Technology | The Guardian

Computer engineer who turned around Intel when he became chief executiveAndy Grove, who has died aged 79, drove Intel to dominate the global market for the microprocessors used in modern computers. Along the way he transformed himself from a techno-geek into a management guru before becoming – after Time magazine made him its Man of the Year in 1997 – a figurehead and mentor for the rest of Silicon Valley. Time called him the “person most responsible for the amazing growth in the power and innovative potential of microchips”.Grove was Intel’s first employee when the company was founded in 1968, and was responsible for getting the firm out of the memory chip business – where it was being beaten by the Japanese – and into microprocessors. But when he eventually became chief executive in 1987, Intel’s annual sales had fallen for four straight years to $1.3bn, it was closing factories, laying off thousands of staff, and running at a loss – “heading for bankruptcy” in the words of Richard Tedlow, Grove’s biographer. Continue reading...

As The Range, NYC beatsmith James Hinton has used YouTube performers with little to no views to voice his new album. He explains why the unknowns are the ones to watchIn the ocean depths of YouTube, far away from the Gangnam Styles and Troye Sivans, there is a lesser-spotted category of video, one whose views rarely reach double digits. The site boasts vast numbers of amateur musicians, uploading raw footage of singing or rapping, more in a surge of emotion rather than any desire to be unearthed by Scooter Braun. These are people who have “laid plain, expressing something human and unique that you wouldn’t get elsewhere,” says NYC electronic musician James Hinton, AKA the Range.Related: Why are YouTube stars so popular? Continue reading...

Millions of children want to be the next Stampy or Diamond Minecart. How to do it is easy enough, but how to do it safely and appropriately is the bigger questionDon’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs Worthington. But in 2016, what if the stage is YouTube, and your daughter (or son) is demanding to be put on it, playing Minecraft?That’s the dilemma facing a growing number of parents, whose children aren’t just watching YouTube Minecraft channels like The Diamond Minecart, Stampy and CaptainSparklez – they want to follow in their blocky footsteps. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterFriday! Continue reading...

Industry body BPI has reported more than 200m infringing links to search engine, but says tech firm needs to do more to support rights holdersDays after US music industry body the RIAA criticised YouTube over its music royalties, British equivalent the BPI has fired its latest shots at parent company Google over piracy.The BPI is returning to a familiar line of attack, claiming that Google is not doing enough to remove links to piracy sites from its search engine. Continue reading...

‘Millennial’ chatbot was shut down just 16 hours after she was turned on due to her becoming a genocide-supporting racistMicrosoft is battling to control the public relations damage done by its “millennial” chatbot, which turned into a genocide-supporting Nazi less than 24 hours after it was let loose on the internet.The chatbot, named “Tay” (and, as is often the case, gendered female), was designed to have conversations with Twitter users, and learn how to mimic a human by copying their speech patterns. It was supposed to mimic people aged 18–24 but a brush with the dark side of the net, led by emigrants from the notorious 4chan forum, instead taught her to tweet phrases such as “I fucking hate feminists and they should all die and burn in hell” and “HITLER DID NOTHING WRONG”. Continue reading...

Bernard Hogan-Howe accused of victim blaming after saying cybercrime is made worse by people with poor web securityBritain’s most senior police officer has been accused of attempting to shift blame on to victims of online fraud after he suggested consumers should not be refunded by banks if they fail to protect themselves from cybercrime.

The UK government appears to have altered an official document that linked the vacuum-maker to the development of an electric carThe government appears to have deleted a reference in an official document to plans by the vacuum-maker Dyson to develop an electric car.The Guardian reported on Wednesday that government documents had revealed the British company was working on a battery electric vehicle with help from taxpayers’ money. The government’s National infrastructure delivery plan said the project was expected to create more than 500 jobs and generate £182m of investment. Continue reading...

Patrick doesn’t want to pay BT £5 a month to continue his email service, and would like a free alternativeI have used BT Openworld as my email provider for more than 10 years, and until now I have been paying £1.60 a month as I no longer have a BT landline. However, BT says the fee is soon to increase to £5 a month! Please can you suggest a reliable free alternative email provider? I have tried to set up a Yahoo account, but whenever I try to log in to Yahoo the screen reverts to BT Openworld. PatrickThink of your Yahoo problem as a blessed escape. There are a couple of dozen free or freemium email services, but for most people, it boils down to Google’s Gmail or Microsoft’s Outlook.com. I recommend both, with Gmail as the primary address. Not everybody has the same requirements, but these meet most needs. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matter‘Tis Thursday. Let chat commence. Continue reading...

