Technology | The Guardian

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates welcomes the debate over privacy and security following the row between Apple and the FBI. The FBI wants Apple to override its encryption features to access an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists. Photograph: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton

US government is asking for a particular case, and Apple should comply, says Microsoft co-founder GatesThe Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has waded into the row between Apple and the FBI, arguing that the government agency is right to demand co-operation from Silicon Valley when it comes to terrorism investigations.Gates also questioned Apple chief executive Tim Cook’s characterisation of the case as a demand for a “back door”, the Financial Times reported. Continue reading...

‘It needed enemies fast – so I just drew this pig thing I’ve been drawing since I was 10’Rovio only had enough money to make one game. It was 2009 and, as the company’s sole designer, I had to start coming up with ideas. I’ve always been keen on drawing animals, so I sat at my computer and drew a bunch of birds, giving them beaks, a rounded shape – and angry eyebrows. I had this idea of an angry flock of birds, running around destroying things. Continue reading...

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

Facebook chief executive qualifies comments supportive of Tim Cook, saying social network is guided by ‘a big responsibility to help prevent terrorism’Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday that he was “sympathetic” with Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook in his standoff with the FBI – but the Facebook boss left the door open to helping authorities fight terrorism and “different types of attacks”.“If we have opportunities to basically work with the government to make sure there are not terrorist attacks, obviously we are going to take those opportunities,” Zuckerberg told delegates at the world’s biggest mobile congress in Barcelona. Continue reading...

Donna Seymour is the second high-ranking official to leave OPM since the hacking of personal information of 22 million people was disclosed last JulyThe top technology official at the US Office of Personnel Management announced her retirement on Monday amid calls for her ouster by some Republican lawmakers.

Some are questioning the ride-sharing company’s less stringent safety standards after driver Jason Dalton completed rides between several shootings in MichiganThe spotlight is once again on Uber and its alarmingly light safety requirements after a driver went on a mass shooting spree, killing six people and injuring two in Michigan this weekend, while picking up and dropping off passengers in between.

Online abuse can be cruel – but for some tech companies it is an existential threat. Can giants such as Facebook use behavioural psychology and persuasive design to tame the trolls?It was a book on the curious decline of the murder rate that gave Aja Bogdanoff her idea.Her job back then stopped short of actual bloodshed, but it left her no stranger to the dark side of human nature. A software engineer who built and moderated online comment platforms, Bogdanoff spent her days wading through insults, and her spare time firefighting more urgent incidents. She could see platforms being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of antisocial users, but couldn’t figure out how to get one jump ahead of them. Continue reading...

Lawyer says US attorney’s office asked him on 14 February to file brief asking company to help unlock shooter’s iPhone amid feud over encryptionFederal prosecutors asked an attorney for victims of the San Bernardino terrorist attack to aid their case two days before they asked a judge to order Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters, spurring a massive privacy battle, the Guardian has learned.

FBI director James Comey says he hopes people will ‘stop saying the world is ending’, while Apple CEO Tim Cook argues that iPhone user data is ‘under siege’The director of the FBI has pleaded for responsible dialogue and calm in an escalating public battle with Apple, even as the company’s chief executive, Tim Cook, vowed to continue a legal fight that carries widespread implications for digital privacy and law enforcement.

The company’s AI startup DeepMind will take on the Go champion Lee Se-Dol in March, but hopes that ‘human ingenuity’ will be the real winnerDon’t ask Demis Hassabis, the chief executive of Google’s artificial intelligence startup DeepMind, to indulge in mind games before a big competition. “We hope that whatever the result, the power of human ingenuity will be the winner” isn’t the sort of fighting talk that will make an opponent quake in their boots.Hassabis’ DeepMind is preparing for the bout of its life: a five-game match against Lee Se-Dol, one of the strongest players in the world at the ancient game of Go. Continue reading...

Among the secretive, almost religious community of expert security engineers, breaking your own encryption is seen as shameful and unholyApple’s security team are a tight-knit tribe of hackers driven by a strict belief system and with almost unparalleled power around the company’s Cupertino campus, according to a former employee who worked closely with them.Related: Apple says the FBI is making access demands even China hasn't asked for Continue reading...

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

A mysterious island begs to be explored in the sublime new indie game from Jonathan Blow, Unravel is a bit woolly and Bravely Default’s sequel has little of value to add(PC, PS4 , Thekla, cert: 3)

South Korean mobile giant unveils new top-end Android phones with fan favourite microSD card slot, super-fast cameras and larger batteriesSamsung has unveiled its latest Galaxy S7 flagship smartphones, bringing back favourite features as it aims to close out the top-end of the Android market.

