Technology | The Guardian

This little flying machine, dubbed a “RoboBee”, has been designed to perch on a host of different surfaces, opening up new possibilities for the use of drones in providing a bird’s-eye view of the world, scientists say. The total weight of the robot is about 100mg - similar to the weight of a real bee

New technology can link wearable device to bank accounts and give electric shocks to help customers manage their spending

Fantasy tabletop warfare meets historical strategy simulation in a game that should be inaccessible but ends up excitingWarhammer is a range of tabletop strategy games; Total War is a series of historical battle simulations. Combining the two should have produced a black hole of nerdiness so unapproachable it would crush all mortals. Strangely, however, this is probably the most accessible each game has been for years.Typically taking place over the surface of a continent, the Total War games have taken in medieval Europe, the Napoleonic era, the Roman world and the warring states era of Japan. Like the turn-based Civilization series, players control one faction, building settlements, researching new technologies and recruiting armies. When those armies clash on the campaign, players then control them in real-time battles against opposing factions and nations. Continue reading...

Hire millennials, invest in assets and be concise, and you’ll have short, snappy and highly shareable videos for Facebook and TwitterThey are called dabs, those short, snappy and highly shareable videos that dominate your Facebook or Twitter feed. News organisations such as NowThisNews and AJ+ (Al Jazeera) are leading the way in this micro-video style, based on the idea of a little bit of news, every now and then.

Company is appealing against decision by French data protection authority to apply search-results ruling to all its domainsGoogle is appealing to France’s highest court over a legal ruling that could force it to censor its search results worldwide.The search firm has filed an appeal with the Conseil d’État, the French court with the final say over matters of administrative law, in an attempt to overturn a ruling from the country’s data protection authority (CNIL), which would greatly extend the remit of the so-called “right to be forgotten”. Continue reading...

Speaking at Cannes, the multiple Oscar winner and BFG director expressed fears that storytelling will suffer if viewers of virtual reality films are given the choice where to lookRelated: The BFG review: delicate touch of Spielberg and Rylance proves hugely charmingSteven Spielberg has warned the rise of virtual reality technology represents a potentially “dangerous” development for traditional film-makers. Continue reading...

When engineer husbands relocate to pursue dream jobs, their H4 visa-holding wives must cope with the resentment and loneliness of losing their own careersThe South Bay H4 visa holder’s support group is having lunch in Palo Alto. The group organizes several meet-ups a week: coffees, dinners and shopping expeditions. Today, turnout is high. Fifteen women – some carrying babies and toddlers – take their seats at the table running down the centre of an upscale burger restaurant. The contrast with the other customers – groups of software engineers and VC associates carrying silver laptops – is striking.These are the wives of Silicon Valley: women who are integral to the continued success of the Valley’s multibillion-dollar computing industry – but also entirely invisible to it. Their husbands are the engineers who, headhunted from across the globe, emigrate to Silicon Valley as H1B “skilled workers”, helping to drive innovation in companies like Apple, Google and Facebook. Continue reading...

Live coverage, which was also free to non-subscribers on YouTube, attracts peak of 3.5 million viewersIt was heartbreak for Liverpool but Jürgen Klopp’s side’s 3-1 Europa League defeat by Sevilla scored BT Sport’s biggest audience to date with a peak of 3.5 million viewers.

There was a lot to get through at the annual developer conference in California but the company still managed to surpriseGoogle I/O is the biggest date in the firm’s calendar: it’s the conference where it gets everyone together in one big room (actually, this year it was a tent) in California to reveal all the cool stuff it has been working on.This year was more focused than most. It’s the first I/O since the company restructured itself into Alphabet, hiving off the wilder projects such as Google Glass, self-driving cars and life-extension research into other subsidiaries. Gone are the days of livestreaming a parachute jumper wearing Google Glass from the I/O stage. But that doesn’t mean the company wasn’t trying to impress with more down-to-earth revelations. Continue reading...

Star Wars: The Force Awakens mascot droid turned from inspirational robotic pal into a 2001 disaster with the help of Microsoft’s operating systemEveryone knows that Star Wars: The Force Awakens is actually an uplifting story about a little robot named BB-8 overcoming adversity with the help of his human servants. But that feelgood film quickly turns into a horror movie with the introduction of Windows XP.

