Technology | The Guardian

Company’s head of news feed says test is to see if users prefer only friends’ posts in timeline, but journalists in affected countries warn of danger to democracyFacebook is testing whether or not people prefer “personal and public content” being separated as part of its test in which it hid all non-paid posts, said the company’s head of news feed, Adam Mosseri.Speaking after a Guardian report revealed the radical change, forced on six small nations around the world, Mosseri said Facebook “currently” has no plans to roll the experiment out further. But he did not address whether or not the test would become general policy worldwide if the results show that Facebook users do prefer the news-free news feed.

Tory MP writes to Mark Zuckerberg over suspicions that Russia-linked accounts interfered in EU vote and general electionMark Zuckerberg has been asked to search for evidence that Russia-linked Facebook accounts were used to interfere in the EU referendum and the general election as part of a parliamentary inquiry into “fake news”.Damian Collins, the chair of the digital, culture, media and sport committee, has written to the Facebook founder after suspicions that Russian “actors” used the platform to interfere in British politics. Facebook has 32 million users in Britain.

Palestinian man questioned by Israeli police after embarrassing mistranslation of caption under photo of him leaning against bulldozerFacebook has apologised after an error in its machine-translation service saw Israeli police arrest a Palestinian man for posting “good morning” on his social media profile.The man, a construction worker in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Illit, near Jerusalem, posted a picture of himself leaning against a bulldozer with the caption “يصبحهم”, or “yusbihuhum”, which translates as “good morning”. Continue reading...

Consumer organisation Which? is calling for an amendment to the data protection bill to create new rightsConsumer organisation Which? is calling on the government to create new rights for people who have been the victims of a corporate data breach.The group wants the data protection bill, currently being debated in Parliament, to be amended so that independent organisations, such as Which? itself, can fight for collective redress for corporate wrongs. Continue reading...

Making a career out of a hobby might look easy, but living the dream online comes at a cost. Six influencers reveal what it’s like to be a woman on Instagram, and the truth behind their artfully stylised feedsInterviews and portraits by Sophie WedgwoodIn her 1970s book On Photography, Susan Sontag describes the role of the camera in everyday life as a means to construct “a portrait-chronicle of itself – a portable kit of images that bears witness to its connectedness”. She could, of course, be talking about Instagram in 2017, except that we are becoming increasingly less connected to the images themselves. Through filters, colour washes and crops, the images we post can be little more than projections of how we want to be seen by the outside world; an ideal self. And in many cases this image bears only a passing resemblance to the reality.But what happens when Instagram becomes more than just a pastime? When it becomes a way to make a living? What happens when your followers start to objectify you, or your friends unfollow you because of what you post, or it starts to affect your mental health? What happens when you realise you’ve become “content”? Do you stop? Do you heck. From the biomedical scientist who tries to balance university life with makeup posts to the model who is asked to promote slimming pills, Instagram has a very real, often dark side. And these women should know. Morwenna Ferrier Continue reading...

We have a moral obligation to start talking about our future and the role of technology in it. We are more than just intelligence and dataThree decades ago I left Australia to study anthropology in America. That journey took me to the heart of Silicon Valley. My job was to put people back into the process by which technology is made. Eight months ago I came back to Australia.My time in Silicon Valley has left me with the distinct sense that we need to keep reasserting the importance of people and the diversity of our lived experiences into our conversations about technology and the future. It is easy to get seduced by all the potential of the new and the wonders it promises. There is a lot of hype and not so much measured discussion. So it is time for a conversation about our possible digital and human futures and about the world we might want to make together. What actions can we take, individually and collectively? Is there a particular Australian thread we could follow? I want to suggest four things we should do in Australia. Continue reading...

In the toxic environment of online gaming, women play incognito, pretend to be male or say nothing to avoid harassmentIn an extract from her book, Game Changers: From Minecraft to Misogyny, the Fight for the Future of Videogames (co-authored by Dan Golding), Leena van Deventer writes candidly about a time she was sexually harassed online.She was playing Team Fortress 2, an online multiplayer shooter, and one of her favourite games. Van Deventer had just “splurged” on a new headset with headphones and microphone with an exciting feature: voice modifiers “that made me sound like a cool robot or a huge giant”. Once she began speaking in-game, however, there was what she calls “the reaction”: Continue reading...

