Snapchat’s latest feature is a shot across the bow at Facebook and Instagram, and has the social media firm aiming higher than ever beforeSnapchat is taking on Apple, Google and Facebook, and moving ever further away from its roots as an “ephemeral†messaging platform, with its latest feature: Memories.Snapchat users can now decide to save their snaps, both still and video, to a new section of the app, accessed by swiping up from the camera screen. From there they can also search for other saved photos, both chronologically and with text keywords – Snapchat suggests “Hawaii†and “dogâ€, for example. It’s smarter than simple keyword searches, and is able to recognise objects in the pictures, but don’t expect Google-level smart searches just yet. Continue reading...
Former culture secretary Maria Miller says companies should face levy if they fail to do more to tackle online abuseA senior Tory MP is calling for a levy on social media companies to pay for the policing of online abuse if they fail to do more to tackle the crimes taking place on their platforms.
Bitcoin hasn’t lived up to the salvation rhetoric, but the digital engine behind the currency may be about to change the worldHave you heard the good news? The blockchain is here – and it’s going to save everything.If you aren’t tied to the tech community, you might not have picked up on this salvation rhetoric. But you probably have heard of bitcoin, which burst into the public consciousness before imploding dramatically in 2014. Continue reading...
Android malware created by a Chinese advertising company has put as many as 85m devices at risk – here’s everything you need to know about itWhen researchers revealed that a Chinese advertising company had created one of the most pernicious pieces of Android malware yet, they estimated it has infected 10m Android handsets worldwide.Dubbed “HummingBad†by researchers at the security firm Check Point, it’s a one of the biggest attacks to date on Android – the world’s most popular mobile operating system, which runs on more than 80% of all smartphones as well as tablets. Continue reading...
In the fast-moving culture of Silicon Valley, where failure is welcomed on the road to success, experts ask if the car maker launched its autopilot too soonJust days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S driving in autopilot mode, a second Tesla using autopilot mode has been involved in a collision.Art gallery director Albert Scaglione told police he was driving in autopilot mode when his Tesla Model X crashed and rolled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike around 100 miles east of Pittsburgh on 1 July. Scaglione and his artist son-in-law Tim Yane both survived without major injuries. Continue reading...
Online retailer says Brexit changes nothing for now and more staff needed to fulfil Prime Now one-hour delivery serviceAmazon is planning to hire 1,000 more people than previously expected in the UK this year as the online retailer rolls out its one-hour delivery operation and extends its web services.The company will now create 3,500 permanent full-time jobs in the UK in 2016, taking Amazon’s total workforce to 15,500 as its Prime Now fast-delivery service, launched a year ago, reaches more than a third of the UK population. Continue reading...
CEO Elon Musk has said the laser-sensing device used in Google’s driverless cars is not necessary. But after the fatal collision, will he reconsider his position?The autopilot mode of the Tesla Model S, involved in a fatal collision made public last week, draws on a number of sensors including cameras, ultrasound and radar. But one piece of technology Tesla chose not to build into its cars is Lidar, a laser-sensing system used by Google’s driverless cars.Tesla CEO Elon Musk has, in the past, dismissed the need for Lidar, suggesting the technology “doesn’t make sense†in the context of a car. “For full autonomy you’d really want to have a more comprehensive sensor suite and computer systems that are fail-proof. That said, I don’t think you need Lidar. I think you can do this all with passive optical and then maybe one forward radar,†he said during a press conference last October. Continue reading...
Mass recall comes after reports of hoverboard battery packs that exploded or caught fire and caused injuries such as burns to the neck, legs and armsMore than 500,000 hoverboards are being recalled after some of the motorized scooters overheated, burned riders and damaged property.There have been 99 reports to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of hoverboard battery packs that exploded or caught fire, the US regulator said on Wednesday. Continue reading...
My father, Bill Swan, who has died aged 89, worked on skyscrapers as an engineer in 1960s Toronto and later pioneered jet washers for commercial use.His career reflected the upheavals of the 20th century. Born in Howdon, Tyneside, he left school at 14, in 1941, and became an apprentice boilermaker at the Wallsend Slipway, one of the great shipyards of the Tyne. His father, Joe, also a boilermaker, died of tuberculosis the same year, leaving Bill with his mother, Nancy (nee Corbett), and two sisters. Continue reading...
Care.data scheme to close after Fiona Caldicott review calls for tougher measures to keep information confidentialThe government’s scheme to store patients’ medical information in a single database, which ran into massive problems over confidentiality, is to be scrapped, NHS England has said.The decision to axe the scheme, care.data, follows the publication of two reports that support far greater transparency over what happens to the information, and opt-outs for patients who want their data seen only by those directly caring for them. Continue reading...
