Technology | The Guardian

Jordan Erica Webber delves into the world of the virtual celebrity, from live concert performances to social-media influencersSubscribe and review on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom and Mixcloud. Join the discussion on Facebook and TwitterIn April 2018, Instagram influencer, Miquela Sousa, had her Instagram account hacked. A fellow influencer, Bermuda, deleted all of the 19-year-old’s posts, replacing some with pictures of herself. The reason for the hacking was simple: Bermuda was blackmailing Miquela into telling her more than one million followers the truth. Continue reading...

Company says no data compromised by 16-year-old although court hears he stored information’ in a folder called ‘hacky hack hack’A 16-year-old boy hacked into Apple’s mainframe, downloaded internal files and accessed customer accounts because he was a fan of the company and hoped to work there one day, a Melbourne court has heard.

The social network ploughs its way through the world and deals with the consequences later. In Myanmar, that strategy has had deadly consequencesWhen Facebook invited journalists for a phone briefing on Tuesday evening to talk about its progress in tackling hate speech in Myanmar, it seemed like a proactive, well-intentioned move from a company that is typically fighting PR fires on several fronts.But the publication of a bombshell Reuters investigation on Wednesday morning suggested otherwise: the press briefing was an ass-covering exercise. Continue reading...

Thousands of audio programmes are free to listen to and most are available via smartphone appsListening to audio programmes, or podcasts, is simple if you have access to the internet. You just need to find a podcast platform or app that suits you and then sample some of the many thousands of podcasts made around the world. All podcasts are free, and most are available via many different apps. Continue reading...

Ian doesn’t like the way the US is going, and wonders if he could avoid using the country’s PC products. Good luck with thatIf I wanted to show my distaste for the direction the US is going by boycotting American PC hardware, software and services, could it be done? IanYou could certainly eliminate a lot of American products, but you might be giving up features without getting any ethical benefits. For example, more than a billion people already manage without a lot of American technology because they live in China or Russia. While I share your distaste for the Trump regime, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are not exactly choirboys.

Avatars of real-life DJs curate – and create – cool music and players have ownership of their nightclubs in the latest After Hours update, which puts GTA at the heart of pop cultureIn 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the first record you hear on a car radio is Billie Jean, no matter what you drive. Unseen code binds this piece of music to an important point in time and the experience of being behind the wheel. When I first got my driving licence, I recreated the moment in my crappy Vauxhall Astra, so strong was the association. In video games such as GTA, as in real life, music and memories are closely interlinked.Sixteen years since Vice City, Rockstar Games has taken in-game musical experiences further in GTA Online, the immensely popular web version of its famous (and infamous) series. The latest After Hours immortalises four real-life DJs in the most successful entertainment product ever made; nearly 100 million people have bought Grand Theft Auto V, according to Rockstar’s latest figures, and millions of them play online. Now playing in GTA Online’s virtual clubs are Solomun’s pulsing crowd pleasers, Dixon powdery synthesisers, Tale of Us’s sweeping basslines and the Black Madonna’s infectious groove. Each act is debuting new music in nightclubs spread across Grand Theft Auto V’s satirical Los Angeles, Los Santos. Continue reading...

Misinformation has lead to violent attacks against Rohingya but report says company has been slow to respondFacebook’s efforts to crack down on hate speech in Myanmar, which has contributed to violent attacks against the minority Muslim population, have been inadequate, according to a Reuters investigation.The social media company has faced warnings from human rights groups and researchers that its platform was being used to spread misinformation and promote hatred of Muslims, particularly the Rohingya, since 2013. As Facebook has grown its user base in the country to 18 million, hate speech has exploded, but the company has been slow to respond to the growing crisis. Continue reading...

In our next We Need to Talk About podcast, we’ll consider the key questions surrounding AI. What are your views?If 2017 was the year artificial intelligence rose to prominence, 2018 is when we’re seeing it go mainstream. Whichever area you work in, it’s likely AI will become increasingly prevalent in your everyday activity. Wherever you are in the world – whether you are an expert in AI, someone whose job increasingly uses AI or simply an interested reader we would like to hear from you.Earlier this year, the Guardian published a long read that asked: Has technology evolved beyond our control? Its author, James Bridle, argued that “our technologies are extensions of ourselves, codified in machines and infrastructures, in frameworks of knowledge and action. Computers are not here to give us all the answers, but to allow us to put new questions, in new ways, to the universe.” Continue reading...

