Technology | The Guardian

Digital technology has changed the way we listen to music – but what about the way it is made? Metronomy, a band who straddle the analogue/digital divide, discuss the uneasy terrain of modern music, and test out some of the most advanced gear available.

A host of innovations were on display at the Imagine Festival in Milton KeynesWant to experience driverless pods before they hit the road? Fancy dodging transport problems before they happen? What about a system for rewarding those who walk rather than take the car?At the Imagine Festival in Milton Keynes last week, the potential of technology to revolutionise the way we move about was on display, as a host of young entrepreneurs vied to offer creative solutions to 21st-century travel dilemmas. Continue reading...

‘The wasted capacity made me feel guilty I wasn’t transporting a Portaloo or towing a horse’What a beast, what a gigantic monument to shininess. When they parked the Toyota Hilux Invincible X outside my house, my first worry was I might need planning permission. It has a massive, open flatbed with a flap-down back door, along the lines of a classic pickup, with extra bling. I texted my mother a picture of it to ask if she needed anything. “Can I have seven labourers from the 1930s?” she said. “I have work they could do and crusts of bread.” Seven cases of wine didn’t even leave a trace on its capacity. I stuck the kids in the back. They begged me to drive down the road. I realised how illegal that was, and how much the world had changed.It has legitimate seats as well, of course: a double cab and four seats. Imagine yourself in a regular car, with a huge other car stitched on to the back. There is nothing obnoxious, jerky or hard to control, but it’s unlike anything else, even any other SUV, I can think of. It has a 2.8-tonne towing ability; the sheer bulk of the engineering makes it more like a removal expedition, or driving a ski lift. Continue reading...

As chief Dick Costolo departs, investors must stop pushing Twitter to be the next big social media network and focus on its simple strengthsWhen the chief executive of Twitter announced he was stepping down on Thursday, staff knew there was only one way to mark his surprise departure. A hashtag on the social network was created – #thankyoudickc – for colleagues to lavish praise on Dick Costolo, a former standup comedian turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur. “140 characters certainly not enough #thankyoudickc,” said one employee.In his nearly five years in the job, Twitter has grown from a few million users to 302 million. Why then would the 51-year-old leave one of the most high-profile jobs at one of the tech industry’s brightest shining stars? Despite his popularity and success in helping the company mature, Costolo has always been caught between conflicting visions of what Twitter is capable of being: a social utility that promises to be a democratic civic space for all, or a commercial service.

‘BuzzFeeds, SchmuzzFeeds’ said the Daily Express owner in his Financial Times interview. Here are 10 more insights into the mind of the media mogulRichard Desmond dismissed BuzzFeed in his Financial Times interview as “BuzzFeeds, SchmuzzFeeds – at the end of the day, you trust the Daily Express”. So here’s a list of 10 things we learnt about Desmond during media correspondent Henry Mance’s expensive lunchtime encounter with the porn baron.1) He is not an internet fan, saying about meeting Google to put OK! magazine online: “They’re all very smooth, they’re all like out of Thunderbirds, and they’ve all got these fantastic sweaters – don’t know where they get them. By the time you have the fourth meeting, the whole deal’s completely fucking changed. They are the biggest gangsters in the world and they get away with it. One thing I’ve got to say about the European Union is that they are giving them a good kicking. I was always slow to adopt the internet, because I knew what would happen. It’s interesting how vinyl’s coming back, isn’t it?” Continue reading...

The taxi-app firm calls them the engine of the business, but drivers complain of falling pay, insecure employment and vulnerability to difficult passengersMost days at midday, Uber’s nondescript office in London’s King’s Cross opens its doors and dozens of men clutching sheaves of driving licences and insurance documents pour in. Many are first- or second-generation immigrants from places such as Afghanistan, Poland, Somalia and Nigeria eager to sign up to drive for the US tech company, whose phone-based minicab-hailing app has transformed the taxi industry in 58 countries.Related: Uber whistleblower exposes breach in driver-approval process Continue reading...

