Tech Pol

Diner Dash, Soundhalo, Hangouts, Whisper, Sonic the Hedgehog, DK Quiz, Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles, Moshcam and more

It's time for our weekly roundup of brand new and notable apps for Android smartphones and tablets.

It covers apps and games, with the prices referring to the initial download: so (Free) may mean (Freemium) in some cases. The equivalent iOS roundup will be published later in the day.

For now, read on for this week's Android selection (and when you've finished, check out previous Best Android apps posts).

Billed as "the world's #1 hit time management game", Diner Dash has been hugely popular on computers and iOS devices alike down the years. Now it's on Android too courtesy of publisher PlayFirst. The game involves seating, serving and saying tara to diners as efficiently as possible to collect tips. It's a freemium game, so in-app purchases are used for boosts and upgrades.

Google moved to unify its Android messaging apps last week with Hangouts, offering instant messaging, photo-sharing, emoji and video calls in one package. It's also available for computers and iOS.

Soundhalo is an app for live music concerts, selling audio and video files of performances by artists, starting with two London gigs earlier in May by Alt-J. It's pitched as a way to buy the gig you've just seen as you walk out of the venue, but the bigger market is likely to be people who didn't attend.

Whisper has been popular on iOS: an "anonymous social network that lets you share confessions, express yourself and meet new people". New anonymous people, obviously. The idea being an app where you can post your genuine, unshareable-with-friends thoughts, for a wider audience.

Sega is certainly cashing in on its fleet-footed blue hedgehog: the original Sonic game follows two episodes of Sonic 4, Sonic CD and Sonic Jump onto Android. The famous Mega Drive game has been accurately ported across, with extra Tails & Knuckles, a remastered soundtrack and a new Time Attack mode.

This is the work of book publisher DK: a trivia app covering music, film, food, sports and numerous other topics. You can play alone or challenge friends Draw Something-style, with virtual coins (earned or bought via IAP) helping you unlock different question packs.

Several friends have practically foamed at the mouth upon being informed of the release of this game. It's the latest offshoot from Lego Star Wars, which sees you battling through eight levels as either Yoda or Count Dooku.

Launched by Scottish Natural Heritage, this tourism app showcases the sights to be seen when travelling by train in Scotland. That means four-minute audio chapters narrated by broadcasters Fiona MacDonald and Mark Stephen, complemented by photographs, interviews and other information.

There are lots of tower defence games on Android, it's fair to say – including a number of top-quality titles. Kingdom Rush should be able to hold its own in the crowd though: it was excellent on iOS. The game has a fantasy setting, all orcs, elves and wizards. You'll be protecting your kingdom against more than 50 enemies, with all manner of upgrades and abilities to fuel your strategy.

This is the latest children's storybook-app from Irish startup StoryToys, which turns the famous tale of Mowgli, Baloo and Bagheera into a virtual pop-up book for Android devices. Animation, voice narration and a series of accessible mini-games make it a treat for kids.

Developer PikPok's latest Android game is based on the upcoming DreamWorks Animation film Turbo. It's basically Mario Kart with snails. Well, there's a bit more to it than that, but this free-to-play game gets you to customise then race a colourful terrestrial-gastropod. In the US, there's the additional incentive of a $1m contest to be the best player.

It's a good week for Android-owning live music fans, with Moshcam joining Soundhalo on the Google Play store. This offers videos of gigs by the likes of Slash, PJ Harvey, Hot Chip, Alabama Shakes and Blondie among others, with interviews in the mix too.

One for retro gamers, this: a 1984 karate game by Jordan Mechner, who went on to create the Prince of Persia games. This is a port of the Apple II version of Karateka, which sees you going head-to-head (well, also foot-to-midriff) with a succession of enemies in a side-scrolling adventure.

Parents! Is your fridge over-festooned with marvellous, clearly-advanced and hinting-at-glory artworks by your kids? Kidpix is one of the apps hoping to help you store these paintings and scribbles. The idea: you take photos of children's artwork, add virtual frames and then save/share it.

This is the latest Dr Seuss book-app for Android, but it's fascinating for parents as well as children thanks to its theme. It's about the Yooks and the Zooks, who've fallen out over which way to eat their bread (butter side up or down?) and are in an arm's race to develop ever-more-silly weapons to use against one another. As allegories for the Cold War (but with rhymes) go, it's one of the best.

This is an inventive take on the racing genre: a "turn-based strategic racing game" with jellies instead of cars. There are tournaments to take on Facebook friends and strangers alike, as well as a fun Party Play mode for several people to play on a single device.

Children's TV character Wubbzy (he's on Nick Jr.) has been the star of a succession of apps in recent months. This new one sees you bashing robot chickens with a mallet, with two modes to suit children of different ages and abilities.

The apps world tends to have long, spiralling tails, so there's definitely space for a multiplayer horseracing strategy game where you manage stables and run horses against those of friends. Breeding and betting is also built in.

Another well-known old gaming brand pops up on Android: Fire & Forget, with racing and shooting in equal measures, a post-apocalyptic theme and 10 levels to drive (and shoot) your way through.

This is unofficial but interesting: a guide to every Star Trek TV episode and movie, offering plot descriptions and images. A good companion when digging into the Star Trek back catalogue around the release of the newest movie.

That's this week's selection, but what do you think? Make your own recommendations, or give your views on the apps above, by posting a comment.

• Android
• Apps
• Smartphones
• Tablet computers
• Mobile
• Mobile phones
• Google

Metro: Last Light nukes the opposition, knocking Dead Island: Riptide off the top spot

UKIE Games Charts © compiled by GfK Chart-Track

• Games
• Xbox
• Wii
• PlayStation

Velocity, not volume is increasingly what determines the hardware and software needs of data-processing organisations
• More from the Guardian's series on big data

Critics of big data are picking holes in its validity as a concept, but there is a problem with their arguments around data volume - it is speed, not size, that defines big data in 2013.

Big data is among the computing neologisms du jour, and a technology conference in 2013 is rarely considered complete without a smattering of uses, typically accompanied by further volume-related qualifiers (tsunamis of big data being by far the worst offender I have encountered - other suggestions welcome).

Despite having been in use for a few years now, settling on just what is meant by big data appears to be a complex task. As is their wont, various computing gurus (that one isn't confined to tech circles) have come up with initialisms to summarise what they see as its key constituent parts.

The 'four Vs' definition is probably the most widely recognised - the letters standing for volume, velocity, variety and variability - and from a technical perspective, this is actually a reasonable effort, but a number of otherwise excellent articles currently making the rounds deal only with the first V.

A healthy dose of scepticism is a must when dealing with emergent terms in the technology sector, but in this particular case, commentators would do well to delve a little deeper before setting out to dismantle big data as a concept.

Last month we re-posted an interesting and well-constructed argument that 'small data' - or data of the volumes most regular analysts, researchers and statisticians are used to dealing with - is actually both more relevant and more useful to the vast majority of organisations than its big cousin.

More recently, I read a well-researched article on just how infrequently the world's data powerhouses - citing Facebook and Yahoo! - actually carry out an individual piece of analysis on data that would not fit onto a laptop or desktop machine you could pick up from your local electronics retailer.

The points made in both of these articles are eloquently put and there no obvious holes to be found in the arguments' logic. The problem is, both authors dismiss big data on the grounds of volume alone, ignoring the fact that it is speed, not size that is increasingly driving desire for software and hardware improvements at data-processing organisations.

The need for genuine real-time results is integral to ever more analytics use cases. There are, of course, industries where gathering, analysing and reacting to data is nothing new - take high frequency trading, for example. But the list is growing, with information security, marketing and telecommunications just three examples of sectors where speed, more than volume, has been identified as a limiting factor.

Last week Paul Maritz, CEO of EMC Pivotal, described a marketing paradise in which customers in a store are tracked and served offers while they shop - insights put into action instantly, rather than retroactively, as we currently see with deals offered at the point of sale.

Leaving aside for now the numerous privacy and intrusion questions that arise from such a scenario, the message here is that data-centric companies seeking to gain a competitive edge have marked out velocity as the new battleground.

In fact it is just as fallacious to consider speed in isolation from volume as it is to do the reverse - the pair form two sides of a speed-data-time triangle. As the values for data and time tend towards infinity and zero respectively, the software and hardware requirements ramp up.

In short, once you really consider the technical challenges facing CTOs, data scientists and others embedded in this field, the idea that big data be dismissed as a term because it's not all that big is - however well presented - verging on straw man territory.

Which side of the big data debate do you sit on? Join the discussion in the comments below, or have your say via Twitter to me directly @jburnmurdoch or to the official @GuardianData account.