SEC is reportedly investigating whether the Tesla CEO’s tweets about going private may have violated US securities lawThe US’s top financial watchdog has reportedly sent subpoenas to Tesla regarding chief executive Elon Musk’s plans to take the company private.Fox Business Network reported on Wednesday, citing sources, that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is formally investigating Musk’s recent tweets that he had “secured” funding to take the troubled electric vehicle company private. Continue reading...

London mayor says cap on new licences would mean less congestionThe London mayor is seeking powers to limit the number of Uber drivers operating in the capital, blaming a surge in private hire drivers for the city’s increasing congestion and pollution.Sadiq Khan said a cap on new licences was an urgent and necessary step. But unlike New York, which announced a cap last week, he is unable to impose restrictions. Continue reading...

Lifeguards warn parents to put phones away, after more than 300 people drowned this yearGerman lifeguards have issued a warning that a growing number of child drownings this summer are linked to their parents’ obsession with mobile phones.

Far-right conspiracy theorist will not be able to tweet, retweet or favourite tweets for seven daysControversial Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been suspended from Twitter for up to seven days.The suspension has put Jones into what Twitter describes as “read-only mode” preventing him from tweeting, liking or retweeting, but not removing his tweets or personal account from the social network. The Infowars Twitter account remains unaffected. Continue reading...

The author of global bestseller Sapiens is back, with a self-help guide for a bewildering age – and its sweeping statements are peppered with truly mind-expanding observationsYuval Noah Harari’s career is a publishing fairytale. An obscure Israeli academic writes a Hebrew-language history of humanity. Translated into English in 2014, the book sells more than a million copies. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg includes it in his book club in 2015. Ridley Scott wants to turn it into a TV series. Barack Obama says it gave him perspective on “the core things that have allowed us to build this extraordinary civilization that we take for granted”. Its sales spike when it is mentioned on Love Island.That book was Sapiens, which is bold, breezy and engaging; romping its way from the discovery of fire to the creation of cyborgs in less than 500 pages. The future-gazing follow-up, Homo Deus, was also a global bestseller, and now Harari has turned his attention to the present with 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. It covers everything from war – Harari’s academic specialism – to meditation, his favourite leisure activity. (He does two hours a day, and a month-long retreat every year.) The collection of pieces aims to take stock of where humanity has reached, and where it might be going. Ultra-topical concerns such as “fake news” and the rise of authoritarians such as Donald Trump are set in the context of centuries of our biological and social evolution. As Obama said, this approach certainly gives the reader perspective. Ivan the Terrible was probably more, well, terrible than Trump. Cheer up! Until you remember climate change, at least – because, to his credit, Harari is one of the few futurists to factor ecological collapse into his predictions. Continue reading...

Company signs exclusive three-year agreement to screen all 380 Spanish top-flight football matches across south AsiaFacebook has bought the rights to show Spanish top-flight football in the Indian subcontinent in the latest move by a US technology company into sports rights.The company has signed an exclusive agreement to show La Liga games featuring Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and other stars for the next three years. The deal will allow Facebook to show all 380 matches for the new season, which starts on Friday, to users in India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Continue reading...

Turning off location history won’t hide where you are when you use search, Maps or weather. Here’s how to stop being trackedWhen you turn off “location history” Google still tracks your location when you use several of its key services including Maps, search and the weather. Here’s how to really turn all of it off.A report from the Associated Press has highlighted that the feature called location history is just one of the systems that Google uses to track your location for personalised services, local search and other purposes such as advertising. Continue reading...

The whistleblower will speak in October at the Institute of Contemporary Arts dinnerChelsea Manning will discuss the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other issues around technology and democracy during her first appearance in the UK later this year.Manning was released from prison after being sentenced in 2013 in violation of the US Espionage Act for disclosing classified government documents to WikiLeaks. In October, she will be the main guest at the Institute of Contemporary Arts dinner, which is being held in her honour. Continue reading...

Campbell Brown, head of news partnerships, tells publishers that without Facebook’s help their businesses will dieA senior Facebook executive told Australian media companies that if they didn’t cooperate with the social network, their businesses would die.According to a report by The Australian, Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, told a group of more than 20 broadcasters and publishers that she wanted to help media companies develop sustainable business models through the platform. Continue reading...

