Technology | The Guardian

WePod shuttle carries handful of people on 200m journey in first trial of its kind – with hopes to extend systems to cargo trucksAn electric, driverless shuttle bus has taken to Dutch public roads on Thursday, rolling six passengers along a 200m stretch of road in the first trial of its kind worldwide.The WePod, one of a fleet to be rolled out in coming years, took a few people on a short journey back and forth along the side of a lake in the central Dutch agricultural town of Wageningen. Continue reading...

Many people now gather data about their own bodies on personal trackers, but the jury is still out on their accuracy and effectivenessFitness trackers are surging in popularity, but are they any good for you? And are they any good for the doctor who is treating you?The devices, worn on the wrist, clipped to the belt or shoved into a pocket, measure your movements and, at the very least, promise to calculate how many calories you burned on your walk to work. Some offer considerably more, with myriad sensors measuring health indicators. Continue reading...

Chris Boucher, from Antrim in Northern Ireland, donated his kidney to his three-year-old daughter Lucy in a ground-breaking operation that was made possible using 3D printing technology. 3D replicas of Lucy’s abdomen and her father’s kidney were made before surgery. The printed models helped surgeons at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital in London plan how to put an adult-sized kidney into the body of a toddler

Dylan is getting account sign-ups from someone with the same name, who is mistakenly using Dylan’s email address. What can he do?I subscribed to Apple’s MobileMe service, so I received an email address with my full name @me.com. When the service switched to iCloud, I also received the @icloud.com suffix.My problem is that someone with the same name, based in America, is using my @icloud.com address to sign up for accounts and services, including Instagram. For example, I know that he has purchased a case for his iPhone 4, is interested in a new Ford pickup truck, and has signed his child up for a Scholastic education account.I get this as well. A surprising number of people don’t seem to be able to remember their email addresses. This is a growing problem because of the use of real names. We used to think this was a great idea, overlooking the fact that there are often hundreds and sometimes thousands of people with the same name, and now they’re all coming online. We might have been better off using fabricated but memorable names. Continue reading...

Company executives and UK tax officials to appear before public accounts committee, while it could also face EU investigationGoogle executives and UK tax officials are to face a grilling from MPs within weeks after they agreed to appear before the Commons public accounts committee to discuss their controversial tax settlement.Representatives from the US internet company and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) are due to give evidence in a hearing on 11 February, the committee confirmed. Continue reading...

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

Free-to-play games such as Hearthstone offer huge prize money but winning tournaments is not actually a good way to make a living, finds Alex HernIt’s the lot of every sports fan to sit on the sofa watching their stars play and think “I could do that, if I tried” safe in the knowledge that no one is ever going to call them on that claim.

In the tight-knit online gaming community Epic Mafia, Eris was an infamous celebrity. So when news of his suicide reached the forums, many players were grief stricken. But in a virtual world where it pays to lie, could it really be true?Everyone who played Epic Mafia knew Eris, or at least knew of him. In real life, he was a 32-year-old computer programmer, who lived alone with his border collie in upstate New York, but in the tight-knit online gaming community of Epic Mafia, he was a celebrity, the impresario of the site’s many forums, constantly flirting, philosophising, gossiping. In the seven years since the site had launched, he had formed many intense friendships with people he had never met, but who had come to depend on him. Eris had the gift of easy intimacy. He asked real questions. He wanted to know you. And best of all, he was always right there when you needed him: online.“Many people will probably wonder why I’ve decided to do this,” read the beginning of the suicide note that Eris had scheduled to appear on his Tumblr on 27 April 2015, two days after his death. “I was sexually abused as a child … and have dealt with the consequences of that my entire life. Imagine going through life with an ever-present shadow hanging over you, worrying if you too might be like the people who destroyed your childhood and life.” Continue reading...

