Technology | The Guardian

What does it mean to live in a world where our possessions can track our every move?Once the domain of science fiction, the internet of things is now here – and it's not just a matter of smart fridges that can order your milk. Soon our towns, our crops and even our insides are going to be increasingly wired to the web in a data driven, hyper-connected world.How can we control who has access to this data? What happens when our connection goes down or our smart homes get hacked? Continue reading...

In the wake of a top player admitting the use of Adderall in competition, the Electronic Sports League has announced plans to introduce an anti-doping policyThe Electronic Sports League, the world’s largest e-sports organization, announced Thursday its plans to implement a comprehensive anti-doping program.The ESL said in a statement it has partnered with Germany’s anti-doping agency, Nationale Anti-Doping Agentur (Nada), to “create an anti-PED policy that is fair, feasible and conclusive while also respecting the privacy of players,” and will be meeting with the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) to assist with the creation, enforcement and dissemination of the policy in the United States, Asia and Australia. Continue reading...

ISI spy agency sought access to data from ‘landing sites’ passing through Karachi, privacy group claims, in push to acquire digital espionage capacity to rival USPakistani intelligence sought to tap worldwide internet traffic via underwater cables that would have given the country a digital espionage capacity to rival the US, according to a report by Privacy International.The report says the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency hired intermediary companies to acquire spying toolkits from western and Chinese firms for domestic surveillance. Continue reading...

Thousands have pledged money to pre-order the “Swiss Army knife of travel jackets” – built-in pillow, eye-mask, gloves and earphone holders are on the list – but what features would you most like to see in a piece of travel clothing?A design for a new jacket that hopes to solve every petty problem, discomfort and inconvenience a traveller may face has become the most funded fashion item in crowdfunding history, raising over $1.5m in two weeks.The BauBax jacket offers 15 built-in features including an inflatable neck pillow, gloves in the sleeve, earphone holders and an eyemask in the hood, leading some media outlets to describe it as the “Swiss Army knife of travel jackets”. Continue reading...

It’s 30 years since Commodore launched its powerful Amiga 1000 computer, ushering in the era of Worms, Lemmings and myriad other Britsoft classicsIn 1985 my family made a terrible mistake – a mistake that would have far-reaching consequences; a mistake that would blight my life for several painful years. I still look back at it with a sense of sadness and, yes, if I’m honest, fury. What happened was this – and if you’re a gamer of a certain age, you may want to sit down: my family bought an Atari ST instead of a Commodore Amiga.With its powerful 16bit processor and vast 256k of memory (expandable to 512k and beyond), the original Amiga 1000 was the epoch-shattering home computer that effectively invented the concept of the all-round multimedia machine. The Atari ST, meanwhile, was pretty good for midi music. Continue reading...

Movie studio discovers that its own computers host pirated copies of Jurassic World and requests Google to remove links to itUniversal Pictures in France has been seeding a pirated copy of its latest blockbuster Jurassic World from its own servers.

The lack of detail about sales has led some to declare the Apple Watch a flop, but its launch has focused attention on the broader smartwatch sectorThree months after launching its first smartwatch, Apple has reported record revenues and vast iPhone sales - but no numbers on its new wearable. That has got commentators asking whether the Apple Watch is a flop.Before its launch, financial analysts were predicting watches would fly off the shelves to the tune of 40m in the first year. Those estimates were based on the performance of Apple’s iPhone, which sold 47.5m in a single quarter. Continue reading...

Last-minute agreement removes threat of restrictions on number of cars taxi service could put on city’s streetsNew York Uber users can rest easy: there will be no limit on the number of its cars cruising the streets following a deal between the mayor’s office and the online taxi service.The surprise agreement follows a war of words in which New York city mayor, Bill de Blasio, accused Uber of trying to “dictate to government” and failing to take a “wise course” in its dealings with the city. Continue reading...

Al Franken writes letter to attorney general raising concerns that some Apple practices could limit choices and raise prices for consumerDemocratic senator Al Franken said he was concerned that some Apple practices could limit choices and raise prices for consumer, in a letter sent to the attorney general, Loretta Lynch, and the Federal Trade Commission chair, Edith Ramirez, on Wednesday.Related: Spotify bites back at Apple Music with weekly ‘mixtape’ playlist for each user Continue reading...

