Firm place to stand outside solar system

Found: Firm place to stand outside solar system

WASHINGTON – Astronomers have finally found a place outside our solar system where there's a firm place to stand — if only it weren't so broiling hot.
As scientists search the skies for life elsewhere, they have found more than 300 planets outside our solar system. But they all have been gas balls or can't be proven to be solid. Now a team of European astronomers has confirmed the first rocky extrasolar planet.
Scientists have long figured that if life begins on a planet, it needs a solid surface to rest on, so finding one elsewhere is a big deal.
"We basically live on a rock ourselves," said co-discoverer Artie Hatzes, director of the Thuringer observatory in Germany. "It's as close to something like the Earth that we've found so far. It's just a little too close to its sun."
So close that its surface temperature is more than 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit, too toasty to sustain life. It circles its star in just 20 hours, zipping around at 466,000 mph. By comparison, Mercury, the planet nearest our sun, completes its solar orbit in 88 days.
"It's hot, they're calling it the lava planet," Hatzes said.
This is a major discovery in the field of trying to find life elsewhere in the universe, said outside expert Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution. It was the buzz of a conference on finding an Earth-like planet outside our solar system, held in Barcelona, Spain, where the discovery was presented Wednesday morning. The find is also being published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
The planet is called Corot-7b. It was first discovered earlier this year. European scientists then watched it dozens of times to measure its density to prove that it is rocky like Earth. It's in our general neighborhood, circling a star in the winter sky about 500 light-years away. Each light-year is about 6 trillion miles.
Four planets in our solar system are rocky: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars.
In addition, the planet is about as close to Earth in size as any other planet found outside our solar system. Its radius is only one-and-a-half times bigger than Earth's and it has a mass about five times the Earth's.
Now that another rocky planet has been found so close to its own star, it gives scientists more confidence that they'll find more Earth-like planets farther away, where the conditions could be more favorable to life, Boss said.
"The evidence is becoming overwhelming that we live in a crowded universe," Boss said.
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On the Net:
European Southern Observatory: http://www.eso.org/

Police fight back on laser threat

There has been a "phenomenal" increase in the number of incidents in which aircraft are targeted by small hand-held lasers, according to UK police.

In 2008, there were 69 times as many such incidents as in 2003.

The Civil Aviation Authority has set up a task force to respond to the threat of pilots becoming disorientated.

The police have new devices designed to record and analyse laser "strikes" on their aircraft, tracking their source and leading to arrests of attackers.

The BBC gained exclusive access to an exercise trialling these "Laser Event Recorders" carried out by the air support unit of Greater Manchester Police.

Direct hit

In the cockpit the light can be blinding

"We had one yesterday," said veteran police helicopter pilot, Mike Briggs. "You're in no doubt when you've been targeted by one of these lasers."

An "attack" can come from any of the darkened streets over which the force's state of the art helicopter India 99 flies at night.

"You can't miss it. A sharp green beam of light shoots up from the ground, flashing around the helicopter, dazzling anyone on whom it scores a 'direct hit'," said Mr Briggs.

The police have had to learn to deal with the attacks -- about half of those reported are aimed at their helicopters. In 2003 just three incidents were recorded. Last year there were 207. So far this year, the tally is 76.

The culprits are usually bored youths, who have got hold of a laser pointer and amuse themselves by playing its beam over passing aircraft.

But from now on they are far more likely to get caught, and get sent to prison.

The Greater Manchester Police air support unit arranged an exercise for the BBC to show how their response has been stepped up.

COMBATING LASER POINTER ATTACKS 1 Police helicopter is targeted by laser pointer on the ground 2 Helicopter crew use hand-held Laser Event Recorder to locate pointer. It records wavelength to match beam to pointer - like matching bullet to a gun 3 GPS details enable helicopter's thermal image camera to find suspect and police patrol on ground is directed to address

After informing air traffic control and local police stations we lift off from the police helipad at Barton aerodrome and head for Bolton.

In a residential back garden there is an officer with a cheap laser pointer is waiting. We've agreed not to reveal where he bought it, but its beam is incredibly powerful.

As the helicopter flies by he switches it on, and aims for our windows. Inside the aircraft the light flickers eerily between the three crew members.

When it is right in your eyes, you simply can't see anything else. We are 1200ft (365m) up, but the beam is strong and sharp.

If we were within 500ft there would be a real possibility of eye damage, but at our altitude the risk is of distraction and disorientation.

Not helpful when flying a helicopter. The police also say it stops them concentrating on the job in hand, often a car pursuit on the ground with busy radio traffic.

But India 99's rear observer now has a secret weapon.

Eye in the sky

The Event Recorder logs everything

The Laser Event Recorder not only takes a picture of the attack and logs where it came from using GPS, but also analyses the wavelength of the laser being used.

It can also warn the police if the laser is powerful enough or close enough to cause physical damage to the eyes.

This can be compared with the specifications of the device used in the attack, providing vital new evidence. "It's a little bit like matching a bullet to a gun, " said Mr Briggs.

We turn in the sky and circle the house of the "suspect", with two observers on board to track him.

The rear observer has two large screens, one showing the image from the aircraft's camera, the other a moving map.

The camera uses thermal imaging to clearly show people and warm objects standing in gardens or on open ground. Even when the warm laser pointer is thrown into a bush it can often be seen from the air.

The rear observer can zoom in to show a glowing image of an offender, and then look at the moving map, where a cursor shows the spot on which the camera is focused.

The "offender" outline appears full screen and we watch as he tries to throw the pointer away. A dog team is called in and an arrest made.

Guided by the eye in the sky, the ground officers easily find the laser. The suspect may try to claim it hasn't been used, but it is still warm, and the police have the evidence of its wavelength from the Laser Event Recorder.

Not toys

Thermal imaging helps catch the culprits

Police currently have to prove a suspect recklessly or negligently endangered an aircraft. The Civil Aviation Authority is drawing up new laws of the air under which it will simply be an offence to shine a laser at an aircraft.

Many offenders regard what they've done as a prank, but a jail term for a first offence is now common.

Bob Jones, Head of Flight Operations at the CAA, said: "To those individuals targeting aircraft with laser devices the message is clear - don't. You will be caught and you will be prosecuted and you could spend up to five years in prison. These things are not toys, they pose a serious risk to all flight safety."

And the police insist they won't be turning a "blind eye" when they're attacked from the ground.

UK mobile operators told to share

By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter, BBC News website

The government may intervene in a dispute between UK mobile operators over the way spectrum is allocated.

At stake is the government's pledge to provide universal broadband to all areas of Britain.

The dispute hinges on the use of the 900MHz section of the airwaves, which the government has earmarked to provide wireless broadband in rural areas.

The government wants it to be shared among operators but owners Vodafone and O2 are not so keen.

The spectrum was divvied up between the two operators when they were the only players on the mobile scene.

Now rival mobile operators want a chunk of the spectrum, largely because it would provide a boost to their data services.

This is because it has better in-building coverage than the spectrum allocated for existing 3G.

"3G delivers a great service but it would be even better if it was running at the 900MHz frequency," said Forrester analyst Ian Fogg.

Lord Carter, minister for communications and author of the Digital Britain report, has also earmarked the spectrum as a way of delivering on his promise to provide universal broadband at a minimum speed of 2Mbps (megabits per second) across the UK.