Some services on Android and iPhone automatically stores your movements even after you pause the ‘location history’ settingGoogle wants to know where you go so badly that it records your movements even when you explicitly tell it not to.An Associated Press investigation found that many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you've used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so. Continue reading...

Musk said that the Saudi investment fund had approached him several times over the last two years with offers to help the struggling company go private

Machine-learning system can identify more than 50 different eye diseases and could speed up diagnosis and treatmentA new machine-learning system is as good as the best human experts at detecting eye problems and referring patients for treatment, say scientists.The groundbreaking artificial intelligence system, developed by the AI-outfit DeepMind with Moorfields eye hospital NHS foundation trust and University College London, was capable of correctly referring patients with more than 50 different eye diseases for further treatment with 94% accuracy, matching or beating world-leading eye specialists. Continue reading...

Let’s hope Rockstar Games’ follow-up has the same emotional heft as its predecessor while also reflecting our troubled timesAfter years of promotional material largely consisting of moody western landscape shots and artwork of men on horses, the new gameplay trailer for Red Dead Redemption 2 has finally given us a better idea of what you can actually do in Rockstar Games’ death-of-the-old-west America when the game comes out in October. But while there’s plenty to get excited about – I mean, that’s definitely Steven Ogg two minutes and 55 seconds in, right? – it would be great if Red Dead Redemption 2 reflected the times.The world is a vastly different place to the one that greeted the first Red Dead Redemption in 2010. Twitter was a fun little diversion in 2010, rather than an open sewer full of Nazis. Donald Trump was just a sideshow clown. The word Brexit didn’t even exist. We might be more in need of a truly great video game to distract us from the trash fire that is real-world current events than we ever have been before. Continue reading...

If video games are to be politically revolutionary, we need to reimagine what they could look likeIn recent weeks the well-trodden argument that “games aren’t political” has resurfaced, fuelled partly by the refusal of the developer of The Division 2 to acknowledge the political significance of its forthcoming game, set in a devastated post-pandemic Washington DC kept in order by the military. On the contrary, like all art that arises from culture, games are deeply political. They are also often biased – even when their designers intend them to be impartial – towards conservative, patriarchal and imperialist values such as empire, dominion and conquering by force.But video games can and should be put to work for leftwing politics at this moment of cultural and political uncertainty. Many games communicate progressive values in their narrative and content – but if they are to go further, we must reimagine what a game could look like. Continue reading...

Getting the most out of a tank of petrolIn all the recent coverage of diesel emissions and the arrival of cleaner electric engines, you might have missed new research from the RAC showing that petrol prices soared in May, rising faster in that single month than they have in the past 18 years. But don’t panic, they’re still not as high as the peak of 141.9 pence per litre in April 2012.As many of you head off on long summer trips, it’s a good time to remember the easy things we can do to reduce our consumption. Here are four steps to improve your MPG. Continue reading...

Platform bars rightwing ‘western chauvinist’ group for violating its policy against violent extremistsTwitter suspended numerous accounts associated with the rightwing “western chauvinist” group the Proud Boys on Friday, the eve of the anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.Verified accounts belonging to the group and its founder, Gavin McInnes, were suspended for violating the platform’s policy against “violent extremist groups”, a company spokeswoman confirmed. A number of non-verified accounts for various Proud Boys chapters were also suspended. Continue reading...

Lawsuits say ‘funding secured’ tweet broke securities laws and aimed to punish short-sellersTesla and Elon Musk were sued twice on Friday by investors who say they fraudulently engineered a scheme to squeeze short-sellers, including through Musk’s proposal to take the electric car company private.The lawsuits were filed three days after Musk stunned investors by announcing on Twitter that he might take Tesla private in a record $72bn transaction that valued the company at $420 per share, and that “funding” had been “secured”. Continue reading...

Voicemail systems have had some of the same weaknesses for decades, and hackers could use those to break into PayPal and WhatsApp accounts

Advertising Standards Authority set to rule on claims about retailer’s Prime serviceAmazon is to be told to stop claiming its Prime service guarantees next-day delivery by the UK advertising regulator after customers complained it was failing to provide their goods on time in the run-up to Christmas, it has been reported.The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is expected to rule that the firm’s claims to be able to operate an “unlimited one-day delivery” service are misleading in the case of some items. Continue reading...

