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If you have children between eight and 18, the chances are you’ve heard of the multiplayer online shooter Fortnite: Battle Royale. Here’s what you need to knowYou know a video game has made it when ITV daytime programme This Morning posts on its Facebook page asking parents if their kids are addicted. You can be doubly sure when that post attracts almost 60,000 comments. In this case the game is Fortnite: Battle Royale, a bright, brash multiplayer shooter. It was released last year, and is now one of the biggest online games out there.With more than 40m players worldwide, the chances are either your children or their friends are already passionate fans. For some, that fandom may well be bordering on obsession. Should you be worried? Here’s what you need to know about the game. Continue reading...

Tech firm is first to offer calls to UK mobile and landline numbers without charge, as battle for the home intensifiesGoogle has started offering free voice calls through its Home smart speakers to UK landlines and mobile phones, bringing it in line with US offerings.

Technology expected to be rolled out this summer raises fears for retail jobs

Analysis into Uber’s business model reveals the company relies on drivers’ low incomes to escalate its market valueUber’s fares are made possible because the company is significantly underpaying its drivers, a new report argues.UberX drivers earn well below minimum wage once all hidden costs are taken into account, according to analysis by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute think tank. Continue reading...

Sir James Dyson says company is investing in smaller, lighter, battery-powered cleanersDyson has halted the development of plug-in vacuum cleaners in order to focus on improving and expanding its range of cordless battery-powered machines.Sir James Dyson, the company’s founder and inventor who revolutionised the vacuum cleaner, announced the change of tack on Tuesday as he unveiled a new cordless model, the Dyson Cyclone V10. Continue reading...

Information commissioner calls for more transparency over how individuals’ data is used for political endsFacebook and Twitter may be forced to reveal detailed information about how and why users were targeted for political advertising, the information commissioner Elizabeth Denham has suggested.Speaking to the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) select committee, which is holding an inquiry into fake news, Denham said that transparency in political campaigning was crucial. Continue reading...

The social news site says it has removed a few hundred accounts linked to Russian misinformation effortsReddit has become the latest social network to admit that it was infiltrated by Russian misinformation actors in the run-up to the 2016 US election.In a post on the social news site, Reddit’s chief executive Steve Huffman said that the company has “found and removed a few hundred accounts” which it suspects are of Russian origin, or which were linking directly to “known propaganda domains”. Continue reading...

Ben Bradley’s apology to Jeremy Corbyn was retweeted 55,000 times. Does this mean social media is the future of political recourse?Congratulations to Ben Bradley, Conservative MP for Mansfield, who, in little over a week, has managed to clock up more retweets – 55,000 – than all of the Tory party’s tweets in 2018 combined.Unfortunately for Bradley, the tweet in question was part of a legal agreement following a defamatory post sent about Jeremy Corbyn, in which he said that the Labour leader had “sold secrets to communist spies”. A slur related to a right-wing press fabricated story that Corbyn cooperated with a Czech intelligence agent in the 1980s. Continue reading...

Some drivers end up losing money after insurance, maintenance and other costs, according to study raising concerns over labor standardsUber and Lyft drivers in the US make a median profit of as little as $8.55 per hour before taxes, according to a new report that suggests a majority of ride-share workers make below minimum wage and that some actually lose money.Researchers did an analysis of vehicle cost data and a survey of more than 1,100 drivers for the ride-hailing companies for the paper, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research. The first draft of the paper, released last month, said the median profit was $3.37 an hour, but the author released a new analysis on Monday following criticism from Uber. Continue reading...

