Technology | The Guardian

More than 7,400 of the shotguns have entered Australia after importer Robert Nioa modified banned weaponMore than 7,440 Adler rapid-fire shotguns have been imported into Australia in the past six months, despite a review now considering claims the gun type seriously undermines post-Port Arthur gun control laws.

Graphics tablet maker’s new paper system tracks your pen strokes on normal A5 paper and outputs it as an image, PDF, text or digital ink, but can’t match competitorsThe Wacom Bamboo Spark is the stylus-maker’s first attempt to make a hybrid paper notepad that records your scribbles and doodles in a digital form.

The Pentagon hails a major advance in robotic warfare which promises to drastically reduce the cost of some naval operationsThe US military has christened an experimental self-driving warship designed to hunt for enemy submarines, a major advance in robotic warfare at the core of America’s strategy to counter Chinese and Russian naval investments.

District attorneys in San Francisco and Los Angeles sued in 2014, saying Uber falsely claimed its criminal screening of would-be drivers led the industryUber could pay up to $25m (£18m) to settle a lawsuit in California over allegations that the company services aren’t as safe as it claims.The suit is the second this year over the same issue, and Uber has already paid $28m in a class-action claim from riders. Continue reading...

Rocket League, Her Story and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture beat the blockbusters on an interesting night for the games industry

Elon Musk’s SpaceX will attempt to launch a resupply mission to the International Space Station on Friday. It follows hard on the heels of the Cygnus resupply mission a fortnight ago, conducted by another commercial company, Orbital ATK Inc.Nasa retired the Space Shuttle in 2011. Since then, it has been relying on Russian capsules to transport astronauts, and commercial companies to haul freight to the ISS. Yet there is more than just three tonnes of supplies riding in the Dragon capsule atop Friday’s Falcon 9 rocket launch. Continue reading...

27-year-old venture capitalist Dan Sullivan’s BetterBoyfriend.me is a service that sends girlfriends and wives presents like chocolate and tea every monthIn typical bad boyfriend behavior, Dan Sullivan was late to breakfast with the Guardian because he got pulled over on his motorcycle.Sullivan works too much, he says. He misses dinner dates. He forgets to give presents. Continue reading...

Nearly four years after she took over as Yahoo CEO, Marissa Meyer could net a $110m payoff if she is pushed out in a rumored takeoverUS telecoms firm Verizon is reportedly planning to make a first-round bid for Yahoo’s web business next week, Bloomberg has reported, with Googlealso considering bidding for Yahoo’s core business.The potential bid for the huge but troubled web portal comes hours after it was reported that Yahoo has been circulating financial documents to prospective buyers. Tech news site Re/code reported that the documents showed the “financial situation at the Silicon Valley internet giant is becoming increasingly dire”. Continue reading...

As doctors try to connect with young patients who are comfortable sharing their most private photos by text, it’s uncharted, legally treacherous territorySnapchat, Instagram, Facebook and iMessage have revolutionized the world of sharing penis photos – and not just between friends. As doctors try to connect with young, digitally native patients, those same patients are sending pictures of their genitalia to their doctors’ mobile phones.It is uncharted, legally treacherous territory for clinicians, and the leading American medical organizations have not yet issued guidance on what to do with pictures of patients’ genitalia shared over mobile phones. Continue reading...

Director James Comey says US government in discussions over whether to reveal details of purchased hack that only works on 5C and older devicesFederal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey has confirmed that the law enforcement agency’s hack on the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone 5C will not work on newer iPhones.

Deforestation in Cameroon has increased fourfold from 2006 to 2014, but the spread of cheap smartphones can be used to turn this tideWhen I first visited Cameroon in 2007, mobile networks had just spread outside the cities, beginning a revolution in how remote villages could connect with each other and the wider world. Very few people owned their own phone, but homemade wooden stands renting them out by the minute could be found at almost every road junction. A few years later the micro-entrepreneurs are still there, but they now sell SIM cards and phone credit vouchers, as almost every adult has access to a phone (World Bank figures show Cameroon went from 17 phones per 100 adults in 2006 to 76 in 2014).It is hard to overstate the transformational effect the rapid proliferation of mobile phones has had on rural societies in the developing world. Villages and towns that never received fixed line phones, and are only slowly being connected to electricity grids, now have a cheap means of communication with friends, family and business partners. Further, mobile phones have given the world’s poorest people access to the internet, connecting them to a wealth of information and opportunities unimaginable just a decade ago. Continue reading...

