Technology | The Guardian

Every Friday, we apply critical attention to things that don’t normally get it. This is an important function that might just hold civilisation together. Or not. We’ll review your suggestions, if you drop them in the comments or tweet @guideguardian Continue reading...

With some of the most popular games heading for Hollywood debuts, three big virtual reality headsets due out and games and TV merging with some huge stars on board for the ride, it’s shaping up to be an exciting yearIt’s been a tough few years for Nintendo. Despite making some wonderful games, its Wii U has struggled to win over fans and the company has reported some of its worst financial results in decades. This year, it will fight back with a new console – the NX. Very little is known about the machine other than it is intended to bridge the worlds of portable gaming and the console that sits under the TV. Nintendo has confirmed that it will be unveiled this year and manufacturers say it could be on shelves by Christmas. Continue reading...

‘How do you celebrate Apple Keynote Day?’ and other revealing questions Continue reading...

Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and YouTube will attend the meeting with intelligence agencies to discuss terrorists on social media and encryption

The whistleblower made a virtual appearance at Las Vegas tech convention through Suitable’s Beam, a screen-on-wheels robot with subversive potentialThere are lots of people pitching fancy gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show this week here. Add to that list: Edward Snowden.The former National Security Agency contractor, famous for handing over western government secrets to the Guardian and other publications, made a virtual appearance at the Suitable Technologies booth here. This was possible because Snowden was speaking from Suitable’s Beam, a sort of roaming screen on wheels used for remote commuting and virtual meetings. Continue reading...

Yellow Cab said an unusual number of accident claims this year had an impact on business, not to mention competition from ride-hail services like Uber and LyftThe largest taxi company in San Francisco is considering filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the latest sign of turmoil in a global industry beset by competition from app-based ride-hail services.

As Oculus Rift pre-orders begin, debate remains about how mainstream VR will be, whether it’s about more than games, and what it’ll do to humansIs 2016 the year that virtual reality (VR) finally makes its breakthrough as a mainstream technology? That’s a question for its evangelists and sceptics to argue about, and there are plenty in both camps.With Facebook’s Oculus Rift headset now available to pre-order, Sony’s PlayStation VR and HTC’s Vive on their way, and millions of cheap Google Cardboard headsets out in the wild already, this year will see a barrage of experimentation around VR. Continue reading...

Yasmine has a six-year-old Vista laptop that does all she needs. But time is running out, and she finds Internet Explorer 9 limitingI’m (still) on Vista Home Premium SP2. My Acer Aspire 6930G is nearly six years old but it does everything I need, except I can’t upgrade beyond IE9 and that is increasingly limiting. I could change to another browser but I find Firefox quite flaky and would rather avoid Google products if possible – and I understand that Chrome support for Vista is going soon anyway.Can I still upgrade to Windows 7 (and then, later, onwards and upwards) and, if so, how? YasmineWindows Vista shipped in November 2006 – nine years ago – and Microsoft will stop supporting Vista SP2 in April 2017. I don’t expect the wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompanied the end of Windows XP in 2014, because of Vista’s tiny market share (it’s roughly the same as Linux). None the less, Vista users should be planning to migrate to something else. Continue reading...

The Ehang 184 single-passenger drone is unveiled at CES in Las Vegas. Company co-founder Yifang Xiong says it takes off vertically and is controlled by a GSP app designed for non-pilots. Lithium batteries provide a flying time of 23 minutes. Xiong admits it may be a scary concept, but envisages a future where passenger drones seem normal Continue reading...

Logitech, Microsoft, LG... which portable keyboard is just your type?The work-life boundary is increasingly blurred, these days. Emails ping in the pocket all weekend, and the entire world has become our workplace: the bus, the bath, the pub. The great literary minds of tomorrow are in their local Costas, hunched over sweaty phablets, and miraculously versatile though our mobile devices are, they’re miserable to type on for any length of time.Related: Can you do ‘real work’ on an iPad? Continue reading...

