Say goodbye to the humble razor – beauty products for men are now part of a global industry worth billionsI’m not sure my grooming regimen really counts as a regimen: it takes six minutes, and the hottest product I own is a Lynx Africa gift set left over from Christmas. I can’t say I’m very proud of myself. I’m aware this kind of blokish indolence is fast becoming passé. Male grooming is a multibillion pound worldwide industry, and once-frivolous creams and lotions have broken into the mainstream. Under pressure to get with the times, I tried out a handful of grooming gadgets in the hope that they would make me look more like British model David Gandy. Continue reading...

Apple pours resources into the iPhone camera because of what it might be used for in future – not for the photo enthusiasts of the pastAs some readers may remember, I’m a keen photographer. For many years, I’ve always carried a camera. In the early days of digital photography, that meant a succession of small point-and-shoot cameras – Canon Ixus and S models generally – concealed in a small leather pouch attached to my belt. And then there came a point when I stopped carrying these charming little devices. Why? Because I’d just bought my first iPhone. Since then, I still always carry a camera. Except that it’s not called a camera any more: it’s a smartphone.Living and working, as I do, in a historic city that is swamped by tourists in the summer, I regularly get the opportunity to do some photo-ethnography. You can tell someone’s age by the kind of camera they are using. Elderly folks are still using point-and-shoot compacts. Middle-aged folks are sporting “prosumer” digital single-lens reflex cameras (DSLRs) from Canon, Nikon, Fuji and Panasonic. But as far as I can see, everyone under the age of 25 is using a smartphone, possibly with the assistance of a selfie stick. Continue reading...

From exercise trackers to blood pressure monitors, we give the latest bits of biometric tech a close examinationYou can record your heart rate manually by holding your wrist and counting your pulse, but this hasn’t stopped technology companies producing devices to do the job with electronics. Most of these devices collect heart data all day long and record it on a smartphone app which builds up a richer set of data than you might get with a stopwatch and pencil. One of the most useful metrics they collect is your RHR (resting heart rate) a reading taken when you are relaxed, most typically first thing in the morning. In most cases a low RHR indicates a strong, healthy heart which has to beat fewer times to circulate blood around the body. However in older people a low RHR might indicate diseased heart muscle or overmedication. Some day-to-day variation in your RHR (or indeed in many of the metrics these devices measure) isn’t something to be worried about, explains Dr Satpal Arri of the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence, King’s College London, “A certain amount of variability is normal, healthy in fact – as you get older variability tends to decrease.” So by all means listen to your heart, but don’t become obsessed. Continue reading...

Comfort and a smooth ride courtesy of EpicCarbon-fibre frames are increasingly cheap. This is partly down to local dealers sourcing their own lines of bikes from the factory, as Ludlow bike shop Epic does with its Nero brand. It is also because development is so rapid that what was top of the tree two years ago is now mid-range, and so on down the line. Epic’s top-of-the-range Corsa Evo comes with custom componentry: ours had Shimano’s 600 groupset. The finish is suitably shiny with appetising details – notably a logo on the seat tube where the rider sitting on your wheel can spot it. Strengthened areas of carbon around the brackets make the frame stiffer without sacrificing comfort. The smooth ride is also thanks to the Ikon handbuilt carbon wheels. This good high-end bike does everything it should.Price: from £1,399 (as reviewed £2,699)

Tour de France journalists know all about long, hot days in the car. So the padded seats in Ford’s new range are a gift…Price: £29,395

Michael Birch, Bebo’s co-founder, has bought Woolsery’s pub and the chippie. And villagers are more than happyWoolsery in north Devon has all the features that might be expected of the present-day British village: towering hedgerows bordering winding lanes, tidy culs-de-sac bearing regimented rows of bungalows and, in the centre of the village, the medieval church, the empty listed building and the boarded-up pub.Sonia Hamilton, vice-chairwoman of the parish council, gestures at the listed building, known as the Manor House. “The state of that and the pub was depressing,” she says. Continue reading...