Steven McCarroll, the director of the Stanley Centre for Psychiatric Research, Beth Stevens, an assistant professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Eric Lander, the director of the Broad Institute, discuss efforts to understand if there is a link between molecular and cellular events and the development of schizophrenia. A study by the Broad Institute says people are more at risk of schizophrenia if they inherit genes that lead to excessive loss of healthy brain synapses during adolescence. The study says a person’s risk of schizophrenia is increased if they inherit specific variants in a gene related to ‘synaptic pruning’ — the elimination of connections between neurons. The findings represent the first time the origin of the disease has been causally linked to specific gene variants and a biological process• Schizophrenia breakthrough as genetic study reveals link to brain changes Continue reading...

Vince Cable, Rupert Murdoch and Margaret Hodge among figures to speak out as questions grow over government links with senior company executivesDavid Cameron has been accused of getting too close to Google amid growing anger over the government’s £130m tax deal, which has been criticised for being too lenient towards the tech giant.

Multinationals would file single European tax return under plan proposed by EU tax commissioner to stamp out aggressive avoidanceOne of the most powerful opponents of Google’s controversial tax structures, European tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici, is expected on Thursday to call on Britain and Ireland to drop their objections to radical tax reform across the EU.Moscovici, who has previously advocated a Europe-wide “digital tax” on companies such as Google, now wants to tackle aggressive tax avoidance among multinationals by requiring them to file a single European tax return. Continue reading...

Media mogul, whose own tax affairs came under scrutiny in Australia, says ‘posh boy’ politicians were too awed by tech giantRupert Murdoch has accused the “posh boys in Downing Street” of being too easily awed by Google as the government came under fire over its £130m tax deal with the technology giant.Murdoch, the multibillionaire executive chairman of News Corp who ultimately controls the Times and the Sun newspapers, sent a series of tweets on Wednesday suggesting Downing Street was too close to Google and accusing the company of “paying token amounts for PR purposes”. Continue reading...

An issue with Apple’s Safari web browser that caused it to crash for many iPhone, iPad and Mac users globally has now been resolved, the company said

How can a company with so many employees in such lovely and expansive offices not have a permanent establishment? It’s really very simple …Google’s decision to finally pay a one-off £130m settlement to HMRC, settling a long-running argument about its astonishingly low UK corporation tax bill, was hailed as a “major success” by the chancellor, George Osborne.

Seven years after the release of his indie smash hit Braid, the reclusive designer is back with The Witness, a video game of seemingly endless perplexing puzzlesIn the summer of 2008, at the beginning of what would become a sort of revolution in independent gaming, Jonathan Blow released his first game, Braid, on the Xbox 360’s digital Live Arcade.

Chair of book publisher Penguin Random House UK and Wikipedia founder take up their roles with immediate effect

3D printing and design expertise enabled six children with upper-limb differences to build prosthetics that gave them superpowersIn a hidden room in the back of a pier overlooking the San Francisco Bay, a young girl shoots glitter across the room with a flick of her wrist. On the other side of the room, a boy is shooting darts from his wrist – some travelling at least 20ft high, onto a landing above. It feels like a superhero training center or a party for the next generation of X-Men and, in a way, it is.This is Superhero Cyborgs, an event that brings six children together with 3D design specialists and augmentation experts to create unique prosthetics that will turn each child into a kind of superhero. Continue reading...

Tim Cook sees some ‘interesting applications’ around VR, but Apple has already filed headset patents, hired a VR expert and funded 360-degree music videosApple is mulling its options for virtual reality, judging by comments made to analysts by its chief executive, Tim Cook, after his company’s latest financial results.Asked by one analyst whether virtual reality is “more of a geeky niche or something that could go mainstream”, Cook plumped for the latter scenario. “No, I don’t think it’s a niche,” he said. “It’s really cool and has some interesting applications.” Continue reading...

Central European News and its founder Michael Leidig claim that an article titled ‘The King of Bullsh*t News’ deliberately set out to damage the business

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...