Raul Diaz was arrested in late June after a spate of attacks on Google Street View cars and buildingsA man has been charged with arson after setting a Google Street View car on fire because he “felt Google was watching himâ€.Raul Diaz, 30, of Oakland, California, was arrested outside Google offices in Bayshore Parkway on 30 June. Guns and a device which bomb squad officers identified as a half-finished pipe bomb were found in his car, according to a criminal complaint filed by the state. Continue reading...
Kieran ‘Kez’ Brown to play Fifa 16 for the team, live streaming on Twitch and making YouTube videosManchester City have hired an 18-year-old gamer to represent the football club at eSports tournaments and fan events.Kieran ‘Kez’ Brown will play for the team on the world’s dominant football game Fifa 16, live streaming on Amazon’s gaming site Twitch and making videos for the club’s YouTube channel. Continue reading...
Despite Tesla’s safety warnings about autopilot, experts say Joshua Brown’s family could argue he was led to believe the system was more capable than it isThe family of a man killed when his Tesla hit a truck while under the control of its autopilot function may have legal grounds to sue the company, legal experts say.
Malware takes over phones and tablets, steals and sells information, installs apps and clicks on ads – and 300,000 devices in US, and 100,000 in UK, are affectedOver 10m Android devices have been infected with a new piece of malware called HummingBad, according to security firm Check Point.
Extramarital dating site under investigation by US regulator a year after entire user database leaked onlineAvid Life Media (ALM), the corporate parent of hacked extramarital dating site Ashley Madison, is being investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission according to the company’s new executive team.Appointed in April, the new chief executive, Rob Segal, and the president, James Millership, have been given the job of righting ALM in the aftermath of the hack, which saw the entire membership register of Ashley Madison posted to the internet. Over the following year, ALM lost more than a quarter of its revenue, as worried members fled the company’s portfolio of dating sites. Continue reading...
Blockchain, the increasingly celebrated peer-to-peer data technology, is the basis of bitcoin and has huge potential – will it be as big as the web?Proposed in 2008 and launched the following year, bitcoin – a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system†– was initially viewed by many as the preserve of geeks and criminals. Yet it has subsequently taken giant strides towards the mainstream. There have been various high-profile attempts to unmask the “real†Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by bitcoin’s inventor(s). And in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, some hailed bitcoin, surging as the pound plummeted, as “digital goldâ€.It is now recognised that the still-mysterious Nakamoto did more than invent a currency. He also solved a longstanding problem in computing, to do with date and networks. His solution was complex, but it involved the use of an infrastructure comprising “blocks†of confirmed transactions that form a chronologically linked “chainâ€. As other digital currencies, and other blockchains, have emerged, banks and some governments have begun to pay attention, and investment is rocketing. The World Economic Forum predicts that, within a decade, 10% of global GDP could be stored on blockchains. Continue reading...
Clips from an episode of ABC’s flagship science program, Catalyst, which has been found to have breached the broadcaster’s impartiality guidelines. The episode, Wi-Fried?, was broadcast in February and looks at the potential dangers of using electronic devices such as Wi-Fi hubs and mobile phones Continue reading...
Presenter Maryanne Demasi also under review for program Wi-Fried, which an internal investigation found breached the broadcaster’s impartiality guidelinesThe future of the ABC’s science program Catalyst and presenter Maryanne Demasi are under review after an episode which linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines.When the ABC aired “Wi-Fried?†in February several scientists, including professor of public health at the University of Sydney, Simon Chapman, said it was misleading and should never have gone to air. Continue reading...
Driverless technology remains a work in progress as the fatal crash of Tesla Model S tragically showed. Here are some flaws that persist in autopilot technology
Company to stop making device it hoped would entice users who prefer a physical keyboard, a symbolic shift away from handsets and toward softwareThe smartphone pioneer BlackBerry will stop making its Classic model, the company said on Tuesday, some 18 months after launching the device it had hoped would entice users who prefer a physical, rather than touchscreen, keyboard.
Robotics competition prize for best warehouse-working ‘picker’ machine awarded to robot designed by Dutch teamAmazon’s progress toward an army of helpful robots is one step closer: a prize for the best warehouse-working “picker†machine has gone to a robot designed by a team from TU Delft Robotics Institute and Delft Robotics, both based in the Netherlands.The competition was held in conjunction with Germany’s Robocup in Leipzig. Announced on Monday, the winners took home $25,000, while the university of Bonn’s NimbRo won $10,000 for second place and Japanese firm PFN was awarded $5,000 for third. Continue reading...
