security of their data will be eroded if government agencies continue to be allowed access to it without appropriate authorisation.More than 60 agencies, including local councils, state coroners, Centrelink, the National Disability Insurance Agency and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority, have been accessing data using a loophole in the Telecommunications Act that allows them to bypass restrictions in the 2015 data retention legislation, under which access was restricted to only 20 agencies, primarily police and other law enforcement bodies. Continue reading...

Payment card to be launched in August, Tim Cook says, as third-quarter earnings beat predictionsApple has announced it will launch its own credit card in August, as iPhone sales continue to fall and the company seeks to diversify its business model.The announcement by the CEO, Tim Cook, came on an earnings call on Tuesday after the company’s third-quarter earnings beat predictions, sending shares up 3% in after-hours trading. The tech company reported a quarterly revenue of $53.8bn, higher than its previous estimate of $53.39bn. Continue reading...

The question is not whether esports is the future of sports entertainment, but whether there’s any possible scenario where it’s notNearly all established sports are going through some degree of hand-wringing over attracting younger fans as their older core ages out. The death of monoculture and explosion of entertainment options, many accessible without leaving one’s bedroom, have seen attendance drops across the board. MLB and NFL teams have fallen over themselves installing on-site daily fantasy lounges to lure second-screeners. Even the hidebound International Olympic Committee has made transparent plays for youth, most recently with the addition of skateboarding, surfing and three-on-three basketball to next year’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo.Related: Ten ways to make your child a Fortnite millionaire Continue reading...

Apps are changing the industry, but experts warn against dispensing with human therapists entirelyThe road to therapy is often inscrutable, windy and unsatisfying, with availability, cost and fit frequently preventing people from getting the care they need.A new wave of Bay Area startups is turning to tech to change that, using algorithms and automation to take the guesswork out of finding the right therapist. At a time when mental health care is rapidly moving from clinics and hospitals on to our phones, they’re building software to enhance the human relationship at the heart of successful therapy. But the speed at which this shift has occurred is sparking as much concern as excitement about technology’s potential. Continue reading...

FBI has arrested individual who obtained names, addresses, phone numbers and birth dates of people in US and CanadaA hacker gained access to personal information from more than 100 million Capitol One credit applications, the bank said on Monday as federal authorities arrested a suspect.The data breach has affected around 100 million people in the US and 6 million in Canada. Continue reading...

Rockstar North made huge profits while claiming £42m in tax relief, says thinktankRockstar North, the Edinburgh-based developer of Grand Theft Auto, has paid no corporation tax over the past 10 years, despite making billions in revenue for its parent company Take-Two Interactive, while claiming more than £42m in tax relief.A report from the investigative thinktank TaxWatch UK estimates Rockstar Games’ operating profit at $5bn (£4bn) between 2013 and 2019, during which time the company released Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) and Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar North is part of Rockstar Games. Continue reading...

Tools to crack down on ‘dark money’ political ads are ineffective, researchers say“Major bugs” in Facebook’s political transparency tools are preventing researchers and journalists from holding advertisers to account, according to a report from Mozilla.It comes as the Conservative party is spending thousands of pounds a day experimenting with new adverts on the social network, prominently emphasising the leadership of Boris Johnson. Continue reading...

The esports industry must attract female pro players to avoid replicating the sexism that blights other sportsThis weekend the best Fortnite players in the world gathered at Flushing Meadows in New York to compete in the game’s first ever World Cup Finals for $30m (£24m) in prize money. Tens of thousands of spectators packed the famed Arthur Ashe stadium to watch the action live, and many millions more viewed on Twitch and YouTube. Fortnite is, after all, one of the biggest entertainment brands on the planet, played by hundreds of millions. Amid all the hype and fanfare around the finals, however, one depressing fact remained unavoidable: not a single one of the 100 finalists was female.Despite the growing popularity of professional gaming throughout the world – the audience figures for competitive gaming have reached 450m this year – female competitors remain scarce. There certainly are high-profile examples of female pros – trans woman Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn is one of the most successful Starcraft II players in the world; Katherine “Mystik” Gunn is the industry’s highest-paid female pro gamer and won the SyFy channel’s reality TV show WCG Ultimate Gamer; and Fortnite has stars such as One_Shot_Gurl and Loeya. But you could watch a year of big tournaments, whether it’s Call of Duty, League of Legends or Hearthstone, and count the number of female competitors on the fingers of one hand. Continue reading...