• Big data
• Computing
• Yahoo
• Google
• Facebook

Intel shunned ARM processors and played virtually no role in the smartphone revolution, but now Paul Otellini, Intel's CEO reveals Steve Jobs asked Intel to build the iPhone microprocessor

CEO valedictions follow a well-known script: My work is done here, great team, all mistakes are mine, all good deeds are theirs, I leave the company in strong hands, the future has never been brighter … It's an opportunity for a leader to offer a conventional and contrived reminiscence, what the French call la toilette des souvenirs (which Google crudely translates as toilet memories instead of the affectionate and accurate dressing up memories).

For his farewell, Paul Otellini, Intel's departing CEO, chose the interview format with the Atlantic Monthly's senior editor Alexis Madrigal. They give us a long (5,700+ words) but highly readable piece titled Paul Otellini's Intel: can the company that built the future survive it?

Intel's outgoing CEO Paul Otellini. Photograph: Guardian.co.uk

The punctuation mark at the title's end refers to the elephantine question in the middle of Otellini's record: Why did Intel miss out on the smartphone? Why did the company that so grandly dominates the PC market sit by while ARM architecture totally, and perhaps irretrievably, took over the new generation of phones – and most other embedded applications?

According to Otellini, it was the result of Intel's inertia: It took a while to move the machine.

Madrigal backfills this uneasy explanation with equal unease:

"The problem, really, was that Intel's x86 chip architecture could not rival the performance per watt of power that designs licensed from ARM based on RISC architecture could provide. Intel was always the undisputed champion of performance, but its chips sucked up too much power. In fact, it was only this month that Intel revealed chips that seem like they'll be able to beat the ARM licencees on the key metrics."

Note the tiptoeing: Intel's new chips "seem like" they'll be fast enough and cheap enough. Madrigal charitably fails to note how Intel, year after year, kept promising to beat ARM at the mobile game, and failed to do so. (See these 2010, 2011 and 2012 Monday Notes.) Last year, Intel was still at it, dismissively predicting "no future for ARM or any of its competitors". Tell that to ARM Holdings, whose licencees shipped 2.6bn chips in the first quarter of this year.

Elsewhere in the article, Otellini offers a striking revelation: Fresh from anointing Intel as the microprocessor supplier for the Mac, Steve Jobs came back and asked Intel to design and build the CPU for Apple's upcoming iPhone. (To clarify the chronology, the iPhone was announced in early January, 2007; the CPU conversation must have taken place two years prior, likely before the June, 2005 WWDC where Apple announced the switch to x86. See Chapter 36 of Walter Isaacson's Jobs bio for more.)

Intel passed on the opportunity [emphasis mine]:

"We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we'd done it […]

Indeed, the world would have been different. Apple wouldn't be struggling through a risky transition away from Samsung, its frenemy CPU supplier; the heart of the iPhone would be made In America; Intel would have supplied processors for more than 500m iOS devices, sold even more such chips to other handset makers to become as major a player in the smartphone (and tablet) space as it is in the PC world.

Supply your own adjectives …

Indulging briefly in more What If reverie, compare the impact of Intel's wrong turn to a better one: How would the world look like if, at the end of 1996, Gil Amelio hadn't returned Apple back to Steve Jobs? (My recollection of the transaction's official wording could be faulty.)

So, again, what happened?

At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn't see it. It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought."

A little later, Otellini completes the train of thought with a wistful reverie, a model of la toilette des souvenirs:

"The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut," he said. "My gut told me to say yes."

The frank admission is meant to elicit respect and empathy. Imagine being responsible for missing the opportunity to play a commanding role in the smartphone revolution.

But perhaps things aren't as simple as being a "gut move" short of an epochal $100bn opportunity.

Intel is a prisoner of its x86 profit model and Wall Street's expectations. It's dominant position in the x86 space give Intel the pricing power to command high margins. There's no such thing in the competitive ARM space, prices are lower. Even factoring in the lower inherent cost of the somewhat simpler devices (simpler for the time being; they'll inevitably grow more complex), the profit-per-ARM chip is too thin to sustain Intel's business model.

(Of course, this assumes a substitution, an ARM chip that displaces an x86 device. As it turns out, the smartphone business could have been largely additive, just as we now see with tablets that cannibalise classical PCs.)

Another factor is the cultural change that would have been required were Intel to have gotten involved in making ARM devices. As both the designer and manufacturer of generation after generation of x86 microprocessors, Intel can wait until they're good and ready before they allow PC makers to build the chips into their next products. The ARM world doesn't work that way. Customers design their own chips (often called a System on a Chip, or SoC), and then turn to a semiconductor manufacturer (a foundry) to stamp out the hardware. Taking orders from others isn't in Intel's DNA.

And now?

The answer might lie in another French expression: L'histoire ne repasse pas les plats. Google Translate is a bit more felicitous this time: History does not repeat itself. I prefer the more literal image – history doesn't come around offering seconds – but the point remains: Will there be seconds at the smartphone repast?

Officially, Intel says its next generation of x86 processors will (finally!) topple the ARM regime, that their chips will offer more computing might with no cost or power dissipation penalty. In their parlance "the better transistor" (the basic unit of logic processing) will win.

I doubt it. The newer x86 devices will certainly help Microsoft and its OEMs make Windows 8 devices more competitive, but that won't prevent the spread of ARM in the legion of devices on which Windows is irrelevant. For these, Intel would have to adopt ARM, a decision Otellini has left to the new tandem leadership of Brian Krzanich (CEO) and Renée James (president). Will they stick to the old creed, to the belief Intel's superior silicon design and manufacturing technology will eventually overcome the disadvantages of the more complex x86 architecture? Or will they take the plunge?

They might be helped by a change in the financial picture.

In 2006, that is after throwing Jobs in Samsung's arms (pun unintended), Intel sold its ARM business, the XScale line, to Marvell. The reason was purely financial: for similar capital expenditures (costly fabs), ARM processors achieved much lower per-unit profit, this is because of the much more competitive scene than in the x86 space.

Now, if Intel really wants to get a place at the smartphone table with new and improved x86 devices, the company will have to price those to compete with established ARM players. In other words, Intel will have to accept the lower margins they shunned in 2006. Then, why not do it with the ARM-based custom processors Apple and others require?

– JLG@mondaynote.com

----------------------------

(I'll confess a weakness for the Atlantic and, in particular, for its national correspondent James Fallows, a literate geek and instrument-rated pilot who took iy upon himself to live in Beijing for a while and, as a result, can speak more helpfully about China than most members of the Fourth Estate. Going back to last week's reference to the Gauche Caviar, when my Café de Flore acquaintances fall into their usual rut of criticising my adopted country for its lack of "culture", I hold out that the Atlantic – which sells briskly at the kiosk next door – is one of many examples of American journalistic excellence.

And, if you're interested in more strange turns, see this other string Alexis Madrigal piece in the same Atlantic: The time Exxon went into the semiconductor business (and failed). I was there, briefly running an Exxon Information Systems subsidiary in France and learning the importance of corporate culture.) – JLG

• Intel
• Smartphones
• Steve Jobs
• Apple
• Samsung
• Microsoft
• Computing
• Telecommunications industry
• Telecoms

Internet measurement techniques need a total overhaul – new methods make it hard for incumbent players to stay in the game

The web user is the most watched consumer ever. For tracking purposes, every large site drops literally dozens of cookies in the visitor's browser. In the most comprehensive investigation on the matter, The Wall Street Journal found that each of the 50 largest websites in the United Sates, weighing 40% of the US page views, installed an average of 64 files on a user device. (See the WSJ's What They Know series and a Monday Note about tracking issues.) As for server logs, they record every page sent to the user and they tell with great accuracy which parts of a page collect most of the reader's attention.

But when it comes to measuring a digital viewer's commercial value, sites rely on old-fashioned panels, that is limited user population samples. Why?

Panels are inherited. They go back to the old days of broadcast radio when, in order to better sell advertising, dominant networks wanted to know which station listeners tuned in to during the day. In the late thirties, Nielsen Company made a clever decision: it installed a monitoring box in 1,000 American homes. Twenty years later, Nielsen did the same, on a much larger scale, with broadcast television. The advertising world was happy to be fed with plenty of data — mostly unchallenged as Nielsen dominated the field. (For a detailed history, you can read Rating the Audience, written by two Australian media academics). As Nielsen expanded to other media (music, film, books and all sorts of polls), moving to the internet measurement sounded like a logical step. As of today, Nielsen only faces smaller competitors such as ComScore and others.

