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Sewing blogger Jenny Rushmore was told she should ‘eat less cake’ – so her followers posted pictures of them eating cake in solidaritySometimes, when it comes to internet trolls, the best thing to do is grab a slice of cake.At least that’s what one sewing blogger’s followers decided after an internet troll came out of nowhere to tell her she should “eat less cake”. Continue reading...

Police unaware of 644 reports from principals because of coding error made during upgrade to Education Department systemAn IT failure in the Queensland Education Department meant 644 suspected cases of child sexual abuse were not relayed to police.School principals attempted to report the cases, which took place from 22 January and involved students whose parents or guardians were deemed to be acting in their interests over the abuse, via the department’s One School online portal.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterHello, it’s Friday. Today’s game is Arslan: the Warriors of Legend, a tactical action game from Tecmo Koei, coming to PS4 and Xbox One in early 2016. Continue reading...

Social media company plans to start testing the craft, which is intended to provide internet access to remote areas, within monthsFacebook has revealed its first full-scale drone, which it plans to use to provide internet access in remote parts of the world.Code-named “Aquila”, the solar-powered drone will be able to fly without landing for three months at a time, using a laser to beam data to a base station on the ground. Continue reading...

Brief filed as part of lawsuit demands court vacate Federal Communications Commision’s decision to regulate internet carriers as public utilitiesTelecoms lobbyists have filed a brief in a lawsuit that includes nearly every major industry player demanding that the Washington DC court of appeals vacate net neutrality rules ordered by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in February.Chief among the objections of the United Telecom Association (UTA) is that their members won’t invest as heavily in broadband infrastructure if they’re forced to abide by the new regulations, contravening the FCC’s mandate to encourage investment. Continue reading...

Congressional Black Caucus to meet executives of Google, Apple and other tech companies with poor track records of hiring African American employeesThe most powerful African American politicians in the US will next week demand that Silicon Valley companies hire more black people after official figures revealed that many of the world’s most prominent tech companies’ workforces are just 2% black.

Search firm rejects regulator’s demand to remove links from google.com as well as its European subsidiariesGoogle has rejected the French data protection authority’s demand that it censor search results worldwide in order to comply with the European Court of Justice’s so-called right to be forgotten ruling.The company’s rejection of the ruling could see its French subsidiary facing daily fines, although no explicit sanction has yet been declared. Continue reading...

Grassroots supporters across the country tuned in Wednesday night to hear the Democratic presidential candidate deliver his message via livestreamFrom Montpellier to Honolulu, Bernie Sanders supporters gathered at bars and bookstores, coffee shops and even a yoga studio, on Wednesday evening to hear the upstart Democratic presidential candidate call for a political revolution.Sanders delivered his message from a house party in Washington DC, and his remarks were simultaneously broadcast in about 3,500 meeting locations across the country. Continue reading...

The former Top Gear stars have signed a deal with the online giant for a rival motoring series Continue reading...

Former BBC stars opt for online giant rather than ITV and Netflix for new motoring show to launch next yearPoll: Would you join Amazon Prime to watch Clarkson, Hammond and May?

Suman Nayyar needs to replace his seven-year-old Windows XP PC and isn’t sure what to get, but there are certainly plenty of alternativesCan a thumb PC or mini-desktop replace my seven-year-old Windows XP PC? Or, as desktops are on the way out, could I get away with using an iPad and iPhone? Basically, I do email, social media, web-surfing and photos. Suman NayyarAt this early stage, I wouldn’t recommend a “USB PC” such as the Intel Compute Stick as a desktop replacement: a mini-desktop such as the Acer Revo One is more capable and much better value. The larger question is whether you can replace a PC with a tablet.

We know that digital technology has radically reshaped our lives. But is it also changing our ideas of who we are?A new book by author Laurence Scott looks at some of the strange side-effects of the digitisation of our lives. It's called The Four-Dimensional Human, and in it Scott picks apart some of the jarring new realities posed by the hyper-connectivity of our everyday lives. He argues that as moments of our lives audition for their moment of digital glory we are increasingly projecting ourselves into a shimmering fourth dimension online, allowing us to exist in several places at once.But as our treasured experiences are fed into our social platforms, can we ever experience the present in the same way? What does it mean to become the PR representative for yourself, continually attending to your brand across multiple platforms? Scott joins Olly Mann to explore the shadowlands where our photogenic breakfasts meet our awkward silences and leave us with a sense of unease at the digital takeover of our lives. Continue reading...

