Technology | The Guardian

Fed up with chores? We road-tested six domestic robots (so you don’t have to)The future is a funny place to live. A few years ago, I bought a lamp controlled by Wi-Fi. “No more getting up and switching things on for me!” I thought, smugly. It was only once I’d bought the lamp that I realised how tedious it is to get your phone out, unlock it, swipe through to the right app, open it, select the correct lamp and switch it on every evening.So I struck upon a brilliant plan. I saw a Kickstarter for a physical button that links to your phone via Bluetooth and connects to Wi-Fi-enabled objects. I bought that, too, hooked it up to the lamp and stuck it on my wall. Continue reading...

The super-slim tablet is said by some to crack too easily. And when the tech giant charges £566 for a repair, is it being unfair?Apple’s swishest iPad yet – the ultra-slim Pro – is thinner, lighter and has an “amazing screen”, according to reviews. But some buyers are finding that the screens crack too easily and are flabbergasted when Apple demands £556 to repair it.One customer, Londoner Jonathan Hassid, paid £1,086 for his 12.9 inch iPad Pro, plus £150 for Apple’s own screen protector. But just three months later the iPad developed a crack on its screen, even though, Hassid says, it had never been bashed or dropped. What stunned him was the reaction from Apple. Continue reading...

His games channel has 12.7m subscribers, but Daniel Middleton’s horizons are expanding into publishing and theatre“I think pugs are actually the perfect dog for YouTubers, just because they’re lapdogs. YouTubers spend a lot of time at home, and they’re perfect companion dogs. When you need to work, they don’t mind. They love sleeping!”Daniel Middleton, aka DanTDM from child-friendly YouTube gaming channel The Diamond Minecart, has been working a lot. He’s the most popular British creator on YouTube, with 12.7 million subscribers and 8.3bn video views since 2012. Continue reading...

New Zealand tourist Warriena Wright met up with Gable Tostee in fun-loving Surfers Paradise. A few hours later she plunged 14 storeys to her deathWarriena Wright was visiting the Gold Coast in Australia when she matched on Tinder with Gable Tostee. They met up in the popular tourist nightspot of Surfers Paradise on a Thursday night and bought a six-pack of beer after spending a few minutes in a pub.By the end of the date Wright was dead, having plunged 14 storeys from the balcony of Tostee’s apartment, and two years later he is on trial in Queensland’s supreme court charged with her murder. Continue reading...

Actor offered to lend his voice to the Facebook founder’s artificial intelligence-based personal assistant, which Zuckerberg calls ‘kind of like Jarvis in Iron Man’It may be Tesla’s Elon Musk who most often invites comparison to Marvel’s superhero Iron Man – the alter ego of billionaire inventor Tony Stark – but it is Mark Zuckerberg who might be the first to bring Stark’s technology to life.Memorably, the Facebook CEO sets himself annual goals such as learning Mandarin in 2010, eating only meat from animals he killed himself in 2011, or reading two books a month in 2015. Continue reading...

Robots | Escaped gorilla | York Minster bellringers | Trident | Trichologist obituaryEarl Yardley, of Industrial Vision Systems (Letters, 14 October), says that in the future robots will not replace humans and instead the two will work “in partnership”. A touch complacent, maybe? Last May the iPhone parts maker Foxconn reduced its employee strength from 110,000 to 50,000, thanks to the introduction of robots. I have yet to hear where the 60,000 replaced workers were redeployed. I suspect they weren’t. So, while hoping that everything will work out for the best, perhaps we do need to work on a plan B as well.

Google splitting its mobile and desktop indexes within ‘months’ to offer better smartphone experiences, according to a Google webmaster trends analystDesktop Google searches could end up slightly out of date compared to those done via smartphones, as the company begins to push mobile search.Google is fully splitting its search index into two distinct versions: a rapidly updated mobile one, and a separate, secondary search index for the desktop web. Continue reading...

Reports say Sony has given a timeframe for its plan to bring its console brand to iOS and Android smartphonesSony is developing at least five smartphone games based on PlayStation titles, which will be released in the next 18 months.According to Japanese news site Nikkei, the games will be initially launched in the Asian market in the business year ending March 2018. Continue reading...

