As a person of colour, I found it cathartic to play a video game that acknowledges the reality of racism and says: things don’t have to be this wayPeople of colour in South Africa have faced a long history of ostracism on multiple levels. Though I missed the worst of it, apartheid laws mandated racist exclusion: careers, political roles, even door entrances and homes, all were determined by race. These attitudes remain, even without laws to back them up.I was a child, the first time I was subjected to a racial slur. Decades later it continues in South Africa, but also online, particularly in an internet environment dominated by status quo warriors who love Trump, hate women and believe progress is poison. Continue reading...

The event is expected to feature the launch of the newest versions of Apple’s MacBook Pros, the company’s top tier of laptop computersApple is expected to launch the next generation of Mac computers at a press event on 27 October. The company sent out the invitations, with the words “hello again” under a colourful Apple logo, on Wednesday night.The event is expected to feature the launch of the newest versions of Apple’s MacBook Pros, the company’s top tier of laptop computers. Continue reading...

With the trailer imminent, here is what we’re expecting – or at least hoping for – from Rockstar’s western sequelSaddle up, Red Dead Redemption 2 is moseying into town. After two teasing tweets this week, Rockstar finally confirmed on Tuesday that a sequel to its acclaimed western adventure would be arriving in autumn 2017. A trailer will drop on Thursday.It’s a big deal. The original Red Dead Redemption remains a wonderful and atmospheric example of open-world game design, providing a cogent plot of remorse and retribution, within a functioning world that seems to truly reflect the Frontier at the time. But since then, Rockstar’s own Grand Theft Auto V, released in 2013, has shifted the bar for the genre in terms of ambition, scope and size. Continue reading...

First smartphone designed by Google from scratch ticks many boxes, but isn’t quite the stellar world beater some might expectGoogle has finally launched an own-brand smartphone, the Pixel, to challenge Apple head on and provide a premium Android experience with the hardware tailored to the software by the people who actually make it..

Nvidia Titan processor, eight cameras and faster radar to be switched on once software catches up, allowing a trip across US ‘without touching the wheel’All new Tesla models are being built with hardware to enable them to be fully self-driving, Elon Musk has announced.

Complaint alleges that Samsung knew for years its technology was hazardous, saying a Galaxy S6 Active shot out 5in flames and left a user with ‘melted flesh’Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 is not the company’s only smartphone prone to dangerous explosions, according to a new lawsuit that says a Galaxy S6 Active shot out five-inch flames and left a user with “melted flesh”.The complaint, which alleges Samsung knew for years its technology was hazardous, comes amid an embarrassing and expansive recall of 1.9m Galaxy Note 7 devices after it was revealed that the lithium ion battery was catching fire. Continue reading...

Professor praises creation of Cambridge University institute to study future of artificial intelligenceProfessor Stephen Hawking has warned that the creation of powerful artificial intelligence will be “either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity”, and praised the creation of an academic institute dedicated to researching the future of intelligence as “crucial to the future of our civilisation and our species”.Hawking was speaking at the opening of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (LCFI) at Cambridge University, a multi-disciplinary institute that will attempt to tackle some of the open-ended questions raised by the rapid pace of development in AI research. Continue reading...

Facebook CEO says of Peter Thiel’s continued support of Republican nominee: ‘There are many reasons a person might support Trump’Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook board member Peter Thiel’s support of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a post that invoked the importance of “diversity” for the social media company.“We care deeply about diversity. That’s easy to say when it means standing up for ideas you agree with. It’s a lot harder when it means standing up for the rights of people with different viewpoints to say what they care about,” Zuckerberg wrote in a post visible only to Facebook employees, a photograph of which was shared on Hacker News on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Players of the latest Football Manager will have to tackle all the problems Brexit brings. It’s not the first time real-world conditions have affected popular titlesThere is a popular misconception that video games bear little relation to reality. Unfortunately, this is hard to counter when the best-known characters are probably a speedy blue hedgehog and a plumber who lives in a magical mushroom kingdom. Indeed, even comparatively serious games such as SimCity, Civilization and Papers Please take a highly abstract approach to culture, society and government, which sets them apart from real-life events.This week, however, the maker of the fastidiously authentic video game Football Manager said the game was being updated to simulate the economic effects of Brexit. The accurate portrayal of transfer costs and work permits will be tweaked, making it potentially more expensive to buy foreign players, and more problematic to get work permits for those from EU countries. Continue reading...

