Technology | The Guardian

Research by Oxford University shows five rich countries edit most articles about places – and when others do contribute, they write about the westNearly half of all edits to articles about places on Wikipedia were made from just five countries, researchers at the University of Oxford have found.The UK, US, France, Germany and Italy are the source of 45% of the edits on “geocoded” Wikipedia articles, which have a longitude and latitude associated with them to link them to a specific place in the world. Continue reading...

Indicators that a user has viewed content are being rolled out to event invitations on Facebook. This is not good newsIs there anything that strikes fear deep into the heart like an invitation to the poetry reading of a guy that you met once, at a party, and who wore a cravat?Thanks to Facebook introducing read receipts on its events, swerving the kind of soiree that’s about attractive as a chlamydia diagnosis has just become a lot more difficult – and a more dangerous social minefield. Continue reading...

The taxi app faces many obstacles to its plans for city transport, making its battles with existing cab services merely the beginningIt’s been a busy summer for Uber. In San Francisco, the app-based transportation service and world’s richest startup is testing on-demand mass transit with its Smart Routes offering – essentially carpools running bus-like routes. Elsewhere, Uber is expanding into China, raising $1.2bn to back a push into 100 Chinese cities over the next year.To build its Eastern empire, Uber is maintaining its infamously aggressive tactics by hiring an “elite team of launchers”. The job advertisement sounds like Uber is looking for CIA operatives, not brand ambassadors: “At base, this job entails being dropped into a city or country where Uber has zero brand and physical presence, quickly figuring out who and what make that city run, and then building a new business from scratch – in a matter of weeks – which sets Uber up for long-term success”.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Tuesday and I’m currently watching the Sony press conference from Tokyo Game Show wishing I was there. Continue reading...

Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad software promises better battery life, real multitasking, improved Siri and Google Now-like featuresThe latest version of Apple’s iPhone and iPad software promises better battery life, a smarter Siri and true multitasking – but does it deliver and is it worth upgrading?

Even if you cannot play an instrument, a game such as Sentris, which allows you to bring music to life, can be magicalA delightful new puzzle game, Sentris, was released on Steam last month. Beautiful and engrossing, it leads the player through increasingly complex musical levels, in which you have to place blocks in the correct point in a spinning circle to add in different loops and instruments to an electronic track. The game is deeply enjoyable, tapping into one of the deepest human instincts: the sense of rhythm.Newborn babies have a sense of rhythm. Only days after birth, scans can detect the brain anticipating a missing downbeat, or noticing the rhythm “stumble”. There’s still debate about whether animals share this trait but dance, drumming and music are common across human cultures. There’s something in us that just likes it. Even without the skills to play an instrument, there’s a satisfaction to a game that allows you to control music, to bring it to life, even to feel that you’re playing it. Continue reading...

The drip-fed tools might irk the impatient, but this chance to take a stab at outdoing Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto has cult classic written all over itWhen, in 1985, Nintendo’s in-house genius Shigeru Miyamoto unleashed Super Mario Bros on the nascent world of gaming, he could scarcely have imagined that it would act as the definitive blueprint for one of the games world’s most enduring genres: the 2D side-scrolling platformer. Still less that, over 30 years later, he would be able to let any old gamer emulate his development process (albeit with vastly superior tools than the ones he had in 1985), while melding the most venerable gameplay with a truly 21-century gaming phenomenon. But that’s what Super Mario Maker does: by giving gamers the means to create their own Super Mario courses, it enters the realms of user-generated content alongside the stunningly successful likes of Minecraft and LittleBigPlanet.Super Mario Maker gently eases you into your quest to become the new Miyamoto, with a half-built course that you must jazz up simply by painting new elements on the screen of the Wii U’s Gamepad, using the stylus. You can add various blocks, either vanilla or containing power-ups and rewards, enemies such as goombas, trampolines, pipes and so on. Then, using the so-called Coursebot, you can name your creation (the game carefully explains that an interesting name can attract a much bigger audience) and publish it for all to play. Although, sensibly, you aren’t allowed to publish it until you’ve completed a play-through – it’s dead easy to make courses that are physically impossible to negotiate. Continue reading...