Forget Los Angeles. If you want to get rich and famous fast, in anything from food to fashion, San Francisco is the place to be. But will handing that kind of power to a new global elite come at a price?The strangest thing about Bulletproof Coffee isn’t stirring a pellet of grass-fed butter and a dollop of coconut oil into your morning cup and calling it breakfast, weird though that is to swallow. No, what makes Bulletproof really unusual is the trajectory the trend has followed. The craze started with the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Dave Asprey, who turned the alleged weight-shedding, brainpower-enhancing benefits of caffeine turbocharged with fat into a mini-empire. He took the idea to Santa Monica, where he opened a cafe. David Beckham started dropping in.From there, it spread to fashion. Vogue has called it “the new green juice”; at the recent fashion shows, it was on the way to replacing espresso and egg-white omelette as the standard front-row breakfast. Dan Brown, whose novels surely give him zeitgeist bragging rights, has been telling interviewers how 4am writing sessions for his latest book, Origin, were fuelled by Bulletproof. Asprey’s ready-made, cold-pressed Bulletproof products are about to go on sale in Whole Foods Market stores, at which point the journey from Silicon Valley quirk to bona fide hipster lifestyle trend will be complete. Continue reading...

New system could destroy smaller publishers if implemented, after journalists report drop in organic reach – but users will still see their friends’ postsFacebook is testing a major change that would shift non-promoted posts out of its news feed, a move that could be catastrophic for publishers relying on the social network for their audience.A new system being trialled in six countries including Slovakia, Serbia and Sri Lanka sees almost all non-promoted posts shifted over to a secondary feed, leaving the main feed focused entirely on original content from friends, and adverts. Continue reading...

New transparency initiative aims to open up software and security practices to independent auditors to prove firm’s antivirus program is safeCybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab has launched a “global transparency initiative” in an attempt to win back trust and prove it is safe to use after allegations of Russian spying.The initiative will begin with an independent review of Kaspersky’s source code, an independent assessment of its own security practices, and the creation of new data protection controls for its handling of secure data, also independently overseen. Continue reading...

As Sony Pictures and the New York Federal Reserve will attest, the regime has become extremely skilled, and successful, at cyber attacksRule No 1 in international relations: do not assume that your adversary is nuts. Rule No 2: do not underestimate his capacity to inflict serious damage on you. We in the west are currently making both mistakes with regard to North Korea. Our reasons for doing so are, at one level, understandable. In economic terms, the country is a basket case. According to the CIA’s world factbook, its per-capita GDP is $1,800 or less, compared with nearly $40,000 for the UK and $53,000 for the US. Its industrial infrastructure is clapped out and nearly beyond repair; the country suffers from chronic food, energy and electricity shortages and many of its people are malnourished. International sanctions are squeezing it almost to asphyxiation. And, to cap it all, it’s led by a guy whose hairdo is almost as preposterous as Donald Trump’s.And yet this impoverished basket case has apparently been able to develop nuclear weapons, plus the rocketry needed to deliver them to Los Angeles and its environs. Given the retaliatory capacity of the US, this is widely taken as proof that Kim Jong-un must be out of what might loosely be called his mind. Which is where rule No1 comes in. Kim’s priority is to avoid regime change. He knows that if you have nukes, then no one – not even Trump – is going to try any funny business, especially when it’s clear that a seriously aggressive move by the US would mean the death of hundreds of thousands of South Koreans. The North Korean leader’s rationale for developing nuclear weapons that are ready for deployment is identical to Britain’s rationale for renewing Trident: deterrence. Continue reading...

First airlines, then spaceships. Now the Virgin boss wants to build Hyperloop One – a high-speed, pneumatic maglev railway. But engineering experts doubt that it will ever leave the stationLast week, Richard Branson gave a boost to tech tycoon Elon Musk’s vision of a futuristic transport system. Hyperloop One is the frontrunner among several companies working on plans for magnetically propelled ground shuttles capable of keeping pace with commercial airliners. Branson announced an investment of an undisclosed sum in the company, which took its total funding to £186m.Musk first outlined his plans, entitled Hyperloop Alpha, in 2013, when he said the system could provide a safer, faster and more convenient mode of long-distance transport than cars and trains, while also being low cost, sustainable, immune to adverse weather and earthquake-resistant. Continue reading...

Facebook, Twitter and Google once seemed to encapsulate freedom and connectivity. At a hearing on 1 November a new question will be posed: have they become a tool for foreign autocracies and domestic extremists?A showdown is looming in Washington between Congress and the powerful social media companies that have helped define the current unsettled age in western democracies.

