Technology | The Guardian

Horizon Zero Dawn is a beautiful and exciting adventure, but its most interesting element is that it focuses on the intellectual curiosity of its heroSomething has only just occurred to me about Horizon Zero Dawn. The PlayStation 4 action adventure game, set in a post-apocalyptic world dominated by robotic dinosaurs, is thrilling and beautiful – that much is obvious right from the start. Also obvious is the fact that it borrows a lot of mechanics from the Far Cry series, and that it lacks the sheer depth and scope of role-playing adventures like Witcher 3 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild. But what dawned on me much more slowly was the fact that its wonderful lead protagonist, Aloy, is not so much motivated by some grand mission to save humanity (though that sort of comes into it), she is motivated by intellectual curiosity. She is fascinated by the mechanised monsters roaming the landscape and the ruins of an ancient technological culture that she first discovers as a child, and she wants to learn more. Her interactions with the world, the characters and the wider narrative within it, are all personal rather than heroic. In short, she acts like a human being.For a very long time, a huge percentage of action-adventure games were about saving the planet – sometimes even the entire universe – from some monstrous invading evil. The stakes were almost always that high. There were many intermingled reasons for this. Partly, there’s the huge influence that fantasy and science-fiction masterworks have had on game developers – the overbearing presence of Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in the collective imaginative canon. But also, a lot of early video games drew their story-telling approach directly from mythic sources – the great legends, folk and fairy tales – because with limited visual and narrative story-telling tools available, these primal tales were the easiest to communicate. Hence, a lot of games about lone heroes triumphing against the odds – rendering Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces into interactive life. Continue reading...

Mark Zuckerberg at the F8 conference hinted that AR encourages people to interact with others – although that experience is still mediated by a screenWe live in a time when society is divided and work is needed to bring people together, but Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks it has the solution: augmented reality.Speaking on stage at the company’s annual developer conference F8, Zuckerberg outlined the company’s plan to turn the camera app into a platform that makes it easy for people to build augmented reality experiences, whereby digital objects and information are overlaid onto or used to enhance the physical space. Continue reading...

Privacy, security, artificial intelligence, net neutrality, big data and impact of internet on daily life among topics included in surveysThe EU is launching an unprecedented public consultation to find out what Europeans fear most about the future of the internet.A succession of surveys over the coming weeks will ask people for their views on everything from privacy and security to artificial intelligence, net neutrality, big data and the impact of the digital world on jobs, health, government and democracy. Continue reading...

The £6.2m settlement sets new precedent for pre-installation of third-party apps and search engines, including Russia’s YandexGoogle has been forced to open up Android to rival search engines and applications in Russia, after settling a two-year battle with competition authorities for 439m roubles (£6.2m).

Global crackdown on ‘inauthentic likes and comments’ launched on Friday targeting a single operationFacebook has purged tens of thousands of fake accounts from its platform as part of an ongoing bid to dismantle a sophisticated global spam operation.The worldwide crackdown on “inauthentic likes and comments” was launched on Friday and Facebook’s security team confirmed the step on Saturday in an official blog post attributed to Shabnam Shaik, a technical program manager, that said the platform had been working to disrupt a single network for six months. Continue reading...

British Chamber of Commerce reveals large firms most at risk from cybercrime, with many companies lacking even the most basic protectionCybercriminals have attacked one in five British businesses in the past year, many of which lack even the most basic security measures to protect confidential information. A report by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) found that only 24% of businesses said they had security in place to guard against hacking, despite the rising danger of attacks and increasing publicity about the threat.Larger companies, defined as those with at least 100 staff, were more susceptible to cyber-attacks, with 42% of big businesses falling victim to cybercrime, compared with 18% of small companies. Continue reading...

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Question of the social network’s role in amplifying crime has intensified after it took several hours to remove a brutal video seen millions of times“This is a horrific crime and we do not allow this kind of content on Facebook.”The “content” the Facebook spokesperson was referring to was the apparent killing of 74-year-old grandfather Robert Godwin, shot at close range in Cleveland on Sunday afternoon as he walked home from an Easter meal with his family. Godwin’s suspected attacker, 37-year-old Steve Stephens, filmed a first-person view of the shooting and uploaded it to his Facebook page, where it remained for more than two hours before being taken down – not before the video had been copied, reposted and viewed millions of times. Continue reading...