I have yet to meet a publisher who is happy with this situation. Fearing retribution, very few people talk openly about it (twisting the dials is so easy, you know…), but they all complain about inaccurate, unreliable data. In addition, the panel system is vulnerable to cheating on a massive scale. Smartypants outfits sell a vast array of measurement boosters, from fake users that will come in just once a month to be counted as "unique" (they are indeed), to more sophisticated tactics such as undetectable "pop under" sites that will rely on encrypted URLs to deceive the vigilance of panel operators. In France for instance, 20% to 30% of some audiences can be bogus — or largely inflated. To its credit, Mediametrie — the French Nielsen affiliate that produces the most watched measurements — is expending vast resources to counter the cheating, and to make the whole model more reliable. It works, but progress is slow. In August 2012, Mediametrie Net Ratings (MNR), launched a Hybrid Measure taking into account site centric analytics (server logs) to rectify panel numbers, but those corrections are still erratic. And it takes more than a month to get the data, which is not acceptable for the real-time-obsessed internet.

Publishers monitor the pulse of their digital properties on a permanent basis. In most newsrooms, Chartbeat (also imperfect, sometimes) displays the performance of every piece of content, and home pages get adjusted accordingly. More broadly, site-centric measures detail all possible metrics: page views, time spent, hourly peaks, engagement levels. This is based on server logs tracking dedicated tags inserted in each served page. But the site-centric measure is also flawed: If you use, say, four different devices — a smartphone, a PC at home, another at work, and a tablet — you will be incorrectly counted as four different users. And if you use several browsers you could be counted even more times. This inherent site-centric flaw is the best argument for panel vendors.

But, in the era of Big Data and user profiling, panels no longer have the upper hand.

The developing field of statistical pairing technology shows great promise. It is now possible to pinpoint a single user browsing the web with different devices in a very reliable manner. Say you use the four devices mentioned earlier: a tablet in the morning and the evening; a smartphone for occasional updates on the move, and two PCs (a desktop at the office and a laptop elsewhere). Now, each time you visit a new site, an audience analytics company drops a cookie that will record every move on every site, from each of your devices. Chances are your browsing patterns will be stable (basically your favorite media diet, plus or minus some services that are better fitted for a mobile device.) Not only your browsing profile is determined from your navigation on a given site, but it is also quite easy to know which sites you have been to before the one that is currently monitored, adding further precision to the measurement.

Over time, your digital fingerprint will become more and more precise. Until then, the set of four cookies is independent from each other. But the analytics firm compiles all the patterns in single place. By data-mining them, analysts will determine the probability that a cookie dropped in a mobile application, a desktop browser or a mobile web site belongs to the same individual. That's how multiple pairing works. (To get more details on the technical and mathematical side of it, you can read this paper by the founder of Drawbridge Inc.) I recently discussed these techniques with several engineers both in France and in the US. All were quite confident that such fingerprinting is do-able and that it could be the best way to accurately measure internet usage across different platforms.

Obviously, Google is best positioned to perform this task on a large scale. First, its Google Analytics tool is deployed on more than 100 million websites. And the Google Ad Planner, even in its public version, already offers a precise view of the performance of many sites in the world. In addition, as one of the engineers pointed out, Google is already performing such pairing simply to avoid showing the same ad twice to a someone using several devices. Google is also most likely doing such ranking in order to feed the obscure "quality index" algorithmically assigned to each site. It even does such pairing on a nominative basis by using its half billion Gmail accounts (425 million in June 2012) and connecting its Chrome users. As for giving up another piece of internet knowledge to Google, it doesn't sounds like a big deal to me. The search giant knows already much more about sites than most publishers do about their own properties. The only thing that could prevent Google from entering the market of public web rankings would be the prospect of another privacy outcry. But I don't see why it won't jump on it — eventually. When this happens, Nielsen will be in big trouble.

– frederic.filloux@mondaynote.com

• Google
• Internet
• Digital media

Microsoft is unveiling its new console in Seattle on Tuesday. So what can we expect from the long-awaited Xbox 360 successor?

Sony's cards are on the table, now it's Microsoft's turn to show its hand. After the controversial introduction of the PlayStation 4 in February, Tuesday will see the unveiling of the next Xbox machine, which still doesn't have a name – although Infinity is a frontrunner once again. Taking place at the Microsoft HQ in Redmond, the event will be live-streamed across the globe, and should actually show us the new console – unlike Sony's rather coy non-reveal.

The industry has changed almost beyond recognition since the announcement of the Xbox 360 way back in May 2005. But somehow the console has managed to stay abreast of trends, introducing Achievements and gamer scores, perfecting the online gaming experience, and opening up its online infrastructure for an array of video-on-demand services. It has sold over 76m units worldwide, attracting over 46m users to its Xbox Live service.

So what's the plan for the 720, or Durango, or Infinity, or whatever it's called? Here are the five things we want to know. Feel free to add your own questions and concerns int he comments section.

Well, unless there's a huge upset, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect here. Rumours coming out of the development sector for several months suggest an eight-core X86 CPU operating at 1.6Ghz, a custom GPU (possibly based on the Radeon HD 8770 or HD 7790, depending on your preferred source of speculation), a 500GB HD and a Blu-ray drive. It doesn't take a super geek to work out that this is a very similar set-up to the Playstation 4, so it's all down to the nitty gritty of the architecture – the type of RAM used, the teraflops output, any memory squirreled away for OS use, that sort of thing. Oh, there have been rumours of a second GPU dedicated to multimedia functionality – ie video streaming. That would fit with the emerging idea that Microsoft wants to push this thing as a one-size-fits-all living room entertainment behemoth. Damn, I wish they would call it the Xbox Behemoth. Anyway, what we want to know is: are these specs correct, and if so, what does this AMD-fuelled architecture have that PS4 doesn't?

Ever since the leak of that suspiciously amateurish Xbox 720 document back in May 2012, we've been conditioned to expect the return of Kinect, Microsoft's, let's say divisive, motion control peripheral. Kinect 2.0, we're led to believe, will be built in to the new console, offering much more accurate cameras – thereby allowing for facial recognition and tracking of up to four players at once. There will also be improved voice recognition for when you just can't be bothered to press buttons. Does this excite you? Well, maybe not – Kinect never really got the pulses racing on Xbox 360, despite shifting more than 20m units. The tracking tech never really worked well enough, and you needed masses of space to use the thing. If these problems have been solved, then this could be interesting, although it seems we can rule out a joint implementation with Microsoft's Illumiroom 'augmented viewing' concept, which baths your viewing area in images matching the onscreen action; that's still some way off apparently.

However much of a PlayStation fan you are, you have to concede that Xbox 360 got online just right. Sure, you had to pay a subscription, but Live worked beautifully and left Sony scrabbling to catch up (Trophies, anyone?). Alongside a wonderful online gaming system, the console also offered an array of video-on-demand services, and it's likely these will be a key focus for the follow-up, too. When Xbox blogger Major Nelson announced the next-gen Xbox event back in April he stated, "On Tuesday May 21st, we'll mark the beginning of a new generation of games, TV and entertainment." In short, we can expect content partnership deals with major TV and movie corps, and maybe other entertainment features set to place the console in competition with the likes of Virgin and Sky (for example, the ability to record and store TV programmes). As for Xbox Live itself, will we get a more social lobby system, allowing for easier match-ups between friends? Can we count on cross-platform gaming against smartphone and tablet owners? And will there be a new take on Achievements?

And the biggest question of all: will the next Xbox require a constant internet connection? This would, of course, offer security benefits, but won't be... popular (greatest understatement of the year nominee 2013). Polygon reckons publishers will get to decide if their games require a constant connection, whereas Ars Technica suggests that offline fun will be available to those watching TV, Blu-ray movie discs or indulging in single-player campaigns. Hmm, what could possibly go wrong? That Polygon story also mentions the possibility of a record option, allowing gamers to easily share their game footage. Sort of like the PS4 "share" function. Gawd, are there any original ideas left in the world?

Xbox veterans are in for a thrilling time tomorrow. Rumours suggest Project Gotham Racing 5, Forza Motorports 5, Halo 5 and Fable 4. As for new – ahem – "IP", we're expecting one or maybe even two projects from Rare, and the first-person Roman hack-'em-up Ryse from Crytek, may be headed this way. Elsewhere, there are whispers that Titan the first project from Respawn Entertainment (founded by ex-Infinity Ward heads Jason West and Vince Zampella) could be an Xbox 720 exclusive. Likely to steal the show, though, will be the debut of Activision's Call of Duty Ghosts – the next-generation instalment in its moderately successful shooter series. My question though: what is Microsoft doing about supporting smaller studios? Xbox Live Indie Games was a huge disappointment. Let's try that again, eh?

