Technology

Firm place to stand outside solar system

2009-09-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T19:01:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-08T19:00:00.000-07:00

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'

2009-04-02T19:13:00.002-07:00

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

2009-04-02T19:13:00.001-07:00

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

2009-04-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-17T19:50:00.002-07:00

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

2009-03-17T19:50:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-17T19:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-17T01:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-17T01:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T01:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-12T01:08:00.002-07:00

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'

2009-03-12T01:08:00.001-07:00

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

2009-03-08T20:48:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-08T20:46:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-05T00:57:00.001-08:00

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

2009-03-05T00:56:00.002-08:00

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

2009-03-05T00:56:00.001-08:00

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

2009-03-02T22:30:00.001-08:00

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

2009-03-02T22:27:00.000-08:00

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.

Pirate radio 'puts lives at risk'

2009-03-02T22:26:00.000-08:00

By Daniel Emery
Technology reporter, BBC News website

Authorities have been increasing their efforts to crack down on pirate radio stations in the UK.

Regulator Ofcom says the broadcasts can put lives at risk by interfering with emergency service frequencies, and can also block legitimate stations.

Police officers raided an address in North London which, they say, housed an illegal pirate radio station.

Five people were arrested and officers seized thousands of pounds worth of broadcasting and musical equipment.

Ofcom says there are more than 150 pirate radio stations operating across the UK, half of which operate in London and the South East of England.

Last year, officers raided 43 studios used by illegal stations and shut down 838 illegal transmitters.

Ofcom's head of investigations, Paul Mercer, told BBC News that pirate radio was not a victimless crime.

"Ofcom receive complaints from the emergency services. The two services that are most affected are the National Air Traffic services and the London Fire Brigade.

"In both instances, because of the proximity of the frequencies used by those services and the illegal broadcasters, they can suffer some difficulties when trying to use their radio systems to communicate."

However, one pirate radio DJ told the BBC that while pirate stations may have interfered with the emergency services in the past, it was now a rare occurrence.

Steve, who manages the pirate radio station Ice Cold FM, said: "Problems can occur if people use a badly built link box that connects the studio to the transmitter.

"These systems, called Band 1, can put out multiples of their frequency, so a link on 50Mhz could spill out onto 100Mhz and other high band frequencies.

"I would say 90% of pirates don't use Band 1 links any more. We all use microwave links that are completely interference free," he said.

He added: "I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, but we check all our stuff to make sure it's clean and on the band."

Ofcom says that if there were other avenues open for legal broadcasting, such as setting up a community radio station.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has provided money for the Community Radio Fund, managed by Ofcom, which so far has awarded £215,900 to 15 applicants.

But Steve from Ice Cold FM said that it was difficult to win a community radio station licence.

"I wanted to go legal. We tried to get a community based licence and even went off air for a while.

"But once we looked into it, they wanted us to show that we had £25,000 in sponsorship to prove that we could establish the business for a length of time, which is far more than we would actually need.

"Even to apply costs money and Ofcom can still say no, so it's just not worth the effort."

Online shops look to prosper

2009-03-02T22:25:00.000-08:00

By LJ Rich

The credit crunch might be bad news for high street stores who see fewer people step through their doors but it is proving to be good news for web retailers.

Many hope their green credentials and more secure payment systems will encourage more customers to take their mouse shopping rather than their car.

Chris Russell, Director of eDigital Research said: "Consumers are spending more online, and this surge in traffic means that e-retailers have a massive opportunity to capitalise on the increased attention they are experiencing.

"If they don't, then they will be missing out on a chance to build customer loyalty and repeat business, something no organisation wants to do in economic times such as these."

Retailers are already beginning to plan stock and quantity levels for next Christmas, suggests research by eDigital. In 2008, 60% of people turned to the web when sourcing presents.

Pick and mix

Jason Gissing, founder of Ocado which works with supermarket Waitrose, said he believed the switch to online shopping would continue.

"Consumers' understanding and interaction with the internet has changed. I think the services that online retailers offer have improved," he said.

"I often talk about the MySpace generation when I look at friends of mine who have children that are spending their entire times online and texting each other.

When they start working, they're going to embrace the internet in a way that we can only dream of."

In its warehouse Ocado uses eight miles of conveyor belts to move shopping around as orders from shoppers are picked and put together.

To ensure food stays frozen, the shopping basket travels from the top floors, which are cupboard temperature to the bottom floor, where the fridge and freezer food gets added at the last minute before finally being loaded into delivery vans.

Said Mr Gissing: "We actually have a lower carbon footprint per pound of sales than walking to a supermarket yourself, because everything that you see here is in one place.

"We don't have big open chillers and freezers with nasty refrigerants that you get in a big shop, and heating to make customers feel happy as they walk around and shop."

Money market

And it is not just in green issues that online shops want to be seen to be concerned about.

Online security has been another priority for retailers in their efforts to boost sales.

One possible solution is chip and pin, widely used outside in the real world, that is now starting to be used for web shopping too.

Credit card giants Mastercard and Visa have already launched their online verification tools.

UK-based Pinoptic has developed a slightly different system. Those using it generate a code they enter into an online keypad but, instead of the code being four numbers, it is two numbers and two icons.

Each time the code needs to be entered, the icons will be in a different place on the keypad. This makes it very difficult for keyloggers to figure out an individual code, claims Pinoptic.

New MoD tech 'could save lives'

2009-02-27T18:35:00.001-08:00

MoD considers shock-absorbing goo

The Ministry of Defence has lifted the lid on its Defence Technology Plan, the latest gadgets it hopes could help equip troops in the future.

Cameras that can see through dust and unmanned ground vehicles were among the devices on show on Thursday.

Although still in the early stages, experts say the kit could soon be "must have devices that may help save lives".

The Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Quentin Davies, said new technology was key to the MoD's plans.

Damian Kemp, aviation editor for intelligence consultancy Jane's, told BBC News that work on unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) was in the same stage of development that unmanned air vehicles (UAV) was 20 years ago.

"Back then, UAVs were nice to have. Today they are something troops must have. The Americans see UGVs as very valuable in keeping soldiers out of harm's way.

"Soldiers are expensive and it's expensive if they get hurt, never mind the public image. These devices can save lives and I imagine British troops would be very keen to get issued UGVs."

Arms race

Mr Davies said technology was key to staying one step ahead of the enemy.

"It is more vital than ever before that we exploit new and emerging technologies because the threats our troops face are always evolving," he said.

The MoD spends nearly £2m on research and development in science and some of the devices on show today were winners of the MoD's Grand Challenge, a contest to identify promising battlefield robot technologies.

The Defence Technology Plan is spearheaded by the MoD's research and development team.

Their science and technology director, Paul Stein, said the showcase was the first time that the MoD has publicised some of the challenges facing their long-term defence plans.

"The development of new technology could lead to significant benefits for future combat forces," he said.

"The [Defence Technology Plan] sets out to encourage fresh thinking and engagement with new and existing defence technology suppliers."

One of the exhibitors at the event, Richard Palmer from D3O, told the BBC that his product - a soft plastic polymer that turns solid if impacted - was already used by sportsmen and women, but could also be used by the military.

"The gel is already used in ski race suits, especially slalom skiers. Getting hit by the gates at 60 miles per hour is like being hit with a baton, so this provides them with some protection.

"We're working with the MoD to see if it could be used inside the lining of helmets.

"It won't stop a bullet, but used in conjunction with body armour, it could help save a soldier's life".

The Tech Lab: Bruce Schneier

2009-02-27T18:33:00.001-08:00

CCTV and face recognition is helping create 'wholesale surveillance'

Bruce Schneier is the chief security technology officer at BT and a celebrated writer and speaker on privacy, cryptography and security issues.

Welcome to the future, where everything about you is saved. A future where your actions are recorded, your movements are tracked, and your conversations are no longer ephemeral. A future brought to you not by some 1984-like dystopia, but by the natural tendencies of computers to produce data.

Data is the pollution of the information age. It's a natural by-product of every computer-mediated interaction. It stays around forever, unless it's disposed of. It is valuable when reused, but it must be done carefully. Otherwise, its after-effects are toxic.

And just as 100 years ago people ignored pollution in our rush to build the Industrial Age, today we're ignoring data in our rush to build the Information Age.

Increasingly, you leave a trail of digital footprints throughout your day. Once you walked into a bookstore and bought a book with cash. Now you visit Amazon, and all of your browsing and purchases are recorded. You used to buy a train ticket with coins; now your electronic fare card is tied to your bank account. Your store affinity cards give you discounts; merchants use the data on them to reveal detailed purchasing patterns.

Bruce Schneier has written widely on security, privacy and technology.

Data about you is collected when you make a phone call, send an e-mail message, use a credit card, or visit a website. A national ID card will only exacerbate this.

More computerised systems are watching you. Cameras are ubiquitous in some cities, and eventually face recognition technology will be able to identify individuals. Automatic licence plate scanners track vehicles in parking lots and cities. Colour printers, digital cameras, and some photocopy machines have embedded identification codes. Aerial surveillance is used by cities to find building permit violators and by marketers to learn about home and garden size.

As RFID chips become more common, they'll be tracked, too. Already you can be followed by your cellphone, even if you never make a call. This is wholesale surveillance; not "follow that car," but "follow every car".

Computers are mediating conversation as well. Face-to-face conversations are ephemeral. Years ago, telephone companies might have known who you called and how long you talked, but not what you said. Today you chat in e-mail, by text message, and on social networking sites. You blog and you Twitter. These conversations - with family, friends, and colleagues - can be recorded and stored.

It used to be too expensive to save this data, but computer memory is now cheaper. Computer processing power is cheaper, too; more data is cross-indexed and correlated, and then used for secondary purposes. What was once ephemeral is now permanent.

Who collects and uses this data depends on local laws. In the US, corporations collect, then buy and sell, much of this information for marketing purposes. In Europe, governments collect more of it than corporations. On both continents, law enforcement wants access to as much of it as possible for both investigation and data mining.

More and more people are scattering their personal data online

Regardless of country, more organisations are collecting, storing, and sharing more of it.

More is coming. Keyboard logging programs and devices can already record everything you type; recording everything you say on your cellphone is only a few years away.

A "life recorder" you can clip to your lapel that'll record everything you see and hear isn't far behind. It'll be sold as a security device, so that no-one can attack you without being recorded. When that happens, will not wearing a life recorder be used as evidence that someone is up to no good, just as prosecutors today use the fact that someone left his cellphone at home as evidence that he didn't want to be tracked?

You're living in a unique time in history: the technology is here, but it's not yet seamless. Identification checks are common, but you still have to show your ID. Soon it'll happen automatically, either by remotely querying a chip in your wallets or by recognising your face on camera.

And all those cameras, now visible, will shrink to the point where you won't even see them. Ephemeral conversation will all but disappear, and you'll think it normal. Already your children live much more of their lives in public than you do. Your future has no privacy, not because of some police-state governmental tendencies or corporate malfeasance, but because computers naturally produce data.

Cardinal Richelieu famously said: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." When all your words and actions can be saved for later examination, different rules have to apply.

Society works precisely because conversation is ephemeral; because people forget, and because people don't have to justify every word they utter.

Conversation is not the same thing as correspondence. Words uttered in haste over morning coffee, whether spoken in a coffee shop or thumbed on a BlackBerry, are not official correspondence. A data pattern indicating "terrorist tendencies" is no substitute for a real investigation. Being constantly scrutinised undermines our social norms; furthermore, it's creepy. Privacy isn't just about having something to hide; it's a basic right that has enormous value to democracy, liberty, and our humanity.

We're not going to stop the march of technology, just as we cannot un-invent the automobile or the coal furnace. We spent the industrial age relying on fossil fuels that polluted our air and transformed our climate. Now we are working to address the consequences. (While still using said fossil fuels, of course.) This time around, maybe we can be a little more proactive.

Just as we look back at the beginning of the previous century and shake our heads at how people could ignore the pollution they caused, future generations will look back at us - living in the early decades of the information age - and judge our solutions to the proliferation of data.

We must, all of us together, start discussing this major societal change and what it means. And we must work out a way to create a future that our grandchildren will be proud of.

Facebook offers control to users

2009-02-27T18:32:00.000-08:00

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website

Facebook has responded to criticism over the way it handles user data by handing over control to its users.

Members of the social network will have comment and voting rights over the firm's future policies regarding how the site is governed.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the aim was to "open up Facebook so that users can participate meaningfully in our policies and our future".

Privacy International's Simon Davies said the move was "unprecedented".

"No other company has made such a bold move towards transparency and democratisation," he said.

"The devil will be in the detail but, overall, we applaud these positive steps and think they foreshadow the future of web 2.0."

Mr Zuckerberg admitted that the recent changes to the website's terms and conditions had sparked a "firestorm".

Users had complained that it appeared Facebook was claiming ownership of their data - even if they delete their accounts.

The founder said: "We do not own user data, they [users] own it. We never intended to give that impression and feel really bad that we did."

Facebook has announced a new set of governing principles and rights and responsibilities.

Under the changes, users will be able to first comment and then potentially vote on future changes to the documents.

Facebook will enact a vote on changes to its governance when more than 7,000 comments have been made by users on a topic.

Mr Zuckerberg told BBC News: "We think that is pretty reasonable.

"We have designed the votes so a small minority of users cannot create a binding election."

Facebook is the largest social network in the world, with more than 175 million users. The controversy over Facebook's use of personal data is not the first time it has had a run in with users.

It angered some members in the past when it introduced a new advertising system, called Beacon, which delivered adverts to users on external websites based on their Facebook profile and habits. Beacon was quickly changed in order to give users an opt-in or opt-out button from the service.

Included in the new Facebook principles are specific details regarding the ownership of data.

It states: "People should own their information. They should have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service."

Mark Zuckerberg said that Facebook had undertaken to carry out all of its business within the framework of the new governance documents.

"We trust our users. We are making this so that we can't put in place a new terms of service without users' permission."

He said he hoped the new policy would "strengthen the community and the bonds between us and the users".

He told BBC News that he believed that opening up decisions about the future policies of the social network was not incompatible with doing business.

He said: "The important thing to keep in mind is that we are strengthening the trust people have in us.

"We believe that good dialogue we will get us to the right place... where everyone is more involved and happy."

Net TV plans get Trust scrutiny

2009-02-27T18:31:00.001-08:00

Plans to take iPlayer-type services to TV sets are being scrutinised by the BBC Trust.

The BBC-backed proposals want to produce set-top boxes that can go online to access on-demand TV services such as the iPlayer and ITVplayer.

The device is aimed at the majority of UK homes that have not signed up for on-demand subscription TV services and do not have a Personal Video Recorder.

Setting up such services rests on getting approval from the BBC Trust.

Public views

In its submission to the Trust laying out its plans for the Project Canvas scheme, the BBC wrote: "the 53% of UK households that do not subscribe to pay television services risk falling behind".

"Freeview is already failing to offer the full range of BBC licence fee funded television and radio services," it added.

This situation would only worsen as the internet became the main way that TV programmes are distributed to viewers.

Project Canvas aims to bring together many broadcasters as well as ISPs and web firms such as YouTube to back a common technology that will make all the content accessible via the TV set-top box.

The initial devices are expected to be set-top boxes, with a net connection, that could cost up to £200.

The public - and any other interested parties - are being invited by the BBC Trust to contribute to its two-stage consultation process.

The first stage closes on 17 April. By 8 June, the BBC Trust will publish its preliminary conclusions, at which point the second stage of the consultation will commence.

This next stage closes on 22 June and the Trust said it would aim to deliver its findings by 24 July at the latest.

Subject to approval, Project Canvas is due to launch in 2010.

The consultation comes in the wake of a decision by the UK Competition Commission to block the creation of an on-demand video service, known as Project Kangaroo.

The service proposed to make available current TV shows from Channel 4 and ITV as well as archived material from the BBC.

Declaring that Project Kangaroo "has to be stopped", the Competition Commission said viewers would be better served by having the three broadcasters as "close competitors" rather than collaborators.

Google users hit by mail blackout

2009-02-24T22:14:00.001-08:00

Google has apologised for the outage that hit business and consumer users of its popular e-mail service.

The GMail service went offline at 0930 GMT and, Google claims, was unavailable to all for "approximately two and a half hours".

But anecdotal evidence suggests it was out of action for many users for about four hours - one of the longest downtimes ever suffered by Google.

More than 113 million people use Google mail worldwide, according to comScore.

In a statement posted on its official Google blog it said: "We're really sorry about this, and we did do everything to restore access as soon as we could.".

It said its engineers were still investigating the "root cause" of the problem.

"We know how important GMail is to our users so we take this very seriously," it added.

It said that those getting back into their e-mail may have to fill in a captcha form that asks people to decipher and re-type some scrambled letters before getting access to messages.

According to comScore, Google has the world's third most popular web mail service behind Hotmail with 283 million users and Yahoo with 274 million e-mail users.

Professional suite

More than a million business around the world use Google's professional suite of applications, including e-mail. Google itself relies on the service and press spokespeople for the firm were unable to e-mail journalists with statements regarding the problem.

Professional users are covered by a service level agreement that promises to be 99.9% operational in any calendar month.

The "premier edition" of the Apps service costs $50 (£34) per user for a year.

According to Google, its e-mail service suffered an average of 10 to 15 minutes of downtime per month in 2008.

The last outage of note was in August 2008 when users were unable to use Google Mail for "a couple of hours".

After the incident Todd Jackson, product manager for Google Mail, said in a blog post: "We're conducting a full review of what went wrong and moving quickly to update our internal systems and procedures accordingly."

On its support page for Google Mail, the firm said "A number of users have had difficulty accessing GMail today.

"The majority are now able to access their e-mail accounts again and we're hoping to have service restored for the remainder very soon."

Quake boosts browser video games

2009-02-24T22:13:00.000-08:00

Classic game Quake III will be re-released for the web browser on Tuesday, highlighting the rapid development in web games.

It runs inside browsers after the installation of a software plug-in.

"It is a significant step which proves browser games can be sophisticated," said Michael French, editor of games industry magazine Develop.

Quake Live is a version of a PC game which was first launched in 1999.

The game is being released free of charge for browsers by id Software, and is supported by advertising. It opens to the public as a beta later on Tuesday.

Mr French said: "A lot of the foundations of the mechanics of modern shooters were established by Quake.

All kinds of people could now be exposed to games for the first time

Michael French, Develop Magazine

"It makes a lot of sense for id to be trying new avenues for their intellectual property.

