Technology | The Guardian

UN aid target | Jazz and football | Passport applications | Consumer debt | Russian hacking | An audientYou fail to mention (UK among six countries to hit 0.7% UN aid spending target, 5 January) that the United Arab Emirates has met the UN commitment of spending 0.7% of gross national income since 2013. The most recent OECD report, quoted in your article, shows that the UAE contributed 1.09% of GNI towards overseas aid in 2015, making it second only to Sweden in terms of aid spending as a proportion of GNI. The UAE shares the UK’s commitment to overseas aid.

President-elect still does not publicly support conclusion of Russia interference in US election but calls the meeting ‘constructive’Donald Trump struck a conciliatory tone with US intelligence officials after meeting with their leadership, but did not publicly support their conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential contest.In a statement issued ahead of the release of a declassified version of the intelligence assessment, Trump said he had “tremendous respect for the work and service done by the men and women of this community”, describing his meeting with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, and other senior intelligence officials, as “constructive”. Continue reading...

Wireless power is still in its infancy, but CES 2017 has marked a significant milestone for the technologyOver the past few years, wires have been cut for everything from internet connections to earphones – but still, almost every device needs to be plugged in at least once a day to charge. That may be about to change.

In this slim volume by Klaus Schwab, founder of the organisation behind Davos, corporate-speak disguises a harsh realityMuch mirth ensued recently when Jeremy Corbyn’s crack publicity team issued a photograph of the dear leader with a compressed quote from his speech: “We now face the task of creating a New Britain from the fourth industrial revolution – powered by the internet of things and big data to develop cyber physical systems and smart factories.” Wait, what?One may be forgiven for suspecting that Corbyn had not a clue what he was uttering, but the “fourth industrial revolution” is an actual thing, at least according to some analysts. The first was steam-powered; the second electrical; the third the birth of the computer age; and the fourth – which some argue is just a continuation of the third – is the era of wearable gadgets, 3D printing, gene editing, machine intelligence and networked devices such as street lights full of electronic sensors, or smart fridges that order eggs when you’ve run out. The dream of networking ordinary objects with cheap processors and wireless communication comes under the rubric of “the internet of things”, which is (or ought to be) short for “the internet of things that should not be connected to the internet”. Inevitably, some bored teen will hack your smart fridge to flood your kitchen while you’re away; the more urban infrastructure is computerised, the more vulnerable it will be to cyber-attack. The “smart city” is the hackable city. Continue reading...

Company won’t say why video showing a man bound, gagged and cut with a knife amid shouts of ‘fuck Donald Trump’ wasn’t taken down for 30 minutes

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

A small silicone gadget attached to the chest gives its wearer the ability to sense which direction they face. Could it prompt a ‘cyborg’ evolution in human ability?Liviu Babitz opens his collar to reveal a small silicone gadget, the size of a matchbox, attached to his chest with two titanium bars that sit just under the skin. Most resembling a compact bike light, the North Sense that Babitz has attached is an artificial sense organ that delivers a short vibration every time the user faces North. Babitz and Scott Cohen, co-founder at Cyborg Nest, the company that created North Sense, are currently the only two using the product, which will soon be shipped out to clients who have pre-ordered it over the last few months.“Around us is an entire universe we don’t perceive,” Cohen explains. “As we walk down the street there’s radiation, X-rays, infrared and ultraviolet, as well as the electromagnetic field of the planet. So we want to create new senses to become aware of our environment.” Although many people are experimenting with modifying their bodies using technology for medical or experimental purposes, Cyborg Nest are more interested in creating and extending human senses. Two of their other co-founders, Neil Harbisson and Moon Ribas, have both already installed superhuman senses – Harbisson, who is colourblind, has an ‘eyeborg’ that allows him to “hear” the light spectrum (including infrared and ultraviolet), while Ribas has a sensor in her elbow that vibrates when an earthquake occurs anywhere in the world. Continue reading...