Microsoft analyst Paul Thurot has guessed at an early November launch, with two price points: $499 for an outright purchase of the console, or a $299 option which gets you the machine but commits you to an Xbox Live subscription, possibly for two years. Microsoft has experimented with this sort of price model before, and it may be a smart way of keeping hardware costs within the budgets of gamers who would probably stump up for the online gaming service anyway. Sony hasn't given a PS4 ETA yet, beyond vaguely mumbling about Winter 2013, so can Microsoft hit the shelves first? And if so, how important will that be? The Sega Saturn just pipped the original PlayStation into Japanese stores, while Dreamcast beat PS2 to sale – neither flourished as a result. But the big gap between the Xbox 360 and PS3 certainly did help Microsoft's machine.

But just imagine if both come out in November. It'll be carnage out there...

• Xbox
• Microsoft
• Games
• United States

There are, the saying goes, two certainties in life – death and taxes – but it would pretty safe bet to add a third: Jeremy Clarkson's comments offending one group or another. The Daily Star reports that this time the motormouth has upset the mothers of small children. "When will British Airways realise that babies belong in the hold?", he tweeted. "Mine didn't fly until they were old enough to behave." Cue the usual outrage, and a little support, across the Twittersphere. "I'd rather share a cabin with 20 colicky babies than 1 Jeremy Clarkson," said one outraged punter, clearly not telling the truth.

• Jeremy Clarkson
• BBC
• Television industry
• Top Gear
• Television
• Factual TV
• Twitter

Plus, how console is still a big deal in the global games market, the rise of 'neuro-gaming' and Nintendo's forthcoming announcements

A selection of links, hand-picked by the Guardian games writers.

Less than two years after vowing to deliver on an "unprecedented partnership" with Nintendo, gaming giant EA is quiet on the Wii U front.

"We have no games in development for the Wii U currently," company spokesperson Jeff Brown told Kotaku yesterday. He did not rule out the chances of EA developing for the Wii U again. EA publishes many of gaming's biggest franchises, including Madden, The Sims, and Battlefield.

This is not a good sign for Nintendo, of course. EA may not be the gigantic force it once was when its lack of patronage effectively killed the Dreamcast, but the denial of regular big-hitters like Fifa and Battlefield is going to hurt.

Activision's market share of the boxed video game sales market climbed from 15.7 per cent in 2011 to 19.5 per cent for 2012.

That's according to data collected by Ubisoft, based on figures from NPD, GfK Chart Track and Nielsen, showing that Activision, Ubisoft, Take 2 and Microsoft were the only publishers to increase their market share.

The data also provides the best selling game brands. Can you guess the top five? It's Call of Duty, Mario, Fifa, Wii Fit and Assassin's Creed.

Major Nelson:

On the latest episode of my weekly podcast, Aaron Greenberg (IEB Chief Of Staff) drops by to share some interesting data around the video game industry. How much time are people spending gaming? How does console gaming compare to PC's and mobile? Find out the answers to that and more!

Microsoft reckons that consoles still make up 42% of the global consumer spend on games. People are forking out around $27bn on console titles, compared to $10bn on smartphone/tablet and $12bn on PC.

Nintendo has confirmed that Mario, Mario Kart and Smash Bros. will appear in a Nintendo Direct before E3. The news comes via Nintendo of America's Twitter account, which wrote "#IwataSays We will discuss new Smash Bros., 3D Mario game, Mario Kart and other Wii U titles in our #NintendoDirectNA before the start of E3."

Surprise!

How far are we from fully controlling games with our mind? VG247′s Dave Cook speaks with neuro-technology expert Zack Lynch to discuss why sensory tools like Oculus and Google Glass are the future of gaming.

This is an interesting round-up of current thinking in 'neuro-gaming' and sensory mechanics. I get virtual reality, but do you really want to touch, feel and smell game worlds? I don't want to smell Call of Duty.

The Banner Saga: Factions | TIGSource

If you like tactical games and free PvP, then you might get as addicted to the Banner Saga: Factions as I have (Factions' Steam page). It's much like playing a timed chess game with a greater depth of variety in terms of strategy, which is provided the fantasy elements of the game and its unique battle mechanics.

This is just a quick heads-up for this truly beautiful looking tactical RPG.

You can follow Press Start at Pinboard.

• Games
• Wii
• Xbox
• PlayStation
• PC

iPhone and iPad to battle for contracts worth millions of dollars, boosting their standing in corporate and government markets

Apple's mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad have been cleared for use on the US Pentagon's networks, joining Samsung and BlackBerry in the potentially huge – and tightly regulated – US military market.

That opens the door to a three-way fight between the companies for contracts worth millions of dollars and whose prestige could have benefits far beyond the defence department's networks.

On 2 May BlackBerry's Z10 smartphone and PlayBook tablet running its new BB10 software passed the Pentagon's requirements. Samsung's "Knox" version of Android, which it says will be available on its new S4 smartphone later this year, has also been approved this month.

Any device that is used will be tightly controlled using "mobile device management" software that restricts what apps can be used and installed, and limited in which networks it can connect to.

With the Pentagon looking to buy as many as 8m devices for a global network, all three companies now have high-profile approval that they can use to push for broader enterprise adoption.

For Apple, which for years before the iPhone had little penetration in corporate markets, preferring instead to focus on consumers, the nod from the most rigorous tester is a dramatic shift in its business standing. "It's a big deal," Brian White, an analyst at New York-based Topeka Capital Markets, told Bloomberg News. "Apple has had a big push into the enterprise and government. This is definitely a positive step in that initiative."

Samsung has developed "Knox", a hardened version of Android, specifically to win defence and enterprise contracts as it aims to cement its dominance of the smartphone market, where it is the largest player by volume. "The department approved the Knox STIG [Security Technical Implementation Guide] before the product is even available commercially, which we see as a positive example of close government/industry partnership delivering the latest technology to meet DoD needs," Pentagon spokesman Lt Col Damien Pickart told the Guardian.

BlackBerry's position as the prime supplier to defence organisations is under threat from its two rivals. Having carved out a niche in which its handsets were the only ones allowed to connect to US military networks, providing a lucrative niche, it is under increasing pressure from Apple and Samsung in this field. Scott Totzke, senior vice-president for BlackBerry security at the Ontario-based company, told Bloomberg: "Technical certifications are an important but only first, 'threshold' step in meeting the needs of truly secure mobile computing for government. Security, reliability and the ability to perform in crisis situations when you depend on mobility are all import hallmarks of the BlackBerry solution."

Presently the Pentagon has more than 600,000 mobile devices being used on its networks, including 470,000 BlackBerry handsets, 41,000 iPhones and iPads, and 8,700 Android-based smartphones. Many of the latter have been used principally for testing, and do not connect to its military networks.

• Apple
• iPad
• iPhone
• Mobile phones
• Smartphones
• Telecoms
• Computing
• Tablet computers
• United States

Reports claim board has approved move to buy blogging platform site that could catapult Yahoo back into top flight web firms

Marissa Mayer, the former Google executive who is now in charge of Yahoo, is poised to create yet another nothing-to-riches tale in the web industry with the $1.1bn (£720m) acquisition of the blogging site Tumblr.

Mayer called Yahoo's board together on Sunday afternoon to discuss the firm's latest attempt to regain its former glamour and reports indicated the board had given its approval. Tumblr was founded in 2007 by David Karp, then 21, in a bedroom in his mother's apartment in New York. Within a fortnight it had 75,000 users; by January 2012, there were 42m blogs on the site; today, there are about 110m, and the investors who have poured $125m into the company include Sir Richard Branson.

With a press conference due on Monday in New York's Times Square, just a couple of miles from Tumblr's headquarters, nobody expects Mayer will turn up empty-handed. According to the Wall Street Journal on Sunday evening, the Yahoo board have agreed to pay $1.1bn for Tumblr and will let it continue to operate as an independent business.

Yahoo declined to comment before the announcement, but pointed out that it would be streamed live. That is something the company has previously only done (in audio) for its quarterly financial results. For Yahoo, capturing the white-hot blogging site could catapult it back into the top flight of contenders in a web world that has become hugely more complicated since it was set up in March 1995 – before Google and nearly a decade before Facebook.

Tumblr's attraction is how easily it allows users to create their own web presence: they can go from zero to blogging in less than a minute, posting pictures and text effortlessly. Unlike Facebook, it is anonymous, yet has a powerful search engine for finding "similar" content, which is often reshared. As the network grows, that internal sharing grows and grows.