He’s the Indiana Jones of video games and with his fourth and possibly final adventure awaiting, we ask Naughty Dog why this character has proved so popularWe have followed him all over the world, from the coast of Panama to the lost city of Ubar. We’ve swooned at his burgeoning romances, we’ve sighed at his jokey yet loving friendship with Sully. We are, as Dinah Washington once put it, mad about the boy.But why? What is it about Nathan Drake? How do you design a video game character who captures the imagination and emotional investment of players – even while they’re controlling the same character to mercilessly gun down hundreds of baddies? Continue reading...

Duncan Hunter blames bill on purchase from teenage son, followed by unauthorised charges as he tried to undo damageA US congressman has been criticised by the Federal Election Commission for spending $1,300 (£921) of campaign funds on video games.But Duncan Hunter, a Republican representative from Alpine, California, blames the charges on a mistake by his son. Continue reading...

BBC Radio 4 Today presenter may be a late adopter but he’s tried everything from Google Glass to a twike in the name of journalismJohn Humphrys was at the top of his game on the Panama Papers on Radio 4’s Today programme on Thursday, but for some reason it was another exchange, about acclaimed best selling game Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, that caused a social media followup. Continue reading...

The Shake It Off star makes light of her battle with the iPhone maker and Jason Statham populate an entire town in our review of new advertisingWith 10m views on YouTube in its first four days, this is surely set to become one of the most-watched commercials of the internet era. Taylor Swift – as the culturally attuned among you may recall – had a bit of a beef with Apple about its streaming service a little while ago. Unlike the FBI, when Taylor Swift took on Apple, she won. And now that they’ve kissed and made up, she’s even appearing in adverts for the very service they rowed about.

Virtual reality firm says it isn’t sharing information, such as physical movements of owners, with the social network – yetFacebook’s VR firm, Oculus, is fighting to combat suspicions raised by its privacy policy and terms of service that it will spy on users’ activity and pass information to third parties.The privacy policy warns about “information automatically collected about you when you use our services”, including “information about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a virtual reality headset” which may be used “to send you promotional messages and content and otherwise market to you”. Continue reading...

The Oscar-winner is to co-star with Jason Sudeikis and Josh Gad in the big-screen adaptation of the mobile gameSean Penn has been cast in the forthcoming Angry Birds movie.Related: The Angry Birds movie trailer: the hottest film of 2012 is coming Continue reading...

One of the most common complaints about Windows 10 is that it doesn’t include the usual selection of free Microsoft games such as Solitaire, Minesweeper, FreeCell and Chess Titans. There are several possible solutionsI am missing the free games such as Chess Titans, Solitaire and a few more that Windows 10 doesn’t have. I tried to install Chess Titans from Windows 7 but it won’t let me. Are we likely to get it on 10 in the future? VeronicaThe games have vanished. Where is my Solitaire? Oh, I can go to the Window Store and purchase a souped-up (ie ruined) Solitaire, but that costs money. For Solitaire? Crikey! JimMicrosoft uses games partly for educational purposes: for example, Solitaire taught a generation to use the mouse to drag-and-drop. (There’s an excellent post about this by James Hunt.) With Windows 8 and 10, Microsoft moved the games to the Windows Store. This should have taught users to log on and download them. Continue reading...

Images on Line app referenced royal scandals and rumours in country which has strict laws against insulting monarchyA set of emojis satirising Thailand’s royal family has been removed by the messaging app Line, in a country where discussion of the monarchy is tightly controlled by a draconian royal insult law.Cached web pages of Line’s “sticker store” seen on Thursday showed the cartoon images were available on Tuesday afternoon, but have since been deleted. Continue reading...

