Technology | The Guardian

From TwoHeadlines to Shiv Integer, artists are subverting Silicon Valley’s tools to artistic endsAt Facebook’s F8 conference in Silicon Valley, David Marcus, the company’s head of messaging, proudly demonstrated its new suite of chatbots. Users can now get in a conversation with the likes of CNN, H&M, and HP, and ask for help shopping, or the latest headlines.The chatbots aren’t very good, but that doesn’t mean Facebook isn’t proud of them anyway: “I guarantee you’re going to spend way more money than you want on this,” Marcus chuckled on stage. Continue reading...

Smartphones, genome sequencing and wearable technology will bring benefits but also challenges to health and social careAlthough not new, the smartphone’s potential is yet to be realised in health and care. Efforts to curate quality apps, for example through an NHS app library, have had little success. Sophisticated apps can fit into health services. Ginger.io offers people with depression or anxiety problems the ability to track their mood and share data with clinicians to offer interventions.

Nicholas Coleridge: ‘There is something extraordinarily alluring about a glossy magazine, the physical quality, particularly a very thick one’Magazines are not suffering anything like the circulation declines experienced by newspapers, according to one of Britain’s leading magazine chiefs.Nicholas Coleridge, president of Condé Nast International, told a Media Society event earlier this week that although magazine sales were “off their top” it was “only by a small amount”. Continue reading...

In the early days, the internet was seen as egalitarian and open. So how did the web become a world of bullies and trolls? Five tales from the frontline of online shamingWhen I bought a computer, in the 1980s, it was a different world. I joined Compuserve, the first major commercial online service in the US, in 1982. It was like Facebook, but all text. Now we would complain it was slow and expensive, but at the time it was radical to be able to sit in your house and talk to people all over the world. Continue reading...

A secretive team has been assigned to explore improvements to the app store, according to reports, including better search and paid options

Top Apple lawyer and FBI executive will testify before lawmakers as heated debate over law enforcement access to encrypted devices continuesApple and the FBI will return to Congress on April 19 to testify before lawmakers about their heated disagreement over law enforcement access to encrypted devices, a congressional committee announced on Thursday.

Traditional searches or wiretaps often require government to eventually notify the people they’ve searched; Microsoft wants the same to apply to emailsMicrosoft sued the US government on Thursday for the right to tell customers when authorities search their email inboxes.In a federal complaint that names the US attorney general, Loretta Lynch, the company argues the government has taken advantage of the consumer trend for storing their private data on tech companies’ servers, rather than storing it on their own devices. This shouldn’t let the government search the digital equivalent of a person’s desk without telling them, Microsoft argues. Continue reading...

Activist working for group dedicated to fighting China’s ‘Great Firewall’ says firms such as Apple should back up its words with actionsWestern companies need to end their hypocrisy over free speech in China, and start helping to end censorship in the country, a leading anti-censorship activist has told the Guardian.One of the three co-founders of GreatFire, an organisation dedicated to fighting the so-called Great Firewall of China, the technological heart of state censorship in the country, said it hurts to see companies such as Apple citing Chinese censorship in their battles with western governments, while co-operating with authoritarian state in order to earn money from its burgeoning middle classes and take advantage of its enormous manufacturing base. Continue reading...

I‘m the Guardian contributor most targeted online. We have to stop the harassment so many women faceWhen you find out that you’re the best at something, normally it makes sense to feel happy. I’m not sure that reaction applies, though, when what you’re top at is being hated. Continue reading...

Yegor Tsvetkov’s project using photos of strangers on St Petersburg metro shows how easy it is to track peopleA Russian photographer has proved how easy it is to track down people on social media using facial recognition software.Yegor Tsvetkov took photos of strangers on St Petersburg’s metro and used a facial recognition app which trawls through profiles on VKontakte, Russia’s biggest social network, to track down their online profiles. Continue reading...

‘When you tell a 22-year-old to turn off the phone, they hear please cut off your left arm above the elbow,’ said AMC boss, who has since taken to Twitter to allay fearsThe head of a major US cinema chain has suggested that ‘texting-friendly’ screens could soon become a reality.Related: If Sean Parker has his way, opening night for movies will be in your living room Continue reading...

Introducing RoBoHon, a smartphone which doubles up as a tiny robot, created by Japanese electronics firm Sharp. The robo-phone can walk around, read out your messages, and has a projector embedded in its head so it can beam images onto flat surfaces. But would you pay the hefty price tag of ¥198,000 (£1,282) for it? Continue reading...

