Technology | The Guardian

The tale of an 80s urban legend keeps you guessing, while Radio 4’s Serial spoof is a treat worth staying up forThe Polybius Conspiracy (Radiotopia’s Showcase)

The loyal Micra has been a stalwart of driving schools and OAPs for years. But this model has learned some new tricksPrice: from £11,995

How did Boris react to a poster of Tintin, what’s been banned by Wetherspoons, and who said it was ‘disgusting’ to put a washing machine in the kitchen? How well do you remember 2017? Questions by Euan Ferguson (answers at the end)1 A mother and daughter died within a day of each other, and were honoured in Hollywood. Carrie Fisher died aged 60; her mother was 84, but who was she? Clue: her breakout role was as Kathy Selden in a 1952 film.2 Who was made a World Health Organisation goodwill ambassador, an appointment revoked within days? Continue reading...

Chief executive John Chen has yet to reverse the company’s slide – but a positive response from investors is pushing up its sharesRemember BlackBerry? The one-time giant of smartphones has gone through tumultuous times over the past six years, and become a much smaller software company. Its results last week showed just how small: third-quarter revenues were $226m (£169m), its lowest three-monthly total since 2004, with an operating loss of $258m.The Canadian company’s chief executive, John Chen, is a turnaround specialist who believes that the future is in self-driving cars, where automakers and software firms alike see huge promise. It is investing hope in QNX, which it bought in 2010: a maker of software that underpins car entertainment and data systems. Continue reading...

This year saw innovations that will set the pace for 2018, with devices acquiring bigger screens and becoming faster, more private and longer lastingAt the beginning of 2017 you could have been forgiven for thinking that smartphone innovation had died, with most phones looking the same and doing the same things, changing very little from the year before.

A new iPhone might be tempting at Christmas – but imagine escaping the endless distraction and becoming better organized in the process. I’ll do it if you doMy Christmas present to myself is a new phone. Should I upgrade to an iPhone X or make the radical lifestyle choice to downgrade to a flip phone?If you, me, and everyone we know had the sense we were born with, we would confront this decision armed with the following information: the Alcatel Go flip phone, which has GPS and photo and video capability, is $20 and has a battery life of 16 days. The Jitterbug 5 is $180 and can go one month without charging. The Samsung Gusto 3 is free, if you buy a $15-a-month call package from Affinity Cellular. (That’s for 350 minutes of talk time and no data, because it doesn’t support data. But you can text!) Continue reading...

From the #DeleteUber campaign to fake news, the industry found itself in the crosshairs this year – and it was a long time coming, experts sayWhen Jonathan Taplin’s book Move Fast and Break Things, which dealt with the worrying rise of big tech, was first published in the UK in April 2017, his publishers removed its subtitle because they didn’t think it was supported by evidence: “How Facebook, Google and Amazon cornered culture and undermined democracy.”When the paperback edition comes out early next year, that subtitle will be restored. Continue reading...

Tool allows users to see if they have engaged with Russian propaganda entity the Internet Research Agency, but won’t reach millions already exposed to fake newsFacebook has launched a new tool to allow users to see if they’ve liked or followed Russian propaganda accounts, though the feature probably won’t reach many of the millions of people exposed to fake news during US and UK elections.Facebook on Friday quietly rolled out a new page that says, “How can I see if I’ve liked or followed a Facebook Page or Instagram account created by the Internet Research Agency?”, referencing the infamous Russian entity and “troll army” accused of trying to influence American elections and British politics on social media. Continue reading...

Cryptocurrency’s year-end rally fails as its investors are ‘finally introduced to the law of financial gravity’Bitcoin lost more than a quarter of its value on Friday as an analyst warned that investors in the cryptocurrency had finally been introduced to the law of financial gravity.In the latest illustration of bitcoin’s volatility, it slumped to below $11,500 at one point on Friday – touching $11,159 – having started the week at a record high close to $20,000 and in its biggest weekly fall since 2013. However, by 5pm London time it was trading at $12,800 as the currency endured a see-saw day. Continue reading...

Sexual harassment and groping allegations against a suspended researcher are part of an industry culture that condones sexist behavior, women say

Plaintiffs from two separate class-action lawsuits claim Apple did not have user consent to slow iPhone performance and that it was forcing new purchasesApple is facing lawsuits over the revelations that it intentionally slows down older iPhones without user consent.

