Technology | The Guardian

New rules requiring internet traffic to be treated equally are voted through by MEPs but amendments aimed at closing a series of exemptions are defeatedSupporters of net neutrality have accused the European Union of undermining its own net neutrality laws after MEPs voted down amendments aimed at closing loopholes.Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers should treat all online content equally without blocking or slowing down specific websites on purpose or allowing companies to pay for preferential treatment. Continue reading...

Following threats of on-site violence, ‘marketplace of ideas is inevitably compromised’, says Interactive conference director

Top retailer seeks to conduct drone research outdoors, joining Amazon, Google and other companies in anticipation of US regulators’ rules on commercial useWalmart Stores Inc applied Monday to US regulators for permission to test drones for home delivery, curbside pickup and checking warehouse inventories, a sign it plans to go head-to-head with Amazon in using drones to fill and deliver online orders.

Google faces renewed probes into Android, shopping, advertising and more as competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager sets out plansEurope’s antitrust chief has set her sights on a series of investigations into Google that will see the US internet firm face intense scrutiny.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterOops sorry - I’m a bit distracted at GameCity! Continue reading...

At GameCity festival, GoldenEye game director Martin Hollis revealed Nintendo’s unease with the James Bond game’s goreGoldenEye 007 was one of the greatest games of the 90s, and revolutionised the idea of the first-person shooter on consoles – but Nintendo was hugely concerned about its depiction of violence, game director Martin Hollis has revealed.

Company faces lawsuit alleging $5m damages for feature which uses mobile data when Wi-Fi is underperformingApple is facing a $5m lawsuit over a feature in the new version of iOS which uses mobile data when Wi-Fi connectivity is weak.The feature, named “Wi-Fi assist”, senses when there are problems with the wireless network the phone is connected to, and instead routes the device over mobile data. Continue reading...

Rising demand for air conditioning and refrigeration threatens to make planet hotter and undermine pledges to rein in emissions

Today we chat to Thomas Was Alone creator Mike Bithell and developer Katie Goode about the future and potential of virtual reality gamingIt’s day three of the GameCity festival in Nottingham and once again, Guardian games editor Keith Stuart and games writer Jordan Erica Webber are presenting a live audio chat show from the venue’s Toast Bar.Broadcasting via Twitch from 9am, this morning we’re speaking to Mike Bithell, creator of Thomas Was Alone and Volume, and Katie Goode of Triangular Pixels, an experienced virtual reality developer. Continue reading...

The fretwork of Guitar Hero is as fresh as ever and Nathan Drake has been polished up for current consoles, but Zelda’s adventures in fashion don’t captivate★★★★ Continue reading...

He helped develop the iPod and iPhone, and now the Nest Labs founder has brought a similar charm to something far less sexy – thermostats and smoke alarmsTony Fadell’s eyes dart around the room and his face wrinkles in cartoonish dismay. He looks, for a second, like he might actually be physically unwell. We are in a library-style room in a private members’ club in central London: you or I might consider the decor to be plush, even fancy. But for Fadell, the 46-year-old American founder of Nest Labs home products and one of the original driving forces behind Apple’s iPod and iPhone, all he sees are the “warts”. The clunky wall unit that controls the air conditioning, the glaring white smoke detector on the ceiling that is completely mismatched with the paint on the walls, the huge television screen that draws your attention to it even, as now, when it is switched off.These blemishes really do irk Fadell. At the home he designed and built in Tahoe, California, he presses a button and the television rises out of the floor, so that his views of the lake and the Sierra Nevada mountains are not disrupted. Such solutions – and problems – might not be relevant to most people, but Fadell zealously believes there is a place for intelligent, affordable, technology-led design in most homes. Nest, which launched in 2010, has focused on improving – both aesthetically and in function – “unloved, utilitarian” household products: first up was a thermostat and then, unveiled in 2013, a smoke alarm. Continue reading...