It looks like an ordinary four-door family saloon, but don’t be fooled: this new V8 Merc is one of the fastest cars you can buyPrice: £66,810

The tech company claims San Bernardino government workers botched an attempt to access gunman Syed Farook’s iCloud account and reset his passwordThe US government is asking for greater access to Apple’s software than even the Chinese government, an Apple executive has said, as the company resists an order forcing it to help the government crack the passcode for a phone that was used by a San Bernardino shooter.America’s most valuable company and its government used increasingly bellicose tones on Friday in a debate over whether national security can dictate how Silicon Valley makes products. Continue reading...

Court filing from Department of Justice says Apple is more concerned with ‘its marketing strategy’ than helping FBI unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhoneThe FBI accused Apple of prioritizing its public relations strategy over a terrorism investigation on Friday in a significant escalation of this week’s war between the tech company and the law enforcement agency.Related: Inside the FBI's encryption battle with Apple Continue reading...

Fond memories of Donkey Kong, Tron or Pac-Man? Fancy yourself a pinball wizard? Vector Volcano in Bend, Oregon, is the place to revisit classic 70s and 80s games – without needing a fistful of coinsThe afternoon when I destroyed the Death Star in my X-wing fighter was a pretty big moment for me but, somehow, it went unnoticed. Maybe it was because the woman next to me needed her concentration for a takedown in Street Fighter 2, or perhaps it was Tron or Mortal Kombat or Asteroids. Maybe Donkey Kong, Missile Command or Pac-Man. I’m not sure – like I say, I’d just given the Empire a major kicking and there may have been fist pumping.Related: Top 10 national and state parks in Oregon Continue reading...

Suicide Prevention tool lets users flag posts from friends that cause concern and leads to help options sent to those deemed to be strugglingFacebook has launched a new feature in the UK to offer support to users at risk of taking their own lives.The social network developed the Suicide Prevention tool with support from the Samaritans charity. Continue reading...

High street bank and First Direct to offer 15 million customers its biometric banking software to access online and phone accounts using their fingerprint or voice. And yes, it does work if you have a coldHSBC is rolling out voice recognition and touch ID services for 15 million customers by the summer in a big step towards biometric banking in the UK.Other banks are also introducing biometric security, but HSBC, which recently suffered an online cyber attack, is the first to roll it out to millions of retail customers. Continue reading...

As HSBC rolls out biometric identification for its customers, how do these methods work and can these systems be fooled?HSBC will become the first bank in the UK to roll out voice recognition technology for its telephone banking system to every customer, and it has also embraced fingerprint scanners for its smartphone app. But how do they work and are they safe? Continue reading...

As Mailbox prepares to shut down, here are seven other contenders for managing your inbox on the move on Android and iPhoneTwo months ago, if you’d asked me what the best email app for smartphones was, I’d have said Mailbox without missing a beat.But then came the announcement that Dropbox was shutting down its excellent mobile email client on 28 February – a deadline that the app has been reminding users of constantly ever since. Continue reading...

Nottingham-based developer Dambuster Studios didn’t just survive the collapse of two publishers – it made a better shooter in the processThe next time you’re trying to perform a complex task while some annoying distraction scuppers your efforts, spare a thought for Dambuster Studios. In the process of making Homefront: The Revolution, the Nottingham-based developer was forced to weather the loss of not one but two publishers due to financial difficulties – an unusual occurrence even in the high-risk world of videogames.The game this embattled team is making will be the sequel to 2011 first-person shooter Homefront, which depicts a near-future US invaded and occupied by the Greater Korean Republic (you never know: with North Korea testing missiles and Donald Trump riding high in US polls, it could prove prophetic). Set in 2029, this follow-up presents a fully open-world, as opposed to the single-path of its predecessor, and, fascinatingly, some of its key new features come from that unfeasibly difficult conception. Continue reading...

As the US government attempts to weaken encryption, Facebook and Twitter have both come out in support of Apple. But why are tech companies so afraid?Facebook and Twitter stepped into the battle with the FBI, with both companies pledging that they “stand with Apple” and will “aggressively fight” attempts to weaken encryption.Apple is heading deeper in to a legal battle with the FBI, which is attempting to access encrypted information on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers. Continue reading...

The Russian-owned firm was charged with paying huge kickbacks to a relative of dictator Islam Karimov in order to access the country’s mobile marketVimpelCom, the Amsterdam-based telecoms company, has agreed to pay $835m to settle US and Dutch charges that it paid massive bribes to enter the Uzbekistan telecommunications market, the US justice department has said.

