Technology | The Guardian

‘In a traffic snarl-up, I noticed I didn’t look as catastrophically grumpy as everyone else’I have a delusion that I’m somehow immune to plushness, that I can see through fancy stitching and embossed lettering and leather finish, and intuit my way, monastically, to the true value of the thing beneath. It is total manure. I love a panoramic sunroof an unreasonable amount, considering the amount of time, as a responsible driver, I spend gazing through it. I had the Renault Kadjar in its range-topping Signature Nav version. They must have seen me coming.High off the road and handsome, it is a very French sort of SUV: much more, “Join us – we’re on a safety-first journey to a ski lodge” than the Scando-German, “Check out my girth – in a clash with an elk, I’d definitely win” (let alone the Anglo-Saxon, “By the glint of my bull bars, you can see I’d very easily be adapted to suit a paranoid yet thrifty dictator”). Continue reading...

Zuckerberg announced in July he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting a baby girl following three miscarriagesFacebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is planning to take two months of paternity leave when his daughter is born.He said in an online post “outcomes are better for children and families” when working parents take time off to be with their newborns. He called the decision “very personal”. Continue reading...

Elon Musk says electric car company is ramping up its Autopilot system for advanced autonomous drivingTesla is accelerating with its self-driving car efforts, taking on Google, Uber, Apple and traditional vehicle manufacturers.

If you’re an inventor at heart, we want to see your ideas for what planes, trains, cars, bikes and boats might look like 50 to 100 years from nowMachines that can propel themselves on the road or in the air while carrying passengers were once a fantasy that only existed in the minds and sketchbooks of inventors like Leonardo da Vinci and the Wright brothers. Now, they’re an everyday reality, dramatically changing where and how people live and work.Many big ideas that have transformed life as we know it started out as simple renderings. Could you be the next Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla? For our series on the future of transportation, we want to see your ideas about what cars, bikes, trains, ships and airplanes – or even hoverboards – might look like 50 or 100 years from now. Your concept can be as simple as a single vehicle or even a piece of a vehicle or as complex as a new traffic system or reimagined transportation plan for your city or town. Continue reading...

While Isis may be promoting a medieval ideology of beheadings, rape and enslavement, their use of technology is anything but backwardExtremist groups have long used the internet to recruit new members and citizens have long left home to fight in foreign countries. But Islamic State stands apart in the way it has mastered online propaganda and recruitment.In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris we look at the process of online radicalisation: how it's evolving, what it means and what is being done to intervene. And as hacktivist communities declare cyberwar on Isis we discuss the battle for hearts and minds online and whether these kinds of attacks can really do anything to dent their digital juggernaut. Continue reading...

The tech company pledges to cover legal costs for handful of videos that it claims represent clear fair use despite being issued DMCA takedown noticesGoogle is stepping up its defense of YouTube users who find themselves on the wrong side of a copyright claim, the tech company said on Thursday.After a series of skirmishes with established media and others the company said it was “offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] takedowns”. Continue reading...

Swedish music streaming firm will backdate policy so all its 1,600 employees worldwide with a child born after 1 January 2013 are eligibleSpotify is to offer staff up to six months’ parental leave with 100% pay as part of a global policy it says recognises the importance of “a healthy work-family balance”.

Stock opens at $9, less than CEO Jack Dorsey had hoped for, but rises to over $12 in early trading to keep hope alive for so-called unicorn startupsThe “unicorns” are still alive! Just. The share sale of mobile payment company Square got off to a good start on Thursday – but only after the Silicon Valley startup was forced to slash the price of its offer.Square, one of the Silicon Valley “unicorn” startups – companies valued at billions of dollars despite an absence of profits – began trading on Thursday morning on the New York stock exchange. Continue reading...

Social network users say the site’s decision to extend ‘marked safe’ option to victims outside Paris is a ‘sign of respect’Nigerians have welcomed Facebook’s move to switch on its Safety Check feature for people affected in the country’s north-east after a string of suicide bombings by Islamist group Boko Haram.“After the Paris attacks last week, we made the decision to use safety check for more tragic events like this going forward,” founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on his Facebook page. Continue reading...