Nissan’s old X-Trail used to be a bit of a ruffian… now it’s learning some road manners. But is that a good thing?Price: £24,845

Parent company Alphabet would provide services in response to data harvestedLast June Volume, a leading magazine on architecture and design, published an article on the GoogleUrbanism project. Conceived at a renowned design institute in Moscow, the project charts a plausible urban future based on cities acting as important sites for “data extractivism” – the conversion of data harvested from individuals into artificial intelligence technologies, allowing companies such as Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to act as providers of sophisticated and comprehensive services. The cities themselves, the project insisted, would get a share of revenue from the data.Cities surely wouldn’t mind but what about Alphabet? The company does take cities seriously. Its executives have floated the idea of taking some struggling city – Detroit? – and reinventing it around Alphabet services, with no annoying regulations blocking this march of progress. Continue reading...

Brian Thompson, 55, from Middlesbrough, receives suspended sentence after selling illegally pre-configured set-top boxes to stream sports and filmsA trader who made about £40,000 selling set-top TV boxes allowing viewers to watch Premier League matches and movies for free has avoided a jail term.

Funding round led by CapitalG takes valuation of ride-hailing company up to $11bnThe US ride-hailing company Lyft has secured a $1bn (£760m) investment from a Google-led consortium, a considerable war chest that will help finance its challenge to Uber in the US – and possibly overseas.The funding round was led by CapitalG (formerly known as Google Capital), the strategic investment arm of Google’s corporate parent Alphabet, and takes the valuation of Lyft up to $11bn.

Young firms struggle to compete as deep-pocketed companies like Facebook and Amazon clone products and consolidate their powerFacebook has been breathing down the neck of the group video-chat app Houseparty for over a year. The app, developed by the San Francisco startup Life On Air, has been a hit with teenagers – an audience Facebook is desperate to woo.

Citizens Advice calls for Ofcom to act after finding Vodafone, EE and Three charge customers for handsets after phones paid offThree of Britain’s biggest mobile phone networks keep charging customers extra for their handsets after they have been paid off, leaving them up to £38 a month worse off, a consumer group has warned.Citizens Advice found that Vodafone, EE and Three were overcharging customers who failed to change their contract an average of £22 a month, rising to £38 a month for buyers of premium phones including the Samsung Galaxy S8, Apple iPhone and Sony Xperia XZ Premium. Continue reading...

Business group urges government to launch commission to assess consequences of AI on jobs and increasing productivityBritain’s biggest employers are calling for a commission to examine the impact of artificial intelligence on jobs.Amid predictions of a workplace revolution threatening one in five jobs across the UK, the CBI is urging Theresa May to launch the commission from early 2018. It said companies and trade unions should be involved and the commission should help to set out ways to increase productivity and economic growth as well looking into the impact of AI. Continue reading...

Exclusive: A factory worker says he was harassed for being gay. A father and son say they faced daily racial epithets. Each claims that Tesla failed to stop itSoon after he started working on the assembly line at Tesla, Jorge Ferro said he was taunted for being gay and threatened with violence. “Watch your back,” a supervisor warned after mocking his clothes for being “gay tight”, Ferro said.The harassment didn’t stop after he reported it to a manager, and days after he made a second complaint, Ferro was punished, according to his account. An HR representative took away Ferro’s badge, claiming that he had an “injury” that prevented him from working and saying there’s “no place for handicapped people at Tesla”, he alleged. Continue reading...

Secure America Now received targeted help to efficiently use its millions of dollars in ad-spending ahead of US general election in 2016, reports sayAn anti-refugee campaign, Secure America Now, received targeted help from Facebook and Google to achieve the most efficient use of its millions of dollars of ad-spending in the run up to the US general election, it has been reported.The campaign, which split its focus between anti-Islamic adverts, such as one alleging the imminent creation of the “Islamic State of France”, and more specifically political messages focused on Hillary Clinton, was treated as a big-ticket customer by the advertising teams at both companies, receiving a high tier of personalised treatment, according to Bloomberg News. Continue reading...

The health of our democracy demands that we consider treating Facebook, Google, and Amazon with the same firm hand that led government to wage war on major monopoliesIn our day, we can’t quite see anything wrong with monopoly. We’re certain that our tech giants achieved their dominance fairly and squarely through the free market, by dint of technical genius.To conjure this image of meritocratic triumph requires overlooking several pungent truths about the nature of these new monopolies. Their dominance is less than pure. Continue reading...