Virgin America, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines install bags capable of withstanding 1,760C heat to stop smartphone and laptop battery fires spreadingFollowing explosions of Samsung Galaxy Note 7 smartphones, airlines are taking steps to protect their planes from mobile devices with fire-suppressing systems.Three US airlines have started rolling out new fire-containment bags capable of sealing up an overheating smartphone or laptop battery to prevent a disaster mid-air. Continue reading...

Baxter and Sawyer are designed to collaborate with people, performing a range of repetitive jobs – but for some tasks there are no tools better than human hands

Meanwhile, some US commentators on cybersecurity issues have suggested that these attacks are not a surprise but appear to be a new spin on an old strategyIt could have been a cold war drama. The world watched this week as accusations and counter-accusations were thrown by the American and Russian governments about documents stolen during a hack of the Democratic National Committee and the email account of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair John Podesta.The notion that public figures have any right to privacy appears to have been lost in the furore surrounding the story, stolen correspondence being bandied around in attempts to influence the outcome of one of the nastiest, most vitriolic US presidential campaigns in history. Continue reading...

Exploding phones take heavy toll on South Korean electronics firm, with safety crisis expected to dent customer loyaltySamsung has issued its second profit warning this week after the withdrawal of its Galaxy Note 7 phone, increasing the estimated cost of the recall to its bottom line from £1.9bn to at least £4bn.The South Korean electronics company said the crisis caused by the exploding Note 7 smartphones would reduce profits by at least 3tn won (£2.2bn) in the six months to the end of March. It hopes it can boost sales of its other flagship handsets to cushion the impact. Continue reading...

Space battles, hallucinogenic puzzlers, office simulators and more – here are our favourite games from Sony’s initial virtual reality lineupSony’s PlayStation VR headset launches this week, offering a more affordable and intuitive introduction to the concept than the likes of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. All you need is a PlayStation 4, a PlayStation Camera – and the £350 headset itself of course.If you’ve taken the plunge into virtual gaming, here are the nine games we’d recommend trying first. Continue reading...

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

We are a generation struggling to look after elderly relatives. Maybe technology can ease the loadBy our habits, shall ye know us. Every home has its rituals, its small daily ceremonies, and none more so perhaps than the homes of the elderly; the kettle always boiled for visitors regardless of whether they want tea, the radio religiously activated for The Archers, the dog put out last thing at night.Related: English man spends 11 hours trying to make cup of tea with Wi-Fi kettle Continue reading...

The flotation of the five-year-old app, now used by more than 40% of young Americans, will be the largest social media IPO since Twitter in 2013Snapchat is preparing for a “mega unicorn” flotation on the stock market that could value the five-year-old mobile app known for its disappearing photos at as much as $25bn.Related: Meet Snapchat's 'dudeocracy' of talent Continue reading...

Registered complaints leading up to US recall and replacement program found only 96 smartphones sparking or inflicting injury due to faulty batteryThe recall and replacement program for Samsung’s faulty Note 7 smartphone has officially begun in the US after an agreement was reached with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, increasing the number of devices that could be returned to 1.9m.Yet the company has claimed that despite the vast scale of the recall – which Samsung estimates will eat into $2.33bn of its profits – only 96 handsets have been found to have caused damage or injury owing to the faulty battery problem. Continue reading...

Launched today, fact check will now appear as a label among news search results alongside other labels such as opinion, local source and highly citedIn the midst of a highly charged presidential election, where fact and fiction have frequently become confused, Google News has introduced a new fact check feature in search results for news stories.Launched today, fact check will now appear as a label among news search results, alongside other established labels such as opinion, local source and highly cited. Continue reading...

They’re ‘plant-based and protein rich’ and contain “12.5% of your daily nutritional requirements’ – but people say they pack some pretty nasty side effects tooThe “future of food” company Soylent has recalled its new line of food bars after reports that the “meal replacement” has made people ill.Soylent began selling 250-calorie bars in August, advertising them as a “12.5% of your daily nutritional requirements” that are “plant-based and protein rich”. In the weeks since, dyspeptic customers have filled Soylent’s message boards with complaints about the bar.

