Technology | The Guardian

Company says it will ‘fully co-operate’ with police after three men charged with Ramis Jonuzi’s murderA customer who booked into a Melbourne house on Airbnb was allegedly murdered by three men who live there.Ramis Jonuzi, 36, was reportedly paying $30 a night to stay at the Brighton East home where he was allegedly raped and murdered on Wednesday night. Three men were charged with his murder. Continue reading...

At the borderline of technology and biology, ‘bodyhacking’ pioneers are defying nature to redesign their own bodies. Is this really the future?Earlier this year I went to an event in Austin, Texas, billed as a sneak preview of the evolution of our species. The #Bdyhax Conference, which took place in a downtown exhibition complex, promised a front-row insight into the coming “singularity” – that nirvana foretold by science fiction in which biology and technology would fuse and revolutionise human capability and experience.The headline acts of the conference were mostly bodyhackers – DIY experimenters who, in their basements and garages, seek to enhance their own flesh and blood with biometric implants and cognitive enablers. These brave pioneers were extending their senses, overcoming physical limitation, Dan-Daring themselves and the rest of us into the future. Continue reading...

The new version of Volvo’s bestselling model ticks every conceivable box (and some you didn’t know you had)

Demand for new flagship iPhone causes month-long shipping delays, contrasting with muted iPhone 8 sales and reportedly causing Apple concern about supplyApple’s most expensive smartphone, the iPhone X, sold out in less than 10 minutes upon being made available for pre-order on Friday morning.The iPhone X – officially pronounced “10” – costs from £999 with 64GB of storage, topping out at £1,149 with 256GB of storage, which is higher than the starting cost of three of Apple’s fully fledged computers. Continue reading...

Leeds University scientists found 20-minute game risked vision and balance problems for players aged eight to 12Researchers have warned that virtual reality headsets could pose risks to users, particularly children. The scientists, based at Leeds University, believe continued use of VR sets could trigger eyesight and balance problems in young people unless changes are made to devices.The warning comes as major companies including Facebook and Google outline plans to expand heavily in the field, while hardware companies have started promoting devices that turn mobile phones into head-mounted VR viewers. Continue reading...

Music streaming service continues to boom ahead of expected IPO, as subscription income rises by 26%Revenues at Spotify’s UK business soared to almost £240m last year, as the popularity of the music streaming service continues to boom ahead of the expected stock market listing of the Stockholm-based company.Total UK revenues at Spotify, which is expected to go public later this year or early in 2018 with a valuation of as much as $20bn (£15bn), rose by 27% to £237m last year. The main driver was a 26% growth in subscription revenues to £215m. Continue reading...

Nor does Finland. Or the Beatles. And Nasa never sent robots to Mars. Just some of the intrigues other than JFK the internet lovesThe much anticipated release of new files about the assassination of John F Kennedy have again thrown a spotlight on the conspiracy theories surrounding the US president’s death. And the internet loves nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Here is a selection of controversial claims that the web especially seems to love. Continue reading...

National Audit Office says NHS and Department of Health must ‘get their act together’ or suffer ‘far worse’ than chaos experienced in MayThe NHS could have avoided the crippling effects of the “relatively unsophisticated” WannaCry ransomware outbreak in May with “basic IT security”, according to an independent investigation into the cyber-attack.The National Audit Office (NAO) said that 19,500 medical appointments were cancelled, computers at 600 GP surgeries were locked and five hospitals had to divert ambulances elsewhere. Continue reading...

Speech by company executive contradicts denial by Trump campaign that claimed the company used its own data and Facebook data to help the campaignCambridge Analytica used its own database and voter information collected from Facebook and news publishers in its effort to help elect Donald Trump, despite a claim by a top campaign official who has downplayed the company’s role in the election.Related: Did Cambridge Analytica influence the Brexit vote and the US election? Continue reading...

Company announced decision following US intelligence community’s conclusion that RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the US electionTwitter has announced that it will stop taking advertising from all accounts owned by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately as US lawmakers continue to investigate the impact of foreign-sponsored fake news on the 2016 election.Related: Twitter plans to make political ads more transparent amid Russia revelations Continue reading...

