Technology | The Guardian

For a forum that usually features the most future-facing innovations in the tech world, there was a definite retro vibe to the 2016 CES product previewIf you saw the products announced at Sony’s CES media conference, you could be forgiven for thinking you were stepping back in time.Related: Vinyl’s difficult comeback | John Harris Continue reading...

Vehicle manufacturer negotiating how to recall half a million diesel cars in US after episode which ‘disappointed the American people’, top executive saysA senior Volkswagen executive has apologised to German consumers and said that the German car maker is close to reaching an agreement with US regulators on how it will recall some half a million cars that have illegally exceeded emissions targets for years.Dr Herbert Diess, Volkswagen’s chief executive of passenger vehicles, told a packed audience at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the company was “focused on ensuring something like this can never happen again”. Continue reading...

Announced at CES, Samsung’s new TV features a SmartThings hub that allows control of your lights, thermostat and door locksSamsung’s product launches at the vast Consumer Electronics Show are traditionally the biggest and most lavish – lavish by tech industry standards, that is, if not Las Vegas.This year the South Korean firm wanted to talk about connectivity, and how you and everything in your home can soon be better connected – starting with television. Continue reading...

The ‘smart fitness watch’ is Fitbit’s first with a colour screen and claims a five-day battery life, guided workouts and some of the same features as Apple WatchStill trying to decide if you want a smartwatch or a Fitbit? Now you might not have to make the distinction.Fitbit announced the Fitbit Blaze at CES, a smartwatch that builds on the capabilities traditionally found in your average Fitbit, while adding a color display, customizable watch faces and even a handful of different bands to choose from – the device slots into a range of straps. Continue reading...

Taiwanese smartphone maker unveils first developer version of product it thinks will appeal to gamers and entertainment sector

Gesture control is coming to the cute rolling robot from the Force Awakens, as prototype band that directs it with arm motions gets shown off in Las VegasForget CES’s internet fridges, self-driving cars and smart bras, the coolest thing this year has to be the Force Band, which allows you to pretend you’re a Jedi and control a mini version of BB-8 using nothing but your wrist ... and a cheap-looking plastic band.

Belgravia, set in 1840s London, will be delivered weekly via an app and will feature extras such as music, character portraits and family treesThe Downton Abbey creator, Julian Fellowes, is to release his new novel, a historical drama set in London during the 1840s, in instalments via an app.

Call of Duty publisher wants to take its eSports titles into mainstream using MLG’s streaming platform, live gaming events and competitive gaming leagues

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

From death-defying parachute leaps to astonishing motorcycle jumps, Grand Theft Auto V has become the venue for a stunt show with millions of spectatorsReaching higher than any other geographic feature on the Grand Theft Auto landscape, Mount Chiliad is a towering icon of the series. Although instantly familiar to players of GTA: San Andreas and GTA V, it is shrouded in mystery – the volcanic contours and forgotten passes are even said to have played host to extraterrestrial beings and cryptid Bigfoot-like creatures. For dedicated explorers willing to venture beyond its miles of verdant evergreens, every knife-edged gully and sun-bleached coastal platform has its own story to tell.For one player named Ash, the story began with an injury. After suffering a prolapsed disk in late 2013, she found herself almost completely immobile and unable to work. Desperate to ease the inevitable boredom, she started playing Grand Theft Auto V – the latest in the blockbusting series of open world crime adventures. Like every GTA title, the game presents players with a sand box-like world to freely explore, filled with towns, cities and vast areas of rolling countryside. To her it was an escape, a means of regaining some sense of mobility. A friend suggested she learn how to make videos of her adventures in the game and post them on YouTube. “I gave it a crack and ended up here,” she says. Continue reading...

The Uber rival and the automaker plan to open a network of US hubs where Lyft drivers can rent GM vehicles, giving non-car-owners a way to earn moneyGeneral Motors and ride-hailing company Lyft are forming an unprecedented partnership that could help them beat their rivals to the self-driving future.Lyft said Monday that GM invested $500m in the company as part of a $1bn round of fund-raising. Continue reading...

The place to start the year talking about games and other things that matterIt’s 2016! Continue reading...

BuzzFeed, HuffPo and Vox will have to show they can keep their cool as they challenge more traditional rivalsLast year saw the digital media upstarts step up a gear, and 2016 looks set to see them consolidate their place alongside established media businesses. The biggest development of the year will be digital darling Vice going all traditional media and launching TV channels across Europe. At least that will be the big story until something bigger happens, because the digital media landscape is a bit like that.Vice will probably get yet another investor upping its stake (cue a further ridiculous surge in valuation beyond $5bn) to try to tap into some of its edgy, youth-focused cool. Or perhaps founder Shane Smith might look to sell up, or go for an IPO. Continue reading...