Automated inspection machines and artificial intelligence aren’t designed to cost human workers their jobs; in fact, quite the opposite (Schools not preparing children to succeed in an AI future, MPs warn, theguardian.com, 12 October).Working side by side with humans, AI technology increases productivity in factories, eliminating the need for costly precision fixtures, and allowing different parts to be processed and inspected without changing tools. This assists human workers with inspection processes, relieving them of more commonplace work, and allowing them to be redeployed to tasks that robots cannot do. Continue reading...

Troubled smartphone maker offers incentives in US and South Korea in bid to limit reputational damageSamsung will pay Galaxy Note 7 owners to buy another brand’s smartphone, including arch rival Apple’s iPhones.The troubled smartphone maker began offering financial incentives to US and South Korean customers for exchanging their Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phablets for a refund or another product, in an attempt to limit reputational damage in the wake of its exploding smartphones. Continue reading...

It’s been 20 years since original Tomb Raider. But who is the woman behind the legend? Ellie Gibson visited the famed archeologist in her Surrey mansion to find outShe’s famous around the globe for her archaeological exploits, elegant acrobatics, and ability to take down a T rex at 20 paces. But who is the real Lara Croft? I have come to her sprawling manor home in rural Surrey to find out.This is, after all, the British icon who has spent the last 20 years battling wolves, giant snakes and unsupportive vest tops. Now, as I watch Lara standing at the kitchen counter, wrestling with a small foil pod, one thing becomes clear: she is not a woman who can work a Nespresso machine. “Oh bollocks,” she says, in that familiar cut-glass accent, as coffee granules spray across the polished granite. She hurls the empty pod in the sink, whips out the pistols she keeps strapped to each thigh, and blasts the machine with both barrels. She then pops the guns neatly back in their holsters and turns, raising an eyebrow in her trademark style. “Tea?” Continue reading...

Exclusive: a joint letter marks the escalation of a growing campaign for Airbnb to eliminate illegal hotels that take affordable housing off the marketAirbnb is facing renewed calls for a federal investigation from more than a dozen US cities, boosting senator Elizabeth Warren’s efforts to force the popular home-sharing startup to release data on its affordable housing impact.A coalition of American lawmakers, including leaders from New York, San Francisco, Seattle, St Louis and Portland, urged the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Thursday to “help cities to protect consumers” and “study the extent to which the [short-term rental] industry is facilitating commercial operations”. Continue reading...

Tim Cook met with Sonder CEO amid reports of a prototype Apple keyboard using startup’s technologyApple is reportedly closing in on a Australian startup that has pioneered dynamic, customisable “magic keyboards”.The Sydney tech company Sonder has designed a smart keyboard that can be customised to accommodate any language, shortcut or custom icon, using the same E Ink display technology used by Kindle. Continue reading...

Mamie would like to replace her old keyboard and mouse with something better. There are plenty of options ...My Dell desktop’s wired optical mouse and keyboard are getting a little long in the tooth, and I’d like to replace them. What do you recommend? Are wireless devices worth it, or do you continually need to recharge them and replace endless batteries? I can touch-type, but my skills are a little rusty. MamieKeyboards are partly a matter of taste, and habitual use overcomes many objections. In other words, if you use a flawed keyboard for long enough, you’ll get used to it. You may even come to like it. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other important thingsIt’s Thursday. Continue reading...

Tools for informal chat are believed to lend themselves to collaborative communication. But are they more suited to office gossip and cute gifs?The all-too-familiar reflex of minimising an open Facebook tab as your manager approaches could soon be relinquished to the past, as Facebook looks to legitimise its infiltration into our working lives. Itrecently launched “Facebook at work”, now officially titled “Workplace”, provides users an entirely separate professional Facebook account through which they can communicate with colleagues and workmates. Workplace is already in more than a thousand organisations worldwide , sold to businesses with a per-user price plan. There’s even a separate work-chat app, so you can install a shop-talk exclusive messenger to your iPhone or Android.

From virtual reality pornography to ‘teledildonics’, we investigate what we can expect from sex technology

The tech company’s program, which has been criticized for obstructing net neutrality, would allow third parties to provide scaled-down content and servicesFacebook is planning to extend its controversial Free Basics service, which offers a free but limited internet access to people who don’t have it, to the US.The social networking company has been in talks with the White House and wireless carriers about introducing the program in a way that doesn’t attract the criticism and regulatory scrutiny it has faced elsewhere, according to a report in the Washington Post. Continue reading...

