Technology | The Guardian

Becoming first British politician to speak at SXSW tech conference in Texas, Khan will warn of abuse online and breakup of rights by sharing economyThe UK government is guilty of a “dereliction of duty” for leaving big technology firms unregulated, London mayor Sadiq Khan will warn, saying that no firm or industry is “above local rules”.Speaking on Monday at the South by South West technology conference in Austin, Texas - the first British politician to do so - Khan will criticise politicians for failing to ensure technological progress benefits all, saying that regulation is clearly out of date. Continue reading...

Violent, isolationist and misogynist desires course through games – and push rightwing ideologies on playersDonald Trump’s claim, in the aftermath of the Florida school shooting, that these events are the result of violent video games, resurrects old arguments about whether young people emulate the games they play. The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) recent decision to consider video game addiction an official illness shows comparable concern. However, these responses demonstrate anxiety about the right things for the wrong reasons.Gaming cultures are connected to violence – but should be considered in terms of the rise of far right political discourse and the prominence of “alt-right” misogyny and racism. While Trump is firmly on the right and the WHO may embody normative centrism, there is an aspect of gaming that should worry the progressive left. Continue reading...

Experts believe that how we handle finances is shaped by the age of seven – and board games and apps can helpThe cost of a mortgage or rents, meeting monthly utility bills, shelling out for a new car – all headaches most people get to worry about from their 20s. But while some may struggle to pay their bills after a few too many nights out at the start of the month, others will have a tightly followed plan for their repayments.So what is the difference between the savvy saver and the more knee-jerk spender? Continue reading...

Alibaba-backed Ofo targets 150,000 bikes in London alone as Tencent-sponsored Mobike expands in ManchesterDockless bike providers Mobike and Ofo will dramatically expand their operations in London and Manchester as the two Chinese companies continue their cut-throat multibillion-dollar battle for global domination. Continue reading...

Yes, my AI face-swap attempts might show how hard it is to make a deepfake – but it’s getting easier every dayMPs from the House of Commons inquiry into fake news were warned last week of a new AI technology that is about to change the world, and not for the better.“We’re rapidly moving into an era where the Russians, or any other adversary, can create our public figures saying or doing things that are disgraceful or highly corrosive to public trust,” Edward Lucas, the senior vice president of the Centre for European Policy Analysis told MPs. “And we’re not remotely ready for this.” Continue reading...

The inventor of the world wide web warns over concentration of power among a few companies ‘controlling which ideas are shared’Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, has called for large technology firms to be regulated to prevent the web from being “weaponised at scale”. Continue reading...

I’m following a 30-day plan to wean me off it. I leave it in another room and, like an 18th-century gentleman, reply to messages only once a dayThere is something wrong with my phone, and it is not just that the predictive text feature thinks I’m obsessed with ducks. The real problem is that my phone is the first thing I look at in the morning, and the last thing I look at at night. I come running when it makes a “ding” noise. I think in tweets and look at meals and people and imagine them cropped into squares on Instagram. There is something mentally totalitarian about it.Smartphones are designed to addict us – nagging us with notifications, disrupting us with noise, making themselves indispensable. Social media apps harness neuroscience to the same end, triggering dopamine hits that lock us into them for hours. A terrifying new book, How to Break Up With Your Phone, says we are rewiring our brains so they are less organised for deep thought; killing our attention span, destroying our memory, sleep and happiness. Phones have changed the world, too; advertisers use them to hoover up our attention. We are no longer just consumers, but product. As Ramsay Brown, co-founder of app-designers Dopamine Labs, has said: “You get to use [Facebook] for free, because your eyeballs are what’s being sold there.” Continue reading...

By day, a glamorous film star, by night a technology pioneerIt is, as one interviewee says, the ultimate “crime fighter by night” story. By day, Hedy Lamarr was the most glamorous star in Hollywood. By night, she was an inventor whose frequency-hopping technology is now used in bluetooth and wifi. This rousing documentary charts the story of a brilliant woman who was, in some ways, handicapped by her beauty. Film-maker Alexandra Dean explores a fascinating life full of contradictions. Lamarr claimed that the world never saw her true self, yet she lived her final years as a recluse, hidden even from her family. She was an immigrant who gave her all to support her adopted country but who was always regarded as an outsider. Continue reading...

The latest luxury seven-seat SUV from Land Rover is as glossy as it is immense. Just be very careful when you try to squeeze into a parking spaceLand Rover Discovery

For many tech insiders, the most exciting thing about bitcoin is the thing that allows it to function: blockchain. What is it and what other uses might it have?These days, bitcoin is front-page news, as its price’s vertiginous ups and downs elicit glee and despondency by turns among investors. It was not always this way: the now-definitely-in-a-bubble cryptocurrency is making a comeback following years in which its association with crime and darknet drug markets kept it away from the spotlight. During that period, technologists and corporate evangelists had stopped touting the qualities of bitcoin, turning instead to a technology that underpinned the cryptocurrency without being tainted by dodgy connections: blockchain.The blockchain was born as the digital scaffolding for cryptocurrency transactions. When devising bitcoin, pseudonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto’s aim was to create a stateless virtual currency, not controlled by any bank or government. Continue reading...

