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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...

Hackers can cause fraud, explosions and house fires, and utility companies should do more to protect consumers, conference toldSmart electricity meters, of which there are more than 100m installed around the world, are frequently “dangerously insecure”, a security expert has said.The lack of security in the smart utilities raises the prospect of a single line of malicious code cutting power to a home or even causing a catastrophic overload leading to exploding meters or house fires, according to Netanel Rubin, co-founder of the security firm Vaultra. Continue reading...

Some record labels have had their biggest revenue rise in more than a decade thanks to services such as Spotify and Apple MusicFive years ago, the demise of the music industry seemed almost inevitable. Recession, rampant piracy, falling CD sales and a fear that “kids just don’t buy music any more” had giant record labels, once oozing wealth, counting the pennies.

Apps offer an enticing temporary escape, but my resolution for 2017 is to swap Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram for facing real life head onI sit with a friend having some seasonal drinks. The second she gets up to go to the toilet, I catch myself reaching for my smartphone. But instead of taking it out and idly filling the two minutes she’s gone, I flip the switch on the side to silent and look around the room instead. I’m practising for 2017.On the face of it, smartphones might seem like hard things to hate. On average, smartphone owners use them for over three hours per day. By the standards of even five years ago, the handheld devices of today are extraordinary pieces of technology that enable a vast range of capabilities. Whether it is communicating entirely in emojis, piloting a drone, or Googling while on the toilet, the things we can do with smartphones would have amazed, and possibly terrified, our ancestors. Continue reading...

Charlie’s mum wants a new laptop for around £200, and there are models with 32GB of storage for £160. However, mum needs a DVD/RW drive …My mum is looking to buy a new laptop after Christmas. Her budget is tight: around £200. She uses it for Microsoft Office, browsing the internet (reading the Guardian) and watching TV. I suggested a 32GB SSD drive – which would be really quick – as she will use USB sticks, SD cards and the cloud for storage. I saw one for £160, but if she bought that, she would need to buy an external DVD drive for burning music to CD etc. Would it just be easier to stay safe and get a standard laptop with a hard drive? Charlie

From Nathan Drake to the Freudian imagery of No Man’s Sky, writers Holly Nielsen and Kate Gray ponder the raunchiest gaming pleasures of the yearWarning: this article contains sexual references, sexual innuendo and unlikely sexual interpretations of ostensibly inoffensive material.It turns out that 2016 was a pretty good year for video games. Everything else might have gone to hell, but games pretty much delivered. From the showy popcorn thrills of Uncharted 4 to the sombre gothic chills of Dishonored 2; from blockbusters to rule-breakers; from lumbering epics to short, sharp shocks, 2016 had it all. Continue reading...

The new controllers from Oculus represent a glimpse of a virtual reality people can really lose themselves inIn 2016, 21st-century virtual reality really arrived. From cheap mobile experiences to exuberant desktop machines, if you wanted to dive into a virtual world, there was a way. But while the headsets opened up possibilities, the new breed of touch controllers are the virtual hands drawing you in.

The signatories to the letter on children’s lifestyles (Screen-based lifestyle harms children’s health, 26 December) make the usual error – compounded by your selective headline – of lumping an enormous variety of cultural experience into one category: “screen-based”, which is then labelled as merely “technology”. This makes about as much sense as lumping all printed matter together under the heading of “paper-based technology”. We know that’s a silly idea because we know that printed matter includes a vast range of cultural products, from novels to cereal packets. Screen-based content is just as diverse. Instead of wringing our hands over the long-established fact that children start to access this content during their first year of life, could we start to give some informed attention to how children begin to “learn about the culture they are born into” (to quote one of the signatories to the letter) and consider the possibility that some screen-based material may be enjoyed and valued by both parents and children, and may make a serious contribution to children’s social and emotional development?