A Guardian investigation, in collaboration with German broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk, reveals the open-access publishers who accept any article submitted for a feeA vast ecosystem of predatory publishers is churning out “fake science” for profit, an investigation by the Guardian in collaboration with German publishers NDR, WDR and Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin has found.More than 175,000 scientific articles have been produced by five of the largest “predatory open-access publishers”, including India-based Omics publishing group and the Turkish World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, or Waset. Continue reading...

With the removal of the conspiracy theorist’s material from key platforms, firms have changed their tune on ‘free speech’ – but some see the move as more about money than moralityAt this very moment, the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is almost certainly sitting in front of a camera, shouting that he has been silenced. If you are so inclined, you can easily watch and listen along, either by going to his website, downloading his iPhone and Android apps, or following him on Twitter.Related: Facebook, Apple, YouTube and Spotify ban Infowars' Alex Jones Continue reading...

Holiday camp firm says payment details secure and it will contact those affectedButlin’s has said up to 34,000 guest records may have been accessed by hackers.The holiday camp firm said the customer data at risk included names, home addresses, email addresses and phone numbers, but that payment details were secure. Continue reading...

Medtronic, a manufacturer of pacemakers and implantable insulin pumps, won’t fix security vulnerabilities in its products

Regulator reportedly investigating as pressure builds on Musk to show he has raised $70bn to take company privateTesla is likely to face investigation by US securities market regulators following the CEO Elon Musk’s extraordinary tweet that he had “funding secured” to take the company private, according to a media report.Related: Elon Musk grumbles at short-sellers, but is private ownership right for Tesla? | Nils Pratley Continue reading...

Malcolm Fowles on ‘super-efficient market gardening’, Colin Hines on infrastructure-building, and Susannah Everington on avoidance of self-service tillsYvette Cooper’s strategy to support workers to move to new, good-quality jobs from those destroyed by the coming technological revolution is commendable (Automation could destroy jobs. We must deal with it now, 7 August). However, it presupposes that such jobs will themselves be enabled by the new technology, and that enough of them can be created. Both are debatable points.An additional strategy is to support moves into good-quality jobs that depend less, if at all, on technology. An example is food production. In France, pioneering efforts at Bec Hellouin have proved that intensive cultivation of vegetables and fruit with well-designed hand tools can be as productive and profitable per hour worked as large-scale mechanised farming. Crucially, and counterintuitively, these results get better as the cultivated area per person gets smaller. Judging from the pioneers, such work is conducive to physical and mental health, soil health, family life, and time for activities outside work. This is not a return to peasantry. Continue reading...

Top-of-the-range Android smartphone has new Bluetooth stylus and intelligent dual camera system with dual aperture lensesSamsung’s latest flagship Android smartphone is the productivity-focused Galaxy Note 9: a larger, longer-lasting version of its stylus-touting phablet.Announced at an event in New York the Note 9 resembles last year’s Note 8, replete with glass front and back, curved edges and slide-out S Pen stylus. Continue reading...

There are many reasons why entrepreneurs get frustrated by the demands of the marketsElon Musk’s announcement that he was considering taking Tesla off the stock market should not have been a total surprise.Related: Tesla shares soar after Elon Musk floats plan to take company private Continue reading...

BML wants to buy her son a gaming PC that will also be good for school work, but doesn’t want to pay over the oddsMy son has an Xbox but would like a gaming computer. I would like a PC that he can use for his school work. He is starting his GCSEs this year. I don’t want to spend more than £1,000. Could you recommend something which will do both jobs? BMLPC manufacturers love the gaming market, which is growing strongly and worth more than $30bn a year. Most PCs outperform their users, and the processor goes to sleep between keystrokes. Gamers, by contrast, never have enough power, and will pay more for better performance. This translates into higher prices and better profit margins. They also like cases that look like props from science-fiction movies. Continue reading...

In our undemocratic digital world, people have little power to shape the tools that affect their lives. But tech workers could change thatAn unprecedented wave of rank-and-file rebellion is sweeping Big Tech. At one company after another, employees are refusing to help the US government commit human rights abuses at home and abroad.At Google, workers organized to shut down Project Maven, a Pentagon project that uses machine learning to improve targeting for drone strikes – and won. At Amazon, workers are pushing Jeff Bezos to stop selling facial recognition to police departments and government agencies, and to cut ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). At Microsoft, workers are demanding the termination of a $19.4m cloud deal with Ice. At Salesforce, workers are trying to kill the company’s contract with Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Continue reading...

