Category Archives: Technology

Can your phone keep you fit? Our writers try 10 big fitness apps – from weightlifting to pilates

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There are a dizzying number of apps promising to get you in shape – even if you can’t get to a gym. But can any of them keep our writers moving?

Price £15.49 a month.
What is it? A full-service experience from the Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth: not just workouts, but a complete meal planner – with food for breakfast, lunch and dinner – a daily guided meditation and a daily motivational article.
The experience I immediately regret declaring myself “intermediate” as the app launches into a punishing pilates workout. I am not very flexible at all, and it turns out that my baseline fitness leaves much to be desired in terms of core strength.
More frustrating is the fact that the various workouts are introduced as videos. Clearly, this is supposed to emulate a real pilates class, but when my phone tells me to lie face-down on the floor I can no longer see the screen. It is frustrating to have to repeatedly break out of the pose to check the next movement.
Worth a download? Only if you are single, enjoy cooking and are willing to hand control of your life to an app.
AH

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AI system outperforms experts in spotting breast cancer

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Program developed by Google Health tested on mammograms of UK and US women

An artificial intelligence program has been developed that is better at spotting breast cancer in mammograms than expert radiologists.

The AI outperformed the specialists by detecting cancers that the radiologists missed in the images, while ignoring features they falsely flagged as possible tumours.

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Get yourself cybersecure for 2020

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With ever more tech in our lives, our data is vulnerable. Here are our six top tips to keep it safe in the new year

Technology is changing our lives for the better; yet it’s also exposing us to organised crime, online scammers and hackers – and whole industries built around monetising our personal data. But you don’t have to be resigned to cyber-victimhood. Give yourself, and your devices, a security update for 2020 and start fighting back.

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India primed: what Amazon’s vast new Hyderabad campus reveals about its plans

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Amazon have arrived in force in rapidly expanding Hyderabad, with designs on the currently almost non-existent Indian e-commence market

The futuristic lobby of the new Amazon building in Hyderabad feels as though it should have a permanent orchestra blasting out Also Sprach Zarathustra. The scale is intended to awe. A large slogan on a wall suggests the company is “Delivering smiles”. The only sound that rises above the hush is a synthesised beep, coming from a giant screen playing a video of the campus at various stages of its construction.

Built on nine acres in this Indian city’s financial district, it is Amazon’s single largest building globally and the only Amazon-owned campus outside the US. It can house over 15,000 employees, but its size is its main architectural feature: it resembles the same cube of glass steel and chrome seen in corporate offices across Hyderabad, though a flash of magenta reflected in one of the top floor windows, from a billowing sari across the road, is a nice Indian touch.

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Huawei says ‘survival is our first priority’ in 2020 as western boycott bites

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Chairman Eric Xu warns that hit from US sanctions means telecoms firm must ‘go all out’ to maintain sales

The embattled Chinese telecommunications company Huawei says “survival” is its first priority after announcing sales were hit hard by a boycott from western countries.

Eric Xu, the company’s chairman, said estimated sales revenue would reach 850bn yuan for 2019 (US$121bn) - up roughly 18% from the previous year, but much lower than initially expected.

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Fraud fighters and bamboo bikes: the African innovators driving change

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Software for fighting cybercrime in Ghana and tools for speeding up cervical cancer diagnosis in Uganda are among innovations recognised by the judges of this year’s Africa prize

The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa prize, now in its sixth year, is the continent’s biggest award for engineering innovation. Sixteen African inventors from six countries – including, for the first time, Malawi – have been shortlisted to receive funding, training and mentoring for projects intended to revolutionise sectors ranging from agriculture and banking to women’s health. The winner will be awarded £25,000 and the three runners-up will receive £10,000 each.

This year’s inventions include facial recognition software to prevent financial fraud, a low-cost digital microscope to speed up cervical cancer diagnosis, and two separate innovations made from water hyacinth plants. Four inventors spoke to the Guardian about their innovations and their plans to change Africa for the better.

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Popular chat app is actually a spying tool of UAE government – report

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Government reportedly uses ToTok to track conversations, locations and other data of those who install the app

A chat app that quickly became popular in the United Arab Emirates for communicating with friends and family is actually a spying tool used by the government to track its users, according to a New York Times report.

The government uses ToTok to track conversations, locations, images and other data of those who install the app on their phones, the Times reported, citing US officials familiar with a classified intelligence assessment and the newspaper’s own investigation.

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‘Handing control away’: UK’s sale of Cobham defence firm to US company decried

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Founding family criticises approval of £4bn deal despite national security concerns

The government has been accused of handing control away after it approved a US private equity firm’s £4bn takeover of the UK defence company Cobham despite national security concerns.

The deal had been delayed since mid-2019 after fears were raised that Advent International’s acquisition could undermine the country’s security.

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US Navy bans TikTok from mobile devices saying it’s a cybersecurity threat

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Users who don’t remove the Beijing-based app will be blocked from Navy Marine Corp intranet

The United States Navy has banned the social media app TikTok from government-issued mobile devices, saying the popular short video app represented a cybersecurity threat.

Related: US 'investigating TikTok as potential national security risk'

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Twitter blocks accounts linked to Saudi ‘state-backed’ manipulation effort

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Social network suspends thousands in the latest crackdown on state-sponsored propaganda

Twitter said on Friday it had suspended thousands of accounts linked to a manipulation effort stemming from Saudi Arabia, in the latest crackdown on state-sponsored propaganda efforts.

The social network said some 88,000 accounts being blocked were linked to Saudi state-backed “information operations” in violation of Twitter’s platform manipulation rules.