Oculus Rift has linked up with Microsoft as it prepares to bring VR to the home, and developers’ enthusiasm appears undiminished by past disappointments

PS4, Xbox 360, PC; Capcom; £17.99-£19.99It may not be obvious when you look at screen shots, but the Street Fighter games have more in common with chess than they do with less accomplished beat ’em ups. Stratagems are executed in split seconds, while individual frames of animation mark the difference between a successful attack and risible failure. Ultra Street Fighter IV adds the ability to trigger two ultra combos at once and time your character’s wake-up after being knocked down, along with a wealth of minuscule alterations to every fighter in the roster. For less obsessive fighting game fans most of these tweaks will be undetectable, but for those who have never put away their tournament joysticks, this is the definitive edition of the game. New players may find the complexity and subtlety overwhelming, but for seasoned Street Fighters this is as good as it gets.

iOS & Android; Square Enix; £3.99For some shameful reason, being a sniper in video games is brilliant fun. Hitman: Sniper knows this, delivering an entire game in which your only interaction with people is shooting them from a very long distance. Overlooking a sprawling Alpine chalet, you’re given 10 minutes to kill a series of targets, all of whom are people traffickers, which assuages the messy moral ambiguity. Your prey and their security guards wander about waiting to be picked off, preferably by putting a bullet into a piece of machinery or plate glass balcony to make it look like an unfortunate accident. Bonus points are awarded if corpses fall somewhere discreet; popping your target near a swimming pool or precipice does the trick. Over successive missions you get to know the location and the pieces of scenery that become lethal when shot at the right moment. All in all, a wonderful guilty pleasure. Continue reading...

Xbox 360/One, PS3/4, PC; Activision; £11.59Supremacy, the third downloadable add-on for Activision’s monstrously successful Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare, follows the series’ template of four multiplayer maps and an extra chapter of the celebrity cameo-infested Exo Zombies game, which adds Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell to John Malkovich, Bill Paxton and Rose McGowan, who were introduced in past instalments. Of the four multiplayer levels, Skyrise is a remake of old favourite Highrise, retaining its multi-tiered design that encourages sneak attacks; Kremlin is set in a bullet-pocked Red Square with two opposing towers overlooking a bridge and a minefield that arms itself midway through each round; Parliament sees you fighting on a futuristic boat embedded in a partially destroyed Westminster Bridge; and Compound supplies a nice mix of open spaces and claustrophobic interiors. Although there are no real standouts, it’s all competently designed, even if Exo Zombies is starting to feel a bit tired. The Call Of Duty juggernaut rolls on. Continue reading...

With its release slated for October, we take an early look at Halo 5, and find it more immersive than ever

It was the game that launched a million Xboxes. We delve into the world of Halo and its enigmatic hero the Master Chief

With buildings like the Hypercube and the Matrix, the Russian startup hub looks the part – but corruption allegations, the parlous international situation and getting on the wrong side of Vladimir Putin have all made life difficult

Rapper tweets ‘I’m ready to lead Twitter. First order of business, get that moolah!’ as Costolo announces shock departureSnoop Dogg has professed an interest in becoming chief executive of Twitter after the announcement that current chief Dick Costolo is to step down.The rapper, briefly known as Snoop Lion during a short-lived reggae phase, tweeted: “I’m ready to lead @twitter!”, following up with: “First order of business, get that moolah!” Continue reading...

New smartphone would mark U-turn in company strategy as it struggles to stymie falling sales and moves to place software on iPhones and other AndroidsThe next BlackBerry smartphone could run Android and have a sliding physical keyboard, according to reports.BlackBerry briefly showed off a slider device on stage at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in March, but has provided little detail on it since. Continue reading...

From July, direct messages can be 10,000 characters long, but there will be no changes to the length of tweets

Slowing growth in user numbers and failure to capture a bigger slice of digital advertising revenue behind departure of the chief executiveIt says something about the extraordinary scale of social platforms when a technology behemoth with 302m active users every month can be seen as failing to achieve its potential. Yet that is exactly why it appears that Twitter’s chief executive, Dick Costolo, now has to go from the company’s top post.Related: Twitter's outspoken CEO Dick Costolo to step down Continue reading...

