Technology | The Guardian

I saw this Lapras was close. As it’s a water-type creature I assumed it must be down by the nearby lake. I jumped into my younger brother’s carIt was a quiet Tuesday evening last month, around 10.30pm, and I was sitting watching TV at my mother’s house. I had driven across the States from Oregon to New York and was back from college for the summer. I checked the Pokémon Go app on my phone and a creature showed up. It was a Lapras: an unusual one that I hadn’t encountered before.When I was about 12, I got the original Pokémon Yellow game on my Gameboy. My friends and I used to play it on the bus on our way to school. Continue reading...

When grown adults dressed as Pikachu take to the streets and hit bystanders in the face with giant Pokéballs fired from slingshots, you know it’s gone too farPokémon Go has taken the world by storm but now the phenomenon has definitely jumped the shark, with life-sized Pokéballs and humans dressed as Pikachu being used for a marketing stunt. Continue reading...

New open source project hopes to remove burden of remembering passwords and instantly log you into apps on Android, with plans to roll out across every platformGoogle has taken the next big step forward in its war against the password – an open source system to instantly and securely log you into apps on your phone using your password manager.

Like many young people, I live much of my life online. While it can be isolating, the internet can also aid mental healthLast week, in a largely futile attempt to actually do some work, I installed a browser extension that blocked pretty much any website I could possibly distract myself with. Twitter: gone. Facebook: gone. Even my emails, which I obsessively tend to in order to feel moderately productive, were off limits for an hour.Having found new and imaginative ways to waste my own time, what surprised me most was not how much more work I did, but the sheer frequency with which I attempted to access the internet. I’d incessantly tap “twitter.com” into the address bar, somehow immediately forgetting it was blocked. I’d click on my still-open Facebook tab to check my feed before remembering there was no point. Every time I finished a sentence I’d flit away from my work again, trying to exchange 10 seconds of productivity for 10 minutes of distraction. I knew I spent a lot of time online – but not this much. Continue reading...

From 3D-printed limbs to hacktivists tackling oppression, Africa is the perfect place for tech innovation against the oddsAfrica may be taking a great leap forward into the digital era. But when technology reaches a new area, the hackers are never far behind.Many are familiar with the African hacker cliche: revolving around a badly written email from someone, claiming to be a friend, for example, who has been mugged and needs an urgent money transfer. Continue reading...

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

Gamers help find hard-to-reach communities as Médecins Sans Frontières uses data from MapSwipe app to produce detailed local mapsGamers can now help aid workers locate communities affected by natural disasters, disease outbreaks or conflict using a mobile app developed by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).MapSwipe users swipe through satellite images of remote areas and tap the screen when they see features such as settlements, roads and rivers. Information is then fed back to mappers, who use it to draw detailed maps. Continue reading...

Here are six easy steps to rid yourself of Pokémon Go for good. Follow them all Continue reading...

The top prize will be given for finding bugs in Apple’s ‘secure boot’ firmware for blocking unwanted programs when an iOS device powers upApple has said it plans to offer rewards of up to $200,000 to researchers who find critical security bugs in its products, joining dozens of firms that already offer payments for help uncovering flaws in their products.

The developers behind Bureaucrazy want to help natives and newcomers who share their bewilderment at the nation’s red tapeMunzer Khattab likens German bureaucracy to a game of snakes and ladders. When the 23-year-old from Latakia on the Syrian coast arrived and registered in Berlin last year, he was given the address of a job centre in another part of the city. But when he turned up at the address, the building was shut for renovation. He eventually stumbled into the replacement office by accident two weeks later.“In Syria, there was always a way to avoid bureaucracy, even if it meant paying a bit of extra money. Here, there is no way around the paperwork,” Khattab said.

Stepping up its battle against much-reviled (but effective) ‘clickbait’ headlines in its newsfeed, Facebook has instituted an algorithm that weeds out the worstFacebook is escalating its war on “clickbait” headlines by instituting a new system on its newsfeed that will weed out misleading and exaggerated headlines the same way that email spam filters weed out fantastic offers to help Nigerian princes recover their lost fortunes.The tweaks to the algorithm, announced today in a blog post, will de-prioritize posts with headlines that “withhold information required to understand what the content of the article is and headlines that exaggerate the article to create misleading expectations”. Continue reading...