The Lohner is a stylish electric bicycle that’s perfect for the city. But what sets it apart is that it’s made for two…Price: £2,900

Former Spotify boss heads team hoping to attract reality TV fans to formatAs listeners look forward to the return of hit US true-crime podcast Serial, audio producers are hoping to recreate its success with a new wave of podcasts aimed at the reality TV generation.An audio diary by teenage cancer survivors and subjects as diverse as life in an inner-city gang and on a remote farm are among the projects planned by Acast, a Swedish podcast platform that received investment of £3.2m in May to develop internationally. Continue reading...

A new twist on the classic sheeted ghost is sweeping across the US ahead of Halloween: ‘This is going to freak some people out’The oldest of the old-school Halloween costumes, the sheet-over-your-head ghost, has been updated ... with drones.Welcome to ghost droning, the newest trend sweeping the nation. Continue reading...

Restaurateurs and food critics back #noreceiptnoreview campaign to deter fraudulent postsA growing number of frustrated restaurateurs, food writers and diners, backed by Observer restaurant critic Jay Rayner, are calling for TripAdvisor to put an end to fraudulent reviews.A campaign, started on Twitter last week under #noreceiptnoreview is asking the website, which hosts over 250 million reviews of restaurants and hotels, to insist that users can only post a review if they provide a scanned receipt. Continue reading...

‘I was glad of the wipe-clean characterlessness, but that’s because I was with my mum, who had a nosebleed’It’s hot, it’s cheap and it’s a hatch: that’s what people love about the Seat Ibiza. That’s why, once you’re in one, you suddenly notice that everybody else is too. That’s why people overlook the floaty and unresponsive steering, and the crummy, hire-car interior. I was glad of the greyscale, plasticky innards, the wipe-clean characterlessness, but that’s because most of my journeys were with my mum, who had a nosebleed.There were a few vexing touches to the interior: the oddment stowage between the seats is placed quite high, so you can’t get your spare arm comfortable, and the parking brake feels a bit tinny, to name two. But the fabric seats are plush-ish, and the look of the dash is intuitive and unintimidating. It is unusually simple to figure out; you feel like it’s your own immediately. I have a family member – let’s call her my sister – who finds it terrifying when a driver doesn’t know how to turn windscreen wipers on. She takes this to be roughly in the region of not knowing where the brakes are. I had no trouble with her at all in this vehicle, which is more than I can say for next week. Continue reading...

Complaint filed in US accuses Venezuelan exiles of sowing economic chaos through website DolarToday which tracks black market value of bolivarVenezuela’s central bank has filed suit in the US against a website widely used to track the plummeting black market value of the country’s currency.In an unusual complaint filled with images, high-flown language and even links to journalists’ personal websites, the bank alleged that managers of the site DolarToday are committing cyberterrorism and sowing economic chaos. The suit seeks to shut down the operation and exact monetary damages. Continue reading...

Telecoms giant receives ransom demand and reveals stolen data of up to 4 million customers may not have been encrypted

Security experts say telecom firm let down customers with slow and poor reaction, and failure to encrypt and secure dataTalkTalk has displayed a disregard for the safety of its customers’ data, according to security experts who say the telecoms firm has mishandled its response to being hacked.The attack happened on Wednesday, and TalkTalk informed the police the same day but only alerted the UK’s data protection watchdog on Thursday afternoon, leading to criticism from several experts. Continue reading...

Ever wondered what happened to the real-life Gersberms girl, Doge or Success Kid?What happens when that embarrassing photo of you from 1997 ends up on Reddit? Worse, what happens when that photo takes on a life of its own, and becomes an internet meme?Well, as Alex Hern and Elena Cresci discover in this week's episode of Updog, the Guardian's podcast celebrating all things internet-y, it's not always bad news. Continue reading...

Rogue tweet directed followers to ‘offensive’ picture but site did not seem to be running malware, force saysEssex police have launched a review of their online security after hackers hijacked their Twitter account and potentially directed thousands of the force’s online followers to an “offensive” picture.The force apologised to its 108,924 Twitter followers after the rogue tweet was sent out by a hacker on Friday morning. Continue reading...