Startup, in partnership with UN-Water initiative, wants to get people messaging and playing games on the looMobile app Pooductive sounds like a silly gimmick: a smartphone app for messaging and playing games with strangers while sitting on the toilet.However, the app has a more serious aim: raising awareness of the 2.4 billion people in the world who do not have access to improved sanitation and clean water. Continue reading...

Wearable health monitors will likely make way for gadgets that can detect heart and breathing rate from the insideThe days of having to wear electrodes, clips and gadgets to monitor your health while in hospital or your fitness when going about your daily business may be over. Your next tracker could be ingestible.Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed an sensor that monitors a patient’s heart rate and breathing from the inside. Continue reading...

Online hacktivist collective claims Isis-affiliated websites are using company’s services to protect against hacking attacks

Peter does a lot of sound recording, and wonders if a genuinely silent PC is worth the extra costAre fanless PCs now a sensible purchase? I do a lot of sound recording and the idea of a genuinely silent PC is very attractive. PeterRecent innovations in the PC market have been devoted to producing cheaper fanless PCs, though that wasn’t actually the goal. The focus was on producing thinner laptops and tablets, but these have huge problems dissipating heat. Intel tackled this problem by gradually reducing the amount of power its chips consume. Now they don’t get as hot, they have less need for fans. Continue reading...

The much-anticipated Star Wars shooter captures the look and feel of the series perfectly, but as with the original movie, this is just the beginningWhen George Lucas first discussed Star Wars with his sound designer Ben Burtt, the director stressed that all the noises in the film – from the lightsaber swings to the whoosh of the landspeeder – had to be organically produced, rather than computer generated. He wanted this fantastical environment to feel downbeat and real. That is the magic of the original trilogy: it creates a universe that feels used.EA Dice, the developer behind Star Wars: Battlefront, seems to understand that perfectly. This is a game that absolutely revels in the audio visual wonder of the movies. The unearthly moan of AT-AT fire; the scream of a swooping TIE Fighter; the spacecraft covered in dents and rust. This game looks, sounds and feels like being inside Star Wars. In aesthetic terms, it is the most accurate video game rendition of the series ever made. Continue reading...

We can watch HD films on the train and play games in VR headsets but there’s a hitch – motion sicknessWhen we come to define the overarching feeling of the early part of the 21st century, it may come down to one word: queasiness. Some of the most exciting advances in technology – virtual reality, wearable tech, superfast smartphones and 3D films and operating systems – may all be scuppered by a basic human weakness: motion sickness.“If you walk into a room, you see the visual input that shows us we’re moving, and our vestibular system, the organs of balance, tell us we’re moving, [as does] the perception from your muscles and bones,” says Dr Cyriel Diels, human factors specialist at the Centre for Mobility and Transport at Coventry University. “Below deck on a ship, you are physically moving, but because you are moving with the boat, the visual field seems to be stationary. The two seem to conflict. Your body responds with motion sickness: vomiting, feeling dizzy.” Continue reading...

For the second time in a week, users can ensure their loved ones are safe following a terror attack via the social networkFacebook has turned on its Safety Check feature for users in Nigeria, following a bombing in the city of Yola on Tuesday.Safety Check allows any user of the site who is present in an area affected by a disaster or attack to mark that they are safe. Its use in Nigeria is only the fifth time that the feature has been activated, and the second time that it has been enabled after a terrorist attack. The first was during Friday’s shootings in Paris. Continue reading...

Possibly inspired by singer Adele (possibly not), Samsung is bringing a new flip-phone model to the marketWe all owe Adele an apology. After the internet mercilessly took the piss out of the flip-phone she used in her video for Hello (a decision the director said was thought through – “it’s so distracting to see an iPhone in a movie”), news has emerged that Samsung is releasing a flip model.Buy Adele An Upgrade For Her Flip Phone #RejectedKickstarterFund pic.twitter.com/4PkKF2sokz Continue reading...

Social network is focusing on communities and collections, in a bid to be less like Zuckerberg’s social network and more like sites such as PinterestWe all thought Google+ was dead; Google+ is not, it turns out, dead. The search firm’s on-again-off-again obsession with building a successful social network is on, again.Just a few months ago, Google announced that it was stripping features from Google+ in an effort to offer “a more focused” experience, a move many saw as the first step towards an eventual shutdown of the site. For the first time since it was launched, users were freed from the requirement to have a Plus account to use popular features of Google such as sharing content, chatting with contacts, or creating a YouTube channel. Continue reading...

