Technology | The Guardian

Supplier under fire after vocational degrees were withheld unless students undertook factory workApple is investigating a factory in southwest China after a labour rights group said the tech giant’s supplier forced student workers to work “like robots” to assemble its popular Apple Watch.Many were compelled to work in order to get their vocational degrees and had to do night shifts, according to an investigation by Hong Kong-based NGO Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM). Continue reading...

Redesigned tablet with USB-C and potentially a new MacBook Air expected to be launched at New York event on TuesdayApple is expected to unveil a redesigned iPad Pro with Face ID and no home button, alongside new Mac computers, at an event in New York on Tuesday afternoon.The long-rumoured iPad Pro redesign will be the first significant change to Apple’s iOS-based tablet since the release of the 12.9in iPad Pro in 2015. Continue reading...

Miniature console to be released in December, packaged with popular games, including Resident Evil, Ridge Racer, Tekken – and the original Grand Theft AutoSony has released the full list of games for its forthcoming PlayStation Classic, a miniature version of the iconic 1997 games console announced last month.Related: 14 classic PlayStation games that are still fun today Continue reading...

PayPal, Stripe and Joyent abandon support of social media site that hosted posts by Robert BowersGab, the social media site popular with the far-right, has been forced offline by its service providers after it became clear that the alleged Pittsburgh shooter Robert Bowers had a history of anti-semitic postings on the site.Formed in August 2016 after Twitter began cracking down on hate speech on its social network, Gab has been labelled “Twitter for racists” by the website Salon but describes itself as “a free speech website and nothing more”. But the platform has proved popular among white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the “alt-right”, including the man accused of opening fire on a synagogue in Pennsylvania on Saturday, killing 11. Continue reading...

With in-display fingerprint and 3D face scanning, triple camera and long battery life, Huawei has pulled off something specialHuawei has made really good phones for years, but the Mate 20 Pro is the Chinese firm’s first truly cutting-edge device with a triple camera, 3D face unlock and an in-screen fingerprint sensor.The Mate series of phones has always delivered one thing above all else – battery life. This year Huawei has gone out of its way to deliver even more. Continue reading...

Investment means value of firm behind popular game has risen threefold in six monthsThe company behind the Fortnite video game has been valued at almost $15bn (£11.7bn) after receiving a $1.25bn cash injection led by the private equity firm KKR.The game, which has been described as a cross between The Hunger Games and Minecraft, has proved hugely popular since its release last year by Epic Games. Continue reading...

Musk and Tesla fined $20m each for misleading investors over privatisation plansElon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla, has said the tweet that cost him and the company $20m (£16m) each in fines by the US Securities and Exchange Commission was “worth it”.Worth it Continue reading...

The new technology, being tested in Salford, is the network of the future. But what practical uses will it offer?Last week, Vodafone launched a test of the UK’s first full 5G service, available for use by businesses in Salford. It is part of its plan to trial the technology in seven UK cities. But what can we expect from the next generation of mobile technology?One thing we will see in the run-up to launch is lots of stunts with the new tech. Earlier this year, operators paid almost £1.4bn for the 5G wavelengths being auctioned off by the government, and to recoup that cash, they will need to catch the eye of consumers. In September, Vodafone used its bit of the spectrum to demonstrate the UK’s first holographic call. The England and Manchester City captain Steph Houghton appeared as a hologram in Newbury to give football tips to an 11-year-old girl while remaining at Vodafone’s Manchester office. Continue reading...

It may once have been synonymous with writing, but it’s time to seek the uncorrupted writing experience elsewhereIn a grim political season, there are signs that journalists are successfully challenging at least one odious tyrant.In Slate, Rachel Withers has reported that in newsrooms throughout the United States, Microsoft Word is finally giving way to other programs, including Google Docs. Continue reading...