The US should attempt to de-escalate tensions by negotiating some form of international cyber treaty before this gets out of controlWhat’s the CIA’s brilliant plan for stopping Russian cyber-attacks on the US and their alleged interference with the US election? Apparently, some in the agency want to escalate tensions between the two superpowers even more and possibly do the same thing right back to them.NBC News reported late last week that the CIA is working up blueprints for an “unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia”, and it sounds a lot like they’re planning on leaking documents on Vladimir Putin, just as the Russians are accused of doing to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.

The doomed phablet might have been discontinued by its manufacturer, but it makes a great (if risky) fancy dress optionEveryone knows that the best Halloween costumes are the topical ones. And usually the worst, too.On top of the obvious ones – there are going to be a lot of Trumps and Clintons hitting the streets at the end of this month – there’s the all-important meme selection to pay attention to. Continue reading...

Officials confirm government cut off internet access for Julian Assange following a raft of leaked emails targeting DemocratsEcuador has confirmed that it has temporarily cut off internet access in its embassy in London to Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks, over fears that he was using it to interfere in the US presidential election.The move followed the publication of leaked emails by WikiLeaks, including some from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) released just before the party’s convention in July, and more recently a cache of emails from the account of Hillary Clinton campaign adviser John Podesta. Continue reading...

If you’re the high-profile head coach of one of the biggest NFL teams, you apparently can’t get real work done on a tabletCan you get work done using a tablet? Microsoft and its Surface tablet seem to think so, but at least for one high-profile Surface user, you can’t. The New England Patriots head coach, Bill Belichick, is going back to using a pen and paper.

The Apple components supplier expects full-year profit to be well under expectationsApple supplier Laird has warned annual profits will fall sharply following a sudden downturn in its smartphone components business and unprecedented pricing pressures.Shares in the group almost halved to 165p as it said it may be facing “a new reality” in the mobiles market after an expected pick-up in smartphone production failed to materialise. Continue reading...

Owners of the twice-recalled Galaxy Note 7 say the exploding phones caused extensive damage to their homes, but the company isn’t playing ballSamsung is being sharply criticized by owners of faulty Galaxy Note 7 smartphones who claim the company isn’t doing enough to compensate for the most serious damaged caused when their handsets caught fire.Related: Samsung must act fast to keep an exploding phone from blowing up its brand Continue reading...

Monzo wants to take on the traditional banking sector on its own turf, aiming to offer a full current account service in early 2017Banks are boring, for a good reason. The last thing you want to hear from the organisation you’ve entrusted with your money is their exciting plans for how to shake up the world of finance. Generally, you want a beige person in beige clothes gesturing to whatever is the digital equivalent of a big vault filled with gold. It’s boring, it’s reassuring, it’s safe.Banks are, in short, the opposite of a tech startup. So a tech startup wanting to take on the banks on their own turf has its work cut out for it. Continue reading...

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

Twitter and Uber may be based in San Francisco, but Santiago’s ‘Chilecon Valley’ and the South Korean capital Seoul could both make claimsBefore long, Santiago could be a city full of electric vehicles charged by “smart” power grids, many of them driving on highways equipped with traffic-reducing automated variable toll pricing. Perhaps a new arrival to the Chilean capital would go for the chance to found a technology company, incentivised by programmes like the state-backed, foreigner-friendly Start-Up Chile, in “Chilecon Valley”. And perhaps they’ll stay for the capital’s reputation boasting the most advanced public transit system in Latin America.Or they might opt for Africa instead of South America, to take advantage of the assistance offered by organisations like SmartXchange in Durban. Not only does South Africa’s third largest city now have an increasingly tech-savvy middle class population, it has schools like the Durban University of Technology, whose Urban Futures Centre is even developing technological solutions to the common challenges of drug use, security and policing strategy. If these succeed, Durban, like Santiago, may count itself among the highest-tech cities sooner than the rest of the world could imagine.

