Technology | The Guardian

In this morbid and demanding role-playing adventure, only the least stressed-out will survive“Slowly, gently,” intones the noble bass of Darkest Dungeon’s narrator as a foe bleeds out and slumps to the ground. “This is how a life is taken.”Except it is sometimes anything but. During one quest I stumbled across an altar and, despite specific warnings, offered flame and summoned some Eldritch terror from the void. My party was terrified by the sight – then, as the first member was cut down, they were driven mad. Continue reading...

Tech company’s 2015 earnings will be announced next week as governments aim to crack down on Google’s controversial tax avoidance arrangementsGoogle is poised to confirm next week that controversial tax structures in Ireland, the Netherlands and Bermuda have boosted its offshore cash mountain to more than $43bn (£30bn), figures from financial analysts suggest.

Sales of its top-selling device grew by only 0.4% over the holidays, compared with 46% over same period last year, but company posts record revenuesApple’s iPhone sales are flatlining, the tech company said on Tuesday, as it announced a sharp slowdown in sales growth for its top-selling mobile device.The company sold 74.8m of its flagship devices in the final three months of 2015, below analysts’ expectations. In the same period in 2014 the company sold 74.46m iPhones, meaning sales were essentially flat. Continue reading...

There’s intense competition in the novelty potato-sending market, with three main sites specializing in sub-niches, from plain old spuds to heartfelt messagesAfter serving as the scoutmaster of a boy scout troop, Jeff Kelly spent half a career as a manager and engineer for global travel company Expedia before he got into the business of sending potatoes through the mail.

Move will differentiate the app, which Apple says has 40 million readers, from competitors as publishers seek more data from firm over who is reading contentApple is working to make subscription content available through its News app, giving publishers with paywalls a new way to control who sees their articles, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Former Mirror executive, who also launched data journalism project Ampp3d, appointed as social and new formats editorThe Guardian has hired Martin Belam, founder of the Mirror’s now-defunct UsVsTh3m, as social and new formats editor.Belam will work on developing an integrated social strategy for the Guardian, working alongside the community team. Continue reading...

No 10 seeks to further distance itself from deal under which internet firm will pay £130m of tax on £7.2bn profits over 10 yearsDowning Street has further distanced itself from the deal to make Google pay £130m of tax, stressing that it was purely an operational decision of HM Revenue and Customs officials.Amid heavy criticism of the government for extracting so little from Google, David Cameron’s official spokesman said it was a good agreement but again refused to repeat the verdict of George Osborne, the chancellor, that it was a “major success”. Continue reading...

Federal Aviation Administration recorded details of about 10,000 unmanned aerial vehicles a day after launching compulsory registrationNearly 300,000 drones have been registered in the US in the last 30 days, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has revealed.

The long-awaited game from the makers of Braid takes the format of classic PC adventure Myst and draws you into a world of puzzlesSeven years is a long time to speculate, but despite Jonathan Blow and his team at Thekla revealing few details expectations for this game have remained high. After all, the company’s legendary platform adventure Braid was important not only for its role in the rise of independent games but for showing what video games could be.People have watched trailers for The Witness and theorised that the game’s little mazes are secondary to the real, deeper purpose. But those maze puzzles are the game. The Witness answers the question: what would a very smart man who loves puzzles do with a lot of money? Continue reading...

Research finds that on average five- to 15-year-olds are spending three hours a day on the internet

The viral videos have become an industry, now with their own gathering – and with that comes a ‘cattoo’ parlor, astrology readings and a sexed-up music videoWhen Joel Shepard started selling tickets for an internet cat video festival, he wasn’t sure how much interest there would be beyond the cat fanatics (of which I am one).

With the the prime minister otherwise engaged, the defence of HMRC’s ‘sweetheart deal’ was left to a delighted treasury ministerWhen George Osborne typed “How much tax should I pay?” into Google, only one answer appeared: “Absolutely nothing for 10 years and then only £130m if you twist my arm.” Having entered the same question into a different search engine and come up with a figure roughly 10 times higher, John McDonnell asked the chancellor to explain to the House of Commons why he reckoned the deal HMRC had reached with Google was such “a major success”.Osborne checked his diary. “What a pity,” he declared. “I’ve only just this minute arranged to meet Bill Gates in Liverpool so I’ll have to pass. So I guess you’ll have to make do with one of my sidekicks.” David Gauke, financial secretary to the Treasury, looked less than thrilled at having been handed this hospital pass. When the prime minister has gone out of his way not to hail the Google deal as a massive success and the mayor of London has described it as derisory, you know you are in for a bad afternoon. Continue reading...

