Information commissioner acts after consumers are bombarded with messages promoting firm’s Satsuma LoansA West Yorkshire credit company has been fined £80,000 by a government watchdog after bombarding consumers with nearly 1m nuisance texts in six months.Bradford-based Provident Personal Credit Ltd employed third-party companies to send 999,057 unsolicited text messages to promote personal loans for its brand Satsuma Loans. Continue reading...

Parent company Ruby Life Inc agrees to pay settlement following class-action lawsuits from plaintiffs who allege company misrepresented level of securityThe parent company of hacked extramarital dating site Ashley Madison has agreed to pay an $11.2m (£8.57m) settlement to US-based users of the site, ending a two-year court battle.Ruby Life Inc agreed to pay the settlement following a number of class-action lawsuits “alleging inadequate data security practices and misrepresentations regarding Ashley Madison”. It will pay for, among other things, “payments to settlement class members who submit valid claims for alleged losses resulting from the data breach and alleged misrepresentations as described further in the proposed settlement agreement”. Continue reading...

New pictograms include a bearded person, a breastfeeding woman, a sandwich, a zombie and a T-rex and will be available with iOS 11 this autumnToday is World Emoji Day, and to celebrate, Apple has revealed the final versions of some of the new emoji it will be introducing to iOS in the next version of iOS 11, which is due out this autumn.Among the new pictograms the company has showed off are “bearded person” and “breastfeeding”, and food items such as “sandwich” and “coconut”. Continue reading...

Tesla and SpaceX CEO says AI represents a ‘fundamental risk to human civilisation’ and that waiting for something bad to happen is not an optionTesla and Space X chief executive Elon Musk has pushed again for the proactive regulation of artificial intelligence because “by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late”.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Monday.RIP George Romero. Continue reading...

Pupils at Stroud high school were outraged by strict new rules prohibiting the use of digital devices, but the results were remarkableFourteen-year-old friends Hannah Cox and Libby Shirnia admitted they were a little taken aback when their school announced stringent new rules on mobile phones, smart watches and Fitbit activity monitors.“Everyone’s reaction was: ‘This is so annoying.’” said Libby. “But then we chatted about it and thought it might be a good thing. It’s the worst thing when you’re having a conversation and someone is doing that [Libby mimes tapping and sliding on a smart screen]. Continue reading...

Algorithms can dictate whether you get a mortgage or how much you pay for insurance. But sometimes they’re wrong – and sometimes they are designed to deceiveLots of algorithms go bad unintentionally. Some of them, however, are made to be criminal. Algorithms are formal rules, usually written in computer code, that make predictions on future events based on historical patterns. To train an algorithm you need to provide historical data as well as a definition of success.We’ve seen finance get taken over by algorithms in the past few decades. Trading algorithms use historical data to predict movements in the market. Success for that algorithm is a predictable market move, and the algorithm is vigilant for patterns that have historically happened just before that move. Financial risk models also use historical market changes to predict cataclysmic events in a more global sense, so not for an individual stock but rather for an entire market. The risk model for mortgage-backed securities was famously bad – intentionally so – and the trust in those models can be blamed for much of the scale and subsequent damage wrought by the 2008 financial crisis. Continue reading...

Those who fell for the gag clause inserted into wifi terms and conditions committed to more than a month of community serviceDo you read the terms and conditions? Probably not. No one does. And so, inevitably, 22,000 people have now found themselves legally bound to 1000 hours of community service, including, but not limited to, cleaning toilets at festivals, scraping chewing gum off the streets and “manually relieving sewer blockages”.The (hopefully) joke clause was inserted in the terms and conditions of Manchester-based wifi company Purple for a period of two weeks, “to illustrate the lack of consumer awareness of what they are signing up to when they access free wifi”. The company operates wifi hotspots for a number of brands, including Legoland, Outback Steakhouse and Pizza Express. Continue reading...

Kumbu is a service to preserve your digital memories – but how do you decide which of our mountain of data to keep?

Malcolm Turnbull says the ‘law of Australia’ will prevail over the ‘laws of mathematics’ in new legislation on encryption. But he is on shaky groundThe Australian government is proposing legislation, similar to that introduced in the UK, that will compel technology companies to provide access to users’ messages, regardless of whether they have been encrypted.The attorney general, George Brandis, said on Friday: “What we are proposing to do, if we can’t get the voluntary cooperation we are seeking, is to extend the existing law that says to individuals, citizens and to companies that in certain circumstances you have an obligation to assist law enforcement if it is in within your power to do so.”