A month of events includes dystopian visions of immortality and a futuristic clinic promising to make you happierPlayful visions of the future of technology are springing up across Brighton this month, from dystopian immortality machines to global choirs, open to the public and mostly free.The Brighton Digital Festival includes conferences, performances and installations based on artistic approaches to the digital world and vice versa. Arts co-ordinator Laurence Hill says it is the most expansive to date: “In 2011 there were 40-odd events . This year it’s topped 180.” Continue reading...

Prosecutors say gang reaped a fortune by signing thousands of mobile users up to unwanted paid-for junk text messagesTwo men have been charged with helping to run a so-called “cramming” scheme in which they earned tens of millions of dollars by charging unsuspecting mobile phone users for unwanted text messages.Related: Scammers target lonely hearts on dating sites Continue reading...

Record-high pre-orders have been attributed to the inclusion of sales in China, where demand has been particularly highAdvance orders of Apple’s new iPhones are on track to beat the 10m units previous versions logged in their first weekend last year, a feat analysts have attributed to the inclusion of sales from China which is poised to overtake the United States as Apple’s biggest market.Apple did not disclose the specific number of advance orders it received for the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, which have improved cameras, 3D touch and display technology that responds according to how hard users press their screens. Continue reading...

In a satirical video game based on Super Mario Bros, the character evades border patrols and swaps Bowser’s castle for ‘Camp’ in order to highlight the plight of refugeesWe can assume that David Cameron is a bit of a gamer, having been busted obsessively playing Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds in the past. So there is an outside chance that, finally, he might soften his government’s harsh, grudging response to the Syrian refugee crisis. Because one of the gaming world’s most famous characters – the moustachioed plumber Mario – has been co-opted into highlighting the plight of those attempting to flee from the Scylla and Charybdis of Isis and Bashar al-Assad.A Syrian artist, pseudonymously known as Samir al-Mutfi, has created Syrian Super Mario, a satirical video that is currently going viral, highlighting the horrors faced by Syrian refugees – by tweaking the 1985 video game Super Mario Bros. Mario has taken many forms over the decades, but this time he has become Refugee Mario. And instead of making his way to Bowser’s castle in order to rescue Princess Peach, he merely has to get to the castle, which now bears the forbidding legend: “Camp”. Continue reading...

Documents published on Reddit hint that John Travolta, Bruce Willis and Uma Thurman were not Quentin Tarantino’s first choices for cult movieMichael Madsen, not John Travolta, was Quentin Tarantino’s first choice to play Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, and Eddie Murphy was considered to play Jules Winnfield, according to new documents leaked via Reddit.The two hand-typed sheets of paper also suggest that Uma Thurman was not even in the original running to play gangster’s moll Mia Wallace, with Virginia Madsen, Marisa Tomei, Patricia Arquette and Phoebe Cates all named ahead of her. Meanwhile, John Cusack was Tarantino’s first choice to play Vincent’s drug dealer Lance, the role that eventually went to Eric Stoltz; and Matt Dillon, Sean Penn, Nicolas Cage and Johnny Depp were all ahead of Bruce Willis for the role of boxer Butch. Continue reading...

For a series as full of fan service as Metal Gear Solid, it’s still surprising to see a sheep attached to a balloon take off as a meme. Pun intendedThe surprise star of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (or STARS), an experimental technology dating back to the 1950s that allowed a covert operative be airlifted out of hostile territory by an aeroplane travelling at low altitude.The STARS fit nicely into the world of Metal Gear Solid, with its mixture of cutting-edge real-world tech and science fiction gadgets, and at first glance, it is so bizarre that it seems like it could only have come from the fictional side of the divide. Continue reading...

