Technology | The Guardian

Eliane Houlette said her team, which was responding to fraud allegations, worked offline and never mentioned company by nameThe French investigators who raided Google’s Paris offices last week have revealed the extreme security measures taken to keep their investigation hidden from the technology group, with teams working offline and never referring to the company by name.Codenamed operation Tulip, the investigation was named after the shell company in the Netherlands through which Google routes billions in revenues each year to avoid taxes on most of its overseas income. Continue reading...

All too often banks and cards companies do little to pursue fraudsters, and in many cases seem happy to blame those scammedThere was a grand bargain struck between individuals and banks when we began moving away from cash and towards electronic payments. Transactions would become faster, more efficient and more profitable for the banks, and in return individuals would be protected from fraud. That bargain is perilously close to falling apart.Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) has issued its “definitive overview” of payment fraud in the UK, and the figures make for miserable reading. Total fraud jumped by more than a quarter in 2015, with 1.5m card accounts in Britain raided by scam merchants who stole more than £750m. Continue reading...

Video reportedly taken during concert in Verona, Italy, shows singer telling audience member ‘this isn’t a DVD, this is a real show’Singer Adele wants concertgoers to look at her with their own eyes instead of through a camera lens.A video posted by a fan on Twitter shows the 28-year-old British singer singling out a woman at a concert, asking her: “Could you stop filming me with that video camera? Because I’m really here in real life, you can enjoy it in real life rather than through your camera.” Continue reading...

A ‘flash jury’ of randomly selected users will be asked to decide whether flagged comments are abusive, spammy or OKPeriscope, Twitter’s live video streaming service, is experimenting with using a “flash jury” of users to decide whether abusive commenters deserve to be blocked from the site.The feature is one of the more inventive ways to tackle abusive comments, a problem which is particularly hard to manage on a platform where all comments are overlaid on a live broadcast and sometimes even over the face of the broadcaster. Continue reading...

Jess Phillips says leaving is a very real possibility after receiving more than 600 tweets about raping her in one nightA Labour MP has said she may leave Twitter after trolls sent her more than 600 messages in one night about raping her.Jess Phillips spoke out after a wave of abuse was launched against her, apparently after she replied to one person who said: “I wouldn’t even rape you.” Continue reading...

To tackle racism and xenophobia, big internet companies say they will try to review most notifications within 24 hoursAn online “code of conduct” aimed at fighting hate speech has been launched by the European Union in conjunction with four of the world’s biggest internet companies.Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft have all been involved in the creation of the code, which is particularly aimed at fighting racism and xenophobia across Europe. Such efforts are hampered by varying enforcement in different countries, something the code is tackling. Continue reading...

Voice-controlled companion, whose touchscreen face shows its emotions, can entertain kids and control the lightsThe Taiwanese electronics manufacture Asus has unveiled a home robot called Zenbo that can talk, control your home and provide assistance when needed – all for the cost of a top-end smartphone.The $599 (£410) robot rolls around on two wheels in the shape of a vacuum cleaner ball with cameras an oblong head extruding from the top with a colour touchscreen displaying a face with emotions. It is capable of independent movement, can respond to voice commands and has both entertainment protocols for keeping kids amused and home care systems to help look after older people. Continue reading...

The move illustrates how technology companies are doubling down on secure messaging while not wanting to get in the way of their other business objectives

Homophobic abuse is tweeted to singer’s 89 million followers and love messages sent to her arch rival Taylor SwiftTwitter’s top user and pop superstar Katy Perry was hacked on Monday, with her account sending abusive tweets to her 89 million followers and reportedly leaking an unreleased song.The tweets removed from Perry’s account page, the most followed on Twitter, beating Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift, sent homophobic messages to users and a “miss u baby” message to the singer’s arch rival Taylor Swift among others. Continue reading...

Company only now discloses scale of hack three years ago – shortly before purchase by Yahoo – as database of passwords is leakedPersonal information from more than 65m Tumblr accounts has been discovered for sale on the darknet.Tumblr disclosed the leak, which it says took place in early 2013, this month, but had not previously acknowledged the scale of the database that was compromised. Continue reading...