Combining external memory and deep learning, DeepMind’s program learns how to do tasks independently, and could pave the way for sophisticated AI assistantsGoogle scientists have created a computer program that uses basic reasoning to learn to navigate the London Underground system by itself.The same Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent could also answer questions about the content of snippets of stories and work out family relationships by looking at a family tree. Scientists predict that in future a similar approach could pave the way for virtual assistants that would be able to instantaneously scour the internet to answer questions and carry out instructions with precision. Continue reading...

A festival in New York last week afforded a glimpse at a new era of narrative collaboration. Will the concepts of reader and author soon be a thing of the past?Two forces are sending shockwaves through the world of storytelling. The first is that digital technology now offers creative artists myriad platforms to tell their stories in new ways. “We are using code as the canvas,” says Charles Melcher, book publisher and founder of the inaugural Future of Storytelling festival. In other words, whatever you can dream up, today’s advanced software capabilities can make it happen. Continue reading...

Company issues warning over third-quarter earnings after shutting down production of fire-prone phonesSamsung has warned that scrapping its failed Galaxy Note 7 handset due to safety concerns will burn a £1.9bn hole in its profits.The South Korean group was forced to take the humiliating step of permanently withdrawing the Note 7 from sale on Tuesday after users around the world reported flames and explosions caused by overheating batteries. Continue reading...

Amazon Music Unlimited is taking on established streaming services, as company looks to corner home-listening market through integration with Echo smart speakersAmazon has launched Amazon Music Unlimited, a competitor to Spotify and Apple Music, as part of the company’s push into music streaming.Amazon Music Unlimited, which will initially only be available in the US, is a head-to-head competitor with Spotify, charging the same $9.99 (£8.15) monthly fee as that service. But Amazon is attempting to beat the streaming service on price when it comes to certain target markets. Amazon Prime customers, for instance, can pick up their subscription for $7.99, a $2 a month saving on competitors. Continue reading...

The proposed law would ban tent encampments from San Francisco’s sidewalks – a visceral reminder of the city’s gaping inequalityA tent on a sidewalk is the only place thousands of San Franciscans have to call home. But if a few of the city’s tech billionaires and millionaires have their way, even that shelter could be taken away.Sequoia Capital chairman Michael Moritz, tech angel investor Ron Conway, and hedge-fund investor William Oberndorf have donated $49,999 apiece to a divisive ballot measure intended to clear San Francisco’s streets of homeless encampments, according to campaign filings. Continue reading...

Social networking company apologises after picture of woman having mammogram with her breast exposed falls foul of its anti-nipple policyFacebook has apologised for removing a post by the French newspaper Le Monde about mammogram screening after yet again coming under fire for its aggressive anti-nudity policy.The lead image of the article, which was published by Les Décodeurs, a data-focused site run by the paper, shows a woman having a mammogram. One of her breasts is exposed. Continue reading...

What if video game characters could think, feel and talk? Meet the developers who are figuring out how to make that happenIf you’re a video game fan of a certain age, you may remember Edge magazine’s controversial review of the bloody sci-fi shooting game, Doom. Perhaps you enjoyed a good laugh, as many first-person shooter fans have, at the writer’s much-mocked assertion: “if only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances … Now that would be interesting.”Of course, we all know what happened. There would be no room in the Doom series, nor any subsequent first-person blast-’em-up, for such socio-psychological niceties. Instead, we enjoyed 20 years of shooting, bludgeoning and stabbing, the ludicrous idea of diplomacy cast roughly aside. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other important thingsIt’s Wednesday. Continue reading...

Extraordinary precautions taken by South Korean maker after both the original fire-prone phone and its replacement were withdrawn from global saleSamsung appears to be taking no chances with its potentially explosive Galaxy Note 7 – supplying customers with an elaborate kit to use when returning their phones.The safety precautions include a static shield that needs to be put inside a box, inside another box, inside a final flameproof box – and a pair of gloves for handling the protective materials involved. Continue reading...

