Technology | The Guardian

There are signs that the conference’s love affair with silence may be waning, but it remains secretive and highly policed“The paintings at the old master picture gallery are wonderful!” gushed the LVMH director Marie-Josée Kravis, as she wafted stylishly back to the conference. “You simply must go and have a look.” It was a charming and engaging answer to my question, even if my question had been: “Do you think Bilderberg will hold a press conference this year?”It is possible, as a Bilderberg steering committee member, that she has forgotten what the words press conference mean. The phrase must have sounded like a baffling mishmash of alien syllables, so Kravis panicked and talked about art instead. Continue reading...

People are putting brackets round their Twitter handles in an attempt to subvert a far-right attempt to identify and harass Jews onlineLike many digital non-natives (are we digital tourists? Immigrants? Reluctant asylum seekers?), I like to assume that social media trends I don’t understand can’t be that important, otherwise I would somehow, maybe telepathically, understand them. So it was with the triple-brackets around a person’s name on Twitter. On my timeline, which is roughly divided between foodies and lefties, people started to triple-bracket themselves – (((like this))) – but this is a response to and subversion of the main trend, which is to triple-bracket others. Continue reading...

Sentient machines are a greater threat to humanity than climate change, according to Oxford philosopher Nick BostromYou’ll find the Future of Humanity Institute down a medieval backstreet in the centre of Oxford. It is beside St Ebbe’s church, which has stood on this site since 1005, and above a Pure Gym, which opened in April. The institute, a research faculty of Oxford University, was established a decade ago to ask the very biggest questions on our behalf. Notably: what exactly are the “existential risks” that threaten the future of our species; how do we measure them; and what can we do to prevent them? Or to put it another way: in a world of multiple fears, what precisely should we be most terrified of?When I arrive to meet the director of the institute, Professor Nick Bostrom, a bed is being delivered to the second-floor office. Existential risk is a round-the-clock kind of operation; it sleeps fitfully, if at all. Continue reading...

A mountain bike with an electric engine to help you cope with the hillsI’ve grown used to smug slobs surging silently along on their pedal-assist electric bikes. They’re cheating, but as they’ve found a quick, effortless solution to city transport, I can forgive them (I try to, anyway). Now, however, we have the electric mountain bike – and that’s just not fair. Twisting the throttle to make mincemeat of hills without breaking sweat so you can enjoy the swoop and whoop of plunging downhill is just plain lazy. But if that’s you, you’ll love the electric Strada from Raleigh. Rugged and reliable, the bike is to all intents and purposes a standard off-roader with decent Suntour forks and pin-sharp disc brakes. But it also has a TranzX M16 motor giving a range of up to 125km in eco mode. If you can live with your conscience, it’s a blast… (raleigh.co.uk)Price: £1,550

British supermarkets are nervous about the launch of Amazon Fresh. But it hasn’t exactly set the US alight yetAfter years of expectation, Amazon finally launched its Fresh grocery service in the UK last week, parking its tanks on the lawns of the country’s biggest retailers. It promises “everything you need for your weekly shop”, from artisanal Stilton to tangy cheese Doritos, delivered to your door in a cool box.Some analysts are predicting the US online giant could grab up to 3% of the UK grocery market by 2020. That would represent £1.4bn of sales, much of which would be stolen from the already struggling traditional supermarkets – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons. Continue reading...

With Jennifer Lawrence signed on to star in a film about Theranos, we made a list of the Silicon Valley hotshots we want to see played on the big screenThe story of blood-testing startup Theranos’ fall from grace may still be playing out in real life, but it’s already being made into a movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.

It could be from an 80s film about some neets who steal a carThere will always be something ludicrous about the two-tone car. It makes you look as if you’ve taken its decorative aspect too literally, and think it’s a handbag. But if you’re going to have two colours, black and red are at least mischievous and not twee. And the Peugeot 208 needs to look like that: it’s gunning for the boy racer market, but its shape doesn’t really give that away. Only the headlight clusters at the front look modern, curved blinking eyes echoed in a near-symmetrical low light. Otherwise, no offence, it could be from a 1980s film about some neets who steal a car – if it weren’t for the colourway. Often I couldn’t find it in a car park, because I couldn’t remember which end was which colour or, for that matter, which way I’d parked. But I filed that under “my problem”.The cabin looks sleek, and then you sit down. The seats are low and hard, there is very little cushioning, inside or out, and road shocks ring through you like the starting gun at a poorly attended sports day. The positioning of the wheel, bizarrely, obscured the speedometer, so I could tell how fast I was going only by disapproving looks. The 1.6 litre turbo-charged engine is generous for the car size, but in the city you felt the lag on the turbo more than the turbo itself. Accelerating off the lights wasn’t as much fun as you’d think. Continue reading...

