Technology | The Guardian

You don’t need a record company or a promo campaign to reach the huge audience of the Nigerian diaspora – just a WhatsApp account

My friend and colleague John Hearle, who has died aged 90, was emeritus professor of textiles and former dean of technology at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (Umist). Until recent months he was still making important contributions to understanding how fibres behave.When he left Cambridge University in the 1940s with a first in physics, little was known about the structure of fibres. Through hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, and many books and articles, John was successful in promoting an “engineering design culture”. Continue reading...

Horror and confusion descended on users as the rumour spread, but there is no need to #savetwitter – the site is definitely not shutting downAn internet hoax has sent some Twitter users into meltdown, as rumours spread that the site would be closing in 2017.In case there were any doubt: it’s not. Everyone seems to be panicking for no good reason. Continue reading...

Hello Games’ title is one of the most visually interesting games of the past decade. But where does its approach to sci-fi come from?From the very beginning, No Man’s Sky has looked unlike any other modern science-fiction video game. With its bizarre creatures, hallucinogenic skylines and polychrome environments, it eschews the gritty, steel-grey aesthetics of Mass Effect, Halo and Gears of War.The themes of the game, too, hark back to a different form of sci-fi literature, less interested in galactic wars and more concerned with the philosophical and psychology elements of space exploration. Continue reading...

Peta has launched a game approved by the Smiths frontman, complete with a bleepy rendition of Meat Is Murder – but is it any good?Can anyone remember magician Paul Daniels’seminal retro computer game Rabbits? Maybe, on the grounds that it was one of the worst computer games ever set to code, you can’t. But I do. I do because I spent minutes that turned into hours that turned into days trying to complete it.I was reminded of that precious lost time – time I could have spent reading À la recherche du temps perdu in its original French, or learning to salsa dance, or basically doing anything that wasn’t trying to make a crudely drawn rabbit collect “magic items” for no discernible reason – when I was asked to test-run Morrissey’s new vegetarian computer game, This Beautiful Creature Must Die. Continue reading...

Just as there is no single, standardised world map, our digital maps take various forms – and it matters who is drawing them and how they’re drawnImagine if it would have more of an impact for Palestine to be recognised as a sovereign country by Google than by the UN. It’s a suggestion that’s caught fire – a five-month-old online petition demanding Palestine be labeled and bordered in Google Maps has gained more than 250,000 signatures just over the past few days.The issue is far more nuanced than the instantaneous outrage about Google “wiping Palestine from the map” would suggest. Google has never actually labeled the country, which isn’t officially recognised by the US or much of the west. The swiftness of the backlash, though, is not just about the wish for justice on behalf of an occupied people, but about the belief – now punctured – that our technology is neutral, that it presents an unbiased, infallible version of the world.

Creator of DoNotPay, which overturned 160,000 tickets in London and New York, expands service to assist those dealing with housing problems in the UKThe chatbot lawyer that overturned hundreds and thousands of parking tickets is now tackling another problem: homelessness.London-born Stanford student Joshua Browder created DoNotPay initially to help people appeal against fines for unpaid parking tickets. Dubbed “the world’s first robot lawyer”, Browder later programmed it to deal with a wider range of legal issues, such as claiming for delayed flights and trains and payment protection insurance (PPI). Continue reading...

If you work for Uber as a driver we’d like to hear from you. Share your experiences with us

Even the lawyer and her software engineer husband can’t buy a home in the area due to the intensifying housing crunch that the tech boom has exacerbated

Police are investigating reports of a drone flying close to a passenger plane with 62 people onboardPolice are investigating reports of a near-miss between a drone and a passenger plane in Cornwall.The incident took place shortly before 3pm on Wednesday as the Flybe flight with 62 people onboard was going in to land at Newquay airport. Continue reading...

Microsoft’s ‘simple’ naming system has created a lot of confusion about Windows Live Mail, but not much is actually changing Continue reading...

Yellow Cabs boss Neill Ford claims taxi industry campaign against Roy responsible for loss in Queensland seat of LongmanAn influential taxi company boss has invoked the fate of the former federal MP Wyatt Roy as a measure of the political risk of backing Uber, after the Queensland government moved to legalise it.Neill Ford, the managing director of Queensland’s largest taxi company, Yellow Cabs, claimed an industry campaign against Roy over his public support of Uber was the key factor in his upset loss in the seat of Longman in the July election. Continue reading...

When Microsoft first floated the two-in-one hybrid idea, many balked at the suggestion. But after years of improvements, they’re worth serious considerationThe PC and tablet industry is currently going through a bit of a revolution. At one stage tablets were the new hotness – the device to replace the PC as your default computing platform. But now Windows PCs are having a resurgence, this time in a new, 21st-century skin: the two-in-one.