Two men now charged with rape and police believe other sexual assaults may have happenedQueensland police are urging women who have been sexually assaulted while using Uber to come forward after a second Brisbane driver was charged with rape.A 37-year-old man was due to face Brisbane magistrates court on Friday charged with the rape of a 16-year-old girl in the city’s south on 8 July. Continue reading...

Museum of London

Ride-hailing company makes second embarrassing climbdown after selling its Chinese operations last yearUber is scaling back in Russia by spinning off its operations in the country to form a new company majority-owned by local rival Yandex.The deal involves Uber’s ride-hailing and food-delivery services in Russia, as well as Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan, folding into the new firm, along with Yandex’s own taxi app, which also operates in Armenia and Georgia. Both brands will continue to operate, but the driver-side apps will be merged into one, the company said Continue reading...

The streaming giant has been accused of commissioning generic instrumental music to go on its hugely popular playlists – and save it millions in royalties. We take a listenIt is 10pm on Tuesday, and I have just become the 1,106,079th Spotify user this month to listen to an artist called Charles Bolt. The track I’m playing, Far and Beyond, is a gentle piano instrumental, not unlike the music Yann Tiersen composed for the soundtrack of whimsical French movie Amélie. This, I confess, is proving something of a problem. I have been listening to gentle piano instrumentals not unlike the music Yann Tiersen composed for the soundtrack of Amélie all day, and I suspect I reached the limits of my tolerance for it some hours back. This music long ago ceased to make me feel chilled or peaceful or any of the adjectives used in the titles of the Spotify playlists that contain it. Now I suspect it has turned me faintly hysterical. I can’t stop laughing at it. A playlist prosaically titled Piano in the Background has made me snigger.There’s something ineffably hilarious about the thudding inevitability of what comes out of my headphones. The mysteriously named Novo Talos and the Hellenic-sounding Milos Stavos both make gentle piano instrumentals not unlike the music Yann Tiersen composed for the soundtrack of Amélie. So does Wilma Harrods. And so does an artist called Mayhem, which part of me really hopes is the legendary Norwegian black metal band, famed for their horrifying backstory of church-burning, suicide and murder. I quite like the idea of their members taking a break from performing songs called things such as Chainsaw Gutsfuck in order to make gentle piano instrumentals not unlike the music from the soundtrack of Amélie. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Tami Barker, who said she was canceling a guest’s booking because the woman was Asian, must take a course in Asian American studiesAn Airbnb host who canceled a woman’s reservation using a racist remark has been ordered to pay $5,000 in damages for racial discrimination and take a course in Asian American studies.Dyne Suh, a 26-year-old law clerk, had booked Tami Barker’s mountain cabin in Big Bear, California, for a skiing weekend with friends in February, but Barker canceled the reservation by text message minutes before they arrived,stating: “I wouldn’t rent it to u if u were the last person on earth” and “One word says it all. Asian”. Continue reading...

Who needs Tim Cook? Colonel Sanders is launching a red smartphone with Huawei in China, complete with Snapdragon processor and fingerprint scannerNot content with ruling the fried chicken market, Colonel Sanders has set his sights on another avenue, the smartphone, with Kentucky Fried Chicken’s brand new Enjoy 7 Plus Android device. Watch out Apple.The new 5.5in smartphone, made in partnership with Huawei, has a Snapdragon 425 processor, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a microSD card slot and comes with Android 7.0. There’s even a fingerprint scanner on the back right above the laser engraved image of the Colonel’s head, just in case the red colour, KFC app and Sanders-based wallpaper weren’t enough. Continue reading...

Mike Ashley swoops on video games retailer after profit warning forced by shortage of Nintendo Switch consolesThe founder of Sports Direct, Mike Ashley, has added a near 26% stake in the struggling video games retailer Game Digital to his string of high street investments.Game Digital said Sports Direct, controlled by the billionaire, had acquired 44m shares, amounting to a 25.75% stake. Game released a profit warning last month due to a supply shortage of Nintendo’s Switch console and a weaker lineup of new games. Continue reading...

Japanese developers say device could help bring end to ‘sumehara’, or ‘smell harassment’, by those who disturb colleagues with their body odourWorried your body odour is out of control but suspect your colleagues are too polite to say anything about it? Now there’s an app for that, too.A Japanese tech company has begun selling a device that allows people to self-test their sweaty exteriors for three categories of smell. Continue reading...