2016 promises more stunning open-world immersion, Nathan Drake’s last hurrah – and the arrival of virtual reality gaming on your smartphoneMixing open-world exploration, survival drama and sci-fi RPG elements, Horizon may be the most beautiful game yet due for 2016. Set in a post-apocalyptic world a millennium hence, it follows hunter Aloy as she tries to eke out an existence on a ruined Earth overtaken by cybernetic titans. If developer Guerrilla Games can deliver solid gameplay and a story as good as the stunning visuals, this could be incredible. Continue reading...

Everyone hates web adverts – except those people developing intrusive technology to force them on us.On 16 September 2015, Apple launched the latest version of its iPhone operating system, iOS9. One feature of the new system is the option to install an ad blocker, preventing the phone’s Safari web browser from loading most web ads. The following day, the top-selling application in the UK was Peace, an ad blocker by celebrated software developer Marco Arment.An estimated 150 to 200 million people use ad blockers on their desktop or laptop ad browsers and that number is growing at 41% a year. As ad spending shifts from desktops to mobile platforms, ad blockers such as Peace terrify both advertisers and proprietors of services that rely on advertising for their revenue. Yet the demand for mobile ad blockers makes perfect sense. Mobile phone users pay for the bandwidth they consume, and on many websites the bandwidth used to load ads and their accompanying tracking information is greater than the bandwidth used to load the content. Continue reading...

The dainty paintjob and smooth curves belie the sturdy nature of this traditional bicycle at a brilliant priceBen and Jezz met at university and quickly became friends. Ben was into designing bikes, while Jezz was focused on marketing. Scratching around for something to do, they decided to launch their own brand, as you do, and in 2012 Mango Bikes duly sold its first model. Since then they have sold hundreds of bikes, and this month sees the launch of their latest, the Ladies Classic.It’s an elegant ride and comes in five colours, including this one, mint. It’s impossible to imagine how they can afford to sell it for under £300. For that you get the pannier rack and matching tan saddle and leather grips. The wicker basket is £10 extra – ideal for a small dog. The Classic isn’t to be ridden hard. It’s a bike that wants you to waft around town in style, probably wearing linen (mangobikes.co.uk). Continue reading...

High-tech giants are becoming more like the radical right as they launch populist crusade to block government regulation – and they have the technology to recruit believersBack in August 2014, Mike Bulajewski, a Seattle-based designer with a penchant for psychoanalysis, published a fascinating essay. In The Cult of Sharing, he argued that the best way to understand why so many users feel emotionally attached to such companies as Uber and Airbnb – even earning them the feel-good moniker “the sharing economy” – is by treating such communities as cults.Like all good cults, such firms tap into our inner quest for solidarity and belonging, promising to fill our lives with meaning. By presenting their foes as enemies of innovation who want to destroy the new and deviant class of entrepreneurs, technology companies play on the perennial theme of persecution. And they stoke fears of conspiracy – involving governments, trade unions and big corporations – out to suppress all disruptive ideas. Continue reading...

Technology correspondent receives tweet from US-based New Word Hacking saying attack was to test group’s servers

Online dating websites like Plenty of Fish and Match.com see a spike in new users and activity on first Sunday of the new year after the holidays are overLet the swiping begin! Ladies and gentlemen, charge your phones and ready those index fingers for the first Sunday of the year is almost here and that can mean just one thing: plenty more fish in the online pool of love-seeking candidates.It’s not just all those Christmas engagement photos flooding your Facebook feed, all those questions that your single cousin had to dodge over her relationship status, or the fact that you now have the FarmersOnly.com jingle stuck in your head after being parked in front of the TV most of the holidays – the beginning of the year is the busiest time for online dating sites. Continue reading...

‘I thought first was a moving-off gear until I met this car’The Smart Car Forfour is, generally speaking, attractive; and where it’s not attractive, it is weird enough to confuse you into finding it attractive. Mine came in a tangy orange that, coupled with its snub nose (the engine’s at the back), gave it the look of a novelty drink. Inside, the seats had a zippy, race-driver hardness, and the door stowage was done in a newfangled plasticised basket weave. I can’t imagine the person this would mean a lot to, but it was impossible not to notice. The interior was lively and intuitive: lots of fancy white stitching and bold, round and ovoid shapes – even the vents look perky.In fact, I have just two complaints about the vehicle, which relate to its size. The Smart Car was put on Earth to be titchy: its entire allure lies in the fact that you can park it sideways and give almost nobody a lift anywhere. Once this idiosyncratic boon has been lost – the Forfour might have a truncated front, but it’s no smaller than about 100 other family cars – you’re left with traits that feel gimmicky, purposeless. I wouldn’t say it raised existential doubts about the point of a new-look anything, but if you were liable to get that kind of reaction to a car, this would be the one that did it. Continue reading...