The failings of Forza 5 are all but forgotten with this vastly improved instalment on Xbox One, which boasts faster action, a broader range of cars and sublime handlingIf one thing comes to mindthe moment you boot up Forza 6, it’s this: if developer Turn 10 turned its hand to creating a car, it would be a wonderful piece of engineering. This latest in the now-decade-old franchise is a meticulously crafted package, with an incredible attention to detail in almost every facet of its design.Having made major missteps with Forza 5, Turn 10 has recognised and rectified where necessary. While its predecessor was a tight-fisted, condensed racing experience with a cut-down list of cars and tracks, Forza 6 is generous and dauntingly broad, more in line with series highpoint Forza 4. It has also excised the monetisation that plagued the Xbox One launch title and, while these shifts aren’t enough to make Forza 6 truly exemplary, it’s still a fantastic ride. Continue reading...

Mark Karpelès faces the charges over his role in the collapse of the bitcoin exchange in 2014The former head of defunct bitcoin exchange Mt Gox, Mark Karpelès, has been charged with embezzlement by Japanese prosecutors, according to reports from the Japanese media.Karpelès is alleged to have embezzled ¥321m (£1.7m) from the bitcoin exchange, which collapsed in 2014 after revelations of a massive shortfall in customer funds. Continue reading...

Lack of competition leaves rural Britain beyond the reach of fibre-optic deliveryBefore we moved, we filled boxes. “Why are you packing those CDs?” asked my wife, eyeing them. “You’ve put them all on a hard disk, and with streaming services you can get what you want.”I opened my mouth to offer a devastating rebuttal. No sound emerged. In other news, it turns out that charity shops love secondhand CDs. I looked forward to streaming it all.We last moved in 2006, when I noted here how essential broadband had already become. (And also, hilariously, that six megabits was “adequate for nearly everything we do today”. To be fair, the BBC’s iPlayer was then more than two years from launch.) Continue reading...

For both novelesque stories and non-fiction, iOS and Android apps are trying innovative ways to tell storiesIn the early days of Apple’s iPad, there was a gallon of hype around the potential for interactive book apps. When many of the early, expensive-to-develop examples flopped on the App Store, the hype ebbed away.Even so, a number of developers, publishers and authors have continued plugging away at the idea, with the results often standing proud as works of fiction or non-fiction, regardless of the way they’re delivered. Continue reading...

Official review aimed at improving classroom behaviour to investigate how smartphones may disrupt learningThe impact of mobile phones on pupils’ behaviour in lessons is to be investigated as part of a wider inquiry aimed at improving teachers’ classroom management.Tom Bennett, a teacher and behaviour expert, is leading a government-commissioned review into how to improve training to better equip new teachers for tackling poor behaviour in the classroom. And the Department for Education has asked him to focus on the potentially disruptive influence of smartphones on learning in school. Continue reading...

What do tomorrow’s dinners look like, and how will you adjust? Our special feature sheds light on a world of algae, cowless beef, insect lollies and even an mouthwatering recipe for jellyfish salad...Read more of our future of food special:

Bild reporter Paul Ronzheimer travelled across Europe live-streaming interviews: ‘For the refugee story, the personalisation is very important’The negative side of coverage of the Syrian crisis has been dehumanising references to “swarms” of refugees, and an emphasis on numbers rather than people.However, one journalist for German newspaper Bild has found a way to use his smartphone to help those people tell their stories direct to readers. Or rather viewers. Continue reading...

As the world population grows and food security is threatened, the pressing challenge for agriculture is to produce more food, more efficiently and more sustainably. Here are a couple of the latest innovations.Read more of our future of food special:

The way we access food is changing, whether it’s your favourite recipe streamed online or home delivery from a Michelin-starred eatery.Read more of our future of food special:

It isn’t just food itself that’s changing; the world of food consumption is developing some radical methods of delivering it into our bodies. This section of our special feature looks at a few of these eating innovations.Read more of our future of food special:

The latest walking simulator lacks gameplay, Resident Evil’s Vita incarnation skimps on graphics and Beatbuddy makes beautiful music with the WiiUGames in the “walking simulator” genre – with an emphasis on exploration and light puzzle-solving – are somewhat divisive. Ever since they emerged in the past few years, there have been some that suggest that they shouldn’t be considered games at all. Sci-fi mystery Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, for good or ill, adds considerable weight to this argument. Continue reading...