‘No evidence of attack’ in full or partial state recounts, but worries persist that voting machine companies could be ‘central’ targets of future breachesThe US presidential election was correct, according to a crowdfunded effort to recount the vote in key states, but the review also highlighted the unprecedented extent to which the American political system is vulnerable to cyberattack, according to two computer scientists who helped the effort to audit the vote.J Alex Halderman and Matt Bernhard, both of the University of Michigan, campaigned in favor of a recount of the US presidential election, which was eventually spearheaded by Jill Stein, the Green party candidate. Continue reading...

Worldwide system used to coordinate travel bookings between airlines is insecure and easy to exploit, experts revealThe worldwide system used to coordinate travel bookings between airlines, travel agents, and price comparison websites is hopelessly insecure, according to researchers.The lack of modern security features, both in the design of the system itself and of the many sites and services that control access to it, makes it easy for an attacker to harvest personal information from bookings, steal flights by altering ticketing details, or earn millions of air miles by attaching new frequent-flyer numbers to pre-booked flights, according to German security firm SR Labs.

Tech economy is drawing new inhabitants and businesses but is contributing to dislocation, leaving families, teachers and even principals with housing woes

Company has declined to provide audio recorded by smart speaker system at house where man died, according to a reportAmazon has refused to hand over data from an Echo smart speaker to US police want to access as part of an investigation into a murder in Arkansas, according to court records seen by tech industry news site The Information.Arkansas police issued a warrant to Amazon to turn over recordings and other information associated with the device owned by James Andrew Bates. Bates has been charged with the murder of a man found dead in his hot tub in November 2015.

Google and Amazon brought AI into the home and DeepMind built a computer that could outsmart humans at Go. Will 2017 hold similar advancements?Over the course of 2016, artificial intelligence made the leap from “science fiction concept” to “almost meaningless buzzword” with alarmingspeed.Everything has AI now. Period-tracking app Flo “uses a neural network approach” to deliver “high period forecast accuracy”; food delivery app Just Eat launched a chatbot that “sees AI integrated into the ordering experience to ensure that customers receive the best, round the clock support and service”; restaurant guide Borsch “uses artificial intelligence to help people discover the yummiest dishes around”.

Company claimed one-man protest involving ‘giant firecrackers’ led to activation, but it also promoted a link to a false report of a major ‘explosion’

Sony Music Entertainment’s Twitter account was hacked on Monday, publishing fake statements including ‘RIP @britneyspears’Sony Music Entertainment’s Twitter account was hacked on Monday, publishing fake statements that pop music icon Britney Spears had died.Sony Music, a unit of Sony Corp, said in a short statement that its social media account was “compromised” but that the situation “has been rectified”. Continue reading...

Jihadi scholars’ accounts focused mostly on war in Syria and frequently attacked Islamic StateTwitter has suspended the account of Jordanian preacher and al-Qaida spiritual leader Abu Qatada, along with two other influential scholars aligned with the extremist group.The three accounts, which between them had tens of thousands of followers and were used several times a day, were at the heart of an online network of al-Qaida supporters, said Cole Bunzel, scholar of jihadism at Princeton University. Bunzel tweeted: Continue reading...

Last week’s government announcement of investment into superfast broadband under the Broadband Delivery UK programme (theguardian.com, 22 December) is welcome news for the UK economy, as there is plenty of evidence to suggest that lack of broadband coverage is preventing many businesses from operating to their full potential, particularly in rural areas. But beyond the investment headlines, we also need to see evidence of a joined-up approach to finding a long-term solution to providing universal superfast broadband, which, as well as improving 4G and 5G, will mean converging fibre broadband and local wireless infrastructure, rather than still relying in many areas on the old copper systems we have today. Ultimately, the government should invest in a gold-standard solution using fibre and wireless technology to create a future-proof broadband infrastructure that will enable the UK to become a global leader in communications networks.

The internet provided humorous respite for those who became cynical and weary amid the onslaught of bad, worse and fake news. Here are some highlightsLevity may not be the first thing people think of when they consider the year 2016. But there was diversion from this year’s most popular internet memes. Not all were positive. Or amusing. But here we go! Continue reading...