Former employee has alleged in lawsuit Evan Spiegel said the app was ‘only for rich people’ sparking a backlash among IndiansSnapchat is facing a public relations crisis in India, the world’s fastest growing smartphone market, after allegations its founder said the app was “only for rich people” and that he did not want to “expand into poor countries like India”.The remarks, allegedly made by Evan Spiegel in a 2015 meeting, are contained in a recently unsealed complaint by Anthony Pompliano, a former employee of Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat. Continue reading...

Jonathan Taplin reveals how just three companies subverted the internet’s utopian idealsThe internet, defined as the network switched on in January 1983, is now 34 years old. When it began, it was a gloriously decentralised, creative, non-commercial system that evoked in many of its early users utopian hopes about liberation, empowerment, creativity and sticking it to The Man. In those heady days, only a few sceptics wondered how long it would take for capitalism to get a grip on it. Now we know: it took only 21 years.Opinions vary about the timing, of course. For my money, the critical year was 2004, the year Google had its IPO, Facebook was launched and the business model that became known as “surveillance capitalism” really got a grip on the network. This is the model that provides supposedly free services to users in return for “consent” to mine and exploit their personal data and digital trails in order to target adverts at them. Continue reading...

As Facebook’s chief operating officer, she is one of the most powerful women in the world. How did she cope with the sudden death of her husband?• Scroll down for an exclusive extract from Sandberg’s new bookSheryl Sandberg’s last words to her husband, like all last words, assumed a haunting poignancy. “I’m falling asleep,” she told him, oblivious to the imminence of tragedy, and curled up on a cushion for a nap.It was Friday 1 May 2015. She and Dave Goldberg, 47, had left their two children at home with her parents in northern California and flown down to Mexico for a weekend break to celebrate a friend’s 50th birthday. They were Silicon Valley royalty’s power couple; he the CEO of a tech company worth more than $1bn, she the chief operating officer of Facebook and author of global bestseller Lean In, a feminist call to arms for working women to emulate the self-belief and ambition of men. Sandberg had featured on Forbes’ list of the most powerful women on the planet, served as chief of staff to the Treasury secretary in Bill Clinton’s government, been widely tipped as a future member of a Hillary Clinton cabinet and earned a personal fortune well in excess of $1bn. At 45 she was mother to a 10-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter; weekends away were rare and precious. No wonder she was tired. She fell asleep that afternoon a happily married wife, and woke up an hour later a widow. Continue reading...

The retail giant is expanding into the physical world with a series of trials in its home town. First came a book shop, but the real prize is in groceryThe buzz of a text message heralds the latest offer on Amazon’s Treasure Truck – a funky lorry bedecked with funfair lights and retro signs that appears at random in the streets of Seattle with a one-off discounted product for sale.Alaskan cod, four fillets for $17, was the most recent item; a few days earlier it was two 16oz prime steaks for $40. Click on your Amazon app to buy your “treasure” and you’ll be told where the truck is so you can pick it up. Continue reading...

In the land of the small SUV, Audi’s premium compact Q2 stands tall. Just be sure not to buy it in a boring colourPrice: £20,230

It would be great for a prospector gang, roaming a lawless landscape, unlikely to be chastised for not wearing a seatbeltFlatbed trucks always have names like speciality condoms – Titan, Hilux, Trojan – and the Amarok Aventura took this one step further (I’m a rock, I’m a roll, I’m adventura! I’m your worst nightmare and your wildest dream). But it was a sensitive vehicle with a highly responsive automatic gearbox. In sports mode, it sounded like it was having a panic attack, which made me think masculinity exacts its own heavy price; but how handy it was never to have to think, “Will this fit in my car?” Everything fits in this car. It was a constant battle between civic duty and fun-seeking, as children asked to be ferried about on the flatbed and I had to say no.You couldn’t forget you weren’t driving a regular car, but at speed it never laboured or showed its bulk. The question is: who would need it? While there are sweet touches – a lid over the back that you can pull closed with a rope and pretend you’re in The Grapes Of Wrath; six decent speakers for the transmission of bluegrass – unless you often need to transport bulky items the weight makes you long for a fitting purpose, as if you had a border collie and no sheep. Continue reading...