‘Morrissey would like to stress that this account has not been sanctioned by him and has no connection to him. Follow it at your peril’Hopes have been dashed for fans who thought that a new and verified Smiths Twitter account might signal the reformation of the Manchester group. Morrissey and later the account itself both confirmed that Tweets from the feed will be sent out by Warners.“A Smiths/Morrissey Google alerts/Twitter account has been opened by Warner UK,” reads a post on True To You, a website that Morrissey frequently uses to communicate with the outside world. “Morrissey would like to stress that this account has not been sanctioned by him and has no connection to him. Follow it at your peril.” Continue reading...

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‘Platoon’ of wireless-linked trucks arrives in Netherlands port city of Rotterdam, giving a glimpse of the future of road haulageSix convoys of semi-automated “smart” trucks arrived in Rotterdam’s harbour on Wednesday after an experiment its organisers say will revolutionise future road transport on Europe’s busy highways.More than a dozen self-driving trucks made by six of Europe’s largest manufacturers arrived in the port in so-called “truck platoons” around midday, said Eric Jonnaert, president of the umbrella body representing DAF, Daimler, Iveco, MAN, Scania and Volvo. Continue reading...

Obama administration allegedly would not support bills that would give judges clearer authority to order tech companies to help law enforcement crack dataThe White House is declining to offer public support for long-awaited legislation that would give federal judges clearer authority to order technology companies such as Apple to help law enforcement crack encrypted data, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Move over, Google Glass: in Samsung’s sci-fi vision of the future, an internet-connected contact lens could overlay search results and discreetly take photosSamsung is exploring the development of a contact lens that can project images directly into the users’ eye, take photographs and connect wirelessly to a smartphone, a patent application has revealed.The South Korean copyright authority has published a 29-page application made by the consumer electronics firm two years ago, reported the technology blog Sammobile, offering a rare insight into a science fiction vision of a future technology that could be closer than we think. Continue reading...

Customers will be able to send currency with messages and emojis using the blockchain technology behind bitcoinAn app that uses the technology behind bitcoin, the digital currency, is launching in the UK with the support of Barclays.The Circle app will allow customers to transfer money with messages and emojis, and make currency transfers between pounds and dollars. Euros will be added later. Continue reading...

Payments to BuzzFeed and others reflects Facebook’s desire to ensure Live has sufficient engaging contentFacebook is paying news publishers and broadcasters, including the New York Times, BuzzFeed and Sky, to provide content on its live video service.Video has become a priority for Facebook and Live is a core part of its push into the area. The payments to newspapers and digital publishers reflect Facebook’s desire to ensure Live has enough content on it to persuade people to use it. Continue reading...

Advertising watchdog dismisses complaint from US electric car maker about UK company’s green energy claimsTesla, the US electric car and battery maker, has lost the latest round of a long-running spat with UK energy company Ecotricity.The company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, had lodged a complaint with the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about claims on Ecotricity’s website that it supplies “Britain’s greenest energy” and “greenest electricity”. On Wednesday, the ASA dismissed the complaint - agreeing with Ecotricity that the claims are correct. Continue reading...

How the tech firm’s artificially intelligent Twitter chatbot went from sweet tween to Holocaust denier overnightIt’s the most compelling story out of the tech space so far this year: when AI goes rogue. Microsoft’s blunder has raised a myriad of questions and concerns regarding public-facing AI.Joining Olly Mann to discuss the Tay incident and the future of AI are Guardian’s tech reporter Alex Hern, internet artist Darius Kazemi and comedian Myq Kaplan. Continue reading...

Rising Chinese smartphone manufacturer partners with Leica for new dual-camera phones as it attempts to compete at the top endChinese manufacturer Huawei has unveiled its latest attempt to take on smartphone giants Samsung and Apple, betting on dual cameras and premium design with its new flagship Android phones.

• 120 years since the Games of the I Olympiad in Athens

Kik’s new bot store offers weather, shopping and comedy video tools that plug into your messaging platform. But is it just a gimmick, or genuinely useful?Once, a messenger app did just that – message. But with the rise of artificial intelligence, tech companies are falling over themselves to prove how much more useful and interactive their apps can be – which is why you’re about to see an explosion of “bots”.Kik, the mobile chat application popular with teenagers, launched its Bot Shop on 5 April, and Facebook is poised to launch its own bot store for Facebook Messenger next week. Every brand from Barbie to the Washington Post seems to be working on a chat bot of its own. Continue reading...