CES 2016 is packed with health companies offering solutions to desk-based laptop slouch. Our reporter stopped slouching for long enough to try some of themOur digital lifestyles and desk-based workplaces are contributing to serious health problems and could be shortening our lives, technology’s wellness firms want us to believe.“Americans will risk their lives for convenience,” Philo Northrup told the Consumer Electronics Show on Wednesday. Slouching over his chair and hanging his head down, he said: “When you say digital lifestyle, we’re talking about sitting, and over the day gravity is doing this to you.” Continue reading...

A 3D costume synchronises heartbeats through touch and sound to probe deeper complexities of human emotionsWith its alien appearance and intimidating form, it’s hard to believe Tiffany Trenda’s latest creation is hoping to explore a very human interaction. Yet she claims the futuristic suit helps her to do just that. A new media performance artist, Trenda has developed her 3D printed costume, “Ubiquitous States”, to probe the complexities of human synergy.Premiered at Context Art Miami last month, it features an integrated screen that displays the cardiac activity of Trenda and those she interacts with. Continue reading...

Social media site deletes post about Armstrong Renata by internet group Anonymous Australia after changing its mind about breach of standards

Chinese entrepreneurs bring their one-person craft, which is controlled by tablet and capable of flying 60mph, to the annual technology conventionA Chinese company claimed a world first on Wednesday by unveiling a drone capable of carrying a human passenger.Guangzhou-based Ehang Inc pulled the cloth off the Ehang 184 at the Las Vegas convention center during the CES gadget show. Continue reading...

Figures released by counselling service ChildLine reveal low self-esteem to be among most prevalent problems reported by today’s young peopleBritain’s children are “deeply unhappy” and have to deal with fears and worries that did not exist 30 years ago, a charity has warned.Modern pressures such as cyberbullying and social media are affecting children’s confidence and self-esteem, according to ChildLine, the confidential counselling service run by the NSPCC. Continue reading...

Speaking at a CES panel, FTC chair Edith Ramirez said she uses a pedometer because she doesn’t want her ‘sensitive health information’ being shared

Consumer version of Facebook’s VR headset will ship from March costing £499 in the UK with two games and controllers, but needs a powerful PC to run itThe consumer version of Facebook’s Oculus Rift virtual reality headset is finally available for pre-order, costing £499 in the UK and $599 in the US.

Women use too much self-deprecating language in their emails, apparently – but can a new Gmail add-on really help them communicate with more authority?Name: Sorry.Age: As old as human error. Continue reading...

Almost 20,000 people watch #DrummondPuddleWatch in awe as people in the north of England attempt to cross a giant puddle, in what may be the best use of Periscope yetBritain has been captivated by a live stream of people attempting to cross a puddle in Newcastle.You heard that right. In what may be the best use of the live-streaming app Periscope we have seen to date, tens of thousands of people were gripped as pedestrians jumped, climbed or tiptoed over a comically large puddle. Continue reading...

Drastically increasing the character limit on tweets may have nothing to do with allowing ordinary users to say more and everything to do with getting publishers to produce native contentOn Tuesday, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, Jack Dorsey, made the strongest hint yet that his company is considering dropping the 140-character limit for tweets, after reports that the firm had been testing an alternative product with the ability to send messages of up to 10,000 characters.The tweet, which came after a report from technology site Recode that “longer tweets are coming soon to Twitter”, drew criticism on the site. Some users warned they would leave if it was implemented, while others expressed fear that the spirit of Twitter would be corrupted by users having the ability to post screeds of text. Continue reading...

In a video posted to Facebook, the hacker network Anonymous accuses Thai police of scapegoating two Burmese migrant workers, who have been sentenced to death for the rape and murder of Hannah Witheridge, from Norfolk, and the murder David Miller, from Jersey. They warn that migrants have been falsely accused of crimes in Thailand Continue reading...

Cuts come after softer demand for new Apple iPhone handsets causes inventories to build up, reports sayApple is expected to cut production of its latest iPhone models by about 30% in the January-March quarter due to mounting inventories, it has been reported, rattling the nerves of investors in the US tech giant’s Asian suppliers.

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.