App launched in Punjab alerts emergency response police team to their location as authorities seek to improve women’s safetyA smartphone application enabling women to report incidents of harassment to police in Pakistan’s Punjab province went live this week as authorities step up efforts to promote women’s safety in one of the worst provinces for crimes against them.

Cyber attacks, warns Gibney, are not just ‘hacking’ but a complete offensive capability – and a new form of geopolitical dysfunctionThe title of Alex Gibney’s new documentary about cyberwar has something apocalyptic about it: a digital version of the Book of Revelations, perhaps. It’s actually a technical term relating to malware developed in the last decade by the US and Israeli security services. Analysts nicknamed it “Stuxnet”, though the intelligence officers themselves gave their baby the creepy codename “Olympic Games”. Continue reading...

As a London taxi driver on the front line of the impact of driverless cars, I found Jackie Ashley’s article (Driverless cars should be a major political issue, 2 January) long overdue. Many of the questions she raises are worrying.The idea that faceless corporations such as Uber are developing this technology to give it away for the greater good of mankind and the environment is questionable. Once these non-national monopolies take control, they will have the power to set the price for the job, and my bet is it will not be as cheap as Jackie predicts. Just check out the companies and individuals who have bought shares in these tech platforms, there’s hardly an idealist among them. Continue reading...

US intelligence chief, James Clapper, tells Congress that ‘Russia has clearly assumed an even more aggressive cyber posture’. Clapper made the comments on Thursday during a public defense of his analyst’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the US presidential election. Committee chairman John McCain preceded by stating, ‘every American should be concerned by Russia’s attack on our nation’ during his opening statement

Nobody reads the small print when they sign up to social media – so no one knows what they’re giving away. Martin Belam has found out for youThe Children’s commissioner has warned that children as young as eight are signing up to social media terms and conditions without reading or understanding the agreements they are entering.Let’s be honest, that probably goes for a lot of adults too – and most of these lengthy legal documents that we never bother to read include some rather unexpected clauses. Here are some of the more wide-reaching and most bizarre. Continue reading...

Insurance firm Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance is making 34 employees redundant and replacing them with IBM’s Watson Explorer AIA future in which human workers are replaced by machines is about to become a reality at an insurance firm in Japan, where more than 30 employees are being laid off and replaced with an artificial intelligence system that can calculate payouts to policyholders.Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance believes it will increase productivity by 30% and see a return on its investment in less than two years. The firm said it would save about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) AI system is installed this month. Maintaining it will cost about 15m yen (£100k) a year. Continue reading...

Stuart bought a netbook with only 32GB of storage, and Windows 10 is already complaining that it doesn’t have enough space for updates. What can he do?I bought a budget Acer netbook knowing I’d be forced to keep an eye on the applications I installed, and be more organised with external storage. I’m holding up my end of the bargain, but Windows 10 most certainly isn’t. Despite a relatively hassle-free installation, there has been an endless stream of prompts to free up space so it can update.I have next to nothing installed except absolute essentials such as Chrome, OpenOffice and iTunes. My iTunes library is on an external USB, and isn’t to blame. Despite this, I have less than 3GB left.I don’t know if this is a response to my little rant last week, but either way, it’s a good question. For those who missed it, I said: “I think 32GB Flash memory drives are too small for traditional laptop uses. Microsoft has reduced the size of Windows 10 ... but it’s going to get bigger with use. There will be numerous upgrades, growing log files, swap files, and large caches of temporary internet files. Looking three years or six upgrades ahead, I can’t see a 32GB drive coping without some massive clean-ups.” Continue reading...

Information security took a hammering at Chaos Communications Congress, with intercoms, smart meters and even numbers themselves in the spotlightChaos Communications Congress is the world’s oldest hacker conference, and Europe’s largest. Every year, thousands of hackers gather in Hamburg to share stories, trade tips and discuss the political, social and cultural ramifications of technology.As computer security is a big part of the hacker world, they also like to break things. Here are five of the most important, interesting, and impressive things broken this time. Continue reading...