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

Annastacia Palaszczuk announces $100m taxi industry assistance package including $4m of waived fees over the next yearUber drivers will be allowed to operate legally in Queensland from September.The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said on Facebook her government would legalise the service from 5 September, with “sweeping reforms” that would create a level playing field. Continue reading...

Jails in England and Wales can seek orders requiring mobile network operators to blacklist handsets and disconnect sim cardsNew powers to cut off illicit mobile phones used by prisoners to run criminal operations have been introduced in jails across England and Wales.

The family of two men shot and killed in Jordan claimed Twitter contributed to their deaths by allowing Isis to sign up for and use Twitter accountsA federal judge in San Francisco has dismissed a lawsuit accusing Twitter of supporting the Islamic State group.The family of two men shot and killed in Jordan claimed that Twitter had contributed to their deaths by allowing the group to sign up for and use Twitter accounts. Continue reading...

App introduced and took down a filter that turned selfies into Asian caricatures, prompting accusations that the feature was an example of ‘yellowface’

Company has become the latest tech firm to sever ties with the rightwing lobby group with a history of fighting against progressive causesExpedia, the world’s largest online travel company, has become the latest tech firm to sever ties with Alec, the rightwing lobby group with a history of fighting against climate change legislation and other progressive causes.The company had previously been a sponsor of Alec (American Legislative Exchange Council), a lobby group that promotes conservative legislation at state level across the US. But in an email to advocacy group Common Cause this week the travel firm, which also owns Hotels.com, Hotwire.com and trivago among others, confirmed it had severed ties.

Director of Tuol Sleng museum bans game after players pursued characters around the former Khmer Rouge torture centrePokémon Go has caused distress in Cambodia, where some players have been chasing its virtual characters around a genocide museum that was a torture centre in the 1970s.The director of the Tuol Sleng genocide museum, Chhay Visoth, said on Wednesday that he had put up signs at the site’s entrance and inside banning the game, which made its Cambodian debut last weekend. He has also asked his staff to watch out for anyone playing it. Continue reading...

Greek woman added to list of Interpol’s most-wanted criminals as she faces charges of uploading Hollywood films to NinjaVideo, a relatively small siteThe US government has asked Interpol to help coordinate a fresh crackdown on foreign nationals engaged in movie piracy, adding their names to the list of the world’s most wanted criminals.

Want to relive the days of Ceefax? All you need is a Raspberry Pi computer, an analogue TV and a computing degree ...

Outrage has followed the (misleading) news that Google had removed label for Palestine from its map service – but borders are rarely as simple as cartographers might likeStick, say, “Wales” into Google Maps: a solid red outline shows the country’s borders, the interior is given a red tint and the word “Wales” shows up in bold red letters. Wales is Wales is Wales.Now search for “Palestine” to get a sense of how fraught cartography has become in the digital age. This time we get a dotted grey line, no red tinting and no “Palestine”. Continue reading...

In part three of four of our series, we look at the threats to an open and democratic webOn 1 July the United Nations resolved that access to the internet is to be considered a basic human right. While this decision may seem straightforward, with the complex nature of human rights law considered, the resolution is far from simple.In the face of the UN’s resolution, in part three of our series, we flip the coin and look at the the threats to net neutrality and unrestricted internet access. For this deep dive, we consult with the CEO of the World Wide Web Foundation, Anne Jellema and director of strategy for Free Press, Tim Karr. Continue reading...

The country’s state media broadcasts footage of machine that it claims can reassemble a human jaw, NK News reportsNorth Korea has unveiled the latest in its range of medical inventions: a 3D printer to reproduce bone that can be used in cosmetic surgery and dentistry.A news segment on KCTV claimed that the printer would help North Korean doctors work with detailed images and models, saving time and improving the precision of medical procedures. Continue reading...

With Anya Hindmarsh and Louis Vuitton getting on board, will Doom and Pac-Man designs usurp band T-shirts as the new wave of hipster signifiers?While upscale grunge – the trend for current pop stars to wear old band T-shirts – shows no sign of stopping, and neither does the use of Gothic fonts that has been the mainstay of 2016’s merchandise and fashion confluence (from Vetements to The Life Of Pablo and beyond), the cyclical nature of fashion means things move on quickly to a new craze.

Complaints from campaigners led to removal of Facebook group which made light of violence against womenA Facebook group for men, which posted women’s personal information and had posts making light of rape and domestic violence, has been removed after complaints from campaigners.The invitation-only “Bloke’s Advice” group had more than 200,000 members before it was shut down by Facebook. Screenshots from the group show members posting women’s phone numbers and other contact details and encouraging others to send abuse or graphic pictures. There were also posts which made light of domestic abuse. Continue reading...