Giving a voice-activated device to someone for Christmas? Think again

Ian Bartlett says the ruling that Uber is a transport company not a digital service could also change the way we view other digital giants; and Derek Wyatt suggests a post-Brexit Britain could create a Global Digital Foundation to address these issuesUber is officially a transport company and not a digital service, the European court of justice (ECJ) has now ruled (Report, 21 December), making it assume greater responsibility for its business methods and duty to employees and customers. In addition to emphasising the important role played by the ECJ in looking beyond national parochiality, may I suggest that the principles should now be examined in the wider context of online communication. The likes of Twitter, Google, Facebook and YouTube argue from a similar standpoint as Uber has done – namely that they are a mere platform, with limited or no responsibility for what happens as a result of their (lucrative) commercial activity. So death threats, instructions for bomb-making, abusive messages, sexting, hate mail and the like can be published with relative impunity under the “freedom of the internet” banner. I suggest these organisations are publishers, not mere platforms, and must therefore take greater responsibility for the content that they, well, publish. Just like newspapers and broadcasters. Yes, they may be scrabbling to increase the number of moderators and checkers to close stable doors, but that merely underlines the scale of the problem. If they and others were to be made fully accountable for the content that they happily put out, that problem is likely to be dealt with far more effectively, to the benefit of society as a whole.

Long Island Iced Tea Corp’s shares jump 432% after new name includes word ‘blockchain’, the currency’s ledger technologyShares in a tiny US soft drinks firm, Long Island Iced Tea Corp, have quadrupled in value in just one day after it changed its name to Long Blockchain Corporation, the latest move by a string of obscure companies rebranding themselves in an attempt to ride the bitcoin bubble.The small business, which produces a range of soft drinks on Long Island, said it was still going to continue making the iced tea-based drinks but was “shifting its primary corporate focus towards the exploration of and investment in opportunities that leverage the benefits of blockchain technology”. Continue reading...

Sara wants some new headphones but there are lots to choose from. How should she go about finding a new pair?I want to buy a new pair of headphones. I’ve had a pair of Sony headphones for years that sound great and cost me $45 (£33.64). How can some headphones cost hundreds of dollars? Also, are wireless/Bluetooth headphones any good? SaraHeadphones, like most technology products, are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Most cost from about £25 to £350, but you can pay more than $50,000 for a pair of Sennheiser Orpheus headphones, or €100,000 for the bejewelled bling of Focal Utopia headphones by Tournaire.

Company says it introduced the feature for the iPhone 6 and later devices to prevent sudden shutdown of phones and prolong lifespanAfter years of rumours, Apple has confirmed that it does indeed slow down older iPhones, a feature introduced last year to protect against problems caused by ageing batteries.

PM responds to security committee report into 2015 targeted killing of Reyaad Khan, who had joined Islamic State in SyriaTheresa May has defended the use of drone strikes against British citizens, saying the killing of Islamic State’s Reyaad Khan in 2015 was “necessary and proportionate” and that she would authorise such strikes in the future.The prime minister said there had been no alternative to the killing of Khan in a precision airstrike in Syria because “a direct and imminent threat was identified by the intelligence agencies”. There was “a clear legal basis for action in international law”, she added.

Company loses challenge by Barcelona taxi drivers’ group, which argued Uber was directly involved in carrying passengersUber is a transport services company, the European court of justice (ECJ) has ruled, requiring it to accept stricter regulation and licensing within the EU as a taxi operator.The decision in Luxembourg, after a challenge brought by taxi drivers in Barcelona, will apply across the whole of the EU, including the UK. It cannot be appealed against.

Government says internet providers will be legally obliged from 2020 to meet user requests for speeds of at least 10MbpsBritish homes and businesses will have a legal right to high-speed broadband by 2020, the government has announced, dismissing calls from the network provider BT that it should be a voluntary rather than legal obligation on providers.The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said only a universal service obligation (USO) would offer certainty that broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps would reach the whole of the UK by 2020. Continue reading...

It took years for ex-Facebook and Google bosses to criticize what they had created – but they seem to have had a collective change of heart. Perhaps it’s because they now have children of their own

Photographer Adrian Cook uses one of the oldest photographic processes to make unique images on aluminium plates. Guardian Australia's picture editor, Jonny Weeks, joins him in his portable darkroom for a shoot on Sydney Harbour. Cook talks through his processes and explains the appeal of wet plate collodion photography in the digital age Continue reading...

