Technology | The Guardian

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

Digital currency ‘miner’ has another setback, telling investors ASX has requested additional informationThe Bitcoin Group has delayed its public listing on the Australian Stock Exchange in order to provide further information about the currency to the exchange.The company has been seeking to become the second listed bitcoin entity in Australia. But the crypto currency operators have faced a series of setbacks and have now reportedly had six delays to the listing. Continue reading...

Organisers want people to line road from the airport to the centre of the capital, holding phones aloft creating a ‘wall of light and prayer’Worshipers will line the roadside holding up their mobile telephones to light the way for Pope Francis when he arrives on his visit to Mexico next week.

Average wage of £72,000 compares with London staff average salary of £160,000 – despite booking £5bn sales from UK advertisers in 2015Workers at Google Ireland, the search group’s European sales hub, earn less than half the £160,000 average wage of colleagues in London despite the British sales team only providing a supporting role to their Irish counterparts.

Solve a murder mystery, grow a tree, spend the day as a sailor, be a spider… mobile developers are rethinking everythingInnovation is an overused and abused word in the technology industry but if you strip it down to the basic principle of “new ideas”, it’s clear that there’s a lot of it going on in mobile games. When you gather some of the best examples together, you realise how many new ideas are out there. For example, there have been some creative experiments with the idea of interactive fiction, from the round-the-world thrills of 80 Days to the beat-the-censors story of Blackbar.There are games that play with sound in new and interesting ways: Papa Sangre II is played entirely by listening rather than looking, while Dark Echo visualises your sounds on the screen. Both are – and this may not be a coincidence – among the creepiest mobile games available. Continue reading...

Google’s big man in northern Europe speaks in glowing terms of London as a base – which might make things awkward at his select committee hearingHere’s Matt Brittin, Google’s boss in northern Europe, speaking in 2012: “Google set up in London 11 years ago now and it was a natural choice. It is such a cosmopolitan international city and there is a huge array of talent you can access – and that’s the most important thing for Google when building its teams outside the US.“Also, the UK is the No 1 internet economy in the world. We spend more money buying things online in this country than anywhere else on a per head basis. So actually it has been a great place for us. We’ve been so successful in the UK that we want to try to give something back." Continue reading...

Take a deep breath and relax. In Audi’s revamped award-winning A4 saloon you are in the best possible companyPrice: £25,900

A change to the statue of Sir Nigel Gresley, designer of the world’s fastest steam locomotive, sparks storm on Facebook and TwitterIt seemed such a good idea at the time – a dignified event to mark the life of one of Britain’s greatest engineers, designer of a much-loved transport icon. But now the event is threatening to unleash an undignified battle involving superglue and rubber ducks.A statue of Sir Nigel Gresley is due to be unveiled in April, marking the 75th anniversary of the death of the designer of the Mallard steam engine. But there is a risk that his achievements will be eclipsed by an arcane dispute that started in the letters pages of local and national newspapers and quickly escalated on social media. Continue reading...

Testimony poised to conclude on Monday – with decision expected in following days – as murder case made famous by podcast returns to courtHe was convicted 16 years ago, sentenced to life for a murder that made few headlines at the time, but his unusual hearing in a Baltimore court over the last three days has held millions of Americans in suspense ahead of the court’s decision. This is not just any murder case, of course: this is Serial.

For all its billionaires and enviable lifestyles, the west coast’s tech elite have never embraced the art world, artists say – until nowSilicon Valley got its first major contemporary art gallery this week because Laura Arrillaga Andreessen – prolific art collector and heir to local real estate baron John Arrillaga – decided it was a little weird to have art sales in her house.“I didn’t come and say I’m going to make Silicon Valley like art. It just happened,” said Marc Glimcher, who runs the influential Pace Gallery and was in town to fete the opening of his new Menlo Park location. Continue reading...

Building confidence in its anti-terror policies, the social media company is expanding its specialist teams in the US and Ireland to monitor extremist contentTwitter has deleted more than 125,000 accounts linked to terrorists since mid-2015, the company announced, offering some of the most detailed insight yet of how Silicon Valley is collaborating with western governments in its fight against Islamic State.The social media company is relying on a mix of human judgment and technology, developing teams of specialists in the US and Ireland that comb through thousands of suspect accounts. Continue reading...