Prank website forces iPhones to reboot and will cause computers and Android devices to hangFollowing the fun users had with the “effective power” iPhone text message bug, people have been sending a link to users of Apple’s Safari browser that will crash their iPhones or Macs.

Deal makes Guardian Media Group exclusive partner for Founders Factory investments in businesses in the media sectorThe publisher of the Guardian has invested in Founders Factory, a company that funds technology startups across a range of industries launched by lastminute.com co-founder Brent HobermanUnder the exclusive deal, Guardian Media Group, the parent company of the Guardian and Observer, becomes the exclusive partner for Founders Factory investments in businesses in the media sector.

Who would want to buy a game that can only be played through a maximum of 24 times? Everyone

From mad scientists to stealthy assassins, we celebrate the video game women who get things doneOver the years, there has been no shortage of articles about “the best female characters in video games”. The problem is, what they’ve usually meant is “the sexiest female characters in video games”, which has made for some very repetitive and occasionally rather creepy reading.For this alternative selection, three women games writers have chosen 30 interesting and complex examples, who have more to offer than either looking good in an armoured bikini or fulfilling the “strong female character” archetype. And as Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft has dominated every discussion about women in games for the last 20 years, she’s been respectfully jettisoned too. Continue reading...

Politician who once said ‘I’m not into this detail stuff – I’m more concepty’ says of his solitaire game: ‘I’ve spent countless hours on beta releases’Donald Rumsfeld, the two-time US secretary of defence who presided over the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, has released a video game.The game, initially released as an iOS app, is based on a version of solitaire favoured by Winston Churchill. The variant uses two decks of cards rather than one, 10 rows of cards instead of seven, and an extra pile of six cards called “the Devil’s Six” for the player to work into their strategy. Continue reading...

If we’re channeling our energy into tweets and status updates, where are we creating anything that is built to last?Can you remember how you were feeling on this day last year? How about three years ago? Facebook can, and if you’re a regular user of the service, you may have noticed that for the better part of the last year, it’s been ready to remind you.“We care about you and the memories you share here,” the platform warmly intones, offering a confetti draped image of a photo or status update from some time ago. Theoretically this is a sensible idea – we upload massive reams of stuff to our online networks, and our fleeting day-to-day engagements with these services are easy to forget, and occasionally fun to remember. Sure, you’d like to be reminded that your friend’s wedding was six years ago now, and look how much fun you had then! Or look how three years ago you posted about your favorite coffee shop, and now just today you did almost the exact same thing. Ha ha! Good times! Continue reading...

Jack Dorsey dismisses ‘inaccurate press rumours’ about sudden departure of four senior staff, promoting Adam Bain and Adam Messinger to fill the gapsTwitter’s chief executive responded to the sudden departure of four senior executives on Sunday by tweeting a detailed statement emphasising their contribution to the company as it moved from “near zero revenue to the over-$2bn run rate it is today”.Jack Dorsey confirmed that senior vice-president of engineering Alex Roetter, vice-president of global media Katie Jacobs Stanton, HR vice-president Skip Schipper and senior vice-president of product Kevin Weil are all leaving the embattled social media firm. Continue reading...