German watchdog accuses site of merging data from WhatsApp and Instagram into users’ Facebook accounts without consent

Survey of 50 academics reveals majority are not worried about risks posed to mainstream markets

Messaging app has one month to comply or it will face sanctions for sharing user phone numbers and usage data for ‘business intelligence’ purposesWhatsApp has been ordered to stop sharing user data with parent company Facebook or face sanctions.The French data protection agency, Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), said on Monday that WhatsApp did not have a legal basis to share user data under French law for “business intelligence” purposes. The messaging app must cease data sharing within a month, paying particular attention to obtaining users’ consent. Continue reading...

Facebook’s Vocal Network, Twitter’s Songbirds and Google’s Googapella showcase their offscreen abilities in San Francisco concertWhat’s the first thing that comes into your head when you think of Silicon Valley? It might be computer programming, or social media, or internet bazillionaires. It’s probably not an a cappella Destiny’s Child mash-up where the opening lyrics of Bootylicious have been altered to include the names of technology companies.“Apple, can you handle this? Twitter, can you handle this? Facebook, can you handle this? I don’t think you can handle this.” Continue reading...

Infrastructure adviser’s warning comes as regulator reveals signal from all four mobile operators is available across just 43% of UK geographicallyUrgent action is required by the UK communications watchdog to tackle “deplorable” mobile phone coverage, the head of the government’s infrastructure adviser has warned.Lord Adonis, the chairman of the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC), has written to Ofcom urging the regulator to put all options on the table, including changes to the law, to improve poor services across the country. Continue reading...

What used to be a pet project of libertarians is gaining wider support. But a poverty backstop is no alternative to the economic and social reform we needThere aren’t many ideas that unite trade unionists, the libertarian right, the green movement, and the Silicon Valley tech scene . But that’s the rainbow alliance backing a universal basic income, a centuries-old idea posited as the solution to a range of 21st-century problems. Is its surprising coalition of bedfellows a sign of an idea whose time has at last resoundingly come – or a symptom of a catch-all, superficial fix in search of a problem?Universal basic income, sometimes called a citizens’ income, is the idea that the state should pay every adult citizen a regular, modest income. It is a no-strings payment, so unlike benefits currently available to people of working age, it is not means tested. You get it regardless of whether you have a job, are looking for work, or whether you are even willing to work. Continue reading...

Social media can look like a gateway drug to young addicts bent on laying bets online. We need to guard against the dangers of bothThe worlds of late childhood and early adolescence are absorbing, often overwhelming, and at best partially accessible to the adults orbiting them. So it is shocking, but not perhaps surprising, to discover that around 25,000 11- to 16-year-olds are problem gamblers, according to new research. Another 36,000 are at risk of developing a problem. Most children try their hand for the first time via fruit machines or the national lottery, and television bombards them with betting adverts. But a growing number are exposed via new means, such as computer games and social media. While the overall number of problem gamblers has fallen in recent years, new perils are emerging.More than one in 10 children have tried “skins” betting – allowing them to bet using in-game items, some of which can be converted to money. In other cases, they try casino-style games accessible on Facebook or smartphone apps, enjoying a bit of the thrill of a big win, without facing the actual consequences of the more likely loss. The charity GambleAware has warned of its concerns about the normalisation of gambling for young people and called for a precautionary approach. Continue reading...

Advertising watchdog is considering whether to look into company’s claims that it offers ‘unlimited one-day delivery’Amazon could face an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority over complaints that its premium service is failing to deliver on time in the run-up to Christmas.Amazon Prime claims to offer “unlimited one-day delivery” but customers have contacted the advertising regulator to say it is falling short of what is promised. Continue reading...

It is a truly unusual thing – a bank young people are excited about. But while its speed and ease of use are impressive, there is a problem – it’s not making moneyA letter from the bank tends to arouse dread. In these mostly paperless days, it usually means you’ve gone overdrawn again or the interest rate on your savings account has moved even closer to zero. Best not open it now; stick it on the pile for later-slash-never. But when my new Monzo bank card landed on the doormat one morning, I felt a frisson of excitement. Perhaps it was the six-week waiting list: there were 66,000 people ahead of me in the queue when I applied. Maybe it was just the hot pink debit card, the millennial’s answer to the black Amex.Monzo, a smartphone-only “challenger” bank, has this effect on a lot of people. In its first round of crowdfunding, in March 2016, it raised £1m in 96 seconds, the fastest crowdfunding campaign ever. In a more recent campaign, the singer Tom Odell and Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, came on board as investors and the company raised £70m. Wired magazine asked if Tom Blomfield, Monzo’s 32-year-old British founder and chief executive, would become “the Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg of banking”. Continue reading...