"One of the things id has always been known for is being cutting edge in graphics but also for finding new ways to get their games to gamers."

Id Software is not the first company to offer browser versions of games that were once synonymous with physical formats: Garage Games offers web versions of games like Fallen Empire and Marble Blast Online, while there are also a number of online multiplayer titles such as PMOG.

High profile

But Quake is the most high-profile PC franchise to branch out into the browser space.

Mr French said: "It proves that consumers are willing to try these things. All kinds of people could now be exposed to games for the first time.

"There is no console or hardware in the way. This is gaming for people who are more used to using Facebook."

Mr French said browser-based games had already surpassed the graphical sophistication of titles that used to rely on console hardware such as the original PlayStation.

"You won't play this and be put off thinking it is old fashioned or ugly. It is very playable and watchable," Mr French said.

However, he said browser games were not yet a substitute for a dedicated piece of gaming hardware.

The games industry will be watching id software's browser developments very closely.

"The Massively Multiplayer Online space is certainly the area most likely to move to browser. Some well-known role playing game franchises could also move to the browser and are probably already in development."

The struggle among the stars

2009-02-24T22:12:00.000-08:00

By Flora Graham
BBC News

It's a credit crunch nightmare.

The chief executive of the world's biggest corporation gets a phone call in the middle of the night. Thanks to industrial espionage, the company has been bankrupted, assets stripped, bank accounts emptied. When trading starts the next day, even the company name will be gone.

If this were real life, the executive might consider jumping out the window. But in the online game of EVE Online, it's all part of the fun.

"It is another challenge," said Par Molen, the leader of the "corporation" Band of Brothers (BoB), who got the late-night call.

"That's what we live for."

Mr Molen and his online colleagues had spent four years building BoB into the dominant force in a game where 200,000 players battle it out in an online galaxy of spaceships and planets.

Unlike other multiplayer online games like the hugely popular World of Warcraft, which is split into smaller groups, the thousands of EVE players are in it together.

In one virtual galaxy, players build, fight, and trade, joining together to form "corporations" to gain control over sections of the huge starscape.

This creates a complex society where anything can happen, and often does. Rules are few, and all of the lying, cheating and stealing that occurs in real life can also happen in the game.

A player called "The Mittani" is the shadowy spymaster who runs dozens of agents for his corporation - GoonSwarm. He got the call of his career when a disgruntled BoB director contacted him to say that he was thinking of switching sides.

With the director's access to BoB's internal workings, the pair were able to disband the corporation and steal all the assets they could lay their hands on.

To add insult to injury, GoonSwarm then re-registered the Band of Brothers name for itself, leaving the former alliance nameless and broken.

It's a finale that has been compared to "Apple dissolving Microsoft", and led to some players calling for the game's developer, CCP, to "roll-back" the game to the previous day and cancel the change.

"Any one director should not have the power to destroy the work of so many people for so many months and years with two mouse clicks," wrote a player called David on an EVE-related blog.

But CCP is well-known for keeping its hands off action within the game. Since no rules were broken, the changes stood, and thousands of BoB members woke up to a very different world.

Scams in space

This is not the first time that rogue bankers and credit fraud have made EVE Online seem more like the financial pages than a space cowboy video game.

In January, a player absconded with over 80bn ISK, the game's virtual currency, from an in-game bank. Although the 80bn is only worth a few thousand pounds if exchanged for real money, it represents hours of in-game toil.

In an online echo of the real-world banking crisis, the bank's chairman issued a statement to calm a run on deposits, writing: "Dynasty Banking will get over these times and we will continue to strive to earn the public's faith as one of the leading banks of Eve Online".

Another scam on an epic scale beyond the fantasies of real conmen was perpetrated in 2006, when a player ran off with 700bn ISK from another EVE bank.

"Think of me as a space Robin Hood—steals from the rich and gives to himself," wrote the perpetrator in an EVE-related internet forum.

Such swindles left some players in awe of EVE's potential for realism, whilst others called for a stronger code of ethics in the game.

But spymaster Mittani scoffed at calls for in-game morals, noting that without dirty tricks, GoonSwarm would have had no chance of toppling a more established corporation like BoB.

He said: "We don't have any advantages, so we can't obey your stupid 'space bushido'. We're going to spy, we're going to use defectors, we're going to lie, cheat, steal and be bastards.

Sat-nav to aid disabled motorists

2009-02-24T22:11:00.000-08:00

By Geoff Adams-Spink
Age & disability correspondent, BBC News website

A satellite navigation system made specifically to assist disabled drivers has been made by a UK company.

Gowrings Mobility - a specialist in adapted vehicles - is marketing the BB Nav, developed by Navevo.

The system contains a database of Blue Badge parking bays, accessible toilets, disabled-friendly petrol stations and accessible accommodation.

It covers 150 major towns and cities around the UK including all of the London boroughs.

"Many disabled travellers worry about the uncertainty of not knowing where to park... and consequently do not venture further afield than their own local area," said Janet Seward, sales and marketing director at Gowrings.

"We want to make disabled travellers' lives and journeys much smoother, easier and more spontaneous."

The BB Nav grades car parks according to their level of accessibility and also has the location of more than 10,000 on-street parking bays.

The device is also programmed with the varying parking regulations for Blue Badge holders as they move from one local authority area to another.

Other "points of interest" (POIs) include accessible beaches, shopping facilities, toilets and hotels.

Road test

In practice, the BB Nav delivers a lot less than it appears to promise.

The unit is small and slim - much like other in-car GPS systems.

But unlike other satnavs that rely on finger operation, the BB Nav has a telescopic stylus that is housed in the body of the device.

Something so small and fiddly can and probably would be easily lost in a car.

The on-screen keyboard is too small to allow it to be programmed by all but the most slender of fingers.

And the display fonts are so small that older motorists will be reaching for their reading glasses.

On the plus side, the display is large, the map easy to read and all side roads are helpfully named.

The default female voice is clear and crisp but does have a tendency to repeat itself too often.

When tested in the outer suburbs of North-West London, the BB Nav was disappointing and - at times - mystifying.

It failed to locate on-street parking bays on Bridge Street in Pinner.

When asked to find an accessible toilet in Ruislip, it found its way to a residential street of pre-war, detached houses with not a public convenience in sight - accessible or otherwise.

And when accessible accommodation in Harrow was requested, it located a Hilton hotel in Wembley but directed the car to industrial units close to the football stadium.

When Navevo - the makers of the BB Nav - were approached to comment upon the problems encountered, they referred the issue to The Pie Guide, the company that provides the data for the device.

Mike Hudson, data manager for Pie Guide, explained that the data on parking bays came from local authorities in a variety of formats, the quality of which was variable too.

Referring to the absence of the parking bay in Pinner, Mr Hudson said: "I suspect that the council has not provided the data to us - hopefully it will be picked up in a forthcoming update."

He said that the hard-to-locate accessible toilet in Ruislip was "troubling" and that it would require further investigation.

Data on accessible hotels was, he admitted, "not great".

The information comes from a variety of sources depending on the part of the UK being searched.

And not all hotel chains submit to the verification process which they would have to pay for.

"There is no one, single data source to which we can go and extract this information," said Mr Hudson.

Data updates are planned for the future but are still the subject of commercial negotiations between Navevo and Pie.

For a product costing just under £200, it seems a little rough around the edges to justify the price tag.

Given its shortcomings in terms of usability and accuracy, disabled motorists might be better off waiting for other satnav suppliers to install a set of disabled-friendly POIs.

Of those contacted, Garmin said providing useful information for disabled drivers was already being considered.

dot.life A blog about technology from BBC News

2009-02-24T22:09:00.000-08:00

Speed Diary: Day Five

Darren Waters
23 Feb 09, 14:50 GMT

A number of readers of this blog and my Twitter followers were kind enough to suggest different ways to test our 50Mbps cable broadband connection, as part of a Speed Diary I've been carrying out over the last week.

So here they are. I should also point out that I performed all of these tests over a wireless connection. They would have been faster over an Ethernet connection.

Try using a download manager and downloading a file from ftp.virginmedia.com then uploading it to /incoming

There are a number of game demo files sitting on the Virgin FTP (File Transfer Protocol) site and I was able to easily saturate the downstream speeds getting very close to the 50Mbps upper limit. Each of the five files I simultaneously downloaded was coming down at almost 1.0MB per second.

On the upload site I was getting around 1Mbps.

Two readers suggested downloading some TV programmes via BitTorrent and The Pirate Bay. One reader said: "In the name of journalistic research and only to watch Beeb programs of course."

Given the current court case against The Pirate Bay going on in the Swedish courts, it is probably not a good career move to be downloading any unauthorised content via The Pirate Bay, even material from my own employer without permission.

So I used LegalTorrents.com to download some video files covered under a Creative Commons license for free distribution.

A 900MB file being shared by 25 peers on BitTorrent came down the pipe at about 400 to 500KBps in about 40 minutes. In my experience the more seeders there are on BitTorrent sharing a file, the quicker it tends to arrive so a more popular file would have been downloaded faster.

A number of users suggested downloading files from news servers, such as Giganews and the Virgin Media news server

News servers pre-date the World Wide Web and are both text discussion boards and a method of distributing large files, often it has to be said copied movies, TV programmes and music. But there are also game demos, and copyright-free material to be found.

The advantage of news servers over tools like BitTorrent is speed. Most providers of news servers have incredibly quick connections and downloading files is often only limited by the speed of your own broadband connection.

I downloaded a 350MB file from both GigaNews and the news server operated by Virgin Media. The file downloaded via GigaNews came down the pipe at between 4MB per second 4.2MB per second, which is pretty much the top end of my connection speed.

The Virgin Media news server was a little bit slower - with a minimum of 1MB per second and a maximum of 3.9MB per second.

How about a download of a large game/demo on a console?

So how quickly can you download files from a service like Xbox Live? I selected the demo of strategy game Halo Wars to download, a file over 1GB in size.

The demo was downloaded and playing on my Xbox 360 in under eight minutes.

What are the speeds like when e-mailing high resolution images, such as 50MB photos?

It is very difficult to find a mail service that will accept files as big as 50MB, and it is probably more advisable to use FTP, BitTorrent or a file transfer service like YouSendIt, or SendThisFile.

Google Mail accepts attachments up to 20MB in size. I sent two JPGs of about 8MB in size each using Google's mail service. The files left my outbox within five minutes.

How about streaming video on 2-3 clients simultaneously? Can it cope?

I wrote about this last week. To recap: I streamed the BBC's iPlayer across three machines with little difficulty but as soon as I threw in some background downloads of large files then the picture started to stutter on one of the machines.

Try Xbox 360 racing games, not FPS. Try hosting Forza 2 session with maximum racers.

Last week I used the connection to play some First Person Shooter games with some mixed results. I don't have a copy of Forza 2 but I do have a copy of Project Gotham Racing 4. I hosted a number of races and all of the gamers in my session reported the session was lag free.

Schedule daily speed tests and record the results over time to see if, as the success of the service increases the quality does not decrease (something that has often been seen in cable broadband).

Virgin says there is no bandwidth throttling on the connection of users of its 50Mbps service - something that is not true of its other connection speeds.

I took readings of the connection speed from a number of different measurement tools across the week and found there was a slight variance in the speed.

On wired connections, the tests revealed that the speeds varied from 36Mbps to 48Mbps over the period.

On wireless connections - once I had fixed my router issues - the speeds varied between 25Mbps and 46Mbps during the week.

There was one reader request that I was not able to help with, however.

Could you download the internet for me and put it on a CD please?

I think I draw the line at that test.

Finally, having the luxury of a 50Mbps service has reminded me how much has changed in term of connection speeds in the last 25 years that I have been online.

I stumbled across my first ever modem recently - a Commodore 64 Communications modem that I used to connect to Compunet when I was a teenager.

This was a 1200/75 baud modem which means, if I've got my calculations right, that the maximum downstream speed I could have reached was about 1Kbps.

That means that I had been using that modem today and tried to download the Halo Wars demo - it would have taken about 97 days to download, rather than the eight minutes on the 50Mbps connection.

The Sun and global warming

2009-02-23T23:44:00.000-08:00

The Earth’s ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet light from the Sun and prevents it from reaching the surface. This protects living things from its harmful effects.

Greenhouse gases such as methane, water vapour and carbon dioxide absorb infrared radiation emitted from the Earth. This increases the temperature of the planet. The concentration of greenhouse gases is increasing, leading to global warming.

Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis, but returned by respiration and the combustion of fuels. Processes like these form the carbon cycle.

The ozone layer

The Earth is surrounded by a deep layer of gas called the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a mixture of gases, including nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide.

Oxygen

Plants use the energy in sunlight to make their own food by photosynthesis:

carbon dioxide + water → glucose + oxygen

Photosynthesis releases oxygen into the atmosphere, and removes carbon dioxide. This reverses the effect of respiration.

Ozone

Ultraviolet light from the Sun provides the energy needed to make ozone, O₃, from atmospheric oxygen, O₂. Ozone absorbs ultraviolet radiation. This prevents it from reaching the ground and harming living organisms, especially animals.

Ozone layer

The ozone layer is the part of the atmosphere where most ozone is found - between about 15km and 40km above the Earth’s surface. The concentration of ozone there is still only around eight parts per million.

Absorbing ultraviolet light - higher

Ozone molecule formation

The greenhouse effect

Greenhouse gases such as methane, water vapour and carbon dioxide absorb infrared radiation emitted from the Earth. This is called the greenhouse effect keeps the Earth warmer than it would otherwise be.

Greenhouse effect

Sun’s rays enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
Heat is emitted back from the Earth’s surface
Some heat passes back out into space.
But some heat is absorbed by carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) and becomes trapped within the Earth’s atmosphere. The Earth becomes hotter as a result.

Remember the Moon and Earth are the same distance from the Sun. The Moon has no atmosphere and an average surface temperature of -18ºC, while the Earth has an average surface temperature of 14°C. So you can see that greenhouse gases are not a bad thing in themselves.

Global warming

The concentration of greenhouse gases is increasing. This is increasing the greenhouse effect and is leading to global warming.

The carbon cycle

Carbon dioxide is one of the greenhouse gases. It is present in the atmosphere in small concentrations, about 0.038%. Carbon dioxide is recycled constantly through various processes that form the carbon cycle.

The slideshow should help you to understand how the carbon cycle works.

Global warming

For thousands of years, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remained much the same. But during the past 200 years it has increased steadily.

The rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide has been caused largely by:

burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels as an energy source
burning forests to clear land

Burning forests has two unfortunate effects:

the burning wood releases carbon dioxide
there are fewer trees left to photosynthesise and remove carbon dioxide from the air

As the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased, so have mean global temperatures. This is called global warming.

Effects of global warming

Global warming could cause:

climate change
extreme weather conditions in some areas
rising sea levels

Climate change may make it impossible to grow certain food crops in some regions. Melting polar ice and the thermal expansion of seawater could cause rising sea levels and the flooding of low-lying land.

Global warming is 'irreversible'

2009-02-23T19:33:00.000-08:00

A team of environmental researchers in the US has warned many effects of climate change are irreversible.

The scientists concluded global temperatures could remain high for 1,000 years, even if carbon emissions can somehow be halted.

The report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Colorado comes as President Obama announces a review of vehicle emission standards.

It appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The scientists have been researching global warming and the consequences for policymakers.

The team warned that, if carbon levels in the atmosphere continued to rise, there would be less rainfall in already dry areas of southern Europe, North America, parts of Africa and Australia.

The scientists say the oceans are currently slowing down global warming by absorbing heat, but they will eventually release that heat back into the air.

They say politicians must now offset environmental damage already done by man-made pollution.

"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 year - that's not true," said researcher Susan Solomon, the lead author of the report, quoted by AP news agency.

Their conclusions come as President Obama ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to review rules on carbon emissions from passenger vehicles.

Workers 'stealing company data'

2009-02-23T19:29:00.001-08:00

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Six out of every 10 employees stole company data when they left their job last year, said a study of US workers.

The survey, conducted by the Ponemon Institute, said that so-called malicious insiders use the information to get a new job, start their own business or for revenge.

"They are making these judgements based out of fear and anxiety," the Institute's Mike Spinney told BBC News.

"People are worried about their jobs and want to hedge their bets," he said.

"Our study showed that 59% of people will say 'I'm going to take something of value with me when I go'."

The Ponemon Institute, a privacy and management research firm, surveyed 945 adults in the United States who were laid-off, fired or changed jobs in the last 12 months.

Everyone that took part had access to proprietary information such as customer data, contact lists, employee records, financial reports, confidential business documents, software tools or other intellectual property.

'Surging wave'

In the report, entitled Jobs at Risk = Data at Risk, the Institute showed that such data breaches put a company's financial health in jeopardy.

That view is backed in part by another recent study by security firm McAfee. It estimated total global economic losses due to data theft and security breaches by organised crime, hackers and inside jobs reached $1 trillion last year.

Kevin Rowney , from the data loss prevention arm of security firm Symantec, the sponsors of the study, told the BBC there would be a "surging wave" of these insider attacks.

"It is conceivable that a company can lose its corporate life through a large scale data breach," warned Mr Rowney.

He added: "The intellectual property of a company can represent the crown jewels and are almost worth more than the building. This is the core asset of a company and any breach or loss can be very expensive."

Relaxed attitude

The Ponemon Institute revealed that part of the problem rests with companies themselves and their relaxed attitude towards security.

It found that only 15% of respondents' companies reviewed or audited the paper documents or electronic files employees were walking out of work with.

The report also said that if businesses did conduct a review, it was very poor with 45% not being completed and 29% being fairly superficial.

"Many firms believe insider data breaches are the cost of doing business," said Mr Spinney.

"They believe this is just something they have to live with. Our sense is that a lot of companies have really just given up, but this study shows these are preventable events."

During the economic downturn, security experts have predicted that the number of insider attacks will rise.

Last week, Microsoft told BBC News that "with 1.5 million predicted job losses in the US alone, there's an increased risk and exposure to these attacks".

Mr Rowney said one way to limit such breaches was to boost security but also to change focus.

"The industry has concentrated on the protection of the containers where the data is stored like firewalls, access, controls and end point security systems.

"The end result is that most security teams are protecting the containers not the data itself. And that is a core flaw in the security methodology of many practitioners today," claimed Mr Rowney.

Warning of infected auction tool

2009-02-23T19:28:00.001-08:00

Auctiva has more than 500,000 users

A third-party add-on for eBay used by thousands of sellers is being flagged by Google as potentially malicious, after it became infected with a trojan.