It also looks a delight and is clearly aimed at the fashionable retro marketIt was one of those days when we had jumped the gun putting Lycra on. We sat in the front room in our cycling shorts looking out at the rain, willing the other to suggest hibernation instead. Neither did, so when the deluge had dulled to a drizzle, out we went. There was a bicycle to be tested, after all.The Peak District lanes were wet, but it didn’t really matter to me. The Ribble had excellent mudguards; my bottom would stay dry. The same could not be said for my face. My cycling companion that day was not only a mudguard refusenik but also far faster than me, which meant an afternoon chasing him down, sucking his wheel and drinking puddle water until the sun came out. He is also a mountain biker, which meant a few ill-advised “shall we just see where this one goes?” diversions. One, past the Derbyshire village of Wash, involved pedalling up a gravelly stream and almost an early bath. Continue reading...

Former director of ‘privilege fund’, which Yiannopoulos set up for white men to balance scholarships for women and minorities, says money was mismanagedThe rightwing writer and internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos has apologised for mismanaging a “privilege grant” college scholarship fund for white men.Yiannopoulos admitted on Friday he had missed a deadline to turn donations into bursaries but denied speculation he had spent the cash. Continue reading...

Campaigners hope Deliveroo couriers’ victory over pay will rally more temporary, self-employed workers to organiseCampaigners against low pay are hoping that a victory for Deliveroo couriers this week will encourage further action by gig economy workers. One of the biggest barriers to a repeat, however, is the very nature of the work Britain’s part-time, self-employed army carries out.Workers at Deliveroo, the online food delivery firm, won a rare victory in seeing off an attempt to force them to sign up to new pay terms. Deliveroo’s change of heart followed several days of protests by its drivers. Continue reading...

In latest clean energy plan, Tesla purchases SolarCity to make solar ‘shingles’: ‘It’s not a thing on the roof. It is the roof,’ CEO saysA new venture spearheaded by Elon Musk will create house roofs made entirely of solar panels, in a sweeping expansion of Tesla’s clean energy ambitions.Tesla has finalized a $2.6bn deal to buy solar power company SolarCity to produce solar “shingles” – photovoltaic material that would be fashioned into the shape of a house roof. Continue reading...

On 1 July, 2016, the United Nations resolved that access to the internet is to be considered a human right. Our digital culture podcast, Chips with Everything, has produced an in-depth series on the topic. Listen to all four episodes hereEarlier last month the United Nations’ General Assembly sat down to discuss, among a multitude of other looming sociopolitical issues, whether or not access to the internet should be a basic human right. Stretching back to 2009, this debate has been taken to the floor five times to no avail, but this time round a resolution was adopted (.pdf), co-sponsored by 70-odd countries.Given the degree of influence a connection to the internet can have on a person’s life in the 21st century – from seeking government services to expressing an opinion on social media – the UN resolved that any human rights one has offline must be guaranteed online as well. Continue reading...

Independent review of draft terrorism laws says there is strong case for allowing police and spy agencies to gather private data

Critics of No Man’s Sky tend to see games as entertainment products, while fans of this eccentric space exploration sim view it as an experience

Rebranded Microsoft Rewards will now pay you to dump Google’s Chrome for its browser – but only if you make Bing your default search engineMicrosoft has a new browser. It launched with Windows 10 and it’s called Edge. The company says it’s faster, more battery efficient and all-round better than Chrome or Firefox. You can even draw on websites with a stylus. Trouble is, not very many people are using it. So now Microsoft’s trying to bribe you to switch.

Anthony Levandowski is one the most influential engineers behind self-driving vehicles. Now that Uber has bought his latest startup Otto, he talks about how it all startedSelf-driving vehicles have been developed in many places, over many years, but few people have as strong a claim as Anthony Levandowski to being considered their inventor. And it all started with a phone call from his mother.“My mom called me up and said, there’s this robot race it would be interesting for you to find out about,” he recalls. That race was the 2004 Grand Challenge, the first of three long distance contests for driverless cars organised by the Pentagon’s research arm, Darpa. “I was like wow, this is absolutely the future.” Continue reading...

Popular password meters don’t pick up on awful character sequences that are obvious to hackers, giving users a false sense of security and bad adviceThe meters that supposedly tell you when you’ve entered enough different characters to make a secure password when signing up for a new site are next to useless, according to a web security consultant.