Director’s masterclass will cover everything from obtaining financing to scouting locations – but not storyboarding, which is ‘an instrument of the cowards’He fought running battles with Klaus Kinski on the set of 1972’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God, dragged a real ship over a steep hill for 1982’s Fitzcarraldo and even opened his own film school. Now Werner Herzog is promising to teach budding directors the art of guerrilla film-making online for the small matter of $90 (£61).Herzog, who famously stole his first camera from the Munich film school, claims in a video for the Werner Herzog Film-making Masterclass that his students can learn the essentials of the art in two weeks. He berates wannabe directors who shoot hundreds of hours of footage for later editing, warning them that film-makers “are not garbage collectors”. Continue reading...

Gabriel’s organisation works with community groups on volunteering, and they want to collect photos of all the various projects as simply as possibleOnce a year we hold a big day of international volunteering. Community groups, churches, synagogues and so on organise their own projects under our banner. We encourage them to take photos of their project and send them to us.We would like to find a system that lets them upload photos easily, to a secure folder, without having to sign up for accounts or anything. We would then download the photos centrally, categorised by who uploaded them. DropEvent is the sort of thing we want, but it just gives us a big glut of photos without them being categorised into folders based on who uploaded them.DropEvent’s big idea is “everyone’s photos from your wedding in one place,” though it could equally be your Christmas party, school play, or whatever. Another attraction is that people can upload photos without having to sign up, though they still have to enter their email address. Continue reading...

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

From fashion and architecture to music and art, the optimism and techno-utopianism of the early 2000s found its way into every element of designIn the year 2000, a shiny new millennium spread out before us, glittering with the promises of modern technology.The angsty 1990s were behind us, the dotcom bubble was swelling and yet to come was the market bust and “war on terror”. Y2K – the supposed turn-of-the-century bug that would bring our infrastructure to a terrifying halt – had failed to materialise and for a brief moment there was nothing but glittering utopian futurism and faith in a new age of boundless possibility. Continue reading...

First major survey on the sharing economy finds most users of services such as Airbnb and Uber identify as liberal, but take conservative stance on regulationLiberals love Uber and Airbnb so much, they’re embracing conservative values – at least when it comes to regulating the sharing economy, according to a new survey from Pew.The poll – the first major survey on shared, collaborative, and on-demand services – found that the vast majority of Americans are not using ride-hailing and home-sharing services. But those that do are more likely to be opposed to regulating them, even if they identify as Democrats or liberals. Continue reading...

Conservative commentators had a wide-ranging discussion with Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook’s headquarters after accusations of political biasMark Zuckerberg on Wednesday held a wide-ranging discussion with a group of conservative commentators who said afterward the Facebook CEO acknowledged the giant social network has a problem reaching conservatives.The meeting at Facebook’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters came about after a report accused the company of harboring a bias against conservative views. Continue reading...

Adhesive technology on the front of a vehicle would aim to reduce the damage caused when a pedestrian hit by a car is flung into other vehicles or objectsGoogle has patented a new “sticky” technology to protect pedestrians if – or when – they get struck by the company’s self-driving cars.The patent, which was granted on 17 May, is for a sticky adhesive layer on the front end of a vehicle, which would aim to reduce the damage caused when a pedestrian hit by a car is flung into other vehicles or scenery. Continue reading...

Audit Scotland warns mismanagement means incomplete system may run out of funds before it can meet European commission deadlineNicola Sturgeon’s government faces a penalty of up to £125m after a crisis in a major IT system left tens of thousands of farmers without their farm subsidy payments.Audit Scotland has warned that the incomplete £178m system, designed to process common agricultural policy payments of £688m a year, is now in danger of running out of money before it can meet a European commission deadline of 30 June. Continue reading...

Alphabet’s flagship company presents Google Home, a speaker-turned-personal-assistant that will allow users to turn on their lights and surf the web, among other functions. The speaker is part of Google Assistant which aims to take on Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. Speaking at an event in California, Google’s vice president of product management says the speaker will be available at the end of the year

Messaging tool will have ‘incognito mode’ that offers end-to-end encryption, making it difficult for law enforcement to recover messages during investigationsGoogle on Wednesday became the latest major technology company to join a standoff with the FBI over encryption.At its developer conference, the company announced that its new messaging app, Allo, would feature an “incognito mode” that offered end-to-end encryption. Such technology can make it difficult for law enforcement to recover messages during investigations even if they have a warrant. In Washington DC, the FBI director, James Comey, has lobbied the administration to put restrictions on such technology. Continue reading...

