Technology | The Guardian

Currency behind social media website Steemit, in which users are rewarded or paid based number of ‘thumbs up’, has rocketed to more than $150m in valueSteem, the digital currency behind the new social media website Steemit, soared more than 1,000% in value on Tuesday to more than $150m, two weeks after it first paid people who posted on its website, according to coinmarketcap.com.

By signing up to the retail giant’s affiliate network, Amazon Associates, publishers can earn commissions from linking to products on Amazon.comIn July 2015, Amazon declared its own annual holiday: Amazon Prime Day. The retail giant promised deals on a wide range of products for customers signed up to its membership program, Amazon Prime.This is the second Amazon Prime Day, and it’s pretty hard to miss. At the time of writing, the #PrimeDay hashtag was one of Twitter’s top 10 worldwide trends. Media outlets including the Daily Mail, USA Today, the Telegraph, PC World and CNet are publishing numerous stories about the discounts on offer, and urging readers to sign up for an Amazon Prime trial. Continue reading...

Brogan BamBrogan brings harassment and nepotism lawsuit against the supersonic transport company, claiming he feared for his physical safetySenior executives at Hyperloop One, the much-hyped technology company developing a high-speed transportation system, are being accused of nepotism and physically threatening and harassing employees in a lawsuit filed by the startup’s co-founder and three former employees.Brogan BamBrogan, a co-founder who recently resigned as chief technology officer, alleges that one executive left a “hangman’s noose” on his chair in one of the most explosive claims, which is bolstered by photos included in the complaint. Continue reading...

Internapalooza provides an inside look at the peculiar cultural initiation to the tech industry: coding, entrepreneurship and a certain amount of privilegeThere were piles of free stuff at Internapalooza, the annual gathering of thousands of tech industry summer interns. In the club level at the San Francisco Giants’ stadium on Monday evening, name-tag-sporting millennials travelled in packs of three and four as they scooped up branded T-shirts, tote bags, water bottles, Moleskin notebooks, sunglasses, argyle socks from Zillow, mobile device charge pads from eBay, winter caps from Google, flip flops from Andreessen Horowitz, and – the overall favorite – selfie sticks and throw pillows from YouTube.Almost everything was free. Everything except the popcorn. Continue reading...

Nintendo’s share price soars but there have been safety fears over players visiting secluded locations late at nightAn app that began as an April Fools joke has become a worldwide phenomenon, taking gamers out of the living room and on to the streets as they compete to capture, train and battle Pokémon characters using their mobile phones.In just seven days since the game was released in the US, Australia and New Zealand, Pokémon Go has now almost certainly exceeded Twitter’s 65 million American users, and the game’s servers have repeatedly crashed under the strain of its popularity. Continue reading...

US Fish and Wildlife Service to target diseased prairie dogs, food for the ferrets, via specially designed drones that shoot the candies in three directions at onceThe US government is set to unleash drones that fire vaccine-covered M&Ms in a bid to save the endangered black-footed ferret, a species that is facing a plague epidemic across America’s great plains.

Investigatory powers bill could lead to video shot by reporters being accessed remotely by police or their phone microphones used as a bug, peers sayPeers have issued a serious warning that the government’s proposed “snooper’s charter” law could endanger journalists and their sources.The House of Lords heard a strong cross-party plea that greater protection for journalists’ sources was needed in Theresa May’s investigatory powers bill, which seeks to extend the powers of state surveillance. Continue reading...

Fans from San Francisco to New York extol the benefits of the monster-catching craze – while trying to avoid walking into poles“There’s a really rare Pokémon really close by,” confides Deann Rossi.

The augmented-reality game Pokémon Go has become hugely popular. It might be fun, but is it also benefiting players’ mental and physical health? Many fans of the game in the US and Australia – the only locations where the game has been officially released – seem to think so

Reverence for the original brand inspired two San Francisco-based Brits to bring back the magic with a modern twist: 3D moving imagesBefore everyone had a digital camera tucked inside their mobile phone, before the duck-faced selfies and sepia-toned filters of Instagram, before Flickr and Periscope and Snapchat, there was Polaroid.From 1948 to the early 2000s, that name was synonymous with “instant visual gratification”. Wait 60 seconds, and the photo you just snapped would appear magically before your eyes. Continue reading...