Folding bikes used to be the preserve of cycle nerds and DIY engineers, but Brompton has changed all that. Now comes its sleekest model yetIn 1975 Andrew Ritchie was working as a landscape gardener when he came up with the idea of a folding bike. He named his design after the Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary – aka the Brompton Oratory. Since then he’s gone on to sell more than 400,000 and this year his company plans to sell a further 48,000, making the Kew-based manufacturer Britain’s biggest bike builder. Some of these new bikes will be the latest Black Edition. For the first time the key components – rims, spokes, seat post, handlebars – will be sleek matt black rather than chrome, while the frame can be black, white, orange, lime or blue. The change is only cosmetic, but then they’re not going to mess with their winning formula: ride it, fold it, carry it, store it (brompton.com).Price: £945

The Outlander is a big, capable 4x4. It’s also Britain’s bestselling electric vehicle – and Boris Johnson loves itPrice: £28,304

Traditional toys are getting digital makeovers for tech-savvy childrenAn iPad loom for friendship bracelets, a wireless electronics kit you can activate with a tweet, and a hi-tech Scalextric race track you can play with via your smartphone.These are just a few of the traditional toys that have undergone a technological makeover to appeal to “digital natives” – or “children” as they are known outside the booming £3bn toy industry. The new toys are being shown at the annual Toy Fair at Kensington Olympia in west London, which begins today. Continue reading...

MPs’ report calls for BT to be split from Openreach over claims 5.7 million people have speeds so low they break rules

Keeping up with Serial? Your next spoken-word fix could come from Overcast, Pocket Casts, Castro, Spotify or DeezerSerial didn’t singlehandedly revive the podcast as a media format – the efforts of radio broadcasters and many independent producers have grown and sustained audiences in the years since podcasts were hyped as the next big thing in tech.Yet, Serial has undoubtedly fuelled a surge in interest in spoken-word shows – which in 2016, are as likely to be listened to on a smartphone as a computer. And there are apps for that. Continue reading...

Warm arse? Check. Even for passengers? Why now you mention it, check!Describing your car as “ultimate red” sets up some fine expectations, and I approached the Hyundai Tucson like a winner. Gigantic boot. This is the living definition of success in life, maybe not for anybody all the time, but certainly for everybody sometimes: what can you fit in your boot? A bike plus superannuated VHS and stereo unit, or are you lucky to mash in a duvet and two pillows?This smallish SUV will give you a fillip, at least until you try to accelerate. Just kidding. It does accelerate, it just doesn’t make it a priority. Warm arse? Check. Even for passengers? Why now you mention it, check! Electric lumbar support for the driver? I don’t know what that means, but check! Leather-slathered everything? Check! Right, now we accelerate. Or, as I, Ultimate Red, like to say, we move slightly ponderously through my six automatic gears. Continue reading...

Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old boy who loved gaming, was groomed online and murdered in 2014. His mother, Lorin LaFave, was worried – would her pleas for help from police have been taken more seriously if he’d been a girl?I approach Lorin LaFave’s house in Caterham, Surrey, set back and unlit on a long dark road. My fear is that she’s behind the door, dreading my arrival. I’m thinking how difficult it will be for her to go over the grooming and murder of her son Breck yet again – and how difficult it must be to talk about Murder Games, a BBC documentary that unpicks each turn of the case, with interviews, analysis and sinister re-enactments.Very soon, though, Lorin curled up by the fire sipping tea in a silent house, I realise that recounting how her eldest child was lured to his death is no more or less difficult than anything else – getting up each morning, shopping, attending parents’ evening with her remaining three children. “It’s all equally hard and I kind of dread everything,” she says. Continue reading...

Wannabe entrepreneurs are still piling in to San Francisco, but there’s a sense that time is running out on the exuberant startup worldA sharply dressed French investor is leaning against a doorway, arms folded and his expression slightly bemused. Philippe Suchet is considering the latest raft of hopeful new technology entrepreneurs that have presented at 500 Startups – a major hothouse for up-and-coming Silicon Valley talent.There’s no shortage of enthusiasm and ideas in the valley, but Suchet is sceptical. Continue reading...

A judge ruled that Gregory Alan Elliott’s ‘incessant and obsessive’ tweets to two female activists were ‘obscene and homophobic’ but not threateningA Canadian man has been found not guilty of criminally harassing two women through Twitter.The case is believed to be the first example of Canadian courts weighing in on issues of harassment on the social media platform, according to the National Post. Continue reading...

Dating app’s decision comes after dispute with HIV/Aids foundation over a billboard that linked Tinder-like apps with sexually transmitted diseasesTinder’s decision to provide users with a link to find local STI clinics was agreed in a series of “conversations” with the president of the world’s largest HIV/Aids foundation following a spat over a billboard campaign that linked dating apps with sexually transmitted diseases.