Sandberg says Facebook founder and his wife ‘did so much’ for her after the sudden death of her husbandSheryl Sandberg has credited Mark Zuckerberg with saving her life after the sudden death of her husband, saying the Facebook co-founder and his wife, Priscilla, were “why I’m walking”.In an interview with the Guardian, Facebook’s chief operating officer spoke candidly about dealing with the loss of her husband, Dave Goldberg, who died of a heart attack in 2015 when they were in Mexico for the weekend. Continue reading...

Investment in education and retraining is needed to equip people to adapt as automation shakes up their workplacesAsk an economist or a technology expert and they will happily tell you that decades of data reliably show automation has created more jobs than it has destroyed.Far fewer of us now work on farms, for example, thanks to super-efficient machines that do the bulk of the work. Such technology has boosted productivity and, with it, living standards. As a result, more people work in leisure industries such as hospitality or hairdressing, serving all those people with higher disposable incomes and more free time. Continue reading...

Study calls for billions to fund retraining after pinpointing hospitality, retail, transport and manufacturing sectors and poorest parts of UK as most at riskA leading thinktank has urged the government to spend billions of pounds helping poorly skilled workers in the less prosperous parts of the UK cope with the threat of the looming robot revolution.The left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said in a new report that those most at risk from automation were concentrated in low-skill sectors of the economy and were least able to adapt to change. Continue reading...

David Cameron’s former blue-sky thinker says the rise of populism is due to the super-rich’s inability to put themselves in the shoes of those less well off – before accepting a free cab ride and becoming lost for words about his own wealthSteve Hilton’s office looks so typically San-Fran tech-startup that it could be the work of a set designer. Surfaces are matt white, the centrepiece is the kitchen, and there are various bins for different types of recycling. The only thing missing is Hilton.He can’t call to say he’s running 45 minutes late, because he doesn’t own a smartphone. The CEO of Crowdpac ditched his five years ago. This presents another problem when he arrives, because he has to leave again in 15 minutes, having promised to attend an exhibition at his sons’ school. Would I mind coming too? We could do the interview in the back of an Uber? Continue reading...

Jim Chalmers and Mike Quigley team up to write a book on the disruptive effects of automation and what Australia should do

The iPhone maker has been awarded a permit to test autonomous cars, moving into a highly competitive space that includes Google, Tesla and FordApple is joining the fiercely competitive race to design self-driving cars, raising the possibility that a company that has already reshaped culture with its iPhone may try to transform transportation, too.Ending years of speculation, Apple’s late entry into a crowded field was made official Friday with the disclosure that the California department of motor vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state. Continue reading...

Artist says VR will change our outlook as he prepares Somerset House display based on Henry Fox Talbot’s seminal exhibitionArt galleries have long specialised in transporting visitors to another world, allowing them to dive into Hockney’s swimming pool, hear the clamour of war in Picasso’s Guernica or feel the spray of the sea from a Turner scene – all within the confines of four white walls.But a new dimension is making its way into museums and galleries across the UK, one that extends the physical space into an experimental virtual world. Continue reading...

The AI composers that are helping people make their own personal soundtracksHow can machines help with composing music? Ed Newton-Rex of Jukedeck reveals how his company uses machine learning to create instant customisable music that’s different every time.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Friday! Continue reading...

Machine learning algorithms are picking up deeply ingrained race and gender prejudices concealed within the patterns of language use, scientists sayAn artificial intelligence tool that has revolutionised the ability of computers to interpret everyday language has been shown to exhibit striking gender and racial biases.The findings raise the spectre of existing social inequalities and prejudices being reinforced in new and unpredictable ways as an increasing number of decisions affecting our everyday lives are ceded to automatons. Continue reading...

