Review: YSP-4000 delivers convincing surround sound

(CNET.com) -- If you're one of those people who don't want to "live with wires and boxes all over my living room," Yamaha's Digital Sound Projector series of single-speaker surround systems may be exactly what you're looking for.

Building on the success of earlier models, the company's 2007 lineup comes in three flavors: the YSP-900 ($900), the YSP-3000 ($1,200), and the subject of this review, the YSP-4000 ($1,800).

The top model is the first to offer 1080p/720p HDMI switching, analog video upscaling to HDMI, XM surround compatibility, and an FM tuner. The long, sleek YSP-4000 speaker has built-in power amplifiers, proprietary signal processing, plentiful connectivity, and uses 40 "beam" drivers to create a convincing illusion of multichannel sound. Just add a disc player and a TV and you're set.

The YSP-4000 is expensive, but it obviates the need to buy an AV receiver. The YSP-4000 delivered the best, most convincing surround sound we've ever heard from just one speaker. We only wish Yamaha invested more time in making the setup routine fully user-friendly: the surround calibration is a snap, but assigning inputs for multiple sources is likely to induce headaches for all but the most experienced users.

Design

A large perforated metal grille dominates the YSP-4000's front panel; the LED display relates volume level and processing status (there's also a volume control and input selector). We mostly used the remote control to handle those functions and execute the setup routines. It's not backlit, but we found the remote fairly easy to use in our dimly lit home theater. The speaker is 40.5 inches wide, 7.6 high, and 5.75 deep, and it weighs 34.6 pounds. It can be wall mounted with the optional SPM-K30 bracket ($80) or positioned on a shelf above or below your TV.

Yamaha's Digital Sound Projection Technology works by reflecting sound off walls, so bare walls work best, and objects in the room such as chairs, drapes, or furniture may have an adverse effect on the quality of the surround sound. Yamaha's IntelliBeam autosetup and calibration system couldn't be easier to use. Just bring up the onscreen menu (available over the HDMI connection), plug in the supplied microphone, and the completely automated procedure takes just a few minutes to complete.

Yamaha now offers two matching subwoofers for use with the YSP speakers--the YST-FSW150 ($280) and the YST-FSW050 ($200)--they're slim, rack-mountable designs. It's also worth mentioning that the YSP-4000 is available in either black or silver.

Features

The YSP-4000 is more than just a speaker -- it has built-in power amplifiers and the switching capabilities of an entry-level AV receiver. The speaker's 40 1.5-inch microdrivers project the front-left, front-right and surround channels' sound to reflect off your room's walls; the center channel's sound is projected directly from the YSP-4000 to the listening position. Yamaha's TruBass technology is said to enhance the two 4.25-inch woofers bass response (the microdrivers and woofers are each powered by their own digital amplifier). Total power is rated at 120 watts.

Surround processing modes include Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic II, DTS, DTS Neo:6, Neural Surround and Yamaha's proprietary Cinema DSP technology. The only thing missing is the latest Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD formats found on Blu-ray and HD DVD discs.

Most of the speaker's connectors are recessed into the rear panel: there are two sets of stereo analog inputs; two optical and two coaxial digital inputs (for surround sources); a dock terminal for Yamaha's YDS-10 iPod dock; an XM antenna jack for use with XM's Mini-Tuner Home Dock; and a subwoofer output. The two HDMI inputs (and one output) can handle video and audio. Video-only connectors include two sets of component-video and three composite-video inputs; and one set of component and composite-video outputs. Annoyingly, S-Video connections are completely absent. The RS-232C interface and IR input and output jacks are provided for use in custom installation systems. The front panel has a 3.5mm jack for handy connection with portable players.

We experienced some considerable headaches when setting up the YSP-4000 to use multiple AV sources (an Xbox 360, an Apple TV, a DirecTV DVR, and a Panasonic Blu-ray player). Assigning inputs becomes confusing when you move beyond the two HDMI or two component inputs--one each can assigned as "DVD," for instance.

Be prepared to invest some time and effort, along with possible limitations (one video input seemed to only match with a coaxial audio input, one with an optical, and so on). Likewise, we experienced problems getting the YSP-4000 to lock into our Dolby Digital surround signal, having the display recognize only "stereo" instead. Those with more than three or four sources might want to consider using an HDMI switcher or going with a traditional AV receiver, and using the YSP-4000 simply as the speaker system instead--or do so with one of the less-expensive stepdown models, the YSP-3000 or smaller YSP-800, instead.

On the brighter side, the YSP-4000 offers analog video upconversion to HDMI. That means that any of the composite or component inputs can be output via the single HDMI port, as well as upconverted to your choice of resolution -- 480p, 720p, or 1080i. As a result, you need only a single HDMI cable from the YSP-4000 to your HDTV.

Performance

We started our auditions with a Stephen King thriller, 1408, which some people have compared to The Shining. Well, we wouldn't go that far, but the movie's hyperactive haunted hotel room did show off the YSP-4000's ability to project creepy surround effects way out into the CNET listening room. During the scene where the hotel room turns bitterly cold, we could almost feel the crunch of John Cusack's shoes as he walked across the snowy floor. Later, when Cusack, in panicked desperation, crawls out of the room's window to escape, the traffic sounds of the city below were spatially believable. We noted that Cusack's voice sounded a bit too chesty at times, but we'd prefer that to an anemic or thin sound.

The YSP-4000 projects the left, right, and surround channels' sounds via user selectable modes: 5-Beam mode, 3-Beam mode, Stereo+3-Beam mode, Stereo mode, and My Beam mode, which allows users to focus the sound to a specific position in the room to avoid disturbing others. That might come in handy for late-night movie viewing, but we found the My Beam's sound to be rather nasal and thin. We mostly stuck with the 3-Beam and 5-Beam modes for all of our listening tests. The 5-Beam setting projected sound further into the room, but sometimes at the cost of coarsening sound quality; when that happened we switched back to 3-Beam.

The YSP-4000 stumbled when we played big special effect driven flicks like Mission: Impossible III. The explosions fell flat, the bass was rumbly, and the Yamaha couldn't play loud at all. We hooked up the Acoustic Research HT60 subwoofer to add extra muscle to the sound, and it helped a little, but we still felt the YSP-4000 lacked punch.

While listening to CDs in stereo, the YSP-4000 sounded small. Switching on the 3-Beam mode dramatically opened up the sound, spreading it out to the full width of the CNET listening room. The Perfume soundtrack orchestrated score demonstrated the YSP-4000 refined sound quality. The velvety smooth violins and the score's crisp percussive accents sounded on a par with some of the better $1,000 speaker packages we've heard. The 3-Beam spacious sound wasn't limited to just the listeners seated directly inline with the speaker, the wide-open sound was available for listeners on either side of the couch.

Yes, you could spend the same amount the YSP-4000 costs on a first-class AV receiver and 5.1-channel satellite/subwoofer package that doesn't need to "simulate" surround sound. That system would produce far better overall sound quality, greater dynamic punch, and more spacious surround effects. If the success of Yamaha's previous generations of YSP's means anything, we've learned that buyers will happily pay extra for the elegance of single-speaker surround. And the YSP-4000, despite its performance shortcomings, is the best there is.

Assistant Editor Jeff Bakalar contributed to this review.

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Plastic bags fly into environmental storm

LONDON, England (CNN) -- If you saw a plastic bag floating on the wind it might stir up dreamy thoughts of the much-parodied scene from the 1999 film American Beauty. But as the bag flutters, swoops and then wraps itself around your face, any sense of inner peace would be quickly shattered, leaving you with the more rational thought that billowing plastic bags are a depressing blight on our urban and rural landscapes.

Another plastic bag takes flight - one of the 1 trillion used throughout the world every year.

In recent months, environmental campaigners have been focusing their ire on the once guiltless plastic bag, publicly declaring it the nemesis of all that is green and good. It has also become a powerful symbol of how neglectful and profligate modern society has become.

Campaigns to rid the streets of the supermarket bag are thriving. Only this week in the UK all 33 London boroughs gave their backing to a Bill which seeks to make law a outright ban on free throwaway plastic bags.

The move comes after Modbury, a small town in Devon, UK gained much publicity when it banned plastic bags back in May 2007. Cities far and wide are beginning to implement a ban. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh banned plastic bags in 2002 and in March this year San Francisco followed suit. For the last five years, the Republic of Ireland has imposed a nationwide tax of 15 cents on all supermarket shopping bags and in 2008 the Australia government will start a similar program.