The defining political achievements of the past decade have favored tolerance and empathy – and online discussion has fuelled them all, argues Steven JohnsonEvery new technology threatens to kill off some revered institution. But in the waning months of 2015, more than a few smart and tech-savvy commentators began suggesting a radical hypothesis: that the rise of social media threatened to deliver a death blow to civic consensus and even to truth itself.“The news brims with instantly produced ‘hot takes’ and a raft of fact-free assertions,” Farhad Manjoo observed in the New York Times. “The extremists of all stripes are ascendant, and just about everywhere you look, much of the internet is terrible.” Continue reading...

Michelle Simmons and her Australian team make strides in developing a true supercomputer, pursuing the idea that cheap silicon is the keyAround the world, teams of engineers, physicists, mathematicians and engineers are using all kinds of exotic materials in the race to build the world’s first practical quantum computer, capable of processing amounts of data in a matter of hours that would take today’s computers millions of years.Caesium, aluminium, niobium titanium nitride and diamond are among the substances being used by researchers trying to determine which will best allow particles to maintain a delicate quantum state of superposition, where particles exist across multiple, seemingly counterintuitive states at the same time. Continue reading...

Apps that prevent ads making it to the screens of mobile phones topped the charts this year. What will the consequences be in 2016?When Apple revealed that its new operating system for mobile phones, iOS 9, would feature what the company called “content-blocking Safari extensions”, no one really blinked.Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, didn’t even detail the feature on stage at the lavish launch for iOS 9 in July. Continue reading...

The choice is limited. Need a picture to illustrate a hacker? A photograph of a man, in a darkened room, wearing a hoodie, obviously Continue reading...

Murdock’s work combined an insistence on excellence with a public commitment to open, ethical software development, writes Doc SearlsIan Murdock, who died in San Francisco on 28 December, was the co-creator of the Debian, the Linux distribution he founded while an undergraduate at Indiana’s Purdue University in 1993.The circumstances of Murdock’s death have not been made public. After praising Murdock for the good work he did for the company and the world, a statement from his most recent employer Docker added that “Ian’s family has requested that well-wishers and press respect their privacy and direct all inquiries through Docker”.

Instalment loans offered to those spending over £400 in potential ‘gamechanger’ for UK furniture and electricals marketAmazon has started offering loans to customers buying products off its website in a move that could shake up the UK furniture and electricals market.The world’s biggest online retailer is offering a new pay monthly option on orders of more than £400, which can include multiple items. Continue reading...

Company changes policy to notify users if government-related attacks take place after previously not alerting users when Hotmail accounts were hackedMicrosoft has announced that it will start notifying users it believes have been targeted by government-linked hackers, after failing to do so when Chinese authorities allegedly compromised over 1,000 Hotmail accounts.

UK public broadcaster apologises as its internet services are taken down in what may have been a DDoS attack affecting its website, apps and streaming servicesThe BBC has suffered an intermittent internet services outage that took down its website, the BBC iPlayer and all other digital services provided by the bbc.co.uk domain.

Retailer faced criticism for making money from far-right group’s ditty Together We Are Strong, released over ChristmasAmazon has said it will donate to refugees in Germany the profits from online purchases of a track released by the far-right anti-migrant Pegida movement.The online retailer had been criticised for making money from sales of the instrumental song Gemeinsam sind wir stark – German for “Together we are strong” – which was released over Christmas. Continue reading...

Open thread: An Iranian blogger thinks the rise of social media is killing the potential of the web. Is he right?

Although the day when every household has its own robot is some way off, the Japanese are demonstrating a formidable acceptance of humanoidsErica enjoys the theatre and animated films, would like to visit south-east Asia, and believes her ideal partner is a man with whom she can chat easily.She is less forthcoming, however, when asked her age. “That’s a slightly rude question … I’d rather not say,” comes the answer. As her embarrassed questioner shifts sideways and struggles to put the conversation on a friendlier footing, Erica turns her head, her eyes following his every move. Continue reading...

