Technology | The Guardian

New tablet – to be launched with Apple Pencil stylus – revealed alongside two new iPhones and a revamped Apple TV

Taxi drivers rallying on the steps of the Victorian parliament on Thursday say there are many reasons why the ride-sharing app Uber is illegal and a safety risks for passengers. They cite the lack of security cameras in cars and general lack of regulation as key concerns, as well as a potential loss of tax revenue to the app’s US-based owners Continue reading...

Microsoft counsel addresses question of US search warrant for Hotmail emails stored in Ireland: ‘We would go crazy if China did this to us’The United States government has the right to demand the emails of anyone in the world from any email provider headquartered within US borders, Department of Justice (DoJ) lawyers told a federal appeals court on Wednesday.The case being heard in the second circuit court of appeals is between the US and Microsoft and concerns a search warrant that the government argues should compel Microsoft to retrieve emails held on a Hotmail server in Ireland. Continue reading...

The Apple CEO called the announcement of the iPad Pro – a larger tablet device with a 12.9-inch screen that is aimed at the enterprise market – ‘the biggest news in iPad since the iPad’. The Pro version will have a 2732x2048-pixel screen and is 6.9mm thick and weighs 1.57lb Continue reading...

Next generation smartphone launched in San Francisco features a pressure-sensitive screen, 12-megapixel camera and stronger screen and bodyApple has unveiled the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, the next generation of its smartphones, with faster processors, longer battery life, improved cameras and new “3D Touch” gestures.

Company hopes larger iPad will appeal to businesses and professionals to revive flagging tablet sales, but runs risk of cannibalising laptop marketApple has announced a new iPad Pro with a larger 12.9in screen and a focus on productivity.

Hacked extramarital dating service ran fake accounts but protected itself legally by admitting to it in the terms of serviceThe terms of service of hacked extramarital dating service Ashley Madison allow the company to run fake accounts, protecting it from at least some user lawsuits in the wake of its massive data breach in August.The company had previously denied allegations of a “fembot army”, but according to information in the data dump, it actually ran tens of thousands of fake female accounts to send millions of messages to users. Continue reading...

Apple has launched a larger iPad, the iPad Pro, which can be used with a smart keyboard and Apple Pencil, and details of the new iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s PlusApple has held a launch event in San Francisco to unveil new products including the iPad Pro, which can be used with the new Apple Pencil, as well as revamped Apple TV and its latest smartphones, the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Here’s what they launched and what you need to know. Continue reading...

New iPads, new iPhones and a new Apple TV – but most of you don’t care about the latterThere will be a new iPhone, an iPad Pro and a new Apple TV announced on stage in San Francisco on Wednesday – at least if the combined wisdom of 5,000 Guardian readers is to be believed.We asked you to tell us what you expected from the world’s biggest company, and the answers were surprising. Continue reading...

Film director takes to Facebook to apologise for his own ‘death’ after website publishes premature obituaryReports of Terry Gilliam’s death may have been greatly exaggerated, but that hasn’t stopped the film director and Monty Python troupe member from taking great pleasure in confirming them. After Hollywood film industry bible Variety mistakenly announced that Gilliam had passed away, sparking a torrent of mirth at its faux pas, the UK-based film-maker has taken to Facebook to “apologise for being dead”.Terry Gilliam dead? Did somebody press the publish button on the wrong post? pic.twitter.com/LyiB3Z64pR Continue reading...

Readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsAs a Guardian-reading leftie, is it morally wrong for me to play computer games such as Grand Theft Auto?Angus Davies, Bruton, Somerset Continue reading...

British fans will get to see JJ Abrams’ ultra-hyped reboot on 17 December, a day ahead of those in North America but behind FranceEuropean fans of Star Wars will get to see new instalment The Force Awakens before their counterparts in North America, it has been announced.JJ Abrams’ film will open a day earlier than expected in the UK, on Thursday 17 December, while the French will get to see the movie a further 24 hours ahead of that, on Wednesday 16 December. The new dates were announced on the official UK and France Star Wars Facebook pages. The US and Canadian release date remains 18 December. Continue reading...

We asked if you could design a better logo after Google unveiled their new sans-serif one. You did not disappoint. Here is a selection of our favourites

A verdict against the company could be troubling, legal experts warn, as governments consider whether they can require tech firms to reveal private dataThe US government takes on Microsoft in a Manhattan court on Wednesday morning – and if the verdict goes badly for the software giant, the decision could set a dangerous legal precedent across the world, experts warn.The long-running case concerns a single Hotmail email account, stored on a Microsoft server in Ireland and of interest to the Department of Justice (DoJ), which tried to force Microsoft to recover the emails from its foreign facilities without working with the Irish police. Continue reading...