Company confirms contact from someone claiming responsibility for attack that potentially compromised customers’ personal dataTalkTalk says it has received a ransom demand from an individual or group claiming responsibility for a cyber-attack that has potentially compromised the credit card and bank details of millions of customers.The telecommunications and media firm has said it does not know how many of its 4 million customers have been affected by what it called a “significant and sustained” attack on its systems. Continue reading...

Baroness Dido Harding, the chief executive of TalkTalk, confirms the company has been working to ensure all of its customers have been informed that their personal data may have been compromised following a cyber attack. Harding says that customers should be wary if they receive an unexpected phone call purporting to be from TalkTalk and asking for personal information. She says this call would not come from a TalkTalk representative, but rather someone who could be attempting identity theft

Customer’s internet connection hijacked by callers who knew his account number and threatened him as he tried to hang upHackers were using personal details in an attempt to scam TalkTalk customers nearly 24 hours before the cyber-attack was publicly revealed.Iain Frater, a trainee doctor from Glasgow, said he nearly fell victim to what he described as a “very convincing scam” on Wednesday morning, in which the perpetrators hijacked his internet connection and telephoned pretending to be from the broadband company. Continue reading...

While titles like Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V have innovated on the open-world adventure, Syndicate is stuck in the past, in more ways than one2015 has been a transformative year for open-world games, with standout releases like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain revolutionising individual tenets of the genre, from narrative depth to mechanical breadth. Unfortunately, Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate is not one of those progressive titles, and instead of continuing this year’s trend of pushing toward higher expectations from triple-A blockbusters, Syndicate suffers from a litany of legacy issues that run the gamut from design to technical.With a new studio, Ubisoft Quebec, making its Assassin’s debut, Syndicate does occasionally suggest a desire to affect change in an annual juggernaut so large that it can barely be steered. However, the team seems essentially powerless when placed under such monumental time pressure. The small shifts toward better worlds, characters, and in particular sharper writing, get lost among problems that have pervaded the series since its peak in 2009. Continue reading...

Survey shows 52% of media companies across the world have suffered hackingWith TalkTalk having suffered a “significant and sustained” cyber-attack on its website, a timely piece of research reveals that similar threats loom over media outlets across the world.According to a global study carried out by Newscycle Solutions, 52% of news media companies it canvassed were either hacked or suffered a data breach from the beginning of 2014. A further 12% were uncertain if their businesses had been attacked or compromised. Continue reading...

If you are a TalkTalk customer, the company says to be aware of a heightened risk of financial crime and phishing attacksTalkTalk customers are being advised to keep an eye on their bank accounts for fraudulent activity, and to be particularly alert to the danger of “phishing” emails, after a large-scale hack at the telecoms firm.The company has not specified exactly what data was stolen from its servers, but says that the systems accessed contained information including: Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Friday! Yay! Are any of you coming to GameCity?! Continue reading...

First Android 6.0 Marshmallow smartphone has excellent camera, fast fingerprint sensor, is light but battery only just lasts long enoughThe Nexus 5X is the smaller and cheaper of Google’s new flagship Android 6.0 Marshmallow smartphones, and is billed as the phone for everyone. It has a great camera, fingerprint sensor and 5.2in screen for £339.

Addition to controversial cybersecurity bill, which passed key Senate hurdle on Thursday, would lower barrier for US to pursue foreign nationals for cybercrimeAn amendment to a controversial cybersecurity bill will allow US courts to pursue and jail foreign nationals even if the crimes they commit are against other foreigners and on foreign soil.The main aim of the amendment to the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa), which passed a key Senate hurdle on Thursday, is to lower the barrier for prosecuting crimes committed abroad. But the amended law would make it a crime punishable by US prison time not merely to clone the credit card or steal the Netflix password of an American citizen, but to take unauthorized information from any American company, no matter where it happens. Continue reading...