How can we stop superintelligent computers from taking over the world? Feed them a digital dose of LSD, suggests this mind-bending bookDo androids dream of electric Kool-Aid acid tests? If there’s to be any hope for us, they will. That is the message of Andrew Smart’s splendidly mind-bending book, which mashes up Alan Turing, The Matrix, Immanuel Kant, “zombie AI”, Leibniz, and research on psychedelic drugs.In our age of techno-utopianism, we are routinely told in crypto-religious terms about the coming “Singularity” – the creation of superintelligent, conscious machines. One problem with superintelligent conscious machines, however – as SF writers down the ages and some modern philosophers agree – is that they might very well choose to destroy all humans. How to stop the godlike robots wiping us out? The best way, Smart suggests, might be to give them a dose of digital LSD to force open their doors of perception. Continue reading...

The internet in 2015 has given us a lot of laughs – a vigil to a raccoon, Drake playing tennis and the ‘duck army’ – but which memes make our cut of the best? Continue reading...

Sandra and others have asked for an update on buying a laptop to run Minecraft, so here it is ...I read your article about the best laptop for Minecraft – which is what I’m after – but unfortunately it is two years old, so I assume very out of date in the tech world. We have Minecraft on Xbox but I am told that “mods” (which my son is desperate for) are much simpler/more straightforward to download to a PC version. What would you recommend? SandraThis is a frequently asked question, so I should probably schedule an annual update. Joakim from Sweden has also asked for a Windows laptop to replace a “quite old” Dell Inspiron 1525 running Minecraft. Continue reading...

Australian Taxi Industry says Uber drivers’ incentive is ‘greedy’ but ride-sharing company says it means more transport in cities like Sydney and MelbourneWhere you ring in the new year may prove less important than how you get there, and get home, as the bitter conflict between Uber and taxis continues.With New Year’s Eve the busiest night of the year for Uber, fares are expected to surge with increased demand – a strategy to offer an incentive to drivers that the head of Australia’s taxi industry has condemned as “plain greedy”. Continue reading...

A team of open source software developers solved the problem that most urgently needed solving: distributing wages to healthcare workersLittle known to the rest of the world, a team of open source software developers played a small but integral part in helping to stop the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone, solving a payroll crisis that was hindering the fight against the disease.Emerson Tan from NetHope, a consortium of NGOs working in IT and development, told the tale at the Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg, Germany.

From abandoned space stations to drug-fuelled dystopias, here are 25 reasons why 2016 is going to be a fascinating year for gamesOf course, gamers go into every year filled with excitement and anticipation. This is a medium that thrives on slow burn hype, with even tiny indie projects using months of teaser shots and YouTube trailers to garner interest. The good news is, there’s usually enough brilliant, innovative and compelling fare to justify that enthusiasm – and 2016 looks to be no exception.Although you could fill a dozen ‘most anticipated’ lists with all the grandiose sequels and blockbusting franchises due out this year, there are also dozens of smaller-scale independent projects, keeping the idiosyncratic and experimental heart of video game culture beating. Continue reading...

Corporation tax deal follows Apple Italia’s alleged failure to declare earnings in Italy but settlement is thought to be one-third of the estimated £650m billApple has agreed to pay €318m (£234m) to settle a tax dispute with Italian authorities after the iPhone and iPad maker was investigated for suspected fraud.

‘They took it as it was: a loud robot that’s going to give away their position,’ said a military spokesman of Boston Dynamics’ LS3 quadrupedThe US military is cooling its eagerness for robots in the battlefield, after trials with quadrupedal robot and nightmare machine Big Dog revealed one crucial flaw: it’s much, much too loud.The Big Dog robots, first demonstrated almost a decade ago, are developed by Boston Dynamics, a Massachusetts-based robotics firm that was purchased by Google in 2013. They became well known through a series of impressive demonstration videos showing the machine keeping its pace over uneven and slippery surfaces, and even managing to stay upright after a strong unexpected kick from the side. Continue reading...

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

Madonna, Yoko Ono and calling out hipster baristas. We take a look at some of the funniest and most on-point tweets of the yearThe earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. Continue reading...

The company has clarified definition of abusive behaviour amid criticism it should do more to halt use of the platform by IsisTwitter has clarified its definition of abusive behaviour that will prompt it to delete accounts, banning what it calls hateful conduct that promotes violence against specific groups.The social media company disclosed the changes on Tuesday in a blog post, following rising criticism it was not doing enough to thwart Islamic State’s use of the site for propaganda and recruitment. Continue reading...