Prolific inventor famous for his wind-up radioTrevor Baylis, who has died aged 80, is best known for being the inventor of the wind-up radio, but he also created hundreds of other devices, including many to help people with disabilities. He liked to proclaim: “I don’t do things because I want to do good; I do things because I like to show off.” Nevertheless he did a great deal of good with the wind-up radio, which he conceived in 1991 and first produced in 1994. He held in contempt what he called “spivs, crooks and vulture capitalists” and suggested there should be a royal academy of invention that would help neglected inventors get their ideas off the ground without being ripped off.His dislike of exploiters came from experience. A few years before his wind-up radios began to sell at the rate of 120,000 a month, many of them bound for Africa, he had conceived more than 200 devices to help people with disabilities. He did most of this in less than three months of creative effort in which food and sleep played inconspicuous roles. The inventions included one-handed bottle and can openers, whisks, graters, sieves, sketching easels, embroidery frames and binoculars, as well as smoking aids for those who had difficulty in co-ordinating their limbs (he was an unreconstructed heavy pipe smoker). Continue reading...

The lord bishop of Oxford has handed a new list of laws for AI to a select committee. But, if we are to live in harmony with our robotic companions, here are a few more he might wish to includeThe notion of a robotic future is terrifying to many humans. However, the Right Rev Steven Croft has made efforts to fix this by writing a set of new commandments for robots.Croft’s commandments follow his appointment as a member of a House of Lords select committee on artificial intelligence. They are essentially Asimov’s laws of robotics rewritten to reflect a present where artificial intelligence already plays an important part in many of our day to day interactions. Continue reading...

PC; Subset Games

Digital rights campaigners threaten legal action if data protection bill clause is enacted

Emergency services called to Norman Foster-designed Apple Park, which Steve Jobs called ‘a shot at the best office building in the world’Employees in Apple Park, Apple’s grand new spaceship-style headquarters in California, keep walking into glass doors and windows.

Social network admits survey asking whether it should permit adults to ask 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures was a mistakeFacebook has admitted it was a “mistake” to ask users whether paedophiles requesting sexual pictures from children should be allowed on its website.On Sunday, the social network ran a survey for some users asking how they thought the company should handle grooming behaviour. “There are a wide range of topics and behaviours that appear on Facebook,” one question began. “In thinking about an ideal world where you could set Facebook’s policies, how would you handle the following: a private message in which an adult man asks a 14-year-old girl for sexual pictures.” Continue reading...

The downsides of technology’s inexorable march are ​now becoming clear – and automation will only increase the anxiety. We should expect the ​growing interest in off-grid lifestyles to be accompanied by ​direct action and even anti-tech riotsOne of the great paradoxes of digital life – understood and exploited by the tech giants – is that we never do what we say. Poll after poll in the past few years has found that people are worried about online privacy and do not trust big tech firms with their data. But they carry on clicking and sharing and posting, preferring speed and convenience above all else. Last year was Silicon Valley’s annus horribilis: a year of bots, Russian meddling, sexism, monopolistic practice and tax-minimising. But I think 2018 might be worse still: the year of the neo-luddite, when anti-tech words turn into deeds.The caricature of machine-wrecking mobs doesn’t capture our new approach to tech. A better phrase is what the writer Blake Snow has called “reformed luddism”: a society that views tech with a sceptical eye, noting the benefits while recognising that it causes problems, too. And more importantly, thinks that something can be done about it. Continue reading...

Individual journeys by air – to work, to the airport, between cities – may feature in the not-too-distant futureLast month Airbus released a video of the first successful test flight of its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) autonomous drone. Although it only hovered in the air for 53 seconds, the fact that its eight rotors were powered entirely by electricity was a landmark for the manufacturer of gas-guzzling planes. The goal is that the technology could be used for airborne travel in congested cities. “Our goal is to democratise personal flight by leveraging the latest technologies such as electric propulsion, energy storage and machine vision,” blogged Zach Lovering, Vahana project executive. Continue reading...