Electric car firm misses its vehicle delivery target for the second consecutive quarter as it struggles to transform into a mainstream, high-volume manufacturerTesla Motors missed its vehicle delivery target for the second consecutive quarter and is on track to fall short of its annual target, suggesting the US electric car maker is still wrestling with production issues as it looks to transform itself into a mainstream, high-volume manufacturer.Related: Elon Musk's self-driving evangelism masks risk of Tesla autopilot, experts say Continue reading...
A ‘male fertility testing’ system encourages men to share responsibilty for conception by monitoring their reproductive healthIn the febrile world of health startups, entrepreneurs are racing to quantify every possible bodily and environmental function. And so if we can monitor air quality, sleep and heart rate, why wouldn’t we monitor sperm quality as well?In May, America’s Food and Drug Administration approved Trak, a new “male fertility testing†system. It looks like a cross between a frisbee, a clock and a Cuisinart blender. The Trak website announces that it is “like a Fitbit for spermâ€. Continue reading...
Company’s first physical store in UK allow visitors to roadtest the full range of electrical products – from vacuum cleaners to hair dryersDyson will on Wednesday open its first bricks-and-mortar store in the UK, an Apple-style hub on London’s Oxford Street where shoppers can test and buy the company’s full range of consumer electrical products.Visitors to the Dyson Demo can have their hair styled and dried with the company’s Supersonic hairdryer in a first floor salon, or choose from more than 60 different types of dust and debris with which to test its bagless and cordless vacuum cleaners. Continue reading...
Damian Carrington tests a concept vehicle touted as a ‘solution for future urban transport’ in a rapidly urbanising worldI’m sitting in a cross between an electric-assisted bicycle and an electric car that looks like a cool golf buggy.
You’ve changed your passwords and avoided banking using public Wi-Fi. But what else could be putting you at risk?Bad news if you were hoping to stay safe online: the number of victims of identity theft rose by 57% in the last year, according to fraud prevention service Cifas.But unlike previous rises, the victims of identity theft are no longer targeted by fraudsters digging through rubbish bins for bank statements, or by hackers installing keyloggers on compromised PCs. Instead, according to Cifas, the victims are giving out the base ingredients of identity theft willingly online, through social media. Continue reading...
Organ donation? There’ll soon be an app for that, after Tim Cook cites Steve Jobs’ ‘excruciating’ wait for a liver transplant in 2009 as inspiration for Health updateApple will give US users the ability to sign up as organ donors on their iPhones as part of its upcoming iOS 10 update.The chief executive, Tim Cook, says he hopes the easy sign-up button in the Health app will help ease a longstanding donor shortage in the US. Continue reading...
Six years after the deliciously dark Limbo, developer Playdead returns to Xbox and PC with another meticulously muted platformer about a boy on the runIf you hadn’t realised that Inside was created by the same people behind Limbo, Playdead won’t let you forget it for long. The intro is immediately familiar: a quietly foreboding woodland and a young boy on the run. It’s a clear promise that those who appreciated the unique experience that Limbo offered can expect more of the same here.Still, as you’d expect from a developer who’s had more time (and presumably much more money) to refine their art, there are obvious differences. For one thing, there’s more colour – that is, there is some where before there was none. The environments are still pretty bleak, from the rain-soaked countryside to the crumbling corporate interiors, but not quite monochromatic. Among the grey there are splashes of red, on the boy’s jumper and on handholds that might otherwise be missed, yellow on chirping chicks in a farm populated by pig corpses and on cables that lead to secrets, and the colour of flesh.
‘Deep learning’ research company will use 1m anonymised eye scans to train a neural network to identify early signs of degenerative eye conditionsGoogle DeepMind has announced its second collaboration with the NHS, working with Moorfields Eye Hospital in east London to build a machine learning system which will eventually be able to recognise sight-threatening conditions from just a digital scan of the eye.The collaboration is the second between the NHS and DeepMind, which is the artificial intelligence research arm of Google, but Deepmind’s co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, says this is the first time the company is embarking purely on medical research. An earlier, ongoing, collaboration, with the Royal Free hospital in north London, is focused on direct patient care, using a smartphone app called Streams to monitor kidney function of patients. Continue reading...
Cybercrime is becoming big business and tech firms are ‘in an arms race’ to outdo sophisticated criminal operations, report by BT and KPMG saysBritish firms must “take the fight to the criminals†to prevent a rising tide of cyber-attacks by sophisticated organised crime gangs, according to a report.In a joint report, telecoms group BT and consulting firm KPMG called on companies to address the “industrialisation of cybercrimeâ€, warning against the danger of overplaying the more high-profile threat of lone hackers. Continue reading...