CBS network announces competition series based on the popular mobile phone game, once skewered by Stephen Colbert on his Late ShowCandy Crush, the addictive mobile phone game, is being adapted into a TV game show, the CBS network announced on Tuesday.Matt Kunitz, who produced NBC’s long-running game show Fear Factor, is listed as creator of the Candy Crush competition series. The network did not announce the number of episodes ordered or a premiere date, though it did say the show would be broadcast on its TV network in the US and distributed internationally by Lionsgate. Continue reading...

Rockstar has officially issued a statement about the 2017 sequel to its Western epic and promises ‘a brand new online multiplayer experience’After two days of teasing messages on Twitter, Rockstar has officially announced Red Dead Redemption 2. The sequel to the company’s 15m-selling western adventure will launch next autumn. A trailer will arrive on YouTube this Thursday.In a brief press release sent out on Tuesday afternoon, Rockstar referred to the sequel as “an epic tale of life in America’s unforgiving heartland”. The publisher, best known for the Grand Theft Auto series also promised, “a brand new online multiplayer experience”. It’s probably some sort of persistent multiplayer world, similar to the hugely successful GTA Online is in development to accompany the single-player campaign. Continue reading...

Latest edition of simulation game will include scenarios modelling consequences of UK triggering article 50 to leave EUWhile the government struggles over Britain’s future relationship with the European Union, fans of the video game Football Manager are to get a taste of what hard or soft Brexit would actually mean in practice, as the processes are simulated in the newest edition of the game.Football Manager 2017, the 13th version of the hugely successful series, allows players to carry out all the regular duties of a managing a football team, from running training sessions to signing players and attending press conferences. But what differs this time round is that a Brexit simulator models some of the consequences of the UK triggering article 50. Continue reading...

A well-worn hoax status post is doing the rounds on social media again – but do you know what Facebook really can do with your pictures?A hoax Facebook status threatening that the company is about to reveal all of your private photos and messages has resurfaced again. The status message, and subsequent variations of it, date back to at least June 2012, and periodically gain traction.There’s absolutely no substance to them. Continue reading...

The Finnish startup turned to an online community of tech enthusiasts to shape the design of its new device. The result? Something ‘really different’When Finnish startup Eve-Tech launched its first device, the T1 tablet computer, it received positive reviews for its premium feel and budget price.However, there was also a lot of feedback from reviewers and users about how it could have been better, including criticism about the quality of the outer casing, ports and rear camera.

The new Conversation Topics feature on the Facebook Messenger app tells you what your friends have been doing, what they like and what you could talk to them aboutName: Conversation Topics.Age: Brand new. Continue reading...

Twitter has struggled to prevent abusive users from overwhelming discussion, but have trolls also reduced the value of the company?Twitter might have finally found some motivation to deal with its troll problem. Three and a half billion motivations, really.The company has spent the past few months courting potential buyouts from companies including Google, Disney, and enterprise software firm Salesforce. Continue reading...

Tolerance of the Facebook board member supporting Trump’s divisive campaign reveals an industry where actions don’t match the missionIt’s not often that Mark Zuckerberg invokes the values of Facebook to rebuke the people he works with, but this year, he reached a tipping point with the “deeply upsetting” views of one of the members of his board of directors, which he disavowed as “not represent[ing] the way Facebook or I think at all”.

With a hack of half a billion users and a government spying program uncovered at Yahoo in the last four weeks, Verizon may be looking for an outAnalysts are predicting more bad news for Yahoo on Tuesday as the company releases its latest results amid a now floundering takeover bid.The research firm eMarketer is expecting a double-digit decline in ad revenue. The drop comes as Verizon is attempting to renegotiate its $4.8bn bid for the company. Continue reading...

Company sets up stalls for passengers to exchange phablet or obtain refund, as airlines around world ban exploding device from planesSamsung’s Galaxy Note 7 is now banned on so many airlines worldwide that the company is opening up stalls inside airports to let owners swap or get a refund for the phablet before boarding their flight.The booths are opening in airports around the world, including Australia and South Korea, following the ban of the device on those countries’ largest airlines, Korean Air, Virgin Australia and Qantas. The Australian bans are at the airlines’ discretion, however: in other nations, including Korea, the US and Japan, the Note 7 is banned from flights under the order of the country’s airline regulators. Continue reading...