The tech company has funded 329 papers on public policy since 2005, according to the US-based Campaign for AccountabilityGoogle has spent millions funding academic research in the US and Europe to try to influence public opinion and policymakers, a watchdog has claimed.Over the last decade, Google has funded research papers that appear to support the technology company’s business interests and defend against regulatory challenges such as antitrust and anti-piracy, the US-based Campaign for Accountability (CfA) said in a report. Continue reading...

International Convention Centre, Sydney

Court ruling comes after six-year fight with French tax authority over taxes due for years 2005 to 2010, and could have big implications for other US tech firmsA French court handed Google’s parent company, Alphabet, a reprieve from a 1.11bn-euro ($1.27bn) tax bill on Wednesday in a major victory for the tech giant.The decision comes after six years of fighting with the French tax authority over back taxes it claims are due from the tech firm for the years 2005 to 2010.

Jeremy Hunt pledges funding for 27 hospitals across England after the WannaCry ransomware attack disabled NHS IT systemsHospitals responsible for treating patients from major incidents including terrorist attacks will receive £21m to beef up their cybersecurity in the wake of the WannaCry assault on NHS IT systems.Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, has pledged the extra money to try to stop future malware attacks disrupting operations and appointments in key medical centres.

Company had ‘legitimate interest’ in showing Labour leader apparently passing empty seats on ‘ram-packed’ serviceVirgin Trains did not breach data protection laws when it published CCTV images of Jeremy Corbyn trying to find a seat on one of its services, the Information Commissioner’s Office has ruled.While normally such publication would breach the rules, Virgin had a “legitimate interest” in releasing footage of Corbyn to counter what the train company saw as misleading news reports that the Labour leader had been unable to find a seat. Continue reading...

The FCC chairman leading net neutrality rollback is a former Verizon employee and whose views on regulation echo those of broadband companiesAjit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has a reputation as a nice guy who remembers co-workers’ birthdays and their children’s names.After he was targeted by trolls on Twitter, he took it in good humor, participating in a video where he read and responded to “mean tweets”. Continue reading...

The superheroes saved by Mexico, the video-game spinoff that became China’s 12th biggest movie ever, and the British comedian worshipped by a secretive communist nation. We remember the films somebody else lovedThe Rock’s Baywatch reboot may be drowning, not waving, in multiplexes around the globe, but there is one territory where cinemagoers apparently can’t get enough of it: Germany. Put it down to the enduring cultural impact of David Hasselhoff, but the country of Angela Merkel is almost single-handedly saving Baywatch from box-office infamy. It’s not the first time a movie has struck an unexpected chord somewhere far from home, as these examples demonstrate. Continue reading...

From Sonic’s rings to Portal’s Companion Cube, here are the most memorable items we’ve collected, shot or hit someone with. Add your favourites below Continue reading...

Austrac, the federal government’s financial intelligence agency, says foreign crime syndicates are also manipulating markets and laundering moneyAustralia’s multibillion-dollar financial markets are vulnerable to an increasing risk of cyber-enabled fraud, a new report has found.Overseas-based crime syndicates are also exploiting Australia’s financial infrastructure to manipulate markets and launder money, the report by Austrac, the government’s financial intelligence agency, found. Continue reading...

Companies such as Facebook, Google and Amazon will band together for a day of action against a threat to the open internet. So what’s the big deal?About 200 internet companies and activist groups are coming together this week to mobilize their users into opposing US government plans to scrap net neutrality protections.The internet-wide day of action, scheduled for Wednesday 12 July, will see companies including Facebook, Google, Amazon, Vimeo, Spotify, Reddit and Pornhub notify their users that net neutrality – a founding principle of the open internet – is under attack. The Trump administration is trying to overturn Obama-era regulation that protected net neutrality, and there is less than a week left for people to object. Continue reading...

EFF’s annual Who Has Your Back report criticises world’s largest retailer and biggest messaging app for not keeping up on privacyAmazon and WhatsApp have been scolded by the privacy campaigning group the Electronic Frontier Foundation over their “disappointing” privacy practices, and told that they can and should be doing better in its yearly review.The seventh annual Who Has Your Back privacy report analysed the policies and public actions of 26 companies, rating them out of five categories covering industry best practices, privacy policies and their dealing with governments – including two new entries of “promises not to sell out users” and “stands up to National Security Letter (NSL) gag orders”. Continue reading...