The web measurement company Quantcast says Tumblr has had 217m global users in the past month, and was the US's 24th most popular site, with about 75m American users. This gives Tumblr a user base on a par with Yahoo's own.

But for Tumblr, Yahoo could bring the ability to attract advertising it has been sorely missing. It also looks like something of a shotgun marriage. Tumblr has only a few months of cash left, according to industry gossip, and has been shopping itself around for a while. It pulled in $13m of advertising in 2012, but is spending far more than that.

Tumblr hoped to hit a $100m revenue target for 2013 but that now seems unlikely, making the purchase a potential lifesaver for investors.

Unlike Facebook, Tumblr has been slow to pull in advertisers. Speaking to the Guardian in January 2012, Karp expressed disdain for how other sites use ads. Of the Google-owned YouTube, he said: "They take your creative works – your film that you poured hours and hours of energy into – and they put ads on top of it. They make it as gross an experience to watch your film as possible. I'm sure it will contribute to Google's bottom line; I'm not sure it will inspire any creators."

Mayer was appointed 10 months ago as Yahoo's chief executive in a move that looked both audaciously clever, and a last throw of the dice. She was at the time one of the longest-serving staff at Google, having been there 13 years, but had apparently been bypassed for the high-profile jobs. Yahoo, meanwhile, had seen its revenues slump and a revolving-door procession of CEOs.

The big fear for Yahoo is that Tumblr will turn out to be an updated version of Geocities, the third most visited site on the internet when Yahoo bought it in January 1999. Though it became famous for users' garish choice of page colours, Geocities was also a resource many loved. But the company arguably never got back the $3.57bn it paid – entirely in stock, at $36 per share. In 2009, Geocities was shut down, and the entire site simply wiped from the internet. For Mayer and Karp, and millions of Tumblr users, the hope must be that history won't repeat itself.

• Yahoo
• Internet
• Tumblr
• YouTube
• Blogging
• Newspapers & magazines
• Digital media
• Social media
• United States
• Technology sector
• Technology startups
• Marissa Mayer

Plus Nokia Asha's unique selling point, the point of a Google Music service, what Apple needs at WWDC, and more

A burst of 10 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology team

Stealthy Mac OS X spyware that was digitally signed with a valid Apple Developer ID has been detected on the laptop of an Angolan activist attending a human rights conference, researchers said.

The backdoor, which is programmed to take screenshots and send them to remote servers under the control of the attackers, was spread using a spear phishing email, according to privacy activist Jacob Appelbaum. Spear phishing is a term for highly targeted emails that address the receiver by name and usually appear to come from someone the receiver knows.

Jacob Applebaum (@ioerror on Twitter) is the person who spotted all this; he says the target's life is "likely in danger" - just in case you thought this was some trivial bit of hacking.

Some Marks and Spencer customers have told the BBC of cases where the chain's contactless payment terminals have taken money from cards other than the ones intended for payment.

Card are supposed to be within about 4cm of the front of the contactless terminal to work.

But some customers say payments have been taken from cards while in purses and wallets at much greater distances.

The customers can't be certain that they never brought their wallets within that required 4cm or so. But it does point to a potential business making wallets with fine wire mesh weave to stop the cards being read by accident.

Philip Elmer DeWitt:

It's been years since Samsung reported any unit sales numbers at all for its mobile phones, so the tech press took notice Thursday when the South Korean manufacturing giant decided it had something to brag about.

Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun told reporters at an industry forum in Seoul that he is confident shipments of the Galaxy S4 will top 10m next week - four weeks after the device went on sale in 60 countries, including Korea, China, India and the US.

"That would make the mobile device the fastest-selling selling smartphone in Samsung's history," the Korea Times reported - a line echoed in the U.S. press.

That kind of coverage must drive Tim Cook crazy.

Because when Apple (AAPL) reported last September that it sold 5m iPhone 5 units in three days, analysts expressed "disappointment" and Business Insider ran this headline:
IPHONE 5 OPENING WEEKEND SALES COME IN WORSE THAN EXPECTED

And what was its headline Friday?

Samsung's S4 Starts Strong: 10 Million Units In Less Than A Month

Despite advertising 16GB of internal storage, the Samsung Galaxy S4 only offers roughly 9GB of user available storage highlighted by the BBC Watchdog exposé. The Samsung flagship does offer microSD card expansion options, but early purchasers have complained about the memory discrepancy.

"We appreciate this issue being raised and we will improve our communications," said a Samsung spokesperson to CNET UK. "We are reviewing the possibility to secure more memory space through further software optimisation."

The interesting thing about this isn't that there's a difference between the stated storage and what you get, but that buyers are actually complaining about it. One wonders how much Samsung will be able to claw back through that "optimisation". And how much memory Google's "pure" S4 (sold via Google) has. (Thanks @Avro for the link.)

Simon Phipps, president of the Open Source Initiative, on Google's VP8 licensing proposal:

You'll need to provide your personal information to Google to get this license, and section 9 makes clear the company may well use it at some point to contact you and even use your name in its publicity, according to section 15.

That restriction is probably tolerable for a corporation that can execute the agreement once for all products and staff, but for an open source project it's a big problem. Open source communities may not have a legal entity able to sign on behalf of the community, either because there's no actual legal entity or because the community of developers has too loose a relationship with any legal entity to be counted as the equivalent employees. By requiring individual, nontransferrable registration, Google is erecting a barrier that at the very least will provoke suspicion from open source projects.

Open University professor Tony Hirst:

As John Naughton feels obliged to remind folk every now and again, the web is not the internet. Because we all know that for many people, Facebook apparently is. Or Google is.

And as anyone following my tweets over the last year or two will know, I've started finding Google more and more irksome.

It's not just that the one or two people I know who use Google Plus (Google+?) are now all but lost to me as sources of neat ideas because I don't do Gooplus and it doesn't do RSS…

Keep reading. It's quite a list of points with a killer endline.

Ben Thompson:

Asha… has worse specifications than a cheap Android phone, and a much worse app selection. Thus it has been largely ignored by a tech press that considers little more than features and price.

However, finding a market is about finding a new axis of differentiation. In the case of low-end smartphones, are there things that matter beyond price and performance?

Consider again where Asha will be sold: India, Africa, Latin America – all have markets where mobile phones are the primary form of computing, as well as areas without consistent electricity. In such markets, nothing matters more than battery life.

And Asha has that in spades. In fact, the Asha range has sold more phones in the past three quarters than Windows Phone. (Also, bonus point for the title of the post.)

Marcus Taylor:

When I go to Google in search of music, it's fair to say that the results I'm served are exceptionally poor.

In this instance, the results that Google serve me do not match my search intent. I want to download Incubus' album – but instead Google is pointing me in the direction of illegal download sites, music videos, and a streaming platform.

To paraphrase Google's mission statement, they want to offer me the most relevant result in as few clicks as possible – and at the moment there are no legal and relevant results within 3-4 clicks away. Surely Google can do better?

So here is where I think we're heading. Please note that these are photo-shopped images, and not actual screenshots.

His suggestion is that Google Play Music All Access results will be pushed to the top of music search results - as happens with lots of other Google properties. One has to wonder about the antitrust implications.

Incredible colour footage of 1920s London shot by an early British pioneer of film named Claude Friese-Greene, who made a series of travelogues using the colour process his father William - a noted cinematographer - was experimenting with. It's like a beautifully dusty old postcard you'd find in a junk store, but moving.

.

Justin Williams:

With WWDC just a few weeks away, I thought it'd be beneficial to the Internet at large to compile a working list of everything that is expected of Apple during their Keynote and subsequent "State of the Union" addresses in order to appease the Internet.

He left off "$100 mini iPhone in five colours". What sort of appeasement is this?

You can follow Guardian Technology's linkbucket on Pinboard

To suggest a link, either add it below or tag it with @gdntech on the free Delicious service.

• Microsoft
• Apple
• Google

Eight in 10 parents polled by headteachers say issues around pornography should form part of sex education lessons

Many parents believe schools should teach children about the dangers of pornography as soon as they are old enough to use the internet, a survey suggests.

It reveals that the majority of parents do not want it to be left to them alone to educate their youngsters about the issue, and a large proportion think pupils as young as five or six should be given lessons on the subject.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which conducted the poll, said many young people were exposed to explicit materials online and on mobile phones, and needed to know how to cope.

The survey, which questioned about 1,000 parents, found that six in 10 are worried, or very worried, about their children seeing violent or sexual material on the web. But the poll also reveals that the majority (80%) of are confident in protecting their children online.