Judgment over whether taxi app is acting unlawfully by not offering holiday and sick pay could be delivered on WednesdayTens of thousands of Uber drivers in the UK could qualify for holiday and sick pay when an employment tribunal reconvenes in London on Wednesday, in what has been heralded as the employment law case of the year.In July lawyers representing 19 drivers contested their status as self-employed workers. They argued that the drivers’ employment terms and conditions meant they were not technically self-employed and should therefore be entitled to a range of benefits such as pension contributions as well as holiday and sick pay. Continue reading...

Cross-party report suggests the education system must be adapted to “focus on things that machines will be less good at for longer”Schools are not preparing children to succeed in a world where intelligent robots have transformed the workforce, MPs have warned.A report by the cross-party Science and Technology Committee suggests that the education system should be adapted to “focus on things that machines will be less good at for longer,” rather than skills that are rapidly becoming obsolete. Continue reading...

Foreign powers stole documents and installed malicious software in brazen attack, as report warns of terrorist cyber attacks within three years

ACLU revealed Tuesday that Facebook, Twitter and Instagram gave ‘special access’ to Geofeedia, a controversial social media monitoring companyFacebook, Twitter and Instagram have previously provided users’ data to a software company that aids police surveillance programs and targets protesters of color, according to government records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.The ACLU revealed on Tuesday that the technology corporations gave “special access” to Geofeedia, a controversial social media monitoring company that partners with law enforcement and has marketed its services as a tool to track Black Lives Matter activists. Continue reading...

A self-driving car is the first of its kind in the UK to take a test drive in Milton Keynes on Tuesday. The LUTZ Pathfinder roams the streets of Buckinghamshire sharing the pavement with the town’s cyclists and pedestrians achieving speeds of 15mph. A driver was on board the new vehicle in case of any emergencies

Michael Noonan pledge that Ireland’s 12.5% corporate tax rate ‘will not be change’ goes down well in Cork, home to Apple’s HQIreland’s finance minister has acknowledged a torrid year for the country’s much-criticised corporate tax regime with a robust defence of Apple’s taxation deals with the Irish state.

Though their final ruling will not be known for months, justices have expressed limited patience for arguments defending patent infringements against AppleA terrible week for consumer electronics firm Samsung got significantly worse on Tuesday as the US supreme court expressed limited patience for arguments defending patent infringements against Apple’s iPhone.The hearing – which is the culmination of a five-year legal showdown between two of the world’s most powerful technology rivals – coincided with news that Samsung has had to abandon production of its new flagship Note 7 smartphone due to a safety crisis. Continue reading...

The $397bn internet retailer is said to be building a chain of stores and drive-through locations where customers can pick up groceries ordered onlineAmazon’s next step in its global domination of commerce could be much closer to home. The internet retailer, which has grown into a $397bn company in the 22 years since its founding, is reportedly planning to build a series of bricks and mortar corner stores selling milk, meat, orange juice and newspapers to further cement its recent expansion into the grocery market.

Justin McLeod has updated the dating app he launched in 2011 that matches users with friends of friends, to eliminate swiping and encourage conversationIt has been more than a year since Vanity Fair bemoaned the dating apocalypse, blaming it on apps and triggering a Tinder tweet-storm that sarcastically claimed: “Sex was invented in 2012 when Tinder was launched.”Most people are no strangers to the futile swiping and exchanged messages that lead to nowhere. It’s not uncommon for my friends to start conversations about dating by asking: “Are you still swiping? How is it going?” and compare horror stories, maybe swap phones and swipe for each other, contributing to the collective despair of online dating. Continue reading...

Driverless LUTZ Pathfinder shares streets of Buckinghamshire town with cyclists and pedestrians, reaching speeds of 15mphA driverless car has been tested for the first time on UK streets in the latest development in self-driving technology in Britain.The trial saw a two-seater LUTZ Pathfinder travel 1.25 miles (2km) through pedestrianised areas of Milton Keynes, reaching speeds of up to 15mph while having to cope with walkers and cyclists for the first time. A driver was on board to take over in case of emergency.

South Korean electronics company to kill off its flagship smartphone after failing to fix problems with batteries catching fireSamsung has confirmed that it is permanently stopping production of the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone after it was involved in dozens of fires and explosions worldwide.In a regulatory filing in South Korea late on Tuesday, the firm said it had made the decision to stop production, for the sake of consumer safety. Continue reading...