Japanese company partners with autonomous driving startup ZMP to produce drones for surveillance, inspection and measuringSony is launching a company to produce camera drones in a partnership with the autonomous driving startup ZMP.The new drone manufacturer, Aerosense, will use Sony’s imaging, sensing and networking technology from its smartphone range to create aerial surveillance and reconnaissance drones for businesses. Continue reading...

With the free upgrade to Microsoft Windows 10 shipping on 29 July, should I upgrade Windows 7? Can I revert to my old operating system?Should I go for the Windows 10 upgrade or continue with Windows 7? My laptop is five years old and working very nicely after I installed an SSD (solid-state disc). It has a 2.2GHz Intel Core i5, 8GB of memory and a Blu-ray drive. I am worried about drivers. Ratish Gupta Continue reading...

Twit or Miss game kicks off digital strategy to bring Dahl’s characters to young fans, in tandem with the writer’s centenary celebrations next yearOne of the most dysfunctional couples in the history of children’s fiction, The Twits, are starring in a new children’s game for smartphones and tablets.Roald Dahl’s Twit or Miss, due for release on Thursday, is the first in a planned series of apps based on the author’s back catalogue, released by the Dahl estate and publisher Penguin Random House. Continue reading...

The parallel between Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon and CCTV may be clear, but what happens when you step into the world of data capture?

American robot THORwin, designed by a team from the University of Pennsylvania, won the ‘adult-size humanoid’ category at the annual eventThe Iranian bore down on the US, a goal or two away from bringing America to its knees and achieving world domination. America’s sole defender stared ahead, unblinking. There would be no deal with Tehran today.Thus a team of Americans and their four-and-a-half-foot robot defeated Iran 5-4 in the RoboCup soccer final on Wednesday, denying the Iranians the 2015 title. The victory keeps the geopolitical rivalry heated in at least one arena, even if relations have improved in the diplomatic one. Continue reading...

Anti-hacking technology backed by former founder of Autonomy attracts $22.5m funding from venture capital firm SummitA British cybersecurity firm backed by software entrepreneur Mike Lynch has been valued at more than $100m (£64m) in a new funding round.Cambridge-based Darktrace aims to combat sophisticated cyber-attacks with software that learns the behavioural patterns of every device, user and network within an organisation. When unusual activity is detected, the Darktrace software alerts human cybersecurity experts.

Shares off 5% before lunchtime on Wednesday even in face of Apple Watch’s likely $1bn sales as analysts say investors are spoiled by company’s successApple stock fell down and stayed down Wednesday morning, as investors seemed disappointed by another set of record-breaking results and a lack of fireworks over Apple Watch sales figures. The stock was off by 5% before lunchtime.Analysts said Apple’s investors are frankly spoiled. “The sharp plunge in the stock price can partly be attributed to the company missing projections for iPhone shipments and revenue forecasts, but is largely due to the fact that investors had become accustomed to significant earnings beats by Apple,” wrote James Chen, senior market analyst to City Index. Continue reading...

A million minutes of historic current-affairs footage from 1895 to the present day becomes available on video-sharing websiteOne million minutes of historical video dating back to 1895 – from footage of a hover scooter floating on a cushion of air to Mussolini calling for world peace – have been uploaded onto YouTube.In what is the largest upload of historical news content on the video-sharing platform to date, the Associated Press and British Movietone are to host a collection of 550,000 video stories on two YouTube channels. Continue reading...

With influences ranging from John Wyndham to 1980s nuclear-war drama Threads, this gorgeous adventure is a very English take on the end of the worldAcross the village green, the small country pub looks inviting – especially when bathed in the orangey light of this warm summer evening.It has taken a short walk to get here, along a quiet country road, then through the picturesque village of Yaughton, with its quaint cottages and bulging hedgerows. The only sound is birdsong and a quiet electrical buzz, perhaps coming from an overhead power line somewhere. No one is around – nor will there ever be again. Everyone in the village is probably dead and whatever happened here may have happened all over the world. This is a particularly English vision of the apocalypse – bucolic, refined and charming. But it is the apocalypse nonetheless. Continue reading...

Theme of kegs, red Solo cups and beer pong provokes outrage from equality campaigners – and an apology from TwitterTwitter has apologised for hosting a frat house-themed party for its staff while the company is in the middle of a class-action lawsuit for gender discrimination.The party was held on Tuesday by one of Twitter’s San Francisco-based teams for their internal “happy hour”, and involved frat-style accoutrements such as a keg, red Solo cups, and beer pong, all under faux-Greek letters reading “TWΦTTΣR ΓRΛT HΘVSΣ”. Continue reading...