Software mogul says he plans to set up his own party after receiving ‘thousands’ of emails from advisors asking him to runDonald Trump may be making the early waves in the US 2016 presidential election race, but he is set to be joined by an equally eccentric figure: technology veteran John McAfee.The founder of antivirus software firm McAfee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to enter the race, and launched an official McAfee 2016 website, with plans to launch his own party to support the bid. Continue reading...

Minecraft: Pocket Edition 0.12 adds hunger, weather, gunpowder and the Nether zoneThe smartphone and tablet edition of Minecraft is now much closer to its desktop and console versions, after developer Mojang launched one of the biggest updates in its history.The Minecraft: Pocket Edition 0.12 update adds some prominent features that had previously been missing from the mobile version including hunger; sneaking and sprinting; the game’s Nether zone; and tameable ocelots. Continue reading...

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

Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform rolls out ad service to 38 markets and adds new formats including landscape-shaped photo and videoInstagram is to hugely expand its advertising capability from eight to 38 markets, and has unveiled a new TV-style 30-second video ad format.The Facebook-owned photo-sharing service has unveiled a major expansion of its ad operation, to countries including Italy, Spain, Mexico, India and South Korea, with the global rollout complete by the end of this month. Continue reading...

The social network has developed a series of new features to improve communication, as it reveals 45m SMEs now have a Facebook pageFacebook has announced a series of updates to its pages to make it easier for firms and customers to interact, as it revealed there are now 45m active small business pages on the site.Benji Shomair, director of global partnerships at Facebook, says the new page features and tools are designed to help businesses communicate efficiently with potential customers and to encourage “tighter communication between consumers and businesses”.

Google is teaming up with Whole Foods to send fresh fruits and vegetables to customers in San Francisco and one other city (so far unnamed) later this yearFirst they came for your search, then they came for your phone, now they want your groceries. Google is getting into the fresh foods business. The company confirmed on Tuesday that Google Express, the company’s delivery service, will send fresh fruits and vegetables to customers in San Francisco and one other city (so far unnamed) later this year.The tech company also announced it will expand its next-day delivery service – which is already available in cities including Chicago, New York and San Francisco and works with partners like Barnes & Noble, Target and ToysRUs – to areas in the midwest. Continue reading...

South Korean company anticipates tough year for smartphone market, say reports from SeoulSamsung is to cut jobs and expenditure at its headquarters in anticipation of a slump in the smartphone market, according to a Korean financial newspaper.The company will make 10% of its support employees redundant and cut general expenditure by 50% in the next year, writes the Korea Economic Daily. Continue reading...

Apple’s event on Wednesday is expected to include new iPhones and a revamp of Apple TV. Complete our quick survey and we’ll post the results before the launchApple’s executive team will get up on stage in San Francisco on Wednesday and announce … something. The event, like all major Apple press conferences, has only been officially teased with an invitation bearing the phrase “Hey Siri”.But, also like all major Apple press conferences, the company’s been leakier than a colander carrying water, and so we all have a pretty good idea what’s about to happen. Continue reading...

Paul Mahoney from Londonderry, who had £82,000 in cash hidden in his home, receives four-year sentenceA man whose bedroom-run internet piracy scam put the film industry at risk of losing an estimated £120m has been handed a four-year sentence, half of which will be spent in prison.Paul Mahoney, 29, from Londonderry, made almost £300,000 through advertising revenue generated from his illegal websites offering access to the latest films and TV shows – many before general release. Continue reading...

FBI criticises firm for being unable to read iPhone users’ messages after Justice Department obtains iMessage rulingApple has rebuffed a court order to hand over in real time texts sent using iMessage between two iPhones because its encryption system leaves the company unable to comply.The order was obtained by the US Department of Justice during an investigation over the summer involving guns and drugs, according to a report in the New York Times, and represents the first known direct face-off between the government and Apple over encryption. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Tuesday! I’m giving a talk at the Pocket Gamer Connects conference in Helsinki in about half an hour. Continue reading...

Music streamers craving some shuteye are spoiled for choice, with 282 albums released in the last week alone – and Ed Sheeran a popular aid for snoozingPutting on music is often seen as an energising action to aid dancing, even jogging. But now one of the fastest-growing new album categories features music focused on the opposite goal: putting listeners to sleep.Spotify’s fastest-growing music category is the newly named “environmental/sleep/relaxative” – in the last week alone, 282 albums from the category were added to the music streaming service’s catalogue, many times more than other genres including hard rock, latin pop and dancehall. Continue reading...