With Uber set to deploy autonomous cars in Pittsburgh, some drivers for the company wonder if they’ve been expendable all along“Wo-o-o-o-w,” Cynthia Ingram said. “We all knew it was coming. I just didn’t expect it this soon.”Ingram, a 60-year-old Uber driver in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, had just learned that Uber would be deploying autonomous cars to accept fares in her city within weeks. The announcement on Thursday morning sent shockwaves through the community of about 4,000 drivers that serve Pennsylvania’s second largest city. Continue reading...

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is to assess digital-only releases on a case by case basisFilms without a cinema release have the chance to be considered eligible for the British film industry’s most prestigious awards, following a rules changed announced on 19 August.Previously, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts had required competing titles to be released in cinemas. As of the 2017 awards, movies released only digitally will be able to be submitted. Continue reading...

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

Police shut down site that encouraged schoolboys to upload naked pictures of female students from about 70 schoolsA parent of a student at Kambrya College, a state school in Melbourne’s south-east, says she was “mortified” by the way the school responded to victims of a website that carried sexually explicit images of underage female school students.The college was one of 70 schools whose students were reportedly involved in uploading the images to the website, which was believed to be hosted overseas until Australian federal police said it had been shut down on Friday.

Whether nostalgic for older versions or looking forward to something new, the game seems eager to please both campsIf news that Final Fantasy XV has been delayed, has you desperately searching for alternatives to get your JRPG fix, then here’s something that should take up a good chunk of time: SquareEnix has released a full hour of gameplay footage taken from the gold master of the game, giving a more in-depth look at its systems, side quests and early plot than anything to date.The game was delayed by two months to 29 November, apparently, because Hajime Tabata, its director, felt the contents of the planned day-one patch should ship with it, not be made available to download after the fact, hence the two-month delay to the “master version”. Continue reading...

Prior to the proposed settlement the case had been scheduled to go before a jury in June, leaving its future outcome unclearA federal judge has rejected the proposal to settle a major class-action lawsuit by California and Massachusetts drivers against Uber for $84m, ruling that “the settlement as a whole as currently structured is not fair, adequate, and reasonable”.In a ruling issued Thursday, Judge Edward M Chen noted that the settlement “yields less than 5% of the total verdict value of all claims being released”. Continue reading...

Ride-sharing firm to trial autonomous vehicles in Pittsburgh as it also announces tie up with Volvo to develop driverless carsUber passengers in Pittsburgh will be able to hail self-driving cars for the first time within the next few weeks as the taxi firm tests its future vision of transportation in the city.The company said on Thursday that an unspecified number of autonomous Ford Fusions will be available to pick up passengers as with normal Uber vehicles. The cars won’t exactly be driverless – they will have human drivers as backup – but they are the next step towards a fully automated fleet. Continue reading...

New fulfilment centre in Tilbury will create 1,500 permanent jobsAmazon plans to open a new delivery warehouse in Essex next year, creating 1,500 permanent jobs.It will be the company’s 13th fulfilment centre in the UK, where Amazon employs a total of 15,500 people.

The final segment of our four-part series. With the United Nations’ resolution considered, Chips with Everything discusses what the future of internet access looks like in developing countriesOn 1 July the United Nations resolved that access to the internet is to be considered a basic human right. While this decision may seem straightforward, with the complex nature of human rights law considered, the resolution is far from simple.In the final episode of our series, we explore internet accessibility in the developing world and discuss how the United Nations’ resolution might increase widespread internet access in these countries. To help us dig into this topic, we speak to the Guardian’s global development desk’s Liz Ford, the World Wide Web Foundation’s Africa regional coordinator Nnenna Nwakanma, and lead council at the World Bank David Satolas. Continue reading...

‘They will soon be calling me MR BREXIT!’ the Republican presidential nominee tweeted on first day with new campaign team, setting off wave of jokesDonald Trump has sent some questionable tweets in the past, but none have been so mind-boggling as one posted early Thursday morning.“They will soon be calling me MR. BREXIT!” the Republican presidential nominee tweeted at around 8am. Continue reading...

