Technology | The Guardian

The Formula 1 and supercar manufacturer has expertise to turn prototype into product, just what Apple needs to get its self-driving car project back on the roadApple’s possible acquisition of McLaren Technology Group, first reported in the Financial Times, could be just what the company’s troubled self-driving car effort, code-named Project Titan, needs to get back on track.The loss-making British automotive group is far more than just a Formula 1 team and supercar manufacturer. It has a tradition for innovation stretching back decades, including the first carbon fibre car in Formula 1 and the first carbon fibre-bodied road car, the McLaren F1. Continue reading...

NHS waiting lists | Jeremy Corbyn’s nuclear stance | Drivers using mobiles | Cryptic crosswordAs I read your article about waiting lists of up to 467 days for cataract removal on the NHS (21 September), a circular arrived through my door offering cataract operations within two weeks from private healthcare provider Nuffield Health. Could the two be related, I wonder?

Your leader (20 September) is wrong to suggest that drivers who use the Uber app in London are not regulated. All UK drivers are licensed by the local authority and must have commercial insurance in place. In the capital, this process includes going through the same enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check as teachers and black cab drivers, a medical assessment and a map reading test.What we object to is Transport for London piling unnecessary extra costs on to private hire drivers that won’t apply to black cab drivers, such as written English exams costing £200. These new rules threaten the livelihoods of thousands of drivers. Continue reading...

Brussels plans to scrap 90-day limit on free roaming after outcry from members of European parliamentConsumers across Europe should be able to pay the same for using their mobile phones abroad as they do in their home country for an unlimited number of days, under plans being debated by the European commission as it tries to abolish roaming charges.

We all know the feeling that comes the morning after an ill-advised message. When I Think About You I Text Myself provides an artful solutionIt’s late. You’re a little worse for wear. And feeling nostalgic.You know that what you really shouldn’t do now is send a text, yet the more you try to talk yourself out of it, the worse the urge gets. Continue reading...

A Silicon Valley apartment complex wants to attract high-income tenants who work at top tech firms – but critics ask, what is the human cost?The recent eviction notice that Laura Hernandez and her husband received at their one-bedroom apartment in Silicon Valley did not say why they were being kicked out.But executives at Trion Properties, a private equity firm that recently purchased their building, have made it unusually clear that they want a different kind of tenant – high-paid technology workers at the nearby headquarters of Facebook, which is planning a large campus expansion. Continue reading...

Coalition of officials and advocacy groups wants to return authority over domestic spying to townships and cities that legally oversee police departmentsLocal officials in 11 cities around the US launched a campaign on Wednesday to crack down on the unsanctioned police use of surveillance equipment, especially devices that imitate cellphone towers.

Google said Allo would only store user data ‘transiently’ – but reports suggest it has rolled back on the promise in return for better performanceGoogle’s new messaging app, Allo, is just a bit snoopier than the company promised it would be back in May.The app is already viewed with suspicion by many privacy advocates, because its integration with Google’s new AI assistant (called, imaginatively, Assistant) requires messages to be sent without end-to-end encryption on by default. That means Google’s Assistant can read your messages, and provide contextual aid – but it also means Google can read them, and so too can law enforcement, national security and anyone else with a valid warrant. Continue reading...

With the release of the virtual reality system in the UK we’d like to hear your reviews

AJ Odudu told to mark future similar Twitter posts with #ad to make it clear they are marketing

The business of selling spring and foam was once a staid affair. Now firms such as Simba, Casper and Eve are taking cues from – and sharing investors with – Twitter and SnapchatIf you’ve glanced at the ads for Simba, Eve or Casper, you’d be forgiven for thinking they were flogging some kind of new gadget. They have the aesthetic of tech startups everywhere, tout the research and development that went into their sparkly new products, and offer eye-catching, venture capital-funded deals. If you look more closely, however, you’ll see they’re actually selling mattresses.But why would companies selling foam, springs and fabric be posturing as Silicon Valley brands? The answer is mattress-selling has changed. Continue reading...