RoBoHoN is adorable, can recognise your face, read your messages aloud, wake you up and announce phone calls, but is probably out of your price rangeThe cutest robo-smartphone ever made is hitting shelves in Japan next month - but is it cute enough to drop almost £1,300?RoBoHoN (which translates roughly as “heart moving phone”) is an adorable tiny robot, which doubles up as a smartphone. Or is it a smartphone that doubles up as a robot? Continue reading...

We live in an age of undies innovation: from self-medicating bras to briefs that smell of breakfast or hide a weapon (and that’s not even a euphemism)

After the difficulties experienced by Twitter bot Tay, the new service is providing amusement while learning how to automatically caption imagesAfter the somewhat awkward experience last month of having an AI Twitter bot go full-on racist in a few hours once it interacted with humans, Microsoft have released a new AI experiment on to the internet - CaptionBot.The idea is that you upload a photo to the service, and it tries to automatically generate a caption that describes what the algorithm sees. You are then able to rate how accurately it has detected what was on display. It learns from the rating, and in theory, the captions get better. Continue reading...

‘Groundbreaking’ changes strengthen EU privacy protections, enshrine right to be forgotten and give regulators wide-reaching powersThe European parliament has voted through tougher rules on data protection, aimed at boosting privacy and giving authorities greater powers to take action against companies that breach the rules.

A 360-degree livestream video shows the pioneering perspective of a cancer keyhole procedure carried out by Dr Shafi Ahmed in theatre at Barts Health NHS Trust

Cameron wants to try multi-monitor computing, like the Microsoft co-founder is known to do, but ideally without creating a spaghetti junction of wiresMulti-monitor computing is an idea that has been challenging me for some time – that and a spaghetti junction of wires.I have super-powerful Alienware laptop but there is only one HDMI port, and it doesn’t like running HDMI and anything else simultaneously.I am wondering if I should build a PC that will have video cards and ports to support three screens and have a separate, dedicated travel laptop. What do you think? Continue reading...

Company’s new Messenger chatbot prompts nonsensical answers and unrelenting spam, which risks tipping users over the edgeIf bots are the new apps, we’re in for a bombardment of spam that could force you into blocking brands, bots and services, if Facebook’s new chatbots are anything to go by.

An English teacher from the United Arab Emirates, a researcher from Carmarthenshire and an insurance analyst from Essex. Kate Lyons meets the people who make the Guardian’s comment threads tickThe Guardian’s web we want series has taken a look at the darker side of online conversations, but most commenters bring insight, knowledge and enthusiasm to the debate. Nine of the best explain what keeps them coming back to the threads below the line. Continue reading...

Stephen Kavanagh, in charge of national strategy on digital crime, says confidence of victims is being underminedThe police chief in charge of combating digital crime has admitted that an “inconsistent” approach from police forces to online abuse is undermining the confidence of victims.The Essex chief constable, Stephen Kavanagh, the national police chiefs’ lead on digital crime, said those subjected to online harm deserved a better service from the police.

Internet giant has blocked dozens of search links containing references to star and alleged ‘threesome’ after legal requests

Pan-European working party questions protection of EU citizens’ data from ‘massive and indiscriminate’ surveillance by US government

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

In a society where five-star ratings have become a form of social currency, your real-life reputation is being shaped by digital scoresIt’s a brave new world in which we live in, dictated by scores, reviews, judgements and critiques; and we’re asking the question: what does your rating say about you?Joining Olly Mann to talk about Uber and the “rating society” are Guardian Australia’s Elle Hunt, applied psychologist Reece Akhtar and co-founder of iPhone app Peeple Julia Cordray.

Dr Shafi Ahmed will carry out surgery live-streamed in virtual reality, a move experts hope will make healthcare ‘more equitable’ and help medical trainingThis Thursday afternoon, Shafi Ahmed will lean over a patient and begin a delicate operation to remove cancerous tissue from a male patient’s bowel. He has performed such procedures many times before. But this time it won’t be just his surgical team who are in the room with him – the world will be there too.Showing from 1pm the approximately two-hour long procedure at the Royal London Hospital is the world’s first operation to be streamed live in 360-degree video, allowing medical students, trainee surgeons and curious members of the public to immerse themselves in the medical event in real time.

Matthew Keys was convicted of giving login credentials to the hacking group, in a decision civil liberties group calls ‘prosecutorial discretion run amok’Matthew Keys, a journalist found guilty of conspiring with hacking group Anonymous to break into the Los Angeles Times website, was sentenced to two years in prison on Wednesday in a case that has sparked national debate about how the US prosecutes hacking offenses.Keys, who was found guilty of three criminal counts in October, was convicted of giving Anonymous login credentials to the computer system of the Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and other media companies. Continue reading...