UK regulator Ofcom has proposed that a small chunk of the spectrum be handed over to one other operator.

It has warned that a solution may be imposed if the mobile operators cannot hammer out an agreement by the end of April.

All five UK mobile operators were brought together for talks in February but so far no agreement has been reached.

Broadband ambitions

In response to Lord Carter's Digital Britain report, Orange has offered to set up a network to do it.

But, in return, it wants a share of the spectrum owned by Vodafone and O2.

Steve Blythe, head of spectrum strategy at Orange, explained how the firm views the issue.

"This has been a long standing problem. Unlike other European countries, where there has been some level of redistribution of spectrum, the UK government hasn't yet taken the opportunity to do that," he said.

"900Mhz is key for our mobile broadband ambitions and to ensure a level playing field. If it isn't released O2 and Vodafone will have considerable cost advantages," it told the BBC News website.

The 800Mhz band of spectrum, which is similar in nature to the 900MHz band, will be released as the switchover to digital TV frees up spectrum currently used by analogue services.

But, said Mr Blythe, it won't realistically be available until mid-2013.

"We think it will be a useful complement but it will not replace 900MHz in the short term and without that we cannot deliver on the Digital Britain agenda," he said.

Vodafone has remained tight-lipped on the issue. It has provided no public response to the Digital Britain report and a spokeswoman told the BBC News website: "While we are actively participating in discussions, we have made it clear that these remain behind closed doors."

Image problem

Andrew Ferguson, editor of broadband news site ThinkBroadband, wondered whether mobile is even the best technology for delivering universal broadband.

"Mobile has its own problem. Like ADSL, coverage is better the closer you are to the base station, which means they are going to have to put up quite a few new towers," he said.

There could also be issues with things such as the quality of images on websites.

"Mobile broadband passes images through a compression technology. It works but you might not necessarily feel that you are getting your money's worth," he said.

Finally he said there could also be performance issues.

"I live in London where all the operators say they have coverage and I can't always get it to work. It is not as reliable as my original ADSL connection that I had in 2000," he said.

The government has not yet confirmed that mobile will fill the gaps left by fixed line broadband.

But it appears to favour the idea, said Mr Ferguson.

"It seems almost as if the decision is made," he said.

Spam overwhelms e-mail messages

By Darren Waters Technology editor, BBC News website

More than 97% of all e-mails sent over the net are unwanted, according to a Microsoft security report.

The e-mails are dominated by spam adverts for drugs, and general product pitches and often have malicious attachments.

The report found that the global ratio of infected machines was 8.6 for every 1,000 uninfected machines.

It also found that Office document attachments and PDF files were increasingly being targeted by hackers.

Microsoft said people should not panic about the high levels of unwanted e-mail.

Cliff Evans, head of security and privacy for Microsoft in the UK, told BBC News: "The good news is that the majority of that never hits your inbox although some will get through."

Ed Gibson, chief cyber security advisor at Microsoft, said the rise in spam was due to traditional organised crime figures moving away from exploiting software vulnerabilities and "targeting the weak link that is you and me".

"With higher capacity broadband and better OS (operating systems), and higher power computers it is easier now to send out billions of spams. Three or four years ago the capacity wasn't there."

Malware ecosystem

See which countries are most infected

Paul Wood, senior analyst at e-mail security firm Message Labs, said he was surprised the Microsoft figure for unwanted e-mail was so high.

"Our own analysis shows that around 81% of e-mail traffic we were processing was identified as spam and unwanted," he said.

MessageLabs said spam rates had fallen at the end of 2008 as an ISP which had been hijacked to send out spam mails to users had been taken offline.

"As a result of that, a number of developers in botnet technology at the end of last year were trying to regain botnet control and increase capacity and return to previous spam levels.

"It wont be far off before we see return to those levels."

The report, which looked at online activity during the second half of 2008, also pinpoints the countries that are suffering from the most infections of malicious software, or malware.

Russia and Brazil top the global chart of infections, followed by Turkey and Serbia and Montenegro.

It said that the type of malware varied from country to country.

"As the malware ecosystem becomes more reliant on social engineering, threats worldwide have become more dependent on language and cultural factors," it reported.

In China, several malicious web browser modifiers are common, while in Brazil, malware that targets users of online banks is more widespread.

In Korea, viruses such as Win32/Virut and Win32/Parite are common.

Global average

The global average for infected machines is 8.6 for every 1,000 uninfected PCs.

The UK's infection rate is 5.7, according to the Microsoft report.

The report highlighted the need to keep operating systems, web browsers and applications up to date with the latest versions.

Increasingly, hackers are using common file formats, such as Microsoft Office documents and Adobe's PDF format as the carrier of malicious exploits or programs.

More than 91% of attacks exploiting vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office were using security holes that had been plugged by updates that had been available for more than two years.

Attacks using PDF files rose sharply in the second half of 2008, the report noted.

The vulnerabilities all of the attacks exploited had already been fixed by Adobe, and were not present in the most recent versions of the software.

Mr Gibson told BBC News people had to be aware that if they did not update their applications, such as Office and Adobe, they were not just putting themselves at risk, but others on the internet also.

"If you don't update your software you are not just a hazard to yourself, you are hazard to others because you can be part of a botnet [if your computer is hijacked]."

Mr Evans said Microsoft was very happy with the approach consumers were taking to updating applications via automatic updates.

"For consumers it is happening but for business less so. We have encourage businesses to make more use of automatic updates."

Scareware

Mr Woods said malicious hackers were exploiting Office document attachments and PDF files in order to make more targeted attacks.

"They tend to be used in selective attacks to named individuals in organisations.

"A lot of social engineering will be used to appear legitimate and convince a user to open the attachment

"Once opened, a vulnerability in the application used to open the document will be exploited and often a tiny piece of code will execute and then download a larger file from a rogue website.

"This program will then attempt to search the computer for a particular document or file and sent it to a remote PC."

The report also highlighted the rise in the use of so-called scareware, fake security programs which falsely tell people they need to install software which does nothing other than attempt to steal personal details from a users' PC.

"It's criminals playing on people's fears," said Mr Evans.

"The advice remains the same - ensuring you have up to date software, whether that's your applications, your browser or your OS."

Back to top

Virus battery could 'power cars'

Viruses have been used to help build batteries that may one day power cars and all types of electronic devices.

The speed and relatively cheap cost of manufacturing virus batteries could prove attractive to industry.

Professor Angela Belcher, who led the research team, said: "Our material is powerful enough to be able to be used in a car battery."

The team from MIT in the US is now working on higher power batteries.

Scientists at MIT used the viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a battery, the cathode and anode, the journal Science reports.

A battery typically has four key components - the anode and cathode, an electrolyte that flows between them and a separator to keep the anode and cathode apart.

Essentially, a battery turns chemical energy into electrochemical energy when an electron flow passes from the negative end to the positive end through a conductive chemical, the electrolyte.

Researchers constructed a lithium-ion battery, similar to those used in millions of devices, but one which uses genetically engineered viruses to create the negatively charged anode and positively charged cathode.

The virus is a so-called common bacteriophage which infects bacteria and is harmless to humans.

Three years ago the MIT scientists manipulated genes inside a virus that coaxed the particles to grow and self-assemble to form a nanowire anode one-tenth the width of a human hair.