The cyber hackers are trying to conflate athletes’ therapeutic use drug exemptions with Russian state-sponsored doping. They do not amount to a ‘licence to dope’We live in an age when many Olympic and elite sporting feats are greeted with suspicion. Consciously or not, when something spectacular is achieved, there lingers scepticism. The seed of doubt has already been sown in the minds of many observers thanks to the misdemeanours of those that have gone before.Incidents of doping become conflated. Some perceive that everyone must be cheating. Arguments are made in favour of doping deregulation: scrap rules regarding banned substances and permit a free-for-all, to ensure a level playing field across sport. Continue reading...

Research shows a simple diet and exercise plan is more effective weight loss strategy than using Fitbit and Jawbone devicesThey have become the must-have for fitness fans but wearable gadgets that track users’ physical activity may not help people lose weight, a new study has found.Instead of motivating users to do more exercise over the day, the two-year survey found the devices were actually less effective at encouraging people to lose weight than simply following a diet and exercise plan. Continue reading...

Apparent error by a regime tech worker gave the world a rare glimpse into the few online sources of information availableThe internet is awash with news and comment about North Korea, from its nuclear tests to speculation about the health of its leader, Kim Jong-un. But its own contribution to the world wide web is tiny, according to a leak that revealed the country has just 28 registered domains.

Made of elastic spangles, this lightweight, ambidextrous glove can repel the sharpest of kitchen implements. But don’t we want a bit of skin in the game?The Microplane cut-resistant glove (£14.95, John Lewis) is a synthetic-knit hand cover. Flexible fibres withstand cutting action, protecting tactile members within. Continue reading...

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

A hyperlink from the airline’s website was an hour out, so when I got to the airport, the flight was closedI booked a return flight with easyJet from Gatwick to Ibiza in May. The confirmation email contained a hyperlink to add the details of the flight to the calendar function on my iPhone. It said the flight was due to leave at 6.35am; we turned up at the airport at 5am, only to find that the flight details had been incorrectly imported. The flight was in fact departing at 5.35am and the gate was closed.EasyJet had not heard of a problem like this before and was unable to help. We managed to find a flight with another carrier later in the day, but at considerable cost. Continue reading...

The new Super Mario Run game will take on Pokemon Go later this year but our writer goes one better – dressing up as the gaming icon for a go kart tour of TokyoTyres screech. Children scream. Men cry … I’m causing a scene on the streets of Tokyo. Perhaps it’s my shiny modified ride, all flashing indicators and gutsy exhaust. Or my cool ensemble of blue dungarees, tomato-red top and oversized cap. Or maybe it’s my new moustache, dangling limply from my sweaty upper lip.For today, and for one day only, just call me Mario. Super Mario, in fact – gaming icon and the planet’s most-cherished Italian plumber. Over the next three hours I’m touring the neighbourhoods of Tokyo in a pimped-up, road-ready go kart. Continue reading...

Google’s play for the future of chatbots and search includes smart replies, drawing on images, stickers and group chatGoogle has launched its latest mobile chat app, Allo, and with it Google Assistant – a chatbot that can be used in online conversations with friends.The messaging app, which is available for Android and the iPhone, has similar features to most other messaging clients: stickers, emoji, the ability to draw on images like Snapchat and the choice of group or one-on-one chats. Messages are not encrypted end-to-end by default – unlike on WhatsApp, which it will compete with – but can be switched to an incognito mode to do so and set how long they exist before they’re deleted. Continue reading...

ProPublica investigation found that algorithms placed items in the prominent ‘buy box’ on the website that weren’t always the cheapestAmazon’s algorithms encourage customers pay more than they need to for popular products and appear to give more prominence to items that benefit the retail giant, according to an investigation by ProPublica.

Sales of specialist bakeware rise during The Great British Bake Off and flat cap purchases peak during Peaky BlindersPrimetime TV programmes such as The Great British Bake Off and Game of Thrones have helped fuel a boom in “dual-screening” by consumers – watching television while simultaneously browsing and shopping online – new research has revealed.Reinforcing the ongoing “Bake Off effect” on retail sales, shoppers are snapping up specialist bakeware such as tins and cookie cutters from the comfort of their sofas via their laptop, tablet or smartphone during the programme, according to online marketplace eBay. Continue reading...