A brilliant concept coupled with smart design choices results in a hugely rewarding game that over-delivers in almost every areaAmong XCOM’s distinctions is that it is a difficult game, so the sequel’s concept is quite brilliant: the first time around, you lost. Firaxis’ 2012 strategy title was a remake of a 1994 original, UFO: Enemy Unknown, which cast you as the commander charged with responding to an alien invasion of Earth – building up the eponymous organisation, responding to attacks across the globe, and hunting down alien operating bases. Chances are if you played it, you also failed to save humanity. And this is where XCOM 2 kicks off.Twenty years have passed since the original game’s events, with Earth now ruled by an alien-human dictatorship known as Advent. It’s a clean and organised dystopia, with people efficiently marched through weapons scanners and dispatched for any infractions real or perceived by Advent’s troopers. This staple enemy type, though humanoid in appearance, is an unholy genetic hybrid – and just the tip of the iceberg you’ll eventually uncover. Continue reading...

The Californian has drafted the strictest proposal yet that would require police forces to get explicit permission for new surveillance techOne of the broadest pushes to reel in America’s surveillance state isn’t in Congress, the White House or a courtroom; arguably it’s in Joe Simitian’s office in California’s Santa Clara County government building.Simitian – 63 and bespectacled - is a supervisor on the county board here. This winter he drafted a proposal for regulation that would require local law enforcement to justify each time they use any piece of surveillance technology – fake cellphone towers, computer hacks, license plate readers, GPS trackers, or anything else that helps cops track civilians. Continue reading...

Tracking children with GPS-enabled devices is becoming practical and affordable, but child rights and privacy campaigners are worriedLosing track of a child is a terrifying prospect. The recent emergence of GPS devices that can report on youngsters’ whereabouts, coupled with the falling prices of gadgets, seem to offer parents a tech solution.Swedish firm Trax, for example, has designed a GPS tracker, on sale for $249 (£170), that issues alerts when children step outside of pre-set “geo-fences” and allows parents to follow their children from their smartphone or computer in real time. French company Weenect has also created a GPS tracker for children, and for €99 it includes an SOS button that allows distressed kids to call their parents. The device can send notifications when children reach a set destination and allows parents to review where their child has been throughout the day. Continue reading...

Elon Musk lashes out over Tesla criticism, YouTube creators react badly to the Fine Bros, Alphabet overtakes Apple and moreThe sight of billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk tangling with a blogger might sound like a sulky Goliath throwing his toys out of his pram at a plucky David – although less so when the David role is filled by venture capitalist Stewart Alsop rather than a youthful tech blogger. Continue reading...

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

It’s the message that spells doom and will render your handset worthless if it’s been repaired by a third party. But there’s no warning and no fixThousands of iPhone 6 users claim they have been left holding almost worthless phones because Apple’s latest operating system permanently disables the handset if it detects that a repair has been carried out by a non-Apple technician.Relatively few people outside the tech world are aware of the so-called “error 53” problem, but if it happens to you you’ll know about it. And according to one specialist journalist, it “will kill your iPhone”. Continue reading...

Online rental website hands over first instalment after striking agreement with city authorities to collect levy on each night’s stayThe accommodation rental web platform Airbnb – which last year agreed to start charging users in Paris a tourist tax – handed over nearly €1.2m (£900,000 ) to city authorities in the last quarter of 2015, the municipality said.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has seized on findings that Rice and Powell were sent sensitive national security information to nongovernment email addressesHillary Clinton’s campaign claimed vindication in the long-running emails saga on Thursday when it emerged that two Republican secretaries of state had also received information later deemed classified on personal accounts.The state department watchdog found that both Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, America’s top diplomats under president George W Bush, were sent sensitive national security information to nongovernment email addresses. Continue reading...

30,000 people reached final stage of challenge designed by GCHQ cryptographers which included phonetics, semaphore and The Lord of the RingsThirty thousand people made it through to the final stage of GCHQ’s Christmas card challenge, 550 submitted answers and six were considered complete. But in the end, only three people proved to be almost a match for Britain’s finest cryptographers.While no one got all the possible answers correct, three men came the closest to fully solving the series of challenges set by GCHQ director Robert Hannigan in his Christmas card. Continue reading...

Compared to other Silicon Valley companies, Slack seems to be making progress in hiring practices, with 7.8% identifying as black, 5.6% Hispanic and 13% LGBTBlack engineers make up 8.9% of Slack’s US engineering staff, according to a new diversity report released by the company on Thursday. The report has been issued just five months after Slack released its initial diversity figures. According to the new report, globally, more than 7.8% of its engineers identify as black, compared to just under 7% in September.The most recent data collection allowed Slack to break down its diversity numbers into global and US employees, whereas the first set of data focused on the company as a whole. In September the percentage of African American employees across all departments was 4%; today this percentage, globally, is down to 3.4%, while US figures are up to 4.4%. Continue reading...