California electric car maker says one of its cars that had an abnormal amount of rust on a suspension part had over 70,000 miles on it and was caked in dirtElectric car maker Tesla Motors is denying allegations that there are safety problems with its vehicle suspensions.The Palo Alto, California, company says one of its cars had an abnormal amount of rust on a suspension part, a problem it hasn’t seen in any other car. Continue reading...

Ex-Google division Niantic Labs have teamed up with the Pokémon Company for an augmented-reality take on the gaming franchise. Can it really take on Candy Crush in the mobile games market?The first Pokémon game for smartphones is coming this year, two decades after the RPG first came to the Game Boy. And its new incarnation all came about because of an April Fools’ Day joke.Called Pokémon Go, the game is an unprecedented co-production between the Pokémon Company, and a former Google division called Niantic Labs. The first seed of it was sown in April 2014, when Google teamed up with the Pokémon Company to hide Pokémon throughout Google Maps. Continue reading...

In Silicon Valley, being ahead of the jargon curve can bring great social and financial rewards – and it may even be confused for true innovationIt’s as common as the hoodies and the Soylent: Silicon Valley loves its jargon while simultaneously groaning over the weight of its pretense. However, this “pain point” is also an opportunity for enterprising wordsmiths.In the Valley, speaking fluent cutting-edge startup is the bare minimum required to inspire confidence. Being ahead of the jargon curve can bring great social and financial rewards. It may even be confused with true innovation.

With a dark, ominous atmosphere and gibberish script, short film Sunspring was penned by a computer and stars Silicon Valley’s Thomas MiddleditchArtificial intelligence has recently been trying its hand at various human creative endeavours, from cooking to art, poetry to board games, but nothing is quite as surreal as a robot writing the script for a science fiction movie – until now.

Social network responds to username and password leak by locking affected accounts after spate of hacks targeting Katy Perry, Mark Zuckerberg and NFLTwitter has been forced to lock millions of users’ accounts after 33m purported account details were posted for sale on the dark web.

Chinese company builds spacially aware smartphone using Google-derived Project Tango technology along with new super-skinny, modular flagshipChinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo has become the first to put Google’s Project Tango spatial awareness technology into a smartphone.

Court issues penalty after Australian Competition and Consumer Commission crackdown on the offersAn offer to give punters $200 in free bets has led to online bookmaker Bet365 being fined $2.75m for misleading and deceptive conduct.The UK-based wagering giant promoted “$200 Free Bets for New Customers” for nine months from March 2013. Continue reading...

This easy-to-use device measures weight, fat, muscle, bone and water, as well as heart rate and artery healthThe Body Cardio is the latest smart scale from French health and internet of things manufacturer Withings, which aims to analyse your weight, fat, muscle, water and heart health and take the pain out of tracking your bodily fluctuations.

The place to talk about games and other things that matterFriday! Continue reading...

After the ride-sharing firms pulled out of Austin in a battle over background checks, drivers and riders needing a lift now contact each other peer-to-peerIt was less than one week after Uber and Lyft pulled out of the city of Austin – and a crowdsourced ride-sharing alternative began to emerge.

Courts rule against UperPop service despite European commission recently issuing guidelines in support of car transport appUber’s assault on the European market has run into fresh legal roadblocks, after court rulings in France and Germany went against the company.In France, a judge slapped Uber with a €800,000 (£625,500) fine for running the “illegal” UberPop service using unlicensed drivers. It also fined two of the company’s senior executives a combined €50,000. Continue reading...

Our father, Frank Dyson, who has died aged 94, was a civil engineer who built airports in the UK and abroad, and served as a councillor in Ribble Valley, Lancashire.Frank was the son of Gladys and Frank. His father was a police constable, who died on duty in Barrow-in-Furness when Frank was 11. The official version of his father’s death was that he was fatally injured in a fall from his cycle, but Frank was convinced that he was murdered, beaten up and thrown in the ditch by a gang of poachers. Continue reading...

Paris criminal court fines Uber €800,000 and finds two executives guilty of deceptive commercial practicesA French court has fined Uber and two of its executives for running an illegal transport service with non-professional drivers in the first such criminal case in Europe.The UberPop service connected clients via a smartphone app with non-professional drivers using their own cars. Uber France suspended the service last year after the government banned it under pressure from licensed taxi drivers. Continue reading...

The video game adaptation racks up a first-day take of $46m, dwarfing projections for its performance in US cinemasWarcraft: The Beginning, the adaptation of the video game World of Warcraft, has proved a massive hit in China, with a first-day take of $46m (£31.8m), the second biggest in the country’s history after another Hollywood hit, Furious 7, which took $63.1m in its first 24 hours in 2015.Warcraft’s impressive results put it on course to challenge Furious 7’s $150m opening instalment in China – and thoroughly dwarfs the projected result for its domestic release in the US, which is currently tracking for around $25m when it opens on Friday. Continue reading...