New iOS apps of May 2016 include Relay, Opera VPN and Spaces, and games include Bushido Bear, Hungry Shark World and GodFinger 2From custom-made maps to football stories for kids, via classical music, ninja bears, GIF keyboards and avian dating games, it’s been an interesting month for iPhone and iPad owners, with a range of new App Store releases to try.As ever, prices are correct at the time of writing, and if you see “IAP” it means the app uses in-app purchases. Looking for Android apps instead? Don’t post an angry comment – click through to the separate Best Android Apps roundups instead. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterTuesday! Continue reading...

Victorian police confiscated the bitcoins as proceeds of crime, although only registered bidders will find out who fromAbout $13m in bitcoins will be auctioned in Sydney in June after Victorian police confiscated the digital currency as proceeds of crime.Ernst & Young is running the process, which is only the second such bitcoin auction in the world after the US Marshals Service sold 144,000 bitcoins over a two-year period that had been confiscated from Ross Ulbricht, who founded the online drug bazaar Silk Road, the accountancy firm’s transaction partner, Adam Nikitins, said. Continue reading...

Facebook certainly does have a lot to answer for in the way it responds to sexist abuse (MPs lead national campaign against sexist abuse online, 26 May). I often get abusive, misogynistic messages on my Facebook page from complete strangers and these are frequently accompanied by penis pictures. When I complain, the response I get is that these messages do not contravene their “community standards”. Yet a tasteful photo of me breastfeeding my baby was removed, because Facebook doesn’t allow female nipples (male nipples are fine).

From the scenic grandeur of The Witcher and Rise of the Tomb Raider, to the handcrafted beauty of Ori and the Blind Forest, here are some of the most evocative visual experiences on Microsoft’s latest console Continue reading...

Many believe that porn is addictive, and that the endless stream of on-demand internet erotica makes real-life sexual experiences not stimulating enoughGregor Schmidinger was eight when he viewed his first porn magazine, found in a rubbish bin in his hometown in Austria. Aged 11, he had access to the internet at home, which he used to explore his burgeoning attraction to men. As the years progressed, he spent more time masturbating to increasingly hardcore – and in some cases violent – pornography online.“Once I’d climaxed I would look at the screen from a new perspective, and it was always weird or alienating,” says Schmidinger, now 31 and a film-maker. Continue reading...

Microsoft needs to fix battery life, screen and app issues if Windows 10 tablets are to compete with Android or the iPadIf you’re after a tablet in 2016, broadly speaking you have three choices: Android, Apple’s iPad or Microsoft’s Windows 10 tablets.While the first two are mobile born and bred, spawned from smartphone operating systems, Windows 10 comes from the other side of computing - the traditional desktop. Continue reading...

Top new Android apps of May 2016 include Dark Sky, Spaces and Sleepcast, while games include Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Bushido BearApril was another strong month for new Android apps and games: from hyper-local weather forecasts and clever alarm-clock apps to fraternal adventures and ninja bears. Here’s our latest monthly roundup of what’s worth a slot on your home screen.As ever, prices are correct at the time of writing, and if you see “IAP” that means the app uses in-app purchases. Looking for iPhone and iPad apps instead? There’s a separate monthly roundup for them. Continue reading...

Move to tax people who rent out properties through website as officials and residents express concerns over visitor impactIceland is poised to curb an Airbnb explosion as it tries to balance record tourist numbers with the protection of its spectacular unspoilt landscape and traditional lifestyle.Proposed legislation, which could become law this week, seeks to restrict the number of days residents can offer Airbnb rentals in their properties to 90 days a year before they must pay business tax. Continue reading...

Warhammer and Total War are rejuvenated in a joint endeavour, while Valkyria and Doom updates delight Continue reading...

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

One of the most widely translated works in history has been given a 21st-century update with millennials in mindIn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and then some time later created emoji .One of the most widely translated works in history has been given a 21st-century update with the publication of the Emoji Bible. Continue reading...