The microbes are encouraged to collect exotic materials - cobalt oxide and gold - and because the particles are negatively charged, they can be formed into a dense, virus-loaded film which acts as an anode and "grows" on a polymer separator.

Researchers, including MIT Professor Gerbrand Ceder and Associate Professor Michael Strano, have now developed a highly powerful cathode.

The work was more difficult because the material had to be highly conductive in order to be effective and most candidate materials for cathodes are highly insulating.

The virus was coaxed into binding with iron phosphate and then carbon nanotubes to create a highly conductive material.

The batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as rechargeable batteries used to power plug-in hybrid cars.

The prototype battery is currently the size of a coin but the scientists believe it can be scaled and be used to create flexible batteries that can take the shape of their container, which is perfect for mobile or small devices.

The scientists have also been able to create micro-batteries which could be used to power a future generation of tiny devices.

"The advantage of using genetics is that things can be made better and better," explained Professor Belcher.

"You are not stuck with a particular material; you have selection and evolution on your side because it can be genetically engineered."

The researchers are now looking for better materials to work with the viruses to create a next-generation battery, which is even higher powered.

"Scale is the issue," admitted Professor Belcher. "But we are not going to scale until we have the right material. We believe this is possible and has commercial implications otherwise we would not be researching in this area."

Currently, the virus battery can only be charged and discharged at least 100 times before it begins to lose its capacity to store a charge, but Professor Belcher said "we expect them to be able to go much longer".

The process to build the batteries uses no harmful or toxic materials and so is attractive from an environmental point of view.

Professor Belcher said: "To us, the environmental aspects are very important.

Robo-scientist's first findings

By Victoria Gill Science reporter, BBC News

Scientists have created an ideal colleague - a robot that performs hundreds of repetitive experiments.

The robot, called Adam, is the first machine to have independently "discovered new scientific knowledge".

It has already identified the role of several genes in yeast cells, and is able to plan further experiments to test its own hypotheses.

The UK-based team that built Adam at Aberystwyth University describes the breakthrough in the journal Science.

Ross King from the department of computer science at Aberystwyth University, and who led the team, told BBC News that he envisioned a future when human scientists' time would be "freed up to do more advanced experiments".

Robotic colleagues, he said, could carry out the more mundane and time-consuming tasks.

"Adam is a prototype but, in 10-20 years, I think machines like this could be commonly used in laboratories," said Professor King.

Robotic planning

Adam can carry out up to 1,000 experiments each day, and was designed to investigate the function of genes in yeast cells - it has worked out the role of 12 of these genes.

Biologists use the yeast cells to investigate biological systems because they are simple and easy to study.

"When you sequence the yeast genome - the 6,000 different genes contained in yeast - you know what all the component parts are, but you don't know what they do," explained Professor King.

The robot was able to work out the role of the genes by observing yeast cells as they grew.

It used existing information about the function of known genes to make predictions about the role an unknown gene might play in the cell's growth.

It then tested this by looking at a strain of yeast from which that gene had been removed.

"It's like a car," Professor King said. "If you remove one component from the engine, then drive the car to see how it performs, you can find out what that particular component does."

Expensive assistant

Duc Pham from the Manufacturing Engineering Centre at Cardiff University described the robot scientist as "a clever application of robotics and computer software".

But, he added, "it's more like a junior lab assistant" than a scientist. "It will be a long time before computers can replace human scientists."

Professor King agreed that the robot was in its early stages of development.

Professor Ross King explains how robots Adam and Eve work

"If you spent all of the money we've spent on Adam on employing human biologists, Adam probably wouldn't turn out to be the cost-effective option," he said.

"But that was the case with the first car. Initially, the investment in the technology wasn't as cost-effective as sticking with horses."

He also pointed out that his robotic associate is able to express scientific findings in a clearer way than humans.

"It expresses its conclusions in logic," he said. "Human language, with all its nuances, may not be the best way to communicate scientific findings."

The same team is developing another, more advanced robot scientist called Eve, which is designed to screen new drugs.

Piracy law cuts internet traffic

Internet traffic in Sweden fell by 33% as the country's new anti-piracy law came into effect, reports suggest.

Sweden's new policy - the Local IPRED law - allows copyright holders to force internet service providers (ISP) to reveal details of users sharing files.

According to figures released by the government statistics agency - Statistics Sweden - 8% of the entire population use peer-to-peer sharing.

Popular BitTorrent sharing site, The Pirate Bay, is also based in Sweden.

The new law, which is based on the European Union's Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED), allows copyright holders to obtain a court order forcing ISPs to provide the IP addresses identifying which computers have been sharing copyrighted material.

Figures from Netnod, a Swedish firm that measures internet traffic in and out of the country, suggest traffic fell from an average of 120Gbps to 80Gbps on the day the new law came into effect.

Traffic lite

Speaking to the BBC, Christian Engstrom, vice-chairman of the Swedish Pirate Party - said the drop in traffic was a direct result of the new law, but that it would only be a temporary fall.

"Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic. But experience from other countries suggests that while file-sharing drops on the day a law is passed, it starts climbing again.

"One of the reasons is that it takes people a few weeks to figure out how to change their security settings so that they can share files anonymously," he added.

Mr Engstrom acknowledged that the new legislation would scare a number off file-sharing, and that the odds of getting caught had increased, but said that the risks to illegal file-sharers were still quite low.

"We estimate there are two million file-sharing [computers] in Sweden, so even if they prosecuted 1,000 people to make an example of them, for an individual user it is still a very small risk."

Prolific sharer

However, for some, that risk is already a reality.

A number of book publishers in Sweden have applied to the courts, on the day the law came out, forcing an ISP to disclose the details of one file-sharer who, the publishers claim, has more than 3,000 audio books on his server.

Speaking to the BBC, Kjell Bohlund - chair of the Swedish Publishers' Association - said that until the new law was passed, they were virtually powerless to act.

"Before 1 April, the only thing we could do about illegal file sharing was to refer it to the police, who were very reluctant to take it on.

"Now we can go get the courts to force ISPs to disclose the user information of an IP address.

"In two weeks time, we will know exactly who owns that IP. We can then do nothing, ask him to stop, or sue him for damages. We won't do this for small offenders, this is just for the big fish," he added.

Other companies are watching the case with interest, to determine what the court deems to be sufficient proof.

One action which began before the new legislation was the prosecution of four men accused of promoting copyright infringement via the hugely popular BitTorrent sharing site, The Pirate Bay.

The Pirate Bay hosts thousands of links to so-called torrent files, which allow for movies, TV programmes and applications to be shared online.

A verdict is expected later this month.

Public perception

Mr Engstrom said the new law was "a disaster", not just for file-sharers, but for Sweden as a whole.

"Dealing with illegal file-sharing is a job for the police. It is their job to enforce the law.

"Now we have given private corporations the legal right to go after our civilians. That's not how Western democracies work," he said.

Mr Bohlund acknowledged that cracking down on illegal file-sharing was not a long-term solution.

"In a study, 80% of people thought we shouldn't go after file-sharers.

"But ask them how they feel about taking money out of the pockets of musicians, authors or artists and that number falls by a significant amount," he said.

Apple unveils new iPhone features

By Maggie Shiels Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Apple has unveiled what it calls a "major update" to the operating system that drives the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Some of the 100 new features included in the update replicate those already offered by other smart phones.