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Alex Hern wanted to get closer to his work by spending a day in a VR world. Future of employment, or a digital headache?Virtual reality is here. You can pilot a starfighter, make sculptures out of virtual clay and experience award-winning journalism … but can you use it to get some work done?I persuaded my editor to let me give it a go, doing a day’s work living in a virtual world created by the Oculus Rift. Continue reading...

Unveiled at CES, home assistant can play music and tell you the weather but also order your vacuum cleaner to start cleaning the house and turn on your ovenLG unveiled its own competitor to Amazon Echo and Google Home on Wednesday – a home assistant that can play music and tell you the weather but also order your vacuum cleaner to start cleaning the house and turn on your oven.The Hub Robot, which LG said will go on sale in 2017, was shown for the first time in Las Vegas ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show, which opens to the public on Thursday. Continue reading...

A new iOS might have a mode to allow you to check your messages mid-movie without disturbing people. But would it be a good thing?For those who see the cinema as the last refuge from mobile phones, rumours about Apple’s latest squeeze on our attention spans will be alarming. Sonny Dickson, a longtime Apple news leaker, tweeted that iPhones could have a “theatre mode”. People have speculated that this could be silent notifications and a dark screen.Related: Turn it on! Future iPhones and iPads to have 'theatre mode' for use in cinemas Continue reading...

A bumper guide to the most exciting, innovative and impressive new games of the coming yearEvery new year brings with it the promise of astonishing video games, but what does 2017 have in store? Will this be a vintage year?From returning legends to innovative new projects, there’s an impressive amount of fascinating stuff on the way – and we’ve tried to cram in everything, including big budget sequels, unexpected offshoots and tiny independent projects. Continue reading...

Apple leaker says new icon will feature on next iOS update to reduce annoyance caused by smartphones during screeningsFuture versions of the iPad and iPhone may include a newly designed “theatre mode”, designed to overcome the annoyance caused to filmgoers by cinema patrons checking their smartphones.iOS 10.3 to feature a new Theatre mode - will include a new popcorn-shaped Control Center icon. Continue reading...

Hyperface project involves printing patterns on to clothing or textiles that computers interpret as a face, in fightback against intrusive technologyThe use of facial recognition software for commercial purposes is becoming more common, but, as Amazon scans faces in its physical shop and Facebook searches photos of users to add tags to, those concerned about their privacy are fighting back.Berlin-based artist and technologist Adam Harvey aims to overwhelm and confuse these systems by presenting them with thousands of false hits so they can’t tell which faces are real. Continue reading...

It has F1 acceleration and a ‘driverless valet’ system but concerns persist the sedan may never go into productionElectric car company Faraday Future unveiled “a new species” of car in Las Vegas on Tuesday night: an electric sedan that will have the acceleration of a Formula One car and the ability to learn and adapt to the driver.The FF 91, which the company says will go into production in 2018, would see Faraday Future compete with Tesla for the electric sports car market. The FF 91 has 1,050hp and can accelerate 0-60mph in 2.39 seconds, while the Tesla Model S P100D can reach 60mph in 2.5 seconds. Continue reading...

Facebook CEO’s ‘personal challenge’ to have visited and met people in every state is latest move that indicates his intention to pursue government serviceMark Zuckerberg has given more weight to the idea that he could move into politics with the announcement of a statesmanly personal challenge for 2017.In previous years the Facebook CEO has learned Mandarin, pledged to run at least a mile each day and built a virtual assistant called Jarvis to control his home. This year he wants to have visited and met people in every state in the US. He’s already visited about 20 states, which means he has to travel to about 30 states by the end of the year. Continue reading...