Uber portrays itself as weaker side in ‘David and Goliath’ battle when it is a $50bn global company Australian tax commissioner saysAustralia’s tax commissioner has launched a strongly worded attack on Uber at an inquiry into corporate tax avoidance, arguing the ride-sharing service liked to portray itself as the weaker party in a David-and-Goliath battle when it fact it was the big multinational player.Uber is challenging an Australian tax office ruling that all drivers must register to collect the goods and services tax, regardless of whether they are likely to meet the $75,000 annual turnover threshold that applies to other small businesses. Continue reading...

Latest Taiwanese Android smartphone apes the design of Apple while failing to quite live up to the high standards set by competitorsHTC’s latest One A9 smartphone looks and feels like an iPhone and runs the latest version of Android, but is that a compelling package?

Android and iOS app will feature local channels including Stampy, Morph and Little Baby Bum, funded by ‘family friendly’ advertisementsYouTube is launching its YouTube Kids app in the UK and Ireland, nine months after its child-friendly service went live in the US.More than 10 million American parents have downloaded the app, which serves up a filtered selection of videos and channels that are appropriate for children. Continue reading...

Yellow cabbies and financial backers tell court that authorities are bankrupting them by letting app-based drivers operate without the same costly licensesNew York taxi owners and the lenders behind some of them are suing New York City and its Taxi and Limousine Commission, saying the proliferation of Uber is destroying their businesses and threatening their livelihoods.

Richard Burr is ‘more concerned with the visa waiver programme’, which allows travelers to come to the US without a visa for stays of 90 days than with refugeesTerrorists traveling from Europe without a visa pose a bigger threat to US security than refugees from Syria, according to the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.Senator Richard Burr supported calls to consider a “pause” in admitting Syrian asylum seekers but insisted this is not the most probable route open potential terrorists. Continue reading...

The entrepreneur and diversity advocate, who died aged 50, spent three decades battling for a tech industry that better represented multicultural America“Market makers,” wrote American entrepreneur and technologist Hank Williams shortly before he died, “are the folks that help new young companies and entrepreneurs by providing insight, mentoring, capital and relationships.“This part of the tech world is driven by all the same types of biases that exist in the non-tech world. And it is much harder for even the most talented African Americans in the tech world to gain access to influential, insightful, connected mentors, let alone investors.” Continue reading...

The social media site has proved a hit with former lads’ mag readers and its first company results are expected to show it is making moneyAs the readership of lads’ mags has declined, their dwindling audience has migrated to the internet.Men looking for their daily fix of irreverent humour, tales of the bizarre and scantily clad models can now find everything they want online without paying a penny. Continue reading...

Chancellor speaks at GCHQ on deadly danger of digital attacks, saying Britain will counter-attack criminals and rogue statesBritish spies will significantly step up their efforts to attack terrorists in cyberspace in the face of Islamic State militants who want to use the internet to kill people, George Osborne has said.Speaking at GCHQ in Cheltenham, the chancellor said the UK was prepared to use its digital powers to attack hackers, terrorist groups, criminal gangs and rogue states. Continue reading...

Company appears to be testing range of icons to illustrate emotional reactions where the simple star once sufficedTwitter appears to be testing a new system of emoji-based reactions to tweets that could replace the marmite-like heart or “like” rolled out at the start of November.

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

When it comes to smartphones, does size matter? As phablet screens grow ever larger, here’s our look at some of the more modest-sized devices on the marketThis year has been the best yet for smartphones, with more useful features, better designs and much improved software. But it’s also been the year which has proved top experiences don’t have to cost top dollar and good smartphones don’t have to have massive screens.Here’s a quick look five of the best smartphones available that won’t stretch your hand. Continue reading...

Uber’s carefully constructed public policy is designed to skirt regulations – so the person behind the wheel of your car is a ‘partner’ or even a ‘customer’At the beginning of last summer, Uber had about 80,000 regular drivers in the US. By the end of the season, it had none. The ride-sharing company had decided to call them “driver-partners” instead.