Group of design industry professionals say Apple deserves $548m in damages Samsung paid last December for infringing patented iPhone designsApple deserved the hundreds of millions of dollars in damages Samsung paid for infringing patented designs of the iPhone, because the product’s distinctive look drives people to purchase it, a group of design industry professionals told the US supreme court on Thursday.Setting up a clash with a number of Silicon Valley companies that have come out on the side of Samsung, more than 100 designers and educators signed on to a new court brief supporting Apple. Continue reading...

The record company is trying to force the website to hand over a user’s details as it seeks to sue over the leak of a song featured in the DC Comic movieAtlantic Records is on the hunt for the identity of a Reddit user who leaked a Twenty One Pilots single, and is taking legal action in order to find out.According to court records, a copy of the song, Heathens, was posted to Reddit on 15 June, nine days before Atlantic planned to release the single, which was to be featured on the soundtrack to the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. Continue reading...

After projects with Run the Jewels and Reggie Watts, virtual reality company Wevr wants to break the fourth wall and bring music fans into the actionWhen Beyoncé released her “visual album” Lemonade on HBO earlier this year, many people were stunned by its ambition, its lack of a promo campaign and its visual impact.But what if instead of pulling that hot sauce out of her bag she pulled out a can of magical spray paint that transported viewers to a fantasy world? A world where she participated in a space fight with an evil dimensional overlord, lay on the beach with Game of Thrones’ Nathalie Emmanuel, and watched Reggie Watts simultaneously play all of the world’s instruments while bathed in the many colors of the rainbow. Continue reading...

Analysis by the car manufacturer marks end of the decade as a potential tipping point for the mass take up of electric vehicles, reports Business GreenPublic electric vehicle (EV) charge points will outnumber petrol stations in the UK by the end of the decade, marking a potential tipping point in the adoption of zero emission vehicles.That is the conclusion of a new analysis by auto giant and EV manufacturer Nissan, which argues that based on current trends EV charge points will overtake traditional petrol stations by August 2020. Continue reading...

Microsoft’s first major upgrade to console offers a sleek new chassis and 4K Ultra HD features – but do you need them?The first major hardware update of this console generation has arrived. And while the Xbox One S provides a striking visual contrast to its aesthetically maligned predecessor, is there enough going on under the hood to justify an upgrade? Continue reading...

A study shows many people feel unable to switch off from the internet. Have you managed to get the balance right? Share your experiencesIf you’ve ever been to dinner with someone constantly Googling on their phone, then you won’t be surprised by a new study that exposes our internet obsession.Related: More than a third of UK internet users have tried 'digital detox' – Ofcom Continue reading...

Vista users need to estimate how long their PC will remain usable before they decide to upgrade, but a few loopholes existI currently have Windows Vista. Can I upgrade to Windows 10? If buying a new machine, for normal personal use for email and internet, what would you recommend? Laptop and desktop options would be useful. E&ABSadly, you can’t upgrade directly from Windows Vista to Windows 10: Microsoft only supports upgrades from Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. Vista was the current version of Windows from January 2007 until July 2009, so any surviving Vista PCs are presumably more than seven years old. If they are laptops, they are probably due for replacement. Even if they are desktops, they may not be worth the upgrade cost. Continue reading...

A third of people have tried to take time offline, according to an Ofcom report, but just imagine what they’re missing …One in three people have tried to have a “digital detox”, giving up using the internet because it’s taking over their lives, according to an Ofcom report. But while returning to a simpler time may have some appeal, most of us would never want to go back to the age before connectivity. Here’s a few reasons we love being always online - add yours in the comments below: Continue reading...

As recent high-profile hacks show, cyberwar is a very real danger and is likely to get much worse, says a US security expertAs the recent hacks of the Democratic National Committee and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign have shown, cyberwarfare has reached US shores – and it’s likely to get much worse, says Kenneth Geers, a senior research scientist with cyber security firm Comodo.