Gears of War 4 developer will be owned by a company which, until 2015, exclusively dealt in chicken meatLondon-based games developer Splash Damage has been bought by Chinese chicken supplier Leyou.Best known for its involvement in the Wolfenstein, Quake and Gears of War franchises, as well as its own multiplayer shooter Brink, Splash Damage will be the second games developer owned by Leyou, whose Reuters profile describes the company as “engaged in supplying chicken meat products in the Fujian province”. Continue reading...

The latest video-game-to-movie adaptation will update an obscure Sega Mega Drive title from 1992 about a young superhero for hireAn obscure Sega Mega Drive title about a slacker who becomes a superhero for hire is the latest video game to become a candidate for a big-screen adaptation, according to Deadline.Rent-a-Hero, first released in 1992, has a backstory in which a small-town Japanese kid orders a pizza and instead receives a suit of power armour. Hot Tub Time Machine director Steve Pink (who also co-wrote Grosse Pointe Blank and High Fidelity) is on board to direct, and will write the script with Jeff Morris (The True Memoirs of an International Assassin). Continue reading...

In 2015, the story of a stolen iPhone went viral and led to a friendship forged on China’s Twitter. Now, the Finding Dory star is working on a film about itEllen DeGeneres and BuzzFeed are working together on a film inspired by a series of articles about a stolen mobile phone, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Continue reading...

From calendar to email, here’s what to replace the iOS defaults with to work better, harder and hopefully lessFace it: the best thing about iOS is the App Store. The iPhone has come a long way since version one, but the ability to add to the fifteen built-in apps has been the biggest improvement.These days, Apple’s default apps are showing their age. What’s more, they suffer from being too simple for power users and too complex for new users. Ask anyone who needs to get serious work done with their iPhone and they’ll tell you that the first step to a more productive life is to ditch the defaults and replace them with apps built from the ground-up for power. Continue reading...

Where can I find rare Pokémon? How can I make it easier to capture them, what should I do with stardust and candy, and how do I make my battery last?Pokémon Go has caught the world by storm, sent Nintendo’s stock price rocketing, atheists into churches and Australians into police stations.But it can be confusing and a lot of legwork, literally, if you screw something up – so here are a few tips to get you started. Continue reading...

Investment surge adds £7bn to firm’s worth as Pokémon Go transforms Japanese company from reluctant mobile gamer to augmented reality trailblazerInvestors are still trying to catch some of the runaway success of Pokémon Go, extending the gain for Nintendo shares to more than 50% in three trading days since the game was launched.Nintendo’s shares rose 12.8% to ¥22,860 in Tokyo on Tuesday, taking total gains in the past three days to 53%. The rise has added £7bn to the company’s market value since the latest version of its 21-year-old game was made available on 7 July. Continue reading...

Over two years, eight videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed more than 205m times, partly thanks to $100,000 in taxpayer fundingThe Australian producers who were behind eight fake viral videos which made news around the world were part of a Screen Australia-funded project to explore the impact of a short film narrative.Over two years, eight disparate videos from Melbourne’s the Woolshed Company were viewed in 180 countries, more than 205m times. On YouTube alone they were watched for the equivalent of 164 years; they accrued 500,000 comments and 1.6m likes. Continue reading...

Users who signed up to play the game’s iOS app were scared to find it had been granted ‘full access’ to Google - but the company says that sounds worse than it isGamers who have downloaded the Pokémon Go augmented reality game were given a scare on Monday, after noticing that the app had apparently been granted “full access” to their Google accounts.Taken at face value, the permissions would have represented a major security vulnerability, albeit one that only appeared to affect players who signed up to play the game using their Google account on Apple devices. Continue reading...

Police have issued a warning to players of the popular new smartphone game after the hunt for the virtual creatures led some users off the beaten trackNew Zealand devotees of the new smartphone game Pokémon Go have been warned by police to use their common sense after being led to the gate of a Hells Angels headquarters.Since being released last week the Pokémon Go game has taken off in New Zealand and worldwide. Continue reading...