The former Millwall prodigy was scarcely seen at senior level but statistical quirks in the popular computer game saw him become a cult heroDepending on whose numbers you believe, he made anything between 50 and 100 appearances in his senior career. His CV includes Millwall, Cádiz, Plymouth, FC Haka, Panetolikos, FK Tonsberg and the Gambian side Samger FC. He won youth caps for one country and four senior caps for another, scoring once. The statistics are, using the measures by which anyone can assess itinerant footballers who prowl the world for work, nothing at all remarkable.Related: Is being addicted to Football Manager a medical condition? | Iain Macintosh Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterI don’t know what happened yesterday! Anyway, today’s game is Xo, a space strategy game from Portland-based developer, Jumpdrive Studios. The team is being supported by Square Enix and has launched a kickstarter to fund the game. Continue reading...

Camera maker gets lift from China, Japan and South Korea as it bolsters its offerings and reports a net income of $35mAction camera maker GoPro Inc has reported better than expected quarterly profit and revenue, helped by strong sales in markets outside North America. GoPro, whose helmet- and body-mounted cameras are popular with surfers, skydivers and other adventure sports enthusiasts, has benefited from a focus on markets such as China, Japan and South Korea. The company earns more than half of its revenue from markets outside the United States.“China is now a top 10 revenue-generating country for GoPro,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Continue reading...

New York City mayor says ‘I don’t debate with private corporations’, as he pushes to remove taxi app’s cars from streets in order to evaluate impact on congestionNew York City mayor Bill de Blasio warned that Uber was not taking a “wise course” in its dealings with New York City and said that “people will reject” the online taxi service if it continued to act as if it could “dictate to government”.The latest missive in de Blasio’s ongoing fight with the multibillion dollar company, which is facing regulatory hurdles in major cities around the world, came shortly after the mayor rejected an open invitation for a debate with the company officials that would have been streamed online to discuss the Democratic mayor’s issue with the company. Continue reading...

A banal spat between two teenagers tells a sorry tale of oversharing, the currency of teenage sexuality, and the vulnerability of growing up in publicI’m always quick to defend the internet against charges of toxicity. It is home to so much that’s positive, but there’s no doubting it can be a despairing space. Ellen Pao, former chief executive of Reddit, wrote earlier this week in the Washington Post that “the trolls are winning”.There’s online misogyny, cyberbullying, hacking, and God knows how many irritating mailshots from political parties. And there’s no better marker of how unfun the internet can be than the ongoing Twitter conversation between Vine star Carter Reynolds and his ex-girlfriend Maggie Lindemann, who split in December 2014. Continue reading...

Engineering firms BuroHappold, Bystrup and Arup are frontrunners to build £40m Thames crossing between Nine Elms and PimlicoFour shortlisted designs have been unveiled for another new bridge across the Thames in London – thought to be the first in a major city centre to incorporate the needs of pedestrians and cyclists.The proposals for the bridge, which will link Pimlico and Nine Elms in south-west London, were shortlisted from 74 entries in March in a competition run by Wandsworth council. Continue reading...

Hackers have threatened to release details of all 33 million profiles – including one belonging to a Guardian journalist who registered while investigating siteHackers threatened to release the identity and credit card details of 33 million adulterers on Monday. And it turns out I was one of them.I set up an Ashley Madison profile last year to investigate the site’s claims to have built an “infidelity map of the UK”. But when I attempted to delete my account, I was presented with a £15 charge. Given that the service prides itself on its discretion, I decided my personal information would probably be safe, and I forgot all about it – until yesterday. Continue reading...

Reps claim system is ‘completely secured’ and that hackers ‘weren’t successful’, while denying more than 2,500 customer records have been releasedExtramarital dating site Ashley Madison is in disarray with its customer service centre telling users their accounts are secure despite the company admitting its user records have been stolen.More than 2,500 customer records have been released to the public by attackers who claim to have stolen the total database of the site, which claims to have more than 33 million members in 46 countries. Continue reading...

Security bug allows remote attack of Uconnect system, letting hackers apply the brakes, kill the engine and take control of steering over the internetSecurity experts are urging owners of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles vehicles to update their onboard software after hackers took control of a Jeep over the internet and disabled the engine and brakes and crashed it into a ditch.