While some applaud new tech to monitor a baby’s breathing, heart rate and temperature, others think it goes too far

Pontiff tells social media stars they create virtual circles to which followers belong, laying ‘paths of optimism and hope’Pope Francis demonstrated his digital credentials on Sunday by holding an intimate meeting with YouTube stars, throwing his support behind popular beauty videos and encouraging his celebrity guests to help young people create virtual identities.Immediately after the meeting Pope Francis addressed participants of an educational conference at the Vatican, attended by actors including Salma Hayek, Richard Gere and George Clooney, who was accompanied by his wife, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. Continue reading...

When he’s not playing guitar for Queen, Brian May PhD is an astronomer and inventor. He talks about his latest gadget – an update on the Victorian stereoscopeBrian May is examining his hands. His fingernails are painted with a futuristic, silvery polish, but it’s his fingertips he’s focused on. They are, he informs me, covered with soft calluses. It’s hardly surprising – he’s just flown in from Barcelona, where he’s been on tour, thrashing out hits with Queen (with American Idol runner-up Adam Lambert on Freddie duties). But here in London, his guitar is nowhere in sight. Because it’s not a gig he’s eager to talk about: it’s the launch of his latest invention.Dubbed the “Owl VR Smartphone Kit”, his low-tech, adjustable plastic gadget looks like a cross between a kiddie’s shoe gauge and Google Cardboard. By attaching a smartphone to the back of its frame, using some tape, a metal plate and a magnet, the device can be used to view 360-degree videos – handy, since Queen are currently filming one of their own. But as May reveals, it can do far more than that. Slot in a card bearing two, almost identical, photographs and when you look through the lenses the image suddenly bounces forth in glorious 3D – a technique known as stereoscopy. With an app, he demonstrates, you can even make 3D versions of your smartphone shots. “This is a proper scientific instrument,” he says, with the confidence of a man who has a patent pending. Continue reading...

Fans will have to wait a few more weeks to finally explore the hugely anticipated PlayStation 4 space gameThe much anticipated Playstation 4 game No Man’s Sky has been delayed. One of Sony’s key releases for the year, the ambitious space exploration adventure will now be released on 10 August in the UK, several weeks later than planned.Rumours of a possible delay were first reported by gaming new site Kotaku on Wednesday, but Sony made no confirmation at the time. On Saturday morning the game’s creative director Sean Murray, posted on the official PlayStation blog, providing a new release date. Continue reading...

Unisex invariably means a saddle designed to accommodate testiclesThere are a great many reasons why I struggled to keep up with one of the world’s top women’s cycling teams when I chased them around Mallorca. Most were my own fault: my lack of athleticism and undisciplined diet, plus a swollen elbow after I fell off outside the hotel after not fixing on my pedals properly.But I also blame the Fizik Aliante saddle, an instrument of torture that comes with Eastway’s Emitter R4. It isn’t normal to struggle to pee after a 55-mile ride because your bits have been compacted tighter than a rush hour tube train. That’s my excuse for getting dropped by Dani King, anyway, when I joined the Olympic gold medallist and her Wiggle High5 team on a winter training camp. Continue reading...

New technology is helping alcoholics and casual drinkers alike monitor and manage their consumptionHow many units of alcohol do you drink each week? It’s a question most people stumble over.It’s not easy to monitor alcohol intake. So often a doctor asks and the patient tries to quickly calculate the recommended weekly units, before settling on a slightly lower figure. It’s an issue too for those who want to figure out whether they have reached drink-driving limits. But tech companies claim to have a solution to this problem. Continue reading...

Some in Silicon Valley have been threatening the ‘uppity’ press with rhetoric about journalists needing ‘to be taught lessons’. That’s not how it worksNo major American cultural force is more opposed to examination and more active in suppressing it today than Silicon Valley. So when it was revealed this week that Facebook board member Peter Thiel had been secretly bankrolling a lawsuit to inflict financial ruin on the news and gossip site Gawker, Silicon Valley cheered.The investor Vinod Khosla wrote on Twitter that the “press gets very uppity when challenged”. And that these bad journalists need “to be taught lessons”. Continue reading...

Apple wants to diversify beyond its signature product, and has considered buying the owner of HBO and Warner Bros movie studio – but that’s not all, folksWhen you’re the biggest company in the world, with a lead product that is arguably the most successful consumer electronic product of all time, what do you do for an encore?