Its on-disc soundtrack may be more filler than killer, but backwards compatibility, solid instruments and wig-out solos make it awesomeIn the last decade, the phrase “social games” has come to represent a very specific gaming category. Initially, on Facebook with the likes of Zynga’s FarmVille, and then on mobile led by the ubiquitous Candy Crush Saga, it tends to mean casual games that are highly connected to social media sites.Yet video games have always been social. From Pong to Sensible Soccer to Mario Kart to World of Warcraft there have been titles that could be played alone, but were much more fun with friends. And perhaps the most joyful among them, were the ones that involved looning about with plastic instruments. Continue reading...

How pop star’s ‘twin who was locked in a basement her whole life’ captured the web’s creatives and fans with onslaught of Poot memes and Photoshop efforts

Explosion of 150 more emoji, including rude hand gesture, comes along with UK launch of Apple News and security updatesThe holy grail of emoji has arrived. After years of fudging angry faces, aubergines and fists together, now you can tell people how you really feel with just one character: a middle finger emoji.

Ösp’s PC gets going all by itself at around 3am. Can it be made to sleep through the night?

Newsfeed aggregator included in iOS 9.1 update features content from the BBC, Telegraph, Times, Guardian, Sun and Sky NewsApple’s News app has launched in the UK with a range of publisher partners including the BBC, Telegraph, Guardian, Sun and Sky News.The Apple News app, which aims to aggregate digital news media, has launched with 14 UK newspaper and magazine publishers. Continue reading...

Company admits it struck ‘wrong tone’ with ad campaign highlighting hotel tax contributions of its users after it backfires

The place to talk about games and other things that matterA little late due to illness : ( Continue reading...

Google hopes shows from PewDiePie, Lilly Singh and The Fine Brothers will persuade YouTube viewers to pay $9.99 a month for premium accessYouTube has built its billion-viewer audience on the basis of free, ad-supported videos and a growing roster of digital stars. Now it hopes exclusive shows from some of the latter will persuade people to pay to access the service.YouTubers including Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg, Lilly Singh, The Fine Brothers and Joey Graceffa are making new shows that will only be available on a new YouTube Red subscription tier. Continue reading...

Felix Kjellberg stars on US chat shows, is fighting off TV offers and has written his first book. But his online life remains top priorityWith 40 million fans, YouTube star Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg could have his pick of broadcasters if he decided to move into television. But the man whose channel has more than 10bn video views plans to stick with his online community.Television is just another promotional channel for his online work, rather than the next rung of the entertainment ladder, he argues. Continue reading...

‘I’ve never heard of what a Buzzfeed was,’ says Liberal senator during committee session about the foreign minister’s emoji-filled interview with the news siteRelated: Julie Bishop goes on emoji-fuelled late-night tweeting spreeLabor’s attempt to explore Julie Bishop’s views on Vladimir Putin ran into an unexpected obstacle during Thursday’s Senate estimates when a Liberal senator admitted he did not know what an emoji or “a Buzzfeed” was. Continue reading...

Publication follows the hacking of John Brennan’s email account on Monday, allegedly by high school students who call themselves Crackas With AttitudeWikiLeaks has released documents it said had been collected from CIA director John Brennan’s personal AOL account, the first in what the group said would be a series of publications.The personal email account of the US’s top spy was compromised by hackers who claimed to be high school students. Those hackers had threatened on Twitter to release the same documents. Continue reading...

CEO Jack Dorsey used Twitter’s annual developer conference to ‘reboot’ the company’s credentials, saying he would make sure its plans were transparentA confident, assured Jack Dorsey took the stage of Twitter’s annual developer conference in San Francisco and began his new reign with an apology. Two weeks into his reappointment as CEO, Dorsey used the opportunity to try to “reboot” relations with tech community.“I come to you today to apologise for our confusion,” he said, in his first big speech since his appointment last month. “Somewhere along the line our relationship with developers got complicated, confusing and unpredictable,” he told the Flight event at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Auditorium. “That culminated in what [entrepreneur and writer] Anil Dash named ‘the matrix of doom’ ... We want to reset our relationship and make sure that we are learning, listening and that we are rebooting.” Continue reading...

