Technology | The Guardian

Company appears to be relaxing its hold on franchises, potentially allowing new revenue to replace that lost by underwhelming console salesPokémon GO is only out in a few countries so far, but the game’s astonishing success is already having an impact far and wide.A mobile game for iOS and Android, Pokémon GO lets players catch the titular monsters in the “real” world. Players’ physical locations are tracked, and when they are nearby a Pokémon, they’re free to catch it by playing a simple mini game. Points of interest become item-granting “Pokéstops” or player-battling gyms, while a pedometer feature lets players incubate and then hatch eggs, for yet more Pokémon. Continue reading...

We talk to internet culture experts about how memes are used to generate change in society and politicsWith social editor, Elena Cresci, Montclair State University professor Joel Penney and digital culture lecturer Paolo Gerbaudo, Leigh Alexander discusses the impact that memes have on the world around us. Continue reading...

With fewer than 6,000 units sold, Silent Circle’s privacy-focused Blackphone was a huge flop. It highlights a bigger problem with how people value securityPrivacy and security of personal data is a hot-topic. From the snooper’s charter to the NSA, your Facebook settings to your medical data, concerns over the security of our information impacts many aspects of our lives. Many of us are exercised about intrusions and campaign strongly for personal rights - but when it comes to protecting ourselves, do we ever put our money where our mouths are?In 2014, after the Snowden revelations, a partnership between Swiss privacy outfit Silent Circle and Spanish smartphone maker Geeksphone produced the Blackphone. Continue reading...

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KiLife has created two wearable devices that use apps and Bluetooth to track a child’s distance from a parent and emit a 95-decibel siren if they stray too farParents afraid of losing their child in a crowd can rest easy thanks to a new wristband that can be locked to a youngster’s wrist and emit a 95-decibel siren should they wander too far.

Tiny robotic stingray gives hope to scientists they can create artificial creatures and ultimately build a human heartWith a flash of light and a ripple of fin, the small aquatic robot set off across the water and into the annals of science as the latest advance in artificial creatures.A melding of tissue and technology, the robot in question resembles a miniature stingray. It has a thin rubbery body, a skeleton of gold, and an unusual power source: a sheet of heart cells that contract when illuminated with pulses of blue light.

The Guardian takes the first-ever public tour of Amazon’s nerve centre in Seattle and finds a sparkling PR effort – and free bananasA group of twentysomethings are laughing around a rooftop fire-pit overlooking sailboats on Seattle’s Lake Union. A team of software engineers huddles round a laptop while sipping lattes in wingback chairs. And a tiny Boston terrier is running around squeaking a squeezy toy.Amazon’s first-ever public tour of its Seattle headquarters offers a very different view from the toxic workplace depicted in last year’s New York Times exposé. There’s not one person crying at their desk, and not a single burned-out “rank and yank” reject being tossed from the building by burly security guards. Continue reading...

My uncle, Ray Lakeland, who has died aged 95, was a pioneer in the world of outside broadcasting.The youngest of five children, Ray was the only son of Isabel and William Lakeland, who ran the Cattle Market pub in Preston, Lancashire. Educated by Jesuits at Preston Catholic college, where he became head boy, he studied history at Manchester University with the intention of becoming a teacher. Following the outbreak of the second world war, he enlisted in the Royal Armoured Corps in 1941, serving in tanks and rising to the rank of captain. Continue reading...

Tesla’s behaviour in the aftermath of news that a driver died while using the car’s autopilot feature criticised by crisis management experts as ‘error-filled’Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been bullish in his defense of his company following the death in May of a driver using the car’s “autopilot” feature, even claiming that in the last year “500,000 people would have been saved” if the feature was widely available.

Demolition of 216-unit complex is the latest example of rising income inequality in a region home to many of the world’s wealthiest technology companiesIris Milano could hardly sleep after she got the news that her family would be kicked out of their two-bedroom apartment in San Jose.“You’re always thinking and worrying. It’s something that is always with me,” said Milano, 47, a skin-care technician who lives with her husband and 14-year-old son in an apartment protected by rent control in the northern California city. “We are being forced to move. This is our home.” Continue reading...