The plastic age

Plastics have only been around for about 150 years -- Alexander Parkes created the first man-made plastic in 1862. As they haven't been around that long no one can be sure how long they take to break down. But environmentalists, scientists and manufacturers generally agree that the process can take anything up to 1000 years.

Since their introduction to U.S. supermarkets in the late 1970's plastic bags have become a ubiquitous presence. They were a blessing for every shopkeeper in the world; being lighter, stronger and cheaper than the conventional paper bag. Their numbers spread rapidly and it is now estimated that the annual worldwide consumption of plastic bags is currently running at between 500 billion to one trillion.

The average plastic shopping bag is made from polyethylene -- a thermoplastic made from oil -- and rivals a cockroach for indestructibility.

They biodegrade very slowly. In fact, they photodegrade which means they over time break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers which eventually contaminate soils and waterways. As a consequence their microscopic particles can enter the food chain.

When plastic bags don't get dumped in landfill sites or incinerated, they often find their way into the sea via drains, rivers and sewage pipes. According to the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have been found floating north of the Arctic Circle near Spitzbergen, and as far south as the Falkland Islands.

The Center for Marine Conservation based in Washington D.C. recently completed a five year study into ocean debris. Their National Marine Debris Monitoring Program recorded that plastic bags accounted for over 10 percent of the debris washed up on the U.S. coastline.

The effect on wildlife can be catastrophic, with birds becoming terminally entangled and, according to a World Wildlife Fund report in 2005, they affect nearly 200 different species of sea life (including whales, dolphins, seals and turtles) which die after ingesting plastic bags which they mistake for food.

With the spotlight firmly fixed on environmental issues, supermarkets have been forced to reflect the concerns of their customers.

Bags made from recycled plastic are now commonplace, the 'bag for life' is a regular fixture at the check-out and shoppers are offered incentives to re-use their old bags.

Biodegradable cornstarch bags are also becoming more popular and the high street and the Internet are awash will 'eco-friendly' Hessian bags.

In April 2007, the limited edition, 'I'm NOT a plastic bag' bag, costing $10 was spotted dangling from the arms of Hollywood A-listers Keira Knightley and Scarlett Johansson. Designed by the 'queen of bagland' Anya Hindmarsh, the bags instantly sold out and it wasn't long before they were being snapped up on eBay for as much as $400. A strange world indeed.

Plastic fantastic

But not all plastic bags are evil apparently. New technologies developed by a UK-based company Symphony Environmental Technologies are, they say, making plastics far more eco-friendly.

The company manufacture a pro-degradant additive (called d2w) which, when added to polyethylene during production, transforms it into an oxo-biodegradable product. In most cases it takes these bags two years to break down, allowing even small fragments to be consumed by micro-organisms who are able to access the carbon and hydrogen.

Symphony Plastics have been supplying oxo-biodegradable plastic bags to Co-operative supermarkets in the UK for five years, and the UK's Periodical Publishers Association recommends that their members use their products.

CNN spoke to Chief Executive Michael Laurier who is frustrated by the current hysteria engulfing the debate about plastic bags. "The answer is not to ban plastic bags," he said. "When Ireland introduced a tax on plastics bags sales went down by 90 percent, but sales of plastic bin-liners went up by 400 percent."

Laurier also pointed out that cornstarch bags, far from being a worthy alternative to regular polyethylene, could in the long run be more harmful to the environment. "When starch bags are dumped in landfills they can go anaerobic producing methane [a powerful greenhouse gas]," he said.

The Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics Association also claim that some hydro-biodegradable [cornstarch] plastics contain up to 50 percent synthetic plastic derived from oil.

There is, however, a potentially bigger environmental cost in the producing bags from cornstarch or palm oil. A report published this month by Greenpeace called "Cooking the Climate" has highlighted that the growing demand for palm oil is "driving the wholesale destruction of peat lands and rainforests in Indonesia". The land is thought to be one of the most valuable stores of carbon in the world. Burning this land is simply releasing tons of Co 2 into the atmosphere.

It remains to be seen what will be ferrying our groceries home in the years to come. What is beyond doubt though is that we could all start using fewer bags.

Peter Robinson, Director of Waste Watch, an environmental charity based in London UK told CNN: "First and foremost we must reduce the number of plastic bags we use. We would encourage the use of durable carrier bags which can be used again and again."

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Graphics chips rev up research results

A better graphics card means PC games look more realistic

Every serious PC gamer knows what a difference a good graphics card can make to the fun they have.

But it is not just hardcore gamers who have recognised the worth of a PC graphics card.

Increasing numbers of research scientists have woken up to their potential too.

But the scientists in question are not using the cards to appreciate the detail in PC games such as The Witcher. Instead they are using them as cheap sources of supercomputer-class processing power.

"They give a phenomenal bang for the buck," said Mike Giles, professor of scientific computing at the University of Oxford.

Prof Giles said the way that graphics cards were built made them very good at the repetitive computational tasks many scientists use to test theories, models and predictions.

Spot checks

Professor Susan Hagness from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has turned to graphics cards to quickly analyse breast scans to spot cancer in its early stages.

Dr Hagness said official figures suggest x-rays missed 20% of the cancers that were present when a woman underwent screening.

Women want scan results as quickly as possible

Dr Hagness' team is using microwaves to scan tissue and then pumping the results through hardware made by Canadian firm Acceleware which bolts together several graphics cards into a mini computational cluster.

The dedicated hardware meant that results emerged in a matter of hours rather than days, said Dr Hagness.

This was essential when the technique began to be used in a clinical setting, she said.

"Any woman who undergoes screening mammography wants the results straight away."

Hardware helper

Prof Giles, who is using graphics processors to do financial modelling, said the chips were very good at doing the same thing many different times.

By contrast the Intel or AMD chips inside a typical desktop machine were good at doing many different things at the same time.

Graphics cards had far more processing cores - which execute program instructions - than Intel or AMD chips, said Prof Giles, adding that each one of the cores could do one run of the same simple task.

The financial models that Prof Giles is running test the same algorithm on each core but each one gets different random numbers as input.

With the latest graphics processors having more than 100 processing cores that can add up to a lot of number crunching.

Modelling financial markets helps firms weather stock movements

"Each core is logically very simple but its floating point capability is the same as an Intel chip," said Prof Giles.

Developments in methods of writing code to handle the processing was also making graphics processors much more attractive, he said.

"In the early days you could only use graphics cards for graphics," said Prof Giles.

In particular, he said, graphics card maker Nvidia had released software tools called Cuda (Compute Unified Device Architecture) that made it much easier to write code.

"For a while there were only hard-to-use shader languages," said Prof Giles, "Cuda is a much more usable development environment."

Flow control

By harnessing that processing power many scientists are getting results from simulations far faster than before.

PhD student Tobias Brandvik and Dr Graham Pullan in the Whittle Laboratory at the University of Cambridge engineering department had sped up simulations of turbine blade designs by 40 times by using a few graphics cards.

Each blade, said Dr Pullan, was custom designed for the jet or power plant in which they will be used.

Tiny improvements in efficiency have big rewards in turbine engines

But, he said, even with this formidable level of complexity the design process models the turbulent air rather than accurately representing or resolving it.

"With a cluster of graphical processing units, we could hope to use, say, 10 million cells," he said. The simulation run would take the same amount of time as existing models.

"Then, we would resolve some of the larger turbulent eddies," said Dr Pullan. "In general, the more we resolve and the less we model, the more accurate the theory."

An alternative would be to stick with 500,000 cells and try lots more blade designs or include blades upstream and downstream to get a better overall picture of air flowing through a turbine.

Tiny improvements in design can have a huge payoff, said Dr Pullan.

"It's all about making the absolute best efficiency possible," he said.

"Improvements of even 1% in fuel consumption, for jet engines, or 1% in electricity power generated, for steam or gas turbines for power generation, is highly sought after."Day in pictures Russian viewpoints Entente cordiale?

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Farming the wind efficiently

LONDON, England (CNN) -- A typical exchange about wind farms tends to go like this: 'Are you in favor of wind farms?' 'Yes, of course I am...so long as they're nowhere near my house'. Nevertheless, wind turbines are fast-becoming an important piece in the energy puzzle, contributing a growing percentage to our overall energy needs.

A figure from Anthony Gormley's art installation 'Another Place' stands in front of the turbines of the new Burbo Bank off-shore wind farm in the River Mersey, Liverpool, UK.