A lawsuit brought against Facebook for sexist job advertisements exposes the discriminatory nature of the online marketingIn September, a group of people searching for work in the US filed charges against Facebook and 10 other companies for discriminating against women by targeting certain job advertisements only at men. The employers, from sectors such as labouring and lorry driving, had used Facebook’s ad-targeting tools to direct the opportunities at those they thought most suitable – and this did not include women. Although the outcome of the case has not yet been decided, it could – along with similar cases – have a seismic impact on the future of digital advertising and, consequently, on the future of the net.Allegations of discrimination have been made against Facebook’s advertising before. An investigation by ProPublica and the New York Times at the end of last year found that dozens of employers had used the platform to target job ads at particular age groups, meaning that those outside those ages did not see them. Around the same time, the Washington State attorney general’s office launched a sting operation, to show how straightforward it was to use Facebook’s targeting tools to prevent certain ethnic groups from seeing ads in the US: it placed 20 phoney ads for jobs, apartments, insurance and other services and deliberately excluded one or more ethnic minority groups from receiving the notification. Continue reading...

The retailer has launched five clothing labels in a year and has ambitions to be a serious player in fashionBright red lacy dresses, cosy coats and ripped jeans fill a chic central London boutique decorated with neon signage and stripped wood floors. Shoppers bustle and admire the clothes – but they are not in a hip designer shop; they are in Amazon’s first pop-up fashion store in Europe.Last week, at the opening night of the Baker Street store, the models Lara Stone and Maddi Waterhouse, the actress Gemma Chan and socialites Pixie Geldof and Rafferty Law brought a sprinkling of stardust to a collection that the US online retailer hopes will make it a major player in British fashion. Continue reading...

GMB union says 40,000 drivers are worse off through missing holiday and sick pay, despite a court ruling in 2016Uber drivers are estimated to be more than £18,000 out of pocket because the ride hailing company refuses to recognise a two-year-old ruling entitling them to holiday pay, a minimum wage and rest breaks.The law firm Leigh Day – acting for the GMB union, which brought the action against the tech giant – calculates that its 40,000 drivers are all owed almost £11,000 in wages and more than £8,000 in holiday pay. But Uber is continuing to appeal the ruling, made two years ago at the central London employment tribunal. Continue reading...

It was once Jessica Powell’s job to defend Google. Now she’s taking her industry to task in a ‘totally fictional but essentially true’ bookIn September, Jessica Powell tapped on her phone’s contact list and texted her old boss, the Google CEO, Sundar Pichai. She also called a former co-worker at the company’s roughly 200-person communications team that, until last September, she led. Powell’s news: she was about to release a satirical novel about Silicon Valley, which readers would be likely to interpret as being about Google. The book, The Big Disruption, was billed as “a totally fictional but essentially true Silicon Valley story”. In public relations terms, it was a rogue turn – going from burnishing the company’s image to lampooning a company that looked suspiciously like it.Powell, 40, nursed some eleventh-hour nerves about the transition. Until last fall, Powell was on Google’s management team as vice-president of global communications, crafting strategy on how its policies and products should be presented and defended. After a career as the behind-the-scenes puppet master of corporate messaging and a bout of wanting to publish anonymously, she decided to put her name front and center. She didn’t want to irk Google friends, and even penned an introductory essay that argues you can love tech and still see its flaws. Powell insists the book is not a thinly veiled “tell-all” and that her distancing the book from Google is not one final act of PR. Continue reading...

Dozens of accounts posting politically charged content reached more than a million users, company saysFacebook has uncovered and deleted dozens of accounts and pages originating in Iran that were intended to provoke division in the US and the UK.The accounts, which posed as US and UK residents, posted frequently about politically divisive subjects, including race relations, opposition to Donald Trump, and immigration. More than a million Facebook users had engaged with the 82 pages, groups and accounts that were identified, most of them in the US, and Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, said they were created to deliberately “sow discord”. Continue reading...