The ad watchdog’s current rules allow companies to advertise a headline broadband speed even if it is available to only 10% of customers

An online petition accusing the company of creating ‘mountains of e-waste’ is gaining signatures, but this is an industry developing at breakneck speedThe annual cycle of the iPhone rumour mill has become almost as predictable as the launch of the handsets themselves. Leading the charge of this year’s batch of tittle-tattle is that the 3.5mm headphone jack is being ditched for the iPhone 7.It could make sense for Apple. Getting rid of the jack would allow it to make the handset even thinner, while potentially selling more products. Users are less enamoured with the idea, however, and a petition to keep the 3.5mm socket has attracted more than 290,000 signatures. Continue reading...

iPhone game live with Android to follow as creators target existing fans and new mobile audiencesCard game Exploding Kittens remains one of the most popular projects of all-time on crowdfunding site Kickstarter, having attracted 219,382 backers and $8.8m (£6.2m) of pledges in early 2015.Now the game’s creators are targeting a new, digital audience with the release of an Exploding Kittens iPhone app, with an Android version to follow. Continue reading...

MPs, television pundits and young Israelis say new app will encourage online bullyingA new Israeli mobile app heralded as the “next big messaging application” is coming under fire amid allegations that it will encourage online bullying and sexual harassment.Blindspot works by accessing a user’s contacts, allowing them to send text messages, videos, or photos to anyone without the receiver knowing who the message came from. To read the message, a recipient needs to download Blindspot, but would not know who sent it. It has been developed by a company with a number of celebrity investors, including the singers Nicki Minaj and will.i.am and the Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.

Packed with sensors, comfortable to wear without being sweaty while providing interesting insights into your sleep, exercise and healthMicrosoft’s second attempt at making a fitness tracker is a lot more comfortable and attractive than its first, packed with sensors and relatively easy to live with.

Facebook Sports Stadium will be competing with Twitter in providing live updates, statistics and fan posts for its ‘650 million sports fans’Facebook is tackling the sports arena with a new platform called Facebook Sports Stadium, which the social media site said will provide real-time updates on games, popular posts from fans, statistics and commentary from experts.

Two months after opening its own shop, small independents in Seattle are feeling the pinch from the online behemothA 116-year-old independent bookstore in Seattle is feeling the threat from Amazon. But this time the risk comes not from the online behemoth – but the physical bookstore that the company opened just two months ago.Amazon Books, a brick and mortar shop in an upscale mall in Seattle, is a looming presence to the remaining independents that Amazon.com has yet to take down. Continue reading...

Company promises to add new protections agains malware and bots in 2016Google banned almost 800m “bad” adverts from its online ad networks last year as the web giant continued to crack down on advertising fraud.The figure of 780m was an almost 50% increase on 2014. Google also said that this year would see a major focus on stepping up efforts to fight back against bots – software applications that mimic the behaviour of internet users. Continue reading...

Berkeley researchers will get unprecedented access to data from both companies and riders to analyze if on-demand ride services are climate friends or foesAre on-demand ride services like Uber and Lyft good or bad for the environment? It’s an increasingly urgent question as the services proliferate, but the answer is currently unclear .The companies have held their data close and are only now beginning to share, making it hard to assess critical questions like how people would have gotten to their destinations if Uber and Lyft did not exist. Continue reading...

Federal safety commission investigating explosions warns self-balancing board users to ‘gear up’, keep off roads and keep fire equipment nearbyThe US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC) has warned hoverboard owners to have a fire extinguisher nearby while charging or using the self-balancing devices, after launching an investigation into a series of explosions.

From making your browser do a ‘barrel roll’ to playing a quick game of Breakout with your search results, Google’s full of quirky little easter eggsGoogle’s easter eggs – funny little images, programs or widgets – are legendary, but many of them lie dormant, just waiting for users to type the magic words into the search box.