In the age of photorealism, developer Playground Games used intricate HD sky footage and ‘sub-pixel’-detail car models to raise the bar on authenticityLast October, video game developer Playground Games sent six staff members from its studio in Leamington Spa to a tiny town 120 miles south-west of Sydney called Braidwood, New South Wales. Armed with a custom built 12K-resolution camera worth tens of thousands of pounds, they weren’t there to capture the scenery or film movie sequences with a cast of actors. They were there to record the sky.Released in September, Forza Horizon 3 is widely credited as one of the most visually impressive console games ever made. A driving simulation based in and around a fictitious car festival, the game gives players hundreds of miles of accurately modelled Australian scenery to explore, from dense rain forests to sun-bleached outback wastelands. Continue reading...

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

Ellen Pao says Project Include, her group pushing for inclusion in tech, is cutting ties with Thiel, a part-time partner, since their ‘values are not aligned’

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla sues two California agencies as part of protracted legal battle over public access to beach on his propertySilicon Valley venture capitalist and billionaire Vinod Khosla, who has been engaged in a legal battle over public access to a beloved surfing beach that sits on his land, is suing two state agencies accusing them of using “coercion and harassment” to take away his private property rights – an allegation one campaign group describes as “absurd”.Khosla, who has a net worth of $1.55bn, co-founded the technology company Sun Microsystems and now runs the venture capital firm Khosla Ventures. In 2008, he bought a 53-acre section of Martins Beach near Half Moon Bay, about 30 miles south of San Francisco. Continue reading...

Grand Theft Auto publisher Rockstar doesn’t work like other game companies, which is why two tweets have caused an explosion of excitementNobody announces anything on a Sunday afternoon. Nobody except Rockstar, of course.The publisher behind the multimillion selling Grand Theft Auto series put out one tweet on the afternoon of 16 October – a refreshed version of its own logo, on a red background. That was it. So far the message has been retweeted 110,000 times. Continue reading...

Turn any idle asset into a productive piece of capital. All you have to do is set a price, and the robots will take care of the rest. What could possibly go wrong?

Term deemed ‘misleading’ by German transport minister as Federal Motor Transport Authority reminds Tesla owners to pay attention when drivingTesla Motors has been asked by the German transport minister to not use the word “autopilot” in its advertising, as doing so may suggest to drivers that they do not need to pay attention to the road.The minster, Alexander Dobrindt, told Reuters that his office made the request “to no longer use the misleading term for the driver assistance system of the car”. Continue reading...

Following US ban, airlines based in Hong Kong, China, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Germany and Italy prohibit flying with troubled phabletAirlines around the world have now banned Samsung’s troubled Galaxy Note 7 smartphone over the fire risks posed by the device’s lithium-ion battery.Following a ban by the US Federal Aviation Authority, Japan’s transport ministry ordered airlines to completely ban the Note 7 from flights, including the country’s largest operators All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines. Travellers ignoring the ban will have their smartphones confiscated with the possibility of further punitive measures. Continue reading...

AI, VR and smartphones are changing the way we consume culture, but what comes next? From film to visual arts, we explore entertainment’s new frontiersYou can star alongside Leo when cinema enters its ‘karaoke’ phase Continue reading...

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

Russian president says US warnings show Washington is using cyber-attacks as a political tool after Joe Biden says ‘we are sending a message’ to PutinVladimir Putin on Sunday shrugged off new US threats to retaliate against alleged Russian hackers, saying such statements only confirmed that Washington used cyber-attacks for political ends.

From your own digital DJ to making a ‘lip-dub’ video, there are lots of inventive new ways to enjoy music

Laura Bates’s takedown of Justin Webb was the highlight of a day celebrating women in science, technology and contemporary lifeDigital Human (Radio 4) | iPlayer

If you are a CEO, then this executive saloon may already be on your radar. If it’s not, you shouldn’t be in the job

The airlines cite the smartphone’s potential fire risk as the reason for the ban, which comes into effect todayPassengers flying Qantas or Virgin Australia will be banned from bringing the recalled Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on all flights.The airlines cite the smartphone’s potential fire risk as the reason for the ban, which comes into effect on Sunday. Continue reading...

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...