Cracker frontman David Lowery leads class action suit against streaming site, claiming it knowingly distributed band’s work without permissionSpotify is being sued for at least $150m by a collective of musicians who allege that the streaming site has knowingly and willingly reproduced and distributed their music without permission, Billboard reports.David Lowery, frontman of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, is leading the suit, filed at California’s central district court in Los Angeles on 28 December by the law firm Michelman & Robinson LLP. Continue reading...

Hossein Derakhshan was imprisoned by the regime for his blogging. On his release, he found the internet stripped of its power to change the world and instead serving up a stream of pointless social triviaLate in 2014, I was abruptly pardoned and freed from Evin prison in northern Tehran. In November 2008, I had been sentenced to nearly 20 years in jail, mostly over my web activities, and thought I would end up spending most of my life in those cells. So the moment, when it came, was unexpected. I was sharing a cup of tea when the voice of the floor announcer – another prisoner – filled all the rooms and corridors: “Dear fellow inmates, the bird of luck has once again sat on one fellow inmate’s shoulders. Mr Hossein Derakhshan, as of this moment, you are free.”Outside, everything felt new: the chill autumn breeze, the traffic noise from a nearby bridge, the smell, the colours of the city I had lived in most of my life. Around me, I noticed a very different Tehran from the one I had been used to. An influx of new, shamelessly luxurious condos had replaced the charming little houses I was familiar with. New roads, new highways, hordes of invasive SUVs. Large billboards with advertisements for Swiss-made watches and Korean TVs. Women in colourful scarves and manteaus, men with dyed hair and beards, and hundreds of charming cafes with hip western music and female staff. They were the kind of changes that creep up on people; the kind you only really notice once normal life gets taken away from you. Continue reading...

Tracking agency Excipio reports more people watched pirated films in 2015, with Fast & Furious 7 in second place on Hollywood’s least favourite chartChristopher Nolan’s space adventure Interstellar has been named the most pirated movie of 2015, with 46m illegal downloads, putting it at the head of a chart no Hollywood studio wants to top.According to figures from piracy tracking firm Excipio, the 2014 release was just ahead of action sequel Fast & Furious 7, with 44m downloads and superhero sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron, with 41m downloads. Other films to make the top five include the year’s biggest blockbuster, Jurassic World, in fourth place with 36.8m downloads, and Mad Max: Fury Road, in fifth place with 36.4m downloads. Continue reading...

Online retailer has announced it is adding thousands more products to its Pantry service, as big four struggle with changing shopping habitsAmazon is preparing to crank up the pressure on Britain’s struggling supermarkets by dramatically expanding the range of grocery products it sells. Christopher North, the UK boss of the online retailer, has said it plans to expand its Pantry service rapidly in the new year.The news that Amazon is to ramp up its grocery delivery business will come as a blow to the “big four” supermarket chains – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – which are already under pressure as a result of changing shopping habits. Large grocers have been battling falling sales as households abandon the weekly shop in favour of discount supermarkets, regular local top-up shopping and online ordering. Continue reading...

Actor accuses airline of being ‘ridiculous’ after he and his children are told they cannot take hoverboards on flight because of safety concernsRussell Crowe has lashed out at airline Virgin Australia after being told his children could not bring their hoverboards on a flight.The two-wheeled self-balancing motorised boards were the most sought-after toy at Christmas but have been the subject of a series of safety warnings in Australia, the US and the UK because of fires caused by faulty charges. Continue reading...

The technology companies are aiming to tap the potentially lucrative market in as China seeks to manage its notorious urban pollution problemTwo of the world’s largest technology firms, IBM and Microsoft, are vying to tap the fast-growing market for forecasting air quality in the world’s top carbon emitters.

Two days from the end of potentially damaging public consultation on net neutrality, Facebook’s founder dismissed accusations that Free Basics service is anti-competitiveFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has vigorously defended his company’s motives for rolling out free basic internet services across India, dismissing what he called “false claims” by critics who say its Free Basics service promotes a “walled garden” controlled by Facebook.In an opinion piece published by the Indian newspaper the Times of India, Zuckerberg equates internet access to education and health provision, claiming it could help relieve the poverty of one billion people in India who are not currently online. Continue reading...

The star of Steve Jobs and X-Men: Days of Future Past had never played Assassin’s Creed before signing on to star in forthcoming film adaptation of the video gameThe video game Assassin’s Creed has sold more than 73m copies and spawned numerous novels, comic books and short films. But Michael Fassbender, the star of the highly anticipated film adaptation has admitted never having played it prior to being offered the lead role.Speaking to Entertainment Weekly as the first photography was released for the movie, the actor said he first got to grips with the video game only after being approached by Ubisoft to join the production. Continue reading...