The masters of Silicon Valley have a knack for technological innovation, but they also can’t stop inventing new and awful ways of putting their feet in their mouths. Test your knowledge of the tech industry’s worst ambassadors by clicking your answers and seeing how you did at the end.

The world’s biggest e-commerce company is taking a page from the ride-sharing service and asking drivers to sign up for shifts to deliver packagesAmazon.com is quietly inviting drivers for its new “on-demand” delivery service to handle its standard packages, as the online retailer known for low prices and razor-thin profit margins looks to speed up delivery times and tamp down its growing multibillion-dollar logistics bill.

‘Consumers deserve a break and a choice’ says FCC chairman as measure would allow people to swap cable boxes for cheaper devices and appsThe Federal Communications Commission voted to boost competition in the $20bn pay television set-top box market on Thursday by allowing consumers to swap pricey cable boxes for cheaper devices and apps.Related: Proposed FCC rule change could make TV cable box an endangered species Continue reading...

The company’s Chinese business is now worth $8bn, but is losing money as it tries to compete with local firm Didi KuaidiUber is burning through more than a billion dollars a year in China as it wages a fierce price-war against local rival Didi Kuaidi, its chief executive said.The company’s Chinese business boosted its valuation last month to more than $8bn after raising more than $1bn in its latest funding round, but the US ride-hailing app is not yet profitable in mainland China because of the intense competition. Continue reading...

Despite signs of crisis among science startups, many still think that biotech will create companies so powerful that they will ‘win’ the 21st centuryIt was noon on a Thursday at a gathering of science startups in San Francisco. The public market for biotechnology stock had dropped 25% in two months. The private sector’s star startup, Theranos, valued at $9bn, has begun to implode. The most popular food tech startup, Hampton Creek, which is trying to reinvent mayonnaise, has reportedly stretched the truth of their science.And yet there was no sign of trouble on that sunny afternoon. Continue reading...

Crowd-funded smartphone is thin, capable, has a decent camera and excellent fingerprint scanner, for a mid-range priceThe Nextbit Robin is crowd-funded Android smartphone that aims to put the cloud at the centre of the experience, while breaking the mould on the traditional black slab.

Arcane unit in Luxemburg that allows US multinational to pay much lower taxes is at the centre of demands for firm to pay moreIf you had to sum up Amazon’s core business in a single sentence, how would you put it? Is it a website where you can order almost anything? Or is it a quick and convenient delivery network allowing you to receive the goods you need promptly?Clearly, it is both. But precisely how the group’s economic value is split between the two is now a vexed question at the heart of tax disputes on both sides of the Atlantic. Continue reading...

Documents released during the internet giant’s court battle with the US Internal Revenue Service over a possible $1.5bn in unpaid taxes detail a complex restructuring and a deal with Luxembourg that delivered Amazon multimillion-dollar savingsAmazon is facing a landmark court ruling in the US that could prise open its obscure tax structure in Luxembourg, after a high-stakes legal battle that has shed unprecedented light on the technology giant’s labyrinthine tax affairs.The case, which is quietly coming to a head as Amazon’s Luxembourg arrangements face intense scrutiny from European authorities, has revealed new details of an elaborate avoidance scheme it devised and codenamed Project Goldcrest. Continue reading...

Bethesda’s downloadable content plans will add new life to the post apocalypse, with monster training, robot building and a vast new area to exploreThe first downloadable content (DLC) for Fallout 4 has been announced and, reading between the lines, it’s clear that the game has been a hit beyond even Bethesda’s expectations. Fallout has always been a popular series but the fourth entry has now sold more than 12 million copies, making it the most successful game in the company’s history. The post-launch plans show a development studio ready to run with that success – and fix some of the stuff it didn’t get right first time.

With the demise of print revenues, it’s clear that the future of news is digital. But what role will mobile play?After the announcement that the Independent is to go digital only and the arrival of the new Quartz app we take a look at the latest innovations in mobile news and ask where the sector is going next.Nathalie is joined by Zach Seward from Quartz to talk about why they want to make news “into a conversation” and we gather a panel of Guardian journalists to talk about how the implications of this shift to mobile on The Guardian itself. Continue reading...

Human development is too important, too complex, and too culturally diverse to be left to profit-driven companies acting in their own interestsGoogle’s new holding company, Alphabet, has announced the latest piece in its corporate restructuring plans: Jigsaw. It’s the jovial rebrand of Google Ideas, the web giant’s controversial diplomatic arm, founded in 2010 and headed by ex-US State Department policy wonk Jared Cohen. Jigsaw’s stated mission is to use technology to tackle geopolitics.Just another move in the exuberant tech industry, you might say; in a sector that’s reported as if it is the fashion business, not the oil trade. But what Google is doing (and it is Google, despite the niceties of Alphabet’s organigram) has far-reaching social, economic and political implications. Continue reading...