When the author Franklin Foer first raised concerns about Silicon Valley’s power players, ‘people looked at me funny’. Now his work appears prophetic

It’s still one of the best shows on TV, but as the third season starts there’s a sense it’s lost some of the initial complexity and purpose

Customers complain about ‘eerie’ personalised spam emails and lack of communication from pizza sellerDomino’s Australia has blamed a system “issue” of a former supplier for a leak of customer personal information to spam email lists.The pizza seller has called in the Australian information commissioner to investigate the breach but insists its systems haven’t been compromised. Instead, it blames a “former supplier’s systems” for leaking customer email addresses, names and store suburb. Continue reading...

Crossing printed from 800 layers of concrete could take weight of 40 trucks, designers sayDutch officials have toasted the opening of what is being called the world’s first 3D-printed concrete bridge, which is primarily meant to be used by cyclists.There was applause as officials wearing hard hats rode over the bridge on their bikes at the inauguration in the southeastern town of Gemert on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Total national broadband network complaints soar from 10,487 to 27,195, according to annual reportThe prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has conceded complaints about the national broadband network will increase as more people are connected, with the latest figures showing complaints about internet services have more than doubled in a year.New figures from the telecommunications industry ombudsman show complaints about the the internet now exceed those about mobile and fixed line services.

The fastest and smoothest Google Android device has a cracking camera, squeezable sides, great battery life and baked-in AIGoogle’s direct challenger to the iPhone 8 Plus and upcoming iPhone X is the Pixel 2 XL, and you may be blown away by the sheer speed of the thing.

Challenge brought by Privacy International alleges MI5 and MI6 data-sharing regimes and legal oversight system are illegalMI5 and MI6 may be circumventing legal safeguards when they share bulk datasets with foreign intelligence services and commercial partners, a court has been told.

App that avoids bullying behaviour by offering pre-checked questions is latest popular social-media app owned by company after 1bn messages were sentFacebook has acquired TBH, an app that allows teens to send anonymous compliments to each other. The cost has not been announced, but is reportedly less than $100m.The app, launched this summer in 37 US states only, has received more than five million downloads in a short space of time, thanks to its unique twist on the anonymous-messaging model of previous viral hits such as Secret, YikYak and Sarahah. Continue reading...

Apple’s hotly anticipated smartphone is coming in November and selling your existing iPhone is one way of paying for it. But timing is everythingThe iPhone X is coming soon, and if you want to be able to afford it, you have three options: travel back in time and buy a shedload of bitcoin; sell a kidney; or sell your existing phone and hope you get a good price.That third option is probably the best. But if you haven’t sold a phone, it can be daunting: may people like to hang on to their old model, “just in case”, and even if it just sits gathering dust in a drawer somewhere, that’s less stressful than having to deal with exchanging cash on the internet. Continue reading...

The critic was viciously targeted by trolls after speaking out about sexist tropes in video games. She explains how she is still fighting to change the industry and writing a book celebrating women overlooked by historyIt has been five years since the feminist critic and blogger Anita Sarkeesian became the target for a staggeringly vicious online hate campaign after producing the online video series Tropes vs Women in Video Games. Given the scale of the harassment she has been experiencing non-stop for half a decade – including a continuous barrage of rape and death threats, a bomb scare and a game in which players can punch an image of her face – it’s almost surprising to see her so relaxed and at ease, having played a couple of rounds of Mario Kart at the Guardian’s London office. It’s only when she speaks that she reveals a cautiousness most of us lack; Sarkeesian chooses her words carefully, ever mindful of what may spark even more abuse. “The biggest difference is that I don’t monitor our social media any more,” she says.Sarkeesian is the founder of Feminist Frequency, a not-for-profit educational organisation “that analyses modern media’s relationship to societal issues such as gender, race and sexuality”. She suffered under Gamergate, the campaign conducted under the guise of representing those concerned about ethics in game journalism, but which was, in reality, a hashtagged rallying cry for those wanting to harass women in the games industry. As Feminist Frequency tweeted in June of this year, “Gamergate still exists, still harasses marginalised voices and still affects our daily lives. The abuse has never stopped.” Continue reading...

WPA2 protocol used by vast majority of wifi connections has been broken by Belgian researchers, highlighting potential for internet traffic to be exposedThe security protocol used to protect the vast majority of wifi connections has been broken, potentially exposing wireless internet traffic to malicious eavesdroppers and attacks, according to the researcher who discovered the weakness.Mathy Vanhoef, a security expert at Belgian university KU Leuven, discovered the weakness in the wireless security protocol WPA2, and published details of the flaw on Monday morning. Continue reading...