Before joining – and quitting – scandal-hit Uber, Whetstone advised senior Conservatives and led communications at GoogleFor the best part of two decades, Rachel Whetstone has served as public relations guru to some of Britain’s most powerful Conservative politicians and the world’s best-known corporations.Born in East Sussex to a wealthy family, the 49-year-old has a Conservative pedigree. Her grandfather, Antony Fisher, made his fortune importing intensive chicken farming from the US to the UK; he used his millions to help set up right-leaning thinktanks and lobby groups, such as the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Adam Smith Institute. Continue reading...

Information Commissioner’s Office investigates amid claims Cameron tried to protect taxi app from tougher regulationThe information watchdog is investigating whether Downing Street covered up correspondence relating to Uber, amid accusations that David Cameron tried to protect the taxi app from tougher regulation proposed by the London mayor’s office.The Information Commissioner’s Office said it was making inquiries about why Downing Street said it had no record of correspondence from a former No 10 adviser, Daniel Korski, with City Hall relating to Uber dated October 2015. Continue reading...

Program – dubbed ‘Hell’ – was reportedly run between 2014 and early 2016 in order to deprive cab competitor of driversA secret Uber program internally dubbed “Hell” allegedly spied on arch-rival Lyft to determine which drivers were working double shifts for both companies, letting the cab-hire app steer more work towards them in an attempt to deprive its competitor of workers.The report of the “Hell” program continues a string of uncomfortable claims for the company, still dealing with the fall-out of a string of sexual harassment allegations at the beginning of the year, and now operating with a brand new head of public policy and communications following the departure of its previous PR chief, Rachel Whetstone, on Tuesday. Continue reading...

The heartland best known for supplying nearly 25% of America’s food is experiencing a rise in homelessness that can be traced in part to the tech boom

From unskippable cut scenes to escort missions, here are the video game features we’d like to see banished to digital purgatoryVideo games are incredible. Just think: 40 years ago, we were batting a square white ball between two digital planks, and now we have whole gigantic universes to explore. But of course, we’re human beings and so still cannot be completely satisfied.While riding across the beautiful landscapes of Witcher 3, or guiding Nathan Drake through another improbable architectural marvel built by poorly educated 18th century pirates with little access to construction resources, sometimes there are things that don’t quite work. Sometimes, there are things that drive us crazy with frustration. Continue reading...

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A new website, ‘Why everyone hates Uber’, argues that the company uses controversial tactics to bulldoze its way to domination – one city at a timeThe tides are turning for the poster child of the gig economy. Uber’s “disruptive” approach has up until now attracted investors like flies, leading to its valuation snowballing to $69bn. However, a string of allegations about sexual harassment, intellectual property theft and driver manipulation have called into question the aggressiveness of its expansion practices.

Guilty pleas by Chris Hutcheson and his sons Adam and Chris at Old Bailey, with sentencing set for JuneGordon Ramsay’s father-in-law and two of his brothers-in-law have admitted hacking computers at the celebrity chef’s restaurant and business empire during a time of bitter dispute in the family.Chris Hutcheson and two of his sons – Adam and Chris Jr – pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey on Tuesday to charges of conspiring to cause a computer to access programmes and data without authority. Continue reading...

Researchers were able to guess four-digit code with 70% accuracy at first attempt and 100% at fifth from how device heldHackers could steal mobile phone users’ pin numbers from the way their devices tilt as they type on them, researchers have claimed.Computer scientists at Newcastle University managed to guess a four-digit pin with 70% accuracy at the first attempt by using the gyroscopes built into all modern smartphones. With five attempts, the team was able to correctly guess the pin 100% of the time. Continue reading...