Devastating testimony did justice to the Grenfell tragedy, ‘virtual lives’ were shown being upended by hackers, and a fearless podcast continued to speak truth to powerGrenfell: Dust On Our Lips (Radio 4) | iPlayer

If you’re stuck for a gift idea, there’s always bitcoin! Or perhaps notWhat do you buy the person who has everything? How about bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that has hardly been out of the headlines in the past few weeks? Of course there is a problem, and that is that a surge of interest has seen its price increase by a factor of 17 this year and by more than 15% last week alone.But if you are really determined to take part in the volatility, there are other ways. Part of last week’s interest came because bitcoin effectively entered the mainstream, with the Chicago Board Options Exchange launching contracts allowing investors to bet on the future price of the currency. This weekend, Chicago-based CME follows suit, albeit with higher margin requirements – how much investors have to set aside as collateral – than its rival’s. Continue reading...

Document by former Uber security manager details company’s alleged ‘unethical, unlawful’ practices amid legal battle with self-driving car company WaymoUber allegedly engaged in a range of “unethical and unlawful intelligence collections”, including the theft of competitive trade secrets, bribery of foreign officials and spying on competitors and politicians, according to an explosive legal document published on Friday.It’s the latest chapter in the discovery process for the company’s messy legal squabble with Waymo, Google’s driverless car spin-off, which has accused Uber of stealing trade secrets. Continue reading...

Company acknowledges ‘passive’ consumption of material can make people ‘feel worse’ but argues more engagement could improve wellbeingFacebook has acknowledged that social media use can be bad for users’ mental health, a sign the company is feeling pressure from a growing chorus of critics raising alarms about the platform’s effect on society.Researchers for the social network admitted in a blogpost Friday that studies have found that spending time on Facebook “passively consuming information” can leave people “feeling worse”, but also argued that part of the solution is to engage and interact more with people on the platform. Continue reading...

FCA to escalate scrutiny of initial coin offerings in currencies such as bitcoin, increasingly used by startupsThe City regulator is intensifying its scrutiny of initial coin offerings (ICOs) in cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin to establish if new rules are needed for the fast-growing market.Celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Floyd Mayweather and Harry Redknapp have associated themselves with ICOs, which can be used to raise money for internet startups. Hilton, though, is reported to have deleted some of her tweets. Continue reading...

All pensioners should be offered a subsidised tablet and be taught how to use it, says 83-year-old Joan Caesar, who uses hers to Skype, chat and shop onlineThe way I assuage loneliness, as a housebound 83-year-old living alone, is to use my Samsung tablet to play Scrabble and chat to or Skype people online, to shop online so that I can look forward to deliveries and exchange pleasantries with postmen or couriers (Loneliness is ‘a giant evil’ – Cox commission, 11 December; Letters, 14 December). I also employ a cleaner and a gardener alternately for two hours a fortnight at £25 each so that I have someone to make tea for and chat to once a week.In my opinion all pensioners should be offered, via their doctor, a subsidised tablet upon retirement and be taught how to use one. They are an invaluable way of entertaining oneself and of keeping in touch with friends and relatives.

Ofcom report finds 4% of UK properties cannot access speeds of at least 10Mbps deemed necessary for modern internet useMore than 1m “forgotten homes” across the UK are unable to get sufficiently fast broadband to meet a typical family’s needs, from watching Netflix to browsing YouTube.Ofcom, the communications regulator, said 4% of UK homes and offices, about 1.1m properties, could not access broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps. Continue reading...

Sophisticated malware halts operations at power station in unprecedented attack which experts believe was state-sponsoredIn what experts are calling a watershed moment, hackers have infiltrated the critical safety systems for industrial control units used in nuclear, oil and gas plants, halting operations at at least one facility.The attackers, who are believed to be state-sponsored, targeted the Triconex industrial safety technology made by Schneider Electric SE, according to security firm FireEye and Schneider, who disclosed the incident on Thursday. Continue reading...

