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
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...
by Presented by Alex Hern and produced by Danielle St on (#3NVCD)
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.â€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 “angryâ€.Related: God of War review – violent, vital and more brilliant than ever Continue reading...
Company sees almost $12bn in revenue, up nearly 50% from last year and beating analyst estimates as Zuckerberg hails ‘strong start’Facebook’s data privacy problems have had little impact on its profitability as the company posted record revenues for the first quarter of 2018.The company made $11.97bn in revenue in the first three months of the year, up 49% from the previous year, beating Wall Street estimates of $11.41bn. Continue reading...
Enhanced controls will allow parents to handpick videos among a host of new features, but campaigners say YouTube must do moreGoogle is updating its YouTube Kids app to improve the control over the videos and channels that can be watched by children.YouTube Kids is a separate app for smartphones and tablets that provides access to a subset of the videos available on the main site. There have been 70bn video views since the app, which is used by 11m families, launched in 2015. In the app’s biggest change yet, Google is giving parents much greater control over what their children can find and watch. Continue reading...
Number of people who see Facebook as their main social media profile falls from 80% to 70% in a yearBritish adults are becoming less reliant on Facebook for communicating with friends, according to research conducted by the UK media regulator, which suggests people are starting to turn to other social media apps.The number of British social media users who consider Facebook to be their main social media or messaging profile fell from 80% to 70% in 12 months, according to the regulator’s annual media use survey. Continue reading...
Suspect appears to have links to misogynistic online community for the ‘involuntarily celibate’Hours before the Toronto van attack, a post on the Facebook profile of the chief suspect declared that “the incel rebellion has already begun, we will overthrow all the Chads and Stacysâ€.The message has brought new-found attention to the so-called incel movement, one of the stranger offshoots of the “alt rightâ€, and led to calls for the attack to be recognised as an act of far-right terrorism. Continue reading...
After my data was harvested by Cambridge Analytica, I went on a harrowing deep dive into my accountTwo weeks ago I logged into good old Facebook dot com to discover I was one of the 311,127 Australians – and one of about 87 million people worldwide – who had their personal data harvested by Cambridge Analytica sometime around 2013-15.
Google announces change for next Android update, falling in line with Apple, Samsung, WhatsApp and TwitterGoogle has become the latest firm to change its gun emoji to resemble a water pistol, falling in line with most other platforms, including Apple, Samsung, WhatsApp and Twitter.Amid a particularly fervent period in the US anti-gun movement, led by the Floridian students of Stoneman Douglas high school caught up in a mass shooting earlier this year, users of Google-owned products and services will soon see the gun emoji rendered as a bright orange water pistol. That includes smartphones updated to the upcoming Android 9.0 “P†due for release in May. Continue reading...
From a young age, the Amazon founder had dreamed up unlikely-sounding schemes. And then one took offIn 1994, Jeff Bezos held 60 meetings with family members, friends and potential investors in an attempt to persuade them to invest $50,000 (£35,000) in his revolutionary idea to create an online bookshop. He failed to convince 38 of them, and 24 years later some of them still cannot bring themselves to talk about what life might have been like if they had taken a punt on Bezos and this “Amazon thing†that the then 30-year-old hedge fund manager wouldn’t shut up about.“I’m in touch with a few of them now,†Bezos revealed in an on-stage interview at a charity dinner in Washington DC last year. “It’s kind of a study in human nature ... Some of them take it in their stride, and they recognise that they actually have ridiculously happy lives. [But] others of them just cannot talk about it – it’s too painful.â€
Company posts first-quarter profit of $61m on revenues of $665m, comfortably ahead of analysts’ expectationsIt’s taken 12 years, but Twitter is now a money-maker. The social media company reported its second profitable quarter on Wednesday, driven by a 10% rise in users and faster growth overseas.Related: Tech firms could face new EU regulations over fake news Continue reading...
Webstresser.org, which had 136,000 users, could be rented for £10 to launch DDoS attacksA website linked to more than 4m cyber-attacks worldwide, including against some of Britain’s biggest banks, has been shut down following a UK- and Netherlands-led operation.Webstresser.org had 136,000 registered users and could be rented for about £10 to launch distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, in which high volumes of internet traffic are launched at target computers to disable them. Continue reading...
Researchers sign open letter saying privacy restrictions ‘likely to compound the real problem’• Sign up to receive the top stories in Australia every day at noonA group of the world’s leading internet academics say Facebook’s decision to tighten access to user data in reaction to the Cambridge Analytica scandal will actually hamper genuine research and oversight of the platform.An open letter, signed by 27 researchers and published on Wednesday, said while the privacy changes might generate positive publicity for Facebook and its chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, they were “likely to compound the real problem, further diminishing transparency and opportunities for independent oversightâ€. Continue reading...
Facebook-owned messaging service will demand users confirm they are old enough to use app after raising age limit from 13WhatsApp is raising the minimum user age from 13 to 16, potentially locking out large numbers of teenagers as the messaging app looks to comply with the EU’s new data protection rules.The Facebook-owned messaging service that has more than 1.5 billion users will ask people in the 28 EU states to confirm they are 16 or older as part of a prompt to accept a new terms of service and an updated privacy policy in the next few weeks. Continue reading...
The Chinese smartphone maker has hit a home run with this top-end smartphone that’s on a par with the bestWith the P20 Pro, Huawei has not only proved that it can compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung, but it can beat them in many ways. Three cameras really are better than one (or two).
Nintendo’s ‘conductor’ takes us behind the game giant’s inner workings, how it finds talent and the philosophy that sparks its eccentric ideasNintendo is coming out of a rough patch in its 128-year history. After spending most of the 00s riding high on the success and profits of its DS and Wii consoles, the current decade has seen the Japanese company struggle to adapt to the changes that its rivals and smartphones have wrought upon the video game world. The death of company president Satoru Iwata in 2016, who presided over a creatively and financially brilliant period in Nintendo’s history, left many wondering how the company would find its way again.In March 2017, Nintendo’s fortunes turned around again with the launch of the Switch, a smart portable games console that can also be docked next to a TV and played at home. It has proven extremely popular, and its flagship games Mario Odyssey, Splatoon 2 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild hoovered up awards last year, including three Baftas at this month’s ceremony. One of the minds behind this joyful little machine is Shinya Takahashi, Nintendo’s GM of development, who started at the company as an artist in 1989 and is now in charge of Switch. He has been called Nintendo’s conductor. Continue reading...
Jason Calacanis, an early investor in Uber, spearheads a contest to find a service ‘that is actually good for society’Can Facebook be replaced? The prominent Silicon Valley investor Jason Calacanis, who was an early investor in several high-profile tech companies including Uber certainly hopes so. He has launched a competition to find a “social network that is actually good for societyâ€.The Openbook Challenge will offer seven “purpose-driven teams†$100,000 in investment to build a billion-user social network that could replace the technology titan while protecting consumer privacy. Continue reading...
by Olivia Solon and Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisc on (#3NJ2Q)
With its profound knowledge of its customers, Amazon can move into almost any sector – striking fear into the hearts of rivals. And the $740bn company is ‘just getting started’The computer on which this article was written is sitting on a laptop stand that tells you everything you need to know about how Amazon does business. At $19.99 (£14.99) a pop, the laptop stand combines everything customers love about Amazon: utility, price and convenience. It’s also a total and complete knockoff – of a laptop stand that the San Francisco-based company Rain Design began selling nearly a decade before Amazon decided to make its own.Amazon’s innovation with its own version was to replace Rain Design’s raindrop logo with its own smiley arrow logo – and cut the price in half. Continue reading...
Jeff Bezos’s firm is good at selling things to shoppers, but that is the tip of its commercial icebergIn the early days of Amazon, Jeff Bezos instituted a rule: every internal team should be small enough that it can be fed with two pizzas. The goal wasn’t to cut down on the catering bill. It was, like almost everything Amazon does, focused on two aims: efficiency and scalability. The former is obvious. A smaller team spends less time managing timetables and keeping people up to date, and more time doing what needs to be done. But it’s the latter that really matters for Amazon.The thing about having lots of small teams is that they all need to be able to work together, and to be able to access the common resources of the company, in order to achieve their larger goals. Continue reading...
With the retailer poised to report blockbuster results, we look at the story behind its success“I see them as kind of a great white shark. You don’t really want to mess with them.†The words are those of a former manager at Amazon – and she is describing her former employer.It is an apt analogy. Amazon is huge – worth $740bn (£530bn) at Monday night’s share price – but it moves fast and is a lethal predator. Continue reading...
Exclusive: panel told researcher Aleksandr Kogan that Facebook’s approach fell ‘far below ethical expectations’A Cambridge University ethics panel rejected research by the academic at the centre of the Facebook data harvesting scandal over the social network’s “deceptive†approach to its users privacy, newly released documents reveal.A 2015 proposal by Aleksandr Kogan, a member of the university’s psychology department, involved the personal data from 250,000 Facebook users and their 54 million friends that he had already gleaned via a personality quiz app in a commercial project funded by SCL, the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. Continue reading...
Latest in Amazon Key programme sees newer Volvos and General Motors vehicles become lockboxes for Prime membersAmazon has begun offering deliveries direct to car boots for members of its Prime subscription service.
EC concerned £300m deal with music-recognition app could give Apple data on users and rival streaming services to aid poachingThe EU has launched a formal investigation into Apple’s proposed acquisition of UK music-recognition app Shazam.The European commission announced its in-depth investigation into the deal over concerns that it would harm consumer choice and give Apple an unfair advantage through access to user data, which could aid in poaching customers from rivals. Continue reading...
General Data Protection Regulation holds that anyone in Europe can ask any company for the data it has on themHave you ever wondered what your boss or co-workers say about you behind your back? If you’re located in Europe, it will soon be extremely easy to find out.Under the General Data Protection Regulation that comes into play on 25th of May, any individual located in Europe can ask any company for the data it collects about them – and that includes their employer. Continue reading...
One of video games’ most beloved creators on surviving a tumultuous career, running an indie publishing arm and earning a Bafta fellowshipWe went through a period in the games industry where I felt I was being shamed for doing story. It was like, all games should be Deus Ex, all games should be design-driven and systemic. Interactivity is what’s unique about games, a powerful tool that can’t be ignored, but I don’t like limited ideas about what games “should†be. It annoys me because there are so many different people playing games who like them for completely different reasons. Gamers aren’t just one thing.
Media committee chair says Martin Lewis’s case shows yet another failure to protect usersFacebook is facing calls to deploy facial recognition technology to block scam adverts featuring celebrities, after consumer campaigner Martin Lewis launched legal proceedings against the social network over fake promotions claiming his endorsement.Damian Collins, the chair of the parliamentary committee investigating online disinformation, told the Guardian he would ask the social network to consider new ways to block fake promotions when the company’s chief technology office appears to answer questions in parliament on Thursday. Continue reading...
Video-sharing site responds to criticism over objectionable content by publishing report into scale of its moderation processYouTube says it removed 8.3m videos for breaching its community guidelines between October and December last year as it tries to address criticism of violent and offensive content on its site.
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