Your editorial (Humans must not become back-seat drivers for computers, 2 July) reaches the right conclusions that cars will be safer when humans no longer drive, but there is much more to it than recognising large white articulated trucks, paper bags or aggressive drivers. Doesn’t the software need a driving test?The pressure for autonomous driving comes from the Googles, Baidus and Apples of this world, who want the drivers’ time to surf the web or download their music. They want totally autonomous vehicles, without steering wheels, that will revolutionise transport for the old, the young and the disabled. The car companies are being pushed, reluctantly, into this revolution, clinging on to their marketing pitch of selling the “driving experience†and keeping the steering wheel available for the driver to use. No revolution here for the old, young and disabled. Continue reading...
As free upgrade period draws to a close, software maker resorts to adware tactics with its most irritating pop-up yetMicrosoft’s aggressive push to get users to upgrade to Windows 10 has been turned up a notch as the company begins pushing full-screen upgrade pop-up notifications to Windows 7 and 8.1.
We talk to Respawn Entertainment about its forthcoming sci-fi sequel, which adds a campaign mode, new weapons and fresh ideas, to the acclaimed originalWhen Jason West and Vince Zampella set up Respawn Entertainment in 2010, they had one ambition: to produce a new first-person shooter that would have as massive an impact on the genre as their previous creation: the Call of Duty series. It was a big ask, but when Titanfall arrived three years later, the game was certainly a brilliant attempt. The sci-fi shooter boasted an innovative mechanic allowing players to summon a giant robot into the arena, and an incredibly fluid, free-running movement style – all combined into a set of blisteringly loud and detailed map designs.But one thing many players said about Titanfall was that, beyond the raw speed and inarguable thrill of the highly vertical, highly acrobatic gameplay, there was little in the way of tactical depth. It’s something the team says it wants to address. Continue reading...
The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have launched an inquiry into Tesla Model S cars after a driver was killed in an accident in one of its self-driving vehicles while using the company’s autopilot mode. Joshua Brown, 40, was driving on a highway in Williston, Florida when his car hit a truck which was crossing the road Continue reading...
The messaging app already has more than a billion users, including plotters against Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson. It is changing the way we communicate – and its level of encryption would make the FBI weepThere is something reassuringly traditional about the neatly typed resignation letters, with a House of Commons letterhead and an attack on the Labour leader within. They are solid and permanent, when everything else seems to be falling apart. And old-fashioned, even if one does tweet a picture of it afterwards, as many MPs have done. But according to reports, those conspiring against Corbyn were far more modern. They used the messaging service WhatsApp. And it wasn’t just Labour. There was thought to be at least one WhatsApp group of Conservative MPs exploring ways to stop Boris Johnson becoming leader. Gone are the days of machinations in back rooms and hushed conversations in corridors; the leaders of the two main political parties could be decided on a mobile app more often used by teenagers wondering where to go on a Saturday night.If you don’t already use WhatsApp, you probably soon will. A few months ago, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, went past its billionth user, and it will get bigger (“We still have another 6 billion people to get on WhatsApp,†the company wrote in a blogpost). Last year, it delivered more messages than traditional SMS text messages. Since 2010, it has been possible to make voice calls from WhatsApp, which could, predict some tech watchers, spell the end of mobile networks such as Vodafone or O2. It probably won’t be long until we can use video calling on it, too; but for now it remains primarily a texting service, only better. Messages are sent over the internet and it is efficient and easy to use. You can message one-on-one, or set up a group in your phone contacts list – family, say, or friends. Or Labour politicians. Among my groups are different bands of friends, two British family groups and a Turkish one, and a group of old housemates. Continue reading...
Video service is augmenting new tech with real people to help guide the successors to Zoella and PewDiePieYouTube wants to provide more of a “human touch†for its community of video creators, while also doing more to help them tackle trolls and avoid exploitative deals with multi-channel networks. And while its plans to do so inevitably include changes to its technology, they involve real-life humans as well. As YouTube’s VP of operations Sebastien Missoffe puts it, it’s a necessary part of being “a digital media company of the 21st centuryâ€.“We need to balance the great technology we have and bring this human access for every single creator,†Missoffe says. “They can reach a human being at YouTube.†So as it consolidates its creator tools in a revamped online “hub†and improves its comment-moderation and copyright tools, it is providing more direct access to its support staff too, with four tiers of support based on how many subscribers a creator has. Continue reading...