PM says he will introduce legislation that could see websites shut down if they fail to bring in effective age-restricted controlsDavid Cameron is to give pornography websites one last chance to produce an effective voluntary scheme for age-restricted controls on their sites or he will introduce legislation that could see them shut down.At the election the then culture secretary, Sajid Javid, said the party would act to ensure under-18s were locked out of adult content and the Conservative election Facebook page in April promised legislation to achieve this. Continue reading...

Company’s second-quarter earnings were better than expected – its ad business was up 43% – and its stock rallied after initial slump in after-hours tradingYou’ll be seeing a lot more video on Facebook in the near future, and your musings will be easier to access. CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors on Wednesday’s second-quarter earnings call that “connecting people with more great video content is an important part” of the company’s future, and the company will improve its searchability – Facebook has already indexed some 2tn posts.Users had sent out some 40% more videos to their lists of friends and followers, Zuckerberg said, and the company was encouraging them to share still more. (Facebook’s own video advertising is more valuable per advertisement than its text and image ads.) “This quarter we updated our newsfeed ranking to help people see more videos they care about,” Zuckerberg said. Continue reading...

Deflategate got you curious on how to permanently erase your scandalous text conversations? Here’s some pro tips for when simply hitting delete is not enoughRelated: Tom Brady denies Deflategate 'smoking gun' exists after suspension upheldTom Brady’s four-game suspension has angered many Patriots fans, who’ve since questioned the decision. The 20-page ruling by the NFL revealed that the quarterback had his cellphone destroyed, the very cellphone NFL investigators wanted to look at to see if Brady had ordered the footballs deflated. Continue reading...

Despite the lack of flourish and giant ads, a lot rides on the success of the new Windows version for Microsoft and its chief executiveTwenty years ago the launch of a new version of Windows merited midnight store openings and a seven-figure payment to use a Rolling Stones song in ads celebrating the new Start menu. Early on Wednesday the release of Windows 10 happened silently, with millions of computers around the world updated over the internet.Related: Windows 10 review – final version of Windows might be Microsoft's best ever Continue reading...

Former Twitter executive says company’s ‘fatal posture’ is futile obsession with matching competitor, as growth stalls and stock remains at bottom of a cliffTwitter is in trouble. With user growth stalled, staff fleeing the company by the hundreds, and the company’s stock still at the bottom of the cliff it fell from in April, sources say the company’s futile obsession with matching its biggest competitor for scale is costing it dearly. And it still doesn’t have a permanent CEO.“Honestly, I think part of the fundamental issue is their relentless fixation on how they compare to Facebook, and I think that’s in some ways a fatal posture,” one former Twitter executive told the Guardian. “I mean, no one will say on the record ‘We compare ourselves relentlessly to Facebook,’ because that’s a losing position, but of course they do.” Continue reading...

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Hamburg data protection authority says that site cannot demand photo ID from users – and says company has to ‘play by our rules’ to operate in the countryFacebook has been told to allow people to use pseudonyms on its site by a German regulator, which has ruled that the site’s “real name” policy violates the right to privacy.The Hamburg data protection authority said on Tuesday that the site could not force users to give official ID such as a passport or identity card, nor could it unilaterally change their chosen names to their “real” names on the site. Continue reading...

Facebook’s SMS notification allows users to post a birthday wish by replying with ‘1’ – meaning it would be more heartfelt to send ‘Wibble!’ to your friendsGood news! Birthday wishes are finally meaningless. All the birthday cards you’ve ever posted, all the tender heartfelt messages sent to loved ones, all the dates seared into your memory through years of joy, are now utterly invalidated, so we should all stop bothering and move on with our lives.If you’re wondering who to thank from freeing us of the burden of caring about arbitrary dates, it’s Facebook. Thanks to them, the phrase “Happy Birthday!” is now a hollow shell. Why? This: Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Wednesday already! Today’s screenshot is from World of Tanks which is now available on Xbox One. Continue reading...

Microsoft has launched its latest operating system, promising to shake up the whole gaming ecosystem. But will it?After several months of hype and expectation, Windows 10 has finally launched, bringing a(nother) new operating system era to computers everywhere. Under the tagline “it’s the Windows you know, only better” Microsoft is promising a range of exciting features, from the return of the Start menu to the arrival of Cortana, a cross-platform digital assistant that promises to be sort of like Paperclip guy but actually useful.Forget all that, though, because the real question is: what will Windows 10 mean for games and gamers? Here are the key features and how they’ll affect PC and Xbox One owners. Continue reading...