Vlogger forced to deny his videos in North Korea were funded by its governmentA strange controversy has been bubbling in the world of travel YouTube. A popular vlogger has been forced to deny being paid by the North Korean government to make feel-good travel videos from the DPRK.You read that correctly. Continue reading...

Video game developer Konami imagines a new future for its biggest series, but the fans aren’t happyFormer Konami game director Hideo Kojima may be one of the most famous faces in video gaming. Not least because he puts himself in his games, a la Hitchcock, which for nearly the past three decades have been mostly Metal Gear titles. 2015’s MGSV: The Phantom Pain was a spectacular finale that offered real-life fireworks too, as Kojima and Konami acrimoniously parted ways.This breakup saw a reaction along tribal lines, with the fanbase generally siding with Kojima and blaming Konami. Something of the hangover remains in the reaction to Metal Gear Survive, which is a “divergent take” on Metal Gear in the studio’s own words. It transplants the series into another dimension for an online co-op game for up to four players – with, and it’s hard to suppress a slight sigh here, zombie-type enemies. Continue reading...

Automated mini-buses will carry people on open public roads in southern district of Finnish capital during month-long trialTwo self-driving buses have rolled out on to the public roads of Helsinki, Finland, alongside traffic and commuters, in one of the first trials of its kind.

Developers hope the tool, that enables anyone with internet access to track fishing vessels worldwide, will create greater transparency in the oceansAnyone with internet access and a passion for seafood will soon be able to track commercial fishing trawlers all over the world, with a new tool that its developers hope will help end the overfishing that has decimated the world’s fish stocks.Millions of people depend on fish to survive, and fish will be vital to feeding the world’s growing population that is predicted to reach 9.7 billion people by 2050, the United Nations says. Continue reading...

Esther’s MacBook Air has died and would cost too much to repair. She’s thinking of buying a more affordable Windows laptop to replace it, but which one should she choose?My first ever laptop was a MacBook Air. However, the logic board stopped working, and Apple was going to charge $600 to fix it. Technicians have told me it is not worth fixing.At this point in time I cannot afford to buy a new MacBook, so which PC laptop would you recommend? I am a third year social work student, and I won’t really be carrying it to class: it will mostly be used at home. I don’t run any special applications, and my budget is less than $1,000. EstherIf you have $1,000 to spend, then you can probably get a new 11in MacBook Air for $899 or a 13in MacBook Air for $999. You could even get a $1,099 13in MacBook Pro for less, if you look for discount offers on Amazon or at a local store. Or you could get a Mac Mini and add your own keyboard and screen for less than $1,000, though you would lose the portability of a laptop. Continue reading...

The world’s largest airship, Airlander 10, completed its maiden trip on Wednesday at London’s Cardington airfield. Stephen McGlennan, the CEO of the airship’s manufacturer Hybrid Air Vehicles, says the 92-metre long aircraft ‘is a mixture of aeroplane, airship and helicopter technology’. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters Continue reading...

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

About 7% of global workforce to go, as networking company moves away from hardware to focus on software and cloud technologyCisco Systems is to cut about 5,500 jobs, representing nearly 7% of the US technology company’s global workforce.

After maiden flight in Bedfordshire, creators of world’s largest aircraft say 100 could be in skies within five yearsAbove a field in rural Bedfordshire, a shiny, futuristic craft the size of a football pitch ascends majestically into the evening sky, and gawping onlookers crane their necks for a better view. This could be the trailer for the latest Independence Day film, but it is the maiden flight of the Airlander 10, a helium-filled craft aiming to kickstart a new age of the airship.It has been a while coming – the first flight had been delayed several times and Wednesday’s takeoff was held up for hours – but once in the air, showing off its curves as it banks and soars for its audience, the Airlander is quite a spectacle. Continue reading...

Economists expected rise in joblessness but firms have not cut jobs yet because no one knows what Brexit will look likeIf you put Brexit to one side, the latest unemployment figures are no surprise.They show that Britain’s unemployment rate remained at 4.9% at the end of June, the lowest since 2005, while the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance dropped by 8,600 to 763,600 in July, the first fall since February 2016. Continue reading...