Artificial intelligence, virtual reality and chatbots – Facebook 2016 developer event revealed ambitious plans for expanding its social empireFacebook’s (mostly) annual developer event in San Francisco has been running since 2007. Over that time it has morphed from an insider code-builder’s event to a high-profile launch event, and though the developers are still there Facebook’s message is now rather more well honed when it comes to translating their mission to the masses.This year, chatbots and virtual reality grabbed the most attention, but there were many smaller but significant announcements too. Here’s everything you need to know from this year’s event.

Blood-testing startup accused of not resolving issues found during inspection earlier this year that created ‘immediate jeopardy to patient health and safety’Troubled blood-testing startup Theranos could be banned from practicing for two years for failing to resolve major problems at its main laboratory in California, federal health regulators have warned.The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which monitors clinical lab standards among other things, wrote to Theranos management on 18 March notifying the company that it had 10 days to respond or would have its license revoked and its owners banned from running any lab. Continue reading...

Google answers plea from users with update to open source tool that adds ability to operate on multiple devices – it’s like using many brain cells instead of oneThe battle for the future of computing is a battle to bring artificial intelligence to the mainstream – and Google is quietly overhauling a machine learning tool used to improve some of its most popular services including Google Translate and Google Photos.TensorFlow can be used to help teach computers how to process data in ways similar to how the human brain handles information. It is also open source, meaning Google has published and shared the code online so that external developers can use and improve it. Continue reading...

It turns out cult card game Cards Against Humanity is the ideal accompaniment to the government’s EU leaflets. Who knew?Even if you are yet to receive the government’s pro-EU leaflet, you’ve probably heard about it. But have you noticed how well it fits with the popular board game Cards Against Humanity?The EU and a game known for its political incorrectness don’t seem like the most likely bedfellows – yet the minute a leaflet arrived at software engineer Jenny Owen’s home, the partnership seemed perfect. Continue reading...

Russian and transgender players of Rust are unhappy, but the decision to randomise race and gender is all about better gameplay, not imposing ideologyI am the lead developer on a multiplayer survival game named Rust. Last week, we made a change to the game that upset a lot of people: we made half of our players, picked at random, play as women. We also made some of them black. The response has been extreme.Rust is not a game about identity. The objective in Rust is to survive. This is made difficult by things such as starvation, dehydration, radiation, exposure and bear attacks. The biggest threat in the game comes from other players who are trying to survive in the same conditions. You will survive better if you’re a part of a group, but this takes a lot of mutual trust. If you kill someone you’ll be able to loot their corpse and take all their food, medicine and weapons. This makes the game very interesting socially, since players struggle with trust and slowly build up relationships with one another. Continue reading...

With the world only half paying attention to online threats, women are rising up to help each other, from strategy to supportFor two years, Michelle Ferrier was the target of a campaign of intimidation and harassment. The only black, female reporter on Florida’s Daytona Beach News-Journal, from 2007 Ferrier was targeted with a stream of abusive letters threatening lynchings and a “race war”, all in the same handwriting and from the same potentially dangerous person.But without a specific threat, police said, there was no chance of a criminal investigation. Afraid for her family, Ferrier left the paper and moved away. Continue reading...

Company’s thinnest, lightest and most expensive e-reader yet has a new design with 9-week reading battery, ergonomic grip and page-turn buttonsAmazon has just released the next step in the evolution of e-readers, a wafer thin screen bolted to a small grip containing the battery and electronics, the Kindle Oasis.The new high-end Kindle Oasis is Amazon’s biggest step yet towards its goal of making e-readers just like paper, having committed to shrinking each iteration of Kindle by 20% at a time. Continue reading...

The startup disrupting the taxi industry via one simple ride-hailing app has been batting away lawsuits since 2009 – here’s a comprehensive roundupUber – which at its latest valuation of $62.5bn is the world’s most valuable private startup – has paid huge sums of money in legal settlements across the world since the taxi-hailing company was founded in 2009.

Hackers reportedly supply zero-day exploit to allow US law enforcement entry to device, which may put older iPhones at risk of cyber criminalsThe FBI reportedly bought a previously unknown security bug from a group of professional hackers to gain entry to the San Bernardino iPhone 5C, according to the Washington Post.The report suggests hackers supplied at least one so-called zero-day flaw in the iPhone 5C’s security that allowed the FBI to circumvent the lockscreen and automatic wipe feature that kicks in after 10 wrong passcode entries. Continue reading...

Parliament’s equalities chair warns against internet providers being allowed to hide behind free speech argumentBritain needs better internet laws to stop online abuse that may be creating a nightmare for society in future, Maria Miller, the Conservative former culture secretary and equalities minister, has said.The senior Tory MP, who now chairs the Commons women and equalities committee, said the government needed to wake up to some of the problems the internet was creating, from vile abuse on social media to easy sharing of violent explicit images among young people. Continue reading...