Latest Philips Bluetooth wireless noise-cancelling headphones get a lot of things right, but are hampered by a few nigglesPhilips’s latest noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones attempt to pack in premium features into a lightweight set of cans without breaking the bank.

For months, the FBI searched for a compelling case that would force Apple to weaken iPhone security – and then the San Bernardino shooting happenedTwo weeks ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation called Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, California, with a jarring message: the agency wanted Apple to help them hack an iPhone. Apple refused.The request stepped up a level on 16 February when a federal magistrate ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock a single iPhone – the phone belonging to one of the killers in the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. Apple again refused. Continue reading...

After Taryn Wright exposed an elaborate fake tragedy on Facebook, she found herself leading a squad of online detectives – but on the internet, it doesn’t take long for a crowd to become a mobOn 13 May 2012, friends of Dana Dirr, a 35-year-old surgeon in Saskatchewan, were greeted with a distressing message when they logged into Facebook: “URGENT PRAYERS NEEDED.” A post written by Dirr’s father informed her friends that Dana was fighting for her life after a head-on car accident. Dana had been airlifted to the very same trauma centre where she worked as a surgeon; in fact, she was meant to be on duty that night. “Dana is almost 35 weeks pregnant now,” her father wrote. “So please pray for her and the baby!”Within hours, hundreds of people had shared the post of Dana’s accident, and hundreds more had left supportive comments. As she fought for her life, her family continued to post updates to Facebook. Minutely detailing their lives online was nothing new for the Dirrs. Dana’s husband, a tattooed ex-punk named JS, had been active in online communities for at least a decade – and had acquired hundreds of online-only friends (and at least one online lover). In 2010, Dana and JS had even become minor internet celebrities when they began sharing the story of their seven-year-old son Eli, who was in the midst of his fourth battle with cancer, with a growing number of followers – first a few hundred, then a few thousand. They called him Warrior Eli. Continue reading...

In the old world, our address books and calendars would have been accessible with a warrant – so why not our smartphones?In Silicon Valley, saying you think Apple should help the FBI get into terrorists’ phones is grounds to get kicked out of your Uber.

Inspired by bats and birds, the wings of a new type of unmanned Micro Air Vehicle can respond to air currents and change shape during flightIt flies like a bird, it was inspired by a bat and it could in every sense take off: a new British unmanned Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) can skim over the waves, splash down and take off and change wingshape in responses to the forces it encounters.Drones have been used by the military for years. But scientists based at Imperial College and Southampton University have pioneered a new approach. They are testing a new MAV with better aerodynamic properties, which can fly long distances and will be more economical to run. Continue reading...

In an open letter to the city’s mayor Ed Lee, entrepreneur Justin Keller said he is ‘outraged’ that wealthy workers have to see people in pain and despairRelated: Super Bowl protests flare up over plight of San Francisco’s homeless residentsIn only the latest cultural altercation between San Francisco’s tech workers and the city’s impoverished population, one tech worker has declared the homeless are “riff raff” whose “pain, struggle and despair” shouldn’t have to be endured by “wealthy” people commuting to work. Continue reading...

White House spokesman Josh Earnest responds to a question on the news that Apple will resist a court order to help the FBI gain access to one of the San Bernardino shooters’ iPhones. Asserting that the organisation has only been asked to create software to enable access to this individual device, Earnest says that the FBI and the Department of Justice can count on the ‘full support’ of the Obama administrationApple encryption case risks influencing Russia and China, privacy experts say

Analysts and lawmakers warn FBI that ramifications over its demand that Apple unlock San Bernardino killer’s iPhone ‘could snowball around the world’Authoritarian governments including Russia and China will demand greater access to mobile data should Apple lose a watershed encryption case brought by the FBI, leading technology analysts, privacy experts and legislators have warned.Related: Apple challenges 'chilling' demand to decrypt San Bernardino shooter's iPhone Continue reading...

Apple chief executive Tim Cook has opposed a demand from a US judge to help the FBI break into an iPhone recovered from one of the San Bernardino shooters. Cook said the court’s demand amounts to ‘hacking’ its customers Continue reading...

The director of the FBI, James Comey, says federal investigators still cannot gain access to the contents of an Apple iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino killers. Comey tells the Senate intelligence committee that encryption hampers law enforcement, national security and local policing

Manchester Art Gallery

Satirical comic insists ‘we’re not going to tone anything down’ after social network removes its page ‘in error’