Taiwanese smartphone and VR headset maker could become in-house manufacturer for Google-branded productsThe Taiwanese smartphone and virtual reality headset manufacturer HTC will halt shares from Thursday, pending the “release of material information” following media reports of a purchase by Google’s parent, Alphabet.The once-powerful smartphone market player, which started life as a manufacturer of other brands’ handsets and now makes the Vive VR headset, has seen sales fall year on year for the best part of half a decade as competition from Chinese and South Korean rivals increased. Continue reading...

Unlike Google Glass and Snapchat’s Spectacles, the glasses reportedly won’t feature a camera, instead focusing on linking to Amazon’s voice assistantAmazon is planning to release a pair of Alexa-enabled smartglasses as the latest addition to its range of voice-controlled devices, according to reports.Unlike most previous smartglasses, such as the ill-fated Google Glass experiment and Snapchat’s Spectacles, the Amazon glasses won’t feature a camera in any form, bypassing the privacy concerns that have plagued the form-factor in the past. Continue reading...

As hundreds of thousands flee a brutal campaign by the Myanmar military, the social media company labels an insurgent group a ‘dangerous organization’Amid international accusations that Myanmar’s military is engaging in “ethnic cleansing” of the Rohingya Muslim minority, Facebook designated a Rohingya insurgent group a “dangerous organization” and ordered moderators to delete any content “by or praising” it.

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

Companies including Google have lobbied against bill that would hold websites liable for publishing information ‘designed to facilitate sex trafficking’A bill to combat sex trafficking that has pitted US lawmakers against Silicon Valley was at the center of debate on Tuesday, as one Republican senator decried the selling of human beings online as “one of the dark sides of the internet”.

In a region where companies like Uber and Airbnb have cashed in on unauthorized cabs and boarding houses, vendors trying to make a living selling food without a license face police crackdownsFrom their spot on the sidewalk outside San Francisco’s Dolores Park, Miguel Muniz and Juan Anguiano could see children running around the playground and hundreds of hipsters lounging on a grassy hillside amid games of beer pong and men hawking loose joints in mason jars.But the pair of palateros, or ice cream vendors, were hesitant to go to the place near the jungle gym where they would have the best shot at selling $2 ice cream bars. Park rangers would confiscate their carts and give them tickets, they said, if they ventured inside the park’s perimeter. Continue reading...

Royal Society of Arts survey suggests technology could phase out mundane roles, raise productivity and bolster wagesFour million jobs in the British private sector could be replaced by robots in the next decade, according to business leaders asked about the future of automation and artificial intelligence.

Maligned Atlanta-based agency finally goes public on earlier data breach, which happened in March, following reports company only notified payroll customersEquifax, the credit monitoring agency that lost personal data of 143 million US customers in a massive hack in May, has revealed that it was also the victim of an earlier breach in March.The earlier breach was serious enough for the company to notify customers, and bring in the information security firm Mandiant to investigate. But the millions of Americans whose personal data the company stockpiles to power its services are not technically customers of the company, and so it did not inform them. Continue reading...

New version of Apple’s smartphone and tablet software includes customisation and multitasking additions, and will be available for download todayApple’s iOS 11 will be available to download on iPhones and iPads everywhere from today, adding various new features including the ability to customise Control Centre for the first time.

Tool now owned by security firm Avast was hacked via a supply chain attack, an increasingly common method of infectionMore than two million users of anti-malware tool CCleaner installed a version of the software that had been hacked to include malware, the app’s developer confirmed on Monday.Piriform, the developer of CCleaner now owned by security firm Avast, says that its download servers were compromised at some point between 15 August, when it released version v5.33.6162 of the software, and 12 September, when it updated the servers with a new version. Continue reading...

How technology is making our minds redundant. By Franklin FoerAll the values that Silicon Valley professes are the values of the 60s. The big tech companies present themselves as platforms for personal liberation. Everyone has the right to speak their mind on social media, to fulfil their intellectual and democratic potential, to express their individuality. Where television had been a passive medium that rendered citizens inert, Facebook is participatory and empowering. It allows users to read widely, think for themselves and form their own opinions.We can’t entirely dismiss this rhetoric. There are parts of the world, even in the US, where Facebook emboldens citizens and enables them to organise themselves in opposition to power. But we shouldn’t accept Facebook’s self-conception as sincere, either. Facebook is a carefully managed top-down system, not a robust public square. It mimics some of the patterns of conversation, but that’s a surface trait. Continue reading...

New iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra will stop ads following Safari users, prompting open letter claiming Apple is destroying internet’s economic modelFor the second time in as many years, internet advertisers are facing unprecedented disruption to their business model thanks to a new feature in a forthcoming Apple software update.iOS 11, the latest version of Apple’s operating system for mobile devices, will hit users’ phones and tablets on Tuesday. It will include a new default feature for the Safari web browser dubbed “intelligent tracking prevention”, which prevents certain websites from tracking users around the net, in effect blocking those annoying ads that follow you everywhere you visit. Continue reading...

They may have only become part of the everyday internet experience in recent years, but gifs are old school. Here we chart its rise in its 30th yearThe humble gif is turning 30. The multi-purpose bitmap image format has established itself as part of internet culture, so much so that people have almost stopped arguing over how it is pronounced (overwhelmingly it is with a hard g, although the inventor of the format says he meant for it to be a soft g).The gif, or graphics interchange format, was created by programmer Steve Wilhite, who longed for an image format that could be used across different computer platforms. At the time, in 1987, this included the likes of Atari, Apple and IBM. Plus modem speeds were slow and images took a long … time … to … load. Continue reading...

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

Pro Evolution Soccer gets a Bolt boost, an arcade cult favourite prospers online, but a five-year-old 3DS game shows it age in a console revampPS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Konami; cert: 3

Political spending on TV and press is transparent but there are no rules for online ads. With allegations of Russian influence in last year’s election, that may changeEvery time a television station sells a political ad, a record is entered into a public file saying who bought the advertisement and how much money they spent.In contrast, when Facebook or Google sells a political ad, there is no public record of that sale. That situation is of growing concern to politicians and legislators in Washington as digital advertising becomes an increasingly central part of American political campaigns. During the 2016 election, over $1.4bn was spent in online advertising, which represented a 789% increase over the 2012 election. Continue reading...

The new 3 from Mazda is one of the sweetest drives on the road, thanks to the union of human and hatchbackPrice: £17,780

US credit rating firm’s announcement comes after UK authorities order it to alert British clients of cybersecurity breachAbout 400,000 people in the UK may have had their information stolen following a cybersecurity breach at the credit monitoring firm Equifax.

Instagram ‘influencers’ told to clarify paid-for ads, while health claims are taken down after advertising breachesConsumer protection bodies in the UK and US are increasing their crackdown on Instagram “influencers”, in an attempt to rein in the big business being done covertly on social media.

Chief information officer and chief security officer to exit immediately, company announces as it highlights security effortsEquifax announced late Friday that its chief information officer and chief security officer would leave the company immediately, following the enormous breach of 143 million Americans’ personal information.It also presented a litany of security efforts it made after noticing suspicious network traffic in July. Continue reading...

Don’t be suckered in: navigating the multitude offers reveals buying an iPhone 8 outright and signing up to a cheap sim-only deal is the most cost-effective optionThe iPhone 8 is available to pre-order from today, but don’t be distracted by flashy offers with low upfront costs and a high monthly fee: the cheapest way to get one is still simply buying it outright from Apple or another retailer, and taking out a low cost sim-only contract.The 64GB iPhone 8, the cheapest of the newly launched phones, costs £699 when bought directly from Apple or from a third-party electronics store such as Currys or John Lewis. Combined with a low-cost contract or pay-as-you-go sim, such as the £5 plan offered by O2’s corporate sibling Giffgaff, the cost of owning the phone for two years is £819 – lower than any competing deal of the major retailers we reviewed. Continue reading...

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

Yet HMRC’s rules are clear: you must pay VAT on your £390-plus US purchases when you fly home, which makes those big savings a lot less appealing

Electric Semi truck will be ‘tentatively’ ready for first test rides and is ‘worth seeing in person’, but can batteries and self-driving trucks really replace diesels?Tesla is set to launch its first electric lorry, which is expected to be able to drive itself, in late October as the company attempts to break into the commercial market.Chief executive Elon Musk said that the “Tesla Semi truck” is “tentatively scheduled” for unveiling and first test rides one month behind schedule on 26 October in Tesla’s hometown of Hawthorne, California. Continue reading...