With two major exhibitions on net-art opening in London we take a look at how artists have navigated the digital era and why big data is a powerful material in the creation of contemporary artworksIn some ways the internet has made artists of us all. Whether we’re updating Instagram or filming on our smart phones, technology has given us new avenues for creativity. But what do the fine arts have to say about technology and it’s impact on global culture? How do artists use their skills to engage with the huge social challenges arising from the web and how our personal data is used online?Joining Nathalie Nahai to discuss is The Guardian’s art critic Adrian Searle, curator Helen Kaplinsky who is hosting a course at The Tate about art & digital drift, data Journalist David McCandless and two artists engaging with the internet in very different ways: Julie Freeman and Ruth Catlow. Continue reading...

3DS title provides nice, if non-archetypal, way for devotees to re-enter the universe while they await forthcoming XV and VII instalmentsThe genre-defining Japanese RPG franchise Final Fantasy is one of the games industry’s great lumbering beasts – and is set for a Kraken-like reawakening with both Final Fantasy XV and the reimagined-for-current-gen fan favourite Final Fantasy VII due this year. In the meantime, impatient enthusiasts can blow the dust off their 3DS handhelds, and avail themselves of an amuse-bouche in the form of Final Fantasy Explorers.

More than 50 political activists say Twitter won’t answer critical questions about ‘state-sponsored’ hacking attempts in DecemberWhen more than 50 political activists from across Europe and North America were told by Twitter in December 2015 that their accounts had been attacked by anonymous “state-sponsored actors”, they had very little to go on.One of those targeted was Anne Roth, who has been advising the German Left party during the government’s investigation into US surveillance. She is no stranger to these type of attacks, she said, but when threats come from her own government she has a framework for what to do. Continue reading...

Neal has a six-year-old old Dell Studio 17 laptop and wonders if the hard drive is likely to fail. Is this a good time to swap it for a faster SSD, or buy a new PC?My main computer is a Dell Studio 17 laptop from 2010 (specification attached). In my home office, I hook it up to a separate keyboard, mouse and monitor.As a part-time university lecturer, I run the usual software – Microsoft Office, Adobe Illustrator etc – plus some specialist software such as ArcMap, part of the ArcGIS suite.The Dell Studio 17 was a solid desktop replacement laptop with plenty of power but not much portability. It’s already running Microsoft Windows 10 with 8GB of memory, so there’s no urgent need to upgrade or replace it. Continue reading...

Star strikes deal with Glu Mobile to launch game by Christmas, but will be hoping to avoid a Katy Perry Pop-sized flopTaylor Swift’s 1989 was one of the best-selling albums of 2014 and 2015, but now she’s hoping to have a hit on the app store charts at Christmas 2016 with her first mobile game.Swift has signed a multi-year licensing deal with Glu Mobile, the games publisher behind the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood mobile game, as well as recent titles based on James Bond and Katy Perry. The Taylor Swift game will be released in December for smartphones and tablets. Continue reading...

Adblock Fast downloaded 50,000 times since Monday – but is thought to have breached Google’s rules for disrupting third-party servicesGoogle has pulled an adblocking app for Samsung phones from its Play Store just days after it was launched.The Adblock Fast app, which blocks ads in Samsung’s own mobile internet browser, disappeared from the store suddenly on Wednesday. The app had been supported by Samsung, which released a download enabling adblocking in late January. Continue reading...

Drivers welcome Transport for London decision as way of combating challenge to street-hailed taxi trade from UberAll black cabs in London will be required to take credit cards and contactless payments from October, Transport for London has announced, as the taxi trade seeks to keep up with the technological challenge from Uber, the ride-hailing app.The minimum fare of £2.40 will rise across the board by 20p to cover the costs of using the new technology. Credit card companies have agreed to cut the costs of accepting cards and other contactless methods, such as smartphone, carried by cabbies. Fees will fall below 3% of the transaction compared with a current rate that can be as high as 10%. Continue reading...

With millions of subscribers, top YouTubers such as Zoella have huge, passionate audiences. Here’s a handy guide to help you understand their popularityBritish vlogger Zoella has just reached the milestone of 10m subscribers to her main YouTube channel, but she has a long way to go to catch its most popular creator PewDiePie, who is about to pass 42m.They’re just two of the most prominent YouTube stars. In October 2015, online-video tracking firm Tubular Labs reported that there were more than 17,000 YouTube channels with more than 100,000 subscribers, and nearly 1,500 with more than 1m. Continue reading...