Wild camping expert Phoebe Smith checks out some hi-tech gear that could coax the uninitiated into the great outdoors“I got really badly sunburned, chased by sheep, bitten to death by midges, got a tick which went bad; but when I got back, something had really shifted inside me.” This is how Phoebe Smith recalls her first time wild camping, an area in which she has since become an undisputed authority. At the age of 33 she is already the author of seven books on the subject, most recently Wild Nights, published last month.Like most outdoor-types, she takes her technology with a pinch of salt. “People love kit, they love toys. They love buying stuff,” she says, “I’m not against progress, it’s great that people are making things easier, lighter and greener, but you need to know you can go out there and not rely on it at all.” Continue reading...

Tech giant is bringing virtual reality to the masses with a simple device that you make out of cardboardGoogle’s previous attempt to get us to wear something mildly ridiculous on our faces didn’t end well. But while Google Glass was released (and failed) to much fanfare, the growth of Google Cardboard has been unhurried, and – by Google’s standards – low key.Now on its second version, “Cardboard” is a cheap holder that turns your smartphone into a virtual-reality headset. Anyone can download the template and make one, while the impatient can buy a pre-made model for £10 from Amazon. (Currently only the template for v.1.2 is available, but v.2 will be downloadable soon – and it will be easier to build.) Once you have your Cardboard you can download VR apps from Google Play or the App Store and experience the sensations of exploring far-flung cities, the stomach-in-the-mouth feel of a rollercoaster ride or simply be spooked by zombie children – all without leaving your chair. Continue reading...

George Brandis announces new legislation at counter-terrorism summit, understood to include expansion of control order regimeThe Abbott government will unveil new counter-terrorism legislation following a series of allegedly foiled attacks in Melbourne in the past months, the federal attorney-general has announced.George Brandis made the announcement on the second day of a summit on challenging terrorist propaganda in Sydney, which he said would focus on strategies to fight Islamic State’s “electronic army”. Continue reading...

Largest electronics manufacturer, Foxconn, looking to move iPhone production to India to reduce costs and compete in third-largest smartphone marketiPhones could soon be made in India as well as China, according to Indian government officials.Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn, which makes the iPhone, iPad and several other Apple products in factories in China, is in talks to open factories in India to make iPhones. Continue reading...

US tech sector’s problems with Brussels deepen as competition chief focuses on allegedly restrictive contract clausesThe European commission has launched a competition inquiry into Amazon’s dominant market position in ebooks, as Brussels steps up its scrutiny of US tech groups. The EU’s executive branch is looking at clauses in contracts between Amazon and publishing houses that restrict publishers from offering better terms to the online retailer’s competitors. The clauses sometimes require publishers to disclose to Amazon the terms offered to rival retailers.“Amazon has developed a successful business that offers consumers a comprehensive service, including for ebooks,” said the EC’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager. “Our investigation does not call that into question. However, it is my duty to make sure that Amazon’s arrangements with publishers are not harmful to consumers, by preventing other ebook distributors from innovating and competing effectively with Amazon. Our investigation will show if such concerns are justified.” Continue reading...

The latest title in the legendary stealth adventure series is set in an intricate, highly explorable Afghanistan, filled with intelligent enemies – and goatsI fell in love with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain the moment I tranquillised a goat and then kidnapped it. The latest title in Konami’s 40m-selling stealth action series is set in a remarkable open world loosely based on 1980s Afghanistan, and wildlife dots the landscape. The animals are beautifully realised and, because this is a video game, they can also be collected.To capture my caprine victim, I crept forwards on my belly, lined up the perfect headshot, and poomf! down it went. I attached a cord to the prone beast, from which a giant balloon inflated, and lifted it a few feet in the air. At this point the goat woke up, looking pretty startled, and had a few seconds to hang there eyeballing me hatefully, before the balloon shot off into the sky with its cargo. The sound effect, a strangled cross between a bleat and a scream, trailed off as it disappeared into the heavens (where a plane would pick it up). Continue reading...