Steve has only been getting 1Mbps when he has paid for 70Mbps. An engineer said there is nothing wrong with his wifi router – is there another way to check?Recently, I have only been getting 1Mbps from my wifi when it is supposed to be up to 70Mbps. An engineer came round and said there was nothing wrong with the router. His speed checker – unlike mine – showed that it was getting the required speed. He said this test was more reliable as it only used his company’s network. Can you recommend a speed checker that is reliable, and not connected to any particular company? SteveThe engineer should have made it clear that you cannot check the speed of your broadband using wifi. When you buy a broadband service from an ISP (Internet Service Provider), they are only responsible for the service delivered to your premises or, at best, to the router.

The South Park goons turn into caped crusaders, the Star Wars Death Star is avenged, Cuphead catapults players back to the ravishing 1930s, and Mario unleashes his super magic cap• Autumn arts preview 2017: Stage | Music | Film

Two ex-Google employees have said they want their new startup, Bodega, to replace corner shops. Share photos and stories of your favorite corner shops and the people who work thereTwo former Google employees have launched a tech startup with the aim of replacing corner shops. No surprise, there’s been swift backlash against the Silicon Valley techies and their company, named Bodega after a commonly used term in New York for local stores typically run by immigrants.The company is marketing essentially glorified vending machines – 5ft-wide pantries that users can unlock with their smartphones to pick up non-perishable items. There are no humans at the “stores”, which are already stationed in spots like apartment buildings, offices and gyms, and a computer program automatically charges customers’ credit cards.

Federal agencies have been barred from using cybersecurity software made by Kaspersky Lab over fears the firm has ties to state-sponsored spying programsThe US government has banned federal agencies from using cybersecurity software made by Russian company Kaspersky Lab over fears that the firm has ties to state-sponsored spying programs.

Online marketplaces face criticism from public accounts committee over foreign sellers misusing their platformsAmazon and eBay have been accused by MPs of profiting from VAT evasion at the expense of taxpayers and UK businesses.Executives representing the ecommerce groups were told that their firms were “turning a blind eye” as organised criminals in the UK and China handle undervalued or misclassified goods for the British market.

Apple’s iPhone 8 and iPhone X come with wireless charging, so there’s no need to reach for a cable any more. How does it work, what supports it and is it any faster?The new iPhone X and iPhone 8 support wireless charging for the first time in an Apple smartphone – but what is it, how does it work and is it worth using? Continue reading...

New products have same price in both currencies, suggesting Apple is taking advantage of British customers’ acceptance of price hikes since the EU Referendum

Apple’s new smartphone will unlock using face recognition, thanks to infrared and 3D sensors. This technology is spreading – and complacency is not an option

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

User reported photo of Harry Beswick, 12, who has no left eye, to app’s content moderators, prompting outrageInstagram has apologized for taking down a photo of a boy with a facial deformity after another user reported it to the app’s content moderation team.Twelve-year-old Harry Beswick was born with Goldenhar syndrome, which means he has no left eye, eye socket, nostril or left ear. His mother, Charlie, runs a parenting blog and Instagram account where she posts about parenting Harry and his twin brother Oliver. Continue reading...

The iPhone X’s facial recognition system fails on the first attempt at the unveiling of the latest handset on Tuesday in California. Apple’s VP of software engineering, Craig Federighi, had to switch to a backup phone in order to demonstrate the face-unlocking feature after describing its ease of use

Researchers say artificial intelligence will soon be able to detect a person’s political allegiance – just by looking at photos of their face.We’ve put together a quiz to see if you can beat the algorithms and work out, from someone’s face, their political allegiance. We’ve chosen 15 pictures of city councillors from Bristol, Connecticut and San Diego – eight Democrats, seven Republicans. Can you figure out which is which?Republican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or DemocratRepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or DemocratRepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratReRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocratRepublican or Democrat?RepublicanDemocrat Continue reading...

New model with 3 November release date promises better cameras, ability to unlock with facial recognition, animated emojis, longer battery life and wireless chargingApple has unveiled the iPhone X, its new radically redesigned smartphone that drops the traditional home button for an all-screen design, as well as a new iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus models.Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, Phil Schiller, took to the stage of the company’s new Steve Jobs Theater situated within the brand new Apple Park “spaceship” headquarters to unveil the new iPhones. Continue reading...