Auctiva provides tools for sellers on the popular auction website.

The company confirmed a virus had attached itself to files on its servers but remedied the problem soon after.

However, Google continues to warn users searching for the site that it "may potentially harm your computer".

The trojan, called Adclicker, is classed by security specialist Symantec as a "very low risk". It is designed to "artificially generate traffic to certain web sites" and is used by malicious hackers to boost clicks to online banner adverts or to inflate web statistics.

On its community forum Auctiva said that it had "initiated a request with Google to have our site cleared from being reported as a malicious site".

Google works in partnership with the StopBadware.org organisation to warn users about potentially malicious websites that are infected with viruses and trojans.

Users warned

More than 186,265 websites have been reported to StopBadware for hosting malicious programs or web scripts, which can damage a a computer or, in extreme cases, hijack a machine.

Users first flagged the problem with the Auctiva site last week after anti-virus software began to warn there could be a problem with the service.

Some users reported they were also receiving warnings on auction listings inside eBay.

The firm said it had removed servers in China that had become infected with the trojan and that it was "currently safe to navigate the Auctiva website".

However, until the website is cleared by the StopBadware organisation users will continue to get warnings from Google when clicking on the site following a search.

A spokesman for Google said the site was to be reviewed by StopBadware soon.

Global warming 'underestimated'

2009-02-23T00:53:00.000-08:00

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures "will be beyond anything" predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had underestimated the rate of change.

He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.

Speaking at the American Science conference in Chicago, Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected.

"We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we've considered seriously in climate policy," he said.

Prof Field said the 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.1C and 6.4C over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem.

He said the increases in carbon dioxide have been caused, principally, by the burning of coal for electric power in India and China.

Wildfires

Prof Field said the impact on temperatures is as yet unknown, but warming is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than had been predicted.

He says that a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more likely to suffer from wildfires.

The rising temperatures could also speed up the melting of the permafrost, vastly increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, Prof Field warns.

"Without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought," he said.

Global Warming - an Overview

2009-02-23T00:27:00.000-08:00

by Helen Willetts

BBC Broadcast Meteorologist Helen Willetts explains global warming - what the problem is and how we've contributed to it.

Like our day-to-day weather, climate change is a very complex subject. The media provide us with reports about global warming but it can be difficult to form an objective opinion when scientists put forward what look like opposing views.

As in any scientific discipline there is a degree of uncertainty and these conflicting arguments reflect this ongoing debate. However, the consensus is that the world is warming, and a majority of scientists believe that man is contributing to that with increasing levels of carbon dioxide (CO2). Limiting CO2 emissions is so important because of its long life cycle. Carbon dioxide produced today will remain in the atmosphere for around 100 years and we are already committed to a certain level of warming.

But how this will affect us in the future is difficult to quantify and the focus of research is now turning to adaptation and mitigation. All climate projections show the world will warm to some degree, but by how much depends on many factors.

Despite the underlying warming trend, our weather will continue to vary from day to day and from year to year. This natural variability ensures we have cold and warm years. Our climate is the average conditions recorded over a longer period of time and it is this that, in many scientists' opinion, is changing at an unprecedented rate.

When we talk about global warming, we talk about the 'greenhouse effect'. This is actually a natural and essential feature of our atmosphere, without which our planet would be uninhabitable.

This process works by the principle that certain atmospheric gases (so-called greenhouse gases) allow short-wave radiation from the sun to pass through them unabsorbed, while at the same time absorbing some of the long-wave radiation which tries to escape back to space. The net result is that more heat is received from the sun than is lost back to space, keeping the Earth's surface some 30 to 35 °C warmer than it would otherwise be.

Hackers target Xbox Live players

2009-02-23T00:26:00.000-08:00

Xbox Live is being targeted by malicious hackers selling services that kick players off the network.

The booting services are proving popular with players who want a way to get revenge on those who beat them in an Xbox Live game.

The attackers are employing data flooding tools that have been used against websites for many years.

Microsoft is "investigating" the use of the tools and said those caught using them would be banned from Xbox Live.

"There's been a definite increase in the amount of people talking about and distributing these things over the last three to four weeks," said Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Communications.

Attack tool

"The smart thing about these Xbox tools is that they do not attack the Xbox Live network itself," he said.

He said the tools work by exploiting the way that the Xbox Live network is set up. Game consoles connecting to the Xbox network send data via the net, and for that it needs an IP address.

Even better, said Mr Boyd, games played via Xbox Live are not hosted on private servers.

"Instead," he said, "a lot of games on Xbox Live are hosted by players."

If hackers can discover the IP address of whoever is hosting a game they can employ many of the attacks that have been used for years against websites, said Mr Boyd.

One of the most popular for the Xbox Live specialists is the Denial of Service attack which floods an IP address with vast amounts of data.

The flood of data is generated by a group of hijacked home computers, a botnet, that have fallen under the control of a malicious hacking group.

When turned against a website this flood of traffic can overwhelm it or make it unresponsive to legitimate visitors.

When turned against an Xbox owner, it can mean they cannot connect to the Live network and effectively throws them out of the game.

"They get your IP address, put it in the booter tool and they attempt to flood the port that uses Xbox traffic," said Mr Boyd. "Flooding that port prevents any traffic getting out."

Skill set

The hard part, he said, was discovering a particular gamer's IP address but many malicious hackers had honed the skills needed to find them.

Some interconnect their PC and Xbox and use packet sniffing software to hunt through the traffic flowing in and out of the console for IP addresses.

Others simply use con tricks to get the target to reveal their net address.

The technical knowledge needed to hunt down IP addresses was quite high, said Mr Boyd, but many of those who had the skills were selling their expertise to those keen to hit back at their rivals on the Xbox Live network.

For $20 (£13) some Xbox Live hackers will remotely access a customer's PC and set up the whole system so it can be run any time they need it.

Some offer low rates to add compromised machines to a botnet and increase the amount of data flooding a particular IP address.

Defending against the attack could be tricky, said Mr Boyd: "There's no real easy solution to this one."

Although IP addresses regularly change, people could find it takes hours or days for their ISP to move them on to a new one.

In response to the rise in attacks, Microsoft said: "We are investigating reports involving the use of malicious software tools that an attacker could use to try and disrupt an Xbox LIVE player's internet connection."

It added: "This problem is not related to the Xbox Live service, but to the player's internet connection. The attacker could also attempt [to] disrupt other internet activities, such as streaming video or web browsing, using the same tools.

In its statement Microsoft warned: "This malicious activity violates the Xbox Live Terms of Use, and will result in a ban from Xbox Live and other appropriate action.

It urged anyone falling victim to such an attack to contact their ISP to report it and get help fixing it.

In January 2009 Microsoft announced that Xbox Live had more than 17m members.

Charities demand child porn block

2009-02-23T00:23:00.000-08:00

Children's charities have expressed "serious concerns" many UK households still have access to images showing child sex abuse via their computers.

The government had asked all internet service providers (ISPs) to block illegal websites by the end of 2007.

But firms providing 5% of broadband connections have still failed to act.

One of them, Zen Internet, said in a statement: "We have not yet implemented the IWF's recommended system because we have concerns over its effectiveness."

It is understood other ISPs have cited the cost of blocking the illegal material as a reason not to participate in the scheme.

But the NSPCC's Zoe Hilton said: "Allowing this loophole helps feed the appalling trade in images featuring real children being seriously sexually assaulted."

The blocked websites come from a list supplied by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), but some smaller providers refuse to use the list.

Easy access

The Children's Charities Coalition on Internet Safety (CCCIS) says self-regulation is not working and it is calling for firmer action by the government.

Ms Hilton said: "Over 700,000 households in the UK can still get uninterrupted and easy access to illegal child abuse image sites.

"We now need decisive action from the government to ensure the ISPs that are still refusing to block this foul material are forced to fall into line.

"Self-regulation on this issue is obviously failing - and in a seriously damaging way for children."

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said: "In 2006 the government stated that they wished to see 100% of consumer broadband connections covered by blocking, which includes child pornography, by the end of 2007.

"Currently in the UK, 95% of consumer broadband connections are covered by blocking. The government is currently looking at ways to progress the final 5%.

Earth is Destined Towards Water Bankruptcy

2009-02-22T18:31:00.001-08:00

The acute droughts in Kenya, Argentina and the U.S. state of California are among the latest phenomena to illustrate that the global environment has been dangerously degraded. And participants in the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, heard that the planet could be destined towards "water bankruptcy".

It might surprise many to learn, then, that water issues are not directly included in the Kyoto protocol, the main international agreement on tackling climate change. Ensuring that this omission is not replicated in a follow-up accord scheduled to be finalised at talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, near the end of 2009, was one of the main topics addressed at a conference in Brussels Feb. 12 and 13. According to Maude Barlow, an adviser on water to the United Nations general assembly, the underlying assumptions made by many decision-makers have been misguided. Whereas they have tended to view water shortage as a consequence of climate change, the unsustainable exploitation of water is in fact "one of the major causes of climate change."

Pollution, the overstretching of rivers, and the mining of groundwater supplies are all contributing to this ecological and social calamity. So, too, is the way of life to which people in the wealthier parts of the world have become accustomed. Millions of roses sold in Europe to celebrate Valentine's Day this year have originated in Africa's Rift Valley. The habitat of the hippopotamus, an endangered species, its water supplies have been heavily drained by agri- business companies involved in the flower trade. While private entrepreneurs have profited handsomely from this situation, Africa contains some of the worst incidences of water-related diseases on earth. More children die from such diseases than the next three causes of death combined.

Data by the World Health Organisation suggests that 80 percent of infectious diseases in the world could be caused by dirty water. Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet president, said that the conventional model of economic development being followed in much of the world is in crisis. "The unsustainability of this model is reflected by the water problem," he added. "A recent report by the UN Development Programme said that at least 700 million people - until recently it was 1 billion - face a shortage of water. At the same time, demand for water is growing all the time."

During 2008 the UN's Human Rights Council decided to carry out a three- year investigation into how access to water relates to basic rights. About 1 billion people worldwide do not have access to an adequate supply of drinking water, and 2.5 billion are not guaranteed the amount of water they need for sanitation. Despite the underlying issues of justice, water has been increasingly viewed by policymakers as an economic good, rather than as a universal right over the past few decades. The bottled water industry, for example, registered global sales of 200 billion litres in plastic containers last year. Almost 90 percent of these bottles were dumped, rather than recycled.

"We need to re-commit to public water," said Barlow. "We must make it uncool to go around with a bottle of commercial water on our hips."

Next month, the key players in the private water industry will gather in Istanbul. Danielle Mitterrand, widow of the late French president François Mitterrand and a human rights campaigner in her own right, said that the 100 euro (129 dollars) per day admission fee for the event illustrated its elitist nature. "Managing water is not an industrial challenge," she said. "It is a democratic challenge." Luigi Infanti, a Catholic bishop in Chile, noted that a constitution introduced in his country in 1980 by the military dictator Augusto Pinochet promoted the privatisation of water. "Eighty percent of water was handed over to private hands," he said. "It was handed over for free and forever. In Chile, we have been fighting for years for human rights. We should fight with the same intensity for human rights relating to the environment." The European Union has been eager to promote privatisation in poor countries by negotiating free trade agreements with them. One such accord signed between the EU and the Caribbean region earlier this year, for example, is designed to give western firms the possibility of having a greater role in the provision of basic services. Oxfam is among the anti-poverty organisations to have expressed concern about how water could fall into private hands as a result. But Karl Falkenberg, director-general for environment in the European Commission and a former top-level EU trade negotiator, said: "We all agree that access to high quality water at a price affordable to all is important." A policy paper that his institution hopes to publish in late March will "begin to focus on the concrete actions necessary" to address global water issues, he added. Tony Allan, a scientist working in King's College in London, said that the world has enough water to meet the needs of its current population of 6 billion and the 9 billion to which it has been projected to rise by the middle of this century.

The problem, however, is that access to safe water is frequently tied to income. "Only poor people are short of water," he said. "Rich people can always access water for domestic uses, for their jobs and for their food.

Unfortunately!!! Most Wars Occur In Earth's Richest Biological Regions

2009-02-22T18:30:00.001-08:00

A new study published by in the journal Conservation Biology found that more than 80 percent of the world's major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth.

The study by leading international conservation scientists compared major conflict zones with the Earth's 34 biodiversity hotspots identified by Conservation International (CI). The hotspots are considered top conservation priorities because they contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, and are highly threatened.

Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and an author of the study, said, "This astounding conclusion – that the richest storehouses of life on Earth are also the regions of the most human conflict – tells us that these areas are essential for both biodiversity conservation and human well-being. Millions of the world's poorest people live in hotspots and depend on healthy ecosystems for their survival, so there is a moral obligation – as well as political and social responsibility - to protect these places and all the resources and services they provide."

The study found that more than 90 percent of major armed conflicts – defined as those resulting in more than 1,000 deaths – occurred in countries that contain one of the 34 biodiversity hotspots, while 81 percent took place within specific hotspots. A total of 23 hotspots experienced warfare over the half-century studied.

Examples of the nature-conflict connection include the Vietnam War, when poisonous Agent Orange destroyed forest cover and coastal mangroves, and timber harvesting that funded war chests in Liberia, Cambodia and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In those and countless other cases, the collateral damage of war harmed both the biological wealth of the region and the ability of people to live off of it.

In addition, war refugees must hunt, gather firewood or build encampments to survive, increasing the pressure on local resources. More weapons means increased hunting for bush meat and widespread poaching that can decimate wildlife populations – such as 95 percent of the hippopotamus slaughtered in DRC's Virunga National Park.

In total, the hotspots are home to a majority of the world's 1.2 billion poorest people who rely on the resources and services provided by natural ecosystems for their daily survival. Environmental concerns tend to recede or collapse in times of social disruption, and conservation activities often get suspended during active conflicts. At the same time, war provides occasional conservation opportunities, such as the creation of "Peace Parks" along contested borders.

The study concluded that international conservation groups – and indeed the broader international community – must develop and maintain programs in war-torn regions if they are to be effective in conserving global biodiversity and keeping ecosystems healthy. It also called for integrating conservation strategies and principles into military, reconstruction and humanitarian programs in the world's conflict zones.

Code-cracking and computers

2009-02-22T00:34:00.001-08:00

By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News

By the end of WWII, 11 Colossus machines were in use

Bletchley Park is best known for the work done on cracking the German codes and helping to bring World War II to a close far sooner than might have happened without those code breakers.

But many believe Bletchley should be celebrated not just for what it ended but also for what it started - namely the computer age.

The pioneering machines at Bletchley were created to help codebreakers cope with the enormous volume of enciphered material the Allies managed to intercept.

The machine that arguably had the greatest influence in those early days of computing was Colossus - a re-built version of which now resides in the National Museum of Computing which is also on the Bletchley site.

Men and machine

The Enigma machines were used by the field units of the German Army, Navy and Airforce. But the communications between Hitler and his generals were protected by different machines: The Lorenz SZ40 and SZ42.

The German High Command used the Lorenz machine because it was so much faster than the Enigma, making it much easier to send large amounts of text.

"For about 500 words Enigma was reasonable but for a whole report it was hopeless," said Jack Copeland, professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, director of the Turing Archive and a man with a passionate interest in the Bletchley Park computers.

Bletchley employed thousands of code breakers during wartime

The Allies first picked up the stream of enciphered traffic, dubbed Tunny, in 1940. The importance of the material it contained soon became apparent.

Like Enigma, the Lorenz machines enciphered text by mixing it with characters generated by a series of pinwheels.

"We broke wheel patterns for a whole year before Colossus came in," said Captain Jerry Roberts, one of the codebreakers who deciphered Tunny traffic at Bletchley.

"Because of the rapid expansion in the use of Tunny, our efforts were no longer enough and we had to have the machines in to do a better job."

The man who made Colossus was Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, who had instantly impressed Alan Turing when asked by the maverick mathematician to design a machine to help him in his war work.

But, said Capt Roberts, Flowers could not have built his machine without the astonishing work of Cambridge mathematician Bill Tutte.

"I remember seeing him staring into the middle distance and twiddling his pencil and I wondered if he was earning his corn," said Capt Roberts.

But it soon became apparent that he was.

"He figured out how the Lorenz machine worked without ever having seen one and he worked out the algorithm that broke the traffic on a day-to-day basis," said Capt Roberts.

"If there had not been Bill Tutte, there would not have been any need for Tommy Flowers," he said. "The computer would have happened later. Much later."

Valve trouble

Prof Copeland said Tommy Flowers faced scepticism from Bletchley Park staff and others that his idea for a high-speed computer employing thousands of valves would ever work.

Colossus kept valves lit to ensure they kept on working

"Flowers was very much swimming against the current as valves were only being used in small units," he said. "But the idea of using large numbers of valves reliably was Tommy Flowers' big thing. He'd experimented and knew how to control the parameters."

And work it did.

The close co-operation between the human translators and the machines meant that the Allies got a close look at the intimate thoughts of the German High Command.

Information gleaned from Tunny was passed to the Russians and was instrumental in helping it defeat the Germans at Kursk - widely seen as one of the turning points of WWII.

The greater legacy is the influence of Colossus on the origins of the computer age.

"Tommy Flowers was the key figure for everything that happened subsequently in British computers," said Prof Copeland.

After the war Bletchley veterans Alan Turing and Max Newman separately did more work on computers using the basic designs and plans seen in Colossus.

Turing worked on the Automatic Computing Engine for the British government and Newman helped to bring to life the Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine - widely acknowledged as the first stored program computer.

The work that went into Colossus also shaped the thinking of others such as Maurice Wilkes, Freddie Williams, Tom Kilburn and many others - essentially the whole cast of characters from whom early British computing arose.

Finding a fix for phone frustration

2009-02-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

By Dan Simmons
Reporter, BBC Click

Mobile phones may be great but few would claim that the gadgets have reached a state of perfection. Dan Simmons roamed the show floor at this year's Mobile World Congress to find solutions to many nagging problems.

The Barcelona conference is the highlight of the mobile industry calendar and is the place where phone makers show off their latest technologies.

APP POWER

The Snapdragon chipset by Qualcomm powers hi-res graphics

First on the list of common annoyances are underpowered smartphones that take too long to perform tasks or crash when more than two applications are open.

One potential answer could be Qualcomm's Snapdragon chipset which its makers claim is about 50% more powerful than those in current smartphones.