Martha Lane Fox’s views on bringing responsibility to technology are commendable (Technology is a marvel. Now let’s make it moral, 10 April). But I wonder whether politics and capitalism will obstruct socialist and moral decisions, as they have since Asimov first warned of the dangers and set out his three laws of robotics over half a century ago. We have the increasing use of drones in warfare; computers in trading stocks and shares; a trend towards a cashless society where a bank computer would store your e-funds, and commercial giants taking over the web. You might say we now have George Orwell’s 1984, where a large section of the population is spying on the rest.We certainly need the responsibilities that go with technological freedom. But Lane Fox gives no coherent view as to how to implement these aims, especially as this may have to be retrospective too. I would like nothing better than to see the UK excel in technological prowess, particularly with regard to the benefits to society at large. But this may involve increasing regulations – of the sort that the Brexiters want to put on the bonfire. While Lane Fox extols the virtues of opportunity, we actually need an action plan rather than a list of “could-do’s”. Unfortunately, planning has not been a strong point in the Brexit debate.

Elon Musk’s luxury car manufacturer, which has never made a profit, now worth $51.4bn after share prices soared unexpectedly starting last weekForget Motor City. Silicon Valley now owns the most valuable car company in the US. Tesla, the loss-making electric luxury vehicle maker, became the most valuable car company in the US. When US markets closed on Monday the manufacturer was worth $51.54bn to second banana General Motors’ $50.22bn after an upgrade by analysts at Piper Jaffray.“We have driven a Tesla for seven months in preparation for this report, and after conducting investor meetings with the company last week, we’re finally ready to take a stand,” the firm’s analysts, led by Alexander Potter, wrote in a note to investors published Monday morning. Piper Jaffray now rates Tesla stock at an equivalent to “buy”. Continue reading...

16-year-old Carter Wilkerson’s tweet is catching up on Ellen DeGeneres’s Oscars selfie but still has a way to go to get the 18m retweets needed for free foodAll Carter Wilkerson wanted was some free chicken nuggets – now he has one of the most retweeted tweets of all time.HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3 Continue reading...

If you want to be a better all-rounder, practising any of these acclaimed and multifaceted titles will give you a new edgeMost video-game fans tend to get into habits when we play. We favour certain genres, and then we play them in a certain way. Some people will buy any military shooter that comes out, then spend 20 hours running madly into gunfire, armed with a default assault rifle. Others will spend hours sneaking around an open-world adventure, planning every attack from the safety of distant bush. Most games are built so that they seamlessly accommodate those habitual behaviours.But a few either actively seek to wrench you out of your comfort zone, or are so varied and interesting that they make you want to try new things. Fewer still are so beautifully designed they provide you with truly transferable skills, allowing you to take the things you’ve learned to a variety of subsequent games. Continue reading...

Voice assistant transforms budget smart TV stick into smarthome powerhouse, but keeps simple controls, wide UK catchup TV and third-party app supportAmazon’s second generation Fire TV stick – which lets you stream video and apps on your TV – continues the same winning formula but adds new voice search, Alexa assistant and a snappier, more polished experience making it one of the best instant smart TV devices available.It looks like a USB flash drive, just with an HDMI connector on one end and a microUSB socket in the side. Set up is incredibly easy. Plug it directly into the back of your TV or receiver, or use the included HDMI extension cable if it doesn’t quite fit next to other devices, connect the included microUSB cable to the power adapter and plug it into the stick. Continue reading...

Years in the making, this charming platformer infused with the magic of childhood is finally being released in May. Will it be a hit with patient fans?It takes no less than 45 minutes of playing Tequila Works’ upcoming game for their creative director to tell a story from his childhood. It is no aimless reminiscence — Rime, as Raúl Rubio says, “is about childhood memories. So we put a little bit of ourselves in the game.”The Serrano-based studio’s upcoming release is a “single-player puzzle adventure game” and has already drawn comparisons to classics like LucasArts adventure games, The Legend of Zelda and projects from Team Ico. With its dreamy art style, puzzle platforming and sense of a small-protagonist-in-a-big-world, Rime has all the trappings of a game from my early childhood; it prompts memories of sitting squarely in front of a CRT TV.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Tuesday. Continue reading...