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

From its animist origins to its relationship with tech and capitalism, the game has more in common with religion than you might expectOver the past week, tens of thousands of people have taken to roaming the streets, interacting with invisible beings that now inhabit our cities.

Some are blaming players in the UK, where Pokémon Go is not released, for bypassing their local servers to access the game in AustraliaAustralian Pokémon Go users are having problems logging into the reality mobile game due to high demand.The game has only been released in the US, Australia and New Zealand, and now some players are accusing UK residents of trying to bypass their local servers to access the game in Australia, resulting in server overloads and outages.

The SEC is scrutinizing whether Tesla should have disclosed the self-driving car crash in a formal regulatory filing, according to the Wall Street JournalThe US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Tesla failed to disclose to investors a lethal crash involving its autopilot technology.According to the Wall Street Journal, the SEC is scrutinizing whether the incident was “material” information that Tesla should have disclosed in a formal regulatory filing, though one source reportedly said the investigation may not lead to any kind of enforcement by the agency. Continue reading...

Nintendo’s shares went up 24% on Monday thanks to the US release of Pokémon Go last week. The application for smartphones that allows users to move around and ‘catch’ various characters is an augmented reality game, and it added $7.5bn to the company’s market value in two days

Five years after the US government took down the site accusing it of piracy, tech entrepreneur tweets about plans and hints new website will use bitcoinFlamboyant German tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom is planning to relaunch file-sharing website Megaupload in January 2017, five years after the US government took down the site accusing it of piracy.

Government seeking steer from drivers on everything from collision liablity and car insurance to remote parkingA planned shake-up of motor insurance rules and changes to the highway code have been unveiled by the government in preparation for the arrival of driverless cars on UK roads.

From armed robberies to space invaders, the launch of the Nintendo game has had more than a few unexpected outcomes

We asked fans to give their verdicts on the new Pokémon game for smartphones. Here’s what you saidThe classic creature capture game has taken the world by storm with people in the UK refusing to let the lack of an official launch date deter them. It’s the first time the digital monsters have made it on to smartphones – so what do you make of this new venture?We asked fans to review the latest Pokémon Go – does it live up to the hype? Are you getting more fresh air/exercise than you expected? Here’s what you told us. Continue reading...

Producers of content from toy-unboxing videos to Minecraft gamers and vloggers target growing children’s marketAt the Children’s Media Conference in London last week, one big structural shift in how the young watch TV loomed large amidst conversations about diversity and the impact of Brexit.YouTube was still the hottest of topics, with its ever-growing popularity among children making it impossible to ignore. In May 2016, 35 of the top 100 YouTube channels (by video views) were aimed at children, generating 8.6bn views collectively. Continue reading...

Hundreds of centers across the US are using virtual reality to train officers to shoot more accurately – and also help them to decide whether to shoot at allWhen I arrived, two women sitting in a hot tub asked me what I was doing in their backyard. I wasn’t quite sure myself. “I’m just here because I heard it was a little loud and I’m seeing if you could keep it down.”In the corner of my eye, a tall man lumbered toward me from inside the house, swinging a bottle. I asked him once, then twice, to put down the threatening object. Continue reading...

Disappearing messages launched alongside new encryption feature, ‘secret conversations’For the fourth time, Facebook is trialling a Snapchat-style ephemeral messaging system.This time, however, the company is introducing the new feature alongside a much wider change: the first chance to use end-to-end encryption to secure conversations on Facebook Messenger. Continue reading...

Location-based creature capture game takes US and Australia by storm, but isn’t available in the UK yet. What if you can’t wait?Pokémon Go is finally rolling out to Android and iOS smartphones, but while it’s available in Australia and the US, it has yet to be pushed out to the UK. Luckily, players don’t have to wait.Related: 'I've never walked my dog so much': readers review Pokémon Go Continue reading...