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I saw the unbearable grief inflicted on families by cobalt mining. I pray for change

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When Raphael turned 15, he started digging tunnels at the cobalt mine where he worked – two years later he was dead

Bisette sits before me, her face drawn with woe. Even though this is my second research trip to the cobalt provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I am ill-prepared for the torment I will witness. We thank Bisette for her courage, for we know she is fearful that even a rumour that she is speaking to us could result in brutal reprisals against her and her family. She inhales sharply and recounts a tale of unimaginable grief.

Raphael was born to Bisette’s sister, but after both his parents died when he was a baby, Bisette raised Raphael as her own son. She says he was a bright and cheerful child. Raphael loved to learn but, when he was 12 years old, the family could no longer afford the $6 (£4) a month required to send him to school. Instead, Bisette says Raphael did what most children in his village had to do: he went to work as a surface digger at a nearby industrial cobalt mine near Kolwezi.

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Apple and Google named in US lawsuit over Congolese child cobalt mining deaths

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Dell, Microsoft and Tesla also among tech firms named in case brought by families of children killed or injured while mining in DRC

A landmark legal case has been launched against the world’s largest tech companies by Congolese families who say their children were killed or maimed while mining for cobalt used to power smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the Guardian can reveal.

Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla have been named as defendants in a lawsuit filed in Washington DC by human rights firm International Rights Advocates on behalf of 14 parents and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The lawsuit accuses the companies of aiding and abetting in the death and serious injury of children who they claim were working in cobalt mines in their supply chain.

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‘I was hacked,’ says woman whose account claimed hospital boy photo was staged

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Woman denies posting false information that photo of four-year-old was political stunt

A medical secretary has claimed her Facebook account was hacked after it was used to post false information claiming that a photograph of an ill boy on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary was staged for political purposes.

The woman denied posting the allegation that four-year-old Jack Willment-Barr’s mother placed him on the floor specifically to take the picture which became symbolic of the NHS’s troubles after it appeared on the front page of Monday’s Daily Mirror.

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China tells government offices to remove all foreign computer equipment

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Directive is likely to be a blow to US multinational companies like HP, Dell and Microsoft

China has ordered that all foreign computer equipment and software be removed from government offices and public institutions within three years, the Financial Times reports.

The government directive is likely to be a blow to US multinational companies like HP, Dell and Microsoft and mirrors attempts by Washington to limit the use of Chinese technology, as the trade war between the countries turns into a tech cold war.

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Tigers, elephants and pangolins suffer as global wildlife trafficking soars

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Dozens of species are now at risk but a conference this week will showcase new technology that could help stop the illegal trade

The two young women who arrived at Heathrow in February 2014 en route to Düsseldorf were carrying nondescript luggage. Customs officers were suspicious nevertheless and looked inside – to find 13 iguanas stuffed into socks inside the cases. Astonishingly, 12 of the highly endangered San Salvador rock iguanas had survived their transatlantic journey.

“There only about 600 of these animals left in the wild, in the Bahamas, and these animals were being taken to a private collector somewhere in Germany. Incredibly, we were able to return 12 of them, alive, to their homeland – on San Salvador island,” said Grant Miller, who was then working for the Border Force’s endangered species team.

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US considers putting Amazon overseas websites on counterfeit blacklist – report

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Amazon says in response it ‘strictly prohibits’ counterfeit products and invests heavily to protect customers from them



The Trump administration is considering putting some of Amazon.com Inc’s overseas websites on a list of global marketplaces known for counterfeit goods, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The action would be taken by the US Trade Representative’s Office through its annual “notorious markets” list, the report said, adding that no decisions had been made and that similar proposals last year were eventually discarded.

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Elon Musk did not defame British cave explorer, jury finds

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Vernon Unsworth’s legal team had sought at least $190m in damages after Tesla CEO called him ‘pedo guy’

Elon Musk did not defame British cave explorer Vernon Unsworth by calling him a “pedo guy” on Twitter, a Los Angeles jury found Friday.

Musk shook hands with his lawyer at the close of the four day trial in Los Angeles. He did not address Unsworth, whose team had told the court earlier on Friday the Tesla CEO should pay at least $190m in damages for his tweets about the diver.

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Explosions, broken noses, Pokémon woe: study finds surge in phone injuries

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US experts report sharp increase in mobile casualties since rise of the iPhone in 2007

• Tell us about your mobile phone injuries

Broken noses, nasty cuts, traumatic brain injury and even death: it sounds like the start of a Quentin Tarantino movie. In fact, they are among the hazards of using a mobile phone.

A study by experts in the US has found that since the advent of smartphones, injuries linked to mobile phones have shot up, both indirect injuries – such as those sustained texting while walking – and those caused by the devices themselves, such as the phone hitting someone in the face or the battery exploding.

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Elon Musk trial: billionaire and diver spar over ‘pedo guy’ tweet

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In second day of testimony, Tesla CEO faces questions over whether he tried to take credit for Thai cave rescue

Did Elon Musk “try to take credit in any way for the rescue operation” that saved 12 young Thai footballers and their coach from imminent death in the Tham Luang cave network last summer?

That was the question at the center of the billionaire entrepreneur’s second day of testimony in the defamation case brought by Vernon Unsworth, a British cave explorer. The trial, in federal court in Los Angeles, will determine whether Musk’s 15 July 2018 tweet calling Unsworth a “pedo guy” constituted defamation.

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Boris Johnson suggests Huawei role in 5G might harm UK security

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PM signals he is preparing to shut Chinese firm out after lobbying from Donald Trump

Boris Johnson has cast doubt on whether the UK will allow Huawei to invest in its 5G network, suggesting it might “prejudice” the Five Eyes intelligence relationship, after Donald Trump applied pressure for other countries to adopt the US ban.

In his strongest signal so far that he is preparing to shut Huawei out of the network, Johnson said that security concerns were paramount in the decision about the Chinese company.

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