The first versions of the chipset run at 1Ghz and help to power hi-res graphics, new user interfaces, while running Windows Mobile.The Toshiba TG01 is the first handset to sport it.

Qualcomm is working on a version that runs at 1.5Ghz - which, it claims, will be broadly equivalent to the processors found in most netbooks.

Enrico Salvatori, vice president at Qualcomm, said the chipset's ability to support applications is what makes "the mobile internet user experience compelling".

"The Snapdragon is delivering high performance in terms of multimedia, video, high definition, encoding and decoding, and supporting of a camera", he said.

Qualcomm has also developed Mirasol screens that draw their inspiration from structures found in nature. The screens use tiny amounts of battery power and can be seen in bright daylight.

Reflective properties on the device's screen produce brighter images outdoors, according to Cheryl Goodman-Schwarzman from Qualcomm MEMS.

"Colour comes in to the display, and it reflects back out colour. The brighter the light, the clearer the display," she said.

TOUGH PHONE

The 810-F handset by i-mate survived being driven over by Dan

Putting your life in your handset is risky, especially if you kill it. But at the 2009 MWC, i-mate showed off a handset that can take much more punishment than most.

Named after a US military spec, the 810-F can be dropped from three metres (10 feet), works in temperatures ranging from sub-zero to 60 degrees Celsius, is dustproof, and water resistant.

Dan put its toughness to the test by driving over it in a car.

It stayed in one piece and even its touchscreen was still working.

If you prepared to splash out £600 on this handset when it comes out in April, then you too could impress your friends.

One of its useful features is that your data can be protected if you lose it.

"If this device is lost or stolen, you can log in at any place and set a lock, an alarm, and even wipe the data located on the phone at any time," said Michael Cavey, sales director at i-mate. "And if it is damaged we'll replace it."

BACKUP AND RESCUE

Dianne Canham said new tech means "over the air" back ups

What makes smashing or losing a mobile phone such a pain is the fact that few phone owners sync or back up their contacts, images and songs stored on the gadget.

Some mobile stores now use transfer devices that allow customers to walk away with their contacts and media on a USB stick, or to transfer everything when upgrading.

But increasingly, mobile apps are able to do "over the air" back ups of contacts, diaries, and data to remote storage servers.

"That means that when you leave the store, all of your mobile content is automatically backed up," said Dianne Canham from mobile synchronization firm CelleBrite.

"The user doesn't actually have to instigate anything like going on the internet, or download anything, as this happens automatically," she said.

LOSING SIGNAL

Femtocells devices create a mobile phone signal via broadband

If you have trouble receiving calls at home or in the office, there is now technology that gives you a mobile signal in places without one.

Femtocells are mini phone masts which can piggy back on your broadband connection to send the call to a mobile operator.

Steve Lightley from NEC Europe reckons they are coming to your home soon.

"They've been deployed in Japan and trials are ongoing in UK and Europe," he said.

To use them a mobile does not need to have wi-fi and it is expected that some home routers will have the technology built in later this year.

Help for poor to access banking

2009-02-20T20:06:00.000-08:00

Mobile phone banking has already taken off in some African nations

Bill Gates' charitable foundation has pledged $12.5m (£8.6m) to help the world's poor access banking services.

Working in conjunction with the mobile phone industry, the foundation aims to help provide a basic service that local banks are unable or unwilling to give.

It is thought that more than a billion people worldwide do not have a bank account but do have a mobile phone.

The foundation says that extending banking services to the world's poor is vital for economic progress.

There are commercial benefits for network operators, too.

Research by consultants McKinsey estimates that the mobile money market for people without a bank account could grow to $5bn over the next three years.

Rob Conway, chief executive of the mobile phone industry trade body, the GSMA, said the developing world was a growth area.

"This represents a huge opportunity and mobile operators are perfectly placed to bring mobile financial services to this largely untapped consumer base.

"We believe that mobile money for the unbanked has the potential to become a multi-billion market opportunity over the next three years."

Making the award, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said it saw mobile technology as a means to help people "manage life's risks and build financial security".

The foundation, set up by the founder of Microsoft, has earmarked money for 20 projects in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Some experts have cited the success of the M-Pesa system in Kenya, set up by Vodafone and local communications firm Safaricom.

There, a network of more than 7,000 agents - mostly shopkeepers - was set up to take deposits and issue cash, with users authorising payments on their mobile phone using a Pin code.

Five million M-Pesa account holders transferred more than $50m in January. The money can be sent to non members who get a text message asking them to contact their local M-Pesa agent.

Eden Zoller, an analyst at research group Ovum, says the M-Pesa model could be emulated elsewhere.

"There is already strong evidence that mobile payments in emerging markets can be successful for all parties concerned," said Ms Zoller.

Vodafone is in the process of rolling out its M-Pesa system in other countries, including Tanzania and Afghanistan.

Investing in the next 'big thing'

2009-02-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

YouNoodle wants to make backing start-ups less of a gamble

A San Francisco company has launched a tool to help investors decide where to put their money.

YouNoodle uses a scoring system that plans to turn the business of investment into more of a science.

The software measures the "buzz" surrounding a company via blogs and media reports along with a variety of factors including website traffic.

The scoring tool covers nearly 30,000 start-ups, ranging from biotechnology to gaming software.

"By watching the way the world responds to a start-up, we can give advance notice of what's hot and what's not," said co-founder Bob Goodson.

Researchers adjust the algorithm (the mathematical rating), based on more than 150,000 start-up related stories, every day. Those reports are then analysed in much the same way that Google ranks content on a web page.

Assessing the chatter on Twitter is one of the sources the score is based on

"While dollars are regarded as the best indicator of success, there are other good indicators out there before there is revenue," Mr Goodson told the BBC.

"Take something like Facebook, which is an example from Web 2.0. For two years there was rapid growth, rapid expansion, hiring, media coverage and so on without the revenue.

"So if you are in the business of needing to understand what's hot, then you need to know what is moving before the revenue numbers come through. For investors, getting in early is where the real money is made," explained Mr Goodson.

Early warning system

The algorithm behind the new scoring system was devised by New Zealander Dr Sean Gourley.

He has also worked on modelling the likelihood of terrorist attacks for the Pentagon and describes the start-up tool as "an early warning system" that highlights to people the potential of a company.

The public can check the health of a start up for free

"Maybe 20 years ago if you were a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, you knew everyone through your network and everyone came to you," said Dr Gourley, who is director of data tools.

"Today the world is a lot bigger and there is a lot of information out there. We wade through the noise and create value by making sense of it all and putting a spotlight on companies that could easily slip under the radar, because they don't come through the old boys' network."

While Dr Gourley talked of hoping to "create a meritocracy" for the start-up world, the reality is that venture capitalists have always relied on their trusted networks, personal referrals and their own gut instinct.

Ron Conway is a business "angel", who invests at an early stage of a company's life. Of the more than 500 start-ups he has put his money into, his successes include Google, PayPal, Digg and Ask Jeeves.

He is affectionately known as the Godfather of Silicon Valley for having placed more bets on internet start-ups than anyone else in the Valley.

He told the BBC he thought the scoring system "sounded like a useful tool that I think would be helpful to investors".

However he also said that for him, the personal connection was what counted.

"Most of my deal flow comes from the people in the more than 500 companies I have invested in. If the company is recommended to me by someone I have done business with in the past, then that will move it way up my list.

"For me, word of mouth and trust is even more important to me than a scoring system. But it might help as an add-on," said Mr Conway.

Best return

Investing in start-ups can seem like a risky way to make money given that there is no guarantee of a return and the belief is that most companies flame out within the first couple of years.

Mr Goodson said he believes this scoring system will take some of the gambling element out of the equation, as well as eventually boosting the $100bn (£71bn) being invested globally in the sector.

Bob Goodson believes the company will change the way start-ups are judged

"Everyone wants to see money go into places where it's going to yield the best return. That's good for entrepreneurs and its good for the economy and for investors and we believe our algorithms will make a difference.

"It's a disgrace that only $100bn is being invested in the most valuable companies on the planet - businesses tackling the big social and environmental problems, businesses that could one day be the next Google or Apple," said Mr Goodson.

Getting in on the ground floor of the next Google or Apple is what every investor dreams of doing.

Government agencies are no different. The United Kingdom's trade and investment arm spends hundreds of millions helping UK start-ups through its enterprise capital fund.

In England, that adds up to $315m (£225m) annually, which is matched by the private sector. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales operate their own separate funds.

For the past few weeks, the British Consulate in San Francisco has been using the YouNoodle score to help determine which businesses it should take a closer look at.

"With start-ups, you want to find companies that are going to be competitive, have longevity and something else that no-one else is offering," said David Slater, regional director for UK Trade & Investment in California.

"The perennial problem is how to spot those companies and what YouNoodle is providing is a potential tool to help people like us make those value judgements."

While some may be sceptical, Mr Goodson believes his firm could be something of a game changer down the road.

"What gets us up in the morning and working late at night is the idea we can make this industry more efficient, bring more resources into the industry and be part of finding the next big thing.

Facebook founder enters data row

2009-02-20T19:50:00.000-08:00

Mark Zuckerberg started the site to help students connect

The founder of Facebook has tried to dampen a growing row over the ownership of user data on the social network.

In a blog post Mark Zuckerberg stressed that users "own their information and control who they share it with".

Concern grew when amended terms of service for the site deleted a provision that said users could remove their content at any time.

Facebook, which has 175 million users, said the changes reflected how people used the site.

Comments will remain on the site if a user deletes their account

Mr Zuckerberg said the changes were made to ensure that if a user deletes his or her account any comments or messages he or she had left on a friend's Facebook page would not also disappear.

He said: "We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear."

He added: "In reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want."

Some Facebook users have created groups on the site to oppose the changes.

It is not clear just how much data, or what types of data, is retained on Facebook if a user decides to shut their account.

by: BBC News

Technology already exists to stabilize global warming

2009-02-15T19:50:00.000-08:00

News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Existing technologies could stop the escalation of global warming for 50 years and work on implementing them can begin immediately, according to an analysis by Princeton University scientists.

The scientists identified 15 technologies -- from wind, solar and nuclear energy to conservation techniques -- that are ripe for large-scale use and showed that each could solve a significant portion of the problem. Their analysis, published in the Aug. 13 issue of Science, indicates that many combinations of these 15 technologies could prevent global emissions of greenhouse gasses from rising for the next five decades.

The finding counters the common argument that a major new technology needs to be developed before greenhouse gasses can be controlled, said professors Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow, who conducted the study.

"It certainly explodes the idea that we need to do research for a long time before getting started," said Pacala, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and co-director with Socolow of Princeton's Carbon Mitigation Initiative.

"If we decide to act, we will need to reduce carbon emissions across the whole global economy," said Socolow, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "Fortunately, we have the tools to do this, especially if we think in terms of 50-year campaigns, not instant solutions."

Although the current study did not examine the costs of scaling up each of the 15 possible technologies, the authors point out that implementing the measures would likely generate economic benefits, including creating new industries, reducing the U.S. dependence on foreign oil and lessening the need for other pollution-control expenses associated with burning coal and other fossil fuels.

Carbon the culprit

The study focuses on the main contributor to greenhouse warming, carbon dioxide, which comes from burning carbon-based fossil fuels such as oil, natural gas and coal. Throughout Earth's history, changes in carbon dioxide levels have been linked to changes in climate. Current global emissions of carbon dioxide contain 7 billion tons of carbon per year. That amount is projected to double to 14 billion tons per year over the next 50 years as the world population increases and people consume more energy. To keep emissions stable, technologies and conservation efforts would have to prevent 7 billion tons worth of emissions per year by 2054.

Pacala and Socolow show how each of the 15 options they identified could prevent 1 billion tons a year worth of carbon emissions by 2054. To illustrate their idea, the researchers created a graph that divides the problem into seven 1 billion-ton-per-year "wedges." (See figures.) In their paper and 51 pages of supplementary online material, they identify opportunities and difficulties associated with each option and compare alternative combinations of seven "wedges."

Several of the options, for example, involve capturing carbon dioxide at power plants or other locations and storing it deep underground (carbon dioxide gas already is commonly injected into the Earth as part of some oil drilling operations). Others involve improving energy conservation faster than the modest improvements that are continually occurring. The researchers identify various renewable energy sources, including solar and wind, that could be scaled up faster than current projections. Changes in forestry and farming techniques also could lead to substantial reductions in carbon emissions.

Pacala and Socolow caution that scientists must continue researching alternative sources of energy because new measures will be required after 50 years. By that time, some of the 15 technologies will have reached their full potential and may not be able to keep up with increasing demand.

Case for action

Pacala and Socolow said that limiting carbon emissions to present-day levels for 50 years would put the world on a track to stabilize the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at about 500 parts per million. That would be roughly a doubling of the carbon dioxide content compared to the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million. If emissions are left unchecked, it would be difficult to stabilize below a tripling. The current concentration is about 375 parts per million.

The authors acknowledged that their analysis does not address the question of why it is necessary to act in the first place. “Ideally, scientists and economists would produce a rigorous analysis showing that the benefits of controlling greenhouse gases outweigh the risks of not doing so,” said Pacala. "But the rigorous analysis is not going to be possible until the warming is upon us -- or not, as the case may be," Pacala continued. "The alternative to acting now is to watch the experiment happen and then find out how accurate we were."

A strong case for action comes from three lines of evidence, said Pacala. First, investigations of the Earth's climate over the last million years show that various factors, such as changing carbon dioxide levels, tend to reinforce each other and cause the temperature "to switch all at once" as it has during previous ice ages, Pacala said. "We understand those feedback mechanisms somewhat, but not completely, and that is scary."

A second reason for concern comes from current observations of change, including warming temperatures and the melting of ancient ice in glaciers, said Pacala.

Lastly, the computer models that explain past climate behavior and predict future changes indicate that increasing the level of carbon dioxide will cause long-term warming. "The models are not perfect but they are based on sound principles," Pacala said.

"You put it all together and you say, 'This looks dangerous.' And then when you find that we already have the technology to deal with it, we say, 'Why not?'" Pacala said.

"We'll have to spend real money," Socolow said, "but addressing the global carbon problem now will provide a tremendous stimulus to the economy and will promote the development of needed international institutions, while averting the most serious environmental consequences."

Pacala and Socolow's research is part of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative, a project in the Princeton Environmental Institute funded by $20 million in grants from BP and Ford Motor Co. The researchers are continuing their work with more detailed analysis of the challenges and opportunities associated with the technologies they identified and with further studies of the magnitude and urgency of the carbon and climate problem.

Microsoft bounty for worm creator

2009-02-14T01:55:00.000-08:00

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Anyone with information is urged to contact the police

A reward of $250,000 (£172,000) has been offered by Microsoft to find who is behind the Downadup/Conficker virus.

Since it started circulating in October 2008 the Conficker worm has managed to infect millions of computers worldwide.

The software giant is offering the cash reward because it views the Conficker worm as a criminal attack.

"People who write this malware have to be held accountable," said George Stathakopulos, of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group.

He told BBC News the company was "not prepared to sit back and let this kind of activity go unchecked".

"Our message is very clear - whoever wrote this caused significant pain to our customers and we are sending a message that we will do everything we can to help with your arrest," said Mr Stathakopulos.

Arbor Networks said as many as 12 million computers could be affected globally by Conficker/Downadup since it began prowling the web looking for vulnerable machines to infect in October.

Malicious payload

The Conficker worm is a self-replicating program that takes advantage of networks or computers that have not kept up to date with Windows security patches.

It can infect machines via a net connection or by hiding on USB memory drives used to ferry data from one computer to another. Once in a computer it digs deep, setting up defences that make it hard to extract.

The worm can also spread via USB flash drives.

The worm slithers through networks by guessing usernames and passwords. Security specialists recommend hardening passwords by mixing in numbers, punctuation marks and capital letters.

The virus reports in to its creators for updates by visiting a web domain. It generates the name of the domain itself using a complicated code which security firms have cracked to track the growth of the worm and block its progress.

Malware such as Downadup can be triggered to steal data or turn control of infected computers over to malicious hackers which pool them into larger armies of so-called botnets.

These networks of compromised machines can be used to send spam, as dead drops for stolen or pirated data and to launch attacks on other machines.

Although Downadup is widespread its creators have yet to activate its payload to steal data or launch other attacks.

It has caused costly headaches for network administrators dealing with users locked out of their accounts when the worm correctly guesses a password.

While Microsoft says it does not know the intention of the worm's creator, it wants to ensure it does not wreak any more havoc.

Experts say users should have up-to-date anti-virus software and install Microsoft's MS08-067 patch - also known as KB958644.

Global response

Microsoft has also partnered with security companies, domain name providers, academia, internet companies such as AOL and others on a co-ordinated global response to the worm.

Millions of computers have been hit by Conficker

Also included is the US Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security.

"The best way to defeat potential botnets like Conficker/Downadup is by the security and Domain Name System communities working together," said Greg Rattray, chief internet security adviser at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann).

"Icann represents a community that's all about co-ordinating those kinds of efforts to keep the internet globally secure and stable."

Sasser worm

In 2003 Microsoft created its reward programme with $5m (£3.4m) in funding to help law enforcement agencies bring computer virus and worm authors to justice.

This reward for help in tracking the creators of Downadup is the first time in four years that the company has put up some cash in response to a worm outbreak.

Microsoft hopes its bounty has started the countdown to finding its creator

"We have not seen this type of worm or one of its class since 2004," said Mr Stathakopulos.

In 2005 Microsoft paid out $250,000 (£171,000) to two individuals who helped identify the creator of the notorious Sasser worm. The author was arrested and sentenced by the German authorities.

Rewards of $250,000 were offered over three other major computer worm threats known as Blaster, MyDoom and Sobig worms.

Those perpetrators have never been caught.

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Fresh start for lost file formats

2009-02-14T01:52:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk

The project aims to get at files held on older storage media

Long lost file formats could soon be resurrected by pan-European research.

The 4.02m euro (£3.58m) project aims to create a universal emulator that can open and play obsolete file formats.

Using the emulator, researchers hope to ensure that digital materials such as games, websites and multimedia documents and are not lost for good.

The emulator will also be regularly updated to ensure that formats that fall out of favour remain supported in the near and far future.

Called Keeping Emulation Environments Portable (Keep), the project aims to create software that can recognise, play and open all types of computer file from the 1970s onwards.

As well as basic text documents it will also let people load up and play old computer games that technology has left behind.