The co-creator of id software’s legendary first-person shooter has revisited his masterpiece 20 years later. We ask him whyOn its release in 1993, Doom exploded onto the video game scene like nothing before or since. It wasn’t just faster, smoother and sexier than any other shooter around at the time, it introduced game design principles that can still be seen in hundreds of titles to this day. Admired by players and demonised by moral campaigners, it’s one of the most important video games ever made. And now, over 20 years later, co-creator John Romero has gone back to hell.The news came, as it usually does these days, via Twitter. On 15 January, Romero casually announced that he had created a new level for the original game – having not been involved with the series since his resignation from id software in 1996. To the delight of fans, the zip file came complete with a readme document, which contains the wry statement: “Other Files By Author: doom1.wad, doom2.wad.” The level can be played in a browser, but for a much smoother experience it should be experienced via the original game (instructions at the bottom of this article). The map is entitled Tech Gone Bad, and in the description Romero writes it is “my boss level replacement for e1m8 ... 22 years later.” Continue reading...

Linda’s old Windows XP system died, and she’d like to retrieve the data from the hard drive and transfer it to her new MacI have read with interest your article regarding the disposal of old PCs. I have a defunct Dell running Windows XP, which crashed out before I had a chance to retrieve any data. I am now wondering about safe disposal of the old PC and whether or not I can transfer any data to my Mac. I am not a technophile and this may be a silly question, but can you tell me where the hard drive is located? How can I access it, and should I keep this in a safe place even if I can no longer use it? LindaI wrote a comprehensive answer to How can I safely recycle my old PCs? almost a year ago, but it’s still a question that comes up often. For example, Kris has just asked a similar question, saying: “I seriously do not even know where a hard drive is located, let alone how to remove it.” The motherboard in Janice’s PC has failed so she wants to know if she can get access to her data, and wonders if “the only option is to take a sledge hammer to the hard drive and commit it to landfill”. And so on. Continue reading...

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

Twitter’s shares have risen on rumours that it is becoming viewed as an acquisition target, as unconfirmed chatter about News Corp interest circulatedRupert Murdoch’s News Corp said rumors about the company’s interest in buying microblogging site Twitter or building a stake in it were untrue.

Meaningful collaboration between people and machines must not subvert human creativity, feeling and questioning over speed, profit and efficiency

Judge says traditional cabs are ‘devoid of inherent distinctive character’, in legal row involving new eco-friendly taxi groupA high court judge has ruled that one of London’s most famous sights, the black cab, is not that unique after all, concluding that they are “devoid of inherent distinctive character”.

Our relationships are mediated by technology, surveilled by governments, with no guarantee our intimate words of digital love are privateIn John Cheever’s book The Enormous Radio, a couple purchase a radio after their old one stops working. What first sounds like static between stations turns out to be their apartment’s doorbells and lift shafts and, it transpires, the new radio can be tuned into the conversations of other tenants in the building.With a growing obsession, housewife Irene Westcott begins to spend her days listening to other people’s lives. She wakes up at night to sneak into the living room, to turn dials “flooded with a malevolent green light”.

Data shows average contribution from an AOL address is $159, compared to $31 from a Gmail address, as campaigns depend heavily on email fundraisingYou’ve got donations! Having an AOL email address might make you look about as cool as leg warmers but as far as the political class is concerned, you’re the hippest kid on the block.Data from email marketing firm Fluent has revealed the average contribution to a political campaign by email domain name, and while a donation-friendly user with a Gmail address will net a candidate an average of $31, the average donation from an AOL address is a full $159. Continue reading...

Analytics firm App Annie outlines the big trends in the Android and iOS world, as Apple and Google continue to do battleApple started 2016 with the boast that its App Store customers had spent more than $1.1bn on apps and in-app purchases over the Christmas period, including $144m on New Year’s Day alone.But there is more to the apps world than just Apple. Analytics firm App Annie spends its time crunching data from Apple and Google’s respective app stores, and its new 2015 Retrospective report sheds light on some key trends. Continue reading...

After hearing about the most recent one, Fridge cam, we thought we’d add names to the list so you know never to download any of themThere are a lot of apps available for your phones. Some of them are fun and perform an important service, like Instagram and Snapchat and that one with the candy. But many, if not most, are useless. And rubbish. And terrible. After hearing about the most recent one, Fridge cam, we thought we’d add names to the list so you know never to download any of them. Continue reading...