The virtual reality headset comes with access to hundreds of gaming experiences, with an Xbox controller included in the boxThe Oculus Rift virtual reality system has arrived in the UK for the first time, with consumers now able to buy the headset on the high street.The Facebook-owned system has been available in the US and online since earlier this year, although many customers have seen their shipments delayed due to the high demand and issues with supply. Continue reading...

Technique known as NAND mirroring, which focuses on bypassing limit on password retry attempts, can be used to break into any model up to the 6The FBI paid more than $1.3m to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5C, but one computer scientist from Cambridge University has shown that the passcodes can be hacked using a store-bought kit worth less than $100.Sergei Skorobogatov demonstrated a technique known as NAND mirroring – dismissed by the FBI director, James Comey, as being unworkable – to break into any model of iPhone up to the iPhone 6, including the iPhone 5C. He outlined the attack in a paper published last week as well as a YouTube video. Continue reading...

A government proposal calls on automakers to voluntarily submit details of how autonomous vehicle systems work, and why they failThe Obama administration is proposing deeper government involvement in the design of autonomous vehicle systems and calling on manufacturers to share more information about how such systems work and why they fail.A proposal put forward on Tuesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) calls on automakers to voluntarily submit details of self-driving vehicle systems to regulators – a 15 point “safety assessment”. Continue reading...

Jury at Southwark crown court in London finds company guilty on four charges of breaching air navigation rulesAmazon has been found guilty of shipping dangerous goods by air. The items included lithium-ion batteries and flammable aerosols, which were flown in and out of the UK between January 2014 and June 2015.Related: Incentivised reviews are warping Amazon’s product star ratings, report says Continue reading...

Chinese researchers were able to interfere with the car’s brakes, door locks and other electronic features, demonstrating an attack that could cause havocThree months since the first fatal crash involving a Tesla driving in autopilot mode, hackers have taken remote control of a Tesla Model S from a distance of 12 miles, interfering with the car’s brakes, door locks, dashboard computer screen and other electronically controlled features in the high-tech car.A team of Chinese security researchers – Samuel LV, Sen Nie, Ling Liu and Wen Lu from Keen Security Lab – were able to target the car wirelessly and remotely in an attack that could cause havoc for any Tesla driver. Continue reading...

The appalling working conditions in the factories of China producing the iPhone are mirrored in the African mines where major phone manufacturers source their minerals (Your new iPhone features include oppression, inequality – and vast profit, 19 September). In the Democratic Republic of Congo workers toil for 12 hours a day with their bare hands to harvest coltan, a mineral used in smartphones and other consumer electronics. The miners who use picks and shovels to extract coltan in the sweltering heat are typically paid $5 a day, just above the minimum wage in the DRC of $3 a day. Many of the mines use illegal child labour and are controlled by militias who have used them to fund years of conflict in the country.But there is a more ethical alternative to the major brands. The Fairphone is produced in a factory that ensures health and safety, as well as decent wages. It is also made with conflict-free minerals, which is a key starting point in avoiding some of the worst abuses of workers. Fairphone has been conceived and produced by a social enterprise which has worked hard to deliver transparency in both its production and supply chain. As a customer-owned co-operative, we are proud to work with Fairphone and be part of a movement working to improve conditions in the supply chain for mobile phones.

Biotechnologist and pioneer in bioprinting with living cellsJemma Redmond, who has died aged 38, founded the Irish 3D bioprinting startup Ourobotics, and developed the first 10-material bioprinter capable of using live human cells. Bioprinting – the use of 3D printing, with largely organic materials – is creating organs for surgeons to use in patients. Today, surgery using bioprinted body parts is in its first trials.In February 2016, the neurosurgeon Ralph Mobbs in Australia placed two 3D-printed cervical vertebrae, made of titanium, in the upper neck of a patient whose cancer tumour was slowly compressing his brain stem and spinal cord. It was a world first, and a rarely attempted surgery, largely because of the difficulty in making a fit with bone from elsewhere in the body. But much more can be done by printing with actual cells, instead of titanium. The next step – printing surgically usable kidneys, livers and hearts – requires advances in two areas, bioprinting and stem-cell technology, allowing printing to use a person’s own cells. Continue reading...