Republican candidate uses words such as ‘crazy’, ‘weak’ and ‘dumb’ on Android device, while staff post calmer tweets on iPhone, data suggests

Audience for the newspaper’s tablet edition reaches plateau after initial surge of interest... and advertising continues to declineThe newspaper retrenchment in Canada has taken another turn with the announcement that one of the country’s biggest-selling titles, the Toronto Star, is to cut 45 newsroom jobs.In addition, seven other posts will go, according to a Torstar Corp spokesman, Bob Hepburn, quoted by the Globe & Mail. The cuts include 26 temporary positions on the Star’s tablet edition. Among the permanent staff being laid off are 10 reporters and five editors. Continue reading...

Condemnation leads to outrage about Google ‘removing’ country from map – but the country has never been labelled on the mapping serviceGoogle has been accused of deleting Palestine from Google Maps – but the truth is, it was never labelled by Google in the first place.When searching for Palestine on Google Maps, it shows an outline, but with no label for Palestine and Israel labelled alongside it. While 136 members of the United Nations recognise Palestine as an independent state, the US and much of the west does not. Continue reading...

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

Authorities have branded it ‘satanic’ but the augmented reality game could help Russians reconnect with history, argues The Calvert Journal While much of the world has been enthralled by the charms of Pokémon Go for the past month, there have been certain international pockets of resistance. Continue reading...

Anecdotal evidence suggests app, which encourages users to walk for miles in search of fictional creatures, could ease obesityPokémon Go has a “tantalising side-effect” of increased exercise for players, according to an article in a leading medical journal.

The We-Vibe 4 Plus is a vibrator with a computer inside it – but hackers say it also phones home, telling its makers when it’s being usedThe Internet of Things That Can Be Hacked grows daily. Lightbulbs, trucks, and fridges all have computers inside them now, and all have been hacked by someone. But at least you don’t put those inside your body.Two years ago, someone had the good idea to put a bluetooth connection inside a vibrator, and the We-Vibe 4 Plus was born. The vibrator can connect with a smartphone app that its makers say “allows couples to keep their flame ignited – together or apart”: that is, it can be controlled remotely, while, say, making a video call. Continue reading...

The days of two developers making games in a shed are over. Newcastle’s Ubisoft-owned Reflections shows that studio collaboration is key to 21st-century titlesSpend any time with your grandparents and at some stage the age-old phase “they don’t make them like they use to” will pop up as nostalgia gets the better of them. Usually it’s just the rose-tinted glasses talking, but for video games it’s a fact: they quite literally don’t make them like they used to.Back in the 1980s, when the industry was in its infancy, games were often created by two-person teams consisting of one programmer and one artist. In the 1990s, sprites gave way to 3D modelling, and development teams mushroomed in size, hoovering up specialists in disciplines across animation, level design, character modelling and artificial intelligence. Continue reading...

Bureau of Statistics says it was an attack, Malcolm Turnbull says it was a ‘confluence of events’, engineers blame poor web infrastructureQuestions persist over the government’s explanation for the failure of the census as the minister responsible scrambles to reassure Australians of the security of their data.The Australian Bureau of Statistics shut down the census website on Tuesday night after hundreds of thousands of people attempting to complete the five-yearly snapshot received error messages.

Bureau of Statistics and government deny cyberattack took place, instead blaming it on a ‘confluence of events’The federal government and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have explained the outage of the online census was the result of a systems failure and an “overcautious” response to a denial of service attack.At a press conference on Wednesday to explain the outage since about 7.30pm on Tuesday, the small business minister, Michael McCormack, blamed the failure on a “confluence of events” but said the system had not been breached and no data was lost. Continue reading...

Geolocation company’s glitch sent police and angry businesses to a remote Kansas farm looking for criminals – now the residents want compensationA Kansas family whose remote farm was visited “countless times” by police trying to find missing people, hackers, identity fraudsters and stolen cars because of a glitch is suing the digital mapping company responsible.James and Theresa Arnold sued MaxMind on Friday, filing a complaint in the US district court in Kansas. MaxMind, based in Massachusetts, allows companies to find out the location of the computers used by individuals to access their websites. Continue reading...

While UK is second only to US in number of vendors who deal online, they average almost double the monthly transactionsThe UK is home to more online drug dealers than any country in Europe, according to a new report that estimates the value of the monthly trade in drugs through darknet markets to be as much as £16m a month globally.British dealers generate more than 16% of the monthly global revenues – about £1.8m – across the eight largest marketplaces, taking home an average of £5,200 each, according to research commissioned by the Dutch government. Continue reading...