Democracies around the world now face an even bigger threat than in 2016. But there are ways to fight backWhether it is in the movies, media or politics, discussions of election security typically focus on the sexy story of hackers hacking into voting machines. While this is a well-founded fear that certainly requires better defence, the reality is that there is no example of this kind of cyber-attack ever being attempted or working on a national scale.By contrast, there is another kind of attack, one which has not just been repeatedly attempted but has been proven to work. It has struck everywhere from the 2016 election in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK, to the Syrian civil war and the Myanmar genocide. This threat doesn’t come in the form of hacking networks (aka “cyberwar”) but rather hacking the people on them, by making ideas viral through a mix of “likes” and lies on social media (what we call “like war”). Continue reading...

Rockstar Games hopes new game will eclipse success of Grand Theft AutoHundreds of people queued outside branches of the retailer Game on Thursday evening to pick up a copy of Red Dead Redemption 2, the wildly anticipated new title from the creators of Grand Theft Auto series.Stores in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh and London were among those that opened at midnight. Large numbers of gamers wanted to buy the title, the first release by Rockstar Games since 2013’s record-breaking Grand Theft Auto V. Continue reading...

Jordan Erica Webber finds out how two scientists are employing green technology in very different ways to help curb environmental issuesCurrent estimates suggest that there are 7.5 billion people living on Earth, which is putting a strain on biodiversity. With increased need for solutions to environmental issues, people from the world of technology are also stepping in to do what they can to help redress the balance between humanity and the natural world.But are we wasting time and money on experimental technology that might not make it past the finish line? And can the use of technology at a grass-root level actually increase awareness and influence those with the power to make real change? Continue reading...

Class action could increase pressure on corporation following report of payout for exec accused of sexual misconductA group of women who sued Google for pay discrimination are advancing a class-action lawsuit in California that could affect more than 8,000 current and former employees, the plaintiffs’ lawyer said.Jim Finberg, a civil rights attorney for the women behind the high-profile gender pay gap litigation, told the Guardian on Thursday that the Silicon Valley corporation has confirmed that the proposed class action would cover roughly 8,300 women who have worked for Google in California. Continue reading...

Parent company’s results as a report says Google gave executive $90m payoff but kept sexual misconduct allegations quietOn the day Google was engulfed by concerns about its handling of sexual misconduct allegations, Alphabet, its parent company, announced third-quarter earnings of $33.7bn.The results fulfilled predictions for continued growth despite controversy over a recent data breach on the company’s social network, Google+. Continue reading...

Google reportedly found credible allegations Andy Rubin forced employee to perform oral sex but paid him millions after he leftGoogle gave a $90m severance package to Andy Rubin, the creator of the Android mobile software, but concealed details of a sexual misconduct allegation that triggered his departure, the New York Times has reported.Related: Google abandons Berlin base after two years of resistance Continue reading...

Parenting blogger goes viral after former NFL player tweets: ‘I rock pink nails all the time’Having gone out of his way to help raise his children in a gender stereotype-free household, a father from Massachusetts was appalled to discover that his five-year-old son was being bullied at kindergarten for wearing nail polish.Over 30,000 retweets and 60,000 likes later, Aaron Gouveia had not only comforted his upset son, but also used Twitter to create a full-blown social media campaign against toxic masculinity. Continue reading...

Company sees fourth quarter of profits greater than $1bn but revenue growth is lower than expectedAmazon has announced a record profit for the last three months of close to $3bn. But the news on Thursday of a $1bn-a-month bonanza was not enough for Wall Street and shares sank on lower-than-expected revenue growth.The online retail and cloud computing giant long worried investors by losing cash quarter after quarter but now appears to be raking in money, thanks largely to its cloud computing services. In the last quarter the company made a profit of $2.88bn, the fourth quarter that Amazon’s profits have been greater than $1bn. Continue reading...