The company has kept quiet about sales figures for the Apple Watch, which went on sale in April, but analysts’ estimates are low after tepid reviewsAll eyes will be on Apple’s Watch sales when the tech behemoth reports its latest quarterly earnings later today. There may not be much to see.Analysts have called for caution ahead of Apple’s earnings call today, during which the company is expected to give its first official indication of Apple Watch sales figures since they went on sale in April. However, Apple will probably leave the exact revenue for the product in the “other” category and few are expecting detailed figures for an Apple product that has got off to a mixed start.

Research finds more than 38 million people in China are using VPNs or proxy servers to watch BBC shows – and could be a useful source of revenue

A coder has already produced a Google Chrome plugin to reverse Twitter’s change, allowing background images to be restored for usersTwitter users are no longer able to set their own background pictures as they browse the site, after the company quietly turned off the much-loved feature and replaced backgrounds with a uniform light grey.User-set backgrounds will still be visible when a specific user’s feed, or individual tweet, is visited. But when browsing the home timeline, users are now faced with a plain background, rather than one of their own choice. Continue reading...

Silicon Valley companies rally around Samsung with supporting statement arguing that Apple’s patent litigation is damaging to the industryGoogle, Facebook, Dell, HP, eBay and a collection of other large Silicon Valley companies have sided with Samsung in its battle over patents with Apple.

US presidential hopeful believed he had received supportive tweet with picture of ‘Vietnam vet’ during controversy over McCain criticism

Move to waive account-removal fee may not be useful to users whose information is already in hands of hackers The Impact TeamExtramarital dating site Ashley Madison has apologised to its users a second time for allowing its database to be comprehensively stolen, and is temporarily offering users the ability to fully delete their account from the site free of charge.The “paid delete” ability, which typically costs £15 in the UK and $19 in the US per account, was cited by Ashley Madison’s pseudonymous attacker, The Impact Team, as a main reason for the hack in the first place. The group alleged that the site did not in fact fully delete all information about a user, even after they had paid the fee. Continue reading...

Case of mistaken identity bumps Spanish Instagram user off social network, replacing him with his footballing namesakeInstagram has apologised after it handed control of a Spanish user’s account over to a Barcelona football player with the same name.Andrés Iniesta, from Madrid, is the holder of the @ainiesta Instagram account. Andrés Iniesta, from Fuentealbilla, is the captain of Barcelona football club. The former Iniesta woke up on Wednesday to find that access to his Instagram account was blocked. Continue reading...

Discover Weekly will offer two hours of music based on users’ listening habits and those of similar fansThe music-streaming battle between Apple Music and Spotify isn’t just about which one has the Taylor Swift album: it’s about which one has the best playlists, and the ability to recommend them to the listeners who’ll love them.Apple Music made a strong start on the first of those: the service has won plaudits for its deep collection of programmed playlists. Now Spotify is fighting back on a related front: personalisation. Continue reading...

Yu Suzuki’s long-awaited adventure sequel has received over $6m in crowdfunding, but questions still hang over it. Here are some possible answersAfter years of enthusiastic fan campaigns, raised hopes and dashed dreams, Shenmue III has finally been funded. The third title in the influential action adventure series, originally developed for the Sega Dreamcast console, finished its Kickstarter campaign at the weekend, attracting just over $6.3m from almost 70,000 backers.Envisioned and overseen by legendary designer Yu Suzuki, the long-awaited sequel is now the most highly funded video game on the Kickstarter platform, beating previous record-holder Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night by almost a million dollars. Shenmue III was also the fastest title to shoot through the one million dollar funding mark, reaching the figure less than two hours after the Kickstarter launch. The game went on to earn its $2m target within nine hours. Continue reading...

Everyday delivery moves one step closer as Federal Aviation Authority-approved drone successfully deposits medicine to rural health clinicThe first US government-approved drone delivery has successfully transported 4.5kg of medical supplies to a rural health clinic.

Italian police investigate six Hacking Team employees after previous accusations over the leaking of company secretsItalian police are investigating whether the attack on cyber-espionage firm Hacking Team, which exposed its dealings with repressive regimes and flaws in user software, could have been an inside job.