List of user IDs and passwords, allegedly sourced from cyber-attack in 2012, put on sale for around £1,500 as site says it is taking actionA hacker claiming to have the log in details of millions of LinkedIn users is advertising the data for sale online.The extensive list of user IDs and passwords, which were allegedly sourced from a cyber attack on the networking site four years ago, is being advertised on the darknet – a sub-section of the internet not accessible through normal web browsers and often a platform for illegal activity. Continue reading...

Alphabet’s flagship company unveiled smart speaker Google Home, which it says will let people turn on their lights and surf the web, among other thingsGoogle has joined the war to be your digital butler.Speaking to a packed amphitheater of developers here, Alphabet’s flagship company on Wednesday unveiled a hot-rodded personal assistant it says will let people control their homes, book movies, search the internet, ask follow-up questions about an Italian restaurant and sort through dog pictures using voice commands. Continue reading...

US national intelligence already has ‘some indications’ that campaign networks are being spied on, as government works to tighten security against cyberattacksThe United States sees evidence that hackers, possibly working for foreign governments, are snooping on the presidential candidates, the nation’s intelligence chief said on Wednesday. Government officials are working with the campaigns to tighten security as the race for the White House intensifies.The activity follows a pattern set in the last two presidential elections. Hacking was rampant in 2008, according to US intelligence officials, and both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were targets of Chinese cyber-attacks four years later. Despite that history, cyber experts say neither Donald Trump’s nor Hillary Clinton’s campaign networks are secure enough to eliminate the risk. Continue reading...

Star’s American Dream game comes from publisher that made Kim Kardashian a mobile hit, but missed the hit parade with their last pop outingIn 2015, global music sales were $15bn (£10.3bn). Yet the three biggest mobile games companies alone – Supercell, King and GungHo Online – made $5.6bn between them, out of an estimated $30.4bn for the overall mobile gaming market.Britney Spears: American Dream is the latest experiment to see if music can capitalise on a world where many people are happier to spend their disposable income on Candy Crush Saga or Clash Royale rather than on music. Continue reading...

Phone brand is back after being bought by Finnish company HMD and iPhone manufacturer Foxconn. But can it win back those nostalgic for the 3310?Soon, you’ll be able to buy a Nokia again, 18 months after Microsoft quietly killed the name, seemingly for good.Microsoft has sold the brand, which was worth $300bn at its height, in two parts for a total of just $350m. The brand name was sold to a new company called HMD, formed by former Nokia employees in Finland. Meanwhile, the manufacturing, distribution and sales arms of Nokia have been bought by iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, which has also agreed to build the new Nokia phone for HMD. Continue reading...

Google’s contactless smartphone payment system finally launches in UK 12 months after US releaseGoogle’s contactless smartphone payment system Android Pay has finally launched in the UK with support for MasterCard and Visa cards from at least eight banks.

Games lead British crowdfunding, with more than £26m pledged to projects, by people who average £53.80 per donationMore than three years after launching in the UK, Kickstarter has taken its hundred-millionth crowdfunding pound in Britain.The money has come from more than 1.2 million individual backers, spending an average of £53.80 per pledge across 20,651 individual projects, according to data provided exclusively to the Guardian by the crowdsourcing company. Continue reading...

From Nathan Drake’s last hurrah and Star Fox Zero landing to Doom, Gears Of War and The Division’s multiplayer woesThe games industry has been doing its best impression of British springtime’s bewildering mix of sunshine and torrential rain with its own rapid cycles of joy and sadness. Holding up the joy end were two magnificent follies: a man managed to get stupid single-button-pressing game Flappy Bird to play on the screen of an e-cigarette, and someone else installed Windows 95 on an Apple Watch. But in that same month we also lost seminal British development studio Lionhead. It was responsible for all-time classics like giant pet-raising game Black & White, and Fable, an RPG that used the full gamut of English regional accents, as well as eccentricities such as The Movies, in which you could produce entire miniature feature films.Related: Uncharted 4 and the grief of finishing a great video game Continue reading...