Most insiders agree that trade plans aimed at limiting free movement and protecting economy, would damage UK sectorOne of the favoured plans to restrict freedom of movement but protect the UK economy following the vote to leave the EU would exacerbate the damage of Brexit to the technology sector companies fear.According to commenters such as the Financial Times’ Wolfgang Münchau, the UK might negotiate a bilateral free-trade agreement which would see it giving up “passporting” rights (the ability to offer financial services throughout the EU without needing to be subject to overseas regulators) in order to secure an opt-out of one of the EU’s four fundamental freedoms: the freedom of movement of people. Continue reading...

Snapchat’s latest feature is a shot across the bow at Facebook and Instagram, and has the social media firm aiming higher than ever beforeSnapchat is taking on Apple, Google and Facebook, and moving ever further away from its roots as an “ephemeral” messaging platform, with its latest feature: Memories.Snapchat users can now decide to save their snaps, both still and video, to a new section of the app, accessed by swiping up from the camera screen. From there they can also search for other saved photos, both chronologically and with text keywords – Snapchat suggests “Hawaii” and “dog”, for example. It’s smarter than simple keyword searches, and is able to recognise objects in the pictures, but don’t expect Google-level smart searches just yet. Continue reading...

Steve wants to know how to protect his personal information if his Windows 7 laptop falls prey to thieves Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterChatterbox: Thursday Continue reading...

Former culture secretary Maria Miller says companies should face levy if they fail to do more to tackle online abuseA senior Tory MP is calling for a levy on social media companies to pay for the policing of online abuse if they fail to do more to tackle the crimes taking place on their platforms.

Bitcoin hasn’t lived up to the salvation rhetoric, but the digital engine behind the currency may be about to change the worldHave you heard the good news? The blockchain is here – and it’s going to save everything.If you aren’t tied to the tech community, you might not have picked up on this salvation rhetoric. But you probably have heard of bitcoin, which burst into the public consciousness before imploding dramatically in 2014. Continue reading...

Android malware created by a Chinese advertising company has put as many as 85m devices at risk – here’s everything you need to know about itWhen researchers revealed that a Chinese advertising company had created one of the most pernicious pieces of Android malware yet, they estimated it has infected 10m Android handsets worldwide.Dubbed “HummingBad” by researchers at the security firm Check Point, it’s a one of the biggest attacks to date on Android – the world’s most popular mobile operating system, which runs on more than 80% of all smartphones as well as tablets. Continue reading...

In the fast-moving culture of Silicon Valley, where failure is welcomed on the road to success, experts ask if the car maker launched its autopilot too soonJust days after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched an investigation into the fatal crash of a Tesla Model S driving in autopilot mode, a second Tesla using autopilot mode has been involved in a collision.Art gallery director Albert Scaglione told police he was driving in autopilot mode when his Tesla Model X crashed and rolled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike around 100 miles east of Pittsburgh on 1 July. Scaglione and his artist son-in-law Tim Yane both survived without major injuries. Continue reading...

Online retailer says Brexit changes nothing for now and more staff needed to fulfil Prime Now one-hour delivery serviceAmazon is planning to hire 1,000 more people than previously expected in the UK this year as the online retailer rolls out its one-hour delivery operation and extends its web services.The company will now create 3,500 permanent full-time jobs in the UK in 2016, taking Amazon’s total workforce to 15,500 as its Prime Now fast-delivery service, launched a year ago, reaches more than a third of the UK population. Continue reading...

CEO Elon Musk has said the laser-sensing device used in Google’s driverless cars is not necessary. But after the fatal collision, will he reconsider his position?The autopilot mode of the Tesla Model S, involved in a fatal collision made public last week, draws on a number of sensors including cameras, ultrasound and radar. But one piece of technology Tesla chose not to build into its cars is Lidar, a laser-sensing system used by Google’s driverless cars.Tesla CEO Elon Musk has, in the past, dismissed the need for Lidar, suggesting the technology “doesn’t make sense” in the context of a car. “For full autonomy you’d really want to have a more comprehensive sensor suite and computer systems that are fail-proof. That said, I don’t think you need Lidar. I think you can do this all with passive optical and then maybe one forward radar,” he said during a press conference last October. Continue reading...