Google has successfully argued that its search results are analogous to a newspaper editor’s decisions about what op-eds to run. They aren’t, though

Next version of Windows to have game-changing new Timeline feature for resuming apps from other devices, including Android and iPhonesThe next version of Windows 10 looks set to shake things up in the way people switch between devices, and now, reportedly, has a name: Spring Creators Update.

Super Seducer is the work of a pickup artist who even Piers Morgan finds vile. I’m calling on gamers to join my campaign“If you’re not good at cooking you better be real good at sucking dick.” That memorable line is from a new video game released this week, just in time for International Women’s Day.The game is called Super Seducer. It was created by a pickup artist called Richard La Ruina, a man Piers Morgan recently branded “repulsive” for his views on British women. Take that in for a second. Piers Morgan thinks this man’s views on women are beyond the pale. In the game players are given the option to try out different lines and “moves” on women, like grabbing their breasts … or their bottom. The aim is to hone your skills for real life so you can “win” the ultimate prize: the girl of your dreams. Continue reading...

Much-loved fighting game joins Crash Bandicoot Trilogy and No More Heroes spin-off on list of new games announced for handheld consoleNintendo has announced several new games for its Switch and 3DS consoles, including the popular fighting game Super Smash Bros.Related: Arms: how Nintendo is reinventing the motion game for the Switch age Continue reading...

Would you download an app that sends you a reminder five times a day that you’re going to die? Some people are doing exactly that. This week, Jordan Erica Webber attempts to figure out why we need this kind of app, and why we’re so dependent on apps in general in our day-to-day livesSubscribe and review: Apple, Spotify, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud & Acast, and join the discussion on Facebook, Twitter & email us as podcast@theguardian.comIt seems as if nowadays we think there is no problem in the world that can’t be fixed with an app. According to Apple, from the launch of the App Store in July 2008 up to June 2017, we’ve downloaded 180bn apps. These range from games to keep your mind active on the morning commute to more niche and bizarre apps.

Researchers say it’s a crucial step towards cheaper and more environmentally-friendly energy storageScientists have created the world’s first rechargeable proton battery, a crucial step towards cheaper and more environmentally-friendly energy storage.While the battery is just a small-scale prototype, it has the potential to be competitive with currently available lithium-ion batteries. Continue reading...

Researchers find fake news reaches users up to 20 times faster than factual content – and real users are more likely to spread it than bots“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it,” wrote Jonathan Swift in 1710. Now a group of scientists say they have found evidence Swift was right – at least when it comes to Twitter.In the paper, published in the journal Science, three MIT researchers describe an analysis of a vast amount of Twitter data: more than 125,000 stories, tweeted more than 4.5 million times in total, all categorised as being true or false by at least one of six independent fact-checking organisations. Continue reading...

Meeting will include campaigners seeking to tie mass shootings to violence in games and movies – despite research failing to show a linkAs Donald Trump convenes a meeting on Thursday to address violence in video games, in the wake of last month’s Florida school shooting, those in attendance will include a group that argues the Muppets drink too much, and another committed to exposing strident liberal bias on television.The president’s round table at the White House will be the latest in a series of discussions on school safety after a gunman left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman high school in Parkland on 14 February. Continue reading...

Keith’s Toshiba smart TV lacks good sound and he’s bought a soundbase that overdoes the bass. What should he do next?I have a Toshiba 32L3753DB TV, which is OK, but the sound needs help. I bought an Otone Audio Ltd Soundbase, which does amplify the sound, but it over-emphasises the bass and cannot be adjusted. Is there a soundbar or other addition that will allow me to adjust the bass and treble? KeithIt looks as though bass and treble controls have gone out of fashion. They certainly featured on the now-discontinued Sony CT60 and similar soundbars, using up and down buttons on the remote control.

Led by Australian of the year Michelle Simmons, team has built qubits from single phosphorus atoms in silicon

Australian federal police reportedly questioned two IT workers at the bureau’s Melbourne headquartersTwo Bureau of Meteorology employees are reportedly being investigated by police for mining cryptocurrency on their work computers.The Australian federal police questioned the IT workers at the bureau’s Docklands headquarters in Melbourne on 28 February, the ABC has reported. Continue reading...

The company acknowledged the issue after some reported their devices had developed an unsettling new skill

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...