You & Mr Jones, which has already invested in Mashable and Mofilm, aims to leverage technology for brands

Images leaked of latest addition to company’s Internet of Things line-up – a replacement for Dropcam wireless security cameraGoogle’s Nest will add a new wireless home security camera to its range of Internet of Things products, leaked pictures show.

The refreshed PS4 and Xbox One version of this anarchic co-op shooter is worth staking out for those who missed it first time around

Chief executive Ellen Pao is target of derogatory posts after she leads campaign to clean up harassment on the siteRebellious Reddit users have swamped the site with derogatory comments about staff and images of overweight people after its decision to ban several subforums.On Reddit’s r/all page there was an overnight deluge of derogatory postings about Ellen Pao, the interim chief executive, who has led a campaign to clean up harassment on the site. Continue reading...

Urban life is a tale of two cities. As boundaries blur between the digital and the physical, artists are remaking the metropolis into a playful, human experienceThere are two cities. There’s a city of people and cars, and a city of ones and zeros. This second city, this invisible city, grows with every tap-in, opt-in, jump-in, check-in, sign-up and tick-off. Every added location, pinned photo, Uber ride, Twitter post, every Tinder date builds up the city’s roads, nodes and alleyways. With every byte the invisible city swells.How can we make the data-driven city a place for humans? How can we make sense of invisible structures and use technology to not only increase productivity and efficiency, but challenge power structures, foster communities and make space for individual voices? An increasing number of writers and artists are exploring these questions, in ways that range from telling stories through location tracking to using smartphones to infiltrate the financial industry. Continue reading...

A new device called Icaros pairs with a VR headset to give physical activity a digital edgeNeed a spot of exercise but can’t face the gym? Love gaming but not the couch? Icaros could be the answer. Devised by German design company Hyve, the contraption is paired with a VR headset to bring physical activity to a virtual experience.“You are balancing your centre of mass,” explains senior innovation designer Johannes Scholl, who came up with the idea for his industrial design diploma thesis in 2012. “When you are doing a steep decline, for example, it really goes into your shoulders, into your chest muscles. When you do left and right turns it is pretty exhausting to your abs and to your lower back muscles.” Continue reading...

With good sound and 24bit support, M2L Fidelio headphones work nicely with iPhone and iPad – but nothing elseThe first Lightning connector-equipped headphones for the iPhone aren’t made by Apple – they’re a pair of Philips with excellent sound but major downsides.

Google, Facebook and Apple are improving their news output by doing deals with cash-strapped media firms, but this raises fears of a conflict of interestWhat should we make of recent overtures by tech firms to the news industry? Is this good news for news, citizens and the robustness of the tech industry?The industry has always been defined by technology, from its Gutenbergian roots to the digital, social and mobile journalism of today, but it is the accelerated pace of change that is now a greater challenge. In large media organisations, where institutional change is difficult, many have been slow to understand the potential and threat of technology – which can provide new audiences and formats, yet also unprecedented competition. It is a thrilling, if unsettling, time. Continue reading...

Five subreddits – including r/fatpeoplehate and r/hamplanethatred – removed from social news site as site chiefs say: ‘We’re banning behavior, not ideas’The “front page of the internet” now has less hate. Social news site Reddit announced on Wednesday that the company would be banning subreddits – areas of the site dedicated to a single topic – “that allow their communities to use the subreddit as a platform to harass individuals when moderators don’t take action.”“We’re banning behavior, not ideas,” the post said. Five subreddits were removed: r/fatpeoplehate and r/hamplanethatred, both of which are about hating overweight people; r/transfags and r/neofag, which target the gaming community; and r/shitniggerssay. Most of the subreddits being banned are fairly small, Reddit leadership said: the only subreddit being banned with more than 5,000 subscribers was r/fatpeoplehate. Continue reading...

Abandoning a six-figure Silicon Valley job to start from scratch could be a pipe dream. Or it could be a rare opportunity in a ‘place where they reward failure’“This might be one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” said Thomas So. On the other hand, it could be a risk that pays off big time, the 24-year-old calculates. Last month, So walked away from a programming job at a Silicon Valley startup paying him a six-figure salary, leaving behind stock options worth (he calculates) millions more, to join a startup that at that point was being funded with cash from its founders’ credit cards.Nor was he alone. Mike Eidlin, one of the four co-founders of bookmarq, a fledgling social networking site whose goal is to link booklovers worldwide, abandoned his fledgling career as an investment banker with Citigroup in Tokyo to return to the San Francisco Bay area, and re-start his career from scratch. Continue reading...