While just over half (51%) say pupils should not be taught about the dangers of pornography until they are teenagers, more than two in five (42%) said they should be educated as soon as they are old enough to access the internet.

More than eight in 10 (83%) say issues around pornography should form part of sex education lessons. The same proportion thought that parents and schools should take joint responsibility for teaching children about the issue, with just 13% of parents saying it is the parents' job alone and 4% saying it should be left to schools.

Hobby said: "There is no place for explicit materials in the classroom or school, even in the course of teaching about their dangers, but many young people are exposed to such materials on the internet and phones. In the face of this young people need to know how to cope with and avoid these distorted views of relationships."

He added that it was reassuring to see that parents believe that schools are part of the support network for their children.

Stephen Watkins, head of Mill Field primary school in Leeds, said schools should speak to children about explicit material in an age-appropriate manner. He said he "would not dream" of talking to young children about pornography.

"We don't talk about pornography, we do say to them if you see images of naked bodies and body parts then tell us. You start at a low level, it is about raising awareness that not everything that comes up on a computer screen should be there."

The NAHT is not the first group to raise concerns about access to explicit images. This month Ofsted called for secondary school pupils to learn more about pornography, relationships, sexuality and staying safe, rather than just the mechanics of reproduction.

It suggested that many schools were failing to give pupils decent sex and relationships lessons, which could leave them open to sexual exploitation or inappropriate behaviour.

The findings came just weeks after a teachers' union called for pupils to be given lessons on the dangers of pornography. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers passed a resolution at its annual conference that warned that schools must ensure pornography does not become seen as so normal that youngsters expect it to be part of everyday life.

• Pornography
• Sex education
• Schools
• Children
• National curriculum
• Sex
• Primary schools
• Secondary schools
• Teaching
• Curriculums
• Internet
• Opinion polls
• Sexuality
• Sexual health
• Ofsted

The place to talk about games and other things that matter

Hey, Monday, when did you get here?

• Games

PM urges havens to 'get our own houses in order' before G8 summit in June, where he claims tax avoidance will be a priority

David Cameron has written to the leaders of Britain's offshore tax havens stressing the need to "get our own houses in order" as he pushes for international action to tackle avoidance schemes.

In a message to 10 crown dependencies and British overseas territories Cameron said he backed their right to be low tax jurisdictions but insisted that rules needed to be set and enforced fairly.

The move comes ahead of next month's G8 summit in Northern Ireland, where Cameron will push for an agreement aimed at clamping down on tax evasion and avoidance.

He said he wanted the G8 to "knock down the walls of company secrecy" to reveal who really owns and controls firms.

Cameron's initiative came as he prepared to raise the issue of corporate tax dodging with Google's boss, Eric Schmidt at a meeting in Downing Street.

The internet fim's executive chairman is a member of Cameron's business advisory group, which has its regular quarterly meeting on Monday, just days after Google was given a mauling by a House of Commons committee over its tax affairs.

The group holds its meetings behind closed doors and Downing Street does not reveal the content of its deliberations but a source inside No 10 confirmed that tax will be up for discussion, insisting that "nothing is off the table" when Cameron meets the group of 16 business leaders.

The PM's letter calling for more transparency about tax information and the ownership of companies was sent to leaders in Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar, Anguilla, Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man.

Cameron wrote: "As you know, I have made fighting the scourge of tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance a priority for the G8 summit which the UK is hosting next month.

"With one month to go, this is the critical moment to get our own houses in order. I am looking to all the overseas territories and crown dependencies to continue to work in partnership with the UK in taking the lead on two critical issues: tax information exchange and beneficial ownership."

He told the leaders: "I respect your right to be lower tax jurisdictions. I believe passionately in lower taxes as a vital driver of growth and prosperity for all.

"But lower taxes are only sustainable if what is owed is actually paid – and if the rules to achieve this are set and enforced fairly to create a level playing field right across the world. There is no point in dealing with tax evasion in one country if the problem is simply displaced to another."

He welcomed commitments made by the territories to exchange tax information but said there was also a need to improve its quality and accuracy.

"Put simply, that means we need to know who really owns and controls each and every company," he said.

"This goes right to the heart of the ambition of Britain's G8 to knock down the walls of company secrecy.

"Some of you have already led the way with public commitments to produce action plans on beneficial ownership – and I hope those who have yet to can do so as quickly as possible.

"Getting the right content in these plans will now be critical. These will need to provide for fully resourced and properly managed centralised registries, that are freely available to law enforcement and tax collectors, and contain full and accurate details on the true ownership and control of every company."

Ed Miliband has pledged to write new rules to tackle corporate tax dodgers if he wins the next election, even if there is no international consensus for action.

In an interview with the Observer, he said Cameron's government was "dragging its feet" on the issue.

• David Cameron
• Tax avoidance
• Corporate governance
• Bermuda
• Americas
• G8
• British Virgin Islands
• Google
• Eric Schmidt
• Cayman Islands
• Ed Miliband
• Gibraltar
• Europe
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• Jersey
• Channel Islands
• Isle of Man

This week's edition of the podcast is dedicated to the Sense About Science Lecture 2013, given by the sci-fi writer and web activist Cory Doctorow.

Cory's lecture was entitled "We get to choose: How to demand an internet that sets us free" and was delivered to an invited audience at The Institution of Engineering and Technology on 13 May.

To find out more about Cory Doctorow's writings go to his website craphound.com.

Subscribe for free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed).

Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science.

Email scienceweeklypodcast@gmail.com.

Guardian Science is now on Facebook. You can also join our Science Weekly Facebook group.

We're always here when you need us. Listen back through our archive.

With digital photography, we can now take thousands more photographs than we used to. But what's the best way to store them – and see them?

Apart from duds, keep your frames in safe, long-term storage: you never know when one might be useful, or more meaningful, in the future. Then make a tight edit of them and keep that in a more accessible place. This could be a tablet computer: easy to download to, edit on and great for showing your images.

Printing your images out and putting them in an old-fashioned album with amusing captions, just like my Dad used to, is still my favourite way to look at family snaps. You could use an electronic photoframe, but I think they're a bit Alan Partridge, usually run from the mains and not very interactive.

Don't trust CDs and DVDs for long-term storage. They may only have a life of 30-50 years (some corrupt after just 10), and you want to be able to pass your pictures on to your grandchildren. Separate hard-drives are the most trusted long-term storage format. If you're really paranoid, keep two copies on different drives in different places.

You could send your images into cyberspace by using online storage systems like Apple's iCloud. You need to be a believer in web security, though, and remember: if you can't log on, you can't access your pictures. If you trust cyberspace, you can also share your pictures with your friends and relatives easily through Flickr and Facebook.

Flickr, one of the original photo sites, is good for organising and has a handy mobile app. As for Facebook, if you're on it you will know all about how it works.

Alternative sites: Photobucket, which is very user friendly. The Stories feature allows multiple users to collaborate by adding photos, video and text.

Picasa: Google's photosharing website. Easy to upload and share albums. Also links in with Google+.

Smug Mug: good name, but pricey. It's strong on privacy and security, with a clean design and a professional look.

Using these sites is much easier than emailing sets of pictures round the world – and of course viewers can post an instant reaction, hopefully something slightly more pithy than: ":-)".

• Photography
• Photography

Boss of search engine says international tax law could benefit from reform – a marked shift in tone from December remarks

Google's chairman, Eric Schmidt, has said he welcomes promises by international leaders to crack down on tax loopholes exploited by the search firm and other multinational internet businesses that take billions of pounds of sales from the UK through overseas companies, which HM Revenue & Customs cannot tax.

"Given the intensity of the debate, not just in the UK but also in America and elsewhere, international tax law could almost certainly benefit from reform," he conceded in the Observer. He said an action plan from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, due to be presented to the G20 in July, was now "hotly awaited".

OECD officials have already signalled that the plan will include "updated solutions to the issues related to jurisdiction to tax, in particular in the areas of digital goods and services".

An OECD positioning paper published in February said: "Developments brought about by the digital economy are putting increasing pressure on … well-established [tax] principles. In an era where non-resident taxpayers can derive substantial profits from transactions with customers located in another country, questions are being raised as to whether the current rules ensure a fair allocation of taxing rights on business profits, especially where the profits from such transactions go untaxed anywhere."

Schmidt's latest remarks on tax represent a marked softening in tone. In December he dismissed critics, saying: "We pay lots of taxes; we pay them in the legally prescribed ways. I am very proud of the structure that we set up. We did it based on the incentives that the governments offered us to operate."