Unique code signatures shared between malware used in multiple bank attacks suggest involvement of hacking group named ‘Lazarus’, Symantec saysSecurity researchers Symantec have found clues in the malware used to hack into international financial messaging network Swift, which suggest a link to the Sony Pictures hack in 2014.At least three banks have reported financial attacks based on the Swift hack. In February, Bangladesh’s central bank lost $81m (£55m) after fraudulent messages were sent through the network instructing a transfer to an account in the Philippines. In May, a Vietnamese bank came forward to say that it had been targeted by the hackers as well, and had managed to stop a $1m transfer. And later that month, Reuters revealed that a third bank, Ecuador’s Banco del Austro, had also fallen prey. Continue reading...

Amid concerns 18- to 24-year-olds will miss out on having a say in EU referendum, app will encourage users to registerUber will encourage its millions of users to register to vote in the EU referendum as they wait for a taxi this weekend, amid continuing concerns that many young people will miss their chance to take part in the poll. Continue reading...

Near-miss report says drone flew ‘extremely close’ to Boeing 757 and experts say there was a definite risk of collisionA drone was flown just 30 metres from a Boeing 757 jet near Manchester airport, according to an official near-miss report.The pilot of the airliner “expressed his surprise” after spotting the object shortly after take-off, the UK Airprox Board (UKAB) said. Continue reading...

Blizzard’s take on the team-based shooter is as polished as you’d expect, marrying tactical breadth with an emphasis on variety and inclusivityLet’s address the elephant in the room.Hello, elephant. You’re looking nice. Very tall. Overwatch is a lot like Team Fortress 2, Valve’s seminal team-based shooter first released in 2007. Continue reading...

The new electric typewriter has been called ‘pretentious hipster nonsense’, but it’s just plain boring – and that’s precisely the pointIt was with trepidation that I advanced on my local cafe in New York, clutching the handle of my Freewrite “smart typewriter” like a spy en route to a briefcase switch.An electric typewriter that promises digital connectivity without the distractions, Freewrite has largely been dismissed by the tech press. Even the pop culture mavens of Mashable denounced it as “pretentious hipster nonsense”, excoriating its weight (four pounds), diminutive screen (5.5in) and hefty price tag ($499). Continue reading...

Next week Aggie the robot begins tours of Perth’s Art Gallery of Western Australia. But relax human guides – she isn’t ready to take your job just yetThe writing is on the LED screen: our jobs are ours for as long as the robots don’t want them. But no one could have predicted they’d come for the gallery guides first.

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

Are electric cars really good enough to take four adults and a week’s worth of luggage from London to the Loire? Samuel Gibbs finds outThe alarm went off at 6am to kickstart our journey, and I was full of trepidation. Driving 706 km (439 miles) in a car with three other adults and enough luggage for a week’s holiday might already feel like a modern labour of Hercules for some, but this trip had an extra challenge: the car would be all electric.The chariot to take us from the south of London to the middle of France would be a Tesla Model S 90D. Fortunately, unlike most other electric cars, the Model S is not a small car, so fitting everyone and everything in wouldn’t be an issue. But a quoted range of just under 350 miles per charge, though one of the longest available, left me a little worried. Would we really get anything like that much milage, with a fully laden car, and at motorway speeds? Would there be enough chargers along the way? And after the fourth recharging stop, would my passengers mutiny? Continue reading...

Thiel acknowledged that he secretly bankrolled lawsuits against the gossip-tinged company and its journalists in order to put the publisher out of businessIt may be a post-ink age, but a Silicon Valley billionaire’s legal campaign against Gawker Media is about to offer a modern test of the old adage: never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.In a blog post Thursday, Gawker CEO Nick Denton warned PayPal cofounder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel that he will face consequences for trying to take down the gossip-tinged media company and challenged him to a public debate in person or online. Continue reading...

Two senators say it could expand nonjudicial subpoena to acquire email records, chat accounts, account login records, browser histories and social media usageTwo US senators have warned that a new bill would vastly expand the FBI’s warrantless access to Americans’ online records.