The new functions include cut, copy and paste, long demanded by iPhone users, picture messaging and an in-phone search feature, but not Flash video.

"The upgrade is a big big deal and will help persuade consumers to stay with Apple," said Gartner analyst Van Baker.

"While things like copy and paste and multi-media messaging (MMS) are things they have needed to do for a while, other features will in essence stop consumers buying other smartphones and raise the amount of money people spend on the iPhone, " he said.

Analyst Gene Munster from Piper Jaffray agreed that the upgrade was a major step forward.

"We believe Apple addressed key issues that were leading some consumers to competing devices for multimedia messaging and enterprise email."

Some of the other main features Apple highlighted for consumers include a voice memo and stereo Bluetooth.

A new search tool called Spotlight to allow users to search files and applications on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

"Profound and amazing"

Alongside the consumer upgrades Apple also unveiled its SDK (software developer kit) aimed at helping engineers write applications for the devices.

Apple admitted that the success of its App Store, where users can download from a choice of 25,000 paid-for and free applications, had exceeded their expectations.

More than 800 million downloads have been made so far, and the company said that with the help of developers they "had created something profound and amazing."

"Our goal was to make developers successful," said Scott Forstall, head of Apple's iPhone software development.

Developers will now be able to use the iPhone's mapping capability in their own applications, as well as take advantage of "push" technology to alert users of messaging or alert software.

Users can also now take advantage of enhanced peer-to-peer capabilities for games and other programmes that communicate wirelessly.

The new software will also allow developers to sell subscription-based software products, opening up the prospect of users being asked to pay for different levels of a game, to purchase additional content or to buy virtual items.

Previously, all purchases on the iPhone or iPod Touch were ring-fenced within either the App Store or Apple's mobile version of iTunes.

Industry analysts said the new move would be an important revenue-generator for Apple and developers.

"This in-app payment capability is big news and provides a way for people to pay for content again," said Mike McGuire of Gartner.

"It will be interesting to see how the print media reacts offering subscription services for magazines, newspapers and e-books.

"Game developers will cash in and I am very excited to see how music services leverage this new function," he said.

Hardware

The operating system upgrade, the third for the iPhone, will be available from the summer and free to all iPhone users.

Users who want to download the 3.0 software onto their iPod touch will have to pay a fee of $9.95 (£6.80).

Industry watchers are speculating that a new iPhone will also be released around the same time as the software upgrade.

"It wouldn't surprise me to see some new hardware come the summer," said Van Baker, of Gartner. He noted that Apple is facing increasing competition from other smartphones.

Gartner recently put Apple's share of the worldwide market at 10.7%, compared to Nokia at over 40% and Research in Motion, which makes the Blackberry, at under 20%

"Apple can't continue to go with a point product and expect to get the kind of revenue it needs without some new offering. A good time to do that would be when they release 3.0," said Mr Baker.

At a separate question and answer session with journalists after the upgrade was unveiled, Apple's Phil Shiller said there was "nothing to announce on that today".

Dell's ultra-thin laptop on sale

Computer manufacturer Dell has launched what it is calling the world's thinnest laptop.

The Adamo weighs 1.8kg and is 1.64cm thick, making it thinner, but heavier, than Apple's MacBook Air.

A spokesman for Dell told the BBC that the Adamo was a "fashion statement" and that it was the first in a range of luxury laptops from the firm.

The Adamo goes on sale at the end of the month, with a basic 1.2GHz Intel Core2D processor retailing at £1649.

"This wasn't a play against one particular brand," said Dell's marketing director, David Clifton. "This was about making a stylish product that's high in design and craftsmanship."

Economic gloom

Some might question the wisdom of launching a luxury laptop during one of the worst recessions on record, but Mr Clifton told the BBC that there was no downside to launching the Adamo at this time.

"The primary purpose of this launch is to broaden people's perception of Dell.

"There's still a luxury market out there and not many products in that market.

"We're really proud of our product," he added.

The editor of PC Pro magazine, Tim Danton, said the launch of Adamo was more about brand and perception than sales. He told the BBC that making "the world's thinnest laptop" would enable Dell to build a strong marketing campaign, just like Apple did.

"This is a 'hero product' that sits at the top of their range and, they hope, will start changing perceptions about Dell from being a businesslike brand into something more desirable.

Dell said it had put as much effort into crafting the look of the Adamo as it has refining the hardware inside.

The 34cm (13.4in) screen is powered by Intel's X4500 graphics chip, while the system is driven by an 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, with DDR3 system memory. The firm say the Adamo can run for up to five hours on a single battery charge.

"This is a fantastically specced-out system," said Mr Clifton.

Tim Danton said that the release would not just benefit Dell but the PC industry as a whole.

"It is vital the PC market is seen to produce attractive items.

"Times have changed and people make judgement calls not just on spec, but what something looks like and how that product reflects on them."

Win for UK story-telling website

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News, Texas

A small British company has been named Best in Show at the South by Southwest Web Awards, in Austin, Texas.

Six to Start won the top prize for We Tell Stories, an interactive approach to retelling literary classics and redefining modern online story-telling.

The website held off competition from the likes of Hulu - the popular on-demand online TV site - Flickr and geo-location company BrightKite.

Dan Hon, co-founder of Six to Start, said: "It's been unbelievable."

He told BBC news: "We were quite pleased and happy [just] to win the experimental category."

Founded by Mr Hon and his brother Adrian in September 2007, the site was inspired by the "emerging field of alternate reality games (ARG) or cross-platform entertainment; this intersection where you have creativity and technology".

ARGs allowed stories to develop dynamically at almost any point, said Mr Hon.

"The technology is there to let people dip in and out of stories when they want. And when they run live, they are a fantastic opportunity to collaborate with people."

After working on the ARG Perplex City for Mind Candy, the two brothers set up in business for themselves.

"Our heart lay in creating fantastic experiences that really pushed technology.

"We are seeing a generation of people who have grown up with video games and at same time we are seeing incredible acceleration in technology where the internet is everywhere now," said Mr Hon.

He said the company's ambition was to "to take devices like mobile phones and transport people into a fantastical, magical world that is playful, has great game design and story-telling".

He added: "The one thing which really drives us is trying to make then as accessible as possible."

For Six To Start that means games that do away with controllers or keyboards, and instead allow gamers to interact with characters by just picking up the phone.

"If you could just step into he the world of Harry Potter or Star Wars whenever you wanted, it is a great way to entertain people."

We Tell Stories came about after Penguin's digital publisher heard Mr Hon speak at a conference.

Keen to experiment, Penguin commissioned a series of classic novels to be remixed and retold in the digital age, and with new works redefined for the web generation.

"The big thing for us was telling stories that cannot be done on any other platform," he said.

But this did not mean creating stories for the Kindle crowd.

"E-books are boring - they are just taking a manuscript and turning it into a PDF. It is taking no advantage of the possibilities afforded by the internet and other platforms.

"That's what led to wanting to tell stories on tools like Google Maps."

We Tell Stories worked with six authors on new forms of story-telling.

"They were fantastic and didn't run away from this. They want to do it again. We need that creative talent, great story telling and want them to be excited about the potential of this new medium."

Some of the stories use tools like Twitter and weblogs, telling a more conventional multi-platform tale from different viewpoints.