The social network’s oversensitive content filters have blocked posts about a forthcoming tour by alternative rock band October DriftFacebook censors have prevented a band from promoting a gig in Scunthorpe. As a result of the four-letter profanity spelt out in the middle of the word, the alternative group, called October Drift, were blocked from posting news about their show in the North Lincolnshire town.The social network does not ban profanity, but it does identify and filter swearwords in boosted posts, the paid-for function that allows users to promote a message to a wider audience who have not already “liked” their page. Continue reading...

Smart home brand, owned by Google’s holding company Alphabet, said it would refund customers on a ‘case by case basis’Nest may offer compensation to owners of a smart home hub that it is remotely disabling in May, according to a statement given to The Verge.The internet of things firm was bought by Google in 2014 and is now owned by Google’s holding company, Alphabet. In March, it announced the decision to shut down the Revolv hub, a smart home device that it had acquired in October 2014. Continue reading...

The title that arguably kickstarted one of the most controversial gaming genres of the last decade is getting a re-release on the latest consolesThe intention was to explore the limits of the first-person shooter genre. This was the idea that drove a small group of researchers at the University of Portsmouth to develop the original version of Dear Esther in 2007. Set on a remote Hebridean island, the game offered no puzzles, no peril, no allies or enemies to interact with. The player progressed through the haunted, barren landscape while a tragic story of love and loss played out around them. They walked, they listened, they watched.It was minimal, it was experimental, but there was something about the game – its beautiful environments, its haunting soundtrack, its sullen, almost despairing atmosphere, that caught people’s attention. This was a genre associated with fast-paced blasters like Doom and Unreal, but here was a game about a man descending into grief, the nature of which remained elusive, but centred on the titular Esther. It generated enough interest that co-creators Dan Pinchbeck and Jessica Curry were able to set up their studio, The Chinese Room (named after the philosophical thought experiment), as a commercial venture to develop a standalone version. Continue reading...

Co-creator of the iPlayer criticises the corporation’s bureaucracy as he leaves after 14 yearsTony Ageh, one of the architects of the BBC iPlayer, is to leave the corporation after 14 years to join the New York Public Library as chief digital officer.

Fang Binxing mocked for needing to circumvent his own censorship system live during a talk to access a website in South KoreaThe “Father” of China’s internet censorship infrastructure, known as the Great Firewall of China, has been caught having to circumvent his own creation after attempting to display a website during a talk at the Harbin Institute of Technology in the Heilongjiang province of China.

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While most companies are simplifying their browsers for the mass market, Vivaldi is going in the opposite direction. After spending five months on the beta test, Jack Schofield reports on the launch of version 1.0Vivaldi has launched a new web browser that is different enough to have a chance of success. Rather than targeting the mass market with a simplified browser, Vivaldi is trying to deliver more power to the people who live and work on the web, whether they use Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.These people, the developers believe, are those who want to take notes and screen grabs while browsing, or view three or four different web pages in the same tab. People who want to be able to save and reload all their favourite sites as sessions. People who want to do everything via configurable keyboard commands, or use mouse-gestures instead. Continue reading...

Latest wireless noise cancelling headphones from Sony last ages between charges, sound decent and feel great, only let down by a few small nigglesSony has a history of making great, long-lasting headphones and its h.ear on Wireless NC headphones are no exception.The company’s big push in the past couple of years has been for high resolution music delivered by its range of Walkman devices and Xperia smartphones. These new headphones are some of the first to deliver that high resolution music wirelessly, but HiRes music isn’t required to enjoy them. Continue reading...

Outspoken energy minister Ségolène Royal has told Musk of her vision to transform France’s oldest nuclear site into a Tesla factory: ‘Who dares, wins’French energy minister Ségolène Royal has suggested to Tesla founder Elon Musk that he build an electric car factory on the site of France’s oldest nuclear reactor after it closes at the end of the year, AFP reported on Tuesday.French President Francois Hollande has pledged to close down the Fessenheim nuclear plant in the Alsace region near the German border but has met strong resistance from local politicians and unions worried about job losses. Continue reading...