Claire Williams says pioneering technology created in motor sport boosts British manufacturingThe head of the Williams Formula One team has said the value of F1 to the UK economy is undervalued and that the sport is at the forefront of vital research and development that can boost the manufacturing industry.Claire Williams said the sport was showcasing the pinnacle of technology and was a vital test bed for new innovations. Continue reading...

California startup’s robot isn’t quite ready to take on Kuratas but founders confident ‘Team USA’ can win as Japanese firm accepts challengeThey’ve been popularized in movies, television and video games, but giant fighting robots still haven’t left the realm of science fiction. That will soon change.

Huawei’s quick-charging lithium-ion batteries power up 10 times faster than regular batteries by using new techniqueA smartphone battery that lasts longer than a day might be out of reach of most people for the moment, but a large one that charges to 48% in five minutes is on the way.

Silicon Valley executives deny Julieta Yang’s allegations that she endured sexual harassment and low wages, but advocates say case raises awareness about vulnerability immigrant domestic workers faceRelated: The vanished: the Filipino domestic workers who disappear behind closed doorsJulieta Yang’s voice trembled as she recalled living in a house with a boss she alleges made repeated unwanted sexual advances. Continue reading...

There’s apocalypse wow from the Fallout series and Lara’s back to her best, but Ubisoft lets itself down with a creaky Assassin’s Creed outing

Loyal, dependable, agile and fast, Mazda’s new CX-3 compact crossover has much in common with your petPrice: £17,595

Using GPS tracking and messaging, your suitcases will soon be able to send you a text about where they areDo you get anxious waiting at the baggage carousel in the airport? I do. And the longer it takes for my luggage to appear, the edgier I get. It is= a fear of that moment when only a handful of battered suitcases are trundling around, none of which are yours.But imagine, as you rush to the inquiry desk to vent your spleen you get a text on your phone saying: “I’m on carousel 5, come and pick me up.” Continue reading...

Defrauded British users claim the holiday rental website has washed its hands of themAirbnb faces accusations that it is leaving its users vulnerable to fraud after previously unseen figures revealed that a growing number of people have fallen victim to scammers while trying to book a break via the British arm of the holiday rental website.In the first nine months of this year the number of people in the UK who reported that they had been defrauded on the website was 687, or at least two a day, double that of the whole of 2014, according to Action Fraud. This was more than five times higher than two years ago. Last week the company, which now lists properties in more than 190 countries, opened its doors to more than 5,000 of its property hosts at its annual conference in Paris, where the chief executive, Brian Chesky, described Airbnb in his keynote speech as “misunderstood”. Continue reading...

As part of our series on the future of transportation, we’re looking vehicles that might change the way you travel. Martin Aircraft is developing a fan-propelled jetpack, which the company says will be able to fly for up to half an hour and soar almost 1,000 meters. The jetpacks are expected to become commercially available in the second half of 2016. Martin provided the Guardian with this demonstration video.

As part of our series on the future of transportation, we’re looking at vehicles that might change the way you travel. Elio Motors is developing a three-wheeled, motorcycle-like vehicle that it says will get 84 miles to the gallon and retail for $6,800. The company plans to launch it next year. Elio provided the Guardian with this promotional video.

The $1bn-plus valuation of a number of Silicon Valley firms far outstrips their ability to deliver such returns – and many investors now believe it’s a question of when, not if, the bubble will burstThere are a lot of people in Silicon Valley and New York betting on “unicorns” – the new breed of tech startups like Uber, Square, Airbnb and Snapchat that have been valued at least $1bn.Not since the last dotcom boom has so much money been poured into so many hyped companies. As startup founders and their investors hope to turn their paper unicorn fortunes into cold hard cash, some of Silicon Valley’s most successful investors are warning a reckoning is coming. And on Monday that magical thinking faces one of its biggest tests. Continue reading...

Whether it’s the person sitting in the vehicle or the one who designed it, where responsibility lies when a robot car commits a traffic offence is not always clearWhen a California cop pulled over a Google self-driving car for holding up traffic this week, he knew he couldn’t send its robot driver to jail. But exactly where the responsibility lies for traffic problems caused by autonomous vehicles is not always so clear.Related: Self-driving cars are the future, but there’s a tech traffic jam in their path Continue reading...