Mass recall comes after reports of hoverboard battery packs that exploded or caught fire and caused injuries such as burns to the neck, legs and armsMore than 500,000 hoverboards are being recalled after some of the motorized scooters overheated, burned riders and damaged property.There have been 99 reports to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of hoverboard battery packs that exploded or caught fire, the US regulator said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

My father, Bill Swan, who has died aged 89, worked on skyscrapers as an engineer in 1960s Toronto and later pioneered jet washers for commercial use.His career reflected the upheavals of the 20th century. Born in Howdon, Tyneside, he left school at 14, in 1941, and became an apprentice boilermaker at the Wallsend Slipway, one of the great shipyards of the Tyne. His father, Joe, also a boilermaker, died of tuberculosis the same year, leaving Bill with his mother, Nancy (nee Corbett), and two sisters. Continue reading...

Care.data scheme to close after Fiona Caldicott review calls for tougher measures to keep information confidentialThe government’s scheme to store patients’ medical information in a single database, which ran into massive problems over confidentiality, is to be scrapped, NHS England has said.The decision to axe the scheme, care.data, follows the publication of two reports that support far greater transparency over what happens to the information, and opt-outs for patients who want their data seen only by those directly caring for them. Continue reading...

Raul Diaz was arrested in late June after a spate of attacks on Google Street View cars and buildingsA man has been charged with arson after setting a Google Street View car on fire because he “felt Google was watching him”.Raul Diaz, 30, of Oakland, California, was arrested outside Google offices in Bayshore Parkway on 30 June. Guns and a device which bomb squad officers identified as a half-finished pipe bomb were found in his car, according to a criminal complaint filed by the state. Continue reading...

Kieran ‘Kez’ Brown to play Fifa 16 for the team, live streaming on Twitch and making YouTube videosManchester City have hired an 18-year-old gamer to represent the football club at eSports tournaments and fan events.Kieran ‘Kez’ Brown will play for the team on the world’s dominant football game Fifa 16, live streaming on Amazon’s gaming site Twitch and making videos for the club’s YouTube channel. Continue reading...

Despite Tesla’s safety warnings about autopilot, experts say Joshua Brown’s family could argue he was led to believe the system was more capable than it isThe family of a man killed when his Tesla hit a truck while under the control of its autopilot function may have legal grounds to sue the company, legal experts say.

Malware takes over phones and tablets, steals and sells information, installs apps and clicks on ads – and 300,000 devices in US, and 100,000 in UK, are affectedOver 10m Android devices have been infected with a new piece of malware called HummingBad, according to security firm Check Point.

Extramarital dating site under investigation by US regulator a year after entire user database leaked onlineAvid Life Media (ALM), the corporate parent of hacked extramarital dating site Ashley Madison, is being investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission according to the company’s new executive team.Appointed in April, the new chief executive, Rob Segal, and the president, James Millership, have been given the job of righting ALM in the aftermath of the hack, which saw the entire membership register of Ashley Madison posted to the internet. Over the following year, ALM lost more than a quarter of its revenue, as worried members fled the company’s portfolio of dating sites. Continue reading...

Blockchain, the increasingly celebrated peer-to-peer data technology, is the basis of bitcoin and has huge potential – will it be as big as the web?Proposed in 2008 and launched the following year, bitcoin – a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” – was initially viewed by many as the preserve of geeks and criminals. Yet it has subsequently taken giant strides towards the mainstream. There have been various high-profile attempts to unmask the “real” Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonym used by bitcoin’s inventor(s). And in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote, some hailed bitcoin, surging as the pound plummeted, as “digital gold”.It is now recognised that the still-mysterious Nakamoto did more than invent a currency. He also solved a longstanding problem in computing, to do with date and networks. His solution was complex, but it involved the use of an infrastructure comprising “blocks” of confirmed transactions that form a chronologically linked “chain”. As other digital currencies, and other blockchains, have emerged, banks and some governments have begun to pay attention, and investment is rocketing. The World Economic Forum predicts that, within a decade, 10% of global GDP could be stored on blockchains. Continue reading...

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

Clips from an episode of ABC’s flagship science program, Catalyst, which has been found to have breached the broadcaster’s impartiality guidelines. The episode, Wi-Fried?, was broadcast in February and looks at the potential dangers of using electronic devices such as Wi-Fi hubs and mobile phones Continue reading...