The project by a Seattle-based artist lets strangers help a person of color with anything from childcare to taxes, and has attracted both praise and criticismEnne had no expectations when she posted her request for an engagement ring.She had posted it to Reparations – a half art project, half social experiment, the idea of which is this: people of color can request help or services, and others (white people, other people of color, anyone) could offer help. Continue reading...

Witch hunts and panic among communities are nothing new, but what happens when cyberspace intensifies the frenzy?For weeks, fans had been worrying about Marina Joyce. The 19-year-old beauty-YouTuber didn’t seem herself. Her once upbeat and quirky personality had shifted dramatically: her videos were filled with silent stares and shifty off-camera glances. On 8 July, viewers noticed a gun in the background of her latest make-up tutorial. They began talking about how she appeared frightened and distressed. Continue reading...

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

Study shows scale of obsession with the web, including many people feeling unable to switch off or feeling lost when they doThe scale of the UK’s obsession with the internet has been laid bare by a new study showing that the ever increasing amount of time we spend online is leading to lost sleep, neglected housework and less time spent with friends and family.For the first time, the annual Communications Market Report from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom has delved into how people cope with spending so much time connected, finding that more than a third of UK internet users are deciding to take “digital detox” breaks from the web. Continue reading...

No official release date for popular augmented reality game was given amid concerns over safety for players and athletes’ disappointment at unavailabilityThe creators of Pokémon Go are doing everything possible to release the blockbuster mobile game in Brazil in time for the opening of the Rio Olympics on Friday.The official Twitter account for Pokémon Go tweeted that it was working hard to roll out the game in South America’s largest country and told fans to “stay tuned”. Continue reading...

Turkish authorities identified thousands of undercover Gülenist operatives, whom they blame for the failed coup, after cracking messaging app ByLockTurkish authorities were able to trace thousands of people they accuse of participating in an underground network linked to last month’s failed military coup by cracking the weak security features of a little-known smartphone messaging app.

Black and Hispanic workers form 9% and 12% of the workforce respectively, up slightly from last year, with overall figures better than Google and FacebookApple claims to have improved its gender and ethnic diversity as the US technology company stayed ahead of fellow Silicon Valley powerhouses Google and Facebook Inc in hiring minorities.

Pioneer of educational computing and the inspiration for Lego MindstormsSeymour Papert, who has died aged 88, had a profound impact on education, and pioneered the use of computers as an aid to learning. Papert’s visionary research put robot turtles into tens of thousands of schools. He also co-authored the Logo programming language, and was involved with the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which delivered education-oriented laptops to children across the less-developed world. Decades of working with the toy company Lego on Lego/Logo, which linked the world of Lego construction with the world of Logo programming, led to the launch in 1998 of the Lego Mindstorms range of robotics toys, which was named to honour Papert’s most influential book, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (1980).The influence went both ways. Scratch, the leading programming environment for children, is based on enabling children to snap together encapsulations of computer code on their screens in much the same way as they would snap Lego bricks together in the physical world. Continue reading...

Security firm Malwarebytes surveyed 500 companies in four countries and found one-third of victims lost revenue as a result of an attackRansomware is fast becoming a ubiquitous security threat, with nearly 40% of all businesses experiencing an attack in the past year, according to research from computer security firm Malwarebytes. The figure is even worse in Britain, where 54% of surveyed businesses had been targeted with such an attackThe group surveyed IT heads at over 500 companies in four countries, and found that more than one-third of the ransomware victims lost revenue as a result of the attack. Continue reading...

Glitch causes random substitution of Pokémon types at point of capture, turning high-level rarities into common-as-muck Rattata, Pidgey and Elkans for unlucky playersThe latest bug to affect Niantic’s smash-hit Pokémon Go Android and iOS game has players swearing at their phones, as rare monsters become common beasts after capture, with Blastoises turning into Rattata and Ninetails into Elkans.The glitch appears to have appeared in the last 48 hours following an update to the game that removed distance tracking and blocked third-party Pokémon mapping services. Continue reading...