Companies spend big money to identify flaws, but does this make for a safer internet?Imagine getting $1m for finding a security weakness in a mobile operating system. That’s what happened to an anonymous team of hackers who found a way to hack through Apple’s iOS to score the sizeable prize, security startup Zerodium announced this month.Zerodium launched the challenge in September, saying it would pay seven figures to a team able to find a way to take over iPhones and iPads running the latest versions of iOS just by tricking it into visiting the wrong web page or opening a text message. Continue reading...

Overall reduction in cases attributed to new law, which sought to discourage trivial claimsThe number of libel actions linked to posts on Facebook and Twitter rose last year, as overall defamation cases dropped to a six-year low.Total defamation cases in the UK fell by 27% year on year, from 86 to 63, the lowest level since 2008/09, according to a new report. Continue reading...

‘I could hear its Eeyore voice as I pummelled it into second gear, “Really? Driving again?”’The Suzuki Vitara is the reverse of the tardis, looking larger and fancier, only from the outside. Inside, the displays are maddening: slow touchscreen, slower satnav, a radio that stops and starts for no reason, a parking camera in permanent panic mode and a “you’re about to crash into the person in front of you” alarm. I figured out that’s what it was only because of the illustration: one car, another car and a giant comic-book star between them. I would say this feature makes you more, rather than less, likely to crash.And how would that crash come about? Certainly not through a sudden burst of speed. It’s 0-62mph is 12 seconds, far faster than anyone but a getaway driver would have call for, yet nevertheless the most sluggish I’ve driven for months, and you can feel a certain reluctance from the minute you turn on the engine. I could hear its Eeyore voice as I pummelled it into second gear, “Really? Driving again? Wouldn’t you rather just stay at home?” Continue reading...

Apple CEO ordered ‘inclusion and customer engagement’ training after black teens were asked to leave Australia store because they ‘might steal something’Apple boss Tim Cook has ordered that shop staff be retrained on “inclusion and customer engagement” after a group of black teenagers was told to leave a store in Melbourne, Australia because staff were worried they “might steal something”.A video of the interaction between a Highpoint Apple store staff member and a group of students was uploaded to Facebook on Tuesday night and has now been shared more than 222,400 times.

Father of the IBM mainframe computers that still run the worldWhenever you draw cash from your bank, take out insurance, book a flight, or shop in a large department store, the transaction was probably handled by an IBM mainframe originally designed by a former South Dakota farm boy, Gene Amdahl, who has died aged 92. Amdahl’s System/360 mainframes, announced in 1964, transformed IBM, and transformed computing. They became such an essential part of large-scale data processing that most Fortune 500 companies are still using them 50 years later.The S/360’s legacy includes the now-ubiquitous 8-bit byte, though Amdahl had argued for the option to use old-style 6-bit bytes as well. That idea was vetoed by Fred Brooks, Amdahl’s boss, who also led the development of the S/360’s operating systems. Continue reading...

Talk to trees in an augmented reality treasure hunt or help the king and queen of Scentopia defeat the evil Weedo in a hands-on digital art park in Southend. Don’t forget your smartphoneStep into NetPark, the invisible art gallery, where there is absolutely nothing to see – unless you want to. Tucked away in Southend-on-Sea, the “world’s first digital art park” is quietly opening its nonexistent doors. On hearing this claim of a global first, people may be incredulous. But the gallery’s creators are sure: this is the one and only time a Wi-Fi network has been built specifically to house a curated art collection – and further, a collection created specifically for that space.

UK record labels earned more last year from vinyl than they did from the 14bn music streams on YouTubeThe boss of British music industry body the BPI has claimed UK labels make less money from YouTube than from vinyl sales.Speaking at the Music Futures conference in Gateshead, Geoff Taylor said vinyl revenues were worth more than the “14bn music streams on YouTube” in 2014. Continue reading...

Automated vehicle caused traffic jam while travelling at just 24mph in a 35mph zone, causing police to pull the car overThey’ve driven 1.2m miles, and haven’t managed to get a speeding ticket yet – but a self-driving Google car got in trouble with the law on Thursday.