Mercedes has pumped up its E-Class to create a go-anywhere 4x4 estate to take the rough and the smooth in its strideMercedes-Benz E350d All-Terrain

A budding romance is explored in a simple, affecting story of youth, creative ambition and gender dynamicsFlorence Yeoh is a 25-year-old Chinese-Australian with a bob haircut, an overbearing mother, and a buried dream to become a professional watercolourist. The eponymous iPhone game, which can be played with one thumb while swaying on the bus, tells the story of Florence’s budding relationship with Krish Hemrajani, an Indian-Australian with a needlebed of stubble, snug jeans and a buried dream to become a professional cellist. You tap, swipe and rub through six acts that record the quiet blooming of the relationship, from the initial clumsy flirting, the early experiments with vulnerability, the settling rhythms of domesticity, all the way through to the smoking aftermath and beyond.Love is a theme rarely explored in video games, and for practical reasons. Video games are, in essence, Excel spreadsheets rendered with art and music, and therefore most comfortable when dealing with mathematical systems. This is why games excel at ballistics, ball sports and, in the case of SimCity, town planning. Love, however, is not easily systematised. Witness the medium’s past, clumsy attempts to turn relationships into game mechanics. In The Sims, for example, you make someone fall in love with you by tickling them repeatedly. In Harvest Moon, it’s done by presenting them with a freshly laid egg each day. In Fire Emblem, relationships are formed through mere proximity to others on the battlefield. Continue reading...

From The Hobbit to Warhammer, world of elves, orcs and ogres have made model-maker a stock market hitIt is usually forbidden for quoted companies to cash in on bloodthirsty conflicts fought by armed mercenaries in distant lands.But for Kevin Rountree it’s just another day at the office. The low-profile accountant, who never gives interviews, runs fantasy figure seller Games Workshop which this week emerged as the sleeper success story of the UK’s bombed-out retail industry, thanks to the enduring success of its tabletop game franchise Warhammer. Continue reading...

Billionaire entrepreneur’s electric car company to set up engineering facility in AthensElon Musk may have plans to colonise Mars but back on planet Earth he is extending his reach to Athens, by opening an engineering facility called Tesla Greece.Musk’s electric car business is an unsung success story for the Greek diaspora, with three of Tesla’s top designers boasting degrees from the National Technical University of Athens. Tesla’s plans for the country have such “game-changing potential” that the head of the Hellenic Entrepreneurs’ Association, Vasilis Apostolopoulos, has pledged to hand over his own industrial plant for free as a testing ground for new products. Continue reading...

Amazon’s doorbell-cameras | Early TV reviews | Eyebrow prepping | US steel tariffs | Physics mnemonics | Remembering mnemonicsI hope Amazon will tell customers for its video-camera doorbells about their obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation that comes into force in May (Report, 1 March). All their callers will have the right to a free copy of their video and conversations, which may make door-stepping a new national sport.

Music service will soon have its IPO and investors think it can be as big as Netflix. Are they right?When Spotify lists on the New York Stock Exchange in the coming weeks the loss-making music streaming service is likely to be valued at more than $20bn (£15bn): such is the faith of investors in its charismatic Swedish founder, Daniel Ek.Ek, they believe, can build Europe’s answer to Netflix – a global cultural behemoth that can take on industry incumbents and the big four technology companies at the same time, and come out on top. If Netflix can overturn Hollywood, then Spotify can transform the music industry. At least that is the hope among US fund managers. Continue reading...

Fans splash out on consoles, virtual reality headsets and events as they defy spending gloomThe UK games market broke the £5bn sales mark for the first-time last year as Nintendo’s new hybrid Switch console boomed and virtual reality headsets flew off the shelves.Gaming fans forked out £5.11bn on consoles, games, hardware such as headsets and attending events – a 12.4% year-on-year rise – as the sector defied a wider downturn in consumer spending. Continue reading...

Step away from Candy Crush with Alto’s Odyssey, Final Fantasy XV, The Room: Old Sins and more new mobile games to tryiPhone, £4.99 Continue reading...

There has been a quiet push lately by tech industry giants to get ethical about future technologies. But is anything more than PR? And how do we teach technology students to preempt a possible ethical disaster? Jordan Erica Webber explores the issuesSubscribe and review: Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast and join the discussion on Facebook, Twitter & email us as podcast@theguardian.comTechnology companies seem to have a bad reputation at the moment. Whether through honest mistakes or more intentional oversights, the likes of Apple, Facebook, Google and Twitter have created distrust among consumers. Continue reading...