Sixteen-year-old Kyle ‘Bugha’ Giersdorf beat 99 other players at the Fortnite World Cup tournament in New YorkLast night, a US teenager who goes by the name Bugha – real name Kyle Giersdorf – became the Fortnite World Cup Champion. The 16-year-old beat 99 other players in the brightly coloured Battle Royale game, running, building and fighting his way to a $3m (£2.4m) victory.The competition began months ago, with waves of qualifiers being selected in weekly online play-ins. A total of 40 million people attempted to qualify for the World Cup, the first esports event of its kind for the mega-hit Fortnite, one of the world’s most popular video games. The 100 who made their way to New York this weekend represented 30 different countries. Continue reading...

Jordan Erica Webber chats to Fabian Wosar, a renowned anti-ransomware expert, who has worked on thousands of cases during his career. The victims that Fabian helps love him. The ransomware hackers he thwarts – not so much. He talks about the sacrifices he has made for the job he loves Continue reading...

As a surveillance technique it’s ubiquitous, but is still a political, legal and ethical conundrumFacial recognition technology has spread prodigiously. It’s there on Facebook, tagging photos from the class reunion, your cousin’s wedding and the office summer party. Google, Microsoft, Apple and others have built it into apps to compile albums of people who hang out together. Continue reading...

Jaden Ashman, 15, known as Wolfiez, came second in the video game’s duos competition

When even Microsoft starts calling for government regulation, you know the technology is a problemOn 18 July, the House of Commons select committee on science and technology published an assessment of the work of the biometrics commissioner and the forensic science regulator. My guess is that most citizens have never heard of these two public servants, which is a pity because what they do is important for the maintenance of justice and the protection of liberty and human rights.The current biometrics commissioner is Prof Paul Wiles. His role is to keep under review the retention and use by the police of biometric material. This used to be just about DNA samples and custody images, but digital technology promises to increase his workload significantly. “It is now seven years,” observes the Commons committee, “since the 2012 high court ruled that the indefinite retention of innocent people’s custody images was unlawful and yet the practice is continuing. A system was meant to have been put in place where any custody images were kept for six years and then reviewed. Custody images of unconvicted individuals at that point should be weeded and deleted.” Continue reading...

As the super-fast network is rolled out across the country, we look at how much it will cost, when you can get it and what it means for the NBN – and your healthAustralia’s mobile networks are currently embarking on major upgrades to get the country ready for 5G. While patches of 5G networks are already available in some Australian cities, it won’t be until at least 2020 that 5G has any real impact, and several more years until the networks are completed. So until then, what is all the fuss about? Continue reading...

Laden with irrelevant detail, the boastful ‘OOO’ email is the latest vehicle for one-upmanship. Why not keep it simple?So, you’re off on your hols, then? Remembered to leave an out-of-office message on your email? Ah, yes. “John Stephens will be out of the office from 1st August for two weeks. If you need an urgent response to a query, please contact … ”I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s nothing wrong with that – straightforward and informative. But – how can I put this, John? – isn’t it just a little bit prosaic? Don’t you itch to generate a frisson of envy among your colleagues while you’re not hewing at the coalface? Boost your image? What might be called induced OOO envy? If so, you’re going to have to do a damn sight better than the above. Because telling the truth on an OOO is so passé these days. No, what’s required is something altogether more ambitious, more global. Continue reading...

Workers hear drug deals, medical details and people having sex, says whistleblowerApple contractors regularly hear confidential medical information, drug deals, and recordings of couples having sex, as part of their job providing quality control, or “grading”, the company’s Siri voice assistant, the Guardian has learned.Although Apple does not explicitly disclose it in its consumer-facing privacy documentation, a small proportion of Siri recordings are passed on to contractors working for the company around the world. They are tasked with grading the responses on a variety of factors, including whether the activation of the voice assistant was deliberate or accidental, whether the query was something Siri could be expected to help with and whether Siri’s response was appropriate. Continue reading...

Tweaks to user experience help company to better-than-expected profitability of $76mTwitter’s revenue rose by almost a fifth year on year, the company reported on Friday, leading to “better-than-expected profitability” of $76m (£61m) in the second quarter of 2019, although this was down from $80m in the same period last year.The results were boosted by strength in US advertising revenue, which was up by 24% overall, in part due to growth in “monetisable daily active users”, which reached 139 million people, up 14% year on year. Continue reading...