The company last year refused to confirm they were working on a green vehicle, but a government plan on infrastructure suggests they areDyson is developing an electric car at its headquarters in Wiltshire with help from public money, according to government documents.The company, which makes a range of products that utilise the sort of highly efficient motors needed for an electric car such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers and bladeless fans, last year refused to rule out rumours it was building one. Continue reading...

Industry body RIAA takes aim at ‘some technology giants’ but Google claims ‘apples to oranges’ comparisons sell its contribution shortYouTube is at loggerheads with music labels – again – after US industry body the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) criticised Google’s video service for the low royalties it pays out to music rightsholders.In its annual report on the US recorded-music market, the RIAA called out the “meagre” royalties paid out by YouTube and other free streaming services. Continue reading...

Driver manages to escape group of men who approached car in dark alley on outskirts of Nairobi

Winning concept has cantilever on Cornish mainland and another on the island fortress, the two stretching out but not quite meetingIt may not be ideal for sufferers of vertigo but it does sound spectacular. A competition to build a new footbridge at Tintagel Castle has been won by a design featuring a gap in the middle.The daring concept proposes one cantilever on the Cornish mainland and another on the island fortress, where, legend has it, King Arthur was conceived. The two structures stretch out to each other across the void but do not quite meet. Continue reading...

The multimillion-selling Lego series returns to its roots with a new Star Wars adventure, bringing the latest movie to life – and adding some new gameplay featuresThis feature contains plot details from the movie Star Wars: The Force AwakensThere was no disturbance in the force, no voices crying out in surprise. Eleven years after the original Lego Star Wars game introduced the winning formula behind this phenomenally successful series of co-op puzzle platformers, no one was shocked when Warner Bros announced Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It was as inevitable as another Death Star. Continue reading...

Lumosity, Peak, Elevate, Fit Brains Trainer and Cognito are trying to help Android and iOS users keep their grey cells supple with daily workoutsIf anyone tries to tell you that daily brain training is a digital thing, hit them (gently) with a rolled-up newspaper that then opens to the crosswords page.That said, ever since the fictitious Dr Kawashima got people exercising their grey cells with a Nintendo DS, the brain-training genre has been popular on handheld devices. Smartphones and tablets are no exception. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt is Wednesday. Continue reading...

Investors are pouring money into apps that allow women to track their fertility. Can tech companies use data to change the world of women’s reproductive health?Will Sacks did not plan to go into the menstruation business. When he travelled from Toronto to Reno to attend his first Burning Man festival in August 2009, he only knew that he needed a change. At the age of 29, he was having a personal crisis. “I had forgotten that I wanted to be an entrepreneur,” he told me earlier this year. “I had forgotten that I wanted to create a company that could put a dent in the universe.” He quit his job as an energy efficiency consultant, shut down the small online business he had been running on the side, and booked a plane ticket to the desert.Before beginning the drive to Burning Man from Reno airport, Sacks posted a message on Craigslist offering a ride in his rental car to anyone who needed one. A young woman named Kati Bicknell answered. Petite and pale, with thick brown hair, Bicknell looks like she stepped out of a pre‑Raphaelite painting. She exudes an intense, slightly mischievous, energy. Sacks comes across as calmer. He locks eyes when he talks to you, pausing every few sentences to check in: are you still with him? Does his optimism sound naive? Continue reading...

Revealed: After postponing a court hearing with Apple, the FBI is testing a new technique which Apple says they will pressure government to revealA new method to crack open locked iPhones is so promising that US government officials have classified it, the Guardian has learned.The Justice Department made headlines on Monday when it postponed a federal court hearing in California. It had been due to confront Apple over an order that would have forced it to write software that would make it easier for investigators to guess the passcode for an iPhone used by San Bernardino gunman Syed Farook. Continue reading...

Nearly a quarter of UK households now subscribe to Netflix, with more than 1.4m joining in 2015Nearly a quarter of UK households subscribe to Netflix, with 1.4 million joining the streaming service in 2015 alone to watch popular series such as House of Cards, a report has said.More than 5 million households, or 24% of the total, subscribed to Netflix at the end of 2015, compared with 14% in 2014.