Couple alleges Apple should be held accountable for daughter’s death in car crash with distracted driver, after it patented but never introduced ‘safer’ FaceTimeA couple whose five-year-old daughter was killed after a distracted driver drove into their car is suing Apple for failing to introduce an iPhone safety feature it patented in 2014 to discourage people from using FaceTime while driving.The lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara superior county court, relates to an incident that took place on Christmas Eve 2014, when a driver allegedly using the FaceTime video chat application on his iPhone 6 Plus drove into the car of Bethany and James Modisette. The couple, along with their daughters Isabella and Moriah, were injured in the accident, and Moriah later died in the hospital from her injuries. Continue reading...

One third of savings offered to customers on London accommodation comes from having lower tax bill than traditional hotelsAirbnb may be known for offering frugal travellers savings over traditional hotels, but a new investigation reveals that a lot of the savings the company can offer in the UK come not from fancy technology, but tax advantages.According to the Financial Times, around one third of the savings the company offers customers on accommodation in London comes from having a lower tax bill. Continue reading...

With Trump in the White House it’s time for Elon Musk to step up as an Iron Man with all the trimmings, and we’ll need synthohol to get us through2016 was a year full of possibility. From new wireless earbuds to virtual assistants built into speakers a lot of what we saw seemed like a glimpse of a better future. But what if someone actually made the tech we dream of? Here’s the products we’d love to see in 2017. Continue reading...

Group leaves nonsensical message about its social network AnonPlus, saying it is ‘non-criminal’A group claiming to be part of the international hacking network Anonymous has taken over Victoria’s Human Rights Commission website with a nonsensical message about its social network AnonPlus.Instead of the commission’s website and its pages, a message from AnonPlus appears on the screen which says the group is “non-criminal”. It is unclear why the commission’s website was targeted. Continue reading...

Women battle old-fashioned sexism and new forms of harassment to become big players in the world of professional gamingTwo years ago Chelsea quit her job as a pharmacy technician to play video games.“I went to work one day and I was like, ‘I would actually be making more money if I had stayed at home and kept playing video games than coming here,’” she says. That week she handed in her resignation. Continue reading...

Digital currency outperformed all its central-bank-issued counterparts in 2016 with 125% rise in valueBitcoin has started 2017 with a bang, with its value hitting a three-year high of more than $1,000 (£815).The nascent digital currency, which has been criticised as a vehicle for a range of nefarious characters from drug dealers to tax evaders to operate, outperformed all its central-bank-issued counterparts with a 125% climb in value in 2016. Continue reading...

President-elect warns reporters on New Year’s Eve against being quick to pin blame on Moscow for the hacking of Democratic party emailsDonald Trump has expressed continued skepticism over whether Russia was responsible for computer hacks of Democratic party officials.Related: US-Russia tensions rise as malware found at Vermont electric utility Continue reading...

Our tips for the companies set to make waves in the new year, from a disruptive banking startup to the budget smartphone taking on Samsung and AppleThis year was a mixed bag for startups. Powa Technologies, an e-commerce company that was one of Britain’s so-called unicorns (a startup valued at over $1bn), crashed hard, declaring bankruptcy early in 2016. US wearables company Pebble sold to Fitbit for less than a 10th of its peak valuation. But on the plus side, Europe minted – foaled? – 10 new unicorns, and Finnish gaming company Supercell became the continent’s first “decacorn” (a startup valued at over $10bn).But for some startups, the year ahead is nothing but hopeful. Here are some of the companies that look set to have a 2017 they will remember for some time. Continue reading...

US president-elect Donald Trump questions allegations that Russia used hackers to interfere in the American election. Trump says it’s “unfair” to blame Russia if investigators are not yet sure over who is behind the suspected cyber attacks. He tells a reporter he that it “could be somebody else” responsible for the hacks

New titles for 2017 suggest a greater accent on the moral challenges of our troubled timesIn December, footage emerged of the Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki visiting the Dwango Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Tokyo. In the clip, which was broadcast as part of an NHK documentary, the director of Spirited Away is shown a video of a computerised humanoid creature that has taught itself to walk by using its head and buttocks to shimmy along the ground. After the presentation Miyazaki sits in thought, before issuing his verdict. “Whoever creates this stuff has no idea what pain is whatsoever,” he says. “I am utterly disgusted.”Miyazaki’s delivery has none of the vein-throbbing fury of a Gordon Ramsay – only the life-haunting melancholy of the disappointed father. “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself,” Miyazaki adds. A devastated researcher reels from the blow, and judging by the look on his face may never recover from it. Continue reading...