In the second biggest security breach of an exchange such as Bitfinex, 119,756 bitcoin was stolen from users’ accountsAlmost 120,000 bitcoin worth around $78m has been stolen from Hong Kong-based Bitfinex, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, causing a 20% drop in the value of the currency.The hack, which is the largest of its kind and limited to bitcoin wallets held by the company, forced Bitfinex to cease trading and report the theft to law enforcement, the company said in a statement on its website. Continue reading...

Google’s parent company given green light by US regulator to test autonomous delivery systems as White House pledges $35m for five years of drone researchGoogle’s parent company, Alphabet, will start testing its Project Wing delivery drones in the US, after being given permission by the White House on Tuesday.The drones will be tested in one of six designated Federal Aviation Authority areas within the US as part of the government’s initiative to promote research into unmanned flight and safety legislation. Continue reading...

Korean smartphone manufacturer bets on high-end features, curved glass and premium materials to shift latest in phablet category creatorSamsung’s latest Galaxy Note 7 phablet is one of the first smartphones to ship with an iris scanner that can read your eyes and let you into your phone in seconds.

Shopper found he had to pay a shipping cost despite apparently meeting the conditions for free deliveryAmazon has been ordered to clarify its delivery charges for individual products after the advertising watchdog found it had been misleading customers.The Advertising Standards Authority found a lack of clarity about items eligible for free delivery after a shopper complained about charges for an AmazonBasics electrical product. Continue reading...

Employers trusting in the impartiality of machines sounds like a good plan to eliminate bias, but data can be just as prejudiced as we areWe would all like to fancy ourselves as eminently capable of impartiality, able to make decisions without prejudices – especially at work. Unfortunately, the reality is that human bias, both conscious and unconscious, can’t help but come into play when it comes to who gets jobs and how much money candidates get offered.Managers often gravitate to people most like themselves, make gender-based assumptions about skills or salaries, or reject candidates who have non-white names – to name just a few examples – even if they don’t mean to. Continue reading...

Back Me Up allows users to insure up to three items on a pay-as-you-go basis by uploading photographs to the appA new Tinder-style, mobile phone-based insurance product that allows young people to buy pay-as-they-go-cover for their technology and valued goods has been launched in the UK.Back Me Up, which is offered by the long-established insurer Ageas, allows users to insure up to three key items for £15/month – by simply photographing them, and updating its app. Continue reading...

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

Plan would have imposed 1.5% payroll tax on companies such as Uber, Google and Airbnb, which generate more than $1m in revenues yearlySan Francisco has voted against a proposal known as the “tech tax” which would have forced the area’s biggest technology firms to fund initiatives to provide affordable housing and tackle the city’s homeless problem.

An Australian company may have cracked this ticking time bomb of freshness with a machine that ‘switches off’ the enzyme responsible for discolorationAs anyone who has ever bought avocados will know, the ripeness window for the fruit is around 17 minutes. Before that, it’s solid and nutty. After, brown and mushy. So-called “ripe and ready” products are a lie. Once sliced or pulped, it’s a matter of seconds before smooth, fresh green flesh becomes musty and oxidized.

Attacks have breached end-to-end encryption by intercepting SMS messages and identified phone numbers of 15 million Iranian users of the serviceIranian hackers have compromised more than a dozen accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service and identified the phone numbers of 15 million Iranian users, the largest known breach of the encrypted communications system, cyber researchers told Reuters.

NT hopes new technology and immersive filming styles will become “a pioneer of dramatic storytelling”Anyone visiting the new National Theatre studio might experience the soul-destroying misery of the Calais jungle, take part in the 1916 Easter Rising or sit on a toilet while being serenaded by a giant psychedelic cat.The theatre launched its immersive storytelling studio, a place where new work will be developed using the latest virtual reality technologies, on Tuesday. The studio is the next step in a journey that began in March last year, when the theatre’s then recently appointed director Rufus Norris, a VR enthusiast, commissioned “fabulous wonder.land”, a virtual reality film based on the Damon Albarn-scored wonder.land musical. Continue reading...