The husband and wife writers Nicci French wrote live for an hour each day for five days, with readers able to see the story unfold one sentence at a time.

Mr Hon said: "It was terrifying for them. Writing can be a solitary experience and suddenly they were being turned into performance artists."

Deals drive mobile money services

A series of deals looks set to turn handsets into mobile wallets in many developing nations.

South African mobile operator MTN is launching a banking service for its customers in 21 nations that will let them transfer cash.

It comes after four other initiatives were announced to help handsets carry out many basic financial transactions.

One initiative is backed by Bill Gates and puts $12.5m (£8.6m) into a plan to create a mobile banking service.

Cash back

"It goes back to a simple gap - the difference between mobie penetration and banking penetration," said Dare Okoudjou, head of MTN's mobile money development.

"What the gap says is that a lot of people do not have formal access to financial services, whereas they do have a mobile telephone or are living with someone who does have access to a mobile handset," he said.

In some nations such as Benin, said Mr Okoudjou, about 18% of people had a mobile but only 1% had a bank account.

MTN has signed up with South African mobile payments firm Fundamo to set up the mobile banking service. Mr Okoudjou said it would allow people to move real money between the mobile accounts associated with handsets.

By contrast, he said, many other mobile initiatives only allow customers to move airtime as a form of pseudo-currency.

Those signing up to the MTN banking service will have an account created for them through which they can send and receive money to other account holders. The basic set-up was free, said Mr Okoudjou, but MTN would levy a small charge on transactions.

Prior to MTN's announcement, many others have revealed plans to turn handsets into mobile wallets.

In early March 2009, Mi-Pay and Isys unveiled a scheme in Sudan that would act as a test-bed for a person-to-person banking scheme that they eventually hope to take to 22 nations in Africa and the Middle East.

In February 2009, Monitise struck a deal with E-Fulusi Africa to set up mobile banking systems in East Africa.

Earlier that month, Standard Chartered and Citibank revealed a mobile banking service called Zap that they hope to take to more than 100m Africans.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have also announced that it was putting $12.5m (£8.6m) into a mobile phone industry-backed program to help poorer people get at banking services.

All the initiatives build on the huge success of mobile banking in African nations, such as the M-Pesa system Kenya which has put operators in competition with the nation's banks.

File sharing agency up for debate

The government has outlined the details of its proposed digital rights agency.

The agency -a key element of Lord Carter's Digital Britain report - would encourage people to use legal sources of copyrighted material.

The proposals, which Lord Carter called a "straw man" have been published to trigger a debate on the subject, rather than an outline of future policy.

"This straw man could be torched, tolerated or a touchstone for the start point of constructive debate," he said.

"I for one hope it is the latter," he added.

The report highlights attitude changes in the digital age, saying consumers are no longer prepared to be told when and where they can access content.

"[people]do not see why a TV show that is airing in the US should not be available in the UK," the report says.

"They are not willing to wait to see a film at home until several months after it has passed through the cinemas. They don't accept the logic that says that if you have bought a CD you cannot then copy that music onto your iPod."

The report says this change in attitude has altered not only the way people access material, but "undermined" their willingness to pay.

It says a "substantial proportion" of the population believes it is acceptable to download pirated material, because the benefits of fast and free material overcome peoples' natural reluctance to break the law.

It is against this backdrop that a new digital rights agency could be set up. However, the report stressed that this would not be a government appointed regulator. Instead, it called on the industry to "come together to create a body" to deal with a number of issues, the most important, the report says, are ways of tackling peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing.

The report stressed that the role of the proposed digital rights agency would not be enforcement.

Instead it looks at how the agency might tackle the problem of illegal file sharing, backed up by some legislation.

This would involve an obligation on internet service providers to inform, what the report calls "casual infringers who use unlawful P2P networks" that they are breaking the law. This, the report says, would result in a "rapid and substantial drop in this behaviour".

For prolific offenders, the report examines other options - such as blocking protocol or limiting bandwidth - with the most serious offenders winding up in court.

The Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy, said people should not have to understand copyright law to be able to access online media.

"We need to make it easier for consumers to do the right thing. The internet has become an integral part of daily life," he said.

"The real prize here is a rights agency that sorts out the complexities that keep consumers on the right side of the law, and ensure artists get properly paid.

"We can't have a system where even net-surfing 12 year olds have to understand copyright in order to keep themselves and their parents safe within the law," he added.

"You shouldn't need to be an underwriter to take out an insurance policy, and you shouldn't need legal training to surf the web."

BBC team exposes cyber crime risk

Software used to control thousands of home computers has been acquired online by the BBC as part of an investigation into global cyber crime.

The technology programme Click has demonstrated just how at risk PCs are of being taken over by hackers.

Almost 22,000 computers made up Click's network of hijacked machines, which has now been disabled.

The BBC has now warned users that their PCs are infected, and advised them on how to make their systems more secure.

Concerted attack

Click managed to acquire its own low-value botnet - the name given to a network of hijacked computers - after visiting chatrooms on the internet.

The programme did not access any personal information on the infected PCs.

If this exercise had been done with criminal intent it would be breaking the law.

But our purpose was to demonstrate botnets' collective power when in the hands of criminals.

Click ordered its PCs to send out spam to two specific test e-mail addresses set up by the programme.

Within hours, the inboxes started to fill up with thousands of junk messages.

But a botnet can also be used to launch a concerted attack on commercial websites to take them out of action.

Hefty ransom

By prior agreement, Click launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on a backup site owned by security company Prevx.

Click then ordered its slave PCs to bombard its target site with requests for access to make it inaccessible.

Amazingly, it took only 60 machines to overload the site's bandwidth.

DDoS attacks are used by extortionists who threaten to knock a site offline unless a hefty ransom is paid.

Jacques Erasmus from Prevx said that high-traffic websites with big revenues are a "massive target" for this kind of attack.

"Cyber criminals are getting into contact with websites and threatening them with DDoS attacks.

"The loss of trade is very substantial so a lot of these websites just pay-up to avoid it," he explained.

Evolving threat

Click has now destroyed its botnet, and no longer controls any hijacked machines.

However, the owners of unprotected PCs have been made aware that they are vulnerable to future attacks.

In addition, Click advised them on what steps to take to make their systems more secure. Most computers have protection systems that need to be switched on and kept updated to protect them against the evolving threat from hackers.

Machines can be compromised simply by visiting an infected web page or opening an e-mail containing a virus as an attachment.

'Very professional'

Hackers exploit unprotected computers for valuable data such as banking and credit card details.

Criminals use botnets to send out thousands of spam messages, store stolen data, and fraud.

For instance, "phishing" e-mails which attempt to trick people into revealing their bank details are often routed through a botnet.

Users are normally unaware that their PCs are being controlled remotely by cyber criminals because there are almost no symptoms.

Greg Day from security firm McAfee explained that the people who control botnets are "very skilled professionals."

"We've seen this move from what used to be a hobbyist bit of fun into something now that is very professional," he said.

Hackers are keen to recruit new PCs to a botnet to create a resource that they sell or hire out to other cyber criminals.

But some networks of hijacked computers are of "much more value" than others, according to Mr Erasmus.

"Computers from the US and the UK go for about $350 to $400 (£254-£290) for 1,000 because they've got much more financial details, like online banking passwords and credit cards details," he said.

Google serves up behavioural ads

Google has entered the sometimes controversial arena of behaviour-based advertising.