Developers and authors explain how they are experimenting with technology to publish ‘unprintable’ books – including a love story told through Google street view and a prison break with swappable recipesPublisher Anna Gerber isn’t trying to kill off the printed book – she’d just like you to spend a bit more time on your mobile. “We don’t really think the point is to change the way we read,” she says, “but we do like the idea of trying to immerse readers in books on their phones.”Gerber has been pushing at the boundaries of the printed page since she and Britt Iversen founded Visual Editions in 2010, a publisher of mould-breaking books including Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes and Marc Saporta’s Composition No 1. Now Visual Editions has teamed up with Google Creative Lab in Sydney to create Editions at Play, a publishing project and online bookstore that sells books that “cannot be printed”, with each one available through Google Play. Continue reading...

Tech company reportedly paid $250m for UK-based business, whose software is installed on more than 300m smartphones and tabletsMicrosoft has acquired British apps firm SwiftKey for a reported $250m (£173.2m), promising that it will continue to develop the company’s Android and iOS keyboard apps.Microsoft and SwiftKey confirmed the acquisition in blogposts, shortly after it was first reported in the Financial Times. Continue reading...

A Californian venture capitalist had his Tesla Motors Model X order cancelled after he wrote about a badly run launch eventUnimaginable wealth has brought Elon Musk a lot of benefits, from being able to build a private spaceflight company to planning a magnet-powered vacuum tube supersonic transport system between LA and San Francisco – and be taken seriously. But perhaps the best perk of being Elon Musk is the ability to be unbelievably petty.The Californian venture capitalist Stewart Alsop learned that to his cost, he says, after he wrote an open letter to Musk about the badly run launch event for the Tesla Motors Model X (the newest car from Musk’s electric vehicle startup). Continue reading...

Facebook has built its business around our relationships – but as the site turns 12, are we just too busy for the emotional labor of ‘real’ friends?When I was a little girl, everyone at summer camp was going to be best friends forever. A few weeks away can feel like a lifetime to an adolescent, and the minor trials of those times – homesickness, secrets, social crises, skinned knees – loomed large. Camp would conclude with group sing-alongs, tears, the exchange of addresses, and earnest promises that the closeness and unity formed in those endless sunny days would last forever.Of course, it never did. Reality set in once you got home to your parents and the regular neighborhood kids, and your thoughts turned to new notebooks for the school year and whether you got prettier while you were away and whether your crushes were going to notice. You always meant to write, meant it in your heart, but you never did. I still vividly remember getting in the mail a package from a camp friend containing a pen-scribbled loyal letter, pages long, and a tiny box of plastic earrings – I received it with equal measures of shock and guilt, never having expected such an earnest delivery on her promise, and wholly unprepared to reply. Continue reading...

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

Authorities say the calls, which threaten bombing or shooting attacks, and have been received at schools around the world, may be the work of hackersAuthorities believe a sophisticated and automated hacking system is behind a series of threatening hoax phone calls that have disrupted the start of the year for students at more than 30 schools throughout Australia, as well as students from hundreds of schools throughout France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, and the UK.

The lawsuit revolves around the company’s use of quarterly performance reviews, used to determine promotions, demotions and terminationsThere’s nothing particularly surprising about allegations of gender discrimination at a Silicon Valley tech firm. Over the past year, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft have all been sued for discrimination against female employees.But in a lawsuit filed 1 February in US district court, Yahoo is accused of “actual and intentional gender-based discrimination” against male employees by Gregory Anderson, a former Yahoo employee who worked as an editorial director for the website for four years, until his firing in November 2014. Continue reading...

Search engine giant reveals plans for pilot scheme to home affairs committee hearing, with Facebook and Twitter also probed over extremism policiesUsers of Google who put extremist-related entries into the search engine are to be directed towards anti-radicalisation links under a pilot programme, MPs have been told by an executive for the company. The initiative, aimed at countering the online influence of groups such as Islamic State, is running alongside another pilot scheme designed to make videos posted by extremists easier to identify.The schemes were mentioned by Anthony House, senior manager for public policy and communications at Google, who was appearing alongside counterparts from Twitter and Facebook at a home affairs select committee hearing on countering extremism. “We should get the bad stuff down, but but it’s also extremely important that people are able to find good information, that when people are feeling isolated, that when they go online, they find a community of hope, not a community of harm,” he said. Continue reading...