Biometric devices measuring players’ joint stress, heart and breathing rates have been approved for use during Major League Baseball games this seasonWearable technology is coming to Major League Baseball.

George Hotz has scored $3.1m investment in his startup Comma, and thinks he can build a better self-driving car than Elon MuskGeorge Hotz, the latest Silicon Valley startup founder to get a multimillion-dollar check from venture capitalists, went for a ride in a Rolls-Royce around San Francisco on Monday.At 26, Hotz thinks he could teach the legendary vehicle a few tricks. Braking should be smoother, he says. Accelerations could be gentler. The vehicle should run each time as if the best limo driver in the world was behind the wheel. “You don’t want the champagne to spill,” Hotz says. Continue reading...

Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are a tale of two Snapchats – each with different posting styles and strategies on how to nab the millennial voteBernie Sanders is winning the Snapchat election – at least on the follower count.“We do have the largest – and I’ve heard by far – the largest one,” said Hector Sigala, a digital media director on the Sanders campaign. Continue reading...

When MP Jess Phillips signed an email to a constituent with kisses she was rebuked by a judge. It’s time we had some xxing etiquette‘Another example of where being an MP and a human is unacceptable,” complained Jess Phillips as she tweeted a letter that she had sent to the justice secretary, Michael Gove.The Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley told the Conservative minister that she found the response of a judge in a Department for Work and Pensions tribunal case about a constituent’s access to disability benefit a “total insult”. Continue reading...

Company will not open center that would have employed over 400 people, citing a recently passed law they say discriminates against LGBT citizensPayPal cancelled plans for a new operation center that would have employed over 400 people in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Tuesday citing the state’s recently passed religious freedom law that critics say discriminates against the LGBT community.“Two weeks ago, PayPal announced plans to open a new global operations center in Charlotte and employ over 400 people in skilled jobs. In the short time since then, legislation has been abruptly enacted by the State of North Carolina that invalidates protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens and denies these members of our community equal rights under the law,” Dan Schulman, president and chief executive officer of PayPal, said in a letter released on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Customers furious as Nest is set to turn off Revolv units in just over a monthGoogle owner Alphabet’s subsidiary Nest is closing a smart-home company it bought less than two years ago, leaving customers’ devices useless as of May.In 2014, Google acquired Revolv, the maker of a £210 hub which could be used to control devices such as lights, alarms and doors. Continue reading...

Researchers discover that touching the areas where a robot’s genitals or buttocks would be provokes a physiological response in humansCalifornian researchers have established that an intimate caress of a humanoid robot can produce a physiological response in a human.They challenged volunteers with a robotic creature less than two feet high that possessed eyes, ears, torso, legs, arms and a voice – and a chat-up line rich in come-hither invitations. “Sometimes I’ll ask you to touch my body and sometimes I’ll ask you to point to my body,” it told volunteers. Continue reading...

Wikimedia claims Swedish court decision means tourists who take selfies at famous landmarks and spread them online could be in violation of lawSweden’s highest court on Monday found Wikimedia Sweden guilty of violating copyright laws by providing free access to its database of artwork photographs without the artists’ consent.

A government-sponsored committee is recommending standards that could open a path for commercial drone flights over populated areasA committee sponsored by the US government is recommending standards that could clear the way for commercial drone flights over populated areas and help speed the introduction of package delivery drones and other uses not yet possible, the Associated Press has reported.The Federal Aviation Administration currently prohibits most commercial drone flights over populated areas, especially crowds. That ban frustrates a host of industries that want to take advantage of the technology. Continue reading...

‘Techies’ is one photographer’s mission to tell the stories of Silicon Valley’s minorities, and to disrupt your idea of what a tech worker looks likeProminent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen recently wrote that “software coding is quite possibly the most inviting, inclusive profession ever” and linked to a study reporting that many coders are self taught. What he didn’t notice: the study also says the profession is 92.8% men.Helena Price, a photographer and former startup worker, is on Monday launching the largest oral history of discrimination in Silicon Valley – a series of 100 portraits of “techies” who fall into those forgotten categories. Continue reading...