GMO Internet will pay portion of salaries in the cryptocurrency – whose prices have recently surged – from FebruaryA Japanese company will start paying part of its employees’ salaries in Bitcoin, as it aims to gain better understanding of the virtual currency, a spokeswoman has said.GMO Internet, which operates a range of web-related businesses including finance, online advertising and internet infrastructure, will start paying up to 100,000 yen (£660/$890) monthly by Bitcoin to its employees in Japan from February next year. Continue reading...

New figures show that fewer UK writers earn enough to live on, as ACE blames falling sales of literary fiction on the recession and the rise of smartphonesThe image of the impoverished writer scratching out their masterwork in a freezing garret remains as true today as it was a century ago, according to a new report commissioned by Arts Council England (ACE), which revealed that collapsing sales, book prices and advances mean few can support themselves through writing alone.The report found that print sales of literary fiction are significantly below where they stood in the mid-noughties and that the price of the average literary fiction book has fallen in real terms in the last 15 years. Continue reading...

In the glow of your phone screen you can be vulnerable, tender and show your best side in a way you can’t on an early dateNot so many years ago I had a summer romance that was different from other summer romances.We met at a party, then he returned overseas and we spent several months locked in a dopamine-frenzied storm of messages. Sometimes hundreds a day, not respecting timezones or the real-life fragility of our connection. Continue reading...

The desktop computer is aimed at Apple-using creative professionals, and the top-spec machine costs £12,279Apple has a very expensive last-minute Christmas present for you. The just released iMac Pro is the company’s “most powerful Mac ever” – and the most expensive, starting at £4,899.

Social media platform listed just six tweets to UK parliamentary committee looking into claims that Russia meddled in referendum campaignTwitter has been attacked for its “completely inadequate” response to a parliamentary committee seeking answers about Russian misinformation operations during the EU referendum.In its submission, sent on Wednesday, the company listed just six Russian tweets that were promoted as paid advertisements on its platform during the referendum period. Continue reading...

Alan’s Gmail inbox needs tidying up, and it’s easy to sort emails and save space using built-in search commands. But not before he makes a back upIs there an easy way of doing mass deletes in Gmail? I’ve rather let the inbox grow, and I would like to trim it. Manual deletion would take forever. Yes, I know I should have archived important, useful emails. Slapped wrists! AlanYou may be surprised at how easy it is to delete thousands of Gmail messages with just a couple of clicks. The tricky bit is deleting the emails you don’t want while keeping the ones you do. Computers are stupid and do what you tell them to do, which may not be what you intended. This is why you should take a backup before embarking on an email delete-fest, but I’ll discuss that later.

The tech firm’s new streaming dongle condenses what was great about the previous generation into a smaller, cheaper packageThe Amazon Fire TV with 4K HDR is arguably the easiest and best way to play ultra HD content on your TV, condensing what was great about the previous generation into a smaller, cheaper package.The new Fire TV is no longer a set-top box – instead it’s more like the cheaper Fire TV Stick, hanging off a built-in flexible HDMI cable. It means the new Fire TV can be inserted straight into the back of a TV, hidden from view, and likely powered straight from the TV’s USB port. Continue reading...

Bryan Johnson’s company, Kernel, aims to improve mental function and treat disorders by creating a brain interfaceBryan Johnson isn’t short of ambition. The founder and CEO of neuroscience company Kernel wants “to expand the bounds of human intelligence”. He is planning to do this with neuroprosthetics; brain augmentations that can improve mental function and treat disorders. Put simply, Kernel hopes to place a chip in your brain.It isn’t clear yet exactly how this will work. There’s a lot of excited talk about the possibilities of the technology, but – publicly, at least – Kernel’s output at the moment is an idea. A big idea. Continue reading...

Prosecutors say the three created Mirai ‘botnet’ used in attack and built massive network of infected devices, but were not responsible for attack itself

Some automation brings benefits, says Roger Backhouse, but people need human interaction too; while 13 signatories to a letter say that Christmas is the perfect time to tackle the UK’s loneliness epidemicTwo connected stories in Monday’s Guardian: Tom Watson asks us to “embrace an android” while Rachel Reeves describes society’s sixth giant evil as a “crisis of loneliness”.Replacing people with machines decreases opportunities for social interactions helping many feel integrated. Self-service in shops, libraries, banks and other places means people can go all day without conversation with a “real” person. It is set to worsen, to the detriment of contact and service quality. Continue reading...