Site’s hackers claim 37m personal records have been stolen from notorious dating site, with Cougar Life and Established Men also compromisedHackers have stolen and leaked personal information from online cheating site Ashley Madison, an international dating site with the tagline: “Life is short. Have an affair.”The site, which encourages married users to cheat on their spouses and advertises 37 million members, had its data hacked by a group calling itself the Impact Team. At least two other dating sites, Cougar Life and Established Men, also owned by the same parent group, Avid Life Media, have had their data compromised.

Microsoft Hyperlapse, WifiMapper, Booking Now, Musical.ly, This War of Mine, Mission Impossible, Warhammer 40,000 and moreWelcome to this week’s roundup of the latest, greatest Android apps and games, covering smartphones and tablets.All these apps have been released for the first time – ie not updates – since the last roundup. All prices are correct at the time of writing, with “IAP” indicating use of in-app purchases. Continue reading...

State government proposes changes to licence conditions which would help free up the on-demand transport industryTaxi and Uber drivers will operate on a level playing field under legislative changes proposed by the West Australian government.

From a zombie apocalypse to the horrors of trench warfareMany tabletop games enjoy taking inspiration from obscure sources. Not so Pints of Blood, which leaves little room for confusion. Focusing on a group of survivors fending off zombies in a pub, it’s Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead in your hands. With attractive production quality and semi-co-operative gameplay, it’s easy to tempt friends into Pints of Blood, but it can quickly feel repetitive. The result offers plenty of undemanding fun, if a slight lack of intricacy.With a less obvious influence, but more nuanced – and surprisingly so – is BraveRats, which across just 17 cards presents a brilliantly elegant playing system. Themed loosely around two warring rodent clans, it’s a quickfire game of reading your rival’s intentions in snappy sessions of about five minutes. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterIt’s Monday again! Today’s game is Dream, a narrative adventure set in the unconscious mind of the lead protagonist. It’s coming to Steam on 31 July. Continue reading...

The internet is already a threat to quiet contemplation – but could the internet of things herald a return to solitude?Solitude has long been the condition for inspiration. John the Baptist fled to the desert; Descartes retreated to his fireside; Mahler took refuge in his lakeside cabin. Through solitude, religious, intellectual or creative enlightenment can be reached. As Nietzsche said: “How can anyone become a thinker if he does not spend at least a third of the day without passions, people and books?”

The London developer drew from the best Batman comic books for its successful action-adventure trilogy, exploring the character’s vulnerabilities in new waysNearby, there’s a cape with rainbow stripes and a cowl covered in diamantes; beside them a Batman bust featuring the phrase: “Although of course you end up becoming yourself”. It’s a book title, but also a neat comment on this weird character.We’re at the Kachette art gallery in Shoreditch and tonight sees a promotional installation featuring dozens of Batman outfits reinterpreted by artists and celebrities. It’s the sort of event Bruce Wayne would begrudgingly attend, and somewhere among these curious art works is Sefton Hill, the director of the monumentally successful Batman Arkham video games. Continue reading...

David Cameron and the director of the FBI have both asked for ‘backdoors’ to be included in encryption softwareEver since the internet emerged into public view in the 1980s, a key question has been whether digital technology would pose an existential challenge to corporate and governmental power. In this context, I am what you might call a recovering utopian – “utopian” in that I once did believe that the technology would put it beyond the reach of state and corporate agencies; and “recovering” in the sense that my confidence in that early assessment has taken a hammering over the years. In that period, technology has sometimes trumped politics and/or commercial power, but at other times it’s been the other way round.The early battles were over intellectual property. Since computers are essentially copying machines, making perfect copies of digital goods became child’s play. As a celebrated trope put it: “Copying is to digital technology as breathing is to animal life.” So began the copyright wars, triggered by widespread piracy and illicit sharing of copyrighted files, which emasculated the music industry and led to the emergence of new corporate masters of the media universe – Apple, Spotify, YouTube and the rest – and the taming of the file-sharing monster. Result: Technology 1, Establishment 1. Continue reading...

Beneath its unremarkable exterior, VW’s Passat is bursting with gadgets. So why does everyone think it’s dull?Price £22,320

Richard Prince has turned borrowing online images into high art – and hard cash. But is the artist’s work anything other than genius trolling?It’s a question as old as art itself: “Yeah, but is it art?”Type it into Google and get 1.26 billion results. It lends itself to book titles, television series and conversations between white walls, whetted by prosecco. Continue reading...