It appears that Facebook and its subsidiaries won’t stop until Snapchat is beatenThe photocopiers in Menlo Park must be overheating: for the fifth time, Facebook is trying to steal Snapchat’s thunder with a new feature that is, er, heavily reminiscent of something that started its life on the ephemeral sharing app.Today’s attempt comes not from Facebook directly, but from its subsidiary Instagram. It’s called Instagram Stories, and the best way to describe it is “like Snapchat stories, but on Instagram”. Continue reading...

After the explosion of Pokémon Go, Nintendo is keen to make sure players are reminded of its forthcoming 3DS game with the introduction of new creaturesPokémon Go may be the mobile game phenomenon of the year, but Nintendo is eager to ensure players don’t forget about its forthcoming games for the 3DS, Pokémon Sun and Moon.In its latest trailer, the publisher has revealed a new twist on the age-old formula: for the first time ever, the same species of Pokémon can exist in two completely different forms. Continue reading...

In the town of Rwinkwavu, technology is giving children access to hundreds of books and helping to empower adultsThe first children you see are scything away in the cassava fields, or filling plastic cans with water from the pump to lug home.But inside the local library in this town deep in the Rwandan hinterland, we skip forward a few centuries: e-readers, Wi-Fi, smartphones and digital books galore, everything from Dickens to Dante and Dostoevsky. Continue reading...

If being shouted at by the pottymouthed celebrity chef is the only thing missing in your life, a new mobile game is here to make your dreams a realityEver think that Gordon Ramsay’s TV persona is a bit cartoonish? You’ve seen nothing yet. Now, the potty mouth of the cordon bleu world has decided to become the main character in a cartoony smartphone game (created by a team whose previous illustrious achievements include Kim Kardashian’s official iPhone game). The idea: you’re based in a kitchen, and have to prep food while Ramsay loiters near the bins, offering advice. And occasional abuse.

Battery status indicators are being used to track devices, say researchers from Princeton University – meaning warnings of privacy exposure have come to passA little-known web standard that lets site owners tell how much battery life a mobile device has left has been found to enable tracking online, a year after privacy researchers warned that it had the potential to do just that.The battery status API was introduced in HTML5, the fifth version of the code used to lay out the majority of the web, and had already shipped in Firefox, Opera and Chrome by August 2015. It allows site owners to see the percentage of battery life left in a device, as well as the time it will take to discharge or the time it will take to charge, if connected to a power source. Continue reading...

It might be too short and a bit clunky, but Blendo Games’ newest effort finds joy in the weird and wonderful retro-future world of 1980s codingIn the cool summer air outside a glass-walled villa, a woman with blue hair and a headscarf sits hunched over a computer, typing in a string of programming commands. In three seconds, a suitcase will deploy a rifle, which will, in four seconds, fire through a window and deactivate a set of lasers. In five seconds, she will be inside the villa, and in six seconds she will have opened the safe behind the bookcase which holds her target. In seven seconds, everything will go catastrophically wrong at the hands of an errant semicolon, and mean mission failure.The code will have to be debugged, the heist simulation run again.

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

Largest update since revamped operating system began nagging its way on to computers in 2015 includes bigger role for Cortana and facial recognitionThe Windows 10 Anniversary Update – the largest update to the PC operating system since its big revamp in 2015 – began rolling out to consumers on Tuesday.

After battling its Chinese rival for driver and rider loyalty, it appears that Uber has lost – but the deal is not quite that simpleUber has sold its Chinese operations to rival Didi Chuxing, the country’s biggest ride-hailing firm, signalling the end of a fierce price war waged between the two companies over the past two years.Uber, last valued at around $68bn, lost an estimated $2bn fighting Didi Chuxing in China, giving out incentives for drivers and free rides in an attempt to compete for market share. Didi was doing the same, but had around 85% of the market share compared with Uber’s 8%. Continue reading...