Presenter Maryanne Demasi also under review for program Wi-Fried, which an internal investigation found breached the broadcaster’s impartiality guidelinesThe future of the ABC’s science program Catalyst and presenter Maryanne Demasi are under review after an episode which linked Wi-Fi and mobile phones with health risks including brain cancer was found to have breached the ABC’s impartiality guidelines.When the ABC aired “Wi-Fried?” in February several scientists, including professor of public health at the University of Sydney, Simon Chapman, said it was misleading and should never have gone to air. Continue reading...

Driverless technology remains a work in progress as the fatal crash of Tesla Model S tragically showed. Here are some flaws that persist in autopilot technology

Company to stop making device it hoped would entice users who prefer a physical keyboard, a symbolic shift away from handsets and toward softwareThe smartphone pioneer BlackBerry will stop making its Classic model, the company said on Tuesday, some 18 months after launching the device it had hoped would entice users who prefer a physical, rather than touchscreen, keyboard.

Robotics competition prize for best warehouse-working ‘picker’ machine awarded to robot designed by Dutch teamAmazon’s progress toward an army of helpful robots is one step closer: a prize for the best warehouse-working “picker” machine has gone to a robot designed by a team from TU Delft Robotics Institute and Delft Robotics, both based in the Netherlands.The competition was held in conjunction with Germany’s Robocup in Leipzig. Announced on Monday, the winners took home $25,000, while the university of Bonn’s NimbRo won $10,000 for second place and Japanese firm PFN was awarded $5,000 for third. Continue reading...

Electric car firm misses its vehicle delivery target for the second consecutive quarter as it struggles to transform into a mainstream, high-volume manufacturerTesla Motors missed its vehicle delivery target for the second consecutive quarter and is on track to fall short of its annual target, suggesting the US electric car maker is still wrestling with production issues as it looks to transform itself into a mainstream, high-volume manufacturer.Related: Elon Musk's self-driving evangelism masks risk of Tesla autopilot, experts say Continue reading...

A ‘male fertility testing’ system encourages men to share responsibilty for conception by monitoring their reproductive healthIn the febrile world of health startups, entrepreneurs are racing to quantify every possible bodily and environmental function. And so if we can monitor air quality, sleep and heart rate, why wouldn’t we monitor sperm quality as well?In May, America’s Food and Drug Administration approved Trak, a new “male fertility testing” system. It looks like a cross between a frisbee, a clock and a Cuisinart blender. The Trak website announces that it is “like a Fitbit for sperm”. Continue reading...

Company’s first physical store in UK allow visitors to roadtest the full range of electrical products – from vacuum cleaners to hair dryersDyson will on Wednesday open its first bricks-and-mortar store in the UK, an Apple-style hub on London’s Oxford Street where shoppers can test and buy the company’s full range of consumer electrical products.Visitors to the Dyson Demo can have their hair styled and dried with the company’s Supersonic hairdryer in a first floor salon, or choose from more than 60 different types of dust and debris with which to test its bagless and cordless vacuum cleaners. Continue reading...

Damian Carrington tests a concept vehicle touted as a ‘solution for future urban transport’ in a rapidly urbanising worldI’m sitting in a cross between an electric-assisted bicycle and an electric car that looks like a cool golf buggy.

You’ve changed your passwords and avoided banking using public Wi-Fi. But what else could be putting you at risk?Bad news if you were hoping to stay safe online: the number of victims of identity theft rose by 57% in the last year, according to fraud prevention service Cifas.But unlike previous rises, the victims of identity theft are no longer targeted by fraudsters digging through rubbish bins for bank statements, or by hackers installing keyloggers on compromised PCs. Instead, according to Cifas, the victims are giving out the base ingredients of identity theft willingly online, through social media. Continue reading...

Organ donation? There’ll soon be an app for that, after Tim Cook cites Steve Jobs’ ‘excruciating’ wait for a liver transplant in 2009 as inspiration for Health updateApple will give US users the ability to sign up as organ donors on their iPhones as part of its upcoming iOS 10 update.The chief executive, Tim Cook, says he hopes the easy sign-up button in the Health app will help ease a longstanding donor shortage in the US. Continue reading...