Some teens are glued to social media feeds, and research suggests it’s causing anxiety and sleeplessness, but there are ways of taking back control

It’s Wednesday. Continue reading...

In this podcast originally published in October 2012, the Aleks Krotoski and a panel of women in tech discuss why the tech industries need more women

id Software returns to the original Doom with a reboot that captures all the crazed, adrenaline-pumped purity of the originalThe original Doom was a carnival of overstatement. There’s the ludicrous premise: Martian moons invaded by demons. There’s the silent protagonist: a buzz-cut, space marine who sprints hyperactively through monotone corridors, firing shotgun rounds into the faces of occult-ish monsters. There’s the deafening, pitiless soundtrack, inspired by so many thrash metal bands of the late 80s. And then there’s the brawny name of its apex weapon: Big Fucking Gun.Gore, guns and braggadocio. This trio of male power fantasies helped to define and, arguably, tar, an entire medium. Regardless, the game, made by a group of friends who first met in a lake-house in sweltering Louisiana, was widely celebrated. Doom made millionaires of its young designers, a group that included the wunderkind programmer John Carmack, who last month was awarded a Bafta fellowship, the Academy’s highest honour. Continue reading...

Nathan Brenner appealed conviction which effectively outlawed Uber in Victoria on grounds app not covered by ‘antiquated’ legislation used to charge himA Melbourne Uber driver has won a landmark appeal which means the ride-sharing service can operate freely in Victoria.Nathan Brenner was found guilty last year by a magistrate of two counts of operating a commercial passenger vehicle without a licence, and one count of driving a commercial passenger vehicle without driver accreditation. Continue reading...

Prisons bill to be centrepiece of legislation in Queen’s speech designed to improve life chances of most disadvantaged in UKPrisoners should be able to use iPads in their cells and stay in touch with friends and family via Skype, a major study commissioned by the justice secretary, Michael Gove, is expected to conclude.The review into prison education by Dame Sally Coates advocates the increased use of “in-cell technology, such as iPads, so prisoners can learn independently”, according to extracts from a draft of the report seen by the Guardian. Continue reading...

Fakamalo Kihe Eiki defended himself from internet backlash, saying ‘The gift of life … is so bad to share … wow … such a world we live in … shame’A California man has defended himself from criticism after live-streaming his child’s birth on Facebook Live on Monday.Fakamalo Kihe Eiki from Carmichael, California, describes himself as a “Christian comedian” on his Facebook page. He posted the stream in the early hours of Monday morning, and it quickly gained upwards of 90,000 views. Continue reading...

Almost two in three poisonings are intentional – up 50% in past 20 years – with young women most affected, data showsGrowing numbers of teenagers are deliberately poisoning themselves with alcohol, painkillers and antidepressants, renewing fears about young people’s mental health.

Marvel’s crusading superhero reigns supreme for a third week as the animated avians perch in second placeRelated: Marvel axed female villain from Iron Man 3 after fears of poor toy sales, says director Continue reading...

From video conferencing your GP to tracking viral outbreaks of disease, a panel of experts shared insights into the changing face of healthcare

US congressional candidate Mike Webb offers supporters 2,000-word justification for video tabs visible in his Facebook postAn American congressional candidate wants you to know that the porn tabs he had open in a screenshot posted to his Facebook page are absolutely nothing to be concerned about.Mike Webb, Republican candidate for Virginia’s 8th district, posted to his Facebook page on Monday, discussing an odd phone call he had had with a staffing agency in Alexandria, Virginia (don’t ask). Accompanying the post was an even odder screenshot: Continue reading...

FindFace compares photos to profile pictures on social network Vkontakte and works out identities with 70% reliabilityIf the founders of a new face recognition app get their way, anonymity in public could soon be a thing of the past. FindFace, launched two months ago and currently taking Russia by storm, allows users to photograph people in a crowd and work out their identities, with 70% reliability.It works by comparing photographs to profile pictures on Vkontakte, a social network popular in Russia and the former Soviet Union, with more than 200 million accounts. In future, the designers imagine a world where people walking past you on the street could find your social network profile by sneaking a photograph of you, and shops, advertisers and the police could pick your face out of crowds and track you down via social networks.