It has launched a system that will serve up ads to web users based on their previous online activities.

The search giant is offering users the chance to see and edit their profiles and it will also offer them the choice to opt out of the service.

But privacy campaigners are outraged by the move, with Privacy International calling for a parliamentary enquiry.

Keen travellers

The trial service launches on YouTube and Google from 11 March but advertisers will not be able to display advertisements until April.

Initially a handful of advertisers will be invited to take part.

The system uses a cookie - a small piece of text that lives inside a web browser - to track users as they visit different websites that show ads through its AdSense program.

Users will be assigned to categories based on the content of the pages they visit.

"If a user is a keen traveller and visits lots of travel sites, Google could show them more travel-related ads," the search giant said in a statement.

"We believe that ads are a valuable source of information that can connect people to products, services and ideas that interest them. By making ads more relevant and improving the connection between advertisers and our users, we can create more value," it said.

But Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, has his doubts.

"Google might well hype their targeting system as a boon to pet owners, but the reality is that the service will track just about everything you do and everything you're interested in, no matter how personal or sensitive.

Google refuted this claim.

"Google will not associate sensitive interest categories with your cookie - such as those based on race, religion, sexual orientation, health, or sensitive financial categories - and will not use these categories when showing you interest-based ads," said a Google spokesman.

Mr Davies thinks it needs to do more.

"Yet again Google has developed and launched a major initiative without any consultation with its users. And yet again Google will walk into a privacy minefield," he said.

He called for a parliamentary inquiry about the search giant's dominance in the market.

Stephen Carter, minister for communications and technology, faced questions about whether Google was becoming too powerful during a parliamentary select committee meeting this week.

In reply, he said: "We shouldn't criticise a company for being successful. It is a young business which has launched a series of applications that are highly attractive to user and both advertisers and users have flocked to its platform."

Opt out

Some privacy campaigners believe Google should have offered its advertising service on an opt-in rather than an opt-out basis.

"The cookie doesn't show up any personally identifiable information so that is why we think opt-out is the right way to go," said a Google spokesman.

Information on YouTube , such as the videos people have been watching, will "be factored into" the system, said the spokesman.

The plans have received a thumbs-up from the UK's Information Commissioner's Office.

"We recently met with Google to discuss their interest-based advertising product. Transparency and choice are important elements when addressing any consumer concerns about privacy and the monitoring of browser activity," it said in a statement.

"In light of this, we are pleased that the preference manager feature allows users a high level of control over how their information is used and that the method by which users can choose to opt out is saved permanently."

Jupiter analyst Rebecca Jennings thinks the move was inevitable following Google's acquisition of advertising technology company DoubleClick last year.

She thinks consumers could welcome the new system.

"Generally we find consumers are far less concerned about this than people think they should be. Often they want to see well targeted rather than random adverts," she said.

The online advertising industry is keen to push behavioural ads and, at the beginning of March, the UK-based Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) published a code of practice that Google signed up to.

For privacy campaigners the code did not go far enough because it did not recommend that users be allowed to opt in to such services rather than opt out.

According to Forrester Research, 26% of European online advertisers used behaviour-based advertising during 2008.

The IAB estimates that it could generate an income of £200m in the UK annually.

UK internet service provider BT is about to launch its own form of behaviour-based advertising, based on a system designed by US firm Phorm.

Battery that 'charges in seconds'

A new manufacturing method for lithium-ion batteries could lead to smaller, lighter batteries that can be charged in just seconds.

Batteries that discharge just as quickly would be useful for electric and hybrid cars, where a quick jolt of charge is needed for acceleration.

The approach only requires simple changes to the production process of a well-known material.

The new research is reported in the scientific journal Nature.

Because of the electronic punch that they pack, gram for gram, lithium-ion batteries are the most common rechargeable batteries found in consumer electronics, such as laptops.

However, they take a long time to charge; researchers have assumed until now that there was a speed limit on the lithium ions and electrons that pass through the batteries to form an electrochemical circuit.

Tiny holes

Gerbrand Ceder, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US, and his colleagues used a computer simulation to model the movements of ions and electrons in a variant of the standard lithium material known as lithium iron phosphate.

The simulation indicated that ions were moving at great speed.

"If transport of the lithium ions was so fast, something else had to be the problem," Professor Ceder said.

That problem turned out to be the way ions passed through the material.

They pass through minuscule tunnels, whose entrances are present at the surface of the material.

However, the team discovered that to get into these channels, the ions had to be positioned directly in front of the tunnel entrances - if they were not, they could not get through.

The solution, Ceder discovered, was to engineer the material such that it has a so-called "beltway" that guides the ions towards the tunnel entrances.

Traffic management

A prototype battery made using the new technique could be charged in less than 20 seconds - in comparison to six minutes with an untreated sample of the material.

Most commercial batteries use a material made up of lithium and cobalt, but lithium iron phosphate does not suffer from overheating - something that has affected laptop and mp3 player batteries in a number of incidents.

Even though it is cheap, lithium iron phosphate has until now received little attention because lithium cobalt batteries can store slightly more charge for a given weight.

However, the researchers found that their new material does not lose its capacity to charge over time in the way that standard lithium ion batteries do.

That means that the excess material put into standard batteries to compensate for this loss over time is not necessary, leading to smaller, lighter batteries with phenomenal charging rates.

What is more, because there are relatively few changes to the standard manufacturing process, Professor Ceder believes the new battery material could make it to market within two to three years.

Firms in data row deny wrongdoing

Several firms accused of subscribing to a secret database of building workers' details have denied any wrongdoing.

The Information Commissioner says a firm called the Consulting Association flagged up workers who had raised safety concerns or who had union links.

Balfour Beatty and Amec said they did not condone "blacklisting". Emcor and Laing O'Rourke denied discriminating against workers on any grounds.

The Department for Business said it would consider outlawing blacklisting.

This would happen if evidence showed it was going on, a spokesman said.

Unions have called on the government to act swiftly to pass anti-blacklisting regulations which were prepared in the 1990s but never introduced.

'Household names'

An investigation by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) found that a Droitwich-based company called the Consulting Association had allegedly sold details about workers, including information concerning personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history.

The ICO now plans to prosecute the firm, run by Ian Kerr and now thought to have ceased trading, for a "serious breach" of the Data Protection Act.

It said about 40 construction companies who subscribed to the scheme would send lists of prospective employees to it and in return would be warned about potential troublemakers.

Some of the notes on individuals included descriptions such as "ex-shop steward, definite problems" and "Irish ex-Army, bad egg". Others related to workers who had raised concerns over health and safety issues, such as asbestos removal.

One of the firms listed in the ICO's report, Balfour Beatty, said it "does not condone the use of 'blacklists' in any circumstances".

"We have taken steps to ensure that none of our companies use the services of the Consulting Association," it added.

Another firm, Amec, echoed the denial. "Amec does not operate a policy of 'blacklisting' individuals and the senior management of the company would not condone such a policy," it said.

Morgan Ashurst said it inherited a subscription to the Consulting Association upon acquiring another company.

"An internal investigation into this subscription has shown that we did not supply to, or receive any data from Ian Kerr or the Consulting Association, nor did we use any information from this organisation since the acquisition," a spokesman said.

"Now that the subscription has been brought to our attention, and the person who subscribed to it left the company last year, we have cancelled it."