Mark Zuckerberg uses tape over his webcam. Even if you’re not worried about industrial espionage, there’s no such thing as too much securityOutlook and other email clients let you install a personal security certificate, which you can use to encrypt email so that only trusted recipients can read it, or digitally sign your messages to prove that they came from you. You can get your own certificate from comodo.com and it doesn’t cost a penny. The catch is that your recipients will need to be using a compatible email system – if they’re using Gmail on their smartphone, they’ll just be annoyed when you keep sending them unreadable strings of garbled data. “It also means you’ve got to protect your laptop,†points out Tony Anscombe, security “evangelist†at the antivirus firm AVG. “If your laptop’s stolen and your password is written on a Post-it note on the screen, then what’s the use of the encryption?†Continue reading...
Current real-world politics remind us why so many prefer the ordered fairness of gamingDuring the run-up to the general election, my children and I took our new puppy for a walk around the block. A campaigner for Ukip, presumably spying a happy scene ripe for spoiling, approached. If there was, as the prime minister once suggested, racism in the Ukip pamphleteer’s closet, its whiff did not dampen the generosity of our dog’s greeting. As the man handed me a sticky leaflet, the puppy peed in excitement on his shoes, before trying to hump his leg, wetly.The scene was a cause of great hilarity for my children, none of whom will be able to vote for another two general elections. “Barney peed on the Ukip man,†they’d tell bewildered visitors during the following days and weeks. It was a minor victory for a generation to whom so much worse has been done by this political class. Continue reading...
Five Hundred Metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or Fast, is the size of 30 football fields and has been cut out of a mountain in GuizhouChina has hoisted the final piece into position on what will be the world’s largest radio telescope, which it will use to explore space and help in the hunt for extraterrestrial life.The Five Hundred Metre Aperture Spherical Telescope, or Fast, is the size of 30 football fields and has been cut out of a mountain in the south-western province of Guizhou. Continue reading...
Simple, slick and speedy… Quella’s latest Nero is every urban cyclists’ best friendThe Emperor Nero was famous for his debauchery and unfettered extravagance. I don’t think he’d have been impressed with this latest bike from Quella. The Nero is sleek, simple and unadorned.Quella began life in an old chicken shed in Cambridgeshire in 2012. Since then its focus has been on building frames that are a winning mix of modern design and old-fashioned craftsmanship. Continue reading...
There’s a whole class of information that Facebook thinks it knows about me and is willing to sell – the problem is their data isn’t entirely accurateFacebook knows everything about you. At least that’s what we, and the advertisers it sells us to, are constantly told. But a peek behind its algorithmic curtains suggests what it does know might be wrong.As any of its 1.65 billion users can tell you, Facebook is constantly “updating†its privacy settings, which is why I tool through all my settings every few weeks. I try to keep a lock on what strangers can learn about me on Facebook or have access to; not because I’m disinclined to participate in the platform, but because my family is uncomfortable with strangers having access to their personal lives, and that seems fair. Continue reading...
by Sam Levin, Julia Carrie Wong and Nicky Woolf in Sa on (#1K2HT)
Tesla’s ambitious futurism has earned it loyal fans – but after the death of a driver using autopilot, some say the company should be more explicit about limitationsElon Musk’s rockets usually do not stray beyond Earth’s orbit, but that hasn’t stopped him from making promises about Mars. The Tesla CEO’s wild, ambitious futurism has earned him billions of dollars, fawning coverage from the tech press, and a subreddit devoted entirely to discussion of his divinity.
At a Guardian Live event his week, member Ruth Oliver heard a panel of writers and thinkers including Paul Mason and Lydia Nicholas discuss what the world will look like in 2025.The event was particularly topical given what’s happened with the referendum over the past week. I’ve felt quite overwhelmed and have read so much in the press and on social media it can be quite unsettling. This was a nice chance to step back from the headlines and look at the wider picture.
I worried I’d not screwed everything in tightly enough‘Ikea to start selling bikes†is a nightmare headline for the friendly independent bike shop. Not only could the Swedish behemoth take any custom the internet hasn’t already siphoned off, but the bike shop will end up having to fix those inevitable DIY bike-building disasters when people who call saddles “seats†are let loose with some Allen keys.The Sladda comes flat-packed, of course. I set aside an hour to build mine, figuring I know more or less what I’m doing. But an hour wasn’t nearly long enough: I started at noon and finished at five, with time off for lunch. I got stuck three times: first when I put on the front forks the wrong way, next by fixing the kick-stand backwards, so the pedals wouldn’t turn, and finally when I put on the handlebars upsidedown. As ever with Ikea, there are no written instructions, just ambiguous pictures. Continue reading...
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