But the Google boss now appears to accept that many of those "tax incentives" are in truth loopholes that have opened up as technological innovation has allowed companies to operate in ways unimaginable by those who drafted international tax rules.

Schmidt said he also supported moves by David Cameron to use Britain's presidency of the G8 to tackle tax. "The UK government has the perfect opportunity to take the lead in shaping this complex debate at the G8 summit next month. We hope [it] seizes the initiative and makes meaningful tax reform one of the top items on the agenda."

On Monday Schmidt will meet the prime minister, along with other multinational business leaders who sit on his business advisory group. One pressing issue for all is likely to be growing calls for big business tax reform. Bosses of BAE Systems, Tata Group, GSK, Vodafone and John Lewis will all be keen to give Cameron their perspective before the G8 meeting in Northern Ireland next month.

The prime minister has already signalled he wants to use Britain's presidency of the G8 to tackle "aggressive tax avoidance" by multinationals. "Some forms of avoidance have become so aggressive that I think it is right to say these are ethical issues," he told the World Economic Forum in January, urging multinationals to "wake up and smell the coffee".

The meeting comes after a dreadful week for Google during which its northern Europe boss, Matt Brittin, was recalled to appear before angry MPs on the public accounts committee to clarify testimony on the group's tax arrangements he gave to parliament six months ago.

Google did £3.2bn of business with UK advertisers and media buyers last year but told HMRC these transactions were technically "closed" in Ireland, and therefore not liable for UK tax. Brittin told MPs he stood by earlier evidence that his 1,300 employees in the UK – more than half of whom work in marketing – did not close sales.

The MPs were armed with evidence from several whistleblowers, former Google UK workers who told the politicians they believed they were negotiating and closing sales in the UK.

One of those whistleblowers, who worked for Google between 2002 and 2006, has spoken out publicly for the first time. "When I was at Google, our job was to find advertisers, to close the deals [and] to get them to sign bits of paper saying they were committing to spending in the UK," Barney Jones told the Sunday Times. "If that is not closing the deal, I don't know what is."

He told the newspaper he planned to hand more than 100,000 emails and other internal Google documents to HMRC tax inspectors. Lawyers from the search firm are not expected to try to block him from doing so.

"Google has pulled the wool over the eyes of HMRC and the British population," said Jones. "[It] has prided itself on being a socially responsible company and to pay your tax is the most fundamental responsibility. This is a betrayal of everything that Google stands for."

The search firm is known for its motto, "Don't be evil", which was enshrined in the group's $23bn stock market flotation prospectus in 2004. It said: "Don't be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served – as shareholders and in all other ways – by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains. This is an important aspect of our culture."

But the words of the motto were turned against the group last week when – unimpressed by Brittin's evidence – Margaret Hodge, chair of the public accounts committee, rounded on him. "You are a company that says you 'do no evil'. And I think that you do do evil." She said the group's approach to tax in the UK was "devious, calculated and, in my view, unethical".

Google held on to its "Don't be evil" motto since it was first sent down in a list of ten guiding principles drawn up by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the earlier years. Along with "you can make money without doing evil" and "democracy on the web works" on the list is "you can be serious without a suit".

Earlier this month Schmidt admitted he had initially considered the "Don't be evil" motto "the stupidest rule ever". However, in an interview with National Public Radio in the US, he added that he later discovered it did in fact provided a helpful check on sharp practices.

"So what happens is, I'm sitting in this meeting, and we're having this debate about an advertising product. And one of the engineers pounds his fists on the table and says, that's evil. And then the whole conversation stops, everyone goes into conniptions, and eventually we stopped the project. So it did work."

Not everyone agrees. In 2010, Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers included a final track on their Postcards from a Young Man album, Don't be evil, a bitter take on online corporate culture.

• Google
• Sergey Brin
• Tax avoidance
• Larry Page
• David Cameron
• Corporate governance
• HMRC
• Margaret Hodge
• Manic Street Preachers

What the majors want from the video hub, what he learned from MySpace – and why mobile is more than just phones

There are very few surviving pictures of Nic Jones, now Vevo's senior vice-president of international, wearing short shorts and playing his trombone, but being brought up by his parents in the Salvation Army tradition was, he says, what inspired his love of music. "It was all bloody James Last in our house," he adds in a very loud, excitable voice, going on to explain that it wasn't long before he rebelled and immersed himself in the world of David Bowie, all the way to Aladdin Sane.

This passion played a significant part in his recruitment by Vevo, which calls itself "the world's leading music video and entertainment platform"; he bonded with its chief executive Rio Caraeff, like him an Arcade Fire fan, over live music, and was given the task of overseeing its global strategy.

Jones was born in the UK but spent 25 years in Australia. There's only a faint twang of an antipodean accent, but what's less obvious is the Australian attitude he has picked up. "It has changed the way I do business," he says. "Coming back made me realise that people here are very closed, but it's OK to ask questions and to say what you think. I'm much more direct and outspoken than I was."

For many users, the name Vevo has become synonymous with YouTube, though the two projects are independent and work on a non-exclusive partnership basis. That partnership is both a blessing and a curse for Vevo, says Jones. Vevo's success on YouTube provides some powerful lessons: a coherent, curated community of content around a strong brand has made the most of YouTube's scale, but built a far more compelling experience for users. "It's fantastic for viewers, but how do you build a brand on YouTube? There's an element of duration and care around what you develop, and that's what draws people in," he says. When Kasabian played the O2 on New Year's Eve it was broadcast live on Vevo - but the viewing figures showed six times as many people had viewed on Vevo than on YouTube. Jones argues this is proof that users really do want that curated environment.

Vevo was launched in February 2009, offering music from artists on the record labels Universal, Sony Music and EMI; Warner Music, however, chose to partner with MTV on a rival service. Vevo is owned by Universal and Sony along with the Abu Dhabi Media Company. Jones rejects the comparison to MTV yet the business model is identical: Vevo takes content from the labels, monetises with video ads on distribution networks such as YouTube, and shares what's left with the rights holders. The company won't share revenue figures, but says it has returned $200m to rights holders since launch. "Vevo is at the pointy end of what the labels want to do, right at the heart of the music connecting with the fan," says Jones. "The labels wanted to be proactive and take control. We have a good relationship with them - in fact when we're not live in a country, we have them on our backs wanting to launch." The proposition for brands is just as strong, he argues. "This is not just about targeting socioeconomic groups – this is people in their 20s who are way more engaged with music than anything else, and that's a very rich seam to mine."

Jones cites the ITV drama Broadchurch, with 9 million viewers watching its finale, as an example of an engaging TV format – but points out that music has that level of engagement "day in, day out" and is a rich opportunity for advertisers. It's an opportunity for which brands have an increasing appetite. Earlier this month, Toyota Aygo signed a year-long, seven-figure deal with Vevo, its first sponsor following the car maker's deal with Channel 4's T4 which ended last year.

Jones can't evangelise enough about mobile, while identifying misconceptions around what "mobile usage" means. For the first time, Vevo clocked 51% of its users on mobile devices in the US in April. The typical figure is 25%, but the medium's astonishing rise is fast making it the priority for all publishers. Jones is quick to point out that mobile doesn't necessarily mean phones, and doesn't necessarily mean outside. Up to 87% of content viewed on phones is in the home, and 50% of tablets are only used in the home. This is about wireless devices and watching behaviour – habits that content needs to keep up with. "I envisage a day," he says, "when we launch a new territory that will only be on mobile."

For the labels, it's essential to have a legitimate, controllable service in such a hard-to-predict, hard-to-monetise market, and that may be more of a priority than generating revenues online – for now. Is Vevo, then, something of a loss leader? "Absolutely not. What they really want to do is sell music," asserts Jones. So do they see Vevo as a marketing platform, or distribution? "We don't use either phrase, but we are moving to an access-led community rather than an ownership model." He points to research in the US indicating that teens now use Vevo, Spotify and Pandora to test out music before buying downloads or even physical CDs – the opposite of trying clothes on in-store and then buying more cheaply online.

Before joining the music video site, Jones had spent 16 years being the digital guy in largely non-digital organisations. On a trip to California in 1996, he had a chance encounter with the internet and came back fired up: "I told them that there was this thing called the internet and that it was going to change everything, and they just weren't so sure. So I left."

Eventually he landed a role at News Corporation in 2003 as managing director for News Interactive. The strategy was to buy complementary businesses around classifieds, and as three of those – realestate.com.au, seek.com.au and carsales.com.au – are all public companies valued at more than $2.5bn, Jones is keen to point out his part in that success, and says the common thread is the recognition that technology needs to underpin and inform what a publisher does.