The third-party retailer ‘my-handy-design’ has caused a stir by trying to flog smartphone cases printed with random stock photo imageryAmazon truly is the website where you can buy anything and everything: books, games, wine – and a Samsung Galaxy S5 case decorated with a pixelated image of a “doctor adjustable angle knee brace support for leg or knee injur”. Yes, missing the trailing y.That last product comes courtesy of the third-party seller “my-handy-design”, which has caused a stir in tech circles after the bizarreness of its product line was first noticed on Sunday. Continue reading...

Mark Karpelès faces up to five years in jail as Japanese authorities press charges in bankruptcy case that lost 850,000 bitcoins and $28m of user moneyThe 32-year-old head of failed bitcoin exchange Mt Gox pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges relating to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins and cash from what was once the world’s biggest exchange based in Japan.Mt Gox, which handled around 80% of global bitcoin trades, shut down and went bankrupt in February 2014, saying that it had lost about 850,000 bitcoins – then worth around half a billion US dollars – and $28m (£22m) in cash from its Japanese bank accounts. The Tokyo-based Mt. Gox blamed hackers for its lost bitcoins, pointing to a software security flaw, but subsequently said it had found 200,000 of the missing bitcoins. Continue reading...

Ofcom hunting pirate who persistently overrides frequency of Mansfield 103.2 to play The Winker’s Song by Ivor BiggunThe communications regulator is hunting a radio pirate who has repeatedly hijacked the airwaves of a local station with a deliberately offensive song about masturbation.The Winker’s Song, a 1970s ditty by an artist going by the name Ivor Biggun, has been illegally forced on to the output of Mansfield 103.2 at least eight times in the last month. Continue reading...

Robert Yang has created a ‘dick pic simulator’ and a game about consent and BDSM. Now he’s tackling the risks surrounding gay sex in the 60sIn Mansfield, Ohio, 1962, police set up hidden cameras in a public bathroom to record consensual sexual activity between men. An artist named William E Jones, who was born in Ohio that same year, later found the footage online, edited out a voiceover that he described as “as illiterate and hateful a text as I have ever heard committed to film”, and released the result in 2007 as a “found footage” documentary called Tearoom (US slang for a public bathroom in which men meet to have anonymous sex).The footage reveals the men involved were diverse in appearance – and presumably background – but all were wary. And with good reason: many of them were later arrested. Public bathrooms have long been a battlefield where LGBT people are targeted by the law.

Perhaps the US government, like those elsewhere, struggles to afford infrastructure because of the huge lengths companies go to in order to avoid paying tax, writes Tony GreenMark Zuckerberg complains that the state has failed to build adequate infrastructure for Silicon Valley workers (Can’t afford Silicon Valley rents? I’ll build you a village, Facebook boss tells workers, 10 July). I wonder if it’s occurred to Zuckerberg that perhaps the US government, like those elsewhere, struggles to afford infrastructure because of the huge lengths companies like, er, Facebook, go to in order to avoid paying the taxes that might pay for that infrastructure? I suspect not.

US government prevents companies from revealing many user data requests – a practice which firms and civil liberties activists call unconstitutionalTech companies including Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft are fighting gag orders from US courts preventing them from talking about government surveillance of their users, arguing it has a chilling effect on free speech.Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft all have policies to notify users of government requests for account information unless they are prohibited by law from doing so in exceptional circumstances such as life-threatening emergencies, child sexual exploitation and terrorism. Continue reading...

Nintendo demonstrates a firm grasp of motion-controlled fighting, the retro boom gets tough and Sony’s racer gets a revampNintendo Switch, Nintendo, cert: 12

In an industry where money rules and male investors are treated like demigods, more and more women are speaking up. But will it work?The entrepreneur Sarah Nadav was talking to a potential investor at drinks at a major tech conference, when he leaned over and stuck his tongue into her mouth.“I was like, what the hell? I’m a fucking CEO! What are you doing?” Continue reading...

What can we learn about ourselves from the things we ask online? US data scientist Seth Stephens‑Davidowitz analysed anonymous Google search results, uncovering disturbing truths about our desires, beliefs and prejudicesEverybody lies. People lie about how many drinks they had on the way home. They lie about how often they go to the gym, how much those new shoes cost, whether they read that book. They call in sick when they’re not. They say they’ll be in touch when they won’t. They say it’s not about you when it is. They say they love you when they don’t. They say they’re happy while in the dumps. They say they like women when they really like men. People lie to friends. They lie to bosses. They lie to kids. They lie to parents. They lie to doctors. They lie to husbands. They lie to wives. They lie to themselves. And they damn sure lie to surveys. Here’s my brief survey for you:Have you ever cheated in an exam? Continue reading...