Tim Wu on a decades-long campaign to monetise attention which has reached new intensity in the Facebook ageTim Wu is an expert on concentrations of power. An author, activist and lawyer, he is most famous for coining the phrase “net neutrality” – the idea that the oligopoly that owns our internet infrastructure shouldn’t charge differently for different kinds of data. In his new book, he targets another kind of corporate domination: the industry that monopolises our attention.According to Wu, this industry emerged from the first world war. In 1914 Germany could mobilise 4.5 million men; the best Britain could do was 700,000. To build a bigger army, the British government embarked on the first systematic propaganda campaign in history. It printed 50 million big, colourful recruitment posters and plastered them on shops, houses, buses and trams throughout the country. It staged rallies and parades. It filled vans with film projectors and screened patriotic films in towns across Britain. And it worked: stirred by this unprecedented experiment in state-sponsored persuasion, millions of young men marched off to gruesome, pointless deaths in a gruesome, pointless war. Continue reading...

In a bad year for many things, technology actually had a good time - but what are the products and services really worth buying?2016 may have been a bad year for most things, but it was actually a pretty good year for technology, with plenty of new products and services released that were worth the digital ink used to describe them.

From a rise in AI and improvements to self-driving cars, to televised eSports and all-out cyberwar, the coming year has it allIn some ways, tech in 2017 will be a steady progression from what came before it. Time marches on, and so too does the advance of technology. In other ways, though, it will be just as upended as the rest of the world by the unprecedented disruption that 2016 has left in its wake.Here are the trends to watch out for in the coming year: Continue reading...

Police and aviation authorities say anyone receiving the gadget as a Christmas present should visit dronesafe.uk website for safety adviceNew drone owners have been warned about the risks of flying the devices as soon as they unwrap them this Christmas.Police and aviation authorities urged users to read up on strict rules about the remote-controlled gadgets before taking them for their first spin. Continue reading...

What you call your wireless network might seem a trifling decision, but it’s a window into the way a person wants to present themselves in a connected worldWhat you choose to call your wireless network can say a lot about you. If you’re the attendee of an “alt-right” event at Texas A&M University who decided to promote genocide in the form of a network ID, it can say you are violently racist. While it is perhaps not surprising to see the USA’s new far-right white supremacist movement engaging with the language of Nazism, there seems something particularly insidious in using such hateful language in something as benign as a Wi-Fi connection.What turns a simple technical feature into a personalised billboard? Amber Burton, a senior lecturer in digital media and communications currently researching digital identities, likens the naming of our networks to a “digital T-shirt”. Continue reading...

Brian Krebs has been sent heroin and a wreath in an attempt to discredit and intimidate him but sees irresponsible hardware manufacturers as the real threatBrian Krebs does not use heroin, but sometimes people send it to him anyway. The 43-year-old Alabama native writes Krebs on Security, a one-man operation focused on digital crime. His encyclopedic knowledge of the subject and his network of contacts has made his blog essential reading for anyone interested in cybercrime and a coveted lecturer at some of the biggest companies in the world. It has also made him some dangerous enemies – hence the heroin, meant as a sinister, silencing message.Looking back on a year in which Russian cyber-spies have been accused of meddling in the US election, Yahoo announced that 1bn email accounts were compromised and hackers used internet-connected devices including baby monitors, webcams and thermostats, to take down some of the world’s biggest websites, what surprises Krebs the most is that people are surprised at all. Continue reading...

The star of the video game adaptation – alongside co-star Marion Cotillard and director Justin Kurzel – discusses the plausibility of past lives and inheriting the experiences of our ancestors. Fassbender also cautions against colonisation, while Kurzel speaks about mainstream snobbishness towards the gaming community.• Assassin’s Creed opens in the UK on 1 January 2017 Continue reading...