Tech firm, which may cut 14,000 jobs, was the world’s most valuable company but is now dwarfed by younger competitorsFounded in, and named after, San Francisco in 1984, Cisco Systems is one of a cluster of early Silicon Valley stalwarts that owe their existence to Stanford University.The company’s two founders, then husband and wife Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner, worked for the university, where early breakthroughs in networking technology were made. Cisco’s first product was substantially based on Stanford’s own router software – to the point where the company eventually signed an official licence with Stanford for the system three years later. Continue reading...

Uber drivers fear some will lose their livelihoods as a result of requirement campaign groups say is discriminatoryTransport for London’s plan to force would-be cabbies to pass a written English exam before they can work in in the city has triggered outrage among Uber drivers and campaign groups.The rules, which only apply to people from certain countries where English is not the first language, are due to come into force on 1 October. Continue reading...

Visual sharing site follows Facebook and Twitter in targeting the growing online video market

Mixed-reality system will place user’s hands, arms and real-world objects into a virtual world without the need for a series of external sensorsIntel has unveiled its next evolution of virtual-reality goggles Project Alloy for so-called mixed reality, which drags real-world objects into the virtual realm using 3D cameras.

Taxi-hailing app said Transport for London had moved the goalposts over requirements for new driversTaxi-hailing app Uber has launched a legal bid to stop Transport for London forcing its drivers to take a written English test.From 1 October, anyone from a non-English-speaking country who applies for a private hire driver licence or to renew an existing licence in London will have to prove that they have passed an exam in English. Continue reading...

There’s no paradox in finding your true self via virtual reality because everyday reality is a simulation, says self-help guru Deepak Chopra of his latest ventureThe cosmos swirls, wisps of purple, yellow and orange light flickering across the darkness of space, then across the visage of Buddha. An otherworldly plain fills the horizon, framed by the branches of a tree – the tree of enlightenment.A familiar voice intrudes. “What or who is having this experience right this moment, right now?” Pause. “It is your own being. It is your innermost being that is having the experience, your true self.” Continue reading...

Bungie have lined up a fast-paced, raid-filled expansion of the massively multiplayer shooter, starring Lord Saladin and his gigantic caninesThe most important fact about Destiny: Rise of Iron, the fourth and likely final expansion for Bungie’s groundbreaking massively multiplayer shooter? You cannot pet the wolves.The two gigantic canines, pictured in promo art flanking Lord Saladin, leader of the Iron Banner tournament and central figure in the newest expansion, are not pets. They are wild animals – a fact drilled in to Bungie by the Washington State wolf sanctuary, the team recruited to help with the motion capture, audio and visual modelling, according to the game’s director, Christopher Barrett. Continue reading...

Voice assistants duke it out in the most passive aggressive display of tech company feuding via slick-looking adverts yetMicrosoft’s seemingly getting pretty offended over the whole “iPad Pro is a computer thing”. In its eyes, a keyboard does not a PC make, and it’s all starting to get just a little catty.Microsoft’s latest advert for the Windows 10 PC-in-a-tablet Surface Pro 4 takes the two arch rival’s tit-for-tat war of words to the next level - irritating voice assistants. Continue reading...

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

Website reportedly contains thousands of non-consensual images of underage schoolgirls uploaded by male students

Group called Shadow Brokers says it infiltrated NSA’s elite Equation Group and teases files including some named in documents leaked by Edward SnowdenA mysterious online group called the Shadow Brokers claims to have infiltrated an elite hacking unit linked to the National Security Agency and stolen state “cyber weapons”, and is now auctioning them off to the highest bidder.The stolen malware is said to belong to Equation Group, a sophisticated hacking team believed to be operated by the NSA. So far, the Shadow Brokers have only released a few taster files and images of the cache, but security researchers said they appear to be legitimate. Continue reading...

Carmaker announces plans to make self-driving vehicles for companies such as Uber and Lyft by 2021, saying automation of cars will define the next decadeThe robot car wars moved up a gear on Tuesday when Ford announced it would produce a fleet of driverless cars for ride-sharing services, such as Uber and Lyft, by 2021.

British authorities had no power to force social media giants to take down material, hate preacher’s trial heard