VW’s quirky coupé has been rejuvenated, and this time it’s gone right back to its roots. Just don’t expect to impress your kidsPrice: from £17,370

Previously undisclosed details on the negotiations show how Amazon got Whole Foods to accept a sale process that would not result in a bidding warAmazon threatened to cancel its $13.7bn take over of Whole Foods if the US grocer involved other bidders, a regulatory filing showed on Friday, shedding new light on the acquisition.The previously undisclosed details on the negotiations show how Amazon used its deep pockets and brand as leverage to convince Whole Foods to accept a sale process that would not result in a bidding war. Continue reading...

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

We act as if technology were neutral but it’s not. The challenge now is to highlight and remove the gender bias

News agency gets €706,000 to use AI for creation of up to 30,000 local stories a month in partnership with Urbs MediaRobots will help a national news agency to create up to 30,000 local news stories a month, with the help of human journalists and funded by a Google grant.The Press Association has won a €706,000 (£621,000) grant to run a news service with computers writing localised news stories. Continue reading...

World’s largest retailer moves from tech products to its own wine, to revive the ‘direct connection between wine-maker and customer’Amazon’s continuing quest to make and sell everything in the world has led to it branching out into a new area: overseeing the production of a new range of wines.Yes, you can now get drunk in a Jeff Bezos-approved way. Pop the corks at once. Continue reading...

Find yourself in the red every month? Can’t seem to budget responsibly? Chip could be for you – if you don’t mind it snooping around your bank accountA robot banker who can pull you out of your overdraft sounds like the premise of a – dull, admittedly – sci-fi story, but Chip promises that it’s here right now.Just finishing its first year in existence, the start-up has a compelling pitch: plug it in to your bank account, and it will analyse your spending, moving money you don’t need into a savings account, and slowly helping you hit financial security. Continue reading...

Unlicensed cab service UberPop pulled from Helsinki as company continues to battle against regulation around the globeUber is pulling its primary service out of Finland as it waits for a law that will deregulate the taxi market to be passed.The cab firm, which exclusively operates in the nation’s capital Helsinki, is suspending its UberPop service, which allows any driver to sign up and offer unlicensed taxi trips. Continue reading...

‘NotPetya’ ransomware creators move £8,000 in bitcoin, leaving observers uncertain over the attack’s motiveThe hackers behind the NotPetya ransomware, which wiped computers in more than 60 countries in late June, have moved more than £8,000 worth of bitcoins out of the account used to receive the ransoms.The transfer has added credence to messages purporting to be from the attackers offering to decrypt every single infected computer for a one-off payment of £200,000, after security researchers suggested they may be state-sponsored actors. Continue reading...

Report says NHS clinicians sending scans using photo messaging app is ‘clearly insecure, risky and non-auditable’Doctors are using Snapchat to send patient scans to each other, a panel of health and tech experts has found, concluding the “digital revolution has largely bypassed the NHS”.Clinicians use camera apps to record particular details of patient information in a convenient format, the panel said in a report, describing it as “clearly an insecure, risky, and non-auditable way of operating, and cannot continue”.

This powerful study, subtitled How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy, exposes the bias in predictive modellingAs a child, mathematics was Cathy O’Neil’s passion: “math provided a neat refuge from the messiness of the real world”. After a stint in academia she began working for a hedge fund (“the smuggest of the players on Wall Street”) just before the 2008 crash. That’s when she recognised the danger posed by mathematical models or, as she neatly terms them in this fascinating book, Weapons of Math Destruction. Her main point is that predictive models are never neutral but reflect the goals and ideology of those who create them. They also tend to load the dice against poor people, reinforcing inequality in society. From calculating university rankings or credit ratings and processing job applications, to deciding what advertising you see online or what stories appear in your Facebook news feed, algorithms play an increasingly important role in our lives. Even the police use big data to help them predict where crimes may occur. The problem, as O’Neil so eloquently demonstrates, is that these algorithms are often incapable of reflecting the real world: “mathematical models should be our tools, not our masters”.• Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy is published by Penguin. To order a copy for £8.49 (RRP £9.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. Continue reading...

What is it like to flee your home and start again in a new country? Asylum seekers live on £5 a day while they wait to hear whether they can stay in the UK. This exclusive Guardian virtual reality film allows you to experience how this period of limbo feels, waiting for a decision that will affect the rest of your life• Guardian VR - see the worldTo watch the full experience click here. Continue reading...