Microsoft, Google and several others are vying to be the ‘Netflix of video games’, but what advantages are on offer for players?Streaming video games is an idea with such obvious advantages that like virtual reality, motion controls and 3D screens, it had already hit the market several times before it was technologically possible: witness the untimely demise of OnLive in 2015. The big question facing Microsoft and Google, both of which showed off their entries into the “cloud gaming” market at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles last month, is whether they’ve taken the plunge at the right time, or whether they, too, will be chalked up in history as premature entrants.After playing with Microsoft’s Project xCloud and Google’s Stadia, we can draw some conclusions but others will have to wait. Both services are aiming at different targets, and based on the idealised situations in which they were presented, they each achieve their goals. But not everything is in their hands. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no streaming service has yet survived contact with the realities of home broadband. Continue reading...

Weeks after paying £43m for city state’s dearest penthouse, inventor has reportedly bought £26.5m bungalowWhen billionaire inventor James Dyson bought Singapore’s most expensive flat for £43m earlier this month, the only thing the luxury triplex was missing was its own waterfall.But Dyson, who has been criticised for uprooting his company to Singapore after strongly backing Brexit, has rectified that with the purchase of a second property, complete with cascading water feature. Continue reading...

Players as young as 12 will compete in the event, marking Fortnite: Battle Royale’s entry into the lucrative professional games tournament circuitAfter 10 weeks of open qualifiers attracting more than 40 million competitors, the Fortnite World Cup finals will be held this weekend in New York. Up for grabs for the 100 qualifiers – many of whom are between 12 and 16 years old – is a total prize pot of $30m, the largest ever for an esports event.With more than 250 million players, Fortnite: Battle Royale has become one of the most popular video games in the world since its launch in 2017. The World Cup represents the title’s entry into the lucrative world of professional games tournament circuits, where revenues are set to pass $1bn this year, due to exploding sponsorship, advertising and broadcast rights. Continue reading...

Company’s earnings rebound even as justice department announces antitrust review of major tech firmsGoogle’s parent company Alphabet rebounded from a difficult start to the year on Thursday, when it reported higher than expected revenue and earnings.The digital advertising behemoth continues to amass extraordinary profits, with $9.18bn in the second quarter of 2019, but investors had been concerned about decelerating growth rates. Continue reading...

Second-quarter earnings lower than expected amid threat of government actionAmazon reported lower-than-expected profits in its second quarter of 2019, as it faces unprecedented opposition from lawmakers and consumers over its growing power.Related: Shop til they drop: the play that takes us inside an Amazon warehouse Continue reading...

Nintendo Switch; Intelligent Systems/Nintendo

PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch; MachineGames/Bethesda

Hugh wants to buy his wife a new tablet to replace her old Samsung Galaxy 10.1. What are the options?My wife is an artist. She has been using a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 since 2014. This allows her to draw and paint using a stylus supplied with the pad. She loves using it, but it’s past its best and the battery won’t hold a charge for very long. I am thinking of buying her a replacement. What should I go for? HughIf you’re an artist who uses computers, you’ve never had it so good, as former prime minister Harold Macmillan almost said. Touch-sensitive screens are becoming ubiquitous, so there are dozens of usable devices at a wide range of price points. However, they are not all the same, and people can be confused by the differences. Continue reading...

Scientist behind study urges platform to tweak algorithms to ‘prioritise factual information’The majority of YouTube videos about the climate crisis oppose the scientific consensus and “hijack” technical terms to make them appear credible, a new study has found. Researchers have warned that users searching the video site to learn about climate science may be exposed to content that goes against mainstream scientific belief.Dr Joachim Allgaier of RWTH Aachen University in Germany analysed 200 YouTube videos to see if they adhered to or challenged the scientific consensus. To do so, he chose 10 search terms: Continue reading...

Penalty by US government reflects scale of breach, first reported by the ObserverFacebook will pay a record $5bn (£4bn) penalty in the US for “deceiving” users about their ability to keep personal information private, after a year-long investigation into the Cambridge Analytica data breach.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US consumer regulator, also announced a lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica and proposed settlements with the data analysis firm’s former chief executive Alexander Nix and its app developer Aleksandr Kogan. Continue reading...

Action may finally be taken over claims Facebook, Google Apple and Amazon have monopolised chosen fieldsThe US Department of Justice (DoJ) has announced a wide-ranging antitrust review of “market-leading online platforms”, suggesting that long-awaited action may finally be taken against some of the world’s largest companies.But the confirmation of the investigation is sparse on detail, revealing only that the review “will consider the widespread concerns that consumers, businesses and entrepreneurs have expressed about search, social media, and some retail services online”. Continue reading...