Games like Dear Esther take the environmental lessons of shooters and divert the focus from action to introversionThere are no puzzles, no enemies. You’re alone on a remote Hebridean island with little evidence of life beyond the cawing gulls, and the odd glimpse of a shadowy figure on the horizon. There is one path to follow, which guides you over the dunes and into caves lit by phosphorescent flora. The story unravels, not through the completion of tasks, but through a pondering, poetic narration, and scattered letters.Are you playing a game? Continue reading...

Siri lands on the Mac, you can now copy things between different Mac and iOS devices, your desktop now lives in the cloud – and everything can be tabbedOS X is dead. Long live macOS. Apple’s new version of its Mac operating system – Sierra – will be available for download later today.

If a song is worth a thousand swipes, then Tinder’s new partnership with Spotify will help you understand very quickly what your date is really likeIn just the latest indication that there are no new ideas, Tinder and Spotify are teaming up to turn the dating app into MySpace circa 2002.Tinder users will now have the option to choose a single song – their “anthem”, as Tinder is calling it – to add to your profile alongside a picture of that time you hugged a tiger and that time you hugged a small child of a different race. Tinder promises that the new feature will make its app “where the lyrics of your life meet the rhythm of your soul”, though chances are it will remain the place where the expectations of your parents meet the reality that you’re going to die alone. Continue reading...

White paper bags made of recycled material tend to be flimsy due to the amount of bleach used, so Apple’s come up with a solutionApple has patented remotely disabling iPhone cameras. It’s patented Gear VR-style headsets, and watch-controlled photography. It’s even patented the sliding function to unlock the phone – deceased as of iOS 10 – and the concept of a phone with a bezel and rounded edges.Now it’s gone one step further, and applied to patent a paper bag.

School students across Europe smoke and drink less but there are new public health concerns about excessive screen timeOnline gambling by teenage boys across Europe is becoming a huge public health concern with one in eight now gambling frequently, according to a Europe-wide survey of school students aged 15 and 16.The results of the four-yearly survey, in which 96,000 school students in 35 countries took part, reveal that while teenage smoking and drinking are showing signs of decline, there are new concerns about the dangers of excessive screen time and new psychoactive drugs. Continue reading...

Reviewers given discounts or free products award higher ratings, detrimentally affecting Amazon’s star systemSo-called incentivised reviews, where people are given products in return for write-ups on Amazon, are skewing results, artificially increasing the star ratings, according a report.

Delayed effect of March 2016 software update sees third-party printer cartridges stop working in Hewlett-Packard machinesHewlett-Packard printers have suddenly started rejecting ink cartridges produced or refilled by third parties, apparently due to a “ticking timebomb” left by the manufacturer in an update released in March 2016.The printers, in the company’s OfficeJet, OfficeJet Pro and OfficeJet Pro X ranges, accepted refills made by third-parties and sold at a significantly lower price than the official ink made and sold by HP itself. But on 13 September, the printers began to reject those refills, with error messages including “cartridge problem”, “one or more cartridges are missing or damaged” and “older generation cartridge”. Continue reading...

California judge decides a jury should hear the accusations made against the headphones mogul by a former partnerDr Dre faces the prospect of a gruelling lawsuit after a California appeals court allowed a former hedge fund manager to go ahead with his case against Beats Electronics over royalties for Beats headphones.Steven Lamar first brought his case two years ago, arguing that he was “the founder of Beats headphones, its design and corporate identity”, and that he had done the preparatory work on setting up Beats and demanding a cut of royalties on future sales of headphones derived from the original design, instead of just the 4% he gets on past models. Continue reading...

Highest court in Italy recently upheld a ruling that, after a period of two years, an article in an online news archive had expired, ‘just like milk or yoghurtEver since the European court ordered Google to delist a 16-year-old article about a bankruptcy, web watchers have wondered how the ‘right to be forgotten’ would evolve.Mario Costeja González’s ‘Data and Goliath’ victory in 2014 in Spain has meant that human concepts of fairness are now applied to Google Search, which is subject to European data protection laws. Continue reading...