Infinity’s Star Wars is a force to be reckoned with, while Super Mario Maker takes wannabe designers to a new levelThis year the Disney Infinity series of toys-to-life games has a trump card over the competition – Star Wars. The collectable figurines that unlock characters and adventures when placed on a console peripheral now have a galaxy of household names and craft available from the franchise. Continue reading...

Technology startup Wonder Workshop says its toys aim to fuel children’s imaginations as well as their technical skillsMy cat is pretty unflappable, given that she shares a house with four children. But when a three-wheeled robot trundles into the living room, even Lola can’t belt out of the cat-flap fast enough. Perhaps it’s the barking that spooked her.The robot is called Dash, and like its smaller, stationary friend Dot, it’s the work of technology startup Wonder Workshop. It’s excellent at yapping cats off the sofa, but its real goal is teaching children to code. Continue reading...

At Telluride premiere of movie about Apple co-founder, director cautions about underestimating extent of influence of tech pioneers, while Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen and scriptwriter Aaron Sorkin discuss stickiness of paring apart fact and fictionThe director Danny Boyle has called for more films to be made about the creators of influential new technology. Speaking at the Telluride film festival, where his Aaron Sorkin-scripted biopic of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is winning largely rave reviews, Boyle said that those in the movie industry had a responsibility to examine the import of people such as Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook creator who was the subject of Sorkin’s 2010 hit, The Social Network.

Jimmy Wales says system is secure after users posed as senior editors and demanded payment from businessesThe founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, has spoken out in defence of the online encyclopedia’s systems for detecting and dealing with abuse for the first time since an extortion scam was uncovered, which led to hundreds of Wikipedia editor accounts being blocked.Wales said the blocking of 381 Wikipedia editor accounts for “black hat” editing as part of an attempt to extort money from people and businesses was proof that the site’s systems for detecting and dealing with abuse were working. Continue reading...

Support groups want crime treated as sex offence which ban victims from being named, arguing it would encourage more people to report revenge pornRelated: Experience: I was the victim of revenge pornCampaign groups have called on the government to grant anonymity to revenge porn victims amid concern publicity surrounding convictions only causes more people to search for explicit images.

Hundreds of cases likely to be brought in wake of data breach, claims lawyerThe lawyer investigating claims on behalf of a number of patients whose identities were mistakenly revealed last week by an HIV clinic has said that it could face hundreds of legal claims.The 56 Dean Street clinic in London’s Soho sent a newsletter last Tuesday to around 780 patients who were copied into the “To” section of the email, rather than anonymously via the “bcc” address bar. This meant that, instead of hiding the personal details of those on its recipient list, it included their full names and email addresses. A spokesman for the clinic acknowledged that the mistake was caused by human error. The Information Commissioner’s Office is making inquiries. Continue reading...

Taxi drivers in the capital are using Uber’s own weapon, the smartphone app, in their latest attempt to fight back agains the US companyA bank of monitors in the reception area of the Victorian office block that is the headquarters for London’s black-taxi drivers shows rolling videos of cabs blocking streets in central London this year and last in protest at the rise of rival car service Uber.It seems a trifle negative for a body representing drivers who pride themselves on getting people around the capital quickly, comfortably and safely. Continue reading...

Brooklyn startup Modern Meadow says it is developing laboratory-grown meat but the process currently relies on the blood of unborn calvesMeat without murder, or “animal” flesh grown in a lab for human consumption, has been touted as an ethical gourmand’s dream for nearly a century, but is it a fantasy too good to be true?Not according to Modern Meadow, a Brooklyn biotech startup that is promising to bring so-called in vitro meat to a dinner table near you, although it is not without its critics. Continue reading...

‘Lighten up about the terrible visibility, and there is fun to be had in the upper gears’They call it “ink blue”; I call it indigo. The DS5 has sharp, aggressive styling at the front, and it has separated itself from its Citroën branding, so that its identity is conveyed by a funny, squiggly swoosh on the rear. My father-in-law looked askance at this, as if it were a recalcitrant adult child trying to divorce its parent. But I thought it looked chic and modern: goodbye, boring colours and marques; hello, the colour of midnight and the world of the post-marque.Then I got in. The cabin is fine: in the Prestige version, which I had, you can electrically control your driver’s seat, but you can’t electrically control the firmness of the ride, or the way the poky gear shifts bring out the racer in you. Nor would you want to: that’s the entire point of buying it, because, at £30,000, this is neither the thriftiest nor the most responsible car in its compact-exec class. The parking camera was one of the best on the market (sounds like a small thing, but often they’re set to be incredibly melodramatic, sounding the alarm when you’re metres away from anything, so that you finish every journey in a state of mild panic). Continue reading...