Report says getting 4.1 billion more people online would lift 500 million out of poverty over five yearsBringing internet access to the 4.1 billion people in the world who do not have it would increase global economic output by $6.7 trillion (£4.6tr), raising 500 million people out of poverty, according to a study by PwC.The report, titled Connecting the world: Ten mechanisms for global inclusion, was prepared for Facebook by PwC’s strategy consultants Strategy&. Continue reading...

From mid-cycle PlayStation upgrades to episodic entertainment and virtual studios, something big is happening in the way games are bought, made and soldFor 30 years the games industry worked in a certain way. People rented offices and set up studios to create games; they employed staff to work in-house, then got those projects funded and distributed by publishers. If you wanted to opt out of that setup, you worked alone, or in a small team, as an indie developer – you operated in a totally separate stratosphere; the system neatly self-segregated. Meanwhile, in the background, the business worked to the seven-year cycles dictated by the lifespan of the major consoles. It was a machine of discreet components.

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

Facebook CEO will meet with a senior Trump adviser and several influential conservatives, but Breitbart News said it has ‘zero interest in a photo-op’Mark Zuckerberg, a critic of Donald Trump, now wants to make nice with his campaign and conservative media.The feeling isn’t entirely mutual. Continue reading...

A report alleging the electric car company exploited workers from eastern Europe to build a high-tech paint shop has prompted Musk to launch an investigationTesla relied on cheap foreign labor to build a hi-tech paint shop in California, paying workers as little as $5 an hour, according to a damning report that prompted CEO Elon Musk to launch an investigation.The electric car company used roughly 140 workers from eastern Europe, primarily Slovenia and Croatia, to build a paint shop in Fremont in northern California as part of its production of the Model 3 sedan. Continue reading...

Conglomerate buys 9.8m shares of Apple in surprise move that equates to a bet that shares will rebound after sales dropped for first time in more than a decadeWarren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has bought $1bn worth of Apple shares in a bet that the iPhone-maker will bounce back from a recent slump.

Alex Hern told us about the apps that he relies on. Now Hannah Jane Parkinson shares the apps she uses every dayThis month my colleague Alex Hern listed the apps he can’t live without. Specifically, the apps that he uses to pretend that he is “a competent adult”. I sit opposite him daily, and I am reserving judgment on that one. (Just kidding, Alex! )Like Alex, I rely on Citymapper (when I’m not taking an Uber) and I am now trying out You Need A Budget. Because guys, I really need a budget. I am a person whose bank statement, if rendered into a video game, would essentially be me as a character bouncing from one ATM to the next. Continue reading...

We still love the exploits of characters like Nathan Drake and Lara Croft, but this may change as attitudes to cultural theft hardenThere’s a question at the heart of the Uncharted games that the latest title, released to great acclaim this month, tackles most directly: is the dashing lead protagonist, Nathan Drake, a hero or a thief?The continuing success of Naughty Dog’s action-adventure series, along with the resurgent Tomb Raider games, shows that the “adventuring archaeologist” trope is a resilient one. The modern precursor of both Nathan Drake and Lara Croft is of course Indiana Jones, who retains a vice-like grip over the public imagination. Continue reading...

In a future where robots take our jobs, the tech elite see universal basic income as a fair exchange. But don’t forget – their wealth came from what we providedEvery month, nearly 20% of the country gets a Social Security check. What if that number were 100%? What if the government gave everyone an income?That’s the premise behind universal basic income (UBI), an idea with a long and surprisingly mainstream history. Its popularity last peaked in the 1970s and now, after a relatively dormant few decades, it’s making a comeback. Pilot projects have been announced in Finland, the Netherlands, and Canada. This summer, Swiss voters will vote in a referendum that could give every adult about $2,500 a month. Continue reading...

Low population density means phone and internet companies don’t upgrade services – but in the Navajo Nation vital infrastructure was never installedIt’s been two years since Sonia’s husband’s fatal heart attack. Almost anywhere else in the United States, emergency services could have helped her. But in an isolated corner of the 27,000 square miles that constitute the Navajo Nation, she, her daughter and one of her granddaughters had to manage without technology most of the rest of America takes for granted.The family were outside Tolani Lake, in part of the vast Navajo Nation’s land in north-east Arizona. “My husband had roped a bull that we were dealing with,” Sonia said. “He said he needed to catch his breath. I told him to sit down and he did.” He started to feel better, got back to work and then faltered again.