Want to improve your fitness, sleep better or start making music this year? Our writers put the latest gadgets – and their New Year resolutions – to the testThe goal

Among the 100,000 Australians who play geocaching – which combines ‘bushwalking and geeky technology’ like GPS – the update to Australia’s latitude and longitude is a talking pointAustralia is on the move.The continent drifts in a north-north-east direction at rate of 7cm a year. But, from this year, its recorded latitude and longitude will move 1.8 metres – a scheduled update to the local coordinate system to reflect the movement of the Earth’s tectonic plates. Continue reading...

Pupils who struggle to stay away from their mobiles and laptops can take part in a pioneering campOne of Britain’s first “digital detox” companies is planning to expand its programmes to include teenagers as concern grows at the number of young people apparently unable to withdraw from the online world.The website of Time To Log Off offers punters the chance “to reconnect with the world offline, leaving you relaxed and energised to return to your daily life”. So far it has specialised in detox breaks for adults, but its first teenage weekend will open in Somerset during the Easter holidays. Continue reading...

The place to see out the year arguing about video games on the internetIt’s the end of 2016! Why not celebrate in style by talking about games all day? Continue reading...

From 1 January, workers have ‘right to disconnect’ as France seeks to establish agreements that afford work flexibility but avoid burnoutFrom Sunday, French companies will be required to guarantee their employees a “right to disconnect” from technology as the country seeks to tackle the modern-day scourge of compulsive out-of-hours email checking.On 1 January, an employment law will enter into force that obliges organisations with more than 50 workers to start negotiations to define the rights of employees to ignore their smartphones. Continue reading...

Code found within system of a Vermont electric utility was not used to disrupt operations but represents potentially serious vulnerabilityA malware code associated with Russian hackers has reportedly been detected within the system of a Vermont electric utility.

Temporary ban of Kevin Sessums, well known for celebrity profiles and memoirs, is latest example of social media platform’s censorship of journalistsA journalist was temporarily banned from Facebook after a post in which he called Trump supporters “a nasty fascistic lot”, in the latest example of the social media platform’s censorship of journalists.Facebook “reviewed and restored” the post by Kevin Sessums after being contacted by the Guardian and dropped the posting ban. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Friday! How was your Christmas? Continue reading...

Nation states have been attacking each other electronically for a decade or more. Historians will eventually give it a name and a start and end dateThe job of the historian is often to pull together broad themes and trends, then give them a snappy title that people will easily recognise and understand. That’s how we end up with labels like “The decline and fall of the Roman Empire” or “The Rise of Hitler and the Third Reich”.As someone who studied history, I’ve had this lingering curiosity about how historians of the future will view our times. It is easy to imagine textbooks in a hundred years with chapters that start with Reagan and Thatcher and end with the global financial crisis and called something like The Western Neoliberal Consensus 1979-2008. Continue reading...

With technology developing at an increasingly rapid pace, as we head into 2017, we ask: will AI machines surpass the human race?

There were many products that promised so much and delivered so littleWhile there were some good things in technology released this year, there were also quite a few let downs. From detonating devices to damp squibs, these are the biggest let downs of 2016.

Experts say report is too little too late and comes after several others from private sector detailing alleged exploits of groups Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear

US firm filed patent document in 2014 for ‘airborne fulfilment centres’ that could use fleet of drones to make deliveriesAmazon has filed a patent for flying warehouses that could use a fleet of drones to make deliveries to customers.A patent document filed in 2014 in the US describes giant airships as “airborne fulfilment centres” (AFCs) that could be stationed above metropolitan areas and used to store and quickly deliver items at times of high demand, using drones dispatched directly from the airship. Continue reading...