With more than a quarter of Tajikistan’s citizens working abroad, some couples are relying on video chats to make their vows. RFE/RL reportIn Shahnoza Idrisova’s wedding photo, the 27-year-old economist is dressed in white and accepting a water-filled bowl from her new mother-in-law, a ritual normally performed by both bride and groom just after marriage.

Microsoft’s Windows swansong brings together the best bits of Windows 7 and 8 – and won’t force you to change the way you workMicrosoft’s last version of Windows is finally here: Windows 10 is arguably the best version of the ubiquitous operating system. But the question is, should you upgrade for free immediately? Or will it be another Windows 8 moment?Windows 10 is a big step towards the Microsoft classic becoming an always-connected operating system for every device, not just PCs, which is continuously updated for free. It’ll run traditional desktop Windows apps, like Windows 7. But it will also run new “universal” apps downloaded from the Windows Store, which Microsoft hopes will become a trusted source of traditional Windows desktop programs as well. Continue reading...

Company posts revenues of $502.4m, compared with $312m from a year earlier, but growth remains an issue after Twitter’s CEO was forced out in JuneTwitter beat expectations – including its own – by a healthy margin on Tuesday, announcing better-than-anticipated earnings even as two more high-profile executives left amid a continuing shakeup. The company’s share price rallied 5.36% in after-hours trading.“Product initiatives we’ve mentioned in previous calls haven’t yet had meaningful impact on growing audience and participation,” interim CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey said on a conference call with investors. “This is unacceptable, and we’re not happy about it.” Continue reading...

The retail giant’s proposal carves out airspace from 200ft-400ft exclusively for autonomous drones, with a further 100ft above it declared a no-fly zoneAmazon is proposing that a pristine slice of airspace above the world’s cities and suburbs should be set aside for the deployment of high-speed aerial drones capable of flying robotically with virtually no human interference.The retail giant has taken the next step in its ambition to deliver packages via drone within 30 minutes by setting out in greater detail than ever before its vision for the future of robotic flight. It envisages that within the next 10 years hundreds of thousands of small drones – not all of them Amazon’s or devoted to delivery – will be tearing across the skies every day largely under their own automated control. Continue reading...

Users of YouTube and other services will no longer need a Google+ account to join, in attempt to downsize reach of failed rival to Facebook and TwitterOh, Google+, we hardly knew you. Because we never used you. Even though your parent company systematically forced us all into signing up for accounts. You were the new odd kid in class nobody wanted to talk to, but we were all forced to.Now, in a blog post entitled “Everything in its right place”, which may or may not be a Radiohead reference, the company has announced it is scaling back the reach of Google+, its underperforming social network. Continue reading...

New Moto G adds waterproofing, while Moto X attempts to beat Samsung and Apple with cheaper prices and better camerasMotorola is launching a new version of its popular low-priced Moto G and two new versions of its Moto X, as it attempts to compete at both the low and high end of the smartphone market.

An attacker can take over the vast majority of Android phones with just a text message, security researcher reportsA major security flaw in Android lets an attacker take control of a phone simply by sending a text message – and for the vast majority of Android users, there’s no fix available yet.Even the small number of people using Google’s own line of Android phones, sold under the Nexus brand, are vulnerable to some of the effects of the bug, according to Joshua Drake, the researcher who discovered the flaw. Continue reading...

Amazon attempts to undercut Spotify and Apple Music with a 1m-track music streaming service bundled with its Prime delivery, books and music serviceAmazon is launching its Prime Music streaming service in the UK, in a move that will see it aim to undercut Spotify and Apple Music.

Bethesda’s VP of development and its marketing head, Pete Hines, reflect on how their team constructs a devastated future AmericaTodd Howard says he never stops thinking about the games he makes. When one Elder Scrolls or Fallout project ends, he’s already planning the next. As VP of development at Bethesda Games Studios in Maryland, the place he has worked for over 20 years, he has a comparatively small team by today’s standards – just 100 staff. But they have produced two of the industry’s most important and ambitious open-world franchises. And they seem to do this through a ceaseless sense of purpose. “You don’t ever stop talking,” says Howard about the creative process. “You never take a break.”Fallout 4 is, of course, the latest project in that cycle. Set 200 years after the cataclysmic nuclear war that sets off the series, the role-playing odyssey gives players complete freedom to explore a devastated version of Boston, fighting with mutants, carrying out quests and collecting loot. In a preview level set before the apocalypse, you learn more about the 1950s-inspired society that pre-existed Armageddon, and get to fully customise your lead character. Then you wake up in a Vault two centuries later and – bam – everyone you know is dead. Continue reading...