New sidekick Cappy could have been just another annoying sidekick, but its inclusion only adds to the playfulness of Nintendo Switch’s first Mario adventureIn life, a few things are inevitable: death, taxes and the continual kidnapping of Princess Peach. But after more than 30 years of at least one new Mario adventure per Nintendo console, it helps to have a feature that differentiates the latest from the last. For Super Mario Odyssey, the first proper Mario adventure on the Nintendo Switch, it’s a new sentient hat.

Article 29 Working Party steps up action over user consent and privacy following Facebook’s failure to address breaches of EU lawThe European Union’s data regulator group is again focusing its attention on WhatsApp for the messaging app’s sharing of user data with parent company Facebook, launching a taskforce to implement “a clear, comprehensive resolution” to comply with EU law.The taskforce has been set up by the pan-European data regulator, the Article 29 Working Party (WP29), a year after it first issued a warning to the chat app over its sharing of user data with the wider group of Facebook companies, forcing it to pause data transfer. The taskforce will be lead by the UK’s information commissioner office. Continue reading...

Jamie likes to watch his favourite shows via an HDMI cable, but it might be worth adding a streaming device to the mixWe are replacing an old laptop. We use it, almost exclusively, to watch online TV via an HDMI cable. What would be the best machine to purchase going forward, or would we be better off buying a PC? Jamie

User downloaded malware while pirating Microsoft Office before running virus scan on machine containing confidential software, says Russian firm’s founderAn incredible sequence of security mistakes led to a US National Security Agency contractor leaking his own confidential hacking tools to Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based company has alleged.The claim comes as part of an internal investigation into allegations that the company helped Russian spies discover and steal the NSA files, by locating and flagging the contractor. Continue reading...

Couriers will be able to gain entry to properties, watched by the recipient on their mobile phoneWould you let Amazon unlock your front door? That will be the question facing consumers after the online retailer launched a service allowing couriers to open customers’ front doors and leave deliveries inside.

Introducing one of this year’s stupidest tech inventions: a mirror for people with the disease which only reflects if you smile at itIn your regular update on awful tech products, may I present the “Smile mirror”, a mirror designed for cancer patients that becomes reflective only when the user smiles.Designed by someone actually called Berk, the idea behind the mirror is that smiling, even if faked, can make us genuinely feel better (known as the facial feedback hypothesis), and that laughter can improve immune function and even ostensibly make us live longer. Continue reading...

Hawaiian city police design punitive fee for when distracted walkers won’t stop staring at their smartphonesOur smartphone obsession has reached a new low. The Hawaiian city of Honolulu has resorted to fining people up to $99 for staring at the devices, to try and force people to look up from their phones while crossing the road.The new law gives police the power to fine people up to $35 (£26.41) for their first offence, $75 for their second and $99 thereafter, perhaps expecting it to take quite some effort to get people to take notice. Continue reading...

NotPetya-style malware infects Kiev’s metro system, Odessa airport and Russian media, demanding bitcoin for decryption keyA major ransomware attack is hitting computers in Russia and Ukraine, bearing similarities to the NotPetya outbreak that caused billions of pounds of damage in June.The self-titled “Bad Rabbit” malware encrypts data on infected machines before demanding a payment of 0.05 bitcoin (£250) for the decryption key. The ransom demand is phrased similarly to that of June’s outbreak, and researchers at Russian security firm Kaspersky say that the malware uses “methods similar to those used” during the NotPetya attack. Continue reading...

Cracking camera, good battery life and great performance are offset by disappointingly big bezels, making it feel like a missed opportunityGoogle’s smaller 5in Pixel 2 offers the same features of its bigger 6in sibling, but looks more like the second coming of the Nexus 5X from 2015.

‘Transparency center’ offers visibility into who is behind ads as Senate investigates Russia’s used of social media to spread propaganda during electionTwitter has announced the launch of an advertising “transparency center” with stricter rules for political ads in the wake of revelations that social media sites were used to spread Russian propaganda during the 2016 US presidential election.“In the coming weeks, we will launch an industry-leading transparency center that will offer everyone visibility into who is advertising on Twitter, details behind those ads, and tools to share your feedback with us,” said Twitter’s Bruce Falck in a blogpost. Continue reading...

The nature of Facebook ads makes it difficult to see when political ads go out, which groups are campaigning for which cause and fact-check what they’re saying

This database shows posts that organisations and individuals have paid to push into Facebook news feeds.Unless you are the one targeted, there is no way know that these posts appeared as ads, which is why Guardian Australia has partnered with ProPublica to track and publish them.

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.