You’ll need a thick skin, a strong left leg and very deep pockets to enjoy Porsche’s revered sports carPrice: £99,602

Four days of talks wrap up to help prepare for president Xi Jinping’s visit later this month including a ‘frank and open exchange’ about thorny cyber issuesSenior US and Chinese officials have met to discuss cybersecurity and other issues ahead of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this month.

British composer Hélène Muddiman’s plan would charge online audiences every time they view an artist’s materialCopyright infringement has long been seen as part of the merry free-for-all of communication in the digital age. But an ambitious project launched this weekend by a successful British film and television composer is reinventing the way artists and writers can publish their work online.Theft is theft. There is no difference between stealing digital content and stealing from a shop - though it's easier Continue reading...

Unheralded first Venezuelan film to be selected for Venice competition takes top prize, with Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa taking second spotThe first ever Venezuelan film to be selected for competition at the Venice film festival has carried off the top prize. Desde Allá (From Afar), directed by Lorenzo Vigas, was given the Golden Lion by a heavyweight festival jury headed by Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron, and including directors Lynne Ramsay, Pawel Pawlikowski, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.Vigas’ film was an unexpected winner, even if it carried the marque of influential Mexican scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, Babel) among its credits. Starring Alfredo Castro, it is about a 50 year old man who pays young men for company but no physical intimacy, and is Vigas’ directorial debut. Continue reading...

Head of policy for GoogleX hints it could possibly move towards mass manufacturing of fully autonomous prototypes, ahead of road tests in AustinAs a handful of Google’s self-driving cars venture outside California for the first time, arriving on the streets of Austin, Texas, this week, the company has revealed its plans to build many more fully autonomous prototypes, and possibly move towards mass manufacturing.When Google introduced the low-speed, two-seater electric cars last year, it said it was going to build just 100 vehicles by the end of 2015. But speaking at the California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday, Sarah Hunter, head of policy for GoogleX, said: “We’re … making a few hundred of them. We’re making them to enable our team to learn how to actually build a self-driving vehicle from the ground up.” Continue reading...

Social media company increases office space again with change to controversial London developmentStaff at social media firm Facebook will have to update their status to “moving” after it agreed to take offices on a former Royal Mail site near Tottenham Court Road in central London.The company has agreed to take on all of the 227,324 sq ft of office space at One Rathbone Square, a new development by Great Portland Estates (GPE) on a site sold by Royal Mail in 2011. The sale had been criticised because the price paid for the prime 2.3-acre site was £120m and the project has been forecast to generate a profit of almost £100m. Continue reading...

In our podcast dedicated to internet memes and all things digitally viral this week we tackle Metal Gear Solid V where sheep theft is rife and memes become meta-memesThe game of the summer is out, but if you're like Alex Hern and Elena Cresci, you've only interacted with Metal Gear Solid V through vines of sheep being floated into the sky. Welcome to our guide to the wonderful and bizarre world of viral content on the web. Continue reading...

Dating app adds a third swiping option – the super like – but will users want to know just how eager a suitor is?In the dating sphere, “treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen” used to be the adage. That, and the “three-day rule” – the length of time it was deemed necessary to wait before contacting someone after the first date.Tinder, however, has distanced itself from received courting wisdom with the latest addition to its dating app – the “super like” feature, which allows users to declare an interest more eager than a mere swipe right. Continue reading...