Airline says customers affected by data breach will be contacted by Friday, as investigation continuesBritish Airways has revealed that another 185,000 customers may have had personal details stolen in a data breach.Customers who made reward bookings using a payment card between 21 April and 28 July this year may be at risk, British Airways owner International Airlines Group (IAG) said in a statement to the stock market. Continue reading...

Jane has read that Microsoft is removing the screen-capture utility in Windows 10 and would like a free alternativeThe next Windows 10 update will remove the Snipping Tool, and I wonder if there is an alternative free tool you would recommend. Apparently the workaround is to use OneNote, but not for me. JaneTaking screen grabs is now such an important part of personal computer use that Microsoft is certain to provide a good alternative. In fact, you will get to keep Snipping Tool alongside its replacement while Microsoft analyses the telemetry data that it uses to track mass (not individual) behaviour. Continue reading...

PlayStation 4, Xbox One; Rockstar Games

Fears stance on GCHQ’s alleged hacking of Belgacom could damage diplomatic relationsThe UK government has been accused of endangering diplomatic relations with Belgium after its “exceptional” refusal to cooperate with an inquiry into GCHQ’s alleged hacking of Belgacom, the country’s biggest telecoms company.For at least two years ending in 2013, the British intelligence service was probably spying within the state-owned company’s networks on the instruction of UK ministers, according to leaks from a judicial inquiry presented to Belgium’s national security council this week. Continue reading...

Decision by information commissioner comes after Cambridge Analytica scandalFacebook has been fined £500,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, after allowing third party developers to access user information without sufficient consent.The ICO announcement on Thursday upholds its initial decision in July. The fine, which represents a drop in the ocean for a company that brought in $40.7bn (£31.5bn) in global revenue in 2017, was the maximum available to the regulator under old data protection legislation. Continue reading...

Company says millions of images removed in a few months with help of machine learning toolFacebook has said its moderators have removed 8.7m child abuse images in the past three months, as the company battles pressure from regulators and lawmakers worldwide to speed up removal of illicit material.It said on Wednesday that previously undisclosed software automatically flags images that contain both nudity and a child, helping its reviewers. A similar machine learning tool was also revealed that it said caught users engaged in “grooming” of minors for sexual exploitation. Continue reading...

Company made profit of $312m and revenues were at $6.82bn in period where Musk called diver ‘pedo’ and was fined by SECThe past three months have been the worst of times and the best of times for Tesla. The troubled electric car company announced a surprisingly high profit on Wednesday for the same quarter in which its founder, Elon Musk, spun out of control.Related: Elon Musk says 'Teslaquila' is 'coming soon' as Tesla files trademark Continue reading...

Kreuzberg residents were concerned about tech giant’s unethical practices and gentrification driving up rents

Airline confirms passport numbers, email addresses and credit card data were accessedThe airline Cathay Pacific has announced that it has suffered a major data leak affecting up to 9.4 million passengers.The Hong Kong flag carrier admitted that personal information including passport numbers, identity card numbers, email addresses and credit card details had been accessed. Continue reading...

Responses vary around the world when you ask the public who an out-of-control self-driving car should hitMoral responses to unavoidable damage vary greatly around the world in a way that poses a big challenge for companies planning to build driverless cars, according to new research.The researchers, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other institutions, presented variations of the classic “trolley problem” thought experiment almost 40m times to millions of volunteers from all around the world. Continue reading...

Italian investigation found software updates ‘significantly reduced performance’, hastening new purchasesApple and Samsung are being fined €10m and €5m respectively in Italy for the “planned obsolescence” of their smartphones.An investigation launched in January by the nation’s competition authority found that certain smartphone software updates had a negative effect on the performance of the devices. Continue reading...