Six years after the deliciously dark Limbo, developer Playdead returns to Xbox and PC with another meticulously muted platformer about a boy on the runIf you hadn’t realised that Inside was created by the same people behind Limbo, Playdead won’t let you forget it for long. The intro is immediately familiar: a quietly foreboding woodland and a young boy on the run. It’s a clear promise that those who appreciated the unique experience that Limbo offered can expect more of the same here.Still, as you’d expect from a developer who’s had more time (and presumably much more money) to refine their art, there are obvious differences. For one thing, there’s more colour – that is, there is some where before there was none. The environments are still pretty bleak, from the rain-soaked countryside to the crumbling corporate interiors, but not quite monochromatic. Among the grey there are splashes of red, on the boy’s jumper and on handholds that might otherwise be missed, yellow on chirping chicks in a farm populated by pig corpses and on cables that lead to secrets, and the colour of flesh.

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

‘Deep learning’ research company will use 1m anonymised eye scans to train a neural network to identify early signs of degenerative eye conditionsGoogle DeepMind has announced its second collaboration with the NHS, working with Moorfields Eye Hospital in east London to build a machine learning system which will eventually be able to recognise sight-threatening conditions from just a digital scan of the eye.The collaboration is the second between the NHS and DeepMind, which is the artificial intelligence research arm of Google, but Deepmind’s co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, says this is the first time the company is embarking purely on medical research. An earlier, ongoing, collaboration, with the Royal Free hospital in north London, is focused on direct patient care, using a smartphone app called Streams to monitor kidney function of patients. Continue reading...

Cybercrime is becoming big business and tech firms are ‘in an arms race’ to outdo sophisticated criminal operations, report by BT and KPMG saysBritish firms must “take the fight to the criminals” to prevent a rising tide of cyber-attacks by sophisticated organised crime gangs, according to a report.In a joint report, telecoms group BT and consulting firm KPMG called on companies to address the “industrialisation of cybercrime”, warning against the danger of overplaying the more high-profile threat of lone hackers. Continue reading...

Your editorial (Humans must not become back-seat drivers for computers, 2 July) reaches the right conclusions that cars will be safer when humans no longer drive, but there is much more to it than recognising large white articulated trucks, paper bags or aggressive drivers. Doesn’t the software need a driving test?The pressure for autonomous driving comes from the Googles, Baidus and Apples of this world, who want the drivers’ time to surf the web or download their music. They want totally autonomous vehicles, without steering wheels, that will revolutionise transport for the old, the young and the disabled. The car companies are being pushed, reluctantly, into this revolution, clinging on to their marketing pitch of selling the “driving experience” and keeping the steering wheel available for the driver to use. No revolution here for the old, young and disabled. Continue reading...

As free upgrade period draws to a close, software maker resorts to adware tactics with its most irritating pop-up yetMicrosoft’s aggressive push to get users to upgrade to Windows 10 has been turned up a notch as the company begins pushing full-screen upgrade pop-up notifications to Windows 7 and 8.1.

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We talk to Respawn Entertainment about its forthcoming sci-fi sequel, which adds a campaign mode, new weapons and fresh ideas, to the acclaimed originalWhen Jason West and Vince Zampella set up Respawn Entertainment in 2010, they had one ambition: to produce a new first-person shooter that would have as massive an impact on the genre as their previous creation: the Call of Duty series. It was a big ask, but when Titanfall arrived three years later, the game was certainly a brilliant attempt. The sci-fi shooter boasted an innovative mechanic allowing players to summon a giant robot into the arena, and an incredibly fluid, free-running movement style – all combined into a set of blisteringly loud and detailed map designs.But one thing many players said about Titanfall was that, beyond the raw speed and inarguable thrill of the highly vertical, highly acrobatic gameplay, there was little in the way of tactical depth. It’s something the team says it wants to address. Continue reading...

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration have launched an inquiry into Tesla Model S cars after a driver was killed in an accident in one of its self-driving vehicles while using the company’s autopilot mode. Joshua Brown, 40, was driving on a highway in Williston, Florida when his car hit a truck which was crossing the road Continue reading...