Forces had warned that Russian ageing app was not bound by EU privacy legislationPolice forces in the Netherlands have backtracked on calls for users to delete the popular age-filtering FaceApp, over which some critics have voiced privacy fears.In a series of posts on Facebook, it was erroneously claimed by forces across the country that the Russian app, which predicts how people will look as they get older, was not safe as it would not be bound by European privacy legislation. Continue reading...

An unexpected revamp of Microsoft’s classic flying simulator could usher in a new era of cloud function for gamesFlight Simulator was once one of the jewels in Microsoft’s crown, as close to synonymous with PC gaming as it’s possible to get. The series debuted a staggering 37 years ago, pre-dating even Windows as an operating system, and demanded exacting attention from players as they guided increasingly detailed planes safely through the skies. Over the course of a dozen iterations spanning nearly four decades, the flying experience evolved from blocky cockpit views to full aerial tours with a hangar’s worth of realistically modelled aircraft to get to grips with. It’s been running so long that even Microsoft does not know its sales figures, but Flight Simulator has certainly been played by millions.Yet as PC gaming blossomed, becoming home to everything from competitive shooters to arthouse narrative games, Flight Simulator’s star began to wane. The last major release was 2006’s Microsoft Flight Simulator X (eventually revamped and repackaged for Steam in 2014), while 2012’s simplified spin-off, Microsoft Flight, had an aborted take off, cancelled a mere five months after launch. The golden age of flight (simulators) has long been over. Continue reading...

Camera shutter, tap gesture, better speakers and 5.5in screen make for an appealing smart alarm clockAmazon’s latest Echo Show 5 Alexa smart display is smaller, cheaper and has improved privacy, but is a £79.99 5.5in screen with a camera ready to replace your alarm clock in the bedroom?The Show 5 isn’t the first Alexa smart display aimed at being your bedside clock. The Echo Spot, with its pleasingly round screen and ball-like shape, was released in 2018 and is still available for £120. Continue reading...

Shares climb as Snap Inc announces 48% increase in revenue to $388mSnapchat announced an exceptionally strong second quarter on Tuesday, sending shares surging in after hours trading.New augmented reality tools, a redesign of its Android application, and expansion into new markets brought the company major growth in the second quarter of 2019. The number of Snapchat users has increased 8% since this time last year to 203 million, the company said. Continue reading...

Video game music played by an orchestra is not new, but 8-Bit Symphony, a celebration of music from pioneering C64 composers, took many years of work

Records and ID documents accessed and fake invoices sent in ‘malicious’ hackStudent data has been stolen in a “sophisticated and malicious” cyber-attack on a university.Records and ID documents of some Lancaster University students were accessed in the phishing attack and fraudulent invoices were sent to undergraduate applicants, a spokesman for the university said. Continue reading...

Our updated list of the top iOS and Android mobile phones – at the best prices right nowNeed a new smartphone but don’t know which one is the very best? Here’s a guide comparing the current top-end smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Huawei, OnePlus and others to help you pick the best handset for you.There has never been a better time to buy a new flagship smartphone with many quality handsets available at a wider range of prices than ever before. Whether your priority is two-day battery life, fantastic camera performance or a spectacular screen, there’s plenty to choose from. Continue reading...

Tech firm settles class-action lawsuit but denies it is unfair to older applicantsGoogle has settled a lawsuit alleging age discrimination in its hiring practices, paying $11m to more than 200 jobseekers who were over 40 when they applied to join the company.Although it has settled the case, Google denies the allegations that it was unfairly dismissive of older applicants. Continue reading...

Chinese firm was blacklisted by Donald Trump over national security concernsHuawei Technologies, the Chinese company put on a US blacklist because of national security concerns, secretly helped North Korea build and maintain its commercial wireless network, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing sources and internal documents.The Chinese telecommunications company partnered with a state-owned Chinese firm, Panda International Information Technology, on a number of projects in North Korea over at least eight years, the Post reported. Continue reading...

Jordan Erica Webber talks to Laura Hudson, who wrote about video game producers making games that present players with situations where a character might choose to have an abortion. She also chats to Mary Flanagan of Tiltfactor about the potential impact games can have on changing opinions Continue reading...