Rockstar has spent several years and millions of pounds to transport players to a mind-blowing alternative world. Has it succeeded?In the pale sunshine of a winter’s day, you ride along a trail in the shadow of pristine mountains. There are other outlaws with you, chatting as they ride, guiding their horses around frosted trees. You can see your horse’s muscles moving beneath its flanks, hear its grunts as you veer off the track and push it through the snow, leaving deep gouges in the untainted white. One of your number breaks into song and you choose whether to join in. Eventually, arriving at a ridge, the gang leader pulls up his horse and you slow to a trot as railroad tracks come into view below. In the distance, you can see the train you are about to rob.If you still think of Pac-Man or Space Invaders when you hear the words “video game”, take a look at Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption 2 and you will see just how far they have come. A turn-of-the-century tale of the US frontier, it casts the player as a gruff outlaw riding with a band of other miscreants, living off the land and trying to outrun the advance of modernity. In classic western style, the dream is to make enough money from robberies and other jobs to give everyone in the gang a fresh start somewhere new. But lawmen and enemies keep chasing players across an astonishing recreation of the old west, from the mountains to the plains to the hot, soupy air of the bayou. Continue reading...

This device picks up where last year’s version left off, with smooth performance, excellent camera and fantastic screenGoogle’s iPhone XS Max competitor brings a big screen, a big notch and a big glass body, but is the Pixel 3 XL good enough to beat the phablet kings?The smaller of Google’s new Pixel smartphones is arguably the best small Android phone going, and the Pixel 3 XL shares many of its best traits. Continue reading...

Commission says Facebook scandal is ‘wake-up call’ as it calls for monitoring networkEU governments cannot treat the next year’s European parliamentary elections as “business as usual” given the growing risk of foreign and corporate manipulation, according to the European commission.The scandal over the misuse of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica and the growing evidence of illegal interference in elections were described by the commission as a “wake-up call” to which national governments had to respond. Continue reading...

Baker Street store will sell own-label items and other brands during week-long trialAmazon has opened its first British fashion store, in the form of a central London pop-up where the retailer is seeking shoppers’ views on its clothing ranges, prices and store experience.The Baker Street pop-up is the first of its kind in Europe. It will be open for a week, during which time it will host events including denim customisation by Pepe Jeans, beauty trend discussions with Vogue’s Jessica Diner, yoga sessions from Deliciously Ella founder Ella Mills and live music from singer-songwriters Tom Grennan and Nao. Continue reading...

Addison Lee’s future cars | Dishwashers | Waitrose, Lidl and Brexit | Gaby’s DeliWould you like to ask Addison Lee whether the “self-driving” cars it aims to deploy in London by 2021 (Report, 22 October) will in fact have remote control capability? If so, the term “self-driving” would be a misnomer. The remote control would be dangerous for dissidents and whistleblowers – if you ride in a “self-driving” taxi with remote control capability, and the taxi knows who you are, the state could whisk you to a deportation prison, or a black site, at any time.

The games console that brought us Sonic the Hedgehog is back as a high-end reproduction. Could it be better than the original?Nature abhors a vacuum – and so does the video games industry. Over the last year, Nintendo and Sony have each announced new versions of their classic consoles: the Mini NES and SNES machines are outselling modern platforms, and the forthcoming PlayStation Classic is stirring up interest. So what of Sega, the creator of the Master System and the Mega Drive (AKA Genesis), the console that brought the arcade home in the late 1980s?When it comes to retro consoles, until now there have only been cheap third-party Mega Drive retro consoles, which often have popular games built-in but use software emulation to replicate the original hardware. This has meant that games often run with terrible input lag and tend to look horrible on contemporary LED displays, making for a disappointing nostalgic experience. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Jeffrey Sachs warns AI could lead to wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few thousand peopleA “tech tax” is necessary if the world is to avoid a dystopian future in which AI leads to a concentration of global wealth in the hands of a few thousand people, influential economist Dr Jeffrey Sachs has warned.Speaking to the Guardian, Sachs backed calls for taxation aimed at the largest tech companies, arguing that new technologies were dramatically shifting the income distribution worldwide “from labour to intellectual property (IP) and other capital income.” Continue reading...