"People don't think twice about saving files digitally - from snapshots taken on a camera phone to national or regional archives," said Dr Janet Delve, a computer historian from the University of Portsmouth and one of the research partners on Keep.

"But every digital file risks being either lost by degrading or by the technology used to 'read' it disappearing altogether," she said.

Without work to preserve ways to access the formats that are common today, 21st century citizens risk leaving a "blank spot" in history, said Dr Delve.

Already the number of unreadable documents in archives is beginning to mount up.

Britain's National Archive estimates that it holds enough information to fill about 580,000 encyclopaedias in formats that are no longer widely available.

Research by the British Library estimates that the delay caused by accessing and preserving old digital files costs European businesses about £2.7bn a year.

"We are facing a massive threat of the loss of digital information. It's a very real and worrying problem," said Dr David Anderson, who will work with Dr Delve on the UK end of the project.

"Things that were created in the 1970s, 80s and 90s are vanishing fast and every year new technologies mean we face greater risk of losing material," he said.

Dr Anderson said emulation was more workable in the long term than the usual method of preserving old files which involves migrating information on to new formats with its attendant risks of data degradation and corruption.

Privacy groups slam new rules

2009-02-14T01:51:00.000-08:00

By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley

Privacy campaigners say the FTC's new principles change nothing

Privacy groups say widely-anticipated recommendations on how websites collect, save and share information about users don't protect the public.

The Federal Trade Commission's new policies focus on targeted advertising that tracks consumer behaviour online.

"The time for baby steps to protect online privacy is long passed, there need to be laws," said Jeff Chester of the Centre for Digital Democracy.

"Self-regulation simply hasn't worked," he said.

"The Commission is supposed to serve as the nation's leading consumer protection agency. But for too long it has buried its mandate in the 'digital' sand, as far as ensuring US consumer privacy is protected online.

"The FTC should have recommended that Congress enact legislation and give people control over what information is collected and how it is used," Mr Chester told the BBC.

"Day of reckoning"

For the last year the Commission has been looking at the issue of online marketing, which has grown into a $20bn (£13.6bn) a year industry by pitching adverts at consumers based on what websites they have visited.

In its 48-page Staff Report on Behavioural Advertising, the FTC expanded on the agency's guidelines for online marketers set out in 2007 and said it aimed to "encourage privacy protections while maintaining a competitive marketplace".

"Industry needs to do a better job" said Commissioner Leibowitz

The changes concern "transparency and consumer control, reasonable security and limited data retention, consumer consent for major changes to existing privacy policies and affirmative consumer consent for using sensitive data for behavioural advertising".

However two members of the FTC questioned whether the self-regulatory approach laid out in the new report will be effective.

"Industry needs to do a better job of meaningful, rigorous self-regulation or it will certainly invite legislation by Congress and a more regulatory approach by our Commission," Commissioner Jon Leibowitz wrote in a statement released with the report.

"A day of reckoning may be fast approaching," he warned.

"This staff report, while commendable, focuses too narrowly," said Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour.

"Threats to consumer privacy abound, both online and offline, and behavioural advertising represents just one aspect of a multifaceted privacy conundrum surrounding data collection and use," she said.

"Hands off"

The comments of both Commissioners were applauded by a series of privacy groups who all said the Commission had "dropped the ball" on the issue of protecting consumers.

"The FTC did a punt" on the question of sensitive information regarding health, finances or children claimed Pam Dixon the executive director of the World Privacy Forum.

Children and teenagers are seen as the most vulnerable group online

"Instead of specifically saying how this information should be treated, the FTC encouraged the industry, consumers and privacy advocates to develop more specific standards to address the issue.

"This area is very difficult and we were looking to the FTC to help set specific standards. The bottom line is that the FTC fell down on the job," said Ms Dixon.

On the FTC's issue of urging companies that provide online advertising to get users' consent before collecting general data, criticism came from Chris Hoofnagle the director of the Centre for Law and Technology at Berkeley University.

"The cumulative burden of having to opt out of every company using this approach means no consumer will. The opt out in this context is calculated to fail," he said.

"The report was a downer" when it comes to protecting children and teenagers online, said Corie Wright, a senior counsel with the Institute for Public Representation which filed comments to the FTC on behalf of children's advocacy groups.

"There are some populations, namely children and teenagers, that are so vulnerable that we should say 'hands off', don't target these groups. They are not sophisticated or cognitively able to make decisions in a meaningful way about their data.

"It's predatory to take their information and target them when they are not aware of what they are giving up," Ms Wright told BBC News.

The Commission, which awaits President Obama's appointment of a new chairman, was described by Mr Chester as "the last official act of the Bush administration".

"Growing industry"

In response to the FTC report, four of the major advertising trade organisations have agreed to step up efforts to maintain self-regulatory policies that were set over a year ago by the Federal Trade Commission.

Privacy groups worry about how much information people give away

The four bodies - the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the Association of National Advertisers, the Direct Marketing Association and the Interactive Advertising Bureau - have come together, they say, to "develop a cohesive and far-reaching self-regulatory effort for interactive advertising".

This is the first time the entire marketing and media industry has come together in such a way.

Meanwhile search giant Google said while it supports "federal consumer privacy legislation it backs the FTC in its latest recommendations".

"The FTC principles underscore that in a fast-evolving space like the Internet, a self-regulatory approach is the best way to protect consumers and promote innovation," said senior policy counsel Pablo Chavez.

http://news.bbc.co.uk

Australian Doctors Against Move Midwives to Function Without Supervision

2009-02-14T00:56:00.000-08:00

By:http://lifeofearth.org/

Australian doctors have attacked the federal government plans to give midwives the same responsibilities as doctors in natal care.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon has released a discussion paper on maternity services in Australia that calls for midwives to be given the same prescribing rights and access to Medicare rebates as doctors in antenatal and postnatal care. Consequent on the changes midwives will get a greater role in hospitals.

Australia’s 12,000 midwives now have limited ability to access Medicare and can only do so when their treatment is overseen by doctors.

The discussion paper was part of a comprehensive review of maternity services led by the Chief Nurse and Midwifery Officer, Rosemary Bryant.

The review covered issues including support for a greater role for midwives; opportunities for women to have more birth-care options, including home births; the shortage of maternity staff and services, particularly in rural and remote areas; and rising levels of post-natal depression.

The paper says that as there is no Medicare benefit payable to midwives for management of labour and delivery, there is only limited support for midwifery services through private health insurance.

In most cases, mothers choosing to have their babies outside hospital pay the full cost of midwife services, which is typically more than $1000.

A key issue was expanding the scope within both the public and private sectors for women “to achieve greater choice and increased continuity of care.

Hong Kong residents have twice footprint of China’s

2009-02-14T00:54:00.000-08:00

By:http://lifeofearth.org

Hong Kong residents are using nearly twice the resources of citizens of mainland China, according to an ecological footprint assessment by WWF Hong Kong and the Global Footprint Network (GFN).

Hong Kong’s ecological footprint per person is more than double the sustainable level, and the carbon component has increased approximately seven-fold since 1965 according to the first Ecological Footprint Report for Hong Kong, released late last year.

According to the report, Hong Kong residents require an area of land and sea greater than the size of 250 Hong Kongs to produce the natural resources it consumes, and to absorb the carbon dioxide it is responsible for emitting.

To reduce Hong Kong’s ecological deficit, WWF is urging Hong Kong to put the concept of “Low Carbon Economy” into real action immediately and develop a comprehensive energy strategy.

“Hong Kong is fortunate in having financial resources to transform into a truly modern city where we can live well on a modest ecological footprint,” said Dr Andy Cornish, Director of Conservation WWF Hong Kong.

“In doing so, Hong Kong can lead by example, providing a sustainability blueprint for other cities in China and around the world. However, our current ecological footprint is far beyond the sustainable level. Hong Kong needs to reduce our footprint by increasing efficiency and reducing consumption.”

Hong Kong covers its significant ecological deficit mostly by importing natural resources from other nations. As resource demand around the world continues to grow and resources become increasingly scarce, the report suggests that Hong Kong’s dependency on imported resources poses considerable risk.

“Although small geographically, Hong Kong not only has significant resource demands, but it also has an over-proportional influence on the world,” said Global Footprint Network Executive Director Mathis Wackernagel.

“In an era of increasingly limited resources, it will be in Hong Kong’s self-interest to take its ecological balance sheet seriously and limit its resource dependence if it wants to stay prosperous and competitive.”

The Hong Kong Ecological Footprint Report will be produced by WWF-Hong Kong every two years. “To move towards a more sustainable Hong Kong, we should reduce our footprint to a sustainable level,” said Dr Cornish.

“We already know where to start. The biggest contributor to Hong Kong’s footprint is the way in which we generate and use energy: carbon emissions make up 80 per cent of our overall footprint. Reducing carbon emissions is therefore essential to reducing Hong Kong’s overall ecological overshoot.”

Induction Hobs With New Technology

2009-02-14T00:36:00.002-08:00

By: Braeg Heneffe

BSH group is on a mission to increase the use of induction hobs cooking throughout Europe. To achieve this aim, the company needs to do two things: make its induction cooktops stand out from their radiant counterparts and entice consumers to absorb the increased cost of an emerging technology.

Ceran Cleartrans is a glass ceramic that offers industrial design options not possible with Schott's standard monochrome black or white glass ceramics. Cleartrans has a transparent glass ceramic hobs base decorated on both the top and underside. The topside pattern is made from colored glass ceramic, while the underside is coated with a homogenous metallic film. This metallic coating is a thin composite of noble metals, including gold and platinum. The film, combined with the colored glass-ceramic topside pattern, provides myriad design possibilities, enhancing the aesthetic appeal of the cooktop.

A further design advantage of the material is that it allows for sophisticated user interfaces. A black semitransparent display area enables the use of different display colors and opens the door for complex display and electronics possibilities in future applications.

For product innovation manager Lutz Klippe of Schott HomeTech, bringing this product to market was not without challenges. The greatest challenge, he says, was meeting high-temperature stability demand while maintaining aesthetic quality and mechanical integrity. The key to the product, Klippe says, is the noble-metal underside coating. It does not compromise the durability of the glass ceramic even at peak hob temperatures, which can reach 500Â° to 600Â°C. "We had to develop something that was very heat resistant, very stable, that wouldn't show any aging effects, even after long-time cooking applications. And on the other hand, the coating could not spoil the mechanical toughness of the glass-ceramic base material. This is not easy to achieve."

"The superiorÂity of induction hobs technology in terms of speed and efficiency is extremely high. And with Ceran Cleartrans we can now make this technology more visible."

Bosch, Siemens and Neff hobs have a full 2 year parts and labour warranty.

Learning About What Is Blue Ray Technology

2009-02-14T00:36:00.001-08:00

By: Michael Hehn

It seems like every couple of years there are new advances made and our technology springs forward. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with all of the incredibly fast paced advances made. Currently, blue ray technology has been brought into the mainstream and learning what this technology is can keep consumers up to date with the latest inventions in home entertainment.

Discovering What Is Blue Ray Technology

For many, home movies were originally played on the classic vcr tape. Then, the technology moved onto DVD players, and the look of the movies was sharper and of a much better quality. Now the next evolution has started with blue ray technology.

Finding out about what it is includes learning about the differences between this kind of technology and the current mass marketed DVD systems. This new kind of technology has been developing for years, since the mid 1990's when HDTV's were becoming more common for consumers to buy. A technology was needed that could record and play back the high definition recordings. Blue Ray technology was created to fill that void.

So what is so special with this technology and how is it different from the standard DVD? BR technology can store far more information that the traditional DVD, almost 5 times more storage is available on a blue ray disc. The blue ray discs use a blue ray laser to read the information where other DVD's use a red laser.

With a blue laser the wave length is shorter allowing for more storage to be used. This did cause some problems originally, as the discs were much easier to scratch. The case that held the disc had to be made more durable and was somewhat bulky. Advances in polymer coatings have advanced allowing for a better protective coating to be placed on the disc, alleviating the need for the bigger containers.

There are many companies that have a stake in the development of the next cutting edge technology and these companies are looking into both blue ray technology and a HD DVD. Some of the big companies are fighting over which technology should be used and this has caused a split in which companies support which format. Even companies that produce movies are split over which type of technology to use, which means depending on what movie a consumer wishes to purchase; they may need two different types of players.

Both the blue ray and the hddvd players are continuing to improve. In the end, consumers may discover that they enjoy both types of players and they both may be successful with consumers. Learning about what is this technology exactly can help a consumer get a good idea of basic information in regards to this new technology.

Other Professional, Scientific & Technical Services in the US

2009-02-14T00:35:00.001-08:00

By: Bharat Book Bureau

Industry Market Research Synopsis
This Industry Market Research report provides a detailed analysis of the All Other Professional, Scientific and Technical Services in the US industry, including key growth trends, statistics, forecasts, the competitive environment including market shares and the key issues facing the industry.
Industry Definition
This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in the provision of professional, scientific or technical services and includes estate assessment, meteorological services and quantity surveyors for building/construction.
Report Contents
The Key Statistics chapter provides the key indicators for the industry for at least the last three years. The statistics included are industry revenue, industry gross product, employment, establishments, exports, imports, domestic demand and total wages.
The Market Characteristics chapter covers the following: Market Size, Linkages, Demand Determinants, Domestic and International Markets, Basis of Competition and Life Cycle. The Market Size section gives the size of the domestic market as well as the size of the export market. The Linkages section lists the industry's major supplier and major customer industries. The Demand Determinants section lists the key factors which are likely to cause demand to rise or fall. The Domestic and International Markets section defines the market for the products and services of the industry. This section provides the size of the domestic market and the proportion accounted for by imports and exports and trends in the levels of imports and exports. The Basis of Competition section outlines the key types of competition between firms within the industry as well as highlighting competition from substitute products in alternative industries. The Life Cycle section provides an analysis of which stage of development the industry is at.
The Segmentation chapter covers the following: Products and Service Segmentation, Major Market Segments, Industry Concentration and Geographic Spread. The Products and Service Segmentation section details the key products and/or services provided by this industry, highlighting the most important where possible to demonstrate which have a more significant influence over industry results as a whole. The Major Market Segments section details the key client industries and/or groups as well as giving an indication as to which of these are the most important to the industry. The Industry Concentration section provides an indicator of how much industry revenue is accounted for by the top four players. The Geographic Spread section provides a guide to the regional share of industry revenue/gross product.
The Industry Conditions chapter covers the following: Barriers to Entry, Taxation, Industry Assistance, Regulation and Deregulation, Cost Structure, Capital and Labor Intensity, Technology and Systems, Industry Volatility and Globalization. The Barriers to Entry section outlines factors that can prevent a new company from entering this industry and also gives an indication of the extent to which this occurs. The Taxation section details all kinds of taxation that are specific or are particularly important to this industry, including taxation concessions. The Industry Assistance section refers to any government and/or other measures designed to improve the performance of this industry. The Regulation and Deregulation section details any applicable regulation and/or deregulation to this industry. The Cost Structure section details the average costs for a company operating in this industry as a percentage of total revenue. The Capital and Labor Intensity section provides a guide to the amount of capital used in production/providing a service compared to the amount of labor in the total mix of inputs. The Technology and Systems section acknowledges the latest technology and/or systems available to this industry within the country. Technology refers to machinery and equipment and systems refers to methods of production that enable better and more efficient production. The Industry Volatility section refers to the year on year fluctuations which occur in industry output. The Globalization section gives an indication of the extent to which the industry is global based on factors such as the level of foreign ownership, the proportion of demand accounted for by foreign operators and the volume of production conducted in other countries.
The Performance chapter provides an analysis of both the industry's Current Performance and Historical Performance. The Current Performance section provides the key analysis for the industry over the past five years with key performance indicators discussed. The Historical Performance section details previously important events in the development of the industry.
The Key Competitors chapter lists the major players in the industry as well as an analysis of each major player's activities in the industry. Market share information is included where possible.
The Key Factors chapter covers the industry's Key Sensitivities and Key Success Factors. The Key Sensitivities section outlines the key factors that are outside the control of an operator in the industry, but are likely to have significant impact on a business. The Key Success Factors section details the factors within the control of an industry operator and which should be followed in order to be successful in the industry. Often this will include behavior that will help to minimize the effects of the Key Sensitivities.
The Outlook chapter is a key analysis section of the report and outlines expectations for the key industry indicators over the next five year period, including forecasts.
For more information kindly visit: http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=69205

Future Technology - Smart Materials

2009-02-14T00:34:00.002-08:00

By: Ash Tankha

A family of materials with an ability to change few of its original properties by the application of any external stimuli, such as stress, temperature, moisture, pH, electric and magnetic fields are called Smart Materials. Some of the materials which include in this class of materials are piezoelectric materials, magneto-rheostatic materials, electro-rheostatic materials, thermo-responsive materials, pH-sensitive polymers, halochromic materials, electro chromic materials, thermo chromic materials and photo chromic materials. Smart materials are lifeless materials that assimilate different functions such as sensing, actuation, logic and control to adaptively react to alterations in their environment to which they are exposed, in a constructive and mostly recurring way.

To quote a few illustrative examples of smart materials undergoing change in their property due to effect of any external stimuli, we will consider piezo electric materials.Piezo electric materials are those materials which generate voltage due to the application of stress. The reverse effect of production of stress when voltage is applied across the piezo electric materials also holds good. Hence, we find extensive application of piezo electric materials as sensors in different environments. They are mainly used to measure fluid compositions, fluid density, fluid viscosity, or the force of an impact. An example from our day to day life would be an airbag sensor in cars, where the piezo electric material senses the force of an impact on the car and sends an electric charge, there by triggering airbag inflation.

Another example of piezo electric material would be electro-rheostatic and magneto-rheostatic materials, which undergo change in their viscosity. These are fluids which almost change to a solid substance from a thick fluid in a matter of a millisecond, when exposed to a magnetic or electric field. Electro-rheostatic fluids undergo viscosity change when exposed to an electric field whereas magneto-rheostatic fluids undergo similar changes when exposed to a magnetic field. Some common electro-rheostatic fluids are milk chocolate or cornstarch, while magneto-rheostatic fluids are minute iron particles suspended in oil.