Dominance of Facebook and Google has seen print ads plummet and newspapers’ once-bright digital future recedeThe boss of the media firm Vice has predicted a “bloodbath” in the industry this year – and, judging by the investor panic that attended the Daily Mail’s latest results, Shane Smith may be right.Investors took fright at a 16% drop in print advertising revenues at the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday in the six months to the end of March, sending parent company DMGT’s share price tumbling by 13%. Continue reading...

Developers expected to welcome ruling that finds Google’s employment of Java code in its Android operating system was fair useGoogle has won a six-year court case brought by software firm Oracle, which claimed Google had infringed its copyright by using 11,500 lines of Java code in its Android operating system.The jury ruled that Google’s use of 37 Java APIs (application programming interfaces) was fair use. The news will be welcomed by developers, who typically rely on free access to APIs to develop third-party services. Continue reading...

Hugely popular on the PC version of Minecraft, multiplayer competitive games are coming to console, starting with a battle modeFor years, PC owners have been able to load up Minecraft, find a server and play a variety of mostly fan-made mini-games, set within the blocky confines of Mojang’s creative masterpiece. From competitive survival tests to giant hide n seek challenges, participants can compete with and against friends in online sessions. So far, the console versions of Minecraft have not supported this feature. Until now.In June, 4J Studios, the Dundee-based developer behind the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii U versions of the game, will launch a free update to the console editions of Minecraft featuring the first in what they plan to be a series of mini-games. They’re starting off with the simply named Battle, an eight-player deathmatch in the last survivor is the winner. Continue reading...

Government Accountability Office report details ‘museum-ready’ machines controlling nuclear force messaging system that are ‘obsolete’The US military’s nuclear arsenal is controlled by computers built in the 1970s that still use 8in floppy disks.A report into the state of the US government, released by congressional investigators, has revealed that the country is spending around $60bn (£40.8bn) to maintain museum-ready computers, which many do not even know how to operate any more, as their creators retire. Continue reading...

Inspiration drawn from titles as diverse as Doom and Hearthstone drive the developer, according to senior game designer Michael ChuOverwatch, the new team-based first-person shooter from World of Warcraft developer Blizzard, has been out for less than 48 hours, but it’s already fairly clear that the game is a hit.Its short, open beta, which concluded two weeks ago, was popular enough to spark a meme in the intervening period detailing all the things players were doing now they couldn’t play the game (sample post: the person who drew all the Overwatch heroes as if they were bowls of lukewarm water). Then, on release day, the Overwatch subreddit briefly drew more traffic than the front page of Reddit itself, seemingly a result of users hammering refresh to find out when the servers were turned on.

Storing voice recordings of people younger than 13 via Alexa, Google Home and Siri appears to flout the Children’s Online Privacy Protection ActIn a promotional video for Amazon’s Echo virtual assistant device, a young girl no older than 12 asks excitedly: “Is it for me?”. The voice-controlled speaker can search the web for information, answer questions and even tell kids’ jokes. “It’s for everyone,” enthuses her on-screen dad.Except that it isn’t. An investigation by the Guardian has found that despite Amazon marketing the Echo to families with young children, the device is likely to contravene the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), set up to regulate the collection and use of personal information from anyone younger than 13. Continue reading...

The majority of the questions sent to Ask Jack are about Windows 10. Here are 10 recent ones, plus a bonus: how to stop or block the upgradeHow much data do I need to download to install Windows 10? Brian Continue reading...

Billionaire venture capitalist, outed as gay by online news site in 2007, provided $10m to support wrestler’s case over sex tapePeter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of PayPal, has admitted that he is the secret funder of Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against online news site Gawker.Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, sued for invasion of privacy after Gawker published an excerpt of a leaked sex tape in 2012. In March this year, a Florida jury awarded Bollea $140m (£95.1m) in damages against the media organisation. Continue reading...

From Thursday 12pm BST we will be hosting a panel discussion at the Continue conference about the untapped value of games to the cultural establishment

Alyssa Azar, the youngest Australian to summit world’s tallest mountain, took three goes to tell her father the newsIf there is one phone call you do not want to miss, it is the one your daughter makes standing on top of the tallest mountain in the world.But that is what happened to Glenn Azar when his “baby”, Alyssa, made it to the summit of Mount Everest on Saturday. Continue reading...