Laing O'Rourke also said it had "a legacy relationship" with the company born out of an acquisition, which had now "ceased".

A spokesman for another firm named by the ICO, Emcor Group UK, said it was "an equal opportunities employer" whose policy was "not to discriminate on any grounds".

The Consulting Association was unavailable for comment.

Annual fee

Deputy Information Commissioner David Smith said he was deeply disappointed that firms he described as "household names" had been involved in an allegedly illegal system for many years.

He said they would be issued with a legal order not to repeat the offence, and if they breached it they too would face prosecution.

Following the raid on 23 February, investigators discovered that the Consulting Association's database contained the details of some 3,213 workers, the ICO said.

Employers paid £3,000 as an annual fee, and £2.20 for individual details, the ICO said. Invoices to construction firms for up to £7,500 were also seized during the raid.

The TUC and the building workers' union Ucatt called on the government to introduce legislation to make blacklisting illegal.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of Ucatt, said: "It is the only way to protect the rights of trade union members."

A Department for Business spokesman said: "We have the power to make it illegal to use blacklists.

"We would review whether to use this power if there was compelling evidence that blacklists were being used."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Leading companies have to realise that information is power, and wrong information is the abuse of power.

"The Information Commissioner is absolutely right to throw the book at the miscreants in this case."

Al Gore says domain .eco logical

The former US vice president, Al Gore, is backing the creation of a new green .eco domain name.

Dot Eco applied to create the domain which would then be used to host sites supporting environmental causes.

"This is a truly exciting opportunity for the environmental movement and for the internet as a whole," said Mr Gore.

Dot Eco plans to apply to ICANN - the regulatory body that oversees domain names - for the creation of .eco later in 2009.

Al Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his campaign on climate change and an Oscar for his film An Inconvenient Truth - a documentary about global warming - is the co-founder and chair of the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Dot Eco said it had entered into an "integrated partnership" with Gore's group to secure the .eco domain.

"We fully support Dot Eco in its efforts to secure the .eco top level domain through the ICANN application and look forward to working with them to promote .eco," said Mr Gore.

The firm said proceeds from the registration would be used to fund research on climate change and other environmental issues.

Obama picks US information chief

US President Barack Obama has named Vivek Kundra as his chief information officer.

When Mr Kundra takes up his role, he will decide which technologies the Obama administration uses to govern and how they will be deployed.

He will build on the broad use of technologies, such as the web, used by President Obama's campaign team during the US elections.

Mr Kundra will be in charge of a budget thought to total $70bn (£49bn).

Currently Mr Kundra works as head of technology for Washington DC - a role in which he championed Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as better ways for administrators to communicate with citizens.

In a statement about Mr Kundra's appointment President Obama said: "I have directed him to work to ensure that we are using the spirit of American innovation and the power of technology to improve performance and lower the cost of government operations."

When he starts his job, Mr Kundra will work alongside whoever is picked to act as a President Obama's chief technology officer. A decision on who will take on that role is expected soon.

Speaking after his appointment, Mr Kundra said he wanted to ensure the US has "the ability to run an open, transparent, participatory and collaborative government."

Mr Kundra said he would explore how government could use so-called "cloud computing" which would involve much greater reliance on web-based resources.

He also planned to create a data.gov website through which US citizens would get much easier access to official statistics and other government information.

ToysRUs pays $5m for toys domain

Toy retailer ToysRUs has paid $5.1m (£3.6m) for the Toys.com domain name.

The amount has surprised onlookers and hints at a deeper commitment to online retailing for the toy giant.

It is believed to be the biggest payout for a domain this year but has some way to go to beat the $14m paid for sex.com in 2007 or the $9.5m paid for porn.com.

UK domain name seller Sedo said it had seen prices halved for .co.uk domain names since the economic downturn started to take hold.

Brand kudos

But, said Sedo's business development manager Nora Nanayakkara, more small- to medium-sized businesses are buying domains.

"Sales have tripled as businesses see the value in having a presence online," she said.

"In the case of ToysRUs it could be that they are thinking of rebranding or increasing its online presence," she said.

"Toys.com is going to put them in the top search ranking and is likely to give them kudos in terms of brand recognition," she added.

In the US, domain name prices have remained stable, according to Ron Jackson, editor of the Domain Name Journal.

He said that the average .com domain was selling for $2,688 (£1,904) in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to $2,788 (£1,976) for the same period in 2007.

Selling online

For many online, it is a way to buck the downturn, he thinks.

"The severe recession is forcing businesses to look for the most cost effective, efficient way they can possibly operate and for many that means establishing or reinforcing a web presence," he said.

"This is especially true of brick and mortar retailers. There is much less overhead involved in selling toys for example online than through hundreds of cash-draining big box retail stores."

The Toys.com auction, which took place last week, saw a series of bidders for the domain. But as the price hit $3m (£2.1m), only two were left - ToysRUs and National A-1 Advertising.

The domain had previously been up for auction and went to a company called Faculty Lounge for $1.25m (£886,000).

Tech support calls can be costly

A survey from Which? Computing has found that most internet service providers are using premium rate numbers for their technical support.

The consumer group compared the technical support costs of 45 firms.

While a handful used a freephone number, firms including Tesco broadband, Supanet and Roxio use premium rate 090 numbers.

Tesco has said that it is planning to change to a cheaper tariff "as soon as possible".

"The cost of calls to Tesco broadband technical support is something we've been looking at and listening to customer feedback on," said a spokeswoman for the retail giant.

"As a result we'll continue to provide a very high quality of technical expertise to all our broadband customers but calls will now be charged at a local rate.

"We'll be contacting all our customers as soon as possible to let them know about the change in price," she said.

Covering costs

Six firms including BT, O2 and UK Online, offer a freephone 0800 number.

But 32 of those surveyed used higher-cost numbers for their helplines.

"Some companies are using higher-cost numbers at their customers' expense," said Sarah Kidner, editor of Which? Computing.

" If other companies can offer a freephone number, why can't they all?," she said.

Those using premium rate numbers told Which that they did not profit from the calls, but used the revenue to "cover the costs of a technical support service".

The survey also found that nearly a third of broadband users were frustrated by customer support.

Time spent waiting to be connected does seem to have improved. Only 12% were dissatisfied and the survey found that the average waiting time was just 1 minute 33 seconds.

Plusnet customers have the longest average wait - at nearly eight minutes.

The Which? Computing survey looked at 45 technology companies, including ISPs, software and laptop manufacturers.

New guidelines on behavioural ads

The online advertising industry has launched a set of guidelines for a genre of adverts that have been causing controversy.

The code of practice drawn up by the Internet Advertising Bureau looks specifically at behavioural advertising.

This form of advertising delivers ads based on people's browsing activity and is therefore far more targeted.

UK ISP BT is planning to roll out such advertising developed by US firm Phorm.

The guidelines which have been signed by key players including Phorm, AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agree on three core commitments:

• Notice. A company collecting and using online information for behavioural advertising must clearly inform a consumer that data is being collected for this purpose

• Consent. A company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising must provide a mechanism for users to decline behavioural advertising and where applicable seek a consumer's consent.

• Education. A company collecting and using online data for behavioural advertising must provide consumer with clear and simple information about their use of data for this purpose and how users can decline.