Leaks suggest we should expect Face ID, all-screen design, no home button, multi-purpose side button, animated poo emojis – and a $1,000 price tag

As the world welcomes the latest iPhone, we speak to people who are bucking the trend and doing withoutMany will be eagerly awaiting the release of the new iPhone X, the latest model of Apple’s smartphone. It’s expected to be the biggest change in design yet.For some, however, the event will go by without them so much as batting an eyelid. The Guardian has heard from people who have shunned phones altogether or keep the use of their mobiles to a bare minimum.

In interview CEO says Apple isn’t a ‘high-margin’ company on eve of the launch of what’s expected to be its first $1,000 smartphone, the iPhone X

Head of Samsung mobile says ‘holy grail of smartphones’ should be available next year, although company still has several hurdles to overcomeSamsung is aiming to launch a Note smartphone with a screen that folds next year, which would likely be the first available to feature such an innovation.Koh Dong-jin, president of Samsung’s mobile business, said the company is setting its eyes on 2018 to release a smartphone using its bendable OLED screen technology, but he said there are several hurdles it has to overcome, leaving room to push back the release if those problems are not solved. Continue reading...

Professor whose study suggested technology can detect whether a person is gay or straight says programs will soon reveal traits such as criminal predispositionVoters have a right to keep their political beliefs private. But according to some researchers, it won’t be long before a computer program can accurately guess whether people are liberal or conservative in an instant. All that will be needed are photos of their faces.Michal Kosinski – the Stanford University professor who went viral last week for research suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) can detect whether people are gay or straight based on photos – said sexual orientation was just one of many characteristics that algorithms would be able to predict through facial recognition. Continue reading...

Brussels said tech giant abused dominance by manipulating search results to favour its own comparison shopping serviceGoogle is appealing against the record €2.4bn (£2.2bn) fine imposed by the European Union for its abuse of its dominance of the search engine market in building its shopping comparison service.The world’s most popular internet search engine has launched its appeal after it was fined by the European commission for what was described as an “old school” form of illegality. Continue reading...

It’s simple: racism isn’t funny. It’s time the games industry showed it understands this by rejecting the YouTube megastarUsing the N-word is never okay. It’s a fairly easy rule to live by, but one that needs repeating in the wake of YouTube megastar Felix Kjellberg’s latest controversy.Commonly known as PewDiePie, the vlogger called another player “a fucking nigger” during a live video stream. Taking too long to realise his mistake, he qualified the racist slur with “I don’t mean in a bad way” and laughed it off. Continue reading...

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

Mental illness is addressed through Norse mythology, the run’n’gun format gets an exciting reboot, but a quest with a troll proves an unplayable mess Continue reading...

iPhone X is rumored to be priced at close to $1,000 and set to be launched on Tuesday at the company’s multibillion-dollar new headquartersApple’s latest iPhone will be called the iPhone X, according to a leaked report.Related: The $1tn question: how far can the new iPhone 8 take Apple? Continue reading...

My father, William Tipler, known as Bill, who has died aged 95, was an engineer who served at Bletchley Park during the second world war before going on to a long career with Shell Oil.He was born the fifth of six children in Watford, to William Tipler, a teacher (later headteacher), and Grace (nee Morton). He excelled academically, attending Watford grammar school for boys and gaining an exhibition to Queens’ College, Cambridge to read mathematics. Due to the war, he opted to complete his degree in two years, graduating with a first in 1943. He represented Queens’ at chess, and was noted for his reckless attacking. Continue reading...

At least six developers have retail road-air vehicles in the pipeline, so it’s time to watch the skiesA little white winged pod lifts itself off the ground and glides off into the distance. The whole movement looks effortless. It’s like watching Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder – except we’re in a nondescript airfield in Germany, not the planet Tatooine. Echoes of Star Wars perhaps help explain why last week the pod’s maker, Lilium, secured $90m (£69m) investment from, among others, Chinese tech giant Tencent – although the company states its aim has more to do with solving transport problems: “We have highly congested cities and we can do things to improve matters,” said Lilium’s Remo Gerber. “We’re trying to move from a niche transport vehicle to a mass-transport one”.Lilium is not flying solo. Prototypes by rival ventures are also passing their test flights. So the prospect of flying cars may not be all that far away. Here are six projects working towards bringing Back to the Future into the present. Continue reading...