Like free stuff? Of course you do, you’re reading the online version of our student guide. Whether it’s opera or gaming, here are more cash-saving culture hacks

As the iPhone 6S turns one, Alex Hern looks back on what’s niggled, what’s grown on him, and what is and isn’t getting fixed with the iPhone 7When the iPhone 6S hit the shops, we called it “a very good phone, ruined by rubbish battery life”. A year on, with the iPhone 7 on the shelves and iOS 10 on devices, the 6S is now the budget option in Apple’s line-up. But how has the phone aged? Is it still very good? Does the battery life still suck? Will the 6S be remembered as a high point in the iPhone’s history, or an era to be slightly buried?I’ve been using an iPhone 6S – in rose gold, naturally, and I’m not even sure if I’m doing this out of irony anymore – for the past year. Some of what I hated, I’ve come to love, and some of what I loved, I’ve come to hate. And some bad stuff is just still bad. Continue reading...

Head of Aftenposten, which forced backdown over ‘napalm girl’ photo, accuses Facebook founder of hiding from debate

Diddy Kong, Waddle Dee, Bub and Bob … which is the fluffiest, most doe-eyed creature ever to grace the video game menagerie?It’s a question that has bothered gamers – and pet lovers – for many years. Exactly what is the cutest animal ever to appear in video game form? Certainly pixellated critters have been a staple protagonist for game designers since Donkey Kong first stamped his way up the building in Nintendo’s 1981 arcade classic.Since then, as in the world of animated movies, there have been many hundreds of anthropomorphised heroes – with designers relying heavily on our instinctual protective love of small animals with gigantic eyes. Continue reading...

Aftenposten editor who locked horns with Facebook over censorship of ‘napalm girl’ photo challenges company to respondIn every TV studio where Facebook’s powerful position is being debated, one chair remains empty. In every newspaper article, every blogpost and every Facebook thread that challenges the company, one participant is missing.Where is Mark Zuckerberg? A man now more powerful than most state leaders. Continue reading...

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

A court summons has been issued, as lawsuit says the public needs to know how an unidentified vendor broke into one of the world’s most popular productsA federal court in Washington DC has issued a summons to the FBI after a group of media organizations filed a suit compelling them to release details about how they hacked an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino killers.

White House will publish footsteps for auto-makers interested in making self-driving vehicles and model legislation for states that want to legalize themThe White House will release guidelines for self-driving automobiles on Tuesday, as well as model legislation recommended to states that want to follow in the footsteps of California, Florida and Nevada, which have legalized automated vehicles.

Financial services providers are launching a national campaign to combat rise in fraud and remind customers to stop and think

Officials allege that Google Indonesia paid less than 0.1% of total income and taxes owed last year, as investigation into last five years escalated to criminal caseIndonesia plans to pursue Google’s parent company Alphabet for five years of back taxes, meaning the search firm could face a bill of more than $400m for 2015 alone if it is found to have avoided payments, a senior government tax official has said.Muhammad Hanif, head of the tax office’s special cases branch, told Reuters its investigators went to Google’s local office in Indonesia on Monday. Continue reading...

The Wireless Emergency Alert asked residents Monday morning to help look for Ahmad Khan Rahami, the first time the system has been used in a manhuntNew Yorkers were rattled Monday morning by an alert from the Wireless Emergency Alert system (WEA) on their mobile devices, calling for their aid in a manhunt for someone suspected of terrorism, the first time the system has been used for such a callout.The alert, sent to some but not all cellphones in the New York area, read: “WANTED: Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28-yr-old male. See media for pic. Call 9-1-1 if seen.” The alert was sent between 7.30 and 8.30am on Monday. By 11.25am, officials had announced that Rahami had been taken into custody after a shootout in Linden, New Jersey. Continue reading...

Laetitia Birbes accused YouTube staffer of threatening her career on video platform if she asked tough questionsThe European commission has said Jean-Claude Juncker needed no protection from awkward questions after a video blogger accused a staffer at YouTube of trying to censor her questions to the EU chief executive.Juncker, 61, gave a series of live interviews on YouTube last Thursday to young social media celebrities, including French vlogger Laetitia Birbes, aiming to counter an image of Brussels bureaucrats as stuffy and out of touch. Continue reading...