Company announces end to trial in which professional news posts were removed from users’ feeds in six countriesFacebook will end an experiment that removed professional news posts from users’ News Feed in six countries, after months of criticism that the “downright Orwellian” move was increasing fake news and misinformation on the platform.Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s head of News Feed, said in a blogpost announcing the change that the experiment had been motivated by “consistent feedback” that people wanted to see more from friends and family and less from media organizations and businesses on the News Feed. Starting in October, the company created a separate feed called “Explore” for so-called public posts in Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Bolivia, Cambodia, Serbia and Slovakia. Continue reading...

As harassment and misinformation remain rampant, CEO Jack Dorsey asks for ‘help’ with platform’s healthTwitter has asked for help in tackling the rampant harassment, bots, misinformation and polarisation in a more strategic way so that it can improve the “health” of conversation on the platform, the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, said on Thursday.“We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough,” Dorsey tweeted. Continue reading...

Commission says internet companies also including YouTube and Twitter need to show progress on issue or face legislationThe European Union has given Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other internet companies three months to show that they are removing extremist content more rapidly or face legislation forcing them to do so.Social media firms have come under increasing pressure from various governments and the EU to do more to combat extremism and remove terrorist and objectionable content such as hate speech and Islamic State propaganda. But now the EU has given them a target and a deadline. Continue reading...

Investigation uncovers no coordinated Russian-linked activity in addition to the 71p of ad spend reported in DecemberFacebook has found no further evidence of Russian propaganda activity around the EU referendum, after being forced by MPs to carry out a more detailed investigation than it initially performed.In December, Facebook reported just $0.97 (71p) was spent by Russian-based actors on ads that targeted British users in the period leading up to the referendum. It also said that that money was apparently the result of misfires from the large Russian campaign targeting the US election. Continue reading...

Gareth sometimes works at home with his MacBook Pro and wants to use it with a separate keyboard and screenI’m a contract project manager. I work at a mix of client sites and at home, where I run a new MacBook Pro and Synology NAS. I would like to set up a small home office. I’ll need basic items like a monitor, keyboard, mouse and printer, but floor space is limited, so any creative desk solutions would also be appreciated. GarethI’ve set up home offices in four different houses now, so I’m familiar with the problems. However, I’ve not used any of the desks that are currently available, so my advice will have to be somewhat general. Readers who have bought desks recently may be able to offer more specific recommendations. Continue reading...

Oliver Hindle and Ruby-Mae Roberts mined the lessons of their own relationship to create Purrfect Date, a passion project that redefines offbeatTwo years ago, over a quiet Christmas break, Oliver Hindle and Ruby-Mae Roberts decided to make a video game together. The twentysomething couple were both keen gamers; Oliver even worked at a development studio, Bossa, the company behind offbeat hits such as Surgeon Simulator and I Am Bread, making their YouTube videos and trailers. It seemed like a fun idea – it’s just that Oliver had never coded a game before and Ruby had never written anything.The result is Purrfect Date, a game in which you … well, date cats. It was released on PC in December and iPhone earlier this month, where it was recently made App of the Day and is attracting rave reviews from players. Given the popularity of cats on the internet and throughout social media, its success might not seem that surprising. But for Oliver and Ruby, its creation was deeply personal. As passion projects often do, Purrfect Date became about life and relationships and helping each other. It’s not a game about cats: it’s a game about love. Continue reading...

Almost 75% of growth comes from growing far east markets as Dyson sales hit £3.5bnGrowing demand for battery-powered vacuum cleaners, hairdryers and air purifiers in flourishing Asian markets has helped Dyson, the British technology company, to a year of bumper profits.Sir James Dyson, the British inventor who revolutionised the vacuum cleaner, said the company he founded had benefited from “extraordinary enthusiasm for technology” in Asia to help boost annual sales by 40% last year to reach £3.5bn. Continue reading...