The trend, labelled ‘Snapchat dysmorphia’, suggests some people are experiencing a worrying blur between reality and social mediaPlastic surgeons are reporting that patients are coming to them with selfies of themselves edited using the filters on Snapchat or Instagram and asking to look more like the retouched photo.Researchers at the Boston medical center have authored an article in the journal JAMA Facial Plastic Surgery, which labels the trend “Snapchat dysmorphia” and argues that filters on apps are having a disastrous impact on people’s self-esteem. Continue reading...

A buy-out could be done, but may not be the paradise the entrepreneur imaginesTesla’s Elon Musk isn’t the first chief executive to be infuriated by short-sellers, or to grumble about swings in the share price, or to complain that the outside world is stupidly obsessed by quarterly earnings figures. Prod most bosses of quoted companies and you’ll hear similar grumbles. The stock market can be ridiculously short-termist.In Tesla’s case, the complaint sounds roughly fair. Musk declared in his email to staff that Tesla “is the most shorted stock in the history of the stock market”. Short positions have equated to 25% of the share capital, currently implying $10bn-plus of bets that the electric car company is over-valued or will fail. Continue reading...

Statement from board members suggests Musk’s tweets – which prompted surge in price – were less spontaneous than imaginedTesla directors have said they knew about Elon Musk’s surprise proposal to privatise the money-losing car maker before he tweeted about it and have met several times in the past week to discuss the proposal.Related: Tesla shares soar after Elon Musk floats plan to take company private Continue reading...

The developer talks about Super Smash Bros Ultimate, the ‘eternal appeal of gaming’ and the challenge of appealing to casual fans and pros at the same timeMasahiro Sakurai is 48 years old, but looks almost ageless. In his face, you can see the prodigious teenager he once was. Sakurai was 19 when he directed his first game, Kirby’s Dream Land, at HAL Laboratory, a Tokyo developer that made a string of excellent games for Nintendo’s consoles in the 90s. His parents were perplexed; in their generation, video games didn’t exist. “They never supported me actively, there was a lot of uncertainty and fear,” he recalls. “That said, after I worked on the Kirby games, I noticed that all of a sudden my parents had Kirby paraphernalia hanging around the house.”At his own company, Sora Ltd, Sakurai is now the director and public face of Smash Bros, Nintendo’s chaotic fighting game that features characters from throughout its 35-plus-year history alongside special guests from elsewhere in the gaming world, such as Final Fantasy’s Cloud, Sonic and Metal Gear Solid’s Snake. He is a calm presence in Nintendo Direct broadcasts, which deliver a drip-feed of information to fans, going into almost comically deep detail on characters’ moves and animations and occasionally betraying a deadpan sense of humour. Continue reading...

Musk tweets plan as it emerges Saudi Arabia has built up $2.9bn stake in tech giantElon Musk has launched a campaign to take Tesla private on a day that included several provocative tweets, a suspension (and resumption) of trading in the company’s shares, reports of a significant Saudi investment, a surge in stock price, and an evocative, Musk-tinged appeal to the Tesla faithful: “The future is very bright and we’ll keep fighting to achieve our mission.”The ride started with Tesla’s stock rising more than 7% after Musk tweeted he was “considering taking Tesla private” and had funding in place to do so at a price of $420 (£325) per share. Shortly afterwards, Tesla published a blogpost written by Musk entitled ‘Taking Tesla private’ that had been sent to all employees. Continue reading...

ONS says 89% of UK adults go online at least weekly but have lack of awareness over safetyInternet use in Britain has risen to record levels but there is a worrying lack of awareness around security, figures show.The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found 89% of adults used the internet at least weekly this year, a rise of one percentage point on last year and up from 51% in 2006. Continue reading...

This fast-paced taster of the next Call of Duty is a good indication of how the long-running shooter is trying to moderniseOh God, it’s fast. It’s so fast. After a month playing mostly Fortnite (with the odd quick foray into Overwatch to remind me what “proper” shooters are like), the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 beta feels like jumping on to one of those holiday park waterslides and realising that you are are travelling at 4omph down a rickety plastic tube maintained by surly teenagers in flip-flops. Anything could happen – and it could happen really quickly.Of course, Call of Duty has always been slick, maintaining a 60fps frame rate and an endless spawn-kill-die dynamic, but its developer, Treyarch, has upped the speed even further for this iteration. On five small maps, players are in conflict within seconds of kick-off and remain there for the duration of the bout. It is the Napalm Death of game pacing. Continue reading...