The Japanese anime series is still serious business among players at this year’s world championships in BostonTo many, Pokémon was a craze that peaked at the turn of the millennium. Yet to thousands of dedicated players, both the video games and the trading card game (TCG) are still cause for celebration, and not just among kids. It turns out the grownups are more involved than ever as they, alongside the younger gamers, take part in what might be described as Pokémon’s world cup – and British competitors of all ages are there in force.Just as characters in the games (and animated series, and movies, and more – Pokémon remains a thriving media empire) employ virtual beasts to do battle, so too do the competitors who fight for a place at the annual Pokémon world championships. Continue reading...

Apple’s new mobile operating system iOS 9.1, released this month, will include new emoji including a burrito, table tennis and a swearing fingerEver wanted to send a burrito emoji? Of course, you have. We live in a world of Netflix and chill. Well now – you know where this is going, right? – users will soon be able to send burrito emoji and communicate via a unicorn or a flipped middle finger. Or they will when Apple’s update to its mobile operating system, iOS 9.1, arrives later this autumn.A whole new batch of emoji was approved by the Unicode Consortium, the industry body which sets the standard cross-platform options, in June 2015 and 2014. But many of the newer designs have yet to be implemented, aside from emoji people of colour, fixing the, quite frankly, appalling fact that initially only white people were represented in human emoji. Continue reading...

Skydiver Chris Walker completes a Rubik’s cube during a freefall sky-dive before opening his parachute. Walker takes 51 seconds to finish the Rubik’s cube – not a record-breaking speed, but fast enough to open his parachute in good time Continue reading...

Despite two appeals from the taxi firm, the ruling was upheldUber’s US operation has suffered another legal defeat in its efforts to class its drivers as independent contractors, after a California labour board ruled that a former driver was an employee and so eligible for unemployment benefits.The ruling is particularly significant as it was upheld twice on appeal, once to an administrative law judge and once to the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. But as the ruling comes from an administrative board, not a full court, Uber says it “does not have any wider impact or set any formal or binding precedent”, meaning future cases are free to decide differently. Continue reading...

Constitutional challenge possible over control order, which also controls the 20-year-old’s movements, associations and use of media such as FaceTimeA constitutional challenge could be launched over a control order sought by the Australian federal police, which restricts the movements and associations of a 20-year-old man and what mosques he can attend, a federal court judge has heard.The order also prohibits the man talking to a 12-year-old boy and other teenagers, and places significant restrictions on his use of electronic communication.

Hello Cortana? Give me 21 features and tools to master Windows 10 Continue reading...

The star of the Great British Bake Off gives her verdict on four of the latestMy favourite-ever kitchen gadget is a £1.50 small aluminium fish scaler in the shape of a turbot which I have never actually used to scale a fish but have cherished as a much loved back-scratcher.I’ve never been much good at finding the right tools for the job. I’ve had other more productive forays into the world of kitchen gadgetry since, but good products are hard to find. Most gizmos were one-trick ponies, used once and then dutifully retired to kitchen graveyard at the back of the under-sink cupboard with the bundt tin and the juicer. Others, like the Egg Master and my hog-shaped jelly mould, are delightful grotesques designed to be gleefully revered and never, ever sullied by actual use. Continue reading...

Pao said she cannot afford to continue fight against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the venture capital firm that she alleged had discriminated against herThe woman who lost her high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit against a Silicon Valley venture capital firm says she is dropping her appeal.Ellen Pao said in a statement released on Thursday that she cannot afford the risk of incurring additional costs to fight Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. She said she had not reached any settlement with the firm and will pay some of its legal fees. Continue reading...

Franklin Sinclair says Charlotte Proudman has ‘blacklisted’ herself by shaming senior lawyer over his LinkedIn message on her personal appearanceA partner at one of the UK’s largest criminal law firms has stood by tweets saying he would not give work to a lawyer at the centre of a sexism row over a LinkedIn message sent to her by a solicitor 30 years her senior.Human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman said she had been told she faced “career suicide” but did not regret her decision to make public a message from Alexander Carter-Silk that commented on her “stunning” photo. She took a screenshot of the message and posted it on Twitter, along with her terse reply, and the tweet went viral. Continue reading...