Behavioural advertising, in which customers who, for example, browse websites about cars are sent advertisements about cars, has long been controversial with privacy advocates.

The industry is keen to stress that advertisers do not know who individual users are because the information collected is anonymous.

"There is no personally identifiable information. They don't have your name, address or phone number. Instead search terms are linked to a random cookie number in a general geographic area," said Nate Elliott, a principal researcher at Forrester.

He said he had been surprised at the level of controversy raised by Phorm's partnership with BT.

"There are dozens of companies that have been doing this type of advertising for years. Google stores search information and uses it to better target future searches, for example," he said.

According to Forrester 26% of European online advertisers used behavioural-based systems during 2008.

The IAB estimates that behavioural advertising could generate an income of £200m for UK online advertisers.

Opt-in

The promise to make it easy for customers to opt out of such services will not go far enough for some who want to see all such services offered on an opt-in basis.

BT told the BBC that it is likely to offer its Webwise service, the technology devised by Phorm, on an opt-in basis.

It has not yet given a date for when the service will roll out but has completed several trials of the technology.

The first two of these trials created controversy because they were conducted without the consent of BT customers.

The European Commission is still considering whether it will take action against BT on this matter.

Privacy campaigner Richard Clayton thinks the code of practice is doomed to failure because it doesn't address the opt-in debate.

"The bottom line is that if I'm prepared to tell advertisers where I browse and what adverts I want then all well and good, but I don't want them snooping on me," he said.

"The IAB has gone to great lengths to ensure that the industry protects and educates consumers on their rights and choices," said Nick Stringer, head of regulatory affairs at the IAB.

"Behavioural advertising has clear benefits to consumers, delivering more relevant advertising and keeping most of the content and services we enjoy free of charge.

"However it's in its infancy and we need to let consumers know they are in control," he said.

BT awaits fast broadband ruling

BT will find out on Tuesday if it can proceed with the roll-out of a high-speed, fibre-optic broadband network.

The firm wants to invest £1.5bn in the network, giving up to 20 million UK homes access to speeds up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps).

BT has made clear it will only make the move if regulator Ofcom allows it to get a decent return on that investment.

Ofcom boss Ed Richards has already indicated he is likely to pave the way for BT to build the network.

If given the green light, the network will be completed by 2012.

In an interview with the Financial Times last month, Mr Richards said: "Regulation will not be a barrier to this kind of investment."

The network would see the installation of fibre-optic cables to street-side cabinets, offering speeds of between 40 and 60Mbps, with about 1 million homes having fibre to the home and speeds of 100Mbps.

Current barriers

BT in the past has urged Ofcom to nurture a "supportive and enduring regulatory environment" which includes removing current barriers to investment and making sure that anyone who chooses to invest in fibre optics can earn a fair rate of return.

The communications company hopes to lease access to its new network to third-party Internet Service Providers and be given pricing freedom in order to earn a financial return on its investment.

Currently Virgin Media is the only other provider of a fibre-optic network to a large number of people in the UK. Its fibre-to-the-cabinet offers speeds of up to 50Mbps.

Andrew Ferguson, editor of ThinkBroadband.com, said on the site it would be "no major surprise if Ofcom approved BT pushing fibre further out from the exchanges".

He said: "The options for Ofcom were limited since if it refused BT then the only next generation like network approaching national coverage would be Virgin Media who currently offer no form of wholesale access."

Digital politics is different

Surveillance is a fact of life in many of the UK's towns and cities

Online coverage gives events enduring significance, says Bill Thompson

In November 1988 Stuart Weir, at the time editor of the New Statesman, published a special edition of the magazine asking those concerned with the health of British democracy to stand up and be counted. The proposal, which he called 'Charter 88', called for a new constitutional settlement, one which would guarantee civil liberties and the rule of law.

Shortly afterwards 348 people paid for and signed an advert in the Guardian newspaper asking people to offer support, and a year later an organisation called Charter 88 was founded to take the campaign forward, with Anthony Barnett as its first Director.

The Charter was eventually signed by over 85,000 people, including me, and the organisation it inspired continues to campaign for democracy, rights and freedoms as Unlock Democracy.

It would be fascinating to trace the history of this important movement, and perhaps watch some of the barnstorming speeches that took place at its many public meetings over the years, but there seem to be no recordings and few accessible records of what happened in the early days.

Google's archive search of old newspapers will sell me a scan of a 1988 article from the Miami Herald that talks about Charter 88 for only $2.95, but I can find no public scans of the original advertisement and there are no video or even audio recordings of any meetings, while the Wikipedia entry for Charter 88 is flagged '"his article needs additional citations for verification".

There's a book, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original Charter 88, but that is only available to order as a printed volume and Amazon won't let me search inside it.

Since I am fortunate enough to have access to the British Library and even to the offices of the New Statesman, where I'm an occasional contributor, I could hunt down the original 1988 edition if I really wanted to and see just how the case was argued.

As I'm a friend of Anthony Barnett's I could ask him if he has any old material I could look at, and if I was really keen I could offer to digitise it and put it online for him, but I probably won't because time is short and building digital archives takes a lot of time and effort.

My interest in Charter 88's history came about because yesterday I was one of over a thousand people who attended the Convention on Modern Liberty at the Institute of Education in London's Bloomsbury district, organised by that same Anthony Barnett and journalist Henry Porter.

Repressive actions

It brought together dozens of different organisations and hundreds of speakers in seven cities across the UK, beginning with a passionate defence of our civil liberties from Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti and finishing with an informal debate that included blogger Cory Doctorow and songwriters Billy Bragg and Feargal Sharkey.

Although there were many horror stories about the repressive actions of the representatives of the British state there was also significant optimism and a sense that things could be changed if we choose to change them.

And unlike the early Charter 88 meetings, some of which took place in the same lecture hall I was sitting in, every moment of the convention was being recorded and documented in detail.

The plenaries and panel sessions were being filmed and webcast live, with transcripts taken and posted online as soon as possible after the words were spoken, while the wireless network throughout the building enabled me and many others present to twitter about what we were doing.

Large number of photographs were uploaded to Flickr, Moblog, Tweetpic and other photo-sharing sites, and as well as coverage in the obvious media outlets like the Times and the BBC there are already dozens of blog postings, some from those who were there, some from those who participated online.

The interaction and engagement that these services facilitate was a vital part of the convention, tying together the eight separate meetings with video feeds and online debate and turning them into one nationwide event. The online presence also meant that many people who could not be there were able to participate, using the two-way nature of the web to feed back into the real-world meetings and not simply sitting there are observers of a broadcast video feed.

But the real significance may come in six months, a year or even five years, when the issues the convention raised form the basis of political campaigns, government policy or even a new Bill of Rights for the UK. Charter 88 grew up before we had moved into the digital age and what little was recorded remains analogue, offline and inaccessible.

Yesterday's event was self-documenting, and much of what happened left traces online, traces which will be visible to anyone who wants to know what happened. Ben Goldacre's jokes, David Davis' call for action and Philip Pullman's eloquent and moving condemnation of a government that refuses to believe in the British people will be there, to be watched, read, linked to and commented upon over the coming months, and this in itself will help to strengthen and build the movement that seems likely to emerge from the Convention.

Of course, it also means that the authorities will have no problems tracking down who was there or what they said, but transparency and sharing always carry the risk of undesirable side-effects.