Jones found himself on the periphery of News Corp when the infamous $580m MySpace deal went through. "Even on the digital teams we were overwhelmed by the idea. Some of us thought it was a bad move, but the users grew from 28 million to 132 million in the first year, so what did I know? It was a very smart thing to do, but they never realised how difficult it would be to manage a business like this in a company as hierarchical and traditional as News Corp. They saw the opportunity, but didn't see the difficulty of managing it and integrating into the business."

When Jones joined Vevo in 2011 after four years in advertising, how did he decide which countries to prioritise? "Western Europe, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand – you could come up with the same list. And you'd also look longingly at Asia but it's too complex, so we go for the low-hanging fruit," he said.

"Markets strong in live music are always good indicators, as are video views provided they are backed up with mature digital agencies and mobile penetration. I learn from [the mistakes of] MySpace – you don't just put an office in every country as quickly as you can, and you don't hire too many people."

Where the Web 2.0 approach used to be to build audience and work out the business model later, there's now a more measured approach that demands a balance between audience and potential revenue. Mexico, for example, has 300m monthly views but the state of the rest of the market would make that hard to monetise. In Australia and New Zealand, the channel launched in partnership with MCM Media in April 2012 and already had 40m views between 5 million users each month – now it has 80m views and 8 million users and a mature digital market that is making money.

Vevo has rolled out more local versions in Canada, the UK and Ireland, South Africa, in France, Spain and Italy with sales partner Yahoo, and recently the Netherlands and Poland, though there's a notable lack of progress in Germany where YouTube also doesn't publish music owing to protracted wrangling over rights. There have been no music videos on YouTube since March 2009, when negotiations broke down between YouTube's parent company Google and Gema, the German authors' rights society.

Ultimately Vevo is a means to an end, and can only be part of a larger ecosystem of music promotion and revenues. "Vevo is successful if lots of advertisers want to advertise around the videos – that's good for the labels. And if people buy downloads, that's good, or if they go into a shop and buy a CD, or they pay to see a live band."

Meanwhile, Jones wants Vevo to be in the living room, the music-sharing tool of choice for shared entertainment between friends, flatmates and families. There will also be UK Vevo TV, once the US version is ready, so that everything is available at once. What's not going to happen is that US or UK Vevo is imposed on Vevo Poland – every territory gets local TV, he says.

There will be more original content – Kasabian's gig at an aerodrome in 2011 was a big hit for Vevo, as was the Maccabees video made with a thermal imaging camera.

For now, though, Jones has more immediate problems, working out how to promote the music video site in Poland. Apparently there's no Polish word for video. That might be a problem now, but no doubt video will have been trumped by some new sensation-centric medium a few years from now. Maybe there will be a new word in Polish for that.

"I made the leap of faith to digital 16 years ago, and I've learned there's no point predicting what's going to happen. Like Bill Gates said, we always overestimate the short-term change and underestimate the long-term change."

• This article was amended on 20 May 2013 to correct the date of Vevo's launch from 2005 to 2009 and to remove E1 Entertainment as one of its founders; the number of monthly views in Mexico should be 300m not 30m

• Vevo
• Online TV
• Digital media
• Television industry
• YouTube
• Myspace
• Internet

Artist Susumu Nishinaga has used a scanning electron microscope to delve deep into the fabric of petal, leaves and pollen

It is up to consumers and voters to change the lousy behaviour of big banks, energy giants and internet multinationals. They will not change by themselves

Last week, I was waiting in the queue at the butcher while an elderly lady was being served. Clearly, she was not that well-off and chose the cheapest cuts of meat. When she was done, the butcher asked the assistant serving her how much the bill came to. Told that it was £11, he whispered: "Make it £8."

It was a small example of generosity made all the better by the butcher taking care that his customer was unaware of what he was doing. It was also a far cry from the world of big business in a week that saw dawn raids on Shell and BP for alleged price-fixing and Google accused by the Labour MP Margaret Hodge of doing evil.

Stung by the attack from the chairwoman of the Commons public accounts committee, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, mounted a defence in the Observer. Tax is a mightily complex matter for multinational companies, he said. The global system could do with reform. It was up to politicians to set the rules, but they had to recognise the dangers if profit became a dirty word.

All credit to Hodge for flushing Schmidt out. He likes to portray himself as the new sort of boss of a new sort of company, the ones that boast of their non-hierarchical structures, their dress-down policies and their chill-out zones. But the row about tax has shown that the people running these new-wave behemoths are not hippy capitalists, they are robber barons in chinos.

Nor should we expect otherwise. The dominant form of corporate organisation in the west is the joint stock company, the purpose of which is to deliver profits for its shareholders. Almost all these companies pay lip-service to corporate social responsibility. The companies selling booze say they are firmly committed to tackling problem drinking. The betting shop chains say they want to see responsible gambling. The fast food companies and the soft drinks industry sponsor sporting events in the hope that nobody notices how they are contributing to obesity. But they are in business to maximise profits for their shareholders. Period.

The intellectual justification for the profit-maximising company can be traced all the way back to Adam Smith, who famously said in the Wealth of Nations: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the baker or the brewer that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." The pursuit of profit, in other words, creates wealth from which we all benefit.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments, an earlier work by Smith, contained a rather different message, namely that there are good human qualities such as generosity and the desire to be seen worthy of the approval of others. Many problems, Smith thought, would be solved if only people could hold up a mirror and see themselves "in the light in which others see us".

Corporate social responsibility is supposed to address this point. Businesses like to be held in high esteem by their customers, but many of them have missed the crucial part of Smith's message: curbing the instinct to behave badly was not seen as being driven by commercial ends but by natural instincts. The real world is somewhat different. More than 30 clothing retailers have signed the Bangladesh Safety Accord for regular independent safety inspections of garment factories, but only after the deaths of 1,127 workers in the collapse of the Rana Plaza works exposed them to reputational risk.

Smith, at a guess, would have been horrified – if not entirely surprised – to find that the European commission had launched dawn raids on Shell and BP amid allegations of price-fixing; that the European head of Google was being accused of doing evil by Hodge; and that Britain's big banks had been fingered for a string of offences from the mis-selling of protection payment insurance to money laundering.

Nor would Smith have expected Google, Amazon or Starbucks to voluntarily pay more tax than they were legally obliged to for the simple reason that he distrusted enterprises which wielded monopoly or oligopoly power. His objection to a company such as Amazon would have been that it is using its market power to eliminate competition and would be in a position, once all the other booksellers had been driven out of business, to charge higher prices.

The fact is, of course, that the world has moved on since Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. There are examples of businesses that operate "in the light in which others see us", but as a general rule of thumb they tend to be small, local, non-transnational, non-PLC and open to the full blast of competition.

But perfect competition does not exist. The corporate world is not dominated by small shopkeepers who worry what their customers might think about them, but by large corporations generating revenues that get channelled upwards to executives and shareholders.

Companies will only change for one of three reasons: they are forced to do so legally; they are forced to do so by their customers; or because they spontaneously decide that they want to operate in accord with Smith's moral sentiments.

Changes to the international tax system will be on the agenda when the G8 meets in Northern Ireland for its annual summit next month, and there has probably never been a better time to crack down on tax havens, aggressive tax planning and transfer-pricing schemes. In part this is because of the egregious nature of the corporate scandals and in part because governments are badly in need of tax receipts in a time of weak growth. Tax threatens to become to the 2010s what debt relief was to the 1990s: the focus of a global campaign for reform.

In the end, though, the success of any campaign will depend on how the public behaves. If we don't like the current state of affairs, we can do one of two things. We can put pressure on governments to break up monopolies and inject more competition. We can call for a new business model, based on "for benefit" organisations, to challenge the domination of the joint stock company. We can force them to introduce sales taxes to avoid profits migrating offshore. Alternatively, we can vote with our feet, and stop patronising the companies that exploit loopholes in the tax system, even though that might mean higher prices and less choice. If we are not prepared to do one of these two things, we will have to lump it.

After the events of the past few years, it would be naive to expect the initiative to come from the boardroom. Corporate social responsibility has been a smokescreen behind which companies can screw their customers while pretending they are putting something back. The activities of the banks and the energy companies illustrate the point. Capitalism is not about being cuddly or sponsoring exhibitions at the Tate Modern; it is about making profits, the higher the better.

• Corporate governance
• Corporate social responsibility
• Tax
• Tax and spending
• Tax avoidance
• Energy industry
• Oil
• Royal Dutch Shell
• Oil and gas companies
• BP
• Amazon.com
• Internet
• E-commerce
• Google
• Eric Schmidt
• Margaret Hodge
• Economic policy
• Economics