Choosing to ‘fix’ a model’s smile undermined Apple’s progress on gender representation and showed that the tech industry still has a very long way to goAfter years of Apple events starring the same four-person executive team, of Craig Federighi, Eddy Cue, Phil Schiller and Tim Cook, the absence of any female representation on stage had started to be a running joke – albeit not a funny one.Even after the hiring of Burberry’s Angela Ahrendts to head up the company’s retail operation in 2014, the biggest company in the world still managed to run overwhelmingly male-dominated keynotes. At the company’s WWDC event in June 2014, and at the launch of the iPhones 6 and Apple Watch, no women were on stage at all. Continue reading...

The Finnish casual gaming giant is tackling the match-three genre with its latest title, but you won’t be catapulting anything at naughty piggiesSmartphone gaming is a tough business – even for the companies at the very top. Candy Crush Saga developer King has struggled to develop new games beyond its hit “match-three” puzzler, while Rovio announced more than 200 lay-offs in August as part of an attempt to restructure and refocus its increasingly bloated business. The app stores are dominated by a handful of longstanding titles, and that makes developing, marketing and launching new IPs even more expensive and risky, especially as it can take several months to start seeing significant returns.

We may not have jetpacks and flying cars, but artificial intelligence is taking ever greater stridesThis week on the podcast we look one day into the future at some of the biggest technological designs of the next few years set to beam out of this year's D'Construct Conference, part of the Brighton Digital festival.Joining Alex Hern on the panel is time traveller Ingrid Burrington who argues that the time machines of today don't look like Deloreans, they look like NTP servers, real-time data streams and predictive models, Nick Foster an industrial designer working on future projects for google and Carla Diana who thinks that the robot takeover will start in our kitchens.

Blockbuster releases are homogenising around a narrow range of experiences and it could be driving creative people out of the industryThere’s been a lot of chat lately about why people might stop playing games – in particular why little girls who grew up with consoles don’t seem to stick with the hobby as they get older. I’ve experienced this firsthand; girls I knew at school who were gamers before I even got my first console just seemed to stop once the industry switched from the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo to the PlayStation era. It baffled me, especially as games were making the big leap from 2D to 3D at the time – how could you not be excited?

ISP has apologised to customers for the outage, which can temporarily be fixed by switching to Google Public DNSPlusnet users have been experiencing intermittent service outages due to a DNS malfunction at the internet service provider’s HQ, leaving them unable to access websites from their broadband connection.We’re really sorry about the current problems, we’re working as quickly as possible to resolve this and we will keep you updated. Continue reading...

Lockpickers took advantage of US Transportation Security Administration breach in which photos of its ‘approved’ locks were posted onlineAnyone with a 3D printer can now unlock every single TSA-approved padlock, thanks to a security lapse by the American government agency.The Transportation Security Administration, created following the 9/11 attacks to ensure the safety of travellers into and around the US, requires any lock on bags to be branded as “travel sentry approved”, to enable them to carry out searches without having to break the lock or bag. Continue reading...

Kabam swaps hobbits for Wookiees in title that sets scene for upcoming film – and shows growing cultural clout of mobile gamingTeaser trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens have left fans speculating on events within the sci-fi universe since Return of the Jedi, based on less than four minutes of heavily edited footage.Now they’ll be able to spend a few hours exploring the period in a mobile game, Star Wars: Uprising, released for Android and for iOS by publisher Kabam, a company with form when it comes to mobile games – and colon-infused titles – based on popular movie franchises. Continue reading...

Nintendo’s mobile strategy ramps up as it partners with former Googlers Niantic on freemium game for iOS and Android in 2016Nintendo is working with a team of former Google developers on a new location-based Pokémon game for smartphones.The game will involve going to real world locations while playing on your phone in order to catch Pokémon monsters. Continue reading...