Loss-making Swedish music streaming service set for New York stock exchange debutThe music streaming service Spotify filed for an initial public offering on Wednesday, becoming the first company to file for a direct listing of up to $1bn with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.A direct listing is an unconventional way to pursue an IPO without raising new capital, helping the company eliminate the need for a Wall Street bank or broker to underwrite the public offer. The company would seek to list its ordinary shares on the New York stock exchange under the ticker symbol “SPOT”. Continue reading...

New role created after fears about questionable content, following Unilever’s public stand against ‘fake news, racism, sexism and hate’Bank of America is to hire a “brand safety officer”, a full-time job dedicated to ensuring that the company’s advertising doesn’t appear alongside questionable content online.The new role, announced at the MWC conference in Barcelona, comes weeks after Unilever threatened to pull adverts entirely from Facebook and Google. Continue reading...

Violent attacks on the streaming community are just one way in which video games and violence are uncomfortably intertwined.Following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, responsible for the loss of 17 lives, Donald Trump held a meeting at the White House. Seemingly intended to disabuse the nation of the imminent threat of semi-automatic weapons, the president shifted attention to other possible culprits: violent video games. He said: “I’m hearing more and more people say the level of violence on [sic] video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.”Considering he couldn’t maintain focus on violent games for a full speech, let alone a news cycle, it’s a challenge to muster concern about what Trump’s bluster means for the future of the medium. Nor is the fate of the video game industry as pressing as the fate of the nation’s populace, whose lives will remain in real peril, so long as Trump and his supporters continue to turn the conversation away from dramatic change in the commercial gun industry. Continue reading...

Microsoft founder slams digital currencies as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak reveals he was victim of bitcoin scamBill Gates, the philanthropist and former chief executive of Microsoft, is concerned by the crytocurrency craze, saying that the anonymity offered by the new technology has “caused deaths in a fairly direct way”.Speaking during a Reddit AMA, Gates argued that “the government’s ability to find money laundering and tax evasion and terrorist funding is a good thing. Continue reading...

Smart doorbell maker is retailer’s second largest acquisition as it pushes further into in-home deliveries and internet of thingsAmazon has acquired video doorbell and home security camera maker Ring in a deal reportedly worth more than $1bn, as it pushes further into the internet of things and in-home-delivery space.The deal values Ring, which makes and sells popular video doorbells in the US, UK and Europe, at between $1.2bn (£86.4m) and $1.8bn, according to reports, making it Amazon’s second largest acquisition after the $13.7bn deal last year for Whole Foods Market. Continue reading...

With trains cancelled and roads blocked all over the UK, here are the apps to help you survive your impossible journeyStuck in transport chaos because of “the beast from the east”? These are the best apps to help get you home via any travel means still up and operating.

Suit brought by former coding partner’s family alleges Craig Wright stole bitcoins and intellectual propertyCraig Wright, the Australian man who claimed to have invented bitcoin, is being sued for more than $10bn ($7.2bn) by the family of his former business partner.The lawsuit, first reported by tech site Motherboard, alleges that Wright mined bitcoins together with Dave Kleiman, a programmer who died in 2013, after which time Wright “perpetrated a scheme” to “seize Dave’s bitcoins”. The plaintiff representing Dave Kleiman’s estate, Kleiman’s brother Ira, admits that the total amount of bitcoin in question is unknown – but says it is likely to be between 300,000 and 1.1m. Continue reading...

Following Amazon’s lead, iPhone maker creating in-house clinics and health service for employeesApple is launching its own primary care health clinics called AC Wellness, following Amazon and Warren Buffett’s push into healthcare.Similar to Amazon’s team up with Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan, the AC Wellness Network aims to serve Apple’s roster of employees and their families providing “compassionate, effective healthcare to the Apple employee population”. Continue reading...