Amazon, Palantir and Microsoft provide tools that aid surveillance, detention and deportation, according to reportSilicon Valley technology corporations including Amazon, Palantir and Microsoft make millions from US immigration enforcement, according to a new report.They provide tools that aid surveillance, detention and deportation of individuals targeted by Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda, according to a paper published Tuesday by a coalition of immigrant rights groups. The report outlined ways Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has expanded its reach, with infrastructure from tech companies that have faced growing internal and external pressure to cancel their contracts. Continue reading...

Early consensus from tech press is £749 iPhone XR is in many ways better than the £999 iPhone XSThe first wave of verdicts from select reviewers given early access to Apple’s latest iPhone XR are here, and if their thoughts are any indication of what to expect, cheaper means better.The £999 iPhone XS and £1,099 XS Max were and brilliant in many ways, but were a little on the expensive side. But the iPhone XR costs £749, has the same processor, same Face ID and same look as the £250 more expensive models, with a 6.1in LCD screen instead of a 5.8in or 6.5in OLED screen. Continue reading...

Ride-hailing app to charge extra 15p per mile to help drivers pay for electric carsUber will charge its customers in London an extra 15p per mile on every trip to help its drivers buy electric cars.The ride-hailing app hopes to create a £200m fund from the levy to encourage almost half of its 45,000 drivers to use fully electric vehicles by 2021. The firm hopes its London fleet will be fully electric by 2025. Continue reading...

Brexiter-led firm chose site of plant because of proximity to ‘high-growth markets’ in AsiaThe prominent Brexit backer Sir James Dyson has chosen Singapore over the UK as the manufacturing base for his firm’s new electric car, as it steps up plans to take on big US rivals in automotive technology.The British manufacturer chose Singapore because of its proximity to “high-growth markets” in Asia, the chief executive, Jim Rowan, said in a memo to staff on Tuesday. The plant will be completed in 2020, with the car to be launched in 2021. Continue reading...

Regulation is needed to make the tech industry act in line with the public good and not just its CEOs’ stock optionsYou hear a lot today about artificial intelligence and ethics, and for good reason. As algorithms get smarter, they are increasingly making decisions that affect people’s lives. We need to be careful these algorithms are fair and transparent – but it’s not only the algorithms that are concerning.If Tom Wolfe were still alive, he might be turning his critical pen towards people like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or the Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, playfully describing the disruption that their companies bring to our lives on a daily basis. Continue reading...

This slim, powerful machine is the finest example of what a Windows laptop should be. If only it came with USB-CThe Surface Laptop 2 is Microsoft’s ultimate vision of what a Windows 10 laptop should be – simple, sleek and sophisticated, but still a little different.The look, feel and operation hasn’t changed since last year, save for a slick new black paint job, which joins the default Microsoft silver, burgundy and blue. Continue reading...

This gadget is your Google Assistant, smart-home dashboard and digital photo frame in one – and it’s good for cooking, tooThe Home Hub is Google’s first own-brand smart display, combining Google Assistant, advanced smart-home control and a digital photo frame into a neat and tidy package.Google isn’t the first to market with smart displays. Amazon’s Echo Show put the company’s Alexa on a screen a year ago, while Google Assistant smart displays made by Harman, Lenovo and LG were released a few months ago. Continue reading...

Tech pioneer Oxbotica to start mapping public roads as it calls deal with hire firm ‘huge leap’Self-driving car services could be on the streets of London within three years under a partnership between the private hire firm Addison Lee and the British driverless car pioneers Oxbotica.The companies have signed a deal to develop and deploy autonomous vehicles in the city by 2021. Continue reading...

Thousands of miles of cables connected to data centres underpin our way of life. How many people are online, what are they doing there – and what comes next?The internet is the wider network that allows computer networks around the world run by companies, governments, universities and other organisations to talk to one another. The result is a mass of cables, computers, data centres, routers, servers, repeaters, satellites and wifi towers that allows digital information to travel around the world. Continue reading...