It’s had more than 16 million loops, but why is a vine sung to the tune of Next’s Too Close an internet hit? Because, ironically, it speaks the truthAlong with Blackstreet’s No Diggity and Boyz II Men’s End of the Road, it was one of the defining R&B jams of the 90s. Now, 18 years after its release, Next’s Too Close has provided the source material for one of the best vines on the internet.A good vine is funny. A great vine is hilarious, but also, crucially, exposes a fundamental truth of our times. This is what Nicholas Fraser has hit on in his immensely popular (16 million loops and counting) vine, which we’ll call Why You Always Lyin’. Continue reading...

Labour deputy leadership candidate reads out some of the offensive messages sent to her during her campaignLabour deputy leadership candidate Stella Creasy has responded to internet trolls by releasing a video in which she reads out some of the offensive messages she has been sent during the campaign.

New rules require federal law enforcement officials to get search warrant before using ‘Stingray’ tracking technology, tricking phones to believe it’s a cell tower

What happens when you post a video of screaming duck toys on the internet? For the first episode of Guardian Tech’s new podcast Updog we spoke to the creator of the viral duck army video and discovered a horrifying truthThe hottest thing on the internet this week, you’d have been hard pressed to have missed the video of a trolley-full of screeching duck toys.Short, but sweet, it went viral almost immediately sparking parodies and pastiches. So what’s the story behind it? Continue reading...

In our new podcast dedicated to the biggest viral video, meme or internet cultural quirk Alex and Elena talk to the man behind The Duck ArmyAll hail our duck overlords!The video is short and sweet, but that hasn't stopped it from taking over our timelines. We're talking about the Duck Army, of course. For the first episode of Updog, we've spoken to the man behind the meme. Continue reading...

Search engine’s ‘direct answers’ service pulls in information from antisemitic conspiracy theoriesWith its “direct answers” service, search engine Google aims to cut down on the amount of time users spend seeking information by algorithmically answering common queries.Unfortunately, sometimes it goes wrong: Continue reading...

Studios behind some of the biggest games in the world are set to create games for new compilation marking 20th anniversary of charity’s classic Help albumMajor video game developers around the world are set to collaborate on a compilation of new games for the charity, War Child.The teams behind blockbusting titles such as Halo 5, Alien: Isolation and the Football Manager series, will each be given six days to produce a game based around themes provided by the charity, which seeks to help children in conflict-affected countries, including Syria. The resulting compilation, titled HELP: Real War is Not a Game, will be available via digital download early in 2016. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Thursday. I don’t know what happened yesterday. Continue reading...

Sales of cordless vacuum cleaners and humidifiers drive sales at British group, which spends £3m on research and development each weekDyson, the privately owned British engineering group famous for its vacuum cleaners and bladeless fans, has announced record-breaking profits of £367m, up 13% on the year, despite spending £3m a week on research and development.Max Conze, the company’s German-born chief executive, said Dyson’s ownership structure had helped it keep its investment in new technology at high levels. “We’re playing a long game for the future. One needs to have some appetite for risk,” said Conze. Continue reading...

Programmatic ad buying predicted to account for more than half of the UK’s £3bn digital display market this year, according to researchAOL’s acquisition of mobile ad firm Millennial Media underlines the rapid rise of programmatic advertising, as new research shows that automated buying will grow massively this year and account for more than half of the UK’s £3bn digital display market.AOL, which was acquired by telecoms giant Verizon for $4.4bn in May, has paid $238m for the publicly listed Millennial Media. Continue reading...

A first look at the Harry Potter star playing one of the British video game designers behind the controversial GTA seriesIn this drama set in 2002, Daniel Radcliffe plays Sam Houser, “the British genius behind one of the most lucractive video games ever”. Houser is one of the co-founders of Rockstar Games, the company which launched the Grand Theft Auto series – AKA “the fastest-selling entertainment title in history”. He’s pitched against Bill Paxton as Christian lawyer Jack Thompson, who lead the campaign against the controversial game and its graphic depictions of violence and sex. Continue reading...

Censors kept busy as netizens put their own spin on extravagant show in Beijing marking end of second world warChina’s military parade commemorating the end of the second world war was, as expected, a highly choreographed piece of stagecraft, with cameras seemingly placed to capture every possible angle.But as is often the case in China’s somewhat freewheeling social media world, ordinary netizens were quick to put their own spin on the events.