Thermo-responsive materials such as shape memory alloys or shape memory polymers are smart materials which change their shape with change in temperature. Magnetic shape memory alloys experience shape due to considerable changes in magnetic field. pH-sensitive polymers enlarge or collapse when they experience change in pH of the surrounding medium. Halochromic materials change their color in response to change in acidity. One of the most common application of such materials would be in paints which undergo change in their color as an indication of corrosion of the material beneath them. Chromogenic systems change their color due to the effect of electrical, optical or thermal changes. Electro chromic materials change their color or opacity as a result of the application of voltage, thermo chromic materials change in color based on changes in temperature, and photo chromic materials change their color in response to a change in light. An application of electro chromic material would be in liquid crystal displays and an application of photo chromic materials would be in sunglasses which darken on exposure to bright sunlight.

Smart materials find a wide range of application areas due to their varied response to external stimuli. The different areas of application can be in our day to day life, aerospace, civil engineering applications and mechatronics to name a few. The scope of application of smart material includes solving engineering problems with unattainable efficiency and provides an opportunity for creation of new products that generate revenue. Sensual devices which can sense their environment and produce information to make use of in health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS) find applications in aerospace for the purpose of aircraft checking. An airline requires umpteen numbers of man power which conduct routine, ramp, intermediate and most important checks in order to check the health and usage of fleet. These checks involve quite a number of tasks that demands a lot of time. Hence, an aircraft constructed from a sensual structure has an advantage of self-checking its performance to a greater level than that of current data recording, and provide ground crews with improved health and usage monitoring. This would reduce the expenses associated with HUMS and thus such aircrafts could fly for more hours without human intervention.

These sensual structures also find application in the area of civil engineering. They are used to monitor the civil engineering structures to evaluate their durability. They are also used in food packaging to keep a check on safe storage and cooking. However, smart materials and structures are not restricted to sensing but they also adapt to their surrounding environment and such materials have an ability to move, vibrate and demonstrate various other responses, in addition to the sensual aspects. Few applications of such adaptive materials include the capability to control the aero elastic form of the aircraft wing to reduce the pull and improve operational efficiency, to control the vibration of satellites' lightweight structures, etc.

Best Technology Shopping Advice you Will Ever Read

2009-02-14T00:34:00.001-08:00

By: Victoria

Whether you are buying a new computers, digital cameras, TVs, DVD players, or mp3 players, there is important advice that you need for before purchasing any type of technology. You want to buy the best technology that will fit your lifestyle. Follow these 4 simple tips below before you make your next big technology purchase.

Buy Yesterday's Model Today
It may seem surprising to you to buy yesterday's model today. In fact, you should buy your computers and other electronics a few months after they were released. Reason being is the newest technology usually has the most bugs. The manufacturers wouldn't realize the types of bugs their products have until a month later when consumers tested and purchased their products. Then, the manufacturers will fix the bugs and release their products without bugs into the stores. This process usually takes a few months, which is why you should wait this time frame to purchase. Therefore, you can purchase computers and electronics devices without the bugs. Plus by buying a model that was released a few months ago, you may save money.

Buy the Popular Item
This may seem strange to choose a product because it's popular instead of how technologically advanced it is. Usually, the popular products have better software, customer service, and easy upgrades. Remember the game consol war in the 1990's with playstation one and sega saturn. Even though sega saturn had better graphics and gameplay, playstation one had better games. This is why playstation one won the consol war because the games were very popular, which made this consol popular as well. Before you buy, look at the popular product first. There may be a reason why it's so well loved.

Buy Extra Storage
Some technology products have a certain number of bytes that allow you to store information. It's important to overestimate the amount of storage that you will need since software takes up space and need left over space to run efficiently. Otherwise if you get too little storage space, your electronic or computer item will run slow.

Don't Buy Based on Price Alone
It is important to get the best deals out there, but don't buy something because it is cheap. Otherwise, it will break easily because it is cheaply made, or it will be obsolete to your lifestyle. Therefore, you should research via the internet and technology magazines to find technology products that are right for your lifestyle. Once you determine what you are looking for, you will know what you want; now, you can buy it at the cheapest price.

Buy.com has a guidester to help you decide what technology product is right for you. The guidester asks a few simple interactive questions and recommends products that will fit your needs, so you can focus on making the best buying decisions. If you choose to purchase the product, Buy.com has "the lowest prices on earth" guarantee, so you don't have to feel guilty paying too much for your purchase. In addition to their large selection of computers and electronics, Buy.com sells software, games, books, DVDs, toys, etc. You can save even more money with Buy.com coupons, Buy.com coupon codes, Buy.com promo codes, and Buy.com promotional codes by visiting the link below.

http://www.onlinestorecoupon.com/ShopbyStore/buy-com-coupon-codes.htm

Buy.com has a large selection of software, games, books, DVDs, toys, computers, and electronics at great prices. Shop at Buy.com for your electronics and recreational products needs.

Centracks Intouch Care Real Time Location System

2009-02-14T00:32:00.002-08:00

By: Freddic

Earlier this week GE Healthcare, in association with CenTrak, Inc. of Newton, PA, announced the launch of a new RFID technology capable of dividing a room or segmenting a bay by virtually creating radio frequency identification (RFID) walls. The system is capable of tracking people and equipment in complex indoor facilities as well as their outdoor periphery, automatically and accurately.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is an automatic method for identification that's based on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders.
How it works?

How it works?

Centrack's InTouch Careâ„¢ system, based on RFID technology has the capability to monitor the location of hospital staff, nurses, doctors, and patients with high accuracy (room-level or sub-room level).

In order to use the product for identification and tracking, RFID tags need to be worn by people or attached to assets viz. medical instruments. In case of InTouch system these tags are flexible and lightweight.

Further, each of the tag carries an identification number and as the tags are continuously monitored, associated with them can be known at any point of time. For instance, if a nurse took off the tag from some equipment, the information transmitted would be "Tag#702 just removed from its asset," or for a separate event it could be "Tag#3500 leaving room 1603," etc.

The interface that makes it possible to decipher these radio frequency events into human comprehensible form are softwares, or "middlewares" as they are called.

Additionally, the system entails a variety of monitors used to track the RFID Tags in hallways, large areas, rooms, and sub-room divisions.

To learn more about the newly launched system follow me through the link below.

Going Head To Head: Upconversion Vs. Blueray

2009-02-14T00:32:00.001-08:00

By: Michael Hehn

In the fast world of electronics and gadgets, upconversion vs. blueray is the latest controversial battle. These two powerful technologies have been very useful and remarkable in a lot of ways but belonging in the same category has placed them in a tight competitive situation. Will blueray finally replace upconversion or is it too sophisticated for the majority?

Upconversion Vs. Blueray Details

Blueray is an optical disc format originally developed by BDA or Blu-ray Disc Association which is a manufacturing group focusing on electronics, media and computers. The format was improved to allow recording, playback and rewriting of HD or high-definition video. Due to the use of blue-laser technology, storage capacity is significantly increased compared to conventional DVDs by up to five times more. There are single-layer discs that can store around 25 GB while a dual-layer disc can store twice as much.

Upconversion is an HD-DVD process which uses optical disc formats originally developed by Toshiba and NEC. Ironically, it also uses much of blue-laser technology to boost storage capacity. Upconversion vs. Blueray has posed a number of problems to consumers since supporting companies like Sony, Toshiba and NEC among others have chosen sides. The rivalry of the two next-generation formats pushes consumers to choose between the two. At present, there is still no universal format when it comes to ultimate HD experience.

Upconversion Vs. Blueray: Choosing Your Side

Here are some differences in the upconversion vs. Blueray battle. Blueray has a storage capacity of 25 GB on a single layer disc compared to upconversion's 15 GB. Blueray's dual-layer disc can hold up to 50 GB while upconversion can hold 30 GB. Both technologies use blue laser with a wavelength of 405 nm. Blueray has a numerical aperture or NA of 0.85 while upconversion has 0.65. Both discs measure 120 mm in diameter and are 1.2 mm thick. Protection layer is only 0.1 mm in blueray discs and has a hard coating compared to the thicker 0.6 mm in upconversion with no hard coating.

Data transfer speed for both devices are almost identical at around 36 Mbps but Blueray discs have an advantage in video and audio transfer at 54 Mbps. The two tie at the top in terms of video resolution at 1920x1080 (1080p). Maximum video bit rate is 40 Mbps for Blueray while upconversion is at 28 Mbps. Video codecs are similar for both supporting MPEG-2, MPEG4-AVC and SMPTE VC-1. As for audio codecs, both are also identical supporting Dolby and DTS Digital Surround. Upconversion vs. Blueray seems to be a race to the finish and the days of standard DVD will soon be over. People only need to determine which best suits their needs and is most convenient and practical.

The Electric Wheelchair Guide

2009-02-14T00:31:00.000-08:00

By: Omalley george

Electric wheelchairs play a helpful role is society. It allows people to easily get around who otherwise might not be able to without the help of the electric wheelchair. The electric wheelchair provides a normal, independent lifestyle to people who otherwise would be immobile.

Electric wheelchairs aren't just for people who are permanently immobile, however. Electric wheelchairs also help people who might be suffering from a temporary injury, and movement in certain places causes pain. Using the wheelchair the healing person can continue their day to day activities without a problem.

While the electric wheelchair offers wonderful mobility benefits, there are also other aspects that you should give attention to. The design of the electric wheelchair needs to be convenient and perfectly comfortable when you use it. Each wheelchair has its only different look and feel, so it's important to try out a few before selecting one.

There are quite a few different varieties of electric wheelchairs on the market to choose from, with the minimum price being around a thousand dollars or so.

The most commonly used electric wheelchair are rear wheel driven. This is the most powerful type of electric wheelchair. Front wheel powered wheelchairs aren't as powerful as rear, but they are much more flexible. The front wheel powered wheelchair is perfect if your home has a lot of tight turns that would be difficult to maneuver around. Both kinds of electric wheelchairs can typically be used inside or outside.

Some electric wheelchairs are very lightweight, which make them more suitable for transportation. Other wheelchairs are heavier and more durable. There are also many different kinds of specialty electric wheelchairs. For example, there are electric wheelchairs designed for taking outside and used on rough ground.

When you are selecting an electric wheelchair one thing remains certain, you have a lot of different options to choose from. It's import to assess your needs before making a final decision. You don't want to choose the wrong kind of electric wheelchair.

How to Save on Electricity

2009-02-14T00:30:00.000-08:00

By: Ngullen Rivera

It seems that every winter the cost of electricity goes up, this is true rather you live in the northern colder areas or the southern warmer areas. No matter where you live winter electricity rates kick in and you face higher than normal electric bills. This can really put a damper on your spending money, you may even find that you do not have the money for other bills as a result.

Therefore, what you really need to be doing is saving money on your electric. You may not believe it but some simple steps, which you may not have ever thought of before, can save you literally hundreds or even thousands of dollars. We will provide you with some electricity saving tips. For instance, did you know that just by using space heaters in specific room, instead of using your central heating system, you can save more than $1,000 each year in electricity?

With that being said, here are some great electricity saving tips that could help you dramatically reduce the amount you pay each year.

Take Care Of The Bigger Problems

There is no use in worrying about the little things such as using the microwave, it is more important to put your focus on the bigger items such as electric heating, dryers, water heaters, refrigerators, and your other big ticket items. Some extremely simple steps, which really do not cost you a great deal of money to start with, can save you a great deal of money on your electric bill.

For example, by eliminating the use of your dryer and using laundry racks or clothesline, which by the way may only cost you about $20, can save you more than $100 each year in electricity. Other simple things like using fluorescent light bulbs instead of regular ones can save you as much as $90 per year. Just making sure your computer is "sleeping" while not in use can save you almost $60 per year.

Believe it or not these seemingly small acts can save you big money. For instance, if you wash your clothing in cold water you may save as much as $150 a year, if you need warm water, you can save over $70 a year. Furthermore, if it is affordable, updating your older appliances can also save you money on electricity.

Getting a newer refrigerator can save money, as well as an energy efficient stove, washer, dryer, heating element, or water heater. Save money on electric this winter and enjoy the extra money in other areas of life.

Understanding Electric Motors and Their Uses

2009-02-14T00:29:00.000-08:00

By: David Urmann

The world of electric motors is quite fascinating. For many making and collecting various types of electric motors is a hobby and for others making them to power various devices is a profession. Whatever the approach is, but these devices offer innumerable possibilities for improvisation.

Working with them and understanding them is a rewarding and learning experience. Let us find out more about these in general. Usually, they can be classified into two main types. They are direct current or DC and alternating current or AC motors. DC or AC is very common terms and they refer to how the electrical current is transferred through and from the motor. Both types of motors have different utilities and uses.

DC motors are usually available in two general types. Alike, AC motors also come in two different types. They can be two phase or three phase AC motors. Although on technical front, the differences in DC and AC motors are sometimes marginal, but some of these differences make one types better than the other for a certain use.

In general, the DC electric motors work for conditions controlling the speed is essential. It is due to the factor that DC motors have a steady and constant current. DC motors are also the first and earliest motors used. But these good factors are also accompanied with some limitations; for instance, the DC electric motors are incapable of producing power over long period of time.

Most of the electric companies are aware of the limitation of the DC motor and have found that the power was lost as the electric current was transmitted. One of the variant, the Brush DC motors, uses certain rings that conduct the current and form the magnetic drive that runs the rotor. On the other hand, the brush-less DC electric motors bring forth a switch to generate the magnetic drive that powers the rotor. Direct current motors commonly used in most of the electric appliances in your home.

Now coming back to the AC motors we find that these kinds of motors are commonly used on the basis of their type. For instance, the single phase AC motors are used for general purpose. This type of motors will work efficiently in different conditions. AC motors are effective for systems that are hard to start because they need a lot of power for this purpose.

The three phase AC motors, also called polyphase, are commonly found in industrial sector. The AC motors have a high starting power built to transmit lower levels of overall power. As it alternated the power, so it gets its name AC. The amount of power specified by an AC motor is determined by the amount of power needed to operate the system.

Generally, the DC and AC motors are easily come across everywhere from the home to the car to industrial uses. The introduction of DC motors is still considered no less than a revolution and when AC motors were available in the market the way motors were looked at changed because of their amazing starting power potential. DC motors and AC motors are different in many ways, but they still both are used to power the world of electric appliances.

Wire Marker Advantages in Electrical Identification

2009-02-14T00:28:00.002-08:00

By: Amy Greenberg

Whether an electrical project is small or large, Wire markers come in a variety of sizes and may be printed on many different systems. Smaller devices are easily utilized on the field, while larger options handle high volume tasks.

Using a wire marker instead of writing with a pen or purchasing pre-printed generic labels offers clarity and durability for everyone involved in the project. Electricians, contractors, building inspectors, and architects can view a legible label that is not faded by heat or other factors.

No matter the scope of an electrical job, there is a wire marker to fit the bill. Modern wire marking products ensure the success and effectiveness of a project, satisfying the demands and expectations of contractor and client alike.

Basics Of Electricity

2009-02-14T00:28:00.001-08:00

By: Barney Garcia

Since generators (We are going to discussing about a whole lot of them!), are primarily used to generate electricity, it is imperative that we understand a few basics of electricity itself. It has been known that electrical sciences has had many students faint and the complicated wiring diagrams you must have seen sometimes would not have made you feel great about it. For the sake of simplicity let us obviate the jargon and handle it with a common man's language.

Electric currents are a result of microscopic elements called electrons (which are essentially a part of an atom, a basic element to all known matter) , flowing together from one end of a conductor - any material capable of allowing such electrons to flow, to another. You would typically know when this happens, while you hold on to a poorly insulated conductor, which results in shock. The reason why this happens is because the electrons flowing in that conductor have utilized your hand as a conductor too and started flowing through it and hence kicks in the importance of proper safety and insulation for the conductors.

Now coming to the flowing part, the electrons can only move from one end of the conductor to the other, only when there is enough potential for it to do so, something akin to water being able to flow from a point higher in space than the point where it ought to flow to. The amount of electrons which have been initiated to flow from one end of the conductor will determine what they can do, or much current can be produced at the other end of the conductor. The current flowing is measured in Amperages (Amps) and the potential generated between the two ends of the conductor is called Voltage, measured in Volts.

A large amount of voltage and current (Amperage) can kill you or knock you off, just as water rushing from a great height towards you could have. That aside, it is also important to know what the current coming out of the end of conductor has to do. The power that ought to be generated is measured in Wattages (Watt -hours). For example, a 100 watt bulb burning for an hour would consume 100 Watts power.

If you had to know how much electric power a device might end up using, we just have to calculate the Amperes times Voltage to get to the Wattage.

A little knowledge about electricity you must have gained now will help in understand how different generators produce the electric currents in different ways.

Personalized Email Summary to Mobile

2009-02-14T00:27:00.000-08:00

By: Amika Mobile

Amika Mobile products are unique in that they take any content, analyze and distil it to key words that provide the essential information or meaning contained in the original email or web page. The products leverage artificial intelligence algorithms to analyze and abstract the salient meaning from email and web-based information. This effective use of artificial intelligence provides a personalized email summary to your mobile device. It is our belief that “pushing” all email and web-based information onto the micro-screens of today’s cell phones is not the right approach to deal with the flood of information that burdens and overloads users. We have thus established a market niche for ourselves as no other company in the world has delivered an Email-to-SMS solution that first ranks how important an email or web page is before extracting key content to be delivered to a micro-screen on a mobile phone or Blackberry. As such, we unburden users and allow them to only get critical email alerts that provide them with the important message. This technology is independent of the device, messaging platform or carrier.

Personalized email summaries to mobile devices constitutes the cornerstone of our philosophy as the discussion concerning the myths of wireless email highlights below:
Myth #1 - Stuff your Inbox into Your Mobile Phone or PDA - this is a terrible idea! How can you possibly fit into 2 inch x 2 inch micro screens the hundreds of messages you get at your desktop. Why would you want all that spam to follow you around? It is better to only have critical email follow you while mobile. This is intelligent mobile messaging.
Myth #2 - You cannot possibly expect to get key points of your email without getting the full message! This is a good myth. Typical emails are 2-3 paragraphs or around 150 to 200 words long. Using AI (Artificial Intelligence) technology it is possible to pull out the key points of an email that are typically 15 to 20 words. These 15 words typically tell you what the message is about.
Myth #3 - You cannot secure wireless content including the key points in the email. This is definitely not true. Many companies provide encryption all the way to the device. Service providers even go further and allow the contents of mobile devices to be wiped out if lost or left behind in a taxi!
Myth #4 - Cell phones are not effective devices for wireless messaging. This is another great myth. There are now 2.5 Billion cell phones with people text messaging from them continuously. Cell phones are great communication devices and are great for receiving the key points of email providing users with a low cost alternative to the Blackberry or other expensive PDA. Email to SMS text messaging is a very credible alternative for most cell phone users.
Myth #5 - You can only get the key points of wireless email from select service providers. This is also untrue. A number of service providers including ones like www.amikamobile.net allow any user from anywhere in the world to have critical email alerts follow them to any mobile phone, PDA or even desktop.