UK-based Rebellion is reviving the arcade hit as its first virtual reality game. But the company is playing by new rulesIn some ways, 1980s arcade hit Battlezone can lay claim to being the first “virtual reality” game to hit the market.Its rudimentary vector-based graphics presented a 3D view of head-to-head tank combat, viewed by the player through a periscope-style screen. A far cry from what’s offered by the Oculus Rifts of today’s world. Continue reading...

Company claims producer Leslie Benzies exhibited ‘conduct and performance’ issues before his departure from GTA development studio, Rockstar NorthRockstar Games, the publisher behind the multimillion-selling Grand Theft Auto series has issued a response to the $150m (£105m) lawsuit launched against it by former employee, Leslie Benzies.In the brief statement, the company dismisses the allegations made in the 70-page suit, launched by Benzies through US law firm, Locke Lord. Benzies claims to have been encouraged to take a sabbatical in 2014, only to discover that Sam and Dan Houser, the founders of Rockstar, were conspiring to have him removed from the company. He claims that the duo sought to renege on a 2009 royalties deal which would ensure Benzies retained financial parity with the brothers. Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar has since launched a counteraction against Benzies. Continue reading...

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

The Facebook CEO criticized Trump’s ‘fearful’ anti-immigration rhetoric at the annual F8 developer event: ‘Instead of building walls we can help build bridges’When Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook in 2004, he pitched it as a way to get a date.Opening his company’s annual F8 developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday, Zuckerberg illustrated just how ambitious he’s become in 14 years. Facebook, he says, will now bring the world online, pioneer artificial intelligence and perfect virtual reality (VR).

Free speech online can be revolutionary. But it can also poison the very bloodstream of democracyIt was a pretty standard far-right account: anonymous (check); misappropriating St George (check); dripping with venom towards “Muslim-loving” lefties (check). But this one had a twist. They had found my address and had taken screen shots of where I lived from Google’s Street View function. “Here’s his bedroom,” they wrote, with an arrow pointing at the window; “here’s the door he comes out at the morning”, with an arrow pointing at the entrance to my block of flats. In the time it took Twitter to shut down the account, they had already tweeted many other far-right accounts with the details.Related: The dark side of Guardian comments Continue reading...

Taking the guts of the iPhone 6S and squeezing them into the frame of the iPhone 5S is great, but only those who really want a 4in phone should buy oneWith the iPhone SE everything that is old is now new again, but is that a good thing and is a small, 4in smartphone really up to scratch in 2016?

‘Love bombs’ deployed in bid to encourage a ‘Remain’ vote in EU referendumA German woman living in London has deployed a secret weapon to keep Britain in the European Union: hugs.Katrin Lock has launched the “Hug a Brit” social media campaign, which calls on members of EU states to shower Britons with love in an attempt to convince them to vote “Remain” in the looming Brexit referendum. Continue reading...

The program offering free, limited internet service to the developing world has faced setbacks and criticism but now has 500 apps available in 37 countriesFacebook’s efforts to connect the developing world to a range of free, selective internet service has had its setbacks in the past few months, including a major government vote to block the service in India and criticism that the service is a form of “digital colonialism”.Related: Facebook Free Basics service put on ice by India's telecoms regulator Continue reading...

Yahoo’s potential new owners will inherent the third most read website in the US, but one that’s bleeding money. Here’s what bidders stand to gain, and lose

The digital media company is ‘very comfortable’, it told the Financial Times, despite a report that internal financial targets were missed by over $80mBuzzFeed missed internal financial targets in 2015 and had to substantially cut its projected revenue by about half according to a report published by the Financial Times on Tuesday.According to the FT, the company has been forced to cut its 2016 revenue target from $500m to $250m after missing its 2015 target by more than $80m. The company reportedly projected revenues of $250m in 2015 but generated less than $170m. Continue reading...

Lawsuit claims Les Benzies was ‘enticed’ into taking a sabbatical in September 2014, a year after the release of the popular video gameThe producer behind the multimillion-selling Grand Theft Auto video games is suing the publisher of the series, Take-Two Interactive, for $150m.Les Benzies, previously president of Rockstar North, the studio that developed the hit franchise from Grand Theft Auto III onwards, claims that he was “enticed” into taking a sabbatical in September 2014, a year after the release of Grand Theft Auto V. He then returned to the office six months later to find that his access to the building had been revoked. Continue reading...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg spoke out against Donald Trump’s anti-immigration comments during an annual developer conference on Tuesday. Zuckerberg said he was alarmed by a shift in many countries towards people looking inwards, saying he heard ‘fearful voices calling for building walls’ and halting immigration. ‘It takes courage to choose hope over fear,’ Zuckerberg told the crowd Continue reading...