Popularity of new Android and iPhone augmented reality game overwhelms developer’s servers putting brakes on rollout beyond Australia and the US

OurMine Security released a few Vine videos through Dorsey’s account, which cross-posted to his Twitter feedThe Twitter chief executive, Jack Dorsey, had his Twitter and Vine accounts hacked.The hacking group which posted on Dorsey’s account, OurMine Security, is the same group which has previously defaced social media accounts belonging to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google boss Sundar Pichai. This time, OurMine released a few Vine videos through Dorsey’s account, which cross-posted to his Twitter feed. Continue reading...

The game has been flooding the news and neighbourhoods but for many it seems as silly as it is impenetrable. Pokémon Go devotee Clem Bastow breaks it downIf you’ve been out and about over the past few days, chances are you’ve seen people frantically swiping their smartphones in front of places of interest, or listened with slight alarm as friends chattered excitedly about how they “caught a Sandshrew behind the supermarket”. You may have wondered: what the heck is happening?The answer is Pokémon Go, the new smartphone game from Nintendo and Niantic Labs. According to data tabled by Digital Vision, two days after the app’s launch, Pokémon Go was installed on 5.16% of Android devices in the US and had roared to the top of the iTunes app store’s free app charts. Nintendo’s stocks are reported to have risen to their highest value since 1983 and demand for the game was so high, with servers crashing regularly, that Amazon’s chief technology officer, Werner Vogels, even offered to share the traffic load. Continue reading...

Biggest jump in share price for Japanese firm since 1983 with 36% rise in two days since launch of Pokémon GO appThe Pokémon GO effect has sent Nintendo’s shares surging for the second day running, driving the Japanese company’s value up by more than a third since the game’s launch last week.Nintendo’s shares jumped 24.5% to ¥20,260 (£153.50) in Tokyo – their biggest gain since 1983. The increase follows a 10% rise on Friday. The shares have risen by 36% in two days, adding almost £6bn to Nintendo’s market value. Continue reading...

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

Xbox execs Phil Spencer, Mike Ybarra and Shannon Loftis talk about Xbox One S, Scorpio, virtual reality – and why diversity is central to modern gamingAt the end of this year’s E3 conference in Los Angeles, one thing seemed clear: although a lot of journalists left feeling that Sony had “won” the hype war with its games-focused press conference, everyone was actually talking about Microsoft. The company choose the event to announce, not one, but two new consoles: an updated version of the Xbox One with a simple “S” suffix, and a more powerful upgrade – codenamed Project Scorpio – due out next year.The question on a lot of lips was, why? Why did Microsoft start its press briefing with Xbox One S, promising 4K compatibility, a new 40% smaller body and support for HDR gaming, only to apparently undermine the package by revealing Scorpio at the end? Due in late 2017, this intriguing iteration packs in eight CPU cores and promises six teraflops of processing power. And while Xbox One S will run 4K movies and promises to upscale games to that resolution, it’ll be Scorpio that delivers true, native 4K gaming. So why not keep it secret for a few more months? Why instantly cannibalise the Xbox One S market before it has even launched? Continue reading...

Missouri suspects used app’s geolocation feature to target ‘unwitting victims’, says police after another incident saw game lead player to dead body

An uneven attempt to make the world war two strategy game more popular, an ambitious but flawed shooter and a niche slice of Japanese culturePC, Paradox Interactive, cert: 7

Tech billionaire says he hopes to publish details this week as cryptic message echoes 2006 blogpost in which he unveiled what is now Tesla Model STesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, under pressure after a fatal crash involving one of his electric cars, went on Twitter Sunday to say he’s working on another “Top Secret Tesla Masterplan”. He said he hoped to publish details this week.The tantalizing message echoes an August 2006 blog post, titled “The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)”, in which Musk unveiled the cars that became the Tesla Model S four-door family car and the Tesla 3 sports sedan. Continue reading...