Requirement for drivers from non-English-speaking countries to pass £200 exam may put thousands out of business, says firmUber has urged Transport for London to drop new requirements for drivers to pass a written English exam, saying thousands could be put out of business.From 1 October, anyone from a non-English-speaking country who applies to TfL for a private car hire licence or to renew an existing licence will have to prove that they have passed an exam in English. Continue reading...

The highly anticipated exploration game has finally arrived. Here’s what you need to know to begin your journeyWell, it’s finally here. After two years of beautiful trailers, ambiguous claims and lofty expectations, No Man’s Sky has touched down and opened its blast doors. Judging by its opening hours at least, it is a big, bold and bewildering experience.In my first few minutes, I headed out across my starting planet to find the necessary materials to fix my crashed spaceship, saw my first animal and promptly scared it away when I destroyed the rock it was prancing around, fell down a big hole, was discovered by a sentinel drone, and died. Continue reading...

A number of Pokémon Go players have been able to use a new tracking feature as part of the latest updatePokémon Go players rejoice: a new Pokémon tracker is on its way.The update fixes a number of bugs and has brought back the battery-saver mode. But most notably, Niantic is testing a way for users to track Pokémon within the app. According to the update’s release notes: Continue reading...

Project Murphy, Microsoft’s latest foray into AI, has been spitting out its horrifying creations all over the internetIf you’ve ever desperately wanted to create sometimes horrifying face swaps, but lacked the Photoshop skills or, er, Snapchat - then Microsoft has the chatbot for you.Project Murphy isn’t exactly new – it was unveiled back in March at Microsoft’s developer conference – but since it was released on Facebook Messenger, its weird creations have been popping up all over the place. Continue reading...

FreeTV to offer subsidised set-top boxes model to drive migration to digital TV and free up spectrum for mobile networksNigeria will be the first African country to switch from analogue to free digital television – and it is looking to a small British company to roll it out.Although several other African countries – including Rwanda and Tanzania – have migrated to digital and switched off their analogue signals, they work on a subscription model, so consumers have to pay.

When Marina Joyce uploaded a YouTube video advertising some dresses, the last thing she expected was that it would put her at the centre of a conspiracyWhat do you do when the internet decides you’ve been kidnapped?It sounds like a strange question, and it is. Yet that’s what happened to the 19-year-old Marina Joyce. Somehow, a video about some dresses turned into a huge conspiracy theory involving her friends, family and even the police. Then people online turned on Marina herself, accusing her of planning the entire thing. How did it happen? Continue reading...

Textbooks are being dropped in favour of technology, with parents saying they are being lumbered with much of the costState schools are putting pressure on parents to buy their children iPads to use in lessons, as a result of a lack of proper government funding for technology equipment, headteachers have warned.The National Association of Head Teachers says inadequate government funding is forcing schools to call for parents to pay for their children’s equipment. An investigation by Education Guardian found at least 15 state schools were asking some parents to purchase an iPad for their child, while offering help to disadvantaged families. Charities estimate hundreds of schools are doing the same. Continue reading...

British cleaner maker’s first robot vacuum was worth waiting for, but costs a lot, can’t do the stairs and isn’t perfect despite being the best available right nowDyson’s 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner has finally been released in the UK after an extensive trial in Japan and it claims to be the best available. How does it stack up against the market leading Roomba – and is it really worth buying? Continue reading...

Ambitious new cities Songdo and Masdar may not have lived up to their promise, but smaller projects in the US aim to be laboratories for sustainable city planningMasdar, on the edges of Abu Dhabi, was billed as the world’s first sustainable city when it was conceived in 2006. It was intended to be a zero-carbon, zero-waste city, with smart technology embedded across all the city’s functions. A decade on and ambitions have cooled. The completion date has moved from 2016 to 2030 and city authorities have said it won’t achieve the original aim of being a net zero-emissions city.Related: Masdar's zero-carbon dream could become world’s first green ghost town Continue reading...

Fifty CubeSat miniature satellites – three of them Australian – will be launched from the International Space Station in JanuaryResearchers hope to discover more about a little-understood understood layer of the Earth’s atmosphere, known as the thermosphere, when they launch 50 miniature satellites known as CubeSats from the International Space Station in January.Three Australian-built miniature satellites are being contributed to the international project known as QB50, along with 47 other satellites from around the world. The CubeSats are about the size of a lunch box, weighing about 2kg, but cost $1m each. Continue reading...