Company first in Britain to offer choice of private hire car or black cab through same appIndia’s biggest ride-hailing firm, Ola, is taking on Uber in the UK with plans to roll out its service across the country by the end of the year.The firm is to launch in Cardiff, Newport and Vale of Glamorgan in south Wales within the next month, followed by Greater Manchester, after obtaining operating licences, and is working with local authorities to expand nationwide. Continue reading...

Google’s new mobile OS is rolling out to a select group of phones. Here’s the lowdown on the new featuresGoogle’s next version of Android finally has a name: “Pie”. It’s rolling out right now and is packed with new features, from extended battery life to new gesture navigation.Pie marks one of the biggest changes in the way Android looks and feels in some years, with a more colourful interface, a collection of new movement animations and rounded edges on almost everything. Thankfully, it’s still as fast as Android Oreo, at least on Google’s Pixel smartphones. Continue reading...

Southgate primary in West Sussex is one of many British schools bringing games into the classroom, with staff seeing benefits for parents as well as studentsAt the end of the summer term at Southgate primary school in Crawley, West Sussex, a class of 10-year-olds are folding together cardboard models of remote-controlled cars and decorating them with pipe cleaners, pens, googly eyes and tape, with the aim of using them to transport a biscuit across a table and into the open mouths of their teachers.The kids are playing with Nintendo Labo, an ingenious game that comes with a box of fold-up cardboard models that turn from inert facsimiles into working toys, with the addition of a Nintendo Switch console. Snap two controllers on to a cardboard car and it judders across the table. A cardboard piano becomes a working keyboard with a screen. A cardboard fishing rod can be used to play a fishing game, attached by string to a base housing the console. They are fun to play with, but they also teach engineering principles – the software includes a child-friendly but comprehensive breakdown of how the console uses features such as vibration, infrared cameras and gyroscopes to make the models work. Continue reading...

Guardian readers respond to reports of tech giant Amazon’s halved corporation tax billAmazon’s implication that its corporate tax payments in the UK are very low partly because of its high investments in this country is both misleading and disingenuous (Amazon halves UK corporation tax bill to £4.5m as profits treble, 3 August). Investments in, for example, buildings and machinery are financed by a combination of loans, shareholders’ funds and net earnings – crucially – after tax.In other words, investments do not reduce a company’s tax liability except by very minor amounts of later depreciation. For the bewildered public, this disingenuousness is compounded by the failure of media commentators to press Amazon accordingly to justify its explanation.

Crackdown on US conspiracy theorist for promoting violence and hate speechAll but one of the major content platforms have banned the American conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as the companies raced to act in the wake of Apple’s decision to remove five podcasts by Jones and his Infowars website.Facebook unpublished four pages run by Jones for “repeated violations of community standards”, the company said on Monday. YouTube terminated Jones’s account over him repeatedly appearing in videos despite being subject to a 90-day ban from the website, and Spotify removed the entirety of one of Jones’s podcasts for “hate content”. Continue reading...

The game designer discusses swapping horror for a strange VR adventure game about fairies, inspired by manga and Celtic folkloreThe downside to making something critically revered and loved by millions is that it isn’t easy to get out from under its shadow. For Hidetaka Miyazaki and the game development studio he now leads, FromSoftware, Dark Souls was a golden ticket. In 2004, Miyazaki was a designer on the Armored Core series of mech games. By 2015, he was the company’s president and the games he has directed – Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls and Bloodborne – have been lauded as some of the greatest of the modern era.Now, finally freed from the Dark Souls series, which came to an end (for the time being, at least) in 2016, FromSoftware has previewed two brand new games this year. One of them, the samurai-themed action game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, shares a lot of the DNA of Dark Souls: intense, violent combat, a ravaged setting full of fallen creatures, and cleverly designed locations that interlock and wrap around themselves. The other, Déraciné, is a VR adventure game about fairies. Both are under Miyazaki’s creative direction, and represent a way forward for the developer. But the inspiration for Déraciné came from looking back. Continue reading...