Companies including Airbnb and Google compare themselves to civil rights heroes, while using their popularity among consumers to nullify federal law

My father, Richard Calder, who has died aged 78, was an engineer who lived and worked all over the world and who had a special love for Brazil.He was born in Surrey but brought up in New Zealand, where his father, Malcolm, was an air vice-marshal and later chief of the New Zealand Air Staff. With his mother, Peggy (nee Mandeno), and his sister Susan, the young Richard travelled around the UK, Malaya and South East Asia visiting his father, who was stationed in various parts of the world. At Wanganui Collegiate boarding school in New Zealand, Richard’s passions were flying, fishing and aeroplanes, and he desperately wanted to join the air force. But bad eyesight precluded him from doing that, and instead he graduated with a degree in mechanical and aeronautical engineering from Canterbury University, New Zealand. Continue reading...

Nine arrested as Beijing police shut down factory which produced more than 41,000 fake iPhonesPolice in Beijing have raided a factory that produced more than 41,000 fake iPhones worth as much as 120 million yuan ($19 million).Police arrested nine people, including a married couple who led the counterfeiting operation, after a raid in May on the factory, run under the guise of a gadget maintenance shop on the northern outskirts of the Chinese capital. Continue reading...

Media group’s founder says it is to begin ‘a real, civil dialogue’ in the wake of senior editors’ exit over the deletion of a post

Telecommunication authority orders encrypted messaging and internet services to be stopped ‘for security reasons’

A holiday thrusts the issue of sexting into my mind – but autocorrect and Instagram filters dampen the passionThrust, thrust, thrust. Bang, bang, bang. I’ve been listening to this for the past four evenings. Two people sweating and panting in the room above, in a hotel too close to a busy road, which serves spaghetti that is cold as it hits the plate.I’m sharing a twin room with my mother – hoping to God she isn’t hearing this too. But I know she is, because in the darkness the shape of the room changes when she sits up in bed. Continue reading...

Another Godzilla game fails to cut it and the latest PGA title is solid, but Deception IV showcases the joys of sadismGodzilla’s genre-defining impact on cinema is undeniable. Sadly, the same can’t be said for his interactive appearances – he’s rarely done well in gaming form, a tradition that continues here. Godzilla: The Game certainly makes an effort. A single-player God of Destruction campaign is bolstered with the King of Kaiju mode (clobber six beasts in a row), online battles and a monster-customising evolution mode. Unfortunately, core gameplay is so dreadful you’ll not want to explore much. Continue reading...

The Quadro is a scooter with four tilting wheels. You can say goodbye to falling off on sharp corners

Corrections Victoria will not discuss details but says it has informed the officers affected by the data breach and that their safety is its top concernPrisoners accessed the personal information of prison guards during riots in Melbourne’s Metropolitan Remand Centre, Corrections Victoria has confirmed.The prisoners gained access to the personal documents of a small number of officers, who have been informed of the breach. Continue reading...

A 32-acre site recreating Michigan’s roadways is the testing ground for technology that experts hope will be able to cut fatal auto crashes by 80%For Sebastian, life is destined to be lonely. The short pedestrian will, for now, be the sole resident of a small city located near the University of Michigan’s north campus. He’ll pass time by stepping into oncoming traffic – while others watch on, never warning of an impending crash.But Sebastian won’t feel pain: he’s a robot, created by students of the university’s engineering school to assist researchers at MCity, a 32-acre environment that opened this week as a safe zone for testing driverless vehicles. Continue reading...

It’s the must-have skill-set of the 21st century, yet unless you’re rich enough to afford the training, or fortunate enough to be attending the right school, the barriers to learning can be high. Now a movement of pioneering coders is challenging the stereotype by offering free training for all‘Why are we not doing more to have coding colleges and technical, vocational education alongside university education?” This question, raised by Labour’s Yvette Cooper during an interview with the Observer in May, reflects a wide concern about the availability and equality of software training, an area with a reputation for being elusive, exclusive, expensive and overwhelmingly male.Calls to improve the state of digital education in the UK have become commonplace, with new coding initiatives appearing all the time. The international Hour of Code claims to have given millions of Britons a taste of programming, while the government declared 2014 the official Year of Code”. Female programmers can join Girls who Code’ or Ladies who Code’ programmes; the BBC recently launched its Make it Digital’ campaign; and even the online grocer Ocado has thrown its hat in the ring with a scheme called Code for Life’. But while the national curriculum now includes programming for children as young as five, there is still a dearth of affordable, vocational options in higher education, despite a rocketing number of well-rewarded jobs for software developers. A budding programmer can try to learn their trade online, tackling one of the hundreds of coding tutorials, or they can stump up the hefty tuition fees for one of the many private coding academies that have sprung up in the past decade. Continue reading...