Ubisoft’s paranoid surveillance thriller returns with new hero and setting to take aim at social media and hacker groupsFor all their talk of realism and authenticity, video game developers rarely seek to reflect modern society, or the lives that most of us are living. Grand Theft Auto V produced a ribald, frenzied pastiche of LA, complete with vacuous movie stars and social media millionaires, but most of its skits and giggles were just dirty jokes wrapped up in the veneer of social commentary.Watch Dogs was sort of different. In Ubisoft’s 2014 action adventure, hacker Aidan Pearce lives in an “alternative” modern Chicago that is heavily monitored by CCTV cameras, its computerised systems ripe for sabotage. Players are able to gain control of traffic lights and swing bridges in order to escape enemies, while hacking the phones of passersby to access mini-quests. The game is effectively an exploration of our highly connected, privacy-free society, where shadowy authorities wrestle with hi-tech con artists for control of our data. Continue reading...

Launch of Xtras app showing adverts when users unlock their phones comes as rival Three prepares to trial ad blocking

The Guardian’s developers have been experimenting with Facebook’s Messenger bot platform, and this is what they’ve cooked upAs part of our Hack Day today, we’d like to introduce you to the Guardian Sous-Chef Facebook messenger bot.It is our first foray into chat messaging apps, and we are interested in what you make of it. Continue reading...

Euro 2016 helps boost Ultra HD TV sales to give Home Retail Group-owned chain its best figures in two yearsArgos has reported its strongest sales performance in two years as it prepares for its sale to Sainsbury’s, but also revealed it had set aside £30m to compensate store card customers who were charged “excess fees”.Booming sales of top-end TVs, computers and tablets offset a decline in white goods and weaker sales of seasonal products during the chilly spring weather. Sales of computers and tablets were up 7% each, bucking a decline in the market. Furniture and wearable technology such as fitness watches also sold well. Continue reading...

Andrew has 23.5GB of photos and documents in OneDrive. Next month, Microsoft is reducing the free storage allowance to 5GB. What should he do?I have 23.5GB of photos and documents in OneDrive. In July, OneDrive’s free storage ceiling will be reduced to just 5GB. Will I just lose a lot of data in July or does Microsoft have a duty to retain it for a period of time?How easy is it to transfer all my data to another service? What options might be best? AndrewMicrosoft used to offer 15GB of free storage in OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive), and a bonus offer added an extra 15GB for a camera roll. Microsoft did announce that it would be reducing the free storage to 5GB, but after protests, it allowed users to keep the storage they had. Continue reading...

The gaming world is about to descend on Los Angeles for the annual E3 jamboree – and here’s what we’ll be fighting through the crowds to see Continue reading...

Finland’s membership of the EU means my company, Rovio, can draw on a cosmopolitan team to develop games. Britain would be unwise to fly the nestFrom relatively large and established companies such as Rovio and Supercell to small teams of indie developers, there is a remarkable creative ferment in this corner of Europe. In 2015, Finnish mobile game companies together constituted a €2.4bn business, according to the trade association NeoGames. Continue reading...

Music companies want to work with tech startups, not sue or squeeze them for all they’re worth. But will they still be left in the hands of big guns such as Apple and Google?The music industry and technology? To borrow Facebook’s lingo, the relationship is complicated.File-sharing service Napster’s emergence in 1999 was the cue for more than a decade of fear, loathing and ill-fated decisions from major music companies, and perceptions of a gulf between the worlds of music and tech that linger to this day. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterThursday! Continue reading...

Stark contrast in outcome for search term ‘three white teenagers’, which produces wholesome group picturesA simple Google image search highlighted on Twitter has been said to highlight the pervasiveness of racial bias and media profiling.“Three black teenagers” was a trending search on Google on Thursday after a US high school student pointed out the stark difference in results for “three black teenagers” and “three white teenagers”.

Amazon Fresh intends to offer extensive choice, low prices and fast delivery to an initial 69 postcodes in LondonAmazon is stepping up its battle against British supermarkets with the launch of fresh food deliveries on Thursday.Related: Amazon Fresh food deliveries 'to start this month in UK' Continue reading...

The union representing people who provide the shouts, screams and roars of video game characters says ferocious sessions are damaging its members’ healthIt’s the death rattles that really get Jack DeGolia, a voice actor in LA who does video game characters.“Blood-curdling screams, choking to death, then that final death rattle,” DeGolia recalled. “There’s breathing exercises you can do to calm things down, but you need to know your limits and be able to say, ‘No’.” Continue reading...