Bieber’s Vevo channel generated more than 722m video views in February alone, and he now has more than 20m YouTube subscribersThe biggest YouTube channels are getting bigger, with Justin Bieber currently the biggest beneficiary of the Google-owned service’s growth.Bieber had the most popular YouTube channel in February, with his videos watched 721.6m times that month. Bieber now has more than 20 million subscribers to his channel, and is about to reach 10bn lifetime views. Continue reading...

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

Gridlock comes to Indonesian capital with traditional taxi operators claiming ride-hailing apps are leading to income reduction of up to 60%Thousands of taxi drivers have caused traffic chaos in the Indonesian capital in a rowdy protest against competition from ride-hailing apps such as Uber and Grab.TV footage on Tuesday showed long lines of taxis blocking a central expressway, men setting tires alight and jumping on vehicles that refused to join in the protest. An Associated Press reporter witnessed drivers surrounding one taxi, forcing its terrified female passenger out on to the road with her luggage. Continue reading...

Grove’s gamble on microprocessors set the chip maker on course to becoming one of the most profitable and important technology companies of all timeAndy Grove, the former Intel chief executive whose youth under Nazi occupation and escape from the Iron Curtain inspired an “only the paranoid survive” management philosophy that saved the chip maker from financial ruin in the 1980s, has died. He was 79.Intel said Grove died on Monday. It did not specify a cause of death. Continue reading...

Apple chief executive Tim Cook says his company will not ‘shrink’ from the responsibility of protecting customers’ data as the legal battle with the FBI takes a new turn. Cook was speaking at an Apple launch event in Cupertino, California, on Monday. Federal authorities have asked a court to delay a hearing designed to force Apple to compromise its iPhone security systems, saying they may have found another way to unlock the phone

Workers at warehouse in Koblenz, Germany, stage latest walkout as retailer continues its refusal to recognise country’s collective pay deals for the sectorWorkers at an Amazon warehouse in Germany, the company’s second-biggest market behind the US, are starting a new round of strikes in an attempt to pressure the online retailer to increase pay.Related: How do I … avoid using Amazon? Continue reading...

Apple’s latest version of its iPhone and iPad software includes mode for blocking blue light at night and enhancements to the use of iPads in education

Revamped iPhone 5S brings company’s smallest phone up to par with 2015’s iPhone 6S, while catering for those who want a smaller phone

The divorce is amicable and the pair agreed Riley would file the petition to end their latest marriage after roughly two yearsBillionaire Elon Musk and actor Talulah Riley are making another attempt to end their second marriage.Riley filed to divorce Musk on Monday in Los Angeles superior court. Musk filed for divorce on New Year’s Eve in 2014 but withdrew the petition seven months later. Continue reading...

Apple chief executive Tim Cooke and vice-president Greg Joswiak unveiled the new iPhone SE on Monday. It will be the smallest smartphone in Apple’s current lineup and the first smartphone with a screen smaller than 4.7in since the iPhone 6 was released in September 2014 Continue reading...

At an event at its Cupertino headquarters, Apple announced the smaller iPhone SE, the new 9.7in iPad Pro and iOS 9.3

New smaller ‘professional’ tablet brings stylus and Smart Connector features to a more manageable size 9.7in screen

Increases that will come into effect from 1 June will see most customers paying between £1 and £4.25 more a monthSky is putting up the prices of its TV packages by an average of between £2 and £3 a month from 1 June.The TV giant has revealed new prices for both upgrades and its TV deals, with increases ranging between £1 and £4.25 per month. Continue reading...

The flaw, which will be fixed by iOS 9.3, allows the encryption key used by the messaging service to be guessed by a determined attackerResearchers at Johns Hopkins University have cracked the encryption on Apple’s iMessage service, proving that a skilled attacker is capable of reading messages sent between iPads, iPhones and Macs despite the security measures protecting the devices.The attack relies on a flaw in iMessage which will be fixed in iOS 9.3, released today. But until the software update is released, and the companion update for Mac OS, users’ messages are vulnerable to eavesdropping from a determined attacker. Continue reading...

Game developers say Sony is readying a new version of PlayStation 4 with 4K compatibility and more processing power. If it’s true, is it a good idea?On Friday afternoon, video game news site Kotaku dropped a fascinating story. Sony is rumoured to be working on an upgraded version of PlayStation 4 complete with support for the emerging 4K resolution, and more processing power to cope with the demands of virtual reality.Kotaku cited unnamed developers as the source of its report, and claims to have overheard discussions between programmers about the new “PlayStation 4.5” during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week (where the hardware was allegedly being revealed in closed demos to key studios). It’s not clear whether the new format is an upgrade that attaches to the existing PS4 or a completely new replacement, but Sony has, of course, said that it won’t comment on rumours and speculation. Continue reading...