Types Of Model Prototyping From Planes To Automobiles

2009-02-14T00:25:00.000-08:00

By: Low Jeremy

Rapid prototyping is an intensive process of collecting information on requirements and on the adequacy and functionality of fairly new product designs. Model prototyping is an important data resource during the different stages of product development. Model prototyping makes use of various kinds of rapid prototyping techniques to provide the right model types used for different testing procedures. Such techniques may require the use of requirements animation, incremental, and evolutionary prototyping.

1. Requirements Animation- is the method used mainly to demonstrate functionality in test cases that can be easily assessed by users. Software tools are used to produce representational prototype models that are built using animation packages as well as screen painters.

2. Incremental prototyping- enables the development of large prototype system models installed in phases in order to avoid delays between product specification and its final delivery into the consumer market. Once the customer and supplier have agreed on certain core features, the installation of a skeleton system is applied as soon as possible. Important requirements can be checked out as the model is being used, enabling changes to core features while in operation with extra and optional features can be added later.

3. Evolutionary prototyping- considered as the most integral form of prototyping. It acts as a compromise between production methods and with that of model prototyping. Employing this technique, a model prototype is initially constructed that is then evaluated as it evolves continually and becomes a highly improved end product. Many designers believe that more acceptable systems would result if evolutionary prototyping were interconnected with periods of requirements animation or rapid prototyping. Here the tools are the actual facilities resources where the final system will be implemented.

The use of different model prototyping techniques can help do away with the uncertainties about how well a final design may be able to fit into the end user's needs. The different model prototyping techniques help product designers make the necessary decisions by obtaining information from initial test users about the effective functionality of a certain product prototype.

Model prototyping can also be an effective aid in determining how effective and ideal the features and the overall design can be for proposed users. Model prototyping and the subsequent testing procedures can provide useful representation information that can reveal possible design flaws, effective features as well as useless functions that can either be corrected, enhanced or done away with on the next stages of product development.

Before a product is introduced to the public, the inventor has to draw up a plan and put it in paper. This is exactly what the Wright Brothers did when the first airplane was built and took off into the air.

More than a hundred years later, the airplane has evolved from being a propelled machine into one that is powered with jet engines. Today, there are planes that are used for private and commercial use but those that can travel more than four times the spend of sound are used for military purposes.

There were a lot of changes through the years that made this happen which occurred both in times of war and peace. In fact, the innovations made towards the end of the Second World War paved the way for the jet age.

This is done by reviewing the old equipment such as the V2 rockets and then reinventing it so that a plane can use the same principles in flight over greater distance and height. The aeronautical industry is not the only one that does this because other fields are doing the same thing, which is better known as prototyping.

Prototyping by definition simply means learning from things in the past such as an old design and improving on it. This will cost both time and money in order to perfect the system, which is the reason some car manufacturers only release, a new model every five years.

Some of the things designers and engineers will look at are flaws in the old model. This could be from customer complaints as well as reports from dealers in the field who received the owner's vehicle and needed a repair. The company may make recalls like what Ford has done over the past few years and the only way to prevent this from happening again is by correcting those mistakes.

When the people think that the errors have been corrected, it is time to test this by making one model and then seeing how well it performs through a racecourse. Sensors, cameras and the input of the test driver will be collected so this can be reviewed for analysis.

If everything goes well and the budget for the new model is reasonable, then the company can begin production. Marketing will just have to think about the name of the new car and the events to launch this, which will surely excite regular clients who have purchased a vehicle or two in the past.

How Reliable are Cell Phones

2009-02-14T00:24:00.000-08:00

By: Sharon Housley

Cellular phones and pagers are part of the 'now' generation, instant contact, anywhere at any time. People are looking for convenience, comfort and security. The question is how instantaneous and reliable is the contact?

Talking with someone is the main use for a cell phone, yet due to poor reception how often do calls not go through, or important calls 'dropped' due to flaky coverage? Let us not forget, that in a time of tragedy, lines were congested and the resounding 'all circuits busy' messages were heard from coast to coast. There is certainly room for improvement if you want to reach out and touch someone.

The alternative to voice communication is traditional text messaging, enjoyed by the young as SMS, a 'hip' communication method, and the older as the tried and true paging, a trustworthy means of communication. A carrier receives pages or text messages via a traditional dial up modem or Internet connection to their terminal, and then broadcasts the messages over their network to the appropriate wireless device. How instant is sending a text message? The answer might surprise you...it depends.

Traditional means of sending text messages is surprisingly reliable and fast. However, many cellular carriers, wishing to merge technologies while keeping costs down, have opted to utilize email technology to send text messages. Why not, an email is nothing more than a text message, using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). On the surface this sounds like a great idea, nearly everyone has email access, and the use of the Internet streamlines the sending of messages.

What is often overlooked, is the fact that email was not designed to be time sensitive. There can be significant delays and an instantaneous receipt can be lost when sending email to a pager or cell phone. Text messages sent via the email protocol SMTP could take a more scenic delivery route. While in many cases, receiving messages in a timely fashion is not critical; some industries require and benefit from the receipt of urgent messages. It is therefore important to realize and make a distinction between the protocols that are designed for instantaneous communication and those that are not.

If sending messages immediately to a cell phone or pager is required, more reliable protocols are available. When sending text messages, via a modem, the Telocator Alphanumeric Protocol (TAP) is extremely dependable, albeit slower due to the modem dialing. If sending messages with a high-speed Internet connection use the newer time sensitive Internet protocols: Simple Network Paging Protocol (SNPP) and Wireless Communication Transfer Protocol (WCTP). If your carrier supports these protocols they are the better options for sending important messages.

If carriers understand the 'now' generation is about speed and reliability, customer satisfaction will improve. Text messaging is a reliable and useful communication method, especially since voice is not always convenient or possible. With public awareness and urging, carriers will increase their offerings of text messaging protocols. Carriers should offer email or SMTP, but they must also support time sensitive protocols, regardless, of whether the protocols are older such as TAP or newer such as WCTP.

Resources -

Carriers supporting SNPP - http://www.notepage.net/snpp.htm

Carriers supporting WCTP - http://www.notepage.net/wctp.htm

Advances in Clean Room Technology

2009-02-14T00:23:00.000-08:00

By: James Walsh

What is a Clean Room?

A clean room is a highly sanitised and controlled room free of anti pollution and contaminants. The clean rooms are equipped with concise technology such as scanners, high-speed fans and air ducts. These rooms are constructed of sealed materials to prevent migration of contaminants including volatiles from adhesives and particulate matter. The rooms have high-end filtration systems. They are equipped with air management equipment for creating positive air pressure inside the chamber.

Clean rooms were established in the 1960s. They were developed for the fabrication of precision technology required in the aerospace industry. Clean rooms are now commonly employed for manufacturing or research. They are used in industries of semi-conductors, space satellites, sterile medical devices, nano-fabrication and bio-technology. They are also used in precision electronic industries producing silicon chips and computer hard drives and optics.

They were established, as objects manufactured in these industries are sensitive to microscopic contaminants. Even minute invisible dust particles including bacteria can corrupt a silicon chip. Similarly, contaminants inside a Petri dish can cause gene therapy to go wrong. Clean rooms are subject to specifications. This means that the level of sanitisation and room size is dependent on the industry need. A clean room can be large, small, modular or circular in size.

Clean Room Classifications

Clean rooms are classified according to airborne particle counts. Usually a class 100 clean room has around 750 particles per cubic foot measuring at an approximate rate of 0.2 per metre. Another guideline pertains to the technology used in the clean room. The equipment has to be of the highest technical precision standard. It should be sensitive to variations of temperature, heat and light. This is a way of monitoring the clean room environment. The technology fails to function if the room is contaminated even to a slight degree.

Clean Room & Data Recovery

Data Recovery clean rooms can be defined as environmentally controlled spaces that are free of contaminants of dust and bacteria. A clean room is a controlled environment of designated temperature and humidity. The room usually has moderate dry--cool temperatures with humidity levels of 45%. This is done to ensure that sensitive equipment is at no risk of contamination. The clean room is also referred to as the lab in the data recovery industry

These rooms are a necessary facility in the data recovery industry due to their close tolerance mechanisms. This means that the extreme sensitive nature of the hard drive interior cavity can only be opened in a anti-pollutant environment. There is a danger of corruption of the entire disk if the environment is contaminated. The drive has to be opened and scanned in a controlled environment. It has to be reassembled in a sanitised environment. The drive does not function if any pollutant enters the disk interior during the recovery procedure. ICs and hard drives are manufactured for internal servicing in the clean room. Thus, the concept of clean room technology forms the basis of data recovery.

It is equipped with high-performance air filters for controlling airborne particulate, contaminants and pollutants. This high efficiency particulate air i.e. HEPA filtering system helps in minimising generation of dust particles. The walls and ceilings of the room are made of plastic. External source of lightning and proper ventilation is ensured to permit clean and dust-free air to aid in the process of data recovery.

Basic Guidelines/Rules of Clean Room Technology

Contaminants from the environment outside the clean room should not be allowed into the controlled area.

The equipment used within the controlled environment must not generate or produce contaminants.

Accumulation of contaminants in the controlled environment should not be allowed.

Already existing contaminants must be quickly eliminated from the room. The elimination ought to be done to the fullest extent possible ensuring a sanitised environment.

Data Recovery Clean Room Standards

Clean room specifications are usually defined according to the particle diameter and number of particles per unit volume. The cleanliness class is described as a standard used for determining the level of cleanliness in the air of the controlled environment. This includes the establishment of the national clean room technology standard of 52 95 form in 1999. This standard figures out the airborne particulate cleanliness classes. There are six different classes used in data recovery:

Class 1-- ISO3

Class 100 -- ISO 5

Class 1,000 -- ISO 6

Class 10,000 -- ISO 7

Class 100,000 ISO 8

All About Digital Optical Cables

2009-02-14T00:22:00.000-08:00

By: Grant Foster

One of the best inventions ever made has to be the cable. DoesnÂ´t it seem like everything we frequently use like our television, computer, Ipod, cell phone, and stuff like that runs off of cables? Well the truth is, they all do. There are literally hundreds of cables in the world that all do multiple things. Some cables are more highly used then others, while some are more powerful than others as well. One cable in particular that is often used is called the digital optical cable. This cable is very handy because it can be used for different devices.

A digital optical cable can be used in the connection of digital home theaters, game consoles like the Playstastion 3, cd players and other quality hi-fi electronic equipment. For those who maybe having trouble understanding what I am saying, take for example your dvd player, you can use a digital optical cable to connect that to say your surround sound system. This particular is cable is very handy when it comes to enhancing your electronical experience.

The coolest part of this cable is that when using fiber optic technology, you can send data without electricity through a conductor. This cable sends light signals instead of electricity, therefore you can quickly transmit data faster than with the your traditional electricity. So when you using digital optical cables, you know that you are using the newest type of cable out there.

There are countless types of cables out on the open market today. They all do different things to make life easier on us civilians. One of the more popular and heavily used cables is the digital optical cable. If you think you need digital optical cables than do some research and look online to see where you can get your best deals. These cables are wonderful and they make your life more exciting.

Server Installation & Configuration By Experienced Professionals

2009-02-14T00:21:00.000-08:00

By: Andy Butler

A properly configured and sufficiently powerful server installation can facilitate collaborative working, efficient communications and informed decision making. It does these by providing:

Interfaces for discussions, document sharing and presentations

Communication tools like emails, instant messaging, voice and video conferencing

Access to a knowledge base of an organizations accumulating experience in running the business

Processing business transactions and keeping track of changes databases and email

A server installation can be a daunting task that must be done in a carefully planned manner. It involves both hardware and software know-how and familiarity.

What is a Server?

In the context of computing, a server is an application or computer that services client computers by accepting service requests and responding to them. Thus a Web server accepts requests for Web pages from numerous computers on the Internet and responds by retrieving and sending the requested pages.

In an organizational context, servers store applications and data that can be accessed by workstation computers connected to it. Practices like enterprise computing, where information generated anywhere can be accessed by any client workstation on the enterprise network, is made possible by the use of client-server computing.

Server computers run specific server applications such as file servers, Web servers and email servers. There are also appliance servers such as routers and print servers. There are several server applications in the market such as the traditional UNIX servers, Apache Web server, Linux-based servers, Microsoft IIS Server and so on. Each of these applications needs to be installed and configured in its own way.

Server computers are typically more powerful and reliable, using faster processors, more memory and disk storage, redundant power supplies and hard drives, modular design, and so on.

Server Installation

Server installation involves not only installing a compatible set of hardware components but also configuring the installation to meet the special requirements of the organization. It can be a local installation confined to a single premises or a global installation spanning offices all over the world.

The workload on the system also affects the configuration. One single computer can run all the server applications where the load on the servers is light. Where the workload is very heavy, a single server application might require several computers. The safest option is to use one server computer per server application.

There are several other issues that need be considered while configuring a server, such as security issues, the special features of the particular operating system, and so on.

Server installation is thus a task that requires specialized training with the particular server application and also considerable experience of likely problems that might arise with regard to disaster recovery and data recovery if the need should arise.

Conclusion

Servers are specialized applications that provide different kinds of services to the client computers connected to it. There are Web servers, file servers, email servers, etc looking at things from a functional viewpoint, and UNIX, Linux, Microsoft IIS, etc servers looking at specific products available in the market.

Server installation involves not only putting in place the hardware components of the network but also configuring the whole system to meet the requirements of the particular operating environment. It requires both specialized training in the particular operating system and a good deal of practical and technical experience in setting up networks.

Convert Web Video to Streaming Flash Videos (flv)

2009-02-14T00:19:00.000-08:00

By: Wondershare

WebVideo Author's newest innovative features include:
1.Create Flash Video (FLV)
The FLV format is an exciting new video format that takes the hassles out of preparing and presenting video for the web. With the Flash Video Format (FLV), your video reaches the widest audience possible, because everyone visiting your site can play it---without plug-ins, pop-up media players or complex explanations. One may upload the converted video movies to most popular video sharing websites directly.

2.Organizing and editing
With WebVideo Author, it's easy for users to take advantage of existing video files and make their own video file to meet their own demands. Cut the video clip to many chapters, add a title to each chapter and make an organized video. Even users can add the company logo and other info for it. This is the easiest way to create branding video presentation for their company or website.

3.Add different graphic effects to the video
WebVideo Author allows users to add 5 different effects (Gray, Black and White, White and Black, Negative, Emboss and Old Film) to their videos. They can apply only one to each clip of their video. If they are playing a video, view the effects instantly on the player pane. There effects give magic to their video and catch attention of the audience quickly.

4.Template-driven Video Presentation
WebVideo Author embeds the users' video in a highly customized template and creates a unique look and feel for their video. WebVideo Author allows them to design the player template by themselves. The playback control bar gives full control in the viewers' hand to pause, continue and replay the video. They can also easily and quickly browse and find any wanted video chapter in the Thumbnail Pane. Of course, users are able to add author info or company info in the template.
See the online demo by this link: http://www.sameshow.com/webvideo-author.html

5.Support LMS with SCORM/AICC compliance
Learning Management System (LMS) are web-based software application platforms used to plan, implement and assess learning processes related to online and offline training administration and performance management. With WebVideo Author, teachers are allowed to capture the video from the digital camera or webcam, and then edit the video courses without any professional guys' help. It's really very easy to design E-learning courses by themselves and upload to LMS.
WebVideo Author is a powerful video course and presentation tool that creates video courses with SCORM/AICC compliances. Thus the video content can be used on any LMS.

"With this software, I have created a great video with Title & Credits, which is readily for uploading to the most popular video sharing website, all processes can be finished within a few steps of operations!" John Smith said, a customer left this message after used the WebVideo Author.

About Wondershare Software

Since its foundation in 2003, Wondershare Software has always been advancing its undertaking of developing rapid E-learning authoring tools for enterprise, educational institute and organization. Wondershare's flagship software packages, including PPT2DVD, PPT2Flash and QuizCreator, enable users without any programming knowledge or technical skills to rapidly build inspiring video and flash demonstration for web publishing, online education, and business presentation. Visit:
http://www.sameshow.com
to unleash the power of high-impact presentation with Wondershare.

ASEAN-India Workshop

2009-02-05T01:36:00.000-08:00

ASEAN-India Workshop on R&D and Innovation Management on 12-13 January 2009 at Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, India

The ASEAN-India workshop was arranged under the initiative of the Sub-Committee on Science and Technology Infrastructure and Resources Development (SCIRD). The main objective was to develop cooperative network among ASEAN countries and India for the best practice in R&D and innovation.

There were about 20 representatives from 10 countries (Cambodia, Indonesia, LAO PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and India) attending the workshop. Currently there are two funds (ASEAN-India fund and ASEAN-India S&T fund) available for the activities arranged for the innovation and commercialization of R&D.

Two representatives from Thailand (Dr. Kitipong Promwong and Dr. Nataporn Chanvarasuth) joined the workshop to present country report entitled “The Science, Technology and Innovation Policy and Strategy” In addition to the policy & strategy, the biotechnology development in Thailand was presented along with the success cases of public & private partnership. The benefit from the workshop included not only knowing the information about S&T policies and strategies of other countries, but also learning some experiences from experts. There were several talks related to R&D and innovation management, entrepreneurship, and role of IPR & innovation commercialization.

The future plan is to identify the needs related to technology management of each country. The activities such as workshop and seminar will be arranged in the topics that most countries mention as priority needs. In the workshop, there were several ideas set from the previous SCIRD meeting. The examples include the following:
1. Human Resource Development on Innovation and R&D management: led by Philippines
2. Development of ASEAN-India S&T Innovation indicator: led by Thailand
3. Policy Studies in the area of IP management, Technology forecasting, Technology transfer, etc.

# # #

Thailand to host AsiaSense 2009

2009-02-05T01:35:00.000-08:00

Thailand to host the fourth international conference on sensors, AsiaSense 2009, from July 29-31, 2009 at the Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok. The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Thailand organizes the conference.