CEO Marissa Mayer announces a ‘strategic plan’ that includes cutting 1,700 jobs and is expected to lead to the sale of parts of its businessYahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer has announced plans to cut the company’s workforce by 15% and close five foreign offices by the end of 2016.The struggling tech company reported a $4.4bn loss for the last three months of 2015 as it wrote down the value of assets including Tumblr, the blogging site it bought for $1bn in 2013. Continue reading...

Service almost fully restored after tens of thousands affected by broadband and phone network failure

EU-US Privacy Shield ‘safe harbour’ comes with assurances against US mass surveillance and the protection of EU citizens’ dataEurope and the US have reached a new “robust” deal over data sharing that will ensure the safety of EU citizens’ data when transferred across the Atlantic by firms such as Facebook, Apple and Google.The new EU-US privacy shield will allow companies to transfer and process EU citizens’ data in the US given certain privacy guarantees. It comes after the original data-sharing safe harbour agreement from 2000 used by 4,500 companies was struck down in October by the European court of justice, following legal action by an Austrian privacy campaigner following the Snowden revelations of mass US government surveillance. Continue reading...

The messaging app has passed the one-billion-monthly-active-user milestone. Whether you’re staying in touch with family or organising a night out, group chats have become an ever-present feature of the national conversation Continue reading...

Michel Sapin’s comments add pressure to European commission to launch investigation into settlementPressure is mounting on the European commission to launch a full state aid investigation into the UK’s £130m tax settlement with Google after France’s finance minister attacked the deal.Michel Sapin said HMRC’s settlement, which allows Google to continue booking £5bn of UK sales via Ireland, “seems more the product of a negotiation than the application of the law”. Continue reading...

Alphabet’s shares rose by 4.7% following better than expected results, amid concerns that Apple has yet to come up with another blockbuster productAlphabet, Google’s parent company, pipped Apple to become the world’s most valuable company on Tuesday, ending the iPhone company’s four-year reign.Alphabet’s shares rose by 4.7% by noon on Tuesday following the release of better than expected results. After the rise Alphabet was valued at $548bn to Apple’s $534bn. Continue reading...

Homophobic comments by BBC star and drug-smuggling porn actor among stories that gay news site uploaded saying article-removal laws are censorshipGay news site PinkNews has published a list of 19 stories it says have been removed from Google search results under Europe’s right to be forgotten rules, claiming the legislation is an “infringement of press freedom”.The stories include allegations of homophobic comments by a BBC star and a report about a gay porn actor attempting to smuggle crystal meth on a transatlantic flight to the UK. Continue reading...

Users who entered email addresses received offer to opt in to ‘match-making app’ Nine, launched January 2016

Hungarian website argued that holding it liable for messages on its forum – which it removed – would have serious repercussions for freedom of expressionNews websites are not responsible for “insulting and rude” comments by readers, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday, after a Hungarian website was sued for messages on its forum.The case related to the Index.hu news website on which readers posted a series of angry comments about a real-estate company. Continue reading...

Security researchers have found a flaw in the Smart Toy internet-connected teddy bear that used a child’s name, birthday and genderIn September, Mattel’s Fisher-Price brand announced it had partnered with a tech company to make Smart Toy, a stuffed bear that can learn a three-year-old’s name.

Software update upgraded to ‘recommended’ status, meaning those with automatic updates set will see it downloaded in the background and a request to install Windows 10 over Windows 7 and 8Microsoft has followed through with its plans to push adoption of Windows 10 by downloading it in the background to user machines running Windows 7 and 8 set to accept automatic updates.

The company says search oddities are unrelated to its UK tax bill after accusations that search results have been censoredGoogle has categorically denied “conspiracy theories” accusing it of censoring its search results to please the Conservative party in exchange for an agreement to pay just £130m in back taxes.The accusations stem from Google’s autocomplete function, which suggests search terms based on user input. The suggested searches are created algorithmically from previous searches on the topic. Continue reading...

Gmail becomes the sixth Google service to cross the 1 billion barrier, while WhatsApp becomes Facebook’s second most-used appFacebook’s WhatsApp messenger and Google’s Gmail have both crossed the 1 billion monthly active user milestone, meaning that one-seventh of the world’s population now uses them both.The two apps join Facebook’s 1.59 billion monthly active users (MAU), as well as Google’s other 1 billion or more MAU services: Google search, Chrome (both mobile and desktop), Google Maps, YouTube, Google’s Android and therefore also Google Play. Continue reading...