Google’s translation headphones are here, and they’re going to start a war

Douglas Adams knew what he was doing – if we find out what other people are really saying it could be disastrous, says freelance journalist Nigel Kendall

Max Tegmark: ‘Machines taking control doesn’t have to be a bad thing’

The artificial intelligence expert’s new book, Life 3.0, urges us to act now to decide our future, rather than risk it being decided for us

‘We blame Tony Blair for Caffè Nero’: a maverick’s architecture tour of Soho

The two septuagenarian authors of the Guide to the Architecture of London have updated their definitive book as an app. But can it offer the same insights into a city that is changing faster than anyone can keep up with?

We need robots to have morals. Could Shakespeare and Austen help?

Using great literature to teach ethics to machines is a dangerous game, says professor of English literature John Mullan

Ready Player One: first trailer for Steven Spielberg’s virtual reality game thriller

The BFG director debuted the footage from his new film at a Comic Con event, showcasing elaborate VR and special effects

The Guardian view on the future of crime: it will be online

Editorial: The dangers of machine intelligence will grow as it spreads. We need to prepare now

Ally McLean: Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist is charming, devastating and relatable

In Beauty and the Books, we chat to those who love both books and beauty products. Here, game developer Ally McLean reveals her fondness for green-tea scrub and Douglas Adams

How an independent bookstore took on anti-feminist trolls and won

When Avid Reader shared Clementine Ford’s Facebook post, the Brisbane bookseller’s social media page was attacked by trolls, prompting an extraordinary counterattack by the writer’s fans and Australia’s literary community

Let me count the ways to hate Amazon’s new bookstore

It sells doggy bags and pushes books to the back, but at least there is a human sensibility at work in this New York outlet

Technology is making the world more unequal. Only technology can fix this

The inequality of badly-run states is boosted by technology – but technology also makes it easier to destabilise them. So: which future will prevail?

Stephen Fry: Facebook and other platforms should be classed as publishers

Speaking at Hay festival, writer accuses ‘aggregating news agencies’ of not taking responsibility for their content

Amazon’s first New York bookstore blends tradition with technology

Visitors embrace the online retailer’s move into the physical world – even if the brick-and-mortar store serves in large part as an ad for Amazon Prime

When tweeters attack: why do readers send authors their bad reviews?

Social media have made it easy to let novelists know directly when their work has disappointed – but why do so many people want to do so?

Cheap books, high price: why Amazon.com’s ‘one-click’ sales can cost authors dear

US sales on the web giant have recently begun defaulting to secondhand merchants, meaning writers receive nothing at all from purchases

‘I’m not good at doing what I’m told’: meet real-life Girlboss Sophia Amoruso

The ‘Cinderella of tech’ on fashion, feminism - and why the new Netflix series based on her life isn’t all fact