Given the confirmed high profile speakers participation, the conference is expected to attract renowned scientists and engineers working in the highly dynamic field of sensors research, development and application. One of the keynote speakers, Prof Dr Anthony P F Turner, indicated that biosensors are defined as analytical devices incorporating a biological material (e.g. tissue, microorganisms, organelles, cell receptors, enzymes, antibodies, nucleic acids, natural products), a biologically derived material (e.g. recombinant antibodies, engineered proteins, aptamers) or a biomimic (e.g. synthetic catalysts, combinatorial ligands, imprinted polymers) intimately associated with or integrated within a physicochemical transducer or transducing microsystem, which may be optical, electrochemical, thermometric, piezoelectric, magnetic or micromechanical.

Biosensors usually yield a digital electronic signal, which is proportional to the concentration of a specific analyte or group of analytes. While the signal may in principle be continuous, devices can be configured to yield single measurements to meet specific market requirements. Biosensors have been applied to a wide variety of analytical problems including in medicine, drug discovery, the environment, food, process industries, security and defense. The emerging field of bioelectronics seeks to exploit biology in conjunction with electronics in a wider context encompassing, for example, biological fuel cells and biomaterials for information processing, information storage, electronic components and actuators. A key aspect is the interface between biological materials and electronics.

For information on AsiaSense 2009, please log on: http://www.nstda.or.th/asiasense2009/

# # #

Source: http://www.biospectrumasia.com/content/220109THA8373.asp

Home-Grown Bulletproof Vests Cheaper

2009-02-05T01:34:00.000-08:00

Thai researchers have succeeded increasing body armour that is cheaper than the imported variety and lighter than the ones currently used by police and soldiers.

“The high-quality bulletproof vests cost around Bt30,000 each, about Bt10,000 to Bt20,000 cheaper than the imported ones. They weigh only 10 kilograms, 2kg lighter than the steel ones currently used by the police and soldiers,” Plilin Chuchottaworn, managing director of PTT Polymer Marketing, said yesterday during a press conference to launch the armour.

The body armour was designed in collaboration with researchers at Mahidol University’s Faculty of Science and the National Metal and Materials Technology Centre. PTT Polymer, a PTT Group company, provided financial support of Bt5.5 million and material-InnoPlus HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) – to produce the first 100 vests.

The bulletproof vests pass US National Institute of Justice Level III tests, which are able to protect against 7.62 mm, M16 and rifle bullets, The quality was tested by the quartermaster of the police force.

The armour has been designed specially to fit Thai bodies and consists of two main parts: alumina mosaic created by MTEC’s researchers which is used to stop bullets, and polymer composites created by the university’s Faculty of Science, used to dissipate the force of the blow against nearby muscle and bone.

Assoc. Professor Taweechai Amornsakchai, one of the researchers involved in making the equipment, said the vests could endure more humidity and sunlight than imported ones made from Kevlar.

“These will be offered to police and soldiers working in risky areas, particularly in the South. The officers there are facing a shortage of body armour. We expect to finish producing all the vests by August,”said Prasert Bunsumpun, president of PTT.

“We use materials produced in Thailand. This is our first generation. We’ll try to develop the next generation of bulletproof vests made from polymer which will be even lighter, weighing only six kilograms,”said Professor Skon Mongkosuk, the faculty’s dean.

# # #

Source: The Nation (30 January 2009)

Greenpeace hands out green grades

2009-01-09T19:21:00.001-08:00

Greenpeace hands out green grades to electronics makers (AFP)

LAS VEGAS (AFP) - Consumer electronics manufacturers are making greener products than a year ago but more progress needs to be made before they can claim a truly environmentally friendly product, Greenpeace said Friday.

In its second greener products survey, "Green Electronics: The Search Continues," the environmental activist group assessed the progress made by consumer electronic companies in greening their products over the past year.

The Greenpeace survey was released at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where manufacturers have been seeking to outdo one another this year in touting how green their products are.

The CES organizers have dedicated a special area in the convention hall to Greener Tech and among the products unveiled here was a mobile phone made of recycled plastic water bottles from Motorola.

For the survey, Greenpeace said 15 companies submitted 50 new products they considered their greenest for evaluation: mobile and smart phones, televisions, computer monitors, notebook and desktop computers, and game consoles.

The products were graded on use of hazardous chemicals, energy efficiency, innovation, promotion of environmental friendliness and lifecycle -- whether they can be recycled and upgraded.

"Progress is being made," said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "We're no longer having to cajole people about the need for green.

"These companies understand both what green is and the need for it," he said. "We're moving in the right direction."

The Greenpeace survey found that fewer products contain harmful PVC plastic and hazardous chemicals and more post-consumer recycled plastic is being used in televisions and monitors.

Electronics manufacturers are also taking back more used products and engaging in more recycling, Greenpeace said.

But the "race for the green winner is still on," Harrell said.

"We're on the hunt for a truly green product that is free from toxic chemicals and excels in energy efficiency and durability," he said.

"The electronics industry has taken encouraging strides towards increasing the green features on some gadgets over the past year but none stand out in all environmental categories."

Greenpeace said the Lenovo L2440x wide computer monitor scored highest in the monitor category with 6.9 points on a 10 point scale.

Other category leaders were the Sharp LC-52GX5 television (5.92), the Samsung F268 mobile phone (5.45), the Nokia 6210 Smart phone (5.2) the HP Elitebook 2530P laptop (5.48) and the Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Desktop (5.88).

Submitting products for the survey were Acer, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, RIM/Blackberry, Sharp, Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba.

Greenpeace said the following companies refused to take part: Apple, Asus, Microsoft, Nintendo, Palm and Philips.

Among the green initiatives announced at this year's CES was a joint program by Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba to recycle televisions and other gadgets they sell in the United States.

The global firms on January 15 will begin using an Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management network of 280 locations as collection centers for their products.

The network will have at least one recycling center in each US state and intends to expand to at least 800 drop-off points.

Skype Extends VoIP To Some Mobile Phones

2009-01-09T19:19:00.000-08:00

Skype Extends VoIP To Some Mobile Phones, MIDs (NewsFactor)

- Skype is offering its Voice over Internet Protocol service to Android and Java-enabled mobile phones, and to Intel-based Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). This is the first time the software has been released for mobile users in the U.S.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Skype announced Thursday the release of a light beta version of Skype for Android and Java-based phones. Java-enabled phones include those from LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Call Anywhere

The light version currently does not offer video calls. The capabilities include calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world, sending or receiving instant messages, and making low-rate calls to landline or mobile phones not on the Skype network. Users can also see when their Skype contacts are available online for chatting.

The MID version, also in beta, is for the new category of small consumer devices based on Intel's Atom processor and the Moblin-based Linux operating system. They offer four-to-seven-inch screens, an enhanced Internet experience, and, for some, WiMAX or 3G/4G connectivity.

While Skype on a PC uses an Internet connection, the company pointed out that the light version for mobile phones works where phones work, without needing a Wi-Fi connection. But users do need both calling and data plans from a wireless carrier.

This means the prospect for mobile phones to save on calls via Skype is more complicated than on computers. The company noted that, while the light version requires both air time and data usage, there are no charges for Skype-to-Skype calls or for instant messages to Skype friends. But national calling rates may apply.

'Tension' Between VoIP and Cell Plans

The Skype software is available worldwide, but the company noted that the ability to make Skype-to-Skype calls and low-cost calls to non-Skype landlines and mobile phones are presently only available in 10 countries -- the U.S., the UK, Poland, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo in Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Australia and New Zealand.

Michael Gartenberg, vice president for consumer strategy at Jupitermedia, pointed out that Skype on mobile devices doesn't necessarily mean carriers' voice plans are obsolete. He noted that it does, however, "illustrate the growing tension between VoIP and regular cell plans."

Gartenberg also said the mobile versions extend the Skype experience, eventually including video calls, that many users regularly have on their computers.

US shifts Visa Waiver Program

2009-01-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

US shifts Visa Waiver Program authorization to Internet

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Starting Monday, travelers from 35 countries must request authorization online to enter the United States, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said Friday.

The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) has been applicable since August 2008, but will become compulsory from January 12 for applicable European countries, Japan, South Korea, Brunei, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand.

These countries are currently exempt from visa requirements to enter the United States for short visits under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The new program will keep travel to the United States "visa free" for travelers from VWP countries, the DHS said.

Instead of travelers filling out paper I-94 visa waiver cards en route to the United States, the new measure requires online registration.

It is a "free service, the approval comes back very quickly ... it is almost immediate," said DHS spokeswoman Kathleen Kraninger.

Once approved, the waiver is valid for years, she added.

Travelers who fail to fill out the online form "might be delayed at the border," Kraninger said.

The new measure is among the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, which sought to promote laws tightening border security in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The DHS recommends that applications be submitted as soon as an applicant begins making travel plans. Upon authorization, travelers can enter the United States for 90 days for business or pleasure.

Instructions on how to obtain travel authorization are available on the website in 22 languages, including English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish.

SIPA,CAT,TOT JOIN FORCE TO MAKE

2009-01-09T19:09:00.000-08:00

SIPA, CAT, TOT JOIN FORCE TO MAKE “PHUKET ICT INNOVATION PARADISE PROJECT” THE WORLD’S ICT HUB

The Information and Communication Technology Ministry (ICT) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA), CAT Telecom Plc., and TOT Plc., the country’s three key ICT promotion organizations, for high-speed communications infrastructure construction to pave the way for the “ICT Innovation Paradise” Project. Following next will be a series of road shows to encourage leading IT firms to invest in research and development center here.

Dr. Mun Patanotai, Information and Communication Technology Minister, disclosed that the Phuket ICT Innovation Paradise Project is an initiative of the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Public Organization). The project is aimed to increase the country’s economic value through the development of software and technology. This initiative is a part of the ministry’s attempts to encourage all concerned agencies under its leadership to work together in utilizing the shared resources to their maximum potential. Under this policy, the ministry assigned TOT And CAT Telecom to accelerate their telecommunication infrastructure development plan and to work together to materialize this project.

“The Phuket ICT Innovation Paradise Project is a showcase of the close cooperation between all concerned organizations under ICT Ministry, like what we earlier held the TOT and CAT Super Board meeting,” said Dr. Mun. “The Ministry plays a liaison to help smooth all the work and enable the project to successfully take shape for the benefits of the country.”

In addition to IT infrastructure construction, the Ministry will work closely with SIPA in amending regulations and rules that do not support the project. At the same time, they will initiate new measures to enhance the project development as well as convincing the world’s leading IT companies to invest in this project.

Dr. Rungruang Limchoopatipa, SIPA’s President, said that the MOU between the three organizations under the ICT Ministry is the very first remarkable step of the Phuket ICT Innovation Paradise. The telecommunication and IT infrastructure construction will provide for an enhancing environment that promote research and development of IT and communications products. With good infrastructure, the project will attract more domestic and overseas investment in the country’s ICT industry, which will in the end promote Thailand-made ICT product development for export to the global market.

According to the MOU, SIPA, CAT Telecom and TOT will provide integrated ICT services for all target groups. The services are, for example, high quality and affordable Data Center, reliable high-speed Internet and stable international circuits. The three parties will also ensure that the sufficient services are in place to support rising demand in the future. SIPA will coordinate with various organizations to ensure that the project’s missions are achieved.

Mr. Phisal Jorphochaudom, President of CAT Telecom Plc., said that to enhance the Phuket ICT Innovation Paradise Project’s success the company has already have plans and projects. The company will ensure that the Gigabit WAN Network construction will be large enough to meet with the increasing demand in Phuket; and the Local Exchange Phuket Project can support individual users’ and Internet service providers’ demand for Internet service. The International Internet Gateway (IIG) in Hat Yai will also be built to support the entire Southern Region. He noted that the network that CAT Telecom developed will act as a multi-lane highway that can accommodate high traffic.

In 2008, CAT Telecom will commence its high-speed Internet service, 155 Mbps (STM1), to business operators and general public in Phuket’s Muang and Patong districts. The Internet speed for individual rental circuit will be as high as 1Gbps. The service coverage will be further expanded to other areas in the future.

CAT Telecom targets four groups of Internet users and provides different services that best address each group’s demand. For smallbusiness operators or government organizations, the service is provided through the “Fiber to Home” project. For people who are already cable TV subscribers, CAT Telecom will join hands with local cable TV service providers to offer broadband cable TV service. General consumers who wish to use high-speed Internet service can also subscribe to the Hinet by Cat service which will be expanded to cover 70% of the entire province in 2009. For tourists, CAT CDMA high-speed wireless Internet service based on the 20001XEVDO technology is available throughout the province via 35 CAT’s base stations.

Mr. Varut Suvakorn, Acting President of TOT Plc., added that TOT has already completed telecommunication infrastructure to support this project. Optical fiber cable network has already been completed by 90%. Telephone switching system and ADSL Internet system have been constructed in high-demand areas, such as in housing projects, industrial areas and shopping centers. TOT has increased TOT Hotspot public high-speed Internet service coverage in five-star hotels and Phuket Airport and will build the TOT Wi-Fi and TOT Wi-Max to meet with demand of investors and consumers in Phuket.

A key development plan is the construction of an optic fiber cable network, approximately 200 k.m. in length, around the island to support the development of Fiber to The Home (FTTH) project, a part of FTTx. The network will enable TOT to provide up to 30 Mbps Internet service speed to target customers. In the area where there is huge demand for telephone, TOT has offered the Next Generation Network technology (NGN). In the mean time, it has expanded the gateway and IDC construction in the Southern region to meet with business growth, high Internet service demand and international calls, increasing TOT’s capacity to handle higher traffic. All these projects are progressing well and will be fully available in 2009.

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For more information, please contact
• SIPA’s Public Relations Bureau
Tel.0 2554 0480-1, Fax. 0 2554 0401
Email: pr@sipa.or.th or click to www.sipa.or.th

• Public Relations and Corporate Communications Department, CAT Telecom Plc.
Tel.0-2104-3299 / Fax 0-2104-3100 / e-mail: pr@cattelecom.com

• Public Relations Department, TOT Plc.
Tel.0-2505-1212 / Fax 0-2574-9541 / e-mail: pr_totplc@tot.co.th

NSTDA committee sets future direction

2009-01-04T20:30:00.002-08:00

NSTDA committee sets future direction

Becoming a leading research-and-development organization on the world stage, The National Science and Technology Development Agency has set up the NSTDA International Advisory Committee (IAC) to advise the agency on its activities and direction while strengthening collaboration with other countries in science and technology development.

Set up five months ago, the committee earlier this month conducted a two-day annual meeting to review NSTDA's activities on the development of science and technology in Thailand.

NSTDA's assistant president Sirirurg Songsivilai, who is also the committee's secretary, said that after reviewing the agency's overall activities and visiting all research laboratories, the committee realized the importance of NSTDA as the country's R&D organization which brought science and technology to support industries.

The committee comprises 14 members who are senior executives from both public and private science and technology organizations, as well as renowned scientists in various fields around the world. The committee is headed by Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, the president of the National Institute of Advance Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) from Japan.

Other members include Calestous Juma, the director of Science, Technology and Globalization Project at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government; Johnsee Lee, the president of Industrial Technology Research Institute from Taiwan; Narayana Murthy, the chairman of Infosys Technologies from India; and Nobel Prize Laureate from Germany, Bert Sakmann.

Apart from publishing research work for practical use through the cluster model, Sirirurg said the committee suggested the agency should also develop a long-term science and technology foundation by conducting basic research as well.

"Conducting basic research will give the country a strong science and technology foundation to make more developments in the future," he said.

The committee agreed that the agency should conduct both basic and applied research in parallel and it should determine a proper proportion for the two kinds of research. For Thailand, Sirirurg said a suitable proportion for basic and applied research would be 30:70.

To make the country stronger in science and technology, the committee said the country should increase the number of scientists. The number of scientists in Thailand is still low at only 6.7 per 10,000 of population while other newly industrial countries like Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have 38.9, 57 and 60 scientists per 10,000 of population respectively.

Sirirurg said the committee also agreed on biotechnology, information and communication technology, material science and nanotechnology as areas that NSTDA had already put a focus on. They recommended that instead of putting a focus on developing each technology separately, the agency should create links among the four technologies when it comes to research and development.

Sirirurg said in this new era, the development would move to technology convergence so the agency should put more emphasis on combining different technologies to conduct new research and development work.

Once nanotechnology combines with electronics, for example, it would lead to a new area of nano-electronics which could be used in the automotive or medical industry, while the adoption of nanotechnology in biotechnology would bring discoveries of new active ingredients which could be used to develop new drugs.

The agency is now gathering all the comments from the committee so it can analyze the direction the agency should look to and these will be used to adjust the agency?s plan for science and technology development.

He said the committee members, who were all appointed by the NSTDA board, would have three-year terms and there would be annual meetings to review and give advice to NSTDA.

BIOTEC researcher awarded

2009-01-04T20:30:00.001-08:00

BIOTEC researcher awarded "The First Japan International Award for Young Agricultural Researchers"

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council (AFFRC) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan recently made an official announcement of "The First Japan International Award for Young Agricultural Researchers".

BIOTEC researcher, Dr. Chalermpol Kirdmanee is one of three recipients who receive this award for his acheivement in the development and extension on in vitro selection and mass propagation for the production of high quality transplant of medicinal, food and industrial crops.

Dr. Chalermpol Kirdmanee obtained Ph.D. (Supreme Award) Horticultural Engineering from Chiba University, under Monbusho Scholarship, Japan. He has worked at BIOTEC since 1995. His research expertise is on the development of salt-tolerant plants and trees. As an outstanding researcher, he received several awards such as Technology Transfer Award 2000 from the Ministry of Labor, National Top Five Innovation Award 2005 from the National Innovation Agency, and APEC Outstanding Innovation Award 2005 from the APEC-TIC, Taiwan. Recently, Dr. Chalermpol's collaborative project with Pimai Salt Co.,Ltd awarded EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) Monitoring Award 2006 from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for his project on turning salinity affected soil to be agricultural worthy for the three communities surrounding the mining site in Nakornrachasima Province. The project also focuses on selecting appropriate plants that are considered tolerant to soil salinity, including Thai fragrant rice. At present, Dr. Chalermpol is the manager of BIOTEC Plant Physiology & Biochemistry Laboratory as well as an invited lecturer at Silpakorn, Mahidol and Kasetsart universities.

Other two awardees are Prof. Jiang Zhengqiang from China Agricultural University and Dr. Jonathan Hosier Crouch from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) UK. The award ceremony will take place on September 12, 2007 at the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo.