As implants grow more common, experts fear surveillance and exploitation of workers. Advocates say the concerns are irrationalOn 1 August 2017, workers at Three Square Market, a Wisconsin-based company specializing in vending machines, lined up in the office cafeteria to be implanted with microchips. One after the other, they held out a hand to a local tattoo artist who pushed a rice-grain sized implant into the flesh between the thumb and forefinger. The 41 employees who opted into the procedure received complimentary t-shirts that read “I Got Chipped”.This wholesale implant event, organized by company management, dovetailed with Three Square Market’s longer-term vision of a cashless payment system for their vending machines – workplace snacks purchased with a flick of the wrist. And the televised “chipping party” proved to be a savvy marketing tactic, the story picked up by media outlets from Moscow to Sydney. Continue reading...

This year’s BlizzCon, a 35,000-strong event in California for fans of World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Hearthstone, was embroiled in a battle over free speech and ChinaEric did not imagine this would be how he would spend his first BlizzCon. The 26-year-old World of Warcraft (WoW) player from Glendale, California, was at the annual fan event in Anaheim held by Blizzard, the games company behind global hits such as Warcraft, Overwatch and more. Each year, more than 35,000 people pack into the city’s vast convention centre to play games, attend talks and share in their fandom.But at this year’s event, held last weekend, there was a different feel. Instead of WoW cosplay, Eric was sporting a mask as worn by Hong Kong protesters to shield their faces from tear gas and facial recognition. And rather than joining in with the hype during panels about the forthcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands expansion, he was outside the convention centre handing out “Liberate Hong Kong” flyers, adorned with the protestors’ adopted symbol, the Overwatch character Mei. Continue reading...

Like the big banks, big tech uses its lobbying muscle to avoid regulation, and thinks it should play by different rules. And like the banks, it could be about to wreak financial havoc on us all. By Rana Foroohar‘In every major economic downturn in US history, the ‘villains’ have been the ‘heroes’ during the preceding boom,” said the late, great management guru Peter Drucker. I cannot help but wonder if that might be the case over the next few years, as the United States (and possibly the world) heads toward its next big slowdown. Downturns historically come about once every decade, and it has been more than that since the 2008 financial crisis. Back then, banks were the “too-big-to-fail” institutions responsible for our falling stock portfolios, home prices and salaries. Technology companies, by contrast, have led the market upswing over the past decade. But this time around, it is the big tech firms that could play the spoiler role.You wouldn’t think it could be so when you look at the biggest and richest tech firms today. Take Apple. Warren Buffett says he wished he owned even more Apple stock. (His Berkshire Hathaway has a 5% stake in the company.) Goldman Sachs is launching a new credit card with the tech titan, which became the world’s first $1tn market-cap company in 2018. But hidden within these bullish headlines are a number of disturbing economic trends, of which Apple is already an exemplar. Study this one company and you begin to understand how big tech companies – the new too-big-to-fail institutions – could indeed sow the seeds of the next crisis. Continue reading...

Competition watchdog says fibre-to-node gives advertised download speed less often than other technologies

Social network says scrutiny that followed edited clip serves accountabilityFacebook would allow the Conservative party to promote its “doctored” video of Keir Starmer as a paid-for advert during the election campaign, the social network has confirmed. But the company has announced a policy aimed at cracking down on pages that conceal their ownership in order to mislead users.The executive Rebecca Stimson said the public debate that followed the airing of footage of the senior Labour MP in an ITV interview justified the company’s policy of allowing political misinformation on the site. Continue reading...

Reports say firms may act over concerns that practice risks damaging democratic normsGoogle and Facebook are both considering new rules banning the micro-targeting of political ads, according to reports.Critics of political advertising online have long worried that the ability to display specific messages to small sections of the electorate runs the risk of damaging democratic norms, by allowing candidates to present different platforms to different demographics. Continue reading...

The best pay-TV experience comes at significant cost, but at least you get what you pay forThree years on from launch, Sky’s Q pay-TV service has changed quite a lot, and so has the competition, both from old and new players. So is the satellite broadcaster’s box still the one to beat?When Q launched in 2016 it dragged Sky’s pay-TV platform kicking and screaming into the TV-anywhere age first ushered in by services such as Netflix. Continue reading...

Jim doesn’t need a high-end mobile, but would like something he can rely on at a decent priceMy Nokia Lumia 820 smartphone is approaching obsolescence after six years’ use. Apart from that, I used a second-hand iPhone for a week before it failed, but I have never used an Android phone. I am clearly not someone who places a premium on having the latest phone, but I would like something I can rely on. I don’t use phones for music on the go – I still use iPods – and I very rarely watch videos on them: I use my laptop for that. I have a sim-only contract and the idea of spending £700 or so on a phone doesn’t really apply to my wants, needs or financial reality. JimEvery Windows smartphone user should be thinking about this topic, because Microsoft will stop supporting the platform roughly a month from today, on 10 December 2019. Obviously, this won’t be as traumatic for as many people as the end of Windows 7 support on 14 January 2020, but it does mark the end of an era. And the end of an error. Continue reading...

Company workers reportedly obtained personal account information of critics of the government in Saudi ArabiaTwo former Twitter employees have been charged with spying after they reportedly obtained personal account information for critics of the government of Saudi Arabia.A complaint unsealed on Wednesday in US district court in San Francisco detailed a coordinated effort by Saudi officials to recruit employees at the social media giant to look up the private data of thousands of Twitter accounts. Continue reading...

Fitbit says data of its 28 million users will not be sold or used for Google adsGoogle’s recent acquisition of Fitbit for $2.1bn has left many users worried the tech giant may soon have access to their most intimate health information – from the number of steps they take each day to their breathing patterns, sleep quality or menstrual cycles.Fitbit, founded in San Francisco in 2007, tracks the health data of 28 million users. In a blogpost following the acquisition on Friday, Fitbit claimed user data would not be sold or used for Google advertising. “Consumer trust is paramount to Fitbit. Strong privacy and security guidelines have been part of Fitbit’s DNA since day one, and this will not change,” the company said in a statement. Continue reading...

Sarah Douglas recommends taking a break away from it all, and Chris Gibson suggests using non-smart mobilesI too am one of those incompetent and weak-willed parents alluded to in your report (The majority of 11-year-olds own smartphones. And experts are worried, 1 November), and appropriately slated in the comments. In my defence, I work in the NHS and thanks to many ill people I get home late, tired and basically incapable of parenting.The solution I have discovered is Pembrokeshire. One week here and my teenagers have walked along beaches, visited ruins, played board games and even eaten salad. A visit now and again will, hopefully, redeem them – and me – a little.

Camera with local AI for face recognition allows proactive display of personalised informationGoogle’s latest smart display is larger and can recognise your face for proactively showing you personalised information making it just that little bit smarter than competitors.The £219 Nest Hub Max is Google’s second own-brand smart display and is essentially a super-sized version of the excellent original Home Hub (now renamed Nest Hub). But where the Nest Hub is a veritable bargain at £119 or frequently much less, the Nest Hub Max is a different proposition at a little under twice the price. Continue reading...

Alex Crowley worked on ‘Mainstream Network’ campaign pushing for no-deal BrexitThe former Boris Johnson aide who was behind a Facebook ad that broke the social network’s funding disclosure rules previously worked on a fake grassroots campaign pushing for a no-deal Brexit, the Guardian can reveal.Alex Crowley, who left No 10 in September, oversaw the previous “Mainstream Network” Facebook campaign alongside employees of the lobbying firm run by Sir Lynton Crosby, the Australian political strategist who helped run three Conservative general election campaigns. Continue reading...

‘I’d use them in class,’ says Izzy Jones, a London-based vice-principal, while marveling at their range and ingenuityThere is a long-held stereotype that teenagers spend a lot of time online, uninterested in real life events.People who say that clearly haven’t seen them on TikTok, where they are engaging in the unexpected: teaching history lessons. Continue reading...

Seen at BlizzCon, the new game’s trailer offers intense, cinematic story missions where upgraded favourites work togetherTeam-based multiplayer shooter Overwatch is getting a sequel: and interestingly for fans, it’ll bring story missions into the game for the first time. According to Blizzard, it will also “redefine what a sequel means”. Which is quite a claim for an online shooter.Unveiled with a crowd-pleasing cinematic trailer at annual fan convention BlizzCon last week, Overwatch 2 will introduce PvE missions in an all-new story mode, as well as a new core competitive mode, Push, a six-versus-six PvP team battle, which sees teams compete to have a robot push the map’s objective to their opponent. Continue reading...

The company’s new logo is designed to bring a ‘sense of optimism’ to the brand that brought us the Cambridge Analytica scandalForget Facebook: meet FACEBOOK.Amid antitrust investigations, Capitol Hill hearings, and a generally poor reputation, the company announced on Monday it is rebranding itself. In the coming weeks, a new multicolored, all-caps logo will begin appearing across its services. Instagram and Whatsapp, owned by the company, will proudly tell users that they are services “from FACEBOOK”. Continue reading...

Users must sit online test and pay annual fee of £9 to join register or face £1,000 fineDrone users in the UK must now sit an online test and pay a £9 annual fee or face a £1,000 fine after the launch of a mandatory national registration scheme on Tuesday.Owners are obliged to identify and label all drones by 30 November, and operators must pass a test about legal and safe usage before they can fly them. Continue reading...

The experiment for the month of August led to more efficient meetings and happier workers who took less time offMicrosoft tested out a four-day work week in its Japan offices and found as a result employees were not only happier – but significantly more productive.For the month of August, Microsoft Japan experimented with a new project called Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019, giving its entire 2,300-person workforce five Fridays off in a row without decreasing pay. Continue reading...

The corporation rents electric vehicles via Jump and has until Friday to appeal or their permit will be revokedLos Angeles has suspended Uber’s permit to rent electric scooters and bicycles because the corporation refused to follow the city’s rules on data sharing.The temporary suspension could result in the city confiscating scooters and bikes of Uber’s subsidiary Jump. It marks the latest conflict between local governments and the rideshare company, which has repeatedly flouted traditional transportation regulations. Continue reading...

Letter signed by more than 1,000 employees calls for zero emissions by 2030 in latest wave of industry climate activismMore than 1,000 Google workers have signed a public letter calling on their employer to commit to an aggressive “company-wide climate plan” that includes canceling contracts with the fossil fuel industry and halting its donations to climate change deniers.The letter, which is addressed to Google’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, also calls for zero emissions by 2030 and “zero collaboration with entities enabling the incarceration, surveillance, displacement or oppression of refugees or frontline communities”. Continue reading...

Letter calls for suspension until after vote due to lack of time to reform online advertising rules

Former presidential candidate criticises Facebook’s decision to let politicians lie in adverts

(ZA/UM; PC)

Kari Paul and Alex Hern join Jordan Erica Webber to discuss how the big social media platforms are tackling the sticky issue of political adverts. Dr Kate Dommett also talks about how UK political parties could use or misuse social media as they launch their general election campaigns. Continue reading...

Rana Foroohar’s masterly critique of the internet pioneers who now dominate our world“Don’t be evil” was the mantra of the co-founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the graduate students who, in the late 1990s, had invented a groundbreaking way of searching the web. At the time, one of the things the duo believed to be evil was advertising. There’s no reason to doubt their initial sincerity on this matter, but when the slogan was included in the prospectus for their company’s flotation in 2004 one began to wonder what they were smoking. Were they really naive enough to believe that one could run a public company on a policy of ethical purity?The problem was that purity requires a business model to support it and in 2000 the venture capitalists who had invested in Google pointed out to the boys that they didn’t have one. So they invented a model that involved harvesting users’ data to enable targeted advertising. And in the four years between that capitulation to reality and the flotation, Google’s revenues increased by nearly 3,590%. That kind of money talks. Continue reading...

Company has been accused of pro-Republican bias, in both policy and personnel, amid fears it could be broken up if a Democrat wins in 2020Facebook has been accused of pro-Republican bias, in both policy and personnel, amid fears at the company that it could be broken up if a Democrat wins the White House next year.Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced fierce criticism this week, first for including Breitbart – once described by former chairman Steve Bannon as a “platform for the ‘alt-right’” – in its list of trusted sources for Facebook News, then for refusing to ban or factcheck political advertising. Continue reading...

Amateur boxers may dismiss the bout as ‘a joke’, but the web stars’ clash is big on marketable spectacleOn 9 November, two boxers will face each other in the ring in a highly anticipated bout, broadcast live on pay-per-view TV and expected to generate millions of pounds.Nothing unusual about that, except the pugilists are not Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder, or any of the sport’s big names, but two YouTube stars without a professional bout between them, fighting to settle a beef. Continue reading...

Social media app is owned by Chinese firm ByteDance but says it does not operate in ChinaTikTok is reportedly being investigated as a potential national security risk by the US government, as the company’s 2018 acquisition of American social media app Musical.ly comes under retroactive scrutiny.The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which has the ability to scrutinise acquisitions and investments by foreign companies, never formally approved the buyout, since TikTok, which is owned by Chinese startup ByteDance, did not explicitly request clearance. Continue reading...

Takeover allows web giant to take on Apple in fast-growing smartwatch and wearables businessGoogle has snapped up the Fitbit activity tracker business in a $2.1bn (£1.6bn) deal that will enable the search giant to go toe-to-toe with Apple in the fast-growing smartwatch and wearables business.Google is paying cash for the San Francisco-based Fitbit, which was set up in 2007. Continue reading...

Activists speak out after being warned of alleged cyber-attack to infiltrate mobile phonesMore than a dozen pro-democracy activists, journalists and academics have spoken out after WhatsApp privately warned them they had allegedly been the victims of cyber-attacks designed to secretly infiltrate their mobile phones.The individuals received alerts saying they were among more than 100 human rights campaigners whose phones were believed to have been hacked using malware sold by NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons company. Continue reading...

What do Zuckerberg’s bromides about American values mean to Facebook users in Kashmir or the Philippines?When Facebook wrote to Joe Biden’s campaign to say it would not back down from its decision to exempt politicians from its ban on advertising false statements, it was not Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg who signed the letter, but a not particularly well-known staffer named Katie Harbath.As Facebook’s director of public policy for global elections, Harbath has been a prominent voice in defending the controversial policy. “If people have a problem with Facebook’s policy, they have a problem with the way political speech is protected in this country,” she wrote in an op-ed in USA Today this week. “Fundamentally we believe that, in a democracy, it’s better to let voters make their own decisions, not companies like Facebook.” Continue reading...

PS4, PC; Sony / Kojima Productions

Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell match the Friends star stride for stride in this funny, fearless drama from Apple TV+What a strange and rather lovely thing it is to watch an actor you have grown up with for two and a half decades finally come into her kingdom. So it is with Jennifer Aniston who, 25 years after she arrived on our screens in Friends, returns in a TV series for the first time since the hit show ended in 2004.The Morning Show is a slick, sophisticated venture stuffed with powerhouse performances – Aniston’s foremost among them. She plays Alex Levy, the co-anchor of a morning talk show whose life is thrown into disarray when her co-presenter Mitch (Steve Carrell, proving alongside Aniston that if you can do comedy you can do anything) is accused of sexual misconduct and fired. Their chemistry kept the waning show afloat – without it, she becomes even more vulnerable. Behind the scenes, network executives have already been looking to replace her ageing presence. This is their opportunity to do so, at least until Alex starts to fight furiously back while the lies, rumours, deals, double-crossings and backstabbings multiply. In a coup d’etat, she installs as her new partner a scrappy regional reporter, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon), who is experiencing 15 minutes of fame as a voice of the people after candid footage of her at a coal-mining protest went viral. Continue reading...

AppleTV+ starts with smaller budget than Netflix or Amazon but aims for prestige marketApple gatecrashes the fast-growing global streaming business on Friday with the launch of Apple TV+, offering a free service on all new Apple devices for the first year.The Silicon Valley giant has pulled out all the stops to promote the service, which launches in 100 countries on Friday, with the stars of its flagship new series The Morning Show, Jennifer Aniston and Reece Witherspoon, spearheading the publicity push on both sides of the Atlantic. Continue reading...

When you raise the question of not giving kids phones at all, parents balk. ‘How can we do that?’ they ask. But what alternative is there?A report released by Common Sense Media on Tuesday found that by age 11, 53% of kids in the US have their own smartphone. And 69% do by the time they’re 12. This surge in phone ownership and the increased screen time associated with it comes amid growing concerns from experts and people like me that phones are bad for kids.Related: In a world made small by smartphones, we crave escape into otherness | Brigid Delaney Continue reading...

Katarzyna Pruszkiewicz spent six months running fake social media accounts at self-described ‘ePR firm’ in WrocławIt is as common an occurrence on Polish Twitter as you are likely to get: a pair of conservative activists pouring scorn on the country’s divided liberal opposition.“I burst out laughing!” writes Girl from Żoliborz, a self-described “traditionalist” commenting on a newspaper story about a former campaign adviser to Barack Obama and Emmanuel Macron coming to Warsaw to address a group of liberal activists. Continue reading...

Instagram requires ads by LGBTQ-focused health center to go through verification processFacebook is facing backlash after it classified advertisements for an HIV prevention drug as political advertising.Apicha, a New York health center that caters to LGBTQ patients, said last week the tech giant initially blocked ads it tried to run on Instagram that aimed to raise awareness of PrEP, an FDA-approved anti-HIV medication sold under the brand name Truvada. Continue reading...

It’s easy to romanticise places where the thing that has you in its thrall hasn’t arrived yet – until you realise it may not have arrived for market-driven reasonsWhether the world feels small, close and manageable, or foreign, unknowable and chaotic, says something about where you live and what sort of device you carry in your hand.For the former, the world is made small by smartphones. Continue reading...

A splashy new series imagines what would have happened if Russia had won the space race with decent, if rarely compelling, resultsMonths of hype for Apple TV+ and the many A-list names attached has dramatically dissipated this week as reviews have revealed a ragtag bunch of half-formed shows that have replaced big ideas with big production values. It might therefore be faint praise to label glossy space race drama For All Mankind as the best of the bunch but it’s adequately entertaining and the first three episodes hint at the show it might become, something far better than it currently is.Related: Dickinson review – Emily Dickinson reborn as a Lizzo-loving feminist Continue reading...

Jack Dorsey has cut off a tiny revenue stream while focusing attention on rival’s inactionTwitter’s announcement that it will ban all political advertising has prompted a wave of calls for Facebook to do the same. But Twitter’s political advertising operation had just 21 advertisers across the entirety of the EU during the parliamentary elections this year, according to the site’s transparency report.The Twitter co-founder and chief executive, Jack Dorsey, has turned a weakness into a strength, cutting off a minuscule revenue stream in order to heap pressure on his main competitor. In the hours since Twitter’s announcement, support has come from voices as diverse as the US-based campaign group Muslim Advocates, the Open Knowledge Foundation thinktank and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Continue reading...

PC, PS4 (version tested), Xbox One; Activision

Robert still listens to MP3s but wants wants to know which music service pays artists bestI’m a big music fan and enjoy listening to music through my PC and phone, but I feel stuck in the last century as I still listen to my MP3 collection. I refuse to get Spotify, as it’s such a bad deal for the artists. Are there any alternatives that treat the artist well? RobertYour problem is that you don’t really have a problem. I’m in almost exactly the same position, only slightly worse, because I still use an MP3 player to listen to albums in MP3 format. The main difference is that I’m almost completely happy about not using any music streaming services. They are not obligatory. If you don’t need them, don’t use them. Spend the money on downloads or CDs instead. Continue reading...

Brilliant camera, slick features and small size mean nothing when the phone won’t even last a dayGoogle is one of only a handful of smartphone manufacturers still making flagship phones that aren’t ginormous beasts, with the new Pixel 4 the cheapest in a while that significantly undercuts the competition.Priced at £669, the Pixel 4 is £70 cheaper than last year’s Pixel 3 and £60 cheaper than Apple’s iPhone 11. It’s also cheaper than its bigger sibling the £829 Pixel 4 XL. The concern is: which corners have been cut and do they matter? Continue reading...

The favorable report drove the tech giant’s stocks up 2.5% on Wednesday, as the company expands its focus beyond the iPhoneApple reported record-high quarter four earnings on Wednesday, citing strong performances in wearables and other services as the company continues to expand its focus beyond flagship products such as the iPhone.The company reported a revenue of $64bn, beating a $63bn estimate from analysts. Continue reading...

Social network’s move comes as Facebook faces controversy over ads that promote misinformationTwitter will ban all political advertising, the company’s CEO has announced, in a move that will increase pressure on Facebook over its controversial stance to allow politicians to advertise false statements.The new policy, announced via Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account on Wednesday, will come into effect on 22 November and will apply globally to all electioneering ads, as well as ads related to political issues. The timing means the ban will be in place in time for the UK snap election. Continue reading...

Fake networks in eight nations are connected to man allegedly behind disinformation empireFacebook has taken down accounts linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin – the businessman allegedly behind Russia’s notorious troll factory – which were actively seeking to influence the domestic politics of a range of African countries.The company said on Wednesday it had suspended three networks of “inauthentic” Russian accounts. The Facebook pages targeted eight countries across the continent: Madagascar, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya. Continue reading...

DeepMind’s AlphaStar masters game dubbed ‘next grand challenge for AI’ in just 44 days‘The challenge was to play like a human’: AI takes on the gamersAn artificial intelligence (AI) system has reached the highest rank of StarCraft II, the fiendishly complex and wildly popular computer game, in a landmark achievement for the field.Related: 'The challenge was to play like a human': AI takes on the gamers Continue reading...

Firm had to promise to verify drivers’ identities, in deal attacked by London cabbies