Playability, creativity and decision-making are to the fore in the best of this week’s games releasesPS4, Xbox One, PC, Capcom, cert 12

The trial, dubbed Airbnb Select, will see rental firm provide home improvement loans as it seeks to standardise offeringsAirbnb is looking to take an increasingly active role in ensuring the homes it offers for rent on its site are pleasant to stay in, from offering loans to hosts for home improvements to actively partnering in the construction of an apartment block in Florida, according to reports.The changes, which see the company move further than ever from its origins as a listing site connecting holidaymakers with hosts who have a spare room, could help Airbnb cement its position as an alternative to traditional hotels. Continue reading...

Ride-hailing service hopes to reverse TfL ruling that it is not ‘fit and proper’ company to run taxi services in capital

Facebook’s chief operating officer gave first live interview by a senior executive since the company disclosed it found some 3,000 politically divisive adsFacebook owes the American people an apology for the way it handled Russia’s interference in last year’s presidential election, its chief operating officer said on Thursday.“It’s not just that we apologize. We’re angry, we’re upset. But what we really owe the American people is determination” to do a better job of preventing foreign meddling, Sheryl Sandberg told the Axios news website during an interview in Washington.

Actor who has spoken out in Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal is banned in move that will reignite controversy around Twitter abuse rules

The British entrepreneur says he wants to make ‘airline speeds on the ground’ a reality, while engineering experts cast doubt on the safety of the technologySir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group has invested an undisclosed amount in Hyperloop One, the frontrunner of a number of companies competing to bring Elon Musk’s futuristic vision of a magnetically-propelled high-speed transport system to life.The investment, which makes up part of an $85m fundraising announced in September, will see Hyperloop One changing adding the Virgin name to its branding. Continue reading...

A developer has warned it is possible to create a phishing attack based on a fake sign-in request for Apple ID credentialsThe iPhone’s habit of repeatedly requesting your Apple ID password with little explanation or warning isn’t just annoying – it’s also a security flaw which could allow attackers to craft extremely convincing phishing attacks, an iOS developer has warned.Regular users of iPhones or iPads will be used to sporadic requests from the operating system to enter their Apple ID password, popping up in the middle of other activities and preventing them from continuing until they accede to the request. Continue reading...

Cliff wants a an alternative to premium-priced Intel laptops. Will AMD’s new Ryzen chip bring down the cost – and if so, when?The “light but mighty” (in speed and capacity) laptops from Dell, HP and Microsoft seem to me to be very expensive because Intel sells processors at premium prices. Now that AMD has produced Ryzen chips, can you foresee if and when these makers will produce desirable laptops with cheaper AMD chips? I can afford to pay Intel’s price premium, but I’d be more likely to buy if the £1,600 price came down to, say, £1,200. CliffThe good news is that Ryzen-based laptops will be here soon. The bad news is that the first ones won’t be ultralight models like the Dell XPS 13. Also, they probably won’t bring prices down as much as you hope.

It isn’t going to replace the iPad Pro any time soon, but with hands-free Alexa, good screen and solid battery, this device hits the spot for leisure usersAmazon’s new 10in tablet aims to offer users media viewing that rivals top-end competitors, but for under half the price of even the cheapest 10in iPad.While the company has found great success with its smaller and cheaper Fire 7, and now the excellent Fire HD 8, the previous Fire HD 10 was a bit hit and miss. This time round the right corners have been cut in the pursuit of a cheaper price. Continue reading...

Oculus Go will not require linking to a smartphone or personal computer like its predecessor, the Oculus Rift, and will cost less at $199Facebook has unveiled a stand-alone virtual reality headset designed to extend the appeal of the company’s Oculus technology to the masses.The headset, called Oculus Go, won’t require plugging in a smartphone or a cord tethering it to a personal computer like Oculus Rift or its competitor HTC’s Vive do. Continue reading...

Information about F-35 joint strike fighter was taken in cyberattack on Australian defence contractor, official revealsSecret information about new fighter jets, navy vessels and surveillance aircraft has been stolen from an Australian defence contractor.The hackers had “full and unfettered access” to the information for four months last year, before the Australian Signals Directorate was tipped about the breach in November. Continue reading...

Computers, smartphones and apps all hit by problem – with Europe and North America worst affected by faults now thought resolvedFacebook and Instagram were offline to many users on Wednesday afternoon in what appeared to be a global connection problem.The website Down Detector suggested users of both social media sites began reporting problems at about 4pm, with Europe and North America seemingly worst hit, though this could be due to time zones and the number of Facebook users in different regions.