Wind power is currently the world's fastest growing energy technology. According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) onshore wind farms are on course to provide 5 percent (3000 megawatts) of the UK's energy requirements by 2010. The UK Government -- who are investing around £1 billion in wind farms -- has stated that it wants 10 percent of energy to come from renewable resources by the same date. And by 2020 Europe as a whole hopes to produce 20 percent of its energy through renewable sources.

But opposition to wind power comes from some unlikely sources. The Germans, who are the world's biggest producers of wind energy, remain skeptical about environmental targets.

A 2005 study by the German government's energy agency concluded that wind farms were an expensive and inefficient way of reducing greenhouse gases. And a report in last month's Guardian newspaper suggests that the UK Government are concerned about the practicality of the European Union's renewable energy targets too.

If charges of inefficiency weren't enough, there's the aesthetic to consider as well. Wind farms are ugly say detractors, as well as being noisy and disruptive to the bird population. And smaller wind turbines attached to the rooftops of suburbia don't fair much better, attracting sour-faced glances from disapproving neighbors in the same way satellite dishes did a few years ago.

But new designs which are coming onto the market may make these arguments redundant as engineers create ever more efficient and attractive models.

Viktor Jovanovic's Stormblade Turbine is a revolutionary new design of wind turbine. It looks more like a jet engine than a propeller and promises unparalleled levels of performance and efficiency. Its design allows it to operate in high winds -- unlike its propeller counterpart which is switched off at speeds above 60 mph -- allowing it to harvest the most profitable winds.

London-based Jovanovic was inspired by conversations he used to have with his father -- also an engineer and inventor -- when he was a boy. "It was only when my Dad died that I revisited the ideas we talked about," he told CNN. "And then I got thinking about wind turbines."

The Stormblade Turbine has been in development since 2001. Jovanovic explained to CNN how it works. "The internal aerodynamics creates a pressure stream, which is directed radially towards the center," he said. "This induces centrifugal reaction force in the airflow that causes the stream field to expand strongly downstream of the rotor. The higher mass flow and higher velocity reduction behind the rotor result in a higher energy output from the wind turbine."

Jovanovic is currently in negotiations with a large multi-national company and has plans to make smaller models, which he says could be used for individual households.

Vertically challenged

A Wyoming based company, Terra Moya Aqua (TMA) is taking a different approach to wind turbine design. It has designed a vertical axis wind energy turbine which they hope will become the most efficient model on the market. Easier to operate, quieter and free from ground resonance, the company believes their design has many advantages over propeller-style turbines.

"The turbine is far more robust than traditional models of turbine", TMA President Duane Rasmussen told CNN.

Unlike large propeller turbines, which require running repairs to their blades after only a few years, Rasmussen believes that the TMA turbine has the ability to run for decades without major maintenance work.

"Because the turbine looks like a building it also means the avian population is not in danger," Rasmussen said.

The turbines aren't a blot on the landscape either. As Rasmussen points out: "Some propeller turbines reach up to 500 feet [150 meters]. You can see that from a long way away!"

The project began 11 years ago when Rasmussen teamed up with the turbine's inventor and TMA Chairman, Ron Taylor. Over the past three years, Rasmussen has traveled the world promoting the design across the U.S., Europe and in Africa. With orders in the pipeline, Rasmussen hopes it won't be long before the turbine is providing more efficient energy for thousands of people.

Like Jovanovic, TMA are designing smaller devices capable of meeting the demands of individual customers.

Critics of wind farms often point out that wind power is unreliable. And it is currently true that power cannot be stored.

But Jovanovic believes the technology is improving. "Storing power in batteries and hybrid wind farm power supply plants are two possibilities," he told CNN. The hybrid solution transfers the power generated by a turbine to a hydro-electric power station where the energy can be stored for use at a later date.

Urban energy

Problems of storing energy are negated once turbines move into towns and cities, as power can flow directly to supply the surrounding area. A UK based company Quiet Revolution Ltd is currently inundated with orders for its new wind turbine.

Initially developed by XCO2 -- a London-based engineering design company -- the QR5 is a five meter high vertical axis wind turbine which utilizes a triple-helix formation. And unlike horizontal axis turbines the QR5 doesn't have to track round to catch the wind. Made from carbon fiber and epoxy resin it is also light, quiet and can, say the company, generate 10,000 kilowatt hours a year.

Already popping up on commercial buildings in towns and cities all over the UK -- the first was installed in South London in 2006 -- the company is now developing a smaller 2.5kw domestic version.

Earlier this year, Marks Barfield Architects unveiled a new wind turbine concept that they hope might resolve some of London's spiraling energy costs. Standing 40 meters high, the Y-shaped frame would house five vertical axis wind turbines. Each tower would would have the capacity to create 50,000 kWh each year.

The creation of a new generation of wind turbines is forcing critics to reassess their objections to wind power. It may end up playing more than just a bit part in the 21st century, as the calls to reduce Co 2 emissions become evermore urgent.

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Review: Iomega StorCenter reliable but frustrating

(CNET.com) -- The StorCenter Network Hard Drives are the latest version of Iomega's home-targeted network-attached storage drives. They are basic NAS drives that offer up many of the same features that the competition offers.

They come in three capacities: 500GB, 750GB, and 1TB. The 500GB and 750GB versions are single-drive models, while the 1TB version packs in two 500GB drives (the casing is a bit different on both versions).

The 1TB version costs $390, the 750GB version costs $360, and the 500GB version costs $270--all very reasonably priced.

We had some problems setting up the 1TB version we received for review. We used the included Discovery Tool Pro, which found the drive immediately. We were able to log in using an Internet browser to create new users, new share folders, and so on.

However, we ran into a wall when we wanted to map the shared folders to our test system. None of the user accounts we created was accepted, and the default admin account didn't work, either. When we turned to Iomega's Web site to find help and an update for the software, we found that it required us to register before we could download any updates.

Of all the NAS drives we tested, the Iomega Network Hard Drive took the most time and proved to be the most frustrating.

Once we got the drive up and running, it worked much like others we've tested. We were able to just drag and drop files from our testbed to the drive or use the included EMC Retrospect Express software to schedule automatic backups.

The 1TB version supports RAID 1 and RAID 0 configurations, as it has two drives. And all three models can serve up media to UPnP-compatible media adapters, as well as serve up printers and additional external hard drives.

In CNET Labs' tests, the 1TB drive managed to finish writing our 5GB test folder of mixed data in 19 minutes, 28 seconds. In the read test, it performed about the same, scoring 18 minutes, 47 seconds. Both numbers were average for the NAS drives we've tested.

Throughout the testing process, the drive worked very smoothly and quietly. It did generate a relatively significant amount of heat, so you don't want to put it in a closed area.

Overall, the Iomega StorCenter Network Hard Drive is a good, reliable NAS storage solution as long as you can install it. We'd like to see Iomega make the setup process simpler and more user-friendly.

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Environmentalists: Loggerhead turtles need more protection

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two environmental groups are asking the Interior Department to declare loggerhead sea turtles that inhabit the Atlantic coast officially endangered, maintaining that tens of thousands of the turtles are killed annually by commercial fishing and because of coastal development.

The loggerhead sea turtle can grow to as big as 3 feet in length and weigh 400 pounds.

The loggerhead sea turtle already is classified as "threatened" under the federal Endangered Species Act, but environmentalists say a higher level of protection is needed for the turtles that nest primarily along the southern Atlantic coast and to some extent off the Gulf coast of Florida.

Oceana, a sea life advocacy group, and the Center for Biological Diversity will file a petition with the Interior Department and National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on Thursday asking that the Western Atlantic Sea Turtle be declared a sub-specie and officially endangered.

The designation would provide the turtle and its habitat increased protection under the Endangered Species Act.

"Loggerhead sea turtles in the western Atlantic are in grave peril. ... Their numbers have plummeted to historic lows," says the petition, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press.

Elizabeth Griffin, a marine wildlife scientist at Oceana, said the biggest threat to the turtle comes from commercial and sport fishing as turtles often are caught in nets, fishing lines and other devices. The petition says turtles also are killed by ingesting refuse from plastic items to balloons.

Griffin said the turtles nest primarily along the Atlantic coast from Florida to the Carolinas but they migrate as far north as New England. It's uncertain how many turtles there are, but a recent government report said tens of thousands of them are killed every year when caught in fishery nets and lines.

Commercial fishing is the single greatest human threat to the turtles but they also have been harmed by coastal development, which has deprived them of beach habitat and disturbed their nesting, the petition says.

Among the disturbing trends cited by the environmental groups is that loggerhead nesting in South Florida has declined by 39.5 percent since 1998.

The loggerhead sea turtle can grow to as big as 3 feet in length and weigh 400 pounds and live 30 years or more. Its population has been in decline for decades. The turtle was declared "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act in 1978.

While its population has been declining, Griffin said the actual number of turtles along the Atlantic coast is unclear. "That's a huge problem," she said in an interview, adding that if the government doesn't know how many there are it can't set a number that it considers acceptable to be killed.

The environmental groups argue in their petition that climate change may put the loggerhead in yet more peril. If sea levels rise along coasts where there is development, beaches the turtles use for nesting may disappear and even a 1 degree temperature increase could significantly affect their reproduction, said Griffin.

"We need to ensure that there are robust and resilient populations of sea turtles that will be able to withstand the new and potentially deadly challenges of climate change," she said.

Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service both have jurisdiction over the Endangered Species Act. Action on the turtle involves both agencies.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Wal-Mart releases green report

BENTONVILLE, Arkansas (AP) -- Wal-Mart presented little new information in its first major report on efforts to become greener, but it was enough to encourage some environmental groups to say that the world's largest retailer is trying.

Wal-Mart wants to reduce its environmental impact because it saves money and produces better products.

The report released Thursday details dozens of sustainability programs ranging from environmental to economic development, employee health care and ethics in overseas factories where it buys goods.

Most have been disclosed previously, but the 64-page report is the first comprehensive catalog of dozens of programs -- from organic cotton clothes to low-energy freezer cases -- adopted since Chief Executive Lee Scott set three green goals in October 2005.

Those goals are to be supplied 100 percent by renewable energy, to create zero waste and to sell products that help sustain resources and the environment. Scott did not set any timelines, although there are deadlines for some of the steps along the way.

Scott said in a foreword that the report shows Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is making progress, but still has work to do.

"We make no claims of being a green company. And we're not saying we're better than other companies. But what we are saying is we're doing sustainability in a way that's real and right for Wal-Mart and is touching the lives of millions of people around the world," Scott wrote.

He reiterated Wal-Mart's stated theory of two years ago that reducing its environmental impact is a smart business move because it saves money and produces better products.

The Sierra Club's national press secretary, David Willett, called the report "a good first step" that shows Wal-Mart is trying to improve.

Willett said one example of the report's usefulness is a table that shows Wal-Mart's emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from its total global operations rose 8.6 percent in 2006 from the year before.

"I don't think anybody expected to see a reduction because they're just getting started. But it's valuable information that shows Wal-Mart where they have to make improvements," Willett said.

Environmental Defense, which works with large companies including Wal-Mart to help them design and implement green plans, welcomed the report.

"The company is moving in the right direction, and learning as it goes," the group said in a statement. Environmental Defense is the only green group to open an office, with two staff members, in Wal-Mart's headquarters town of Bentonville, Arkansas, to coordinate the effort.

Environmental Defense said, however, that Wal-Mart must provide more data and context in the sustainability report. For example, it said, the report lists new low-flow sinks that cut water use in some store bathrooms, but does not specify how many stores use the technology and what water use was before the installations.

"Our takeaway is that over the last two years, Wal-Mart has built the foundation for a robust environmental program with many innovative and potentially transformational projects," Environmental Defense said.

On the other side, a coalition of 23 environmental and human rights groups that issued a report earlier this year critical of Wal-Mart's efforts said it still believes Wal-Mart is simply too big and too reliant on global sourcing and shipping to be green.

"Our overall argument is that even if Wal-Mart achieved all of its stated goals, the company's business model is inherently unsustainable," said Sarah Anderson from the Institute for Policy Studies, one of the coalition groups along with union-backed WakeUpWalMart, Friends of the Earth and The Cornucopia Institute.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Net forum tackles cybercrime boom

Many fear the net will become a conduit for laundering money

While many at the UN Internet Governance Forum were debating how to get more people using the net, as many are worried about how to protect those who already use it.

"How many of us feel secure online every day? We're not safe at all but we can't live a day without the internet," asked Yoshinori Imai of Japanese broadcaster NHK opening the 'security' debate at the forum.

Security is one of five big themes discussed at the conference alongside critical net resources, access, diversity and openness

As one of the central topics at the conference the issue is seen as pressing whether security is taken to mean fraud, money laundering, hate speech, terrorism or crimes against children.

But some, such as Ralf Bendrath, a political scientist from the University of Bremen, warned against blaming the internet for what people do on it.

"Just because a crime appears on the internet doesn't mean it's an internet problem," he said.

But pointed out Marco Gercke, a lecturer in law at the University of Cologne, the net did have some unique aspects that deserved attention.

Said Prof Gercke: "The internet enables ways of distribution that do not exist in the real world.".

Fractured net

Forum delegate Alan Michael worried that the speed of change on the net and its global reach the net would outrun security controls.

Co-operation between governments is essential in the adoption of preventative steps without losing sight of each country, each culture, each nation

Implementing security policies that all nations will support and administer generated much discussion.

National laws, fractured police forces and an unwillingness to prosecute had all stymied efforts at co-ordination said delegates.

"95% of crimes committed on the internet in Brazil are provided for by legislation," said to Antonio Tavares, of Brazil's Internet Steering Committee.

"But," he added, "the problem is implementing the legislation."

Thiago Tavares of SaferNet Brasil said the fragmentation of police forces in Brazil was making this problem worse.

International co-operation was also vital, said Markus Kummer. "The borderless nature of the internet makes co-operation among law enforcement extremely difficult."

Cybercrime code

The conference did highlight the positive steps already taken on internet security.

Much mention was made of the Convention on Cybercrime created by the human rights oriented Council of Europe.

The net helps crime cross borders, say IGF delegates

"We need some framework that should be implemented that gives space for national adjustment but gives guidelines for countries to harmonize their laws," said Prof Gercke who also spoke on behalf of the Council of Europe.

He said: "The convention on cybercrime has been implemented in various different countries with different legal systems and it works."

"For example," he added, "Bulgaria was one of the hot spots for computer-related fraud and today the offenders are not operating from there because they realise they have the right instruments in place".

Also mentioned at the session was the protocol on xenophobia and racism committed through computer systems which came into force on 1 March, 2006.

Future gazing

For some, solving the problem of cybercrime was a matter of self-regulation and more end-user education.

Huang Chengqing, secretary general of the Internet Society of China, said: "Security is a kind of balance." He added that there was a need for prevention to stop people causing problems as much as for remedies for when bad things happen.

More needs to be done to protect children who go online

"There must be a huge effort in education; it is not enough to provide schools with computers and broadband often children and adults know more than their parents" said Antonio Tavares from Brazil.

Protecting children was a priority, said Mr Tavares.

"All of us must be aware to take care of our children," he said. "There needs to be co-operation among cultures, languages local authorities and governments."

"Co-operation between governments is essential in the adoption of preventative steps without losing sight of each country, each culture, each nation," he said.Day in pictures Russian viewpoints It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Colossus loses code-cracking race

A closer look at the Colossus computer

An amateur cryptographer has beaten Colossus in a code-cracking challenge set up to mark the end of a project to rebuild the pioneering computer.

The competition saw Colossus return to code-cracking duties for the first time in more than 60 years.

Radio problems meant delays in getting Colossus deciphering three messages that were transmitted from Germany.

But before it got going Bonn-based amateur Joachim Schuth revealed he had managed to read one of the messages.

"He has written a suite of software specifically for the challenge," said Andy Clark, one of the founders of the Trust for the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park where Colossus is sited.

News of Mr Schuth's success reached Bletchley Park on Thursday night, said Mr Clark.

However, radio reception problems throughout the day on Thursday meant that the British code-cracking team did not get a full copy of the enciphered messages until 1700 GMT.

"For that all credit must go to Milton Keynes Amateur Radio Society," said Mr Clark. "They worked tirelessly yesterday."

A copy of the ciphertext in the messages was loaded onto the re-built Colossus at 0855 GMT on Friday morning, said Mr Clark.

"The wheels are spinning right now," said Mr Clark, adding that the team hopes to have the message cracked by midday on Friday.

At the same time as Colossus is cranking through the messages a separate team will use modern PC technology to read the scrambled messages.

Colossus is widely recognised as being one of the first recognisably modern computers in that it could be programmed. It was the size of a small lorry and used more than 2,000 valves.

Tony Sale led the 14-year Colossus re-build project and it took so long because all 10 Colossus machines were broken up after the war in a bid to keep their workings secret. When he started the re-build all Mr Sale had to work with were a few photographs of the machine.

In its heyday Colossus could break messages in a matter of hours and, said Mr Sale, proved its worth time and time again by revealing the details of Germany's battle plans.

"It was extremely important in the build up to D-Day," said Mr Sale. "It revealed troop movements, the state of supplies, state of ammunition, numbers of dead soldiers - vitally important information for the whole of the second part of the war."

The Cipher Challenge is also being used to mark the start of a major fund-raising drive for the fledgling National Museum of Computing. The museum will be based at Bletchley and Colossus will form the centre-piece of its exhibits.

Colossus has a place in the history of computing not just because of the techniques used in its construction.

Many of those that helped build it, in particular Tommy Flowers, went on to do work that directly led to the computers in use today.

The museum said it needed to raise about 6m to safeguard the future of the historic computers it has collected.In pictures Detroit Blues It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Pushing the PC gaming boundaries

The PC remains a big player in the games market but in recent years its cutting edge has been blunted.

The vast majority of games are still played on PCs rather than consoles; typically casual games played on cheap desktop machines or online games, such as World of Warcraft.

The industry is currently experiencing a renaissance in innovation as the trinity of new hardware, developer ambition and tools come together to improve experiences.

The introduction of chip technology with four cores, effectively quadrupling processing power, graphics cards using DirectX 10 tools and developers keen to push powerful machines to the limit are resulting in games which set new graphical benchmarks.

In some cases these machines are desktop behemoths; near supercomputers in a box that are delivering game experiences beyond the wildest dreams of console owners.

The latest games, like Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3, are taking advantage of quad core processors, and twin graphics cards. These are the play things of hotrod PC gamers - the enthusiasts who see their machines as customisable dragsters delivering the pinnacle of performance.

High end games PCs are important to the professional players

"PC gamers see themselves as the elite gamers," said Michael O'Dell, who runs the professional gaming group Team Dignitas and manages Birmingham Salvo, a team in the Championship Gaming Series.

"High end games PCs are important to the professional players and hard core because the extra processing power can make that millisecond of difference between success and failure, and whether you win prize money or not."

For the hardcore the extra grunt of the most powerful desktops improve the FPS (frames per second) in FPS (First Person Shooter) games.

"My gamers are always moaning about their FPS (frames per second). They always want more and some of the newest games are very demanding on the hardware."

For these gamers, whose reaction times put them in the superhuman category, more frames per second means a smoother experience.

So how much more powerful are these high-end PCs than the latest generation of consoles?

"It's absolute nonsense to think that consoles are at the cutting edge," said Roy Taylor, vice president of content relations at Nvidia, the world's biggest manufacturer of graphics cards.

"As good as consoles are, they are so far behind the PC gaming experience that there is no comparison.

Unreal Tournament 3 will help hardware sales

"In terms of raw processing power, the high-end PCs are at least three times more powerful."

Nvidia provides the graphics grunt for the PlayStation 3, while rival ATI provides the imaging hardware for the Xbox 360.

Mr Taylor points out that the latest graphics cards can draw twice as many pixels, twice the screen resolution, as a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

The latest games are employing DirectX 10 tools developed by Microsoft, which are used by developers to get the best out of the high-end and middle-range graphics cards.

Mr Taylor said the new tools and the new hardware had given developers a library of effects to play with.

Nvidia's latest high-end graphics cards, the 8800 series, can easily produce graphical effects that tax the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, such as motion blur, depth of field and volumetric smoke.

Mr Taylor said: "Fog, smoke or mist in games until now have been flat and don't respond to objects. Volumetric effects mean they are dynamic - a helicopter can now displace cloud or smoke, or a character can step through the fog realistically."

But these sorts of effects come at a price.

A quadcore Intel machine with twin graphics cards and four gigabytes of ram - at the high end of the PC gaming experience - can cost more than 2,000, six times the price of an Xbox 360.

Nvidia's flagship graphics card, the 8800 Ultra, costs more than 400 although a cut-down version, the 8800 GT, costs from 120, about the same price as a Nintendo Wii.

Rival ATI also sends a high-end graphics card which supports DirectX 10, costing from about 120.

PC gamers love to "mod" their machines

Hardcore PC gamers also specialise in customising their "rigs", with unique cases and intricate cooling systems.

The gaming experience they deliver can be exceptional.

Playing Crysis with the screen resolution set at 1920x1200 with all effects switched up to very high and anti-aliasing turned on, the game is breathtaking to look at and puts consoles titles like Gears of War and Call of Duty 4 into the shade.

"We worked really closely with Intel and Nvidia and even had engineers from Nvidia on site for the last year," said Bernd Diemer, a producer on Crysis at developers Crytek.

"We wanted to be an early adopter. When we started Crysis the current hardware wasn't available or being planned. There was no DX10 or the latest graphic cards. They were not even on the drawing board."

They went to a special effects company in Hollywood to create a render movie of how Crysis could look - and that movie has been the benchmark for the firm.

"We got pretty close. In some areas we even surpassed it," said Mr Diemer.

He said PCs gave gamers the "best possible experience".

Crysis boasts realistic breakable environments - a goal of developers for many years.

"In some areas we have managed to set a new standard. We've managed to push it a bit further," he said.

Crysis is at the forefront of a wave that is delivering blockbuster titles to PCs and making console owners envious of their PC gaming friends.

"The PC is finally back up where it belongs," said Mr Diemer.

He added: "The innovation is happening on the PC; but that's always been the case."

In pictures Detroit Blues It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Switching on the digital world

Sixty years ago two scientists would start a month of experiments that would come to shape the modern world.

The period of work by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, working under William Shockley, would become known as the "miracle month" and resulted in the world's first working transistor.

"They demonstrated something that became the basic mechanism for our entire electronic industry," said Dr Art Ramirez of Bell Labs, the location of the 1947 invention.

"They're in aircraft, automobiles, digital cameras and microwave ovens," said Jeff Katz, a guide at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley.

"In every house there is somewhere in the region of 50 to 100 million transistors, and that's probably a conservative estimate," he said. "If you start including computers and digital cameras you are probably approaching one trillion."

Computing age

Transistors are used to control the flow of electricity in a circuit.

The flow between two terminals - the source and the drain - is controlled by applying a current or voltage to the third terminal - the gate.

"It's very much like a water faucet. The gate is the handle and the faucet controls the flow of electrons between the source and the drain," said Dr Ramirez.

The tiny devices have two key properties which make them attractive to electronics engineers: they can amplify a signal and they can act like a switch.

This ability to boost a signal makes them attractive to the communications and broadcast industry whilst their capability to turn on and off quickly has made them the component of choice for computation.

Their development came from a world recovering from the Second World War.

"During the war there was a lot of electronics work going on for communications and computation mainly for military purposes," said Mr Katz.

For example, in December 1943, the British built Colossus - the first electronic computer - to break messages passed by the German high command.

"This culminated in the invention of the ENIAC computer," said Mr Katz.

The ENIAC was installed at the University of Pennsylvania in 1946 and was the first large-scale programmable digital computer.

Like Colossus, instead of transistors it used vacuum tubes, also known as thermionic valves, which were delicate structures that looked similar to light bulbs.

"It filled a room, the power consumption was huge, it had nearly 18,000 tubes but it had very, very limited functionality," said George Scalise president of the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA).

"There was no way of scaling up the computer without finding some way to make the devices that allowed it to function lower cost, lower power, smaller and more reliable."

Crude device

As a result scientists across the world began to look for an alternative.

One of the leading groups was based at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New Jersey.

The Sonotone 1010 was the first transistorised product

There, a theoretician known as William Shockley led the solid state physics group, which included other scientists such as John Bardeen and Walter Brattain.

After hiring Bardeen, Shockley set him off on a project to understand the interaction of electrons on the surfaces of semiconductors, but personal differences meant the new recruit soon went his own way.

"Bardeen really didn't get along with Shockley so he started working with Brattain who was an experimentalist," said Dr Ramirez.

Over 18 months the pair went about investigating these "surface states" using various experimental set-ups.

"It was a series of experiments that led to a deeper understanding of how to build a device that actually switched," he said.

The work led to their miracle month and culminated with them showing off the first working transistor two days before Christmas in 1947.

The half-inch (1.25cm) device, made from germanium with two gold contacts held in place by a plastic wedge, bore little resemblance to the tiny precise switches produced today.

"I have seen a replica been made of the first transistor in the same way as it was made and it's remarkably crude," said Mr Katz.

However, it was enough to convince the hierarchy of Bell Labs and after filing patents it was announced to the public on 1 July 1948

"This was announced to fantastic fanfare," said Dr Ramirez. "Reading about it reminds me of the way that Steve Jobs rolls out the iPod."

Silicon block

Over the next few years, Shockley modified the design of the transistor into a device closer to the design used today.

"He made such a key contribution that he was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize [for Physics] in 1956," said Dr Ramirez.

With the invention of the transistor many new applications become possible, including the first transistor-based hearing aid, made by Sonotone This was followed by the first mass market device - the transistor radio.

"They were about the size of a paperback book today but the replaced something that was about the size of a bread toaster," said Mr Katz.

They were also used for military equipment, televisions and in communications networks.

Initially, transistors were built separately and then wired together to make circuits.

But in 1958, Jack Kilby, a scientist at Texas Instruments, invented the integrated circuit, a circuit where all of the components were built onto a single block of material, commonly silicon.

The transistor had found its natural home and its development has continued ever since.

Elements that used to be measured in millimetres and even centimetres in the first device are now measured in nanometres (billionths of a metre).

Intel's next generation of chip, for example will pack more than four hundred million transistors into an area the size of a postage stamp.

The silicon industry is now worth almost $300bn a year and plays a key role in almost every area of life from computing and health care to entertainment and global communications.

"Nothing else could have transformed the world to the extent that this has," said Mr Scalise.In pictures Detroit Blues It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Cleaning up in 'fab world'

Each manufacturing plant, or "fab", may cost billions of dollars and is a triumph of engineering.

But working inside these hi-tech plants can be a surreal experience, says Dr Peter Wilson of the University of Southampton.

Its pristine white walls, secure air locks, sterile air and ethereal yellow lighting makes it seem like you have arrived in the belly of an orbiting space station.

I can still remember the first time I went there.

It was set in classic "tumbleweed" territory - a small town in Arizona with just one road and the factory.

The temperature was over 100 degrees outside, with dust everywhere, but when you crossed the threshold into the plant, the air-conditioning kicked in and you felt like you were in a different world.

This is a common experience to anyone who works in the silicon manufacturing sector. The world outside and the fab world inside are on two different planes.

The boundary can transcend geographic and political boundaries - it can become impossible to tell which country you are in, when everyone is wearing a mask, and is dressed head to foot in shapeless, white hooded-suits.

'Bunny men'

Outside, we worry about dirt on our shoes and wipe our feet, or perhaps wipe some dust off our laptop screen. In fab world, we worry about a few atoms contaminating the environment.

If dust falls on the delicate silicon wafers on which chips are printed it can render them useless.

Modern transistors - the tiny switches at the heart of these devices - are described in terms of the smallest feature sizes that can be made, such as a 45 nanometres, or 45 billionths of a meter.

To put this in perspective, the average human hair will be between 20 and 100 micrometers across - over a thousand times larger - and a typical dust particle will be anything from 1 to 100 micrometres.

Dust and contaminants must be kept out.

The fab is a place for chips, not for people. As a result, only the pure and the clean are given permission to penetrate its' inner chambers.

Anyone that enters must go through a strict set of procedures.

All of the trappings of the outside world must be left behind, whether clothes, jewellery or even make-up.

A series of ante-chambers serve as prep rooms where workers change into a series of gowns and gloves, collectively known as a "bunny suit".

Sticky floors make sure that no one treads in any contaminants and an air shower before entry makes certain that any loose particles are stripped away.

Skin flakes, lint, hair and anything else gets sucked into the grate in the floor.

Pure products

And then it's onwards into the hum of the clean rooms. Stark white walls reflect the yellow sodium lights from above and a constant breeze blows down from the ceiling taking any particles through the gridded floor.

Fab world is an expensive place and, hence, it never stops Sand to silicon chip

Everything taken in either needs to be cleaned with alcohol or specially designed. Even the paper we use to take notes is designed from a special lint-free material.

Inside, humans very rarely come into contact with the rainbow-streaked discs of reflective silicon on which the chips are cut.

Instead, they are there to trouble shoot and monitor that everything goes correctly.

The silicon wafers are handled on monorails that move above the fab floor and the processing is done by complex vacuum sealed robots.

The wafers enter one end of the line costing a couple of hundred dollars and appear at the other - weeks later - patterned with billions of transistors and worth tens of thousands of pounds.

The silicon itself is not made at the fab - the ultra pure ingots (up to 99.99999999% pure) are produced and cut by specialist companies and sold to the chip makers.

The fab world's magic is creating the incredibly complex patterns of wires and circuitry on chips the size of a postage stamp time and time again

That alchemy can cost billions of dollars.

Non-Stop

Each layer of a processor is constructed using a mask which is like a stencil, to highlight the areas to be deposited, etched or doped.

Nano chip designer

Doping involves adding impurities to the silicon to change its electrical characteristics - something which has to be done with astonishing precision.

Each mask used to cost several thousand pounds but as the complexity of chips has increased, and the smallest possible feature size has reduced, the number and intricacy of these masks has increased.

In addition, the size of individual features is now smaller than the wavelength of light that used to be used to pattern them, which means the use of some clever optics is required.

The yellowish lights used inside the fab are to make sure that they do not interfere with this process.

The result of all of this is that an individual silicon integrated circuit may require masks that cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, or perhaps even millions of pounds, to produce and machines that cost a similar amount.

Fab world is an expensive place and, hence, it never stops.

The plants churn out chips every single day of every year. So called giga-fabs may process more than 100,000 wafers every month, each containing hundreds of chips.

Each one of the 10mm by 10mm silicon squares is a triumph of design.

As a chip designer, the impact of the incredible complexity of fab world has led to an amazing transformation in what we can do on a single chip.

The products of this strange and surreal place have burst out of its confines and have pervaded every facet of the outside world from computers and mobile phones to aircraft and microwave ovens.

Yet, incredible as it is to visit, fab world is also a place that is blissful to leave.

At the end of the day there's no better feeling than being able to rip off the itchy bunny suit, step outside into the searing heat and once again get dirty.

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British gaming firm takes on the world

Runescape involves questing and monster bashing

When it comes to online games there are many different ways to measure success.

Games can be praised for their good looks, engaging story and how long they have been around.

But one metric matters above all others: the number of people playing.

And while there are many online games, there are not many with a player base that numbers in the millions.

Some that do, such as World of Warcraft, get talked about all the time.

But there are others that have managed to amass millions of dedicated fans without that attendant hoopla.Population count

One such is Runescape - an online fantasy role-playing game created by British firm Jagex that has been running since 2001.

It has a total player base of about nine million people. In the last two weeks, six million of those played the game. Year on year growth of that player base stands at about 35%.

"It's been a well kept secret," said Geoff Iddison, Jagex chief executive. "All the growth has been viral, word-of-mouth."

And it is not just its low-key approach to marketing that sets Jagex apart.

Unlike almost every other online game, Runescape does not require people to download gigabytes of data or ask them to travel to a store, buy a box, go home and install gigabytes of data.

The Jagex company name is derived from "Java Gaming Experts" and the whole game is built with this programming language.

Many players take time to ensure their avatar is well dressed

The reliance on Java means Runescape runs in a web browser and the whole download to get playing is 1.3 megabytes in size.

"You do not need a high-spec PC to play it," said Mr Iddison, "30% of our members play on machines that are more than seven years old."

"You can download it to any PC anywhere you do not need to be at home to play," said Mr Iddison, "that certainly helps its stickiness."Free form

Players do not even need to pay to play. About 100 hours of adventuring time in the Runescape world of Gielinor can be had for free. Those wanting more can subscribe for 3.20 (4.55 euros) per month.

Runescape has about five times as free players as it does subscribers, said Mr Iddison.

As with many other fantasy-based games, adventuring in Gielinor revolves around questing, killing monsters to improve your character's abilities, amassing loot and swapping it for cash to buy better gear for your avatar.

Runescape also has a comprehensive crafting system so characters can learn to make and enchant all kinds of items.

This, combined with the popularity of Runescape, means that Jagex, like many others, is battling the black market in items and money that can be used in Gielinor. The current exchange rate is one million Runescape gold for about 2.50.

The popularity of the game means some places get busy

"We feel it spoils the game for other players," said Mr Iddison. Many people, he said, have literally spent hours adventuring so they gain the skills and cash to kit out their character and display that prowess.

Having someone just buy their way to the top seems like cheating, he said, and many Runescape fans resent those that pay rather than play.

"The average paying player is on Runescape for 22 hours per week," said Mr Iddison, "and free players are not far behind."

Jagex also polices the many kingdoms of Gielinor to stop people "farming" gold themselves or with "bots" - computer controlled characters.

To catch out the bots the game hits players with random encounters. While people can deal with these they flummox a bot running on automatic that can only do a few things well.

But, said Mr Iddison, Jagex has not set its face totally against games that are part-funded through item sales.

Future titles, he said, may be based around that idea.

"But," he said, "we've no plans to do item sales in Runescape. The game is so deep that it would mean a big re-write."

Mr Iddison was brought in from PayPal to expand the Jagex business and in 2008 it plans to launch a couple of new titles. All will be online games but, so far, the company is not saying any more about them other than that they will use the same Java and browser technology seen in Runescape.

Dedicated fans need not worry though as, said Mr Iddison, Runescape will be the main investment focus for Jagex for the next five years.

It is not only gamers who will be keeping an eye on Jagex. Games that are free to download, browser based and fund themselves through item sales or low-cost subscriptions are becoming more popular. Some pundits believe this type of game will eventually replace the likes of World of Warcraft and its ilk.

There is good reason to believe Mr Iddison when he said: "These are interesting times for Jagex."In pictures Detroit Blues It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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A journey to the net's silver side

SagaZone is only accessible by those aged fifty or over

The BBC's technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones, goes undercover to find out what life is like for silver surfers in the newly launched SagaZone.

That's a question I asked earlier this year after signing up to Facebook, MySpace and Bebo and struggling to find friends of my own vintage.

The answer was a resounding no - within days of voicing my concerns I had hundreds of new friends and was spending far too much time socialising online.

Now though, Saga, the firm which markets travel and insurance to the over-50s, has decided that there is a gap in the market for older social networkers.

The travel and insurance company believes there is a sizeable audience out there which wants to socialise online but is intimidated by the poking, loud music and startlingly indiscreet pictures which are part and parcel of the likes of Facebook and MySpace.

The theory is they will be more comfortable in somewhere like SagaZone, a site which will refuse you membership if you are under 50.

So I took a journey into the SagaZone to find out whether it really stood a chance of winning an audience. First, a confession. To get access, I was forced to make a slight adjustment to my date of birth to make it appear I was fifty - though not by as much as I would have liked.

Once onboard, and having posted a profile with a fetching picture of an eccentric man with a woolly hat, I set off to explore.

Many folk have found places like Facebook and Bebo are not for them

No opportunity to post exciting photos or share favourite music or video clips, not even the online scrabble which occupies far too much of my time on Facebook.

It is over at the forums that most of the activity is going on, and here it is pretty lively. Discussions on everything from gardening to relationships, from technology to prostate cancer are attracting plenty of interest.

So I started my own thread, asking why people would choose a network that is defined by age, rather than one anyone can join.

"The people on here are intelligent, well read, and interesting, and they know something about life," said "Jen". "At 65, who could ask for anything more?"

Plenty others had joined other networking sites and found them unsatisfying. "I'm far too fat and hard-up to want to talk fashion or designer labels and what's more, I know what an apostrophe is and WHERE not to put one," wrote "orkneymermaid".

Video games are not just for the young

Anyone who has suffered Facebook's more juvenile features will feel sympathy.

Back at my inbox I find several users have contacted me, including two ladies who wish to compliment me on my hat. It's a friendly enough place but I remain to be convinced that it will win a mass audience. It lacks the constant drip-feed of news from your friends that has made Facebook so compelling.

As the social networking industry enjoys explosive growth, with infant businesses suddenly worth 15 billion dollars, all sorts of new services are being launched.

Many, like Saga, are betting that the industry will become more segmented, with different services aimed at different groups, from young mothers, to students, to former soldiers.

But I'm not convinced that I will become a Saga surfer, even when I eventually qualify to become a member.In pictures Iran sanctions It's quiz time!

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Who's afraid of the iPhone?

Apple's iPhone may have only been on release for a few months but it is making waves in the global mobile industry. So how are competitors responding?

More than 285 million handsets from a plethora of manufacturers were sold globally between July and September this year, according to recent figures from research firm Strategy Analytics.

The figures are up 12% on last year, and each and every week new handsets and services are launched into a burgeoning market ever hungry for more features.

Apple is the new kid on the block and managed to sell 1.4m iPhones in the first 90 days on sale. The device goes on sale in the UK and Germany on Friday.

It is an impressive number but a fraction of the global market.

And the companies who dominate the global market are putting out handsets that are serious competitors. Eight phones can be considered rivals for the customers Apple is targeting.

It is clear that Nokia, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC and Motorola, are keeping their eyes firmly on Apple's progress.

"There's no sign of panic from competitors," said Jonathan Arber, a principal analyst at Ovum.

"There's no scrambling. But anyone who is trying to take market share concerns them."

Grand surroundings

Last week Samsung unveiled a camera phone in the grand surroundings of the British Museum, in London.

Amid the antiquities, journalists from 35 countries around the world were flown into London and put up in five-star hotels at Samsung's expense to get a first look at the new handset.

The G800 would not appear to be a direct competitor to the iPhone but in a question and answer session with executives Apple's device was brought up several times.

"What is Samsung doing to match the user interface of the iPhone?" asked one reporter.

We think it provides everything the iPhone does but also GPS navigation as well.

"We're actively working on new user interfaces and you can expect to see something special in 2008," said one of the key execs.

Other firms have also been quick to roll out devices which they say offer all of the features of the iPhone yet "cheaper, simpler, faster, better".

But Apple, for now at least, is only targeting a small sector of the mobile market.

By comparison Nokia hit the 40% magic target of market share globally, said Mr Arber. "And it appears to be growing constantly," he added.

'Put off'

Mr Arber said the iPhone could drive the handset market in general over Christmas.

"There will be a lot of buzz around the iPhone and it may have a halo effect on other devices. It might well raise consumer awareness of a new top end of mobile handsets out there that have good internet and data communication capabilities.

Mr Arber cited the Viewty and LGKS20 from LG, the Sony Ericsson touch screen W960, the HTC Touch, and Nokia N95 as natural iPhone competitors.

'Touch experience'

Mr Arber said the iPhone's touch screen was the application that most competitors would be seeking to emulate.

"It's only just being explored to its fullest. The iPhone right now does it fairly well. It's going to be the touch screen experience competitors will be looking to beat."

But it is not just the hardware that Apple's competitors are seeking to beat - it is the services also.

Apple's iTunes music store and its integration with the iPhone is seductive for many people.

To counter that Nokia and operator Vodafone have launched separate services which they believe are iPhone killers.

Al Russell, Vodafone's head of internet and content services, said the iPhone was a "significant development in our marketplace".

But he said Vodafone's MusicStation, which is a subscription-based music service, offered functionality that the iPhone could not match.

"This generation does not want an archive of music.

"We know our customer base have tremendous appetite for new music and sharing."

Nokia's UK managing director Simon Ainslie said the model of the iPod and iTunes had been very successful but they had relatively little penetration outside the US and UK.

Flagship device

He said Nokia's N95 mobile phone, the flagship device for the firm, was more than a match for the iPhone.

"It's hugely successful; one of our all-time greats.

"We believe it stands very strongly against the iPhone and we think it provides everything the iPhone does but also GPS navigation as well.

"Navigation is a feature people will want and will be huge in the future through location-based services."

The iPhone goes on sale at more than a 1,000 O2 stores, Carphone Warehouse outlets and Apple's own shops on Friday at precisely 18.02GMT.

Consumers, analysts and competitors will all be watching closely to see the level of demand and if the hysteria seen in the US will be replicated in the UK.

In pictures Iran sanctions It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Review: Apple iPhone

The greatest success of Apple's iPhone lies in the realisation that most phones you have owned previously are compromises.

The iPhone is not perfect - far from it - but it genuinely re-moulds the expectations we have for mobile devices.

And it provokes a reaction among gadget lovers and ordinary members of the public that no other phone can match.

Under the strict letter of the non-disclosure agreement I had to sign with Apple to be loaned the phone I was not supposed to let anyone hold the device.

Nor was I to demonstrate it, display it, let anyone photograph it nor even "discuss" it with anyone outside my "immediate family".

Ridiculous? Absolutely. But perhaps a reflection of the iPhone lunacy that has gripped many people - including, evidently staff at Apple itself.

In the US it is known as the JesusPhone - because of the hysteria and hype that surrounds the device.

But let's start with the disappointments - it is a 2G device and not 3G. Anyone expecting to use the phone to surf websites or access content over the mobile network will be in for a shock.

Graphics and picture-heavy websites take an age to load. But RSS feeds and mobile-friendly websites (such as news.bbc.co.uk/mobile) load quite quickly over the 2G Edge network that O2 offers.

I also found it sufficiently speedy to send and receive e-mails on the go. Sadly, O2's Edge network only covers 30% of the country so if you are not in a major urban area, you will experience painfully slow data connections.

As a work productivity device the iPhone cannot match Blackberry

The web browser successfully redefines the mobile web experience and over a wi-fi connection it is - for the first time on a phone - a pleasure to read sites on the go.

The iPhone overcomes the physical limitations of screen size by letting the user zoom into sections of a page with a double tap. The whole page can then be dragged around with a finger.

For a phone which boasts of being an internet communicator it lacks features such as instant messaging (IM) and voice over IP.

Apple might have had trouble finding network partners if the device had come with the Mac's IM and talk client iChat, for example. But the firm could have taken a lead in this field and revolutionised on-the-go communications in the way Blackberry did for e-mail.

The phone also lacks the ability to sync data - such as calendar details and contacts - wirelessly, either through short-range Bluetooth or over the mobile network.

The iPhone is also Apple's premier iPod

The camera that comes with the phone is also deeply disappointing. It offers a measly two megapixels and while the sensor in the phone is decent, images are often poor quality unless shot in direct sunlight.

However, the success of the phone lies in its marriage of touch screen and user interface.

Many mobiles have touch technology but they are generally poorly implemented or a painful hybrid between touch screen and keypad.

The various functions of the phone have been knitted together brilliantly - it is child's play to text or e-mail from a contact's details, or to add calendar events and then open web pages from a link in an appointment. These are the simplest of things but by stripping out cluttered menu options Apple has taken out the fear from technology.

The programs and features are well laid out and there is none of the usual "hunt the settings" scenario that accompanies most phones.

Its underlying operating system - based on Mac OS X - is very robust. I have lost count of the times my personal handsets have crashed or frozen and required the battery being removed and restarted. Of course, you can't actually remove the battery from an iPhone.

Programs on the Apple device slip easily in and out of running and I cannot report a single "hang" or crash.

Other handsets boast touch features - like the HTC Touch

It is also very easy to overlook the iPod aspect of the phone. It is a fully functional music and video player and syncs with iTunes.

The touch screen user interface which lets the user flick between album cover art, or artists, genres and playlists will soon be copied by many other handset manufacturers as the sincerest form of flattery.

Sadly, the iPhone only comes with 8GB of flash memory - and no more can be added through memory cards.

In years to come the device will undoubtedly have more capacity, but if you want access to your whole album collection on the go, the iPhone probably isn't the convergence device you have been waiting for.

The iPhone isn't for everyone - it is not a true Smartphone device, the storage capacity is fixed and limiting for people with large music collections, the camera is low quality, it lacks true internet communication capabilities and the 2G handset is slow for data connections over the cell network.

But in many ways it succeeds in the way the original iPod did.

Both are flawed devices. But like the iPod, the iPhone will force every other competitor in the market to raise its game.

And for that consumers should be thankful for the iPhone - even if they have no intention of buying one.In pictures Iran sanctions It's quiz time!

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Music copyright in the spotlight

The website gathered out of copyright musical scores

Within a matter of months, the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP) featured more than 1,000 musical scores for which the copyright had expired in Canada.

Within two years - without any funding, sponsorship or promotion - the site had become the largest public domain music score library on the internet, generating a million hits per day, featuring over 15,000 scores by over 1,000 composers, and adding 2,000 new scores each month.

In mid-October this year the IMSLP disappeared from the internet.

Universal Edition, an Austrian music publisher, retained a Canadian law firm to demand that the site block European users from accessing certain works and from adding new scores for which the copyright had not expired in Europe.

The company noted that while the music scores entered the public domain in Canada 50 years after a composer's death, Europe's copyright term is 20 years longer.

The legal demand led to many sleepless nights as the student struggled with the prospect of liability for activity that is perfectly lawful in Canada.

The site had been very careful about copyright compliance, establishing a review system by experienced administrators who would only post new music scores that were clearly in the Canadian public domain.

Notwithstanding those efforts, on 19 October, the law firm's stated deadline, the student took the world's best public domain music scores site offline.

There is little doubt that the site was compliant with Canadian law.

Not only is there no obligation to block non-Canadian visitors, but the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that sites such as IMSLP are entitled to presume that they are being used in a lawful manner. The site would therefore not be subject to claims that it authorised infringement.

Further, while there have been some suggestions that the site also hosted works that were not in the Canadian public domain, Universal Edition never bothered to provide the IMSLP with a complete list of allegedly infringing works.

Although IMSLP is on safe ground under Canadian law, the European perspective on the issue is more complicated.

There is no question that some of the site's music scores would infringe European copyright law if sold or distributed in Europe. However, the IMSLP had no real or substantial connection - the defining standard for jurisdiction - with Europe.

Indeed, if Universal Edition were to file a lawsuit in Austria, it is entirely possible that the Austrian court would dismiss it on the grounds that it cannot assert jurisdiction over the Canadian-based site.

Geist: Making sites comply with all laws is an impossible task

This case is enormously important from a public-domain perspective.

If Universal Edition is correct, then the public domain becomes an offline concept, since posting works online would immediately result in the longest copyright term applying on a global basis.

Moreover, there are even broader implications for online businesses. According to Universal Edition, businesses must comply both with their local laws and with the requirements of any other jurisdiction where their site is accessible - in other words, the laws of virtually every country on earth.

It is safe to say that e-commerce would grind to a halt under that standard since few organisations can realistically comply with hundreds of foreign laws.

Thousands of music aficionados are rooting for the IMSLP in this dispute. They ought to be joined by anyone with an interest in a robust public domain and a viable e-commerce marketplace.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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Content carve up of net begins

Internet law professor Michael Geist looks at the way that cable firms are starting to shackle the net access they offer.

Some cable firms are treating net access like they do TV scheduling

Years later, those services are gradually morphing into "the internet as cable" as broadcasters and service providers steadily move toward the delivery of content online that bears a striking resemblance to the conventional cable model.

Cable television has its virtues - some consumer choice, the ability to time shift programs by recording them with a VCR or PVR, and video on-demand - but it is largely built around limiting consumer control.

Cable distributors determine channel choices, geographic distribution, and commercial substitution (typically with input from a broadcast regulator), offer only limited interactivity, and quietly even possess the ability to stop consumers from recording some programs.

Until recently, the internet was precisely the opposite, offering unlimited user choice, continuous interactivity, and technological capabilities to copy and remix content.

That is gradually changing as broadcasters seek to re-assert greater geographic control over their content and service providers experiment with cable-like models for prioritised content delivery.

Some US broadcasters are selling downloads through services such as Apple iTunes or Amazon.com, yet the unmistakable trend is toward free, ad-supported streaming of content mere hours after it first appears on commercial television.

Each major US broadcaster already offers a handful of shows in this manner with ambitious plans to expand their services in the months ahead.

NBC and Fox recently unveiled Hulu.com to some critical acclaim, while Comedy Central created a new site for the popular Daily Show that features a complete archive of eight years of programming.

Non-Americans, alas, are generally locked out of these sites due to licensing restrictions.

Foreign broadcasters have been scrambling to buy the internet rights to US programming, both to protect their local broadcasts and to beef up their online presence.

US broadcasters may eventually decide it is more profitable to stream their content on a worldwide basis and to remove longstanding geographic restrictions, however, for the moment they are parceling up the internet as they would a broadcast destined for multiple cable markets.

The Daily Show has proved popular on net video sites

Broadcasters are not alone in working to bring the cable model of control to the internet.

Large net service firms are engaged in similar activities, with a history of blocking access to contentious content, limiting bandwidth for alternative content delivery channels, and raising the prospect of levying fees for priority content delivery.

While these issues had been perceived to be predominantly North American concerns, they are beginning to surface elsewhere.

For example, when earlier this year the BBC launched its internet-based iPlayer, several broadband providers floated the prospect of charging the BBC for delivering its content on their networks.

These issues may ultimately sort themselves out.

Users have many easily-obtainable tools to defeat geographic blocking and net firms may find themselves subject to net neutrality legislation if they continue to abuse the public's trust by failing to maintain their networks in a transparent, neutral fashion.

Yet if broadcasters and service providers are left to their own devices, it appears that they are increasingly ready to redefine the internet on cable to the internet as cable.

Source from: news.bbc.co.uk

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