Amazon Business will sell office supplies to small and large UK companies and is latest example of its expansion beyond retailAmazon is targeting the multibillion-pound UK business-to-business market by launching a new service that sells office supplies, industrial tools and laboratory kits to companies.The service, called Amazon Business, is the latest example of the US company’s dramatic expansion beyond its traditional consumer retail business. Amazon already offers cloud computing services to businesses through Amazon Web Services. Continue reading...

The company funded ‘It’s Lit: A guide to what teens think is cool’, which found that it was more cool than Vice, Nike and FacebookToday’s teenagers think Google and Google brands are cool, research funded by Google has found.Google published “It’s Lit: A guide to what teens think is cool”, a “magazine” compiling the results of its research into Generation Z, characterised as those aged from 13 to 17. Continue reading...

Report predicts rise in robotics will usher in ‘industrial revolution 4.0’ altering working practices and legal frameworksInnovation in artificial intelligence and robotics could force governments to legislate for quotas of human workers, upend traditional working practices and pose novel dilemmas for insuring driverless cars, according to a report by the International Bar Association.The survey, which suggests that a third of graduate level jobs around the world may eventually be replaced by machines or software, warns that legal frameworks regulating employment and safety are becoming rapidly outdated. Continue reading...

New details emerge in Google lawsuit that alleges former employee Anthony Levandowski plotted to steal trade secrets and take them to Uber

My friend Rosemary’s car breakdown turned into a nightmare because she had forgotten her glasses and couldn’t read her card number. Do they expect us to stay inside and go quietly mad?Rosemary was driving home last night, when, bad luck, her car broke down. Catastrophe. Because she does not belong to a breakdown service. Luckily, she found a car insurance bill in the glove compartment and rang them on her prehistoric/newly chic mobile. They instructed her to ring someone else, who demanded £80 before they would move an inch to save her. “I need the long number on the front of your card,” said the breakdown lady, but Rosemary couldn’t read her card in the gloom without her glasses.Luckily, an elderly chap with his little dog stopped to assist her. “Just a moment,” said Rosemary, “a gentleman has offered to help me. He’ll read it.” Continue reading...

The site has ditched its default avatar after it became synonymous with trolls, replacing it with a shadowy head and shoulders. Surely we can do better than that ...Regular Twitter users are likely to have experienced the anticipatory glow of a notification, signalling the start of an illuminating conversation in which conflicting points of view are debated calmly and politely, or maybe the birth of a new friendship, or a clever bon mot that makes you chuckle quietly to yourself for the rest of the day. Or perhaps an apoplectic egg is screaming at you. “CLEARLY you don’t AGREE with DEMOCRACY!!1!” it says, then says it again, in a slightly different way, for the next 12 hours.But the Twitter egg has finally cracked. Over the past few years, the default profile picture – which was introduced in 2010 as a way to illustrate that a new user was about to “hatch” – has become visual shorthand for trolls, bots and fury. It has now been replaced by a shadowy head and shoulders, which is supposed to feel more temporary. At least you’ll be able to imagine that it’s a human being behind terrifying conspiracy theories about fluoride, rather than your breakfast. Continue reading...

CBO Philipp Schindler downplays issue with extremist material, as spokesman says flagged videos received small fraction of brands’ total YouTube impressionsGoogle’s chief business officer, Philipp Schindler, has claimed that the company’s problem with adverts running on extremist material on YouTube affects “very, very, very small numbers”, but that the company has implemented a wide range of features to try and solve it anyway.“It has always been a small problem”, Schindler told Recode’s Peter Kafka, “and over the last few weeks, someone has decided to put a bit more of a spotlight on the problem.” Continue reading...

The luxury car maker is quick to divulge data to suggest its technology was not responsible for crashes but refuses to let drivers themselves see the data logsLuxury car maker Tesla is throwing some drivers’ privacy under the wheels following accidents in order to defend its hi-tech self-driving car technology.And while the company has handed data to media following crashes, it won’t provide its customers’ data logs to the drivers themselves, according to interviews conducted by the Guardian. Continue reading...