Failure to use available technology to cut dangerous nitrogen oxides in new cars is a ‘disgrace’, says MEPA modern diesel car pumps out more toxic pollution than a bus or heavy truck, according to new data, a situation described as a “disgrace” by one MEP.The revelation shows that effective technology to cut nitrogen oxides (NOx) pollution exists, but that car manufacturers are not implementing it in realistic driving conditions. Continue reading...

Video-game events are usually about noise, crowds, darkness and heavily marketed blockbuster titles. But it doesn’t have to be that wayThis summer, the picturesque Birchcliffe Centre, a converted baptist church in the West Yorkshire village of Hebden Bridge, hosted an unusual festival. Guests danced across the sunlit floor to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach; they drank mugs of tea and watched talks. Outside, there was an “art walk” where attendees trudged up and down the muddy slopes, breathing in the scent of early summer flowers. There were nice places to eat, the village was welcoming. Everyone felt safe and included. Passers-by would perhaps not have guessed what people had come here to see and share. Video games.The event, named Feral Vector, was a conscious attempt by organiser David Hayward to fight both the “gravitational pull of London” as he puts it, and the popular image of what a gaming event is. From the cavernous E3 show in Los Angeles to the annual EGX, this year held at Birmingham’s NEC, the usual set-up involves a vast convention centre, near total darkness and a constant cacophony of competing sound systems. But not everyone feels comfortable in these aggressively noisy environments. As independent game designer Rob Fearon recently noted on his website: “We all deserve better.” Continue reading...

Hundreds of internet service providers have not yet submitted plans as they struggle to understand what is required of them in storing Australians’ metadataThe federal government has processed less than a third of data retention plans submitted by internet service providers, while hundreds more have not even put forward proposals, placing them in technical breach of the country’s metadata laws.The Attorney General’s Department has confirmed that of the 229 plans submitted by ISPs to show that they comply with the laws – which require them to collect and store the metadata – just 79 have been processed.

The NBN Co says it needs more copper to meet demand but prime minister says existing copper network is in much better condition than was expectedThe prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull has defended the national broadband network’s purchase of 1,800km of copper to deliver his vision of fibre to the node.The company told a Senate estimates hearing it has so far purchased $14m worth of copper and will need more to meet future demand. Continue reading...

As fans worldwide celebrate the date depicted in cult 1989 film, Universal Studios, Nintendo and Pepsi also get on (hover)boardIt is the day that Back to the Future fans have waited 26 years for, the moment the real world finally catches up to the future world imagined in the second film of the time-travelling franchise.Related: Back to the Future day: live! Enjoy 21 October 2015 around the world Continue reading...

Many of the world’s top technology companies are against cybersecurity plans before US Senate on privacy grounds, according to a new pollTwenty-two of the world’s top technology companies are firmly against the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa) now on the floor of the Senate, according to a new poll by internet activists Fight for the Future.The poll lists Apple, Google, Twitter and Wikipedia as opposing the legislation while Comcast, HP, Cisco and Verizon are among the 12 companies who back or have remained silent on the bill. Cisa is aimed at tightening online security but has been criticised as infringing on civil liberties and privacy. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence experts point to looming danger amid unpredictable technology and fears that technology could ‘seduce us into warfare’Experts in artificial intelligence, lawyers and activists organized by the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots gathered at the United Nations on Tuesday to warn against a growing reliance on cheap drones and “stupid AI” that can be unpredictable in the real world.“Terminator always comes up,” Toby Walsh, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the sci-fi cyborg on a mission to wipe out mankind. “But it’s not really Terminator that we’re worried about at the moment. I think that Terminator is perhaps 50 or so years away.”