Apple unveils more details of the much anticipated Apple Watch and a new, thinner MacBook Continue reading...

Apple’s smallest laptop increases in screen size but shrinks in body size with new reversible USB type-C ports

New customers of the e-reading service will have to abide by different data laws Continue reading...

Hillary Clinton is in good company when it comes to the use of unofficial email accounts in office, even as she faces criticism from potential rivals Continue reading...

Social network finally rolls out a contingency plan for if the worst happens allowing a trusted person to take control of a deceased’s accountFacebook is letting users in the US designate a “legacy contact” that can take control of an account after their death.

New report pitches future of app-like album releases and monthly subscriptions for fans, with the likes of Spotify and Apple as middlemenMusic streams on services like Spotify are about to start counting towards the UK’s official albums chart, but could streaming ultimately change the way albums are packaged and paid for by fans?A new report by music industry consultancy firm Midia Research hopes so. It pitches a future of “interactive artist subscriptions” where albums look more like apps, and where fans pay artists a small amount every month for access to their music – with streaming services acting as the middlemen.Related: Streaming music: what next for Apple, YouTube, Spotify… and musicians?One solution is artist subscriptions within streaming services, with users paying a small monthly fee – say $/€1 – for a month’s worth of artist content.With the cost added directly to a monthly music subscription, users would get access to a curated channel of artist content including all the features of 360° music products. Artist subscriptions should, just like standalone apps, be immersive, programmed and interactive experiences, telling the artist’s story to new fans and enriching it for existing fans.Related: The future of music sales is here. So how CAN the artists make it pay? Continue reading...

Robert needs a new phone, as the battery in his Huawei Y300 doesn’t last long enough anymore. He wants a robust, cheap smartphone with a good battery life that he can buy outright – but Jack Schofield thinks he should wait ...

Customers told their bookings have been cancelled after exchange rate error led to first and business class tickets cut to fraction of usual costUnited Airlines has cancelled the reservations of thousands of customers who took advantage of a pricing glitch to save thousands of pounds on first class tickets.The glitch, first spotted by money saving site DansDeals, caused first and business class tickets sold through the airline’s Danish website to be drastically mispriced. For instance, a round trip from Heathrow to New York for two, which costs £6118.92 on the British site, was sold for just 974 Danish Krone, less than £100. Continue reading...

Third-generation device generates good quality video for a reasonable length of time, but lacks precision control without the custom controllerThe Parrot Bebop is a camera drone with a real focus on recording video and some seriously impressive image stabilisation. It is Parrot’s third generation full-sized flying quatrocopter and is aiming to fly into a sweet spot in the market.The device is a half-way house between a drone designed for carrying a large camera, such as those often used in TV shows like Top Gear and the toy drones intended to entertain. A “prosumer drone”, it lands at the fun end of the scale, very much for those looking to make home movies rather than television documentaries, but that’s no bad thing.Related: Parrot Minidrone Rolling Spider review: an indoor drone for big kidsRelated: Parrot Minidrones Jumping Sumo review: rolling, jumping robotRelated: Parrot Zik 2.0 review: wireless headphones designed by Philippe StarckPros: super smooth video, easy to set up, robust enough to survive a crash, fun to fly, two batteries in the box, GPSCons: graining in low-light conditions, difficult to control precisely, legislation on drone use restrictive, expensive for a toy Continue reading...

Senate commerce committee chair John Thune said proposals were being pushed an ‘increasingly imperious president’ and would stifle innovationThe US government is on a path to have “virtually unlimited power” to regulate every aspect of the internet, the chairman of the powerful Senate commerce committee said Wednesday.Republican senator John Thune slammed the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) plans to introduce sweeping new powers to regulate the broadband industry, saying they would stifle innovation and create a “Mother may I” system for regulating the internet. Continue reading...