Networked devices for your smart home are the modern way to manage your life, but the rush to sell shoddy smart products risks compromising securityYou know the problem. You’re going abroad for a couple of weeks, during which time your house will be empty. You haven’t yet got round to installing a burglar alarm. But not to worry – just pop round to a supermarket and buy a couple of timer sockets. Plug them into the mains, set the timers to switch on and off at appropriate times twice a day, plug your lamps into them and off you go. Easy, peasy!Well, yes. But it’s so 1950s. So analogue. Why not be really cool and have a proper networked timer socket, something that you can control from your smartphone from anywhere in the world? Something like the AuYou Wi-Fi Switch for example. Looks like it’s just the ticket. Plug it in, hold down the power button and it hooks up with the app on your (Android) smartphone, and – bingo! – job done. Now, where did you put that boarding pass? Continue reading...

Motorola and LG are getting on board this emerging smartphone movement, but will it all fit together?Wander into your local phone shop for an upgrade and you could soon be sold a module rather than a whole new phone. It’s a radical new idea. But is the driving force behind modular phones being produced by Motorola, LG and others a response to consumer needs and environmental concerns, or is it simply an over-designed fad?Such devices came to attention in 2013 when Phonebloks, an open-source modular smartphone startup, was set up to reduce electronic waste. In essence, it was the conceptual introduction of a forever-upgradable phone, one customisable to suit different needs. Continue reading...

Statement in response to petition signed by more than 4.1m people says referendum was ‘once in a generation’ voteThe hopes of more than 4.1 million people who signed a petition calling for a second referendum on the EU have faded, after a response from the government saying it was a “once in a generation vote”.Parliament must consider all petitions that reach a threshold of 100,000 votes for a debate and, although the decision has yet to consider the motion for a debate, the Foreign Office responded to the signatories by email on Friday evening, pointing out that over 33 million have had their say.

With a top speed just shy of 90mph, the Leaf doesn’t have many pretensions in the boy racer departmentOften, when I think an idea won’t catch on (the mobile phone, the breakfast bar), it’s just because I haven’t thought about it as hard as its inventor has; I fear this may be true of the Nissan Leaf. It struck me as inherently preposterous to design a car that has to be delivered on the back of another car, because no one can be sure it’ll make the journey on electricity alone.While we’re here, why eschew the option of a petrol hybrid? Why not throw in some petrol so that the superbly organised can bask in their virtue, having remembered to charge it for eight (or 16) hours the night before (depending on the voltage), while the feckless can be allowed to sometimes forget? Continue reading...

Clem Bastow finds the augmented reality created by Nintendo and Niantic Labs absorbing, occasionally embarrassing, and above all, addictiveI’m halfway across the street – nose buried in my iPhone, tracking a rare Pokémon – before I look up and see the sign affixed to the cyclone wire fence: “PATROLLED BY ARMED GUARDS”. I find myself weighing up the situation: is it worth trespassing on Victoria Barracks in the possibly vain hope that I might catch, say, a Golbat?This is my life in a post-Pokémon Go world. Yesterday I said “Aha!” out loud, when a Pidgey appeared between a man’s legs as we were waiting at a pedestrian crossing. Continue reading...

Facebook’s live streaming video allows people to broadcast life – and death – for the world to see, raising a new and complex set of ethical questionsThree days in America. Three mobile phone videos depicting violent deaths.The killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and then a bloody shootout in Dallas, join a growing canon of brutal imagery either instantly broadcast or rapidly distributed on Facebook. Continue reading...

After much delay from surveillance concerns, the EU agreed to Privacy Shield, a new data transfer deal that will affect Facebook, Google and other US tech firmsGovernments across the European Union have finally given the green light to a new deal on how consumer data must be transferred with the United States, ending months of delay caused by concern over US surveillance.Privacy Shield, the new commercial data transfer pact, was provisionally agreed by the EU and the US in February and will come into effect on Tuesday. Continue reading...

The over-35s have discovered Snapchat – much to their kids’ utter horror: ‘We young people need another social media migration anyway’Like many people of a certain age, I recently began using Snapchat, after years of shunning it in favor of social media apps designed for people who still type with all their fingers and not just their thumbs.And I’m not alone. Of the 150 million people who use Snapchat each day, the number of US users over 35 has increased from 2% in 2013 to 14% today, we learned this week from ComScore. Continue reading...