It’s Twitter’s 10th birthday, so here are some of the ways it has changed our lives – for better and worseTen years ago today, the co-founder and CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey sent a message which kickstarted Twitter:just setting up my twttr Continue reading...

Writer and broadcaster, who recently repeated criticism of BBC local radio strategy, is looking for partnersWriter and broadcaster Danny Baker is looking to crowdfund the launch of his own radio station.

The child of a Black Panther, Malkia Cyril grew up under the threat of surveillance and says encryption is critical for human rightsWhen the FBI branded Martin Luther King Jr a “dangerous” threat to national security and began tapping his phones, it was part of a long history of spying on black activists in the United States. But the government surveillance of black bodies has never been limited to activists – in fact, according to the FBI; you only had to be black.

Older Kindles need a software update before Tuesday or they will lose connectivityIf you have a Kindle made before 2012, now is the time to dig it out of wherever it’s stashed: if the software isn’t updated before Tuesday 22 March, you’ll be unable to take it online.That means no syncing read states, no accessing the Kindle store and no buying new books – unless you remember to install the latest update. Kindles download and install updates automatically if they’re connected to Wi-Fi, but if yours is lying unplugged somewhere, it has likely disconnected. Continue reading...

An open letter to Twitter on its 10th anniversary – a decade of being captivated, horrified and entertained in 140 charactersDear Twitter,I have to admit that it was not love at first sight when we first met a decade ago. Frankly, I couldn’t figure out what you were about. You were like some nerd hippie who only spoke in Zen koans. Intriguing? Sure, for maybe 15 minutes. I didn’t stick around.

New York is convincingly terrorised in a biological attack, Pokémon meets Tekken in the arena, and it’s not all swords and samurais in feudal Japan Continue reading...

Safety and shipping review identifies developments that will be causing sector headaches for years to comePiracy, cybercrime and the potential salvage challenges posed by “mega ships” are listed among risks facing the shipping industry in an Allianz report on safety in the sector.The 2016 Safety and Shipping review points to the potential risk of pirates using cybercrime to target vessels and warns that the industry needs to protect itself against this threat.

A woman thinks her partner’s online activities are preventing him from being intimate in real life. Mariella Frostrup says he needs to realise sex isn’t a spectator sportThe dilemma My boyfriend has something of a sex addiction. He follows porn accounts on Instagram and Twitter; he has it on his phone and searches for it on nights I’m not about. It’s never bothered me, because I also have an interest in it, but not to that extent.A while ago he started texting another girl inappropriately. When I caught him, he said he didn’t mean anything by it, that it was just words. Afterwards we weren’t as intimate, but his addiction calmed dramatically. Continue reading...

The DS 4, a new premium crossover, is not only over-priced and under-designed, it’s unworthy of its heritagePrice: £23,495

Do the puzzles, say the purveyors of pricey brain training apps, and you’ll boost memory and concentration. Researchers have put their claims to the testEverything you do changes your brain. Even reading this article. Right now, wherever you are, looking at these words is shaping and modifying the connections between neurons inside your head. It seems like a scary thought, but this process – known as neuroplasticity – is fundamental to our ability to learn new skills, keep hold of old ones, and form new memories.Imagine, then, if we could take control of that process. If we could target specific types of skills and cognitive processes, then we could teach our brains to be better at, well, anything. Continue reading...

Many VR side-effects are believed to be temporary and leave no lasting damage, but there have been few long-term studies into use of the technologyVirtual reality might be marching into the mainstream, but questions remain about its long-term effects, scientists say.

I need email, internet and a few useful apps – which phone should I buy?Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper.This week’s question: Continue reading...

Sony, Oculus and HTC should all settle in for the long haul – having the first launch or selling cheapest at Christmas won’t be enough to win the warSometimes it seems like thebattle to be the must-have Christmas gift starts earlier every year. On Tuesday, 2016’s battle began in earnest, with the announcement of Sony’s virtual reality headset, the PlayStation VR.The headset, which will cost £350 on its launch in October, is the third such device to be revealed in last few months. It will launch to stiff competition from Facebook-owned VR firm Oculus and Taiwanese hardware firm HTC, each of which are bringing their own versions to the market in the coming weeks. Continue reading...