Gamers of all stripes have taken to DBFZ – not only for the exquisite anime style and fluid mechanics, but because it brings back the fun and community of early-90s fighting titlesAs a teenager in the early 90s, there was only one real threat to my academic future. It wasn’t drugs or alcohol and it certainly wasn’t a doomed love affair (if only!). It was Street Fighter II.Capcom’s superlative fighting game arrived in 1991, revolutionising the genre with its flamboyant characters and elaborate special moves. I’d played martial arts sims for years, blowing all my pocket money on formative titles such as Yie Ar Kung-Fu, Way of the Exploding Fist and International Karate, but this was something different: a brilliant, frenzied combination of magical warriors and super-precise control systems that used joystick rotations and button combinations to produce eye-popping attacks and counters. Continue reading...

Valdis Dombrovskis calls for global response to rise of cryptocurrencies at industry roundtableThe European Union has warned that it will regulate cryptocurrencies if the risks exposed by the meteoric rise of bitcoin and its ilk are not addressed.The boom and bust of cryptocurrencies has seen some investors make millions where others have suffered heavy losses. Bitcoin, which now trades at about $9,000 (£8,000) a token but recently dropped to less than $6,000, leads the pack, rising nearly 2,000% to just under $20,000 in 2017, fuelling a global investment craze. Continue reading...

The success of Marvel’s new film, set in an autonomous black universe, proves a demand for diversity that video games needLike Hollywood, the games industry is facing a moment of self-reflection. For too long it has told the same stories, centring on the same white, male heroes. Game creators are finally examining the lack of diversity in their stories, but so far, representation of black people has been timid and predictable. With the number of women in the UK industry at just 14% and BAME representation at 4%, the narrative gatekeepers in games are primarily white men. If they are to find a broader range of stories, they need to rethink their representations of black people.Afrofuturism explores the idea of a black future, offering a rich source of inspiration for games. Black Panther, the story of an African superhero and the king of the fictional Wakanda, the most technologically advanced nation on the planet, is bringing Afrofuturism to the masses. In a cultural landmark moment, it is the first solo film for a black Marvel superhero. It is currently breaking box-office records, proving the demand for diverse stories. Continue reading...

Head of security firm says highly skilled DPRK hackers may attack US financial sector to deter military action against the regimeNorth Korea poses a bigger threat of large-scale cyber-attacks than Russia, according to the co-founder of the information security firm that investigated the 2016 Democratic National Committee hacks.Speaking to the Guardian, Crowdstrike’s Dmitri Alperovitch said: “In 2018, my biggest worry is actually about North Korea. I worry a great deal that they may do a destructive attack, perhaps against our financial sector, in an attempt to deter a potential US strike against either their nuclear facilities or even the regime itself. Continue reading...

Revamped all-screen design brings new AR emoji, stereo speakers, new 960fps slow-mo and potentially game-changing cameraSamsung has launched its latest flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S9, with a familiar all-screen design but its re-invented camera system could be a game-changer.

New machine has a 14in screen squeezed into a 12in laptop frame, a discrete GPU and a camera that pops up from beneath the keyboardFollowing Huawei’s attempts to directly challenge the dominant smartphone players Samsung and Apple, now the Chinese technology firm is going after laptops with the MateBook X Pro, attempting to out-“Pro” the MacBook Pro.

They can do everything from playing your favourite tunes to turning on the lights. But which should you get? We test the four leading models Continue reading...

This large and comfortable 4x4 from Korea has established itself as a contender in the UK mud-wrestling worldSsangYong Rexton

The Explore, Land Rover’s ‘ultra-rugged’ phone, has a built-in compass. As if it’s ever going to leave townThe imminent Land Rover smartphone, Explore (£599), sounds exciting. Described variously as “ultra-rugged” and the “toughest phone in the world”, it’s bulkier than a regular smartphone (great, I love carrying stuff) and splash- and dust-resistant. One presumes that this is in case the au pair hasn’t done a diligent enough cleaning job or the jets in the wetroom go off accidentally?Explore offers extra battery life from an “adventure pack”, which also improves the phone’s GPS signal – so useful for when people are finding it difficult to find their way out of the car park of a particularly large Waitrose. And – hurrah! – there’s a built-in compass. Only the other day, I got completely lost among the bath-bombs in Lush and was considering sending up a flare. Continue reading...