Columbus Zoo and Aquarium presses charges against Joshua Newell, 35, after clip shows affectionate meeting with big catsOhio zoo officials say they are pressing charges against a man who jumped a fence to pet cougars, then posted a video on YouTube.The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium said the Delaware County sheriff’s office has charged a suspect with a misdemeanor count of trespassing. Sheriff’s spokeswoman Tracy Whited said 35-year-old Joshua Newell was served on Friday with a summons to appear in court on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Previously free sorts package will automatically cost broadband users £5 a month, unless they register to say otherwiseBT phone and broadband customers who signed up for the “free” sports package over the past two years will soon find themselves paying £5 a month for the service – unless they opt out.The telecoms giant is launching a revamped sport channel in August, and while the service will be free to BT’s television customers broadband-only users will be required to pay. Continue reading...

Publishing sector has the lowest level of illegal downloads in the entertainment industry, with book piracy at half the rate of copyright theft in film and musicFor publishers, fresh from winning a landmark ruling forcing internet service providers to block illegal ebook download sites in Russia and the US, pirates are the enemy. Author Paulo Coelho believes that “the more people ‘pirate’ a book, the better”. But research commissioned by the government shows that that the literary world has the lowest level of illegal downloads in the entertainment industry.Just 1% of UK internet users aged 12 and over read “at least some” ebooks illegally between March and May 2015, according to the Intellectual Property Office’s study into the extent of online copyright infringement in the UK. This compares favourably to other forms of entertainment, with 9% accessing some of their music illegally, 7% television programmes, 6% films, and 2% computer software and video games. Continue reading...

Taxi app firm offers delivery of ice-cream products in all 58 of its operating countries – but users are left annoyed at lack of availabilityTaxi app firm Uber hasn’t had the best of publicity recently, with cars burned out during protests against the company, anger over its extortionate surge pricing and one of its drivers attacking a passenger with a hammer.Perhaps it make sense then, that Uber has decided to trundle out its ice cream delivery trick again. And rather than surge pricing for ice creams – the £4 Mr Whippys of last summer – this time they are free. Continue reading...

Instead of shock tactics War Child aims to reflect the reality of what children in war zones witness and experience as part of their daily livesThe reality of what children face in conflict emergencies is stark, shocking and unacceptable. And, when campaigning about this issue, you have a choice: relay the facts or convey a story.While the first option is educational, the second is motivational. And, if it is to have an impact, an advocacy campaign has to do the latter. For us at War Child, it is about promoting children’s voices that are neglected. Continue reading...

With the two technologies set to meet, lines between sci-fi and a high-tech new reality continue to blur. Industry experts see no reason to be fearfulIt’s no secret tech luminaries like Elon Musk and Bill Gates worry about humanity flirting with disaster though a digital version of the Icarus myth – in our case, the power of artificial intelligence being the sun that eventually burns our wings.

A new poster for Metal Gear Solid V makes the game look like a snuff movie. But is it just a distraction from an uncertain future for the classic series?I’ve always denied that video games have anything to do with my near-constant violent urges, but Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain has now forced a reassessment of just how desensitised one can become to gore and nudity. Earlier this week my partner was using the PC to book some train tickets and the next thing I know, she’s joking about having finally caught me looking at porn. Which of course would never happen. “What the hell is this?” she exclaimed, pointing to an image on my desktop.“It’s okay,” I replied, “it’s just a new poster for the game Metal Gear Solid V.” And then I realised halfway through the sentence that what we were both looking at was a semi-naked woman whose large breasts are dripping in blood. The game’s male lead Big Boss is on there too, but of course, his body is not on show – just his head and shoulders, which are similarly splattered with gore. Continue reading...

The concept is as silly as it is simple: football with rocket-powered cars. But it’s the execution that really makes this multiplayer fun-fest really take offWhatever you think of video games as an entertainment medium, you’ve got to admit that replacing footballers with rocket-powered cars is an attractive idea. And Rocket League hits like a rocket-powered train. From the first seconds, as the engine growls under your all-powerful trigger finger, this feels not just fresh but perfectly-formed.Teams of rocket-propelled cars face each other in an enclosed arena, where the walls can be driven up and all corners are rounded for maximum bouncability. At either end is a large goal, and somewhere in the middle is a giant ball, around twice the height of the cars, which has what feels like its own low-gravity rules: it hangs in the air, moves begrudgingly after taps, and even when whacked will rarely outpace a rocket engine. Continue reading...