Website and rival portals face bleak future in German capital under ban that may inspire other European cities to follow suitTourists planning to pop over to Berlin for a weekend break may have to give up on the hipster dream of living like a local in a spacious loft apartment, and get back into the habit of staying in an old-fashioned hotel room instead.Airbnb and other short-term letting agencies face a bleak future in the German capital after the city’s administrative court on Wednesday upheld a de facto ban on short-term rentals, in a landmark ruling that could inspire similar restrictions in cities around Europe.

Moneysavingexpert.com reports thousands of complaints over billing errors since company installed new IT systemVodafone’s customers are being urged to check their bills after thousands of customers complained they have been incorrectly charged since the company installed a new billing system.Moneysavingexpert.com said it believed there were “potentially systemic failings” at Vodafone that suggested all of its nearly 20 million customers should be checking their bills and bank statements for errors. Continue reading...

My colleague Harold Cohen, who has died aged 87, was a computer art pioneer and developer of the popular Aaron program.He was born in London, the son of Victor and Leah Cohen, who ran a general store and expected Harold to enter the family business. His passion, however, saw him enrol at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he obtained a diploma in 1951. He then spent a year on a fellowship in Rome and came back to Britain to teach at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London and at the University of Nottingham. Continue reading...

Tajikistan comes second, Samoa third and Australia fourth as new ‘heat map of the internet’ reveals which countries are most at risk due to exposed serversA new “heat map of the internet” has revealed the countries most vulnerable to hacking attacks, by scanning the entire internet for servers with their front doors wide open.Produced by information security firm Rapid7, the National Exposure Index finds that the most exposed country in the world is Belgium, followed by Tajikistan, Samoa and Australia. The US comes 14th and the UK 23rd. Continue reading...

Emergency system sends warning directly to phones, a brief description of what is happening and advice on how to reactThe French government has created a smartphone app designed to send warnings directly to people’s phones in the event of a bombing, shooting or other disaster.

Is our automotive future destined to be filled with software bugs, blue screens of death and dead systems as updates brick our cars?Toyota’s Lexus rolled out an update for some of its cars, including RX350, which broke the vehicles’ navigation and entertainment systems leaving them stuck in a boot loop.

Visa issues are keeping many of the world’s best gamers from competing at top events – because eSports is not considered a ‘legitimate sport’ by US immigrationThe competitive gaming community is eagerly anticipating a White House response to a petition asking eSports to be formally recognized as athletics. The petition specifically asked the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to recognize competitors as athletes in order for them to be eligible for P-1 visas, allowing them to compete for money at major tournaments. The petition surpassed the 100,000 signature threshold in under one month, warranting an official comment from the White House.It was filed in response to the deportation of Sweden’s William “Leffen” Hjelte, who is currently ranked as the third best Super Smash Bros Melee player in the world. Visa issues have kept Hjelte from major tournaments since last October. Continue reading...

China’s Ehang will begin the testing process this year to prove the drone’s airworthinessThe world’s first passenger drone capable of autonomously carrying a person in the air for 23 minutes has been given clearance for testing in Nevada.

John Jairo Velásquez, who ordered the deaths of thousands in Colombia, has upset victims’ relatives, though he says his channel aims to discourage crimeDuring his time as Pablo Escobar’s most feared enforcer, the man known as Popeye killed around 300 people, ordered the murder of thousands more, and masterminded some 200 car bombs during the Medellín cartel’s war against its rivals and the Colombian state.Now, after more than two decades in prison, John Jairo Velásquez is attempting to recast himself as a YouTube star. Continue reading...

The place to talk about games and other things that matterWednesday! Continue reading...

Silicon Valley wants to stop a rewrite of a US surveillance law that would mean FBI can access web browsing history in the same way they can get telephone recordsThe FBI and Silicon Valley are in a fight over whether web browsing records are the same as telephone bill records.The latest surveillance battle gripping the technology industry is focused on a rewrite of US surveillance law that would mean the justice department would be able to access a citizen’s web browsing history, location data and some email records without approval from a judge using a so-called “national security letters” (NSLs). Continue reading...

Verizon, which recently purchased AOL, reportedly began preparing a first-round bid to acquire Yahoo, its search engine, email and more, back in AprilVerizon is reportedly preparing a $3bn bid for Yahoo’s internet business, which will include the core search site, Yahoo Mail and what remains of Yahoo! News.Verizon would also scoop up an array of miscellaneous web products and services, including Yahoo Answers and Yahoo Finance. Continue reading...

Half-term crowds help propel family-friendly action-thrillers to the top, as Anthony Hopkins/Al Pacino turkey gobbles up just £97With an official opening number of £3.62m, Warcraft: The Beginning wins the box-office chart, just ahead of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows on £3.5m. Both are seven-day figures. The films opened on bank holiday Monday last week with the half-term holiday under way. Warcraft’s figure includes £2.17m